Disney during the day was awesome, but Disney at night is even better! We went to a couple different evening and night shows, and they all completely blew my mind. Just the shows alone would have been well worth the price of the park entrance ticket. The first show we…

One of the most awesome things as a SURF student at Caltech is that the Student-Faculty Programs Office arranges and hosts activities for us! These events are usually geared to help people chill out from work and socialize. This year, they setup a trip to go to Disneyland for half…

This half of the blog posts about my family's visit focuses on the food! It's a good thing that they came during the summer. Otherwise, my desk would be unusable and completely covered in papers and food.When my family came over to visit, they brought a mountain of Asian snacks.…

It's not if you ask my younger brother. Haha. Last weekend, my parents and little brother dropped by to visit me. Isn't that sweet? :) While they were here, we explored the Getty Center in west LA. If you haven't gone before or for a while, you should definitely check…

From July 4th-7th, there was aJapanese pop culture convention held at the Los Angeles Convention Center called Anime Expo or AX for short. It was the second anime convention that I've been to; the first one being Fanime in San Jose in 2011. AX was super exciting, and I've never…

Today, we went to a Thai restuarnt off of Colorado called Chilly Mango. The place is a little far for walking, but it's closer than going to Old Pasadena. Chilly Mango is clean and has cheap, simple, yet good food. And the portion sizes are very filling! They also have…

On Friday, a group of my friends and I went to a Korean Barbeque (KBBQ) restaurant called Oo-kook. For those not familar with KBBQ,Wikipedia describes it as: "Gogigui literally "meat + roasting", or Korean barbecue refers to the Korean method of grilling beef, pork, chicken, or other types of meat.…

This is a picture Dr. Jason Alicea. Whoo! Once every week during the SURF period, the Student Faculty Program (SFP) organizes these things called student-faculty dinners. Itencourages more personal interactions between students (from both Caltech and outside of Caltech) and our awesome professors. This week, I had the privilege (with…

I LOVE getting packages in the mail. It feels like someone sent me a present, even if I ordered the package myself. :P At Caltech, undergrads are given PO boxes for getting letters/postcards/etc. Anything that's larger is picked up at the on-campus mail office, which is conveniently near most of…

Caltech InnoWorks Recap: I am the co-Director (with my friend Monisha) of a student club called Caltech InnoWorks. We aim to increase opportunties in science, math, and technology for local middle school students on the free or reduced lunch program. To this end, we run a free, completely hands-on, yearly…

Hello! My name is Huey-Ru, but I go by Debbie. :) I am a rising Junior, majoring in Computation and Neural Systems. It's a fancy title for Neurobiology with some electrical enginneering, computer science, and applied math mixed in. This is my first time blogging for Caltech and my second…

Over the weekend, I went out for lunch at zpizza. I've been to one at home, but never in Pasadena. The service at the Pasadena location was great! The staff was super help and understanding. They offer a variety of unique pizzas (ie. Thai or Napoli), as well as the…

On June 8-9th, there was an event in Pasadena called the 626 Night Market (NM). 626 is the area code for Pasadena. In their own words, the 626 NM is an "Asian food themed night market that showcases a variety of local businesses, entrepreneurs, and artists." This event started last…

Hello again!!If you've been keeping up with the Caltech blogs over some period of time, you might remember me from the Caltech Y Science Policy trip to Washington D.C. about two years ago. Has it really been that long?? Time flies! I can't believe I just graduated a month ago…

Two bloggers in D.C.! Sarah rushed over right before we left on our shuttle to the airport, and I'm so glad we got to see her for a bit. Am also thankful that our flights left D.C. on Friday night, because the huge snowstorm that grounded all the planes hit…

Apologies to our dedicated readers for the delay of these posts! The internet connection was pretty shaky and I didn't know if things were loading on the server, because they certainly weren't loading on my laptop. I'm currently sitting at Dulles Airport, happily connected to their free wifi. Where have…

As an amateur photographer, I find that pictures do indeed speak louder than words. Day 1: Welcome to Dulles International Airport, and thank you for flying United. Half an hour before our dinner with Caltech alumni, some of us took a stroll down to Capitol Hill [and it wasn't all…

My feet are telling me that they want a massage and a rest right now... I think I've walked at least 30 miles in the past 3 days. But it was all worth it: William Penn House, the hostel where we're staying for the week The Capitol in the daytime…