College Touring

Since Jessica is becoming a senior in the Fall of 2014 and starting her college applications, the family decided to go to on a college tour as the family summer vacation. As the family toured several of the UCs (UC San Diego, UC Los Angeles, UC Irvine) and some private schools (Pomona College and University of Southern California), they also stopped by several other tour sites along the way. It was a great way for Jessica to find which school she liked best and wanted to attend the next year.

The first stop was Hearst's Castle. The castle was built by William Randolph Hearst as his home and a hotel for many of his guests or business partners to stay and be entertained. The castle sat next to a beautiful beach and was built in a very European style. 

 Here is a picture of Mom standing in the main living room of Heart Castle! 

This was one of the four statues that stood in the movie theater in the castle.

This was the main entrance to the castle. You can see that it is truly designed to look like a castle and has a bit of European style mixed with it. 

The palm trees near the castle gave the castle a tropical look overall especially since it was placed right next to the beach.

Here is one of the various statues that were placed around the castle!

After visiting Hearst's Castle, the family decided to stay at Gaslamp Plaza Suites. This was placed in Gaslamp Quarter, which is a district in San Diego with many sources of entertainment. The main street was originally supposedly the street with the old-fashioned Gas Lamps, but when the family visited, we noticed that the lamps had already all been replaced with modern streetlights. 

The next day, we visited a beach that was right next to the Gas Lamp street. This beach had a U.S Navy ship and had a memorial for those who had passed away in service. 

Here is Dad posing with statues that were looking at the main statue.. (below)

Bob, the figure that the statue shows, was a famous radio speaker and was praised for having a great program.

The next stop for the family was a visit to the University of California, San Diego. The school had various art works spread around throughout the campus: some which were made by students attending the school, and some that represented traditions. 

Here is a picture of Jessica and Mom with the tour group! 

This is the main library: Geisel Library. It was truly beautiful and not only went high above the ground, but also went underground too. 

Nearby, the family saw a strange little house that was dangling off the edge of one of the school buildings. When we asked the tour guide about it, he said that it was another art piece that was made by a Korean person! 

When we went to the roof to see the house, we found that it was tilted. The guide explained that the Korean student made this tilted house to show how "dizzy" and confusing it was for her when she first moved to America and was trying to get used to the different customs and traditions. 

This was another art piece that was placed in the middle of the school! The bird, named Sun God, on top of the arch made the shape of an A, and it is said that when there is a big test, students walk backwards through the arch with their eyes closed to hope that they get an A on their tests.

The nest stop was UC Irvine! The school was very unique: all of the buildings surrounded a circular sidewalk, which surrounded a large park filled with giant trees and lots of nature. 

The tour that came next was at the University of California, Los Angeles. The school was one of the most beautiful campuses out of all the schools that the family visited during the tour. The buildings were grand and it is said that UCLA comes out as Harvard more that Harvard comes out as Harvard in movies. 

This is a picture of Powell Library. The building was very big and the inside was very different from the outside. While the outer layer gave a feeling of antique, the inside was filled with more modern designs. 

Since the family was in Los Angeles, we decided to visit The Last Bookstore, which is one of the last bookstores in the country to both buy and sell books. The bookstore was filled with not only books that were available for people to buy and read but also lots of artwork that were both related and unrelated to books at all. 

This was a gallery in one of the hallways that was filled with various artworks.

A section of the bookstore was color coded! Here you can see Dad standing in front of the blue books.

And here is Jessica in front of the yellow, orange, and red books! 

This was one of the pieces of art that was done with the books. Isn't it awesome?

There was also a book arch for people to walk under! 

This was right outside of the bookstore: a piano with music floating around! 

The next college that the family visited was Pomona College. The private college was part of the Claremont Consortium. This means that five colleges including Pomona College share classes and so the students from each of the schools can take classes with each other, which makes the amount of available classes larger but allows the school itself  to stay small. 

The last school that the family visited was University of Southern California. The campus was very beautiful, and we could understand why it was the rivals with UCLA. 

Here is a picture of Jessica and Mom in one of the USC classrooms! The classrooms had very unique desks which rotated in different angles. 

Apparently this is the most "instagram-able" part of the campus! 

After finishing the tours of all the schools, the last stop that the family made was in Solvang village. This village had deep roots in Denmark and the family ate at a Danish restaurant for the day! 

This windmill was the most noticeable thing in the entire village. It was so big and beautiful that we couldn't help but take a picture in front of it. 

The buildings were very different from the typical ones in America!