Back from Colorado

I arrived home last night, but it was a bit of a rough evening so I pushed the blog recap to today.

My trip to the College Board Western Regional Forum in Denver was very successful, and I enjoyed all the activities I got to do. Let's see...picking up where I left off...

Katherine and Brukab watched the Oscars on Sunday evening while I stayed at Starbucks for a few hours, drinking my chai latte and working away on the internet (thank goodness since the Marriott had expensive internet). Then they came out to go with me to the Rock Bottom Brewery, where I had ribs for the first time in a long while. Yum!

Brukab and Katherine both had the classic mac and cheese, which was pretty good too.

The Marriott's concierge desk had these awesome little "free pint of beer on the Marriott" coupons, so I grabbed a few and ended up trying a Colorado-brewed beer (one of the unofficial goals of my trip). After starting my beer taste buds on German beer, nothing else seems to taste as good but, hey, free is better than having to pay. :P

Then on Monday, we attended different workshops and met some folks from different areas of education, including high school, colleges, and the government. One of the more interesting sessions talked about the legislative front on higher education. Definitely found the research to be right down my alley.

On Monday night, Katherine, Brukab, and I went to the Nuggets vs. Celtics game at the Pepsi Center (site of the 2008 Democratic National Convention).

I was pumped for the game because a Nuggets loss would be good for my Portland Trail Blazers since they're in the same division of the NBA.

I've been to NBA games at the Rose Garden in Portland and Key Arena in Seattle, but this was my first NBA game outside of the Pacific Northwest.

So we took lots of pictures. :)

The Celtics completely blew out the Nuggets (final score was 114-76), so I was happy. Had to root for the lesser of two evils. :P

After the game, we were starving so we headed for food in downtown Denver, but honestly, everything closes so early in Denver! Downtown was pretty much empty, and it was only 10 pm!

So back to the Rock Bottom Brewery we went again. I got to use another one of those free beer coupons and tried a better beer. Still not as good as my Hacker-Pschorr Weisse, but better than the one from the night before.

Anyway, Tuesday morning, we attended one last session (I went to one on financial aid and planning how to pay for college), and then headed for the airport to go home. Our trip went by way too quickly, and I got a bit of a feel for business travel again as you don't really get many opportunities to explore the city you're in.

Now I'm back in Seattle to finish up another busy quarter, and then figure out my plans for spring break and hopefully summer too. Regardless, I'll hopefully get to travel again soon to break out the travel blog and add another flag to the world map on my wall at home. Until next time, toodles!

Dream Project in Denver

Brukab, Katherine, and I made it to Denver yesterday afternoon for our Dream Project workshop presentation at the College Board Western Regional Forum in Colorado, but our hotel doesn't offer complimentary Wi-Fi. So sadly, I had to wait until today when I actually had a chance to go to Starbucks to use the internet.

I'll keep it brief since I don't want to stay out here too long. Kinda sketchy. :P

We flew in yesterday and just explored the city for the afternoon and evening before finishing up our presentation. I'd never been outside of the airport in Denver, so this was really my first trip to the city itself.

So first at the hotel I took a picture of the view. They said it's a mountain view, so that's pretty cool. But Denver is crazy flat with mountains way off in the distance.

We decided to walk around the city center--it feels really small compared to Seattle. But we found a giant bear outside the convention center.

We then walked towards dinner in another part of the city and saw a view of the Pepsi Center, where the Denver Nuggets (NBA team) play. We're aiming to go to the Nuggets vs. Celtics game on Monday night, so that's where we'd head.

Finally, we went to dinner in an Italian restaurant that was pretty packed. In fact, most restaurants were packed because, I guess, there's some sort of restaurant week special happening this week in Denver. Food was good though.

We had some appetizers at the bar first because we were waiting for our table to clear--delicious!

Then we had pizza for dinner, which we had to box up for our midnight snacks.

But then we got dessert too since it looked so tasty.

The restaurant itself was located in a nice little square that's supposed to be kind of historic, so that was cool.

Then we went home and worked on our presentation. It was pretty fun working late into the night.

This morning we woke up and decided to work on our presentation more and actually practice, so we missed the morning and early afternoon sessions.

However, we did see some of our friends from UW such as Kay Lewis, the director of Student Financial Aid who really helped us to get out to Denver and also Jim Rawlins, who was formerly the Associate Director of Admissions at UW before taking the executive director of admissions job at Colorado State.

Our presentation itself went from 2:45-4 pm, but we started a few minutes late waiting for folks to trickle in. It went very well though, and we had a blast.

Tonight, we watched a bit of the Academy Awards and then Brukab and I headed out to Starbucks (for internet), while Katherine stayed back to do homework. Brukab just left to head back too, so I'm about to leave in a bit as well.

