Today I leave for California. In ~7 hours, I board a bus to Midway and then in ~12.5 hours, I’ll be on a flight to San Jose, where I’ll be working for the next two months.

It’s gonna be awesome.

This is what I’ll be taking with me:

Both laptops

Two tubs full of electronics/stuff + helps me to get organized

The Scala book (which I borrow from the ACM office )

Kill Bill Vol. 1. Just because I won’t have internet tomorrow night, so I’ll need to be able to kill time _somehow_

My iconic red bag! Which will become even less iconic after it goes back to the town where it was made

The rice steamer/ramen maker thing I used a lot in freshman year! A pillow. Shampoo + other stuff which I’ll add tomorrow morning. Some sheets and a hand towel yay!

Just about all my entire closet.

My big red chair!

A space heater. For when it gets cold.

My reliable old Dell

Somehow it all fits into my bag \o/ Totally ready to take on California.

Of course, you weren’t expecting that, were you? You thought maybe food was on the agenda. You’ll be pleased to hear that it still is! Beginning from Monday of last week, we have my culinary adventures in Sushi, Banh Mi, and Crepes:

Om nom nom sushi! Rainbow California Roll, Baked Unagi roll (which was probably the best on there) and a King Salmon roll.

Since it was $1 sushi night at Ko Fusion, we had no choice but to try whatever they had there. To the left is the beer battered (fried) salmon with tartar sauce, towards the middle, I have absolutely no idea, and to the right was something spicy. They weren’t particularly good and we could definitely tell why they were on the $1 menu.

On Wednesday, we went to Xinh Xinh Cafe, a Vietnamese restaurant which had just opened up in Urbana. They didn’t serve many options I wanted apart from the Tofu Banh Mi, a crusty loaf of bread filled with spicy marinated and pan seared tofu and sliced cucumbers. It was definitely very fulfilling.

They also had bubble tea! Which was also rather good. However, hard to describe because it bore no relation to anything served at Evo’s, the other restaurant which serves bubble tea. I had a spiced chai flavor, which was pretty good. Mo had the green tea, which she said was too sweet and disappointing. However, she made up for that with her second bubble tea, the almond.

Finally, just last Sunday, we went to the Dossin family’s house for a dinner. There, I ate very good cheese which I intend to purchase in droves; sheep’s milk cheese. Quite possibly the best cheese I’ve had. Ever. We had ratatouille for our main course, which was very good – but unfortunately I forgot to take pictures. For desert, we were served a Vanilla Crepe Cake:

I counted roughly 20 crepes to make the entire cake. Between each crepe, a thin layer of chocolate. A heart attack for dessert.

The best part was that the cream was made with real vanilla beans! Ahhhh. So fulfilling, the French are.

I should probably sleep now, to wake up in time for that bus tomorrow at 9.