Menyeberangi Lautan Pasifik

I was at the Yolo Fruit Stand, located at the mid-point of Davis and Sacramento along Interstate 80, when I saw this grotesque looking, vase - shaped vegetable. So I bought one, it's only 99¢... cheap! cheap! I have no idea how to cook or eat it but I was told by one lady to boil it and add some sugar. Either way, I'm gonna look up recipes and try one of them =)

It was a wonderful day today: clear blue sky and no rain at all! After four straight days of rain, this is definitely a big welcome. In fact, I was tempted to jump into the swimming pool as it felt like such a "warm" day!!!

Past noon, Johannes, a German graduate student rang me up for a trip east to Sacramento for groceries shopping. What a noisy trip! haha. Well, we went in his broken car, thats why. The side window on the passenger's seat was broken because of a attempted break-in on Friday. Luckily, nothing was stolen as there wasn't anything worth stealing. Except if you count maps of Davis and California, which were to Johannes, valuables haha... but we fixed it up with tape and plastic. And the wind on the highway kept hitting against the double-layered plastic, providing us with ear-piercing noise.

We went to Trader Joe's that sells specialty groceries - items that are not easily found elsewhere and many of the products are packaged by themselves. The plus point is that it sells many typical european foodstuffs. So I got myself a pack of Dutch mini stroopwafels (I've written about them on an earlier blog post of mine), Italian tiramisu ice cream, Spanish Salsa, Mexican Tortilla chips, Indian Chai (it's like spiced-tea), a wheat-shaped baguette and some Italian breads... and some other normal stuffs. There were also a host of other spices, sauces and cookies from different countries that I've never seen or heard before! Slurp... it'd be a culinary feast if I could get my hands on them haha...

On the way back from Sacramento, we stopped by at the Yolo Fruit Stand. It's where local farm produce are sold. So it tends to be cheaper and fresher than normal groceries like Safeway, Albertsons and Nuggets. It was timely too as I was running out of vegetables at home. I can vouch that the vegetables sold here are really fresh, judging from the stir-fried napa lettuce I had for dinner. It was succulent and juicy, something that was missing from the ones bought from normal groceries.

This weekend was well-spent. In between studying at home for a upcoming midterm, I managed to squeeze in other stuffs to do. Started on Friday evening with I-club dinner / meeting at Bakers Square, where it is famous for its pies. I had a filling sandwich with basil tomato soup, so I couldn't down another pie. So I made an appointment with Liwen to try out the pies this coming Friday. =) Looking forward to some good food!

On Saturday afternoon, I went for a rugby match with Johannes again! No, I didn't play haha.. it's UC Davis vs University of Reno, Men's Rugby. I'd thought it was like American football but the big difference is that the players wear no protective gears at all for rugby. It was a rainy afternoon, but the game had to go on. UN Reno wore white jerseys which soon end up all brown. Muddy muddy game! And violent violent game! Every other moment the players would pile up on each other and there would be some wrestling. No hold barrels! Next, you'll see a hand throwing the rugby ball out and the human pile dispersed just as fast in came together. It truthfully looked like a potential bone-breaking sport! But it sure looked like a lot of fun... I was at the side lines, sitting down to enjoy the game while eating my 干捞面 (dry mee) haha... taking good care not to get any rain onto my food at the same time. We only watched the second half of the game during which UN Reno had 2 touchdowns. UC Davis had none, sadly.

After that, I went for my dance class... and somehow signed up for a latin and ballroom pro-am competition haha... don't ask me what happened. It's gonna take place in two weeks in Sacramento at my dance instructor's student. Wish me luck!