Day 2: Roaming around Oxford

I have added a link "Oxford City Centre Map" I HIGHLY recommend looking at the PDF file of the Oxford City centre map while reading my blog. The map will help orient you where things are and where I was. The map is very detailed and is the map I use to navigate my way around Oxford (but I don't use it as much now, haha, I got the city down! :P)                                                      

walk towards the park

Overpass, the pedestrian walk way

                                                       








 
The second day in Oxford, we had a quick meeting with the group and Brian at 12. But before the meeting, Clara, Julia and I walked to Headington Hill Park, which is located next to EF Language Center and on the way to Oxford City Center (The linked map does not include this place, Headington Hill Park would be on the lower right hand corner of the map).

 The park is huge and tranquil. It was Saturday morning, no one was there, everything was still slightly wet but the air was clean and refreshing.

Gates to the Headington Hill Park

No one was there but us. We walked around, looked around, enjoyed a walk in a (British) park. What I experienced most was tranquility. The park was so quiet that you felt peaceful and secluded, you wouldn't really notice the traffic, wouldn't really remember you were next to a big city. You were only surrounded by nature. It was beautiful!

There is a mosque behind the tree, can you see it?

There is a mosque behind the tree. The idea of having a mosque is a bit unimaginable (in the old days) because England is a protestant nation. This is especially huge because this mosque is located quite close to University of Oxford, a school that was heavily associated with Christianity and the national religion was Catholic and now Church of England (Anglican). But nowadays, people are more welcoming and accepting of new religions, so having a mosque for people of other faiths to practice is a show of respect and openness.

We walked around for about 40 minutes and headed back to EF for our meeting. The meeting was welcome meeting for us to meet everyone on the program. At the end of the program, everyone was, unfortunately, tired because of jet lags. But, Clara and I decided to head to city center and explore a bit to help adjust to the correct time zone faster.

To be continued.....(I think the blog would only let me upload a certain amount of photos.)

Going to Oxford town

First, thanks to all my friends and family back home who are reading my blog! I miss you all (maybe...? :P) and would LOVE to have you all here.

Freeway Sign: Oxford

Arrival: Heathrow International Airport on Friday, June 24, 2011.
We boarded the bus from Oxford Bus Company that has a direct bus between Heathrow and Oxford City (Gloucester Green)! The lady bus driver helped loaded our luggage and gave us a hard time (jokingly) when we were paying for our round-trip fare because as tourists we only had 50 GBP and no small bills for the 26 GBP fare and she was running out of change!


After roughly 2 hours of bus ride with beautiful countryside scenery along the way, we arrived at Gloucester Green. Our next objective was to find a British cab to take us to EF International Language Schools Oxford which will be our living quarter from June 24 to July 3. Then we will move into Jesus College (College explanation later) from July 3 to July 12. And lastly Jesus College Graduate Housing, July 12 to July 28.

Inside of a British cab

So, find a British cab, here we go: we walked from the Central Bus station in Oxford at Gloucester Green and through a square which was filled with pigeons. There was a very unnoticeable sign/post/bulletin board that basically read taxi call line. We waited for our taxi and here it came! A black British cab came and picked us up. It was the typical British cab that you often see in movies (sorry didn't have time for photo). It was very spacious in the back. From the photo you could see it fitted Clara, Cassie and my luggage plus the three of us! Then we were off to the EF Language Center (EF).

Courtyard of EF Center

At EF, we saw Julie Villegas (Associate Direct of Honors Program at UW), Brian Reed (my professor for the program and Chuck Krysieniel. And got our room assignment.








At the EF center, breakfast and dinner are included, so after dinner, Clara, Cassie and I went to Oxford City center because Clara needed a converter and Cassie needed a towel. The weather was rainy, typically Seattle weather. Since it was Friday, shops closed early and with the rain, there weren't a lot of people.

Cornmarket Street, main shopping street in City

We walked around trying to find a store and eventually ended up at Boots (a British version of a Walgreen). Most of the drugstores and grocery stores have self-scanner, which made life much faster and easier for the busy British. The stores are very much like American stores but the prices....well, honestly, I just think everything in Britain is more expensive in general, so let's just say they are expensive....for now. I didn't get anything because I brought most things with me (budget control!).

Can you tell the difference between this and an American scanner?

