My Express Birthday Trip

And so...I did yet another one of my express trips to visit Chiat @ Duke. He's done more of such things than I have....but this is the first time I'm visiting him during the school term. Aiyah can do it because the first few weeks of the term are quite slack and slow moving.

16 April 2007, Monday
That night, I took the black eye flight from SF to Chicago to NC.

17 April 2007, Tuesday
Arrived with purple eyes. Being cramped in plane but the ticket is free anyway.
This is the last time I would be visiting Duke - hello dear old Duke!
I took a short nap, feasted on the party platter of Cheesecake Factory cakes, booked many sessions on Experimetrix ($.$) and rushed to the payroll office to get my W2 form for tax filing. Note that it is the last day and I still haven't filed my taxes.
I tried to order our bday cake from Mad Hatters but they were temporarily closed due to a power outage (see lah ulu place got this kind of problem). Also, they no longer have Teriyaki Tofu wrap - my favorite :(.Then I frantically tried to do both Chiat's and my tax forms and got into a big mess. It was such a headache checking all these forms!!!! Chiat arrived (thankfully) and helped me with the forms but we found out that the East campus post office was closed !@#$#@#$#@ so we had to take a bus to West campus where the post office was open half an hour later. Whew! made the deadline!
The tedious part was that....we went back to East again to get free Ben & Jerry's and reserve a bday cake. The flavors @ B&J's don't seem to have changed since 2 years ago so we only had 2 rounds and left.
Dinner was Mandarin chicken @ graces...yummy. Unhealthy but yummy...

Thank you to people on facebook for wishing me a happy birthday and Dom, Shiling & Zhu Yuan for their card! :)

18 April 2007, Wednesday
Fuqua Experimetrix Day: 5 sessions in one day...hee hee earned $59. Good money! At the same time I got compensated $20 for a study I didn't even do because they called up extra people and I was the last to enter the lab and there was no space for me to seat. People who turned up late only got $10.
Met Penny for lunch: Great catching up with her!
Chiat and I cooked dinner together (or rather, I prepared and chiat cooked :P). It was a simple meal with chaipo egg, noodles and fishball. We watched Casino Royale at the same time - pretty excitinggggggggg and for once, James Bond is vulnerable to death. There was an odd squeaking sound coming out of the electric plug as though a mouse was stuck in it. Weird and scary thank goodness I was not by myself.

19 April 2007, Thursday
Woke up super late and had lunch @ Nasher. I must say their food is not that great...some sausagey thing. We collected the rum & raisin cheesecake from Mad Hatters and made our way back to the apt. I also skipped Experimetrix to work (haiz transport from Central can be a pain). We went to Chapel Hill had Lime & Basil for dinner (I think I had a pho, why is there no pho in Singapore?) + Cold Stone Creamery. The apple pie ice cream mix is not bad!

20 April 2007, Friday
There is such thing as a free lunch: try the Fuqua survey on McDonald's. It gives you $10 plus a free meal @ Macs. Before that I saw Ailian @ the refectory and apparently she is the keynote speaker for the Economics Symposium.
In the evening I met members of the SSA for free dinner @ Chai's. Free tempura soba and tom yam soup cuz I shared with Chiat and it was the Senior's dinner. This year the SSA had tons of funds because Chiat knew a member of the SOFC committee and that helped to establish credibility. I also went to visit Luyuan's dog, Yearby, a chihuahua...too cute beyond words and very intelligent. One funny thing is that Yearby enjoys eating the stuff that absorbs his poop...that is seriously gross.
I finally got to celebrate my bday and Chiat's bday:). Dom thought that the cheesecake was good whereas both of us found the quality to have deteriorated a whole lot -- not enuff raisins, too much cream etc.


We attended SSA's karaoke night. I must say that a lot fewer people attended :( I think because it was too near exams. Whereas people used to stay till 5am, this time the event ended at 2am.
All skiing around the Tahoe area is closed :((bummer....


21 April 2007, Saturday
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHIAT! What a sunny day!!! Perfect time to enjoy the weather (if you are free, that is). Chiat and I made our way to NOSH for breakfast. I love their French toast with peanut butter. Chiat had a sandwich and we ended up playing connect four, while sipping on a blackberry cobbler shake.
Watched a ton of Southpark. There used to be this website www.southparkzone.com but now, it is under construction!!! I called Zappos, customer service was prompt but even though they have a price guarantee, they take into consideration the price of free 2nd day delivery - pah ...leddat then I might as well return the expensive sandals and get the cheap one from Campmor.
It was an idyllic day. There was a party at the Central Campus pool and we headed there to see other Singaporeans going down slides and grabbing lots of food. There was also funny ice drinks and we visited Luyuan's place again to see Yearby! Since it was my last trip to Duke, Chiat and I revisted nice places like the Duke gardens, took a walk around East campus (bringing back fond memories) and tried to find dinner @ Ninth Street. We settled for Dragon Gate in the end. Their Seafood Delight is still the most value for money, I think!

22 April 2007, Sunday
Reached RDU nice and early at 5:30 for the 6:30 flight, all went smoothly and I even fell asleep on the 1.5hr plane ride. I was glad to have an empty seat beside me for the 4.5hour leg of flight plus it was a window seat on a new plane that had individual televisions! Watched Night @ the Museum by Ben Stiller, as well as a movie (I can’t remember the name) with Will Farrell in it that talked about an author writing about a real person and she could influence his fate. The view out of the window was breathtaking, but mostly I must say, agricultural with some view of the rocky mountains. I still think that the view of the Bay Area from the plane is the best! Unfortunately, the plane was delayed by over an hour, causing me to wait 40min for the bus and then the bus was about 2-3min late to reach Stanford, which led me to decide to walk back. It is a good 30 min walk and no joke pulling luggage plus dodging hanging caterpillars on Palm Drive (it is PALM drive…what the HECK are caterpillars doing and why are there oak trees lining the PALM drive?) I wanted to walk because I was unwilling to wait at the bus stop with this homeless person who really stank (I stood near to him before on other occasions).