Too expensive to eat out? COOK yourself!!!

Before coming to U.S., I never had a chance to "live" on my own. I mean, I stay at school dormitories, where have no kitchen so I can't cook myself. What's more, school in China has very big canteen where students can enjoy food with a really cheap price. Therefore, I have no motivation or facility to cook in my previous school life. It was really a pity because cooking is such an important part of "life", by doing which you can relax and please yourself.
Because I didn't have any experience cooking, I always regard myself as a bad chef. But after coming to U.S., kitchen has become my favorite room of my apartment (even though it's so small). Eating out is necessary and delighted, but the cost will be high compared to cooking at home. So, cooking is a good way to save my budget.
Well, you may think that cooking seems to be perfect, but, it's only true when you cook well and you really like your D.I.Y dishes, which is definitely not easy, as a novice in cooking.
I will just talk about my experience in cooking and learning how to cook, my successes and failures through learning. Only two months in U.S., I found myself improving dramatically in cooking. From the very beginning, I can only cook very simple dishes like dumplings and noodles. But now, I can cook very difficult Chinese dishes and I even have the confidence to invite my friends to taste my work.

Shopping for materials:
Before cooking, the most important part is to get all the ingredients, seasonings, raw materials ready. It's not a easy part because firstly, you can not always get what you want in a market; Second, don't forget you want to lower the costs so choose the right place and right thing to buy is not as easy as you may have imagines; finally, choose the good ones from a bunch of food there in the market is requiring  a lot of knowledge about food. So, in a word, preparation is fairly important and it's never easy.
I usually buy food at two places, the first one is Fresh Grocer, at 40th & Walnut, because it's the nearest market where I can buy fresh food. However, the food and seasonings at Fresh Grocer is slightly more expensive than other markets. As the old saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too. So either compromise for the convenience or sacrifice the convenience for lower prices. Generally the stuff at Fresh Grocer are very good, so you can buy something that you need immediately there since it's close to campus.
Another place is the Asian Supermarket in Chinatown, yes, it's really far from the campus, but it's really good in two aspects that no other markets can compare. First and most important, you can buy things, especially seasonings and flavorings from Asian countries like China in that market. It's such a good feature because it enables us to cook the dishes in a "Chinese" flavor. Besides, the groceries there are cheaper than other markets. So, my solution is to go to Chinatown every two or three weeks and buy all the things that I need for the following month in one time. (Tips: don't forget to call a male friend to help you to carry the things, or you will be struggling all the way back.)

Food keeping and preparation
It's a seemingly very simple step but I made a lot of mistakes here. In the first place, you have to know where is the right place to keep your materials from being rotten and from mice. Apart from that, you have to be aware of the expiration date of the food. Don't keep the fresh food for too long. Finally, before cooking, you have to melt the food in the fridge from frozen, this may take a few hours so that you have to do it early before you cook.

Learning to cook
You can learn to cook via various methods. Most people will read recipe from internet or books. But I really recommend the way I learned because I think it's efficient, that is, to find a friend who's good at cooking and watch him/her cooking. It's really easy, because after you watch him/her cooking for once, you can cook yourself next time.

Well, I'm really a novice in cooking so I'm just trying to share some of my past experiences here. No matter how good the taste of your dishes is, the most important thing is the joy you get from the process of cooking.

And here are some pictures of dishes cooked by myself. I think it looks awesome myself, what do you say?

Eating in Philly (Ctd)

I went to a very famous noodle restaurant in Chinatown last weekend. It's at 927 Race Street, the name is Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle House. This noodle house has been recommended by many of my friends so I decided to try it. It's a very small place with only about 10 four-people tables inside, but it's really crowded because the waiting queue is long. Not only Chinese people are eating there but Americans as well.
They have many choices for noodles on the menu and the price is really good. The taste is even better, making me feel like being in China.
Really recommend.

Eating in Philly

Searching for the delicious food has always been one of my hobbies. Since I came to Philly, I went to several restaurants in Philly, some are in the campus, some are off-campus, and I will recommend some places that have great taste in my opinion.

Shanghai Sakura Restaurant at Chinatown, 11th & Race.
They have Chinese food and Japanese food there. The Shanghai food there is what I like the most, the taste is really as good as ones in Shanghai. The choices of the food are plenty and the price is really reasonable.

New Delhi, 40th & Chestnut St.
Great Indian food, you can choose to order or choose to have a buffet. The buffet is really a good bargain, food have great taste and you can get plenty of them while the price is quite reasonable. They have buffet at both lunch and dinner, the price is slightly different, lunch buffet is a little bit cheaper.