This was our first day and night at Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK! We safely arrived, safely ate the dinner, safely navigated Oxford city center, safely went to bed.

Until next time
Bless + Cheer+ Love

The Land of...The Queen's Land (and the drive-on-the-other-side-and-use-S-for-authorized land)

We flew into London Heathrow airport from Vancouver, BC with Air Canada (pic in last post). It was a pleasant flight with a decent meal (one of the better ones I had in a long time). I sat next to a middle-aged man who moved from Hawaii to Port Angeles (why, I have no idea). He is meeting his friends to bike around Bath (read with a British accent, please!) 

In case you were wondering, as I often do. I watched I am Number Four but got bored and didn't finish it, so I moved on to Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. I have to admit Shia LaBeouf looks way better in suits and I absolutely adore Carey Mulligan, who is a British Actress.

Ok, back to the more important things. Our flight left Vancouver 25 minutes late because some guy couldn't make the flight, but his luggage did, so they had to remove his luggage from the plane. After that, we started out 9 hour flight. Overall, it was a pleasant flight, other than some weird sleeping positions I was holding (joy of sitting in the middle). That 9-hour went by faster than I thought, so all was well :)

Next stop is the UK border with UK Border Agency. I couldn't risk being detained or have my camera confiscated so I didn't take any photo. You are required to fill out a UK Landing Card to enter the UK. The lines were separated into EU/UK Passports and All Other Passports. An important note to everyone that plans on traveling to UK, you should definitely have documentations indicating/supporting your reason for traveling to UK. They are quite strict about this. I had my acceptance letter for the study abroad program and even with that the agent kept asking me questions.

But, goodbye UK Custom and Border and hello UK...and luggage reclaim. Then we were off to find our bus to Oxford! We walked for a solid 7-8 minutes with our luggage underground from Terminal 3 to the Central Bus Station.

Can you find Oxford??

We took the lift to first floor and there it was: Central Bus station! We asked the very nice lady at the Information Desk. She pointed us to stop 14A for the bus to Oxford.

Then we saw our bus at stop 14A. The door was on the other side of the bus for apparent reason. Our destination: Gloucester Green bus station, the last stop of this bus route and 5 mins away from Oxford City Center (or Centre). We paid the rather humorous and nice bus driver for our 26 pounds round-trip bus ticket (it's quite expensive). The round trip ticket lasts for 3 months and I will be using that when I leave Oxford to go back to London. With the tickets, we were Oxford bound!!!!!! (side note: waiting in lines are quite common and don't ever cut!)




(note: encourage you to listen to "How Am I To Be" by Watson Twins from here, reason below)

Oxfordshire sheep

It was a cloudy day when I arrived at London, the weather was very similar to Seattle. On the way, there were lots of trees, farm lands, hills and most importantly Oxfordshire sheep. That's right, sheep in Oxfordshire is called Oxfordshire sheep :P
The trees and hills reminded me of Seattle but with a touch of European flavor. The British style farmhouses and flatter hills really made the difference. On top of knowing that I was in England, something that I was seeing but couldn't describe accentuated that I was really in England!

Overcast in Oxfordshire

As I listened to "How Am I To Be" by Watson Twins during the ride, something about the music, the weather, and the scenery that came all together. It was my first impression of England, a peaceful one.







Until next time
bless + love

preview for next: Going to Oxford town

The land of Canadian and French ( and A&W and Tim Horton's)

The plane was super small and super noisy

It's goodbye Seattle and hello Vancouver, BC, or Adieu Seattle, bonjour a Vancouver!

We arrived at a huge and modern airport. I noticed that the cashiers in the Duty Free shops were mostly Asians, and the labels were English, Korean and Chinese- a huge indication of the type of people traveled to here (ha!)

Cool design centered in the middle of the duty free shops

Gate 65

After walking around, we reached Gate 65, sat down, ate some snack. While I was eating, I noticed how my hands were shaking a bit for unknown reasons. I couldn't tell if I was nervous, excited or worried, but all I knew was my yogurt was falling off the spoon (ha!).

Air Canada taking us to London

Thus, we bid farewell to Vancouver and the North American continent and began the journey to Europe.....

Until next time,
Bless + Love

So here it goes....

Today is the day that I leave Seattle and embark on a non-scientific journey (well it's a study abroad, but all the same)! Even after three months of preparatory seminar, nothing really prepares you for what is yet to come. After many procrastination on packing and arranging, I am semi-ready to leave Seattle.

