Lyn’s Adventures: My First Week In The City

So it’s been a week since I settled into my new place. I’m still getting used to the new environment, but my roommates are friendly and chill. However, I got a chance to hang out with a few old friends.

The first friend I hung out with is my ex-roommate during my undergraduate years. We have been roommates all four years during that time and are super close. She wanted to hang out—it’s been a while (two years in fact) since we hung out alone. Truthfully, I just needed a body to go on a food adventure. 😛

The first new food restaurant we went to is Bangkok Bistro. I wanted Thai tea and mango sticky rice. I got the Thai tea, but they ran out of the mango sticky rice. The last one was taken by a guy that just walked out the door a few minutes before we asked. This always happens to us because when we went to a Thai restaurant during our undergrad days, they also ran out of mango sticky rice. It’s like the mango sticky rice gods don’t want us to eat that delicious dessert.

For my meal, I ate one of their speciality soups, Tom Kha Gai but instead of sliced chicken, I replaced it with shrimp, and there’s also mushrooms. The reason why I picked this is the coconut soup broth. I wanted something creamy, but when I tasted it, it had this extreme tanginess. Next time I’ll get it with the noodles instead of a side of rice because the small cup of rice wasn’t enough to dispel the tangy taste in my mouth.

On Monday, I spent the day hanging out with a friend from Japan. He was visiting the United States for a few days, and it was his first time here. So it was kind of special that I got to be part of his first US visit. He wanted to visit and tour my alma mater. In fact, it was the first time in two years that I visited my former school and I had to give him a tour! Thankfully, I remembered where everything is, but a lot has changed since I was there like the new student center and the astronomy building is so beautiful (yes, I’m bitter about that).

I wanted to take him to my favorite southern cooking place called Angeline’s Louisana Kitchen, but it happened to close during lunch on Mondays. So instead, I took him to a burger place that I only found out about two months before I graduated, Eureka. The Fresno Fig Burger was like the best burger I ever tasted so far in my life (or while I was living there).

I promised my Japanese friend that I will visit Japan again (hopefully during the 2020 Summer Olympics), and I agreed that he will pay for a meal while I’m there because I paid for our lunch that day. It was the least I could do since I didn’t prepare a gift for him.

I wished that I could hang out with him the whole day, but our hangout was cut short because I had to go to graduate school orientation, and that was a bit overwhelming. There were a lot of people and I couldn’t get to personally talk to any of the resources booths because it was crowded, so I just got the flyers and left. If I have questions, I will email them or set up an appointment. I also doubt that there were people in my department to mingle with because it isn’t a popular major/field of study. I’ll just have to wait and see them in my classes.

That is what I’ve been up to so far. More adventures to come!