Caltech

Chinese Food and Other Stories from Evanston, IL

Fun fact, I forgot to use my camera this trip. So, enjoy this artsy photo of some poetry I wrote before we start the story of the fencing trip to Illinois. Ok, anyways. I’ve been writing a lot recently. It’s not that I’ve exactly had the free time to do so, more than I’ve needed to do it as a stress release from the lack of free time I’ve been experiencing. And why’s’ that you ask? FENCING SEASON! We just... Read more →

Instaworthy – Chinatown Photoshoot

I finally did another thing that I’d been planning for months: my Chinatown night photoshoot. I’m still going to have to go back one of these nights to get a few more photos that I couldn’t because of places being closed, but I got the really important ones for now. Most of these, funny enough, were portrait shoots I’d been meaning to take of a friend. But as circumstances had it, Alexander, the friend I went shooting with, didn’t have... Read more →

My Favorite Udon Place (!!)

My favorite udon place of all time is Marugame Monzo in Little Tokyo. I found out about it in my freshman year, and I've never been disappointed! This is what the main street of Little Tokyo looks like: The yellow storefront is Daikokuya, a famous ramen place, and right next to it is Marugame Monzo. There are always long lines for both places -- you can even see from the photo that there are a bunch of people waiting outside.... Read more →

Hiking Mt. Zion

There are a bunch of nice hikes in the San Gabriel mountains, just 15 minutes drive from Caltech. Over winter break, I hiked the Mt. Zion trail via Lower Winter Creek Trail (this one). The trail is 9.6 miles long and has an elevation gain of 2,100 ft, and it took us about 5 hours to hike. Both me and my boyfriend recently got new hiking shoes, so we took a photo just before we started to break them in... Read more →

I Don’t Think You Understand the *Gravity* of the Situation

Another week, another bad pun! As you may have inferred by now this is a post about gravity! Or as my high school physics teacher described it, the mysterious invisible tentacles that come up from the Earth and pull stuff down. Specifically, though this is about my Ge11d (intro to geophysics) field trip! We went… TO THE ROSE BOWL! Funny, I know. It’s almost like I was just there last weekend running. We travelled along the race course for a... Read more →

Land of the Free

Honestly my blog page is somewhat turning into a list of food adventures. And there’s a reason for this: these last two terms have been very difficult – this term specifically because it’s fencing season, and I haven’t had quite the free time I did last year to go to events and random other things in LA. The main times I’ve been getting off campus are on Saturday and Sunday nights when I have to get food (Caltech board only... Read more →

Soup Dumplings (and other food musings from a 3-day weekend)

This is a bit of a companion post for the half marathon post but deals specifically with a lot of food adventures I had this weekend (most exciting of which: I made MORE fruitcake). I kicked off the foodventure baking homemade bread for the student activities director, Tom, on Friday night. I prepped for the race in the only way possible: soup dumplings the night before, pan fried dumplings the morning of. Eric and I tried a new dumpling place,... Read more →

Running Wild

You ever run a half marathon without really training until a week before? Yeah, me neither. Until last weekend, that is. See, I face a bit of a dilemma in that I love races, but I actually hate casually running. It didn’t help that it was beyond cold in Denver which killed any motivation I would’ve possibly had to go running. But either way, there I was, Race Day at the Pasadena Half Marathon, not having trained that much and... Read more →

There and Back Again – an Air Force Story

I’m back in Colorado!!!! *record scratch* *freeze frame* You’re probably wondering how I ended up here. It all started with two typewriters, a can of Chinese orange soda, and the inevitable feeling that something wild was going to happen. Well. Maybe not quite that. More like the fencing team had a fencing tournament at Air Force Academy that happened to be literally the week after I’d left Colorado. Air Force Academy isn’t exactly in the fun part of Colorado either:... Read more →

Reflections in a Tapioca Pearl

Break is over. And I’m not exactly sure how I feel about that. If you couldn’t tell by the last few VERY exciting blog posts, I spent my break sleeping, fencing, hanging out with old friends, and eating. Mostly the latter two. And especially on this break I drank a lot of boba. Unfortunately, I was unable to make my own because my dear parents use my tea container as a Christmas tree watering container. Notwithstanding that I left all... Read more →