This is my first trip to Great Britain and hopefully won't be my last. I have expectations, questions, and mostly huge uncertainties about what is to come. But my friend Michelle told me to hold no expectations (well, maybe a bit), so there would be less of a shock. Before the trip, I was very nervous and scared and even stressed out about the trip because of the uncertainty. I don't like when things are out of my controls or not knowing the details (haha, I guess it's one of the many downsides of being a scientist) and this study abroad is full of that. On the other hand, this trip will certainly teach me about spontaneity, randomness and disorganization (wow, some high entropy is involved here!)

Thanks to Andrew, Sara and Michelle for dropping me at Sea-Tac. I am about to board the plane to my first stop Vancouver, BC, Canada. Some of you might ask, "Seattle to Vancouver!? You could have driven there and enjoy some Dim Sum!" My answer to that is yeah, I could have but I am not because I forgot about Dim Sum in Vancouver!

I will sign off here at Sea-Tac, see you in August, Seattle! I am going to find some British Love :D
Bless + Love

Women/Girl Power

This post is a background post on my proposed research project (which I have yet to decide what/which to do).

Why women?
To me this is a very pertinent question because most importantly I am a woman! Women account for roughly 50% of the people in the entire world. (Why roughly? There are people that identify themselves as women but might not necessarily possess a female body and we should respect and be inclusive to them as well.) You would think that being the other half of the human population, women would get 50% of the attention. Not true! Sometimes, all I hear is about how women are devalued, tortured, raped, slaved, and demoralized in general. There aren't enough celebratory news about women and all her accomplishments.

Secondly, as a woman in science I personally experience this imbalance between men and women. There are more male science professors that lectured my science classes than female professors. Although, I must note that I am working in almost all women research lab! My friend and I wonder why this is so and we realized this unspoken "norm" that women would eventually be heavily involved in family and somehow family and science/medicine don't mix well. Therefore, despite higher ratio of female acceptance into higher education, somehow the people holding the position of power are usually men!? I personally refuse to believe that family and medicine don't integrate well because if you are truly passionate about both you will make it work!

Thirdly, I grew up learning and being exposed to girl power, which gave me this unwavering and unquestionable idea that I can accomplish my goals and my sex should not dictate my future! I think, as a generation in the "developed" world, we grew up learning about women's rights and inequality and how to achieve gender equality. But, the reality is that gender inequality still perpetuate in this world. We all hear jokes about women but we grow accustomed and become insensitive to remarks that devalue us. I am guilty of that. But the good thing is to realize where and when the boundary has been crossed and appropriately stop gender bullying.

It came as a great surprise that Beyonce released this new song Run the World (Girls) that speaks about girl power! I am still trying to get used to the song, but her message in the lyrics speak for itself!

With all these being said, it will be interesting to find out what British history/culture and women think about themselves (women) and how they have changed through the years either for the better or worse.

This is a quick background on why I am interested in studying women for my research project, hope this will help start some conversation among your friends and hopefully my project, ha :)

Michelle Obama visits Oxford

I thought this news came in at a fantastic time for my research:
First Lady Michelle Obama visited the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Language College (EGA), a secondary school for girls in North London, in Christ Church. The girls visited Oxford University and listened to a speech made by Michelle Obama http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2011/112505.html

Her trip to Oxford University was part of President Obama's European trip leading up to the G8 Summit in France.
I thought Mrs. Obama's visit to Oxford complemented my research so well in terms of analyzing women in Britain. During the Q&A session (http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110526/pl_yblog_exclusive/michelle-obama-on-her-cute-husband-hillary-clinton-and-how-she-raises-her-daughters), Mrs. Obama really emphasized the importance of reading and education. I think it's fabulous to have the First Lady speaking to a group of very diverse girls from EGA, a school that focuses on education young women, which was named after the first woman to gain a medical qualification in the UK.


These sort of emphasis on women power really gets me excited. Women in the sciences and eventually in medicines, you are constantly being overshadowed by men. Regardless of the advances in gender issues, women are still part of the minorities in these fields. So, it's very exciting to hear the First Lady to encourage more girls to continue in higher education and professional schools and to pursue their dreams.


I just thought the news was a perfect setting for my research, First Lady Michelle Obama at Oxford speaking to a group of young girls about eduction and women.