Allen & Sons BBQ + UNC vs Georgia Tech

Past weekend no roadtrips were planned, because work was piling up for most, if not all of us. Apparently exchange is not as relaxing as it seems. Haha.

Not that we spent the whole weekend studying away. Friday night, on a trip organized by UNC E.A.S.E, the student body that helps international and exchange students get settled into UNC, we went down to Allen and Sons BBQ for dinner.


The United States is generally well known for BBQ, and different regions, especially the Southern states, have different styles of doing so. North Carolina, no doubt, has its own styles too, mainly vinegar based.


Very unfortunately, we all have different tastes, and the bunch of us at this table didn't really like the food. The food were either sour or salty, and because we Chinese are used to pairing sour and salty food with rice, the absence of it made the food a little difficult to swallow.


Iced sweet tea, the saving grace. Oh yes, sweet tea is also an iconic food [in this case, drink] of Southern United States.

Sunday night was UNC vs Georgia Tech basketball match!

UNC is particularly well known for its men's basketball, having produced players like Michael Jordan who went on to shine in the NBA, and students here will generally pack the Dean Smith Center on days when UNC plays home matches to support them. Our fiercest rivals are Duke and NC State universities, and therefore, this match against Georgia Tech was comparatively low key.

Being low key didn't mean it was easy to obtain tickets. Besides selling tickets to the public, a portion of them are reserved to students, and we will enter a completely random ballot for them on a website. Some of us didn't get any tickets for this match, but others who got gave them to us because they had already went for a previous match before.


The ability to sit more than 20,000 people in a indoor arena meant that traffic control is serious business. UNC event staff were on hand to direct traffic.


One of several carparks available for parking.


Our tickets. Sent to us via PDF and we had to print them out.




人山人海。


Our tickets only allowed us to sit at designated regions, and the lower levels were already filled up, so we had to sit at the upper level. Slightly furthur away from the action, and with a more passive crowd.


Most spectators will attend UNC games dressed in the distinctive UNC blue, and naturally I had to come in one as well. Bought it at the student store and changed just before the game.


ROTC cadets brought out the State and National Flag, and everyone sang their National Anthem.


For a moment it felt like a concert. Generally on home ground, our players get treated very well, with spotlights on them, and having their names read out as they formed up the team. Opposing players get none of that. In this case Georgia Tech wasn't exactly a rival, so they received neither applause nor boos. Nothing.


And the match started! We played a brilliant first half, with most points coming from three pointers. Not bad considering that UNC failed badly on three pointers in previous games.


College games seem to have unlimited number of timeouts, and each time a timeout was called, our cheerleaders would run around performing their stunts.


At half time, there was this short segment to highlight UNC alumni who are now professional American football players.


End of second half, and the game. I didn't take any photos of the second half itself, but either UNC players got complacent, or Georgia Tech players got a good scolding; Georgia Tech played better in the second half. However it was too late for them to catch up, and some spectators were already seen leaving in the last couple of minutes when it was clear we would win.


Singing some song which I was not aware of.


As spectators began to leave, event staff surrounded the court, probably to ensure no over zealous fan ran onto the court.


We were national champions six times, can we get a seventh this year? Of course, becoming the NCAA champion while I am on exchange here will complete my entire exchange experience, but personally I feel the Tar Heels are a little inconsistent at this point of time, and getting the champion will not be easy. Things will probably become clearer once we play Duke on the 8th.




Waiting for friends to take photos.


US and North Carolina flags.

Now everyone is anxiously waiting for the results of the ticket balloting to the game against Duke on the 8th. After missing out twice, I really hope I will get it this time. What's more, this is THE game.




Shall end this post with two shots done using my Xperia Neo V's sweep panorama function!

Week 3 - Tanger Outlets + Chinese New Year

As lessons go into full swing, our weekend trips have wound down a little as assignments, quizzes and readings start to take over our everyday lives. UNC's policy of continuous assessment is quite potent; bad thing is I have a long list of deadlines to meet, but good thing is there is less weightage on final examinations.

Saturday we went to Tanger Outlets, which as the name implied, was a cluster of factory outlets. The Singaporeans were talking about going there ever since we came, and they were very excited that day. It was one of the rare occasions I actually saw guys got all hyped up for shopping.




We reached there around noon; there were few shoppers around.









Didn't take many photos because, well, it was a shopping area. Prices were indeed much lower than outside, although I'm no expert. Besides those above, there were sports shops like Nike and Converse as well. Interestingly there was a Bose shop there too, but there were no factory prices for their headphones and speakers haha.

I got myself 2 pairs of jeans and a T-shirt at the Levi's store for USD$39.57, and a pair of Columbia shoes for USD$63.94. I got those jeans because they were of types and colours which I didn't have before, and the T-shirt for Chinese New Year's sake. I wanted shoes because I had only one pair there and they took a long time to dry after I played basketball in the rain. However, the Columbia shoes needed some convincing on my friends' part, after they told me they both got theirs in Singapore at around S$180-S$200, and that mine was indeed a steal.

