So I had to go to this college town for a graduation, and I must say it brought back a lot of memories of being a university student. (I am currently a college student again, but this school started as a commuter college, so it doesn’t have this vibe).

Where I live now there are a lot of chain restaurants and they all seem to be somewhat pricey. But in a college town there are lots of poor students, and inexpensive, good places to eat. (I am amazed that a student hangout from my first uni is now listed as must see place in current city guides). So this place was a small strip mall with a tinier parking lot, We didn’t go to the hamburger joint, we ate at the Mediterranean fusion place next door. It was fabulous and cheap, just the sort of place my town lacks (one can get a hamburger anywhere).

This was what passed for a kitchen in an Airbnb rental and it has the sort of essentials that a student might need (although you have to admit, an ironing board kitchen is unique). I don’t remember cooking much when I was previously a student, booze and snacks were much more important.

But there’s not much room for anything in this compact kitchen, although it’s probably big enough.

This college town has the other prerequisite, a football team, and there are images everywhere in case one forgets the mascot. Several folks were wearing team shirts when we went out for a late night snack (also inexpensive).

There is a large supply in this town of the sort of funky student housing that I remember so well. Nostalgia only carries one so far however. Would I actually like to live like this again? Probably not, but it was great fun to relive this for a brief moment, and to appreciate that I am not a poor college student any more.

Well, I’m finally getting more bold about attending student events, so, when I got a message about this event I decided to show up.

I whipped out my student ID at the door (because of course I am not even close to college age) and they gave me this lovely tee shirt. I had missed out on the food, which was gone in minutes (or less). (It pays to get there early). 😉

This event was put on by the university for the Asian-Pacific Island Students Association(a DEI organization) . I missed the marital arts demo, but these ladies were playing Japanese Taiko drums. They made everyone get up and dance at one point, so it was quite hilarious.

The next group also had drums and added cymbals. They promised to be loud and they did deliver on this.

And they were playing for these Chinese Foo Dog dancers. A Foo Dog is a guardian lion ( yes I know this is a contradiction) and is a symbol of protection and prosperity. I suppose I had never considered how much work goes into this, they need to be strong, athletic and fit. The back person spends a lot of time tail wagging, but then has to lift up the front person, which was impressive.

I left after the end of the performance and as I walked to the car, I noticed that several of the cars had parking tickets, these probably belonged to these performers. So I hope that they don’t remove their good wishes for the students, the university is on it’s own.

So I found out right after the New Year that the local university offered a class in Korean. Classes hadn’t started yet so I decided to go back to school, after all I had gone there previously, how hard could it be? As it turned out, it was a bit of work, my university said they had no record of me, yet I have a diploma, a ring and get the alumni magazine. Someone had merely typed in the wrong date of birth and if I show up with two forms of ID they will correct this. But I did eventually get enrolled and here I am a college student once again.

And here is the campus. The site was once home to a tuberculosis hospital back when there was only pure mountain air to breathe and with a lovely view of the mountain (the mountain is unchanged). There were also coal mines somewhere nearby, and the mine entrances are now gone (I hope).

This bit is the old TB sanitarium. The windows were formerly just screened in, so that one could have fresh air all year long on the theory that this could cure one. And sometimes it did.

Most of the newer buildings look something like this, rectangular boxes with lots of glass, stuffed with classrooms and faculty offices.

And this is what one can look at, if one is lucky enough to have a view. My classroom is in a small (I guess that administration didn’t think Korean would be this popular) interior room.

Oh yeah, there are all sorts of activities and clubs to keep students amused. And now that I have a student ID I can get a discount at the movies, etc,

I don’t think that these birds had bothered to register, but they were clearly in control of this patch of lawn, so I went the other way. (There’s always some sort of school bullies! Some things never change.) It’s an interesting adventure.

Let me state right off the bat that I am not really the ladies luncheon sort of person. I am not crazy about making small talk with people I don’t know well, and I have an idiosyncratic decorating style. The last one of these that I attended was years ago and I remember it as being no fun. So why was I here? A friend asked me to do a dinosaur themed table, and how could I refuse? What this meant was that we were to decorate a table in a festive manner for a Christmas luncheon and provide some sort of party favor.

This woman said it took her about 15 minutes to decorate from things that she had just laying about! (For some reason, I don’t have gold chargers and seasonal decorations to hand.) Those are little sewed pockets with candy to take home.

Here’s another person who just whipped out the seasonal decorations. It is optional, but encouraged to give everyone at the table a little present, so these people were getting a pumpkin.

This person chose to jump two holidays ahead to New Years Day, and again just happened to have gold and silver chargers to hand. But wait, what’s that in the background?

Why it’s the table for overthinkers/overachievers. Those are my personal dinosaurs. The fabric she chose had dinosaurs wearing hats and scarves and decorated with flowers. I will admit I did already have some tiny hats to hand, but for the rest I crocheted and knitted tiny hats and scarves. Under the nametag is a cinnamon dino ornament I baked and I provided a tiny dinosaur as a party favor. We baked and iced the cookies together and she made incomplete place mats from the dino fabric. The plates are paper. She forgot the Christmas tree and substituted a pineapple. The ornaments were from London.

This was massively stressful as I do not know the rules of ladies luncheons and I am disinclined to learn more about them. Instead I shall consider this as an anthropologic visit to another culture. And I shall endeavor to remember this and never ever repeat the experience.

However, I admit that the dinosaurs look splendid and they were fun to dress up. And I learned to make fancy cookies (special thanks to K for the lesson). And of course I think that our table was the finest, because the dinosaurs dressed for dinner.

I have a love of fairs and carnivals and I have been attending various ones for years and years. Yes, they are a commercial enterprise, and are often somewhat cheesy, but their reason for being is to entertain, and that can’t be all bad?

What is more fun or scarier than a mobile ride that was bolted together by an itinerant worker?

And where can one purchase such items except at a fair? Why one would purchase such items? Because one is at a fair!

And it is indeed a “fried fantasy” of food that is available at the fair. These vendors spend all winter during their off season to try and think of new things to dip in batter and fry. None of these offerings are noted for their nutritional value before being dunked in oil, but that is part of the appeal, I guess. Also available are unusual meats, like alligator on a stick. All of these things are best consumed with a group a friends who may or may not be sober.

This was my favorite booth, which was handing out free samples of roasted green chile wrapped in a flour tortilla (free being the best price to enjoyment ratio).

People have been holding fairs since the beginning of recorded time, usually to celebrate a harvest or some event. This fair has been in existence since 1872 and I hope that this sort of entertainment continues on into the unknown future. (Not pictured are bull riding, concerts, beauty contests for animals and sundry other events of the fair).

I have heard that the easiest person to fool is one’s self, and I certainly live up to this saying. By this I mean that I continually forget how much I hate the act of travelling, and somehow imagine against hope that it will be different this time, and it will be easy. So I had convinced myself to go to California (and being there was, in fact, great fun) and then came the bit where I returned home. Because my town is located near a big city there are limited options for direct flights and I chose the “budget” airline. And this was where I ended up.

There were lots of palm trees in California, but here in the desert there is limited water, so the palm trees tend to be of the artificial type.

This place is also famous for lots of neon, but in this case they were saving electricity by not spelling out the entire word.

This portrait made up of tiles shows one of the famous residents of the city. In place of the usual sort of background music there was music from the residents in the 50’s and 60’s who originally made the place famous.

This place is a mecca of legalized gambling and there were noisy electronic games on every concourse. I did notice that there are lots of international flights to here, and that some of the games seemed to be aimed at the Asian market. (I certainly hope that this dragon is lucky).

I know that you were wondering where I had ended up, well this was it. I spent 4 hours that seemed like lifetimes at this airport because due to a delay I had missed my connection. Among the many attractions that were touted, there is a museum of crime in this town and the airport is named for a senator, so I suppose that is fitting. And now I have yet another piece of evidence that travel is over-rated (but I am already planning the next trip). 😉

It is rather sad how I have neglected this blog, but I have been out and about doing things. And this is one I have heretofore neglected to mention, I went and visited the Pacific Ocean (of course I have seen this ocean before in different places.)

My friend had a craving for a complete change of scene and so she bought a house that overlooks the beach, and I was invited to come for a visit. The airlines have service two days a week, that helped in planning the logistics, so there I was.

For some unknown reason (user error) I took this picture as a video (I blame my fat fingers). It was low tide, so we could walk along the beach just watching the waves crashing onto the rocks. The rocks were formerly on the bottom of the ocean, but have been scraped up by plate tectonics and are rather unique.

This dagger-like rock is a local landmark and is quite popular with photographers.

This is the view looking south from the nearby town. It’s a small town that formerly relied on lumber, fishing and cranberries, now they get jillions of tourists every year (like me).

This is the view from my friend’s house, which is really spectacular. At my house the sun goes down early whatever the season as there are mountains to the west. Here there is nothing to obstruct the view (except for those rain storms) and the sun takes it’s time to slowly disappear from view. I was exceptionally fortunate as it did not rain the entire time I was there. It is a beautiful spot and I think shall have to visit this place again as a respite from the mountains.