Today marks two major events: Ascend @ the Student Involvement Fair and KF’s birthday celebration!
Ascend’s table was very decent – we had a poster board, a QR Code stand, a tablecloth (I borrowed from CTS’ food corner), and gift bags. Our gift bags were colorful envelopes, inside = asian candies and our info cards to welcome people and introduce ourselves. It was hot as hell, but OSI provided cold water, so we were chilling. The main issue was the wind, as it was blowing in the wrong direction and we needed to do some engineering work to keep the board standing. Pro tip for next year – always bring tapes with you because you never know when you’ll need it.
I dipped involvement fair early to hangout with KF because it was his birthday!!! We trained to Penn Landing to do the “Pirate Rum Challenge” @ Independence Seaport Museum (211 S Christopher Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19106). Today was actually the last day that they run this program. The program featured a series of fun challenges that imitated the work of a pirate and was sponsored by Barcadi. If I have to name my favorite challenge, it was probably Crown and Anchor – a simple gambling game involved dices and a board, very similar to bầu cua; we used fake coins to bet with. I also enjoyed plank walking, knot tying, bean bag throwing, and jenga. If you pay attention to one of the pictures below, you will see that they had very scary shark on display!
Dinner was handpicked by the birthday boy at BAI WEI or Sakura Garden (1038 Race St, Philadelphia, PA 19107). We had the three treasure dish with tempura-style shrimps, squids, and scallops. On top of that were silken crunchy tofu with shrimp in dark sauce. Simple but so tasty! After that, I took him to Kulu Desserts (115 N 9th St, Philadelphia, PA 19107) for a HongKong waffle – his favorite dessert and he has been craving it for so long. We did wait for 15 mins plus, but at least the waffle was KF-approved, just a little oilier than it’s supposed to be.
Then we rushed back to Villanova because I had a little gathering for him. I invited a lot of people – everyone we hung out and are mutual friends. Some couldn’t make it due to distances and commitments, but I’m glad those who were able to attend got along well and had a great time. I didn’t get him a traditional birthday cake but a huge ice cream tub instead, because I’m sure we would be too full to have anything heavy at that point. We hung out till past 1 AM. We were so ready to pass out by the time we got back!
I hope KF had a memorable day with me and our friends. He told me that he wasn’t used to having a lot of people on his birthday, so the idea of having everyone over was a little overwhelming at first. But with a little coordination and encouragement, we were able to make this happen smoothly.
Trang "Tee" Nguyen 