New Friend! MTD Bus Driver

Wow..it's cool! One of my friend in Illinois is a MTD bus driver.
He is not just a bus driver but a English teacher in China for one year.
When I was waiting Green 50 East to Illini Union, he was driving Lavender 30.
He stopped ,opened the door, and asked me where I was going.
I got on the bus and ask him if this bus was heading for Illini Terminal because I don't want to wait.
He answered "yes" and had a short talk with me.
Before I got off the bus, he left he email address on a pass.

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Farmer's Market in Lincoln Square and Taste of Champaign

On This weekend, I spent one day to visit Lincoln Square in Urbana. Tourists can reach there by taking Green 5/50 E or Silver 130.

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A local market fair, Farmer's Market,is always held on Saturday morning.

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Vendors selling fresh produce, art crafts, and home-made foods are all local. I paid 2 dollars for a cup vanