Happy 888!

Today is 08.08.08!

888 means "lucky" in Chinese.

Today, I woke up expecting to be all tired because I was kept up until really late the night before, but I felt pretty refreshed. And when I began journaling, I felt a rush of excitement and I knew that it was going to be a good day. I think lately I am finally starting to see God's unlimited goodness and grace in my life. Everyday, I wake up so excited to start a new day. That kind of joy is rare to have. I am BLESSED far beyond what I deserve. =)

This is what I did today...
Eseul, Erly and I went out to Lewes (pronounced "Louis"), this small, cute town near Brighton.

When I described Lewes as "small," I meant it in the most literal way possible. Everything there is my height!

It's a pretty quiet, low-key place with mostly middle-age and elderly white people.

We went to this garden.









Climbing up this path was painful! (It's an uphill walk.)

Here is a castle in Lewes.

Translation: Dogs, don't poo here or else.



Eseul and Erly ate at this Thai restaurant... I already ate something in my dorm before we left so I didn't order anything here.

After Lewes, we rode the bus for an hour to get to Eastbourne, a city that's also near Brighton.
It was weird seeing Eastbourne because the city is almost a replica of Brighton. Seriously, the two look strikingly similar: they both have a beach and pier, almost all the same stores, the same "look" (like a downtown Berkeley), and a similar-looking stone medieval-style church. And all this time, I thought Brighton was such a unique city... dang.


We got some candy here and ate it while we walked around the pier.



Shopping area.

...and going back to Brighton!

We got back around 8 PM. So we were gone for 7.5 hours...

After I got back, I made some interesting fried rice in my dorm with Fang and just hung out with her for a little bit.

And now I just got done washing all my clothes (in the SINK!), so I am really exhausted. Goodnight!

Trouble sleeping... again

At first, my hallmates used to just be really loud at night together. But recently, people from other dorms have been coming to my hall more and more and I guess everyone just gets drunk and acts really obnoxious together here. Even worse, they get mad if others complain that they're being too loud. I just think that's really inconsiderate...

Out of all the dorms I could have gotten, why this one?!

Bruges

BRUGES, BELGIUM. "One of the most well-preserved medieval cities in Europe"-- Bruges is super cute and a good honeymoon or date spot (as our tour guide kept saying over and over... it's true though..)

From Amsterdam, it was a three hour drive here. The city has lots of nice restaurants, 500 varieties of beer, pretty chocolate shops, and a beautiful Town Square building.

Because Bruges is usually the town people "pass through" (stay a night) before going to Brussels, it was very well-preserved even during the World Wars. Dannng, I sound really knowledgeable, huh?

Anyways, here it is...

This is a window to one of the city's many chocolate shops... they're all really cute. I wish I could've taken a picture of every chocolate store I went into, but my memory card was already full by this time so I had to delete pictures.

Bruges is known for its large variety of beer flavors. I had a sip of Tracey's chocolate-flavored beer and it tasted uh.. interesting...

This is the city's town square. Trust me... it looked MUCH prettier in person. There is some stupid concert stage setting blocking it... and there's a super pretty white and gold building to the left that you can't see well in this picture... sad.

To the right of the town square is the church with the Holy Grail in it. I wanted to take a picture in front but everyone was already beginning to walk to other places by this point... we only had two hours free time in Bruges so we were all rushing trying to do everything.

Statue in the city's center.

A toy store. Really expensive.

Aww, you can't see it well here, but my future house is in the background to the left of me. It's this pink and white building... so cute!!!

We got Belgium waffles with chocolate! =) These were SUPER sweet, even for me, which is amazing. There were chunks of sugar inside the waffle... hello diabetes!

It began to rain. I am not dressed properly for this type of weather.



Bye, Bruges!

We left this place around 6 PM and got back to school around 10. Such a fun weekend!

Amsterdam, again

On Sunday, I went on a tour of the "nice" part of Amsterdam. There are windmills, cows, and little cottage-looking houses here-- really different from the city.

Clog-making factory.

Wedding clogs.

Ski and roller-skate clogs!

...and pink clogs. These are my style. =)

Giant clog.

Here is a video of the clog-making demonstration:




Afterwards, we went to a cheese-making factory and got to sample many different kinds of cheese.

In light of the Marketing class I'm taking right now, I started thinking about how effective samples are. Almost everyone bought at least one package of cheese even though it was kind of expensive (about 9-10 euros) and might be a little inconvenient to carry in your luggage. Anyways, I didn't because I'd rather buy other things with that money... like Belgium chocolates. haha..



Then, it begin to rain...
=(

Next destination: Bruges!
More on that later.