i figure that if i don't write down what i've done, i'll prob never ever do it. then i'll forget it, and tt'll be kind of a waste. so here goes...

yesterday (the 7th :) was for touring stanford, which has an amazingly beautiful campus with a great climate. going there, however, made me appreciate my sch so much more. knowing that we have so many more students to cope with, and so much less funding (waaaaaaay less funding...) and yet we're still able to do such a great job, yeah pretty much i'm proud of what UW has done.

but yes, back to stanford. visited xh/bh in their house, which was really nice. walked ard the sch, did a sch tour, looked at their bookstore (ok this isn't in order).

after tt, we decided to head down to redwood city, which was in between SF and Palo Alto (which is where stanford is). That was... well, i guess as much as you would expect from a small suburban community. we ended up going to safeway and buying petite brownies, after being introduced to them by xh/bh. they were, and still are, pretty incredible =)

SF at night saw us walking back from the caltrain depot for abt half an hour, and that walk took us thru the main shopping district as well as parts of chinatown. it's all glitzy and beautiful and awfully expensive in that shopping area, but yeah, it's pretty. and since our hostel's in chinatown, it's really convenient to explore this area i guess.

the chinatown here is huge. it's incredible too, and sells so many things that i can't even get in chicago, much less in madison. but, it's not like i actually need all of that so yeaaaaah haha.

anyhow, today was spent exploring fisherman's wharf. the aquarium, the wax museum, the one hour trolley tour, the bay cruise to just under the golden gate bridge, the historic cable car ride... and of cos, clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl at boudin. honestly, i LOVE san francisco's sour dough bread. it's cheaper and way nicer than the one that i can get at farmer's market (i prob should try the one at TJ's though...). then again, sourdough does come from here, so yeah. i'm going to miss that in singapore ahhhhhh.

oh and we went by this 'fortune cookie museum' which was more like a shophouse that made fortune cookies. it was, however, really nice. as in, the cookies were really nice. we got free samples. and we bought a bag of flat choc fortune cookie, so the lady gave us a huge handful of flat normal fortune cookies for free. which was delicious =) like honestly, i don't eat fortune cookies usually cos well, they aren' all that nice. but these were good.

dinner was at this chinese restaurant where we pigged out on roast duck wanton noodles and soy sauce chicken rice. the portions were humongous, and came with complementary tea, soup and oranges. yummm. haha it was good. we had enough left over to prob last both of us for another meal, so yeaaaaah it was cheap and really good.

oh and we got two free MUNI passports, which entitles us to any rides on the public transportation system for free, cos a couple staying at the hostel randomly gave it to us, and it's valid for tmr as well. so tt's pretty awesome. not like we actually use it, but yeah it saves a little money. kinda like yesterday when we were taking the bus down, and ended up only having to pay $1 instead of $3 cos the driver waved us in. so yeah haha.

SF doesn't really seem to like me too much though. it was rainy the entire day today, and only started clearing up a little at night. it was chilly too, strong winds and rain combine for a pretty formidable force. and downright foggy. argh. but yeah, i guess i'm glad i'm here instead of back in wisconsin. there's been a spate of downright crazy weather phenomena going on back home - really bad fogs that caused two massive pileups with abt a 100 pple injured, crazy temperatures for this time of the year with Madison going up to almost 11 degrees, and milwaukee to 15C! and yes, tornadoes hitting abt 80 miles south of Madison, with like a hundred homes destroyed. yeah i guess the weather's been so erratic and crazy, so uncharacteristic that i'm glad all i have is rain and wind.

hoping that the remaining winter season doesn't get too whacky. more so for spring - i don't exactly want to deal with tornadoes in my last sem here! hopefully, not too many huge storm systems forming over spring...

i really do think that SF is starting to grow on me. the eclectic mix of architecture that first put me off is now starting to be appealing in it's own way. and there really is so much character and quirkiness in this city that yes, i'm sufficiently won over. add the luxuries of chinatown with its cheap food and ease of getting so many things from home - SF is really pretty cool =)