Buffet Dinner - A Great Deal!
Thanks for my roommate, we ate at Old Country Buffet (my first time trying it) tonight. They have a $9.99 deal for dinner buffet which is absolutely incredible and surprisingly attractive deal. Well, frankly they do NOT offer the best food, but the variety of food/dishes and the quantity and services are well beyond the price one paid for!
It was also stunning to actually see the number of "grey-haired people" (quoted from my roommate) eating at the place. I personally it is a dinning place even the younger generations should come for their meals. It definitely worths a visit at least, esp. for people who are sick of the pricey menus. For me, it was also nice to observe the people there, the senior citizens and some little ones...who knows, I might visit it again soon =)
Glory Glory Man United!
Manchester United FC - League Cup Champions 2006
Congratulations to Manchester United for winning the Carling League Cup 2006!
As a red devil fan, we have not seen the team claiming a single title in the last two seasons; I am excited to see MU winning this cup trophy, esp. that was the biggest victory in the cup's history, as well.
Just like the MU players were saying, let's tribute this title to Alan Smith...
French Chocolates for Valentine's Day
CK's Valentine's Chocolates - Maxim's!!!
On Valentine's day this year, I had Maxim's chocolates from China but they were made in France of course. This month of February is indeed also a very sweet and nice month for me so far.
I finally settled and got my new driver's license in America and I met my former boss from Beijing who visited in town on last Sunday and he helped bring a lot of good stuff from home from my girl-friend - they are all great (food, souvenirs and family pictures, etc...). It is so warm!
Hopefully, we are going to have even more good news in the coming month!
My NEW "Favorite"
CK's new favorite sport - Racquetball!
Introduced and motivated by my two roommates, I started to pick up racquetball, a sport similar to squash. I like the game and now I even own this personal racket (which is made in China as most of the products here btw). Now, I am playing it almost everyday in the week - it is also a great work out for me, as well! I enjoy the game very much, it takes a lot of stamina, techniques and wisdom to master the game, too. Besides, I also had so much fun playing and watching the games with my roommates!
Guten Tag
eine was für köstliche Mahlzeit!
Today is a day of celebration for the MDAs - celebration for the pay day ^___^
we headed to a German restaurant, Edelweiss for a new experience. After the Chinese and Ghanaian cuisines, my American roommate decided to reclaim his German identify thus we ate at the restaurant and I had a great platter. A large portion of meal with German sausage, pork sirloin, potatoes, red cabbage, Spatzel (German noodles), and of course how can we miss the German beer! Well, I had a Becks while my 2 roommates tried the Spaten, apparently a great beer from Munich, the beautiful city I visited back in 2002.
CK & Kobby with Chinese coat
Lunch & Learn on Hong Kong
CK at SRDS Lunch & Learn on HK culture
Being in the management program for the corporate for more than 13 months now, I indeed did not have many AIESEC values or so created to the companies that I am and were with. BUT, recently, I had this Lunch and Learn section set up with our HR department here in Chicago. I was giving out a presentation (well, presentations, as I did an encore today as a matter of fact) about Hong Kong cultures and some discussions with co-workers on the HK and Chinese cultures, as well. I think that is a really great experience for me, and for the fellow workers at the company. How often do we have a chance to learn about other culture and gain some insights/knowledge about another place at work? Ultimately, I think this is part of the cultural integration AIESEC's exchange programs aim at developing. I do also appreciate the encouragement from staff members here, and especially the senior management being so supportive to the event!
There are couple of things I realized after the two sessions:
1) One, I found that I do miss Hong Kong althought I do not really thought about it much. Seeing different slides and images from Hong Kong which I gathered online was quite a feeling - you know afterall, it is the place I grew up and I feel most bonded to in the world.
2) Through, the preparation process, I learned more about Hong Kong, and how to adapt a presentation to a rather corporate environment but not just like those I gave to college students in AIESEC LCs, like the one I did in NYC (being the only time I did a country presentation so far in AIESEC United States).
3) I found that people are pretty interested in things about Hong Kong and China. I feel glad to introduce my own culture to them; and at the same time there were good feedback questions and reflections I had from the experience, as well.
Upcoming, with trainees in the Chicagoland, we were talking about a country presentation sometime later in a trainee house...hopefully that will be another part of my AIESEC integration!
