Brighton is beautiful

One of my favorite things about being here: BRIGHTON.

If I were to live anywhere while I'm still young, I think I'd want to be somewhere like this.

It has a lot of random, independent shops, cute cafes and bakeries, a diverse selection of restaurants (ranging from Thai to Vegan to even Mexican-- rare in England), along with your mainstream stores like H&M, Primark, and Sainsbury's.

Brighton is known as a "young city" and the nightlife (pubs and clubs) is supposedly one of the best in the UK.




On my second day here, I went to Brighton for the first time to do some GROCERY SHOPPING! (yeah, they don't feed us here)




There was a parade of people going grocery shopping. They arranged two shifts to go to the store (one at 2 and one at 4pm) and we all packed into the buses like cattle. It was pretty crazy.

Us with our weekly bus passes! These are not cheap... they cost 20 USD.

Just had to take one of these.








The bus stop we wait at everytime we want to go to Brighton.

We went to Sainsbury's, a common grocery store in the UK. I was really amused and excited that they had one of these escalator things in the supermarket.


Inside Sainsbury's. It was really nice...

I don't know why food looks so much better in the UK. They package it really nicely.








Five random things about grocery shopping here:
1. They don't refrigerate their eggs.
2. Lemon-lime flavor soda is called Lemonade.
3. Some places make you pay 10 pence ($0.20) for a grocery bag.
4. The food expires fast, including frozen food.
5. The cashiers sit down as they ring your orders up. What the...? I want to work in a grocery store in the UK.


After grocery shopping, I went back to school, made and ate dinner, then went back to Brighton for a tour of the city (hosted by the summer program staffers here).

This was the first thing I saw. It's an old church called St. Peter's I believe.

(The real St. Peter's is in Italy...)
I must go see that later. =)










Some random pictures of the city...




I think this place is the Brighton Museum or something... I don't even remember.

Obviously, I wasn't paying much attention during this part of the tour.

Too busy taking 30458304958 pictures like a tourist.

Oh yeah, all the locals were staring at us when we walked through the city. I guess it is pretty weird to see a huge group of Asian students taking pictures around the city after all the shops are already closed.






Really pretty!





This area of Brighton is more of the high-end shops and restaurants. It's really cute and nice.

Obviously though, I can't afford anything here.






Getting near the pier...


This is the Brighton pier... really pretty. The beach is made out of pebbles instead of sand!


It looks like it's mid/late afternoon right now but it's actually around 8 or 9 PM.

The sun doesn't set until past 9:30 here... so I always lose track of time.








Fang bought me ice cream for my birthday... haha thank you!
I didn't think it was possible to enjoy ice cream even more than I do at home, but apparently it is. Ice cream looks and tastes even better in England because it's so expensive.


So... that pretty much concludes my first look at Brighton and second day in England!

Two reasons why I miss home...

I forgot to include this in my last post and am too lazy to go back and edit it, but Annie and Jamie surprised me at LAX before I left!! I was really surprised even though I was sort of suspecting it at the same time... haha.. if that even makes sense.

I can't believe they drove an hour just to see me for like 10 seconds. THEY LOVE ME! HAHA =)

Destination: UK

BRIGHTON, UK. There is something very liberating about being away from home in a foreign place.

I love it in England so far. Every morning I wake up excited to start a new day and there is always something new to see or experience here. A lot has happened since I arrived, so I will try to write about the most memorable parts of my trip so far.

First off, I'm really scared of airplanes but my plane ride was really good! I got the seat next to the emergency exit so I had a lot of leg room and there was no turbulence. I feel like God really provided for me during my journey to England and even now while I'm here.




When I got off the plane, this girl was there to greet me with flowers and a hug...


I was so happy to see NANCY, my England mom! She was up since 4:30 AM because she sent Eseul to the train station to pick up her friend. I don't know where she gets all her energy from... Thank you for EVERYTHING!!!










We took the tube... (my very first time!) to the train station...



I was running off two hours of sleep but I was so excited to be there!













Nancy pushed my 2034832049 pound luggage around London all the way to Brighton. She had to lug it up stairways and everything when we were switching to different stations. I felt so bad. Sorry Nancy...










Almost at school... YES! =)











After about two hours of travel, we got to my school, the University of Sussex. It's in a city called Brighton located about an hour or two away from London. It's a great location because it's near the city (Brighton), the beach and pier, and there is beautiful landscape all around. Also the weather is almost always breezy and nice. I don't think I'd mind living here for a year or two...

This is me right before I went into my room! #24 Lancaster House

I'm super excited to see my first (and probably last) dorm room ever.

It is the very first room in my hall and right across from the kitchen. It's nice except I can always hear people when they're in the kitchen and I'm right next to a playground so I hear kids screaming and playing during the day. To sum everything up, I don't take good naps here... haha.

Here are some shots of the inside of my room!

The facilities are pretty old so it isn't the most luxurious place to live, but I'm just happy to have my own room. Plus I have my own sink... NIIICE!

One weird thing about English sinks is that they have two separate knobs for hot and cold water. So you can't ever get warm water. It's always either burning hot or freezing cold... seriously, can English people get with it already and invent better sinks?

After Nancy left, I took a walk around campus. The school is really pretty and GREEN. But all the buildings look the same (made of red bricks).

Fang and I at school. This girl is too funny and cute... I'm really glad she's here.

After settling in and exploring the campus, I went to a reception party on campus. There was some interesting/weird/not tasty foods there along with loud music and free alcohol... you can imagine how chaotic and loud it was after people had a few drinks. Anyways, I got pretty bored so I just left after eating. I hung out with Eseul, Erly, and Fang the rest of the night.

That concludes my first day in England... CHEERS! =)