Dinner out again tonight and then probably gear up for tomorrow. Should be another exciting day. Hopefully, I'll have access to internet again and can blog. It's been great so far though. TTFN.

Recap of my Trip to Canada

Phew, what a day. I woke up 7 minutes ahead of my alarm at 8:08 AM. No idea why but I always wake up ahead of my alarm clock unless I didn't sleep much the night before. The view from our room at the Holiday Inn seemed to forecast another nice day.

Since we didn't explore much of downtown Vancouver outside of Stanley Park and the Vancouver Lookout Tower yesterday, we decided to visit Granville Island, a nice little "island" peninsula just south of our hotel.

Granville Island's Public Market was supposed to be pretty cool, so we decided to go check it out. It seemed pretty empty around since it was Monday morning. No holiday for Canadians--Presidents Day in the US only. :P

It seemed like a cleaner, indoor version of Seattle's Pike Place Market, although I have to say the multicultural blend in just this corner of the Public Market was pretty awesome. The view across False Creek from outside the Public Market was pretty awesome though.

I particularly like the view to the west.

After walking around the island a bit more though and enjoying some delicious doughnuts, we headed toward the construction site for Olympic Village for next year's Winter Olympics on the southeast edge of False Creek. Pretty neat, huh?

Then we headed to the other side of False Creek where we took a few pictures from a small children's center on the edge of the water in Yaletown.

After exploring most of downtown Vancouver, we decided to head back to Richmond for delicious Asian food again and then hit the road to go home.

In Richmond, we had dim sum near Yaohan Center. It was pretty good, although the service wasn't the best. Oh well, still delicious.Once we finished eating, we went to buy some groceries at Yaohan Center. I ended up buying some rice, soy milk, and instant spicy noodles, among other items. I love grocery shopping.

After that, it was around 3 PM and time to drive home, so toward the border we went. When we arrived, I thought it'd be quick, but we waited for over an hour before the border guard asked, "What were you doing in Canada?" My reply of "oh, just for fun" prompted an "ok, here you go" as he returned our passports.

10 seconds. Literally, it took 10 seconds to cross the border, but we waited for over an hour. You can lots of pictures while waiting, so it was fun.

Anyway, it was a great trip, and I enjoyed hanging out with my sister and Fredolyn. I hadn't been up to Vancouver since around first grade, so it was a fun chance to go and visit the city again.

In other news, I just booked my hotel for Denver, so I'll blog again later this week after I arrive in Colorado. Can't wait!

A Weekend Visit to Vancouver, BC

For Presidents Day weekend, I decided I'd fulfill my plan from the beginning of this school year to visit Vancouver, BC, with my friend, Fredolyn. I hadn't been to Vancouver since around first or second grade when my uncle used to live there.

After not being able to go on our trip for all of fall and the first half of winter quarter, we finally made the plans to visit Canada with my younger sister, Joanna.

We left early this morning around 9 AM and drove up I-5 in beautiful, sunny weather. Although the sky was clear blue, the weather outside was pretty chilly.

We headed up first to Richmond to do...what else...eat Asian food! We headed to Yaohan Center to eat in the food court. We all had wonton noodle soup. Yummm!

After this short lunch break, we drove north into downtown Vancouver.

The weather was fantastic and since we couldn't check into our hotel until 4 PM, we decided to drive through the horrendous traffic to visit Stanley Park.

I took a ton of pictures. Check 'em out!

After spending the afternoon at Stanley Park, we headed for our hotel and then straight to the Vancouver Lookout Observation Tower so we could catch the sunset from high up. At least there's a student discount to take the elevator up, and we managed to buy mini Canadian flags to add to our flag collections before heading up.

Right after that, I'd figured we'd find someplace good to eat in Gastown, the historic center of Vancouver, but surprisingly, it was hard to find any place to eat. We did find the famous steam-powered clock though.

We finally decided on getting dinner at a Japanese restaurant. It was pretty good for the price we paid. Tasty!

After dinner, we decided to return to the observation tower since one ticket lets you up as many as times as you want in one day. So back up the elevator we went.

Around 9 PM, we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. I came back and watched some highlights from the NBA All-Star Game in Phoenix. Brandon Roy did well again, and he made his alley-oop pass from Chris Paul off the glass this year although to be fair Chris Paul's pass last year was way too high off the backboard.

Well, I've finally finished another blog of my travels. Love it. It's been a fun trip up here in Vancouver, and I'm looking forward to exploring Granville Island's Public Market and then getting dim sum in Richmond before heading home.

This is a good month for the blog as I'll be traveling again next weekend to present a workshop on the Dream Project at the College Board Western Regional Forum in Denver, CO. Should be a fun time, especially since all the times I've been to Denver have only been transfers at DEN.

So, with that, TTFN!