Finally, my US Driver's License
My IL License
This is rather a long story...it reflects some of my frustration to the American civil services but also some good ones indeed, eventually. It all started with me applying for my first US driver's license down in Tampa, Florida in early December last year. So I ended up going to one of the DMV (Dept of Motor Vehicles) in town and went through all those vision, written tests (road signs and written driver's education type of questions, including financial responsibility, Driving Under Influence, etc...); and I even got through the driving test (a.k.a road test). Amazingly, I finished all the above in an afternoon at the office. I had a great time in that office, even though I waited for quiet some time but they have an online reservation system so I got there with my assigned slot on the Saturday and I appreciated the help from a madam who works there and she was so nice to put me in an express queue. Thus, I got my license! But, they would only mail it to me via postal service. At the time, I was going back home for Christmas in about a few days but I thought my roommates would be in the Tampa address anyway so who that should be fine. It turned out to be a worse decision! As I am actually relocating to Chicago after my X'mas; thus I no longer return to the Tampa address while my roommates never got the mails and they left home/to New York for their holidays so I never got on hold of that Floridian license!!!
Then US has this great system calls mail forwarding which you filled in an online form with USPS (the postal service) and they would forward all your mails at the preceeding address to your new place. Sounds nice huh? Well, when we moved to Chicago we found out in about 2 week or so after that the postal service never really got that forwarded mails working (partly because we indeed had to inform the postman at our new place for our names in order to receive the mails!) Well, supposingly, first they had our mail forwarding application; and second, the apartment complex we stay at should also inform the mail-lady for new addressees but both did not happen...so we had no mails for weeks in January and of course my forwarded Floridian license never show up in my Chicago mailbox.
In the end, I called up the Florida DMV in Tallahassee to check, they told me my license was never returned and it is still valid but I do not have a physical copy of it. What is even worse, in order to get a duplicate/replacement, as a nonresident, I have to go back to Florida to get it in person!!! Meaning that I have to pay for over $180 bucks to get down to FL to get it settled....craaaaazy! All in all, finally some good news happened on Jan 31st when I tried to talk to the officer at Tallahassee again. They sent me this clearing letter and suggested me to try get a new one in Illinois since I reside in Chicago now so it does not matter if I get a Floridian one or an Illinois one.
I brought my clearing letter, with my documentation anxiously went to the Chicago Driver's facility tonight and after taking the vision and written test again (and of course passing them first time and on spot again!), I finally got my Illinois License and my first physical US license!!! What a nice day to have this license issued, too...as you can see on the license, the issue date if Valentine's Day!
New Feature here - 2 Polls
Just put up these two polls from Opinion Republic, solely for my own curiority towards the two topics. Feel free to voice out yours anytime here. Thanks!
Great Italian Dinner
Last night, my MDA colleagues and I were invited to a dinner at the apartment of one of our VPs in the Chicago office. It was absolutely a great and warm gathering. Her home is very delicately decorated and she cooked Italian for us. Having some snacks, the 3-course meal and some red wine, we were all stuffed! (Indeed, we even packed some food home - a bit embarrasing but those are really delicious!!)
It is really so kind of this colleague, especially she provided us a warm feeling of "home" - the out-of-towners or even foreigners to the country. It was also nice as she spent her early career abroad, as well. Thus, she shared rather similar experiences and we had great talks. It is also motivating to know how well she kept her network of friends from the Air Force and so on after decades. Afterall, a really warm night after the heavy snow last afternoon!
Making dumplings!
I'm making my first dumplings!
Last weekend, I actually tried to make my own dumplings for the first time! As expected it is a tough time; though I cheated a bit - I bought the wrappers from an Asian store. However, I did mix the ground pork with vegetables and other ingredients by myself. It tasted not as good as those ones from my girlfriend or her family, nor anything comparable to the frozen dumplings I got from groceries. BUT...that was my dumplings, my first trial, it is quite successful, at least they did open up when I boil them! What I need now is a few more times of experiment to perfect it!
Beautiful Chicago
A great match - branches and buildings
More picture from Water Tower area
Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue
Bon Voyage
All the best to Dody!
It was a great farewell party on Saturday; wish you a wonderful time in Egypt!!!
"Asian" friends for Dim Sum lunch on CNY day
CK@Chi-town New Year Parade
Last weekend was the lunar new year of Dog and I went down to Chicago's Chinatown to see the parade and met up with some friends and enjoyed my first Dim Sum meal here in the Midwest.
That was my 3rd time going there but was the first ever I saw such a crowd. There were a lot of out-of-towners and tourists even though the parade itself was okay to my opinion. It is also interesting to point out that there is a key difference, or two really in the Chi-town, say compare to the NYC Chinatown:
1) It is very "quiet" in Chi-town while the one in NYC is always busy and overwhelming (and maybe noisy and dirty to some people) However, the Chi-town is really quite clean!
2) There are a lot more different ethnic people than just simply Cantonese.