Geno's Steaks and Pat's King of Steaks has been said to be the best two cheese steaks in Philly. It's said that Pat's is No.1 and Geno is No.2. The interesting part is that these two are on the opposite of each other on the same street and have always been competing with each other. So, if you really have a big stomach, try both of them and see which one do you like better.

峨眉山庄, a Sichuan Restaurant located in Chinatown, a very famous one in Philly.
If you are a spicy food fan, you must try it. It's tasty, but really spicy, Sichuan taste of food.
It's a goof place where more than 4 people eat together, so you can order more dishes to share. Eating there with only 2 or 3 people might not be a good idea in my opinion.

There will be more introduction about eating in Philly after I explore more places in Philly.

P.S. On Nov. 12th, we are going to have a on-campus Info Session, welcome to learn more about GSE and meet the faculty and staff and current students there!

Trip to Atlantic City

Atlantic City, which is “a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining", is only an hour drive from Philadelphia. It's a great experience to travel with my classmates to there, even though we didn't gamble.

The casino there looks very grand and glamorous. Many people are busy gambling there and there are a lot more going on outside the casino too, food are extremely good in the building, and we went to Chinese restaurant since we really miss the taste of our country.

But the most amazing part of the Atlantic city in my eyes are not casino or food, it's the beautiful beach under the sunshine.

Walking along the beach under the big sunshine is really a joy that you may not find inside the dark casino room. This really fascinated me, the contrast between the inside and outside of the building of Taj Mahal, and I guess that's the point why Atlantic City is being so unique and attractive,

The places you can't miss in Philly

Philadelphia is the one of the oldest city with a lot of history, so, there are several places that you can never miss about Philly, which represent the long history of this city.

Liberty Bell:
The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American Independence, formerly placed in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House (now renamed Independence Hall), the bell was commissioned from the London firm of Lester and Pack in 1752, and was cast with the lettering "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." It originally cracked when first rung after arrival in Philadelphia, and was twice recast by local workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose last names appear on the bell. In its early years, the Liberty Bell was used to summon lawmakers to legislative sessions and to alert citizens to public meetings and proclamations. (from Wikipedia)

 The opposite of the Liberty Bell is the Independence Hall:
Independence Hall was built between 1732 and 1753, designed by Edmund Woolley and Andrew Hamilton, and built by Woolley. Its construction was commissioned by the Pennsylvania colonial legislature which paid for construction as funds were available, so it was finished piecemeal.[5] It was initially inhabited by the colonial government of Pennsylvania as its State House, from 1732 to 1799.[4] (from Wikipedia)
One thing amazing about Independence Hall is that they have amazing tour guides, who will introduce you the history in a vivid way. So I really recommend to take a tour at Independence Hall and enjoy the stories told by them, a vivid American history lesson.

After visiting those historical spots, I walk down the 5th street to south street, which is an extremely interesting corridor with a lot of small shops where you can find treasures.

Trip to Center City of Philadelphia: Occupy Philly and In memory of Steve Jobs

I went to the center city with my friends the week before the last week (Sorry for the delay of the blog), and It was a wonderful trip. We first went to Chinatown to have lunch at a famous Sichuan Restaurant called 峨眉山庄 (not so sure about the English Name). The food there were really good, and of course, very spicy, as the most Sichuan food are.

After the lunch, we went to the City Hall, and since "Occupy Philly" is going on that day, the city hall looks so different. People are having speech there, spreading flyers.

As an international student from China, I am really impressed and shocked to see those kind of  protest.
And we also went to the Apple Store, since that was the day after Steve Jobs passed away, many people are writing something on the paper and stick it to the window of the Apple Store. People are really sad about the lost of a great mind.

My internship at Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians

Even though I am in my first year of the master program, the professors encourage us to go out and practice what we've learned from the classes. One of my courses require a Services Learning Project, which means you have to work in a place where can enhance your understanding of Intercultural Communication for at least 4 hours/week. So I began to search for voluntary opportunities and after a series of interview, I got admitted by the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians. Welcoming Center is a NGO and NPO, which is engaged in helping immigrants to start career in the United States. What I am doing exactly is helping small business owners, especially immigrant small business owners in the corridors in West and South Philadelphia. I cannot talk more details about the work I was doing because of the privacy issues, but what I can say is that I found this job very interesting and challenging. It provides me the perfect place to have a close observation of Intercultural Communications among those immigrant store owners. And I really appreciate the professor give me this assignment so I can push myself to seek for chances to expose to the real world.