Poolside BBQ

The poolside BBQ was thrown at the house of a teacher. The pool was big for a house, not apartment, and the house's garden was very wide.

We played several games and BBQ. We ate too many hamburgers.

Late night chat

I spent most of time with my Chinese friends on this weekend. We hanged out, chilled at home, and ate lunch and dinner together.
I saw Kill Bill 1 and 2 at home of one of the friends. 1 was quite eccentric and 2 was so boring... Both days, we also chat until late night around 4 am...

Other than that, we went to several restaurants below.
- Sushi Cuisine: I think it was the best Japanese restaurant in my city even though owner is a Honkonese.
- Chow's kitchen: Good Thai & Chinese restaurant. I ate a Singapore noodle.　It was very nice enough.
- Huckleberry's: The typical American food restaurant. I ate the skittle. The meat was huge.
- Wing stop: the best wing restaurant in my city.
- Osaka Sushi: It was OK. It was better than expected.

The first class

My first class of this semester was done in a minutes because the professor of the class was on a business trip in another city, so I just picked up the packet of the reading assignment.

Another class was a course related to quality control. The professor of this course looked old but he had enough experience to teach what the product management is because he has been working a chemical product company for a couple of decades and still in business. Also, he worked in a couple of countries, so it seems that he has wide knowledge about management.

Fall 2012 starts

Finally, the new semester started. I don't have any class on this day though...

After preparing for the first class at the library, I went our for dinner at Japanese Cuisine. That's actually awesome. Sashimi was fresh, Saba Shioyaki was tasty, and Yakitori was nice even though the texture was a little different.

And then we move to Walmart because some of my friend need to buy living stuff for their new apartment. Shopping this time was really fun! I don't know why!! Anyway, it was the nice school start.

New apartment of my friends

We went to Panda South for dinner, and then we took a look at the new apartment which my Chinese friends has start living in. Because it was so nice, I was getting like to move in, too. They gave me a Chinese tea.

Help moving in

My friends finally decided their new apartment, so I drove them off to the office of the management company of the apartment.

Farewell party

It was a beautiful day. My American friend is going to go to Brazil for a month. Even though it is only for one month, we have a farewell party for him at his house. But it was not a drinking party, but just home gathering (^^; There were many his family member. It is good opportunity for me to know how a home party looks like.

We left there before evening, and we went to a pizzeria just for a beer. A Chinese guy finally came back from his hometown. We chatted for a while.

Milpitas, San Jose

This was the first time I visited San Jose in my life (except for the airport).

I visited GrateMall Of The Bay Area with my friend. It was a big outlet mall with roof. I was looking for Oakley's sunglasses but it was more expensive than expected, so I ended up buying only shoes, in-sole and H&M clothes.

After shopping, we went to Sushi Factory for late lunch. Sushi was Americanized but not bad. Because we ordered All-you-can-eat, we ate more than our usual limit. I almost through up...

And then, we finally get into Ranch Market 99, an Asian market in Milpitas, for getting some Asian foods. In the supermarket, customers and employees are almost Chinese people, I'm convinced because most of foods sold in there were Chinese products. I was surprised that the pork blood and brain were sold. It seems quite common in China. Of course, there are some Japanese foods, so we could buy a lot of Asian foods.

New students

New international students came. There were so many those students at the orientation.
We went to Sushi Garden II for lunch.

For dinner, we went to Dynasty Garden.
Dim Sum was really nice!

Come back friends

After long summer vacation, some friends came back from their own country. We ate dinner together at Villa Napoli. Also, I met new students at there, one of which was a MBA student.

Bathing in Tortellini Curry

I made a tortellini curry. I dipped a rice-ball guy into it.

It's not bad, isn't it?

Fist visit to Oakland

By using BART, I visited Oakland. I saw so many African American and Chinese people in the city.

The City Center was pretty nice!!

Jack London Square is another beautiful spot.

Lake Merritt is a beautiful lake.

Again, I walked a lot but still can't lose my weight...

Chilling and Drinking after SF

I went to San Francisco again with my friends. We departed at 9:30 am.

First, we arrived at Japan town. We ate Japanese food at Iroha, a Japanese restaurant, and then we shopped at the Japan center for a little while.

We moved to downtown by bus after walking around Japan town. I stopped by an optical store to buy Gunnar, the computer eyewear.

We had dinner at Halu Shabu Shabu in Dublin. It was nod bad. Because of All-you-can-eat style, we ate a bunch of dishes. I was full.

After getting back our city, we were chilling with some drinks. It was almost the last day of the Olympic games, so we watched finals that are almost battle of American team.

We went home at around 3 am.

Manteca

I went to Manteca to find a new shopping mall but it end up just find Walmart and Safeway....and a deadly outlet mall. Only place I found good was Bass Pro Shops. It was a huge outdoor shop.

That's it. There was no more interesting places in this city...

On this day, Japan lost the soccer game of Olympic battled with the team of USA...

UC Berkeley

It was cloudy afternoon when I visit University of California, Berkeley.　This was the first visit, so I was excited. Berkeley is located at far north east of San Francisco. There are many green and up-down ramps on campus. Because this was still summer time, there were only students on campus. I think there were more visitors, including me, than students and staff.

This was at a Japanese restaurant near the campus.

A purpose I came to this campus is to observe Haas School of Business. Actually, its exterior looked old but the building itself was pretty nice architecture and has nice interior. Coincidentally, this day seemed to be the day of campus observation day of the students of "Class of 2015," the potential students. In the group, I couldn't see any Asian students...only Europeans and Indians.

In my observation, there were many Chinese and Korean students, and the ratio of American to Asian was 6:4, which means that the number of Asian students are less than that in UC Irvine.

Anyway, the campus was pretty nice. I wish there were a similar campus in Japan, too.

Movie Night

Troll 2. It's a very old movie. I saw this movie as a Movie night event.
The quality was horrible but kinda fun.

I finished the mid-term exam of stats' class, and I got #1 in my class (natch cuz I got full score :P). I was surprised. When I heard an episode of my friend who studied abroad to Kansas for a year, I was surprised because she said she got #1 in her class. But now I understand how real it is. That's not an impossible achievement even for Japanese student.