While I decided to skip lunch to lessen the pain of spending a hundred bucks there, my friends, on the other hand, easily chalked up a few hundred bucks each during our half day there, which was scary. Not surprisingly, they postponed the gathering time to set off by an hour, and when we met, they were empty handed, because they have already off loaded their purchases in the cars -.-

After the trip, it was a trip to Li Ming's Global Mart, an Asian market to buy our contributions for the Chinese New Year dinner organized by the Singaporeans studying in UNC. It proved a difficult task just to go to the market because we went to the wrong places, twice.



It was a huge market, selling all kinds of Asian food and drinks.



First time I see so many Asians gathered in one place.

There was no time to take photos, because we were awfully late thanks to us setting off late and going to wrong places. By the time we reached the dinner, it was almost 8pm and food were almost gone.



Large group of Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans there. Majority of non-Singaporeans there were UNC students who had went to Singapore for exchange before, or simply friends or roommates of Singaporeans.

Even though the food were gone, we hanged around to chat, until after midnight, quite a feat if you ask me.



At 1am in the morning, we were still hungry since we didn't eat much, so we drove down to a nearby restaurant to buy supper.



The other car. I liked how she stuck half her body out of the window to take photos, but my photo of her taking photos wasn't nice.

I have a feeling this would not be the last time we visit Tanger and Li Ming.

Sunday was spent studying, or trying to. Haha.

first two weeks

I realised I have been talking all about play, and nothing about everything that is outside play.

Lessons have started for two weeks, so far they are fine. Modules, or classes as they call it here, that I am taking are:

COMP520 Compilers
COMP524 Programming Language Concepts
CHEM251 Introduction to Organic Chemistry
ART104 Basic Drawing and Composition
GEOL103 The Marine Environment
GEOL105 Violent Earth

There is plenty of overlapping content in COMP520 and COMP524, which is not exactly surprising. So far lectures have been similar, where we learn lexical and syntactic analysis, Hopefully the overlapping continues as much as possible, because it will mean an easier job for me hehe. Problems will be that both classes uses Java as the programming language, which I am not good in and will have to catch up.

It was a little of a painful decision to take CHEM251 in place of COMP550 Algorithm Analysis, because I feel Algorithms Analysis is much more important to me. However, I don't think I can stand taking anymore Science modules in NUS. Furthurmore it is quite a bargain for me to take CHEM251 as well because it is only worth 2 credits here [the normal workload is 3], which [hopefully] translates to a easier workload, and there are no labs. And there is my friend and roommate, a Chemistry major, whom I can turn to for help.

For the record, so far I cannot understand anything that is being taught in CHEM251.

The ability to S/U everything taken here allows me to take classes that I might not dare to take in NUS. One example is ART104, or basically, drawing. My friend is taking, and I thought that it is time I should pick up some drawing again. Thinking back, I never had formal drawing lessons, except for the ones in secondary school.

Drawing classes have been fun so far. The art teacher is a typical 'art guy', with no fixed method to teach art, and plays random music when we are drawing.

GEOL105 is another class that I'm taking out of interest, although so far it has been a little less than interesting. Just like COMP550, it was a little of a difficult decision to do this instead of COMP535 Computer Security, which sounds fun according to my friends, so I hope I have not made a wrong decision and this class gets better as the semester moves on.

As for my last class GEOL103, I'm taking it partially because there are other Singaporeans taking it, and partially because I have ran out of classes to take. So far the class is okay I guess; the content taught in the past few lectures were almost exactly the same as that taught in GEOL105, which is the history of Earth. Like before, I hope there will be as much overlap as possible haha.

Unlike NUS, there are no tutorials here; assignments are handed out during lectures, and we hand them in during lectures as well. Therefore the bad thing is that there is no 'first two weeks' honeymoon period; I was handed an assignment on my first COMP520 lecture and the deadline was the following lecture.

After two weeks of computing lectures, I realised that many of my classmates had taken Theory of Computation before, a topic which I am trying to avoid as much as possible. It could be because context free grammar and syntax trees are closely related to that, but could also be because they are genuinely interested in learning it.

Americans in general are quiet when the lecturer is talking ie. they listen attentively. However when in doubt, they do raise their hands and ask aloud, and lecturers are more than willing to answer them. In today's COMP524 lecture, the lecturer asked for a volunteer to answer a question on the board, and the student who volunteered turned out to be clueless about the answer. Nevertheless, everyone helped her out in answering the question, and it turned into a long discussion session instead.

This is a stark contrast from Singapore, where students typically don't ask questions aloud during lectures, or volunteer to answer questions unless they are very confident they will get them correct. Maybe Asians have a 面子 issue. Over here, students are not afraid that they may ask stupid questions; they just ask. [Someone asked during a COMP524 lecture what is x86, and what is ARM, questions that some of my elitist friends would have laughed at.]

That's all for now, shall be back again soon.

First roadtrip - Asheville

This weekend was one of the rare long weekends that we would have during our stay here; Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

While it was obvious we should have a trip out of school over the long weekend, up till Friday night we still had no firm plans on where to go, because in the days leading up to it we were all pretty much "in our own worlds". Friday night after dinner we were coming up with last minute plans, switching between Washington DC, Asheville and the Streets of Southpoint, a commercial area about 15 minutes drive away [in which I would had been disappointed if we had decided on that].

After many discussions over mode of transportation, accommodation and the number of people going, we finally settled on two rental cars of eight Singaporeans and two Hong Kong-ers to Asheville, a city about 4 hours drive away.


One of the two cars we rented. Although its quite well known that the best way to get around America is by car, we had to be there to realise just how inconvenient it was to be without a car.


Taking photos of the Bell Tower while waiting for the other car. Our two-car convoy didn't start off well when we separated, within school compound >.< The road that we were supposed to take was closed, and we weren't communicating on where we should go instead.


After the initial jitters, we were on our way again. Idea here was that the second car would follow the first car closely, even if the first car made a mistake and took a wrong turn. And we would keep each other in contact via mobile phone.


Left hand drive took the drivers a while to get used to. In the beginning we were making mistakes like turning into opposite lanes of roads. Luckily we never went head-on into another car.


Random scenery shots along the way.








I have always thought that the Magic School Bus was just a cartoon. Turns out, school buses in the States were really like this.


Took a toilet break halfway into the journey, at a petrol station.




Our cars.


Finally we were reaching!


Where we would stay for two nights: Bon Paul & Sharky's Hostel.


One of the rooms where six of us would be sleeping in.


My bed!


It was a nice cosy house.


Dining area.


Living room haha.


Not a TV.


After we had put down our bags we went on to Downtown Asheville.


Nice little town.


Anyone dares to park in a carpark like this?


Vance Monument dedicated to Zebulon Baird Vance.


Heading for dinner.


Dinner was at this superb Indian restaurant as recommended by the hostel owner. A little on the expensive side, but food was delicious. I had the best naan bread ever there.


Quick stop at a nearby supermarket.


And then a shopping mall and a bookstore..which i did not buy anything.


At night it began to snow a little. Was trying to capture the snowing, but wasn't really successful.


The little streaks at the light were the snowflakes.


Excited us braved the cold to try to take photos.


Taking photos on the middle of the road, with the occasional passing car.


After one night of light snow. The blur was actually due to the car window fogging up.


Early second morning we were on a way to ski!


Destination was Blowing Rock, a town near Asheville.


And I thought I had already seen enough snow in Korea.










Road looked slippery to me, but I think my friends drove a little too fast for comfort, especially when we were going up the mountains where one wrong move would send us tumbling down the slope.


We missed a turn, and the recalculated route by the GPS brought us through this snow filled road. For a moment it felt like Ex Wallaby in Australia, except this time round it was all snow instead of sand.


Arrival at the Appalachian Ski Mountain!


Optical illusion: shoe marks made by us.


While I am not sure, I think the snow used here was all real, unlike Jisan Ski Resort in Korea where artificial snow was used.


This was the easiest of the slopes. Personally I think this was way better than Jisan's beginner slope. For one, the slope ended in another upward slope, so one would definitely stop at the bottom of the slope.


The beginner slope came with escalators to bring us up! Another plus over Jisan where we had to walk up ourselves.


Many people enjoying themselves.


Immediate to advanced slopes which I was not confident enough to try.


Unlike Jisan where they gave each person two poles, over here it was up to one whether he wanted poles or not. Many parents were teaching kids how to ski without poles.


Snowboarding was available as well.


Like Korea, it was more of a half day ski. We had to leave early so that we could go down the mountains before the Sun set.


Stopped at the road shoulder suddenly...


...to take photos of the sunset.


Dinner was at Chillies. Shown here were appetizers, which was almost a meal itself.


My main course. Almost couldn't finish it.


Early Monday morning we began our journey back to Chapel Hill.


Stopped halfway for breakfast. This breakfast set cost US$5, where the price looked ok, until one converted it to SGD.


Trucks running down twisty highways were no joking matter. There were signs specifying speed limits for trucks [65mph for us vs 35mph for them], signs telling them to stop by the road shoulder to cool their brakes, signs telling us that if trucks were flashing their lights it meant they were going too fast, and runaway ramps at the side of highways to stop these trucks.

This trip was a nice one, although I think I had spent way too much money. Not enough thought had been put into this trip as well, given that it was so last minute. I guess we could all take some lessons away from this, and the most important one would definitely be: plan early.

Asheville + Appalachian Ski Mountain, Blowing Rock