My first UNC vs Duke Game Day Experience!!

February 20th, 2014.
8 days after the beginning of the snow day.
All traces of snow were gone, it was warmer than usual, and the entire campus was all excited for...
...the UNC vs Duke game!!!
after getting postponed for 8 days, one of the hottest NCAA rivalry game was finally here!

There were 2 posters(?) hanging over the pit.
The one on the right was relatively new, because it was hung after the snow days.
I kind of like the pun. "There 'snow' excuse..." haha

One thing really sad about that day was that... I didn't get the ticket for the game... T_T
Well, it is actually my fault because I didn't register for the ticket lottery.
(mainly because I thought I was going to be really busy on the game day)

Someday, Dean Dome.... SOMEDAY!!
I will go watch the UNC vs Duke basketball game before I graduate!
T_T

Since that was my situation, I watched ESPN's live broadcast of the game at my dorm's viewing party.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
don't do this to me ESPN...
Don't pour salt on my open wound of sadness(?) for not being able to be there at the Dean Smith Center...
You know I really wanted to be there!...
T_T

at least I learned how the past 86 games went...
43 wins and 42 losses.
Yay, we have 1 more victory!!! :D

Some of the fellow Tar Heels in the viewing party (including my suitemate) brought their laptops because they had a lot of homework to do.
But eventually.....

... they all paid more attention on the game than on their assignments.
Haha, don't tell me you guys didn't know this was going to happen. :P

Everybody is focusing onto the game!.png
Although I didn't get to see the game at the Dean Dome, I still had a lot of fun watching the Duke game with my friends at the viewing party.

We all cheered together, made a lot of noise, and etc.
All of these made my first UNC vs Duke game experience very satisfying. ^_^



These are the highlights from the game.
Woohoo! Yeah!!
I don't get to see these kind of epic moves everyday back where I'm from, not even in the professional league!

(watch the entire game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9Ck7co6uLQ)

At the first half, I was like "aw man... this is not looking good" because our team was missing almost every free throws, but at the second half, the Tar Heels came back with a really dramatic turn around!!

and then, we won 66 to 74!!
YEEAAAAH!!!

Coincidentally, there's a lot of 8's related to this game:
-Duke didn't show up because of the snow 8 days ago
-Chapel Hill is only 8 miles away from Durham.
-Duke was beaten by 8 points

so, somebody made a meme like this one, and someone else even made a t-shirt about this.


and as soon as the game was over...

Everybody rushed to Franklin Street!
My, oh my!
Even though Tar Heels do this every time they beat duke, I've never thought I'd get to experience this on my first year at UNC!

So many people, SO MUCH EXCITEMENT!
I had a blast!
I've never had this much fun since my trip to Osaka, Japan last summer!

All of a sudden, everybody was looking upward at a certain direction.

What do you know? there was this guy climbing up the pole!

and like this, Chapel Hill was restless all night long!!


I came back into my dorm at 12AM, so that I could edit all of the videos I filmed that night.


That "Rush to Franklin Street!"

I can't emphasize enough of how much fun I had that night.
I really had a time of my life, both during the game and after the game!
My experience in UNC has been so fantastic so far that, for the first time in my life, I actually felt proud of my school.
It Really Is Good To Be A Tar Heel! :D

Snow again in Chapel Hill, Cancelled Classes, and Postponed Basketball Game.

February 12th, 2014.... guess what?

 It snowed again!!!
A lot more than it did last time!!

It looks like this much snow can completely mess up the traffic in North Carolina,
which is completely understandable because it doesn't snow much in the South.

well, at this moment, UNC has announced all classes from 1 PM Wednesday to 9 AM Thursday were cancelled (That's why I headed to my dorm as soon as I had my lunch.)

On top of that, I had heard that many people would not show up to the UNC vs Duke game because of the inclement weather. Therefore I had made my mind to try the standby lines for the game, and took a short nap.

That composition, which always makes a nice picture.png
When I woke up, I had noticed that it had snowed even more!
and.... I really like the composition of the main gate of Koury, so... again, I took a picture of that.

Although, there are some footprints, more snow seemed to have softened them a little while I was sleeping.

 And because of that,
UNC has announced "ALL CLASSES ON THURSDAY CANCELLED!!"
But........
The Duke game was also cancelled.... (NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!)

Numerous Tar Heels were outraged.
and countless criticisms were flooding the facebook page "Overheard on UNC," like these for example:

Some expressed their anger by starting an "On-foot roundtrip to Duke" movement.
and THEY ACTUALLY DID IT!!

....aaaaaand.....
there was also this:

Likewise, many of us Tar Heels were pissed, because the game got cancelled.

So I just decided to take some photos of the scenes around Koury.

Let's not forget the back side of Koury this time.

Ooh, nice scenery.

This was E-haus dorm, which is right next to Koury.

and a little to the right, I spotted a rather clean and untouched blanket of snow.

This time, there were bigger snowmen around campus.

Well, as you see, this was the approximate amount of snowfall in Chapel Hill.
Just deep enough for our feet to sink completely.

This scene was just gorgeous.
it's kind of sad because it never is this pretty without snow.

Lastly, I took this picture before heading inside.
Another picture with minimal footprints in the snow.

After having a good rest on this day, the University had announced all classes on Friday are cancelled, because it had snowed even more.
Thanks to that, I got some extra time to rest, catch up on my homework, and study for one of my midterms, but not enough for me to write a new blog post (which is why I'm posting this now...)

Anyway, it still was a nice 5-day weekend!! :D
(except for Duke not showing up, of course)

Snow in Chapel Hill, and My Roommate's Birthday Dinner at TOPO

January 28th, 2014

It was snowing at UNC Chapel Hill, and it actually managed to stick on the ground.

(It was actually surprising because I wasn't really expecting to see snow while I'm at UNC)

This day was also the birthday of my roommate.

So, my roommate, 2 of his friends, and I took the P2P Express bus to Franklin Street to have a birthday dinner...... at 9 PM!!

Well, here we are.

My roommate wanted to have his birthday dinner at 'Top of the Hill' of Franklin Street.

So, all 4 of us decided to go there.

Top of the Hill is at the top floor that building, where the green roof(?) is

The entrance is located at the side of the building.

As you can see, there is a small sign that indicates where the entrance to Top of the Hill is.

From there, you can take the elevator to go up.

The 4 of us made it to Top of the Hill (a.k.a. TOPO)

The interior of TOPO was decorated(?) with all of these machines, that I'm not sure if they're really using them or not (I'm guessing that they are).

There are also balcony seats at Top of the Hill

informative(?) picture for those of you who like alcohol.png

Bars don't really have much to do with me because I live a sub-free life.

The 4 of us sat around this table
We were the only people there (probably because it was snowing, and it was past 9PM), so it felt as if we rented the whole restaurant! :D

After we looked through this menu, we started to order food.

Yeah, the food they sell here seems to be one of the most expensive ones in Franklin Street.

We got some Sweet Potato Cheese Fries, and uh... some sort of salad for appetizer.

It is really fun to take pictures of food.
It always has been, ever since I did so in my Korean blog :D


Then, we got our entrees

One of the friends ordered Slow Country Pork & Grits

Another friend ordered Edamame Burger

My roommate (the birthday boy) ordered the most expensive menu, New York Strip Steak.

It looked soooooo delicious.

Maybe I should have ordered this too.

Thai Grilled Salmon.
This was what I ordered that night

On the contrary to my expectations, it turned out really good.
I liked it very much!

I actually tried a little bit of everything, and I liked everything....except for the edamame burger.
I personally think TOPO is a really nice place to eat at Chapel Hill.

After we finished dining at TOPO, I took this picture before leaving, hoping for a picture with good composition...

Looks like it has snowed more while we were eating at Top of the Hill.
I took some pictures while we were waiting for the P2P that would take us back to our dorm.

This street seemed prettier than it normally did, thanks to the snow!

One of the friends asked me to try taking a picture with this composition while we were waiting for P2P, so I did.
It doesn't look bad, but I personally don't think it turned out that well either.

This time, without the tree.

Then, we took the P2P and came back to south campus.

Because there are less cars in south campus, the roads seemed whiter than they are at Franklin Street.

I always wanted to take a picture like this one.
I just really like how snow looks during the moment when it's piling up.
It looks so soft, at the same time, a little bit shiny (due to the reflections caused by the snow flakes)

Manning West has never looked more beautiful.

Possibly one of the best shot of that day.
While I was having so much fun taking pictures of South Campus, the 3 friends were all walking away without me.
However, I luckily got this awesome composition.

I really like this picture, and so did all 3 of them.
(All of us are now using this as our cover photo on Facebook :D)

Walking to Manning East, where our dorm is.

....and we reached Manning East, and it never seemed more beautiful.

We were just about to head back into Koury, but we noticed....

Huh, a police car?
What's going on at Skipper Bowles Drive?

Looks like many of the South Campus residents were enjoying the snow, and the police was there to close down the road, so that students can play there.

I would've loved to join them and play, but my hands were frozen because of too much photo shooting.

It was getting pretty cold for us, and I needed to get some sleep for my 8AM class on the next day (which got cancelled, so I got some extra sleep.)

Before we headed back into Koury, we spotted 2 snowmen.

I figured it would be nice to try playing around with depth of field with my T3i

Well, what do you know?

Both of these turned out better than I espected :D

(If you want to, you can use them for your background picture)

And after that, we headed back into our dorm, where warmth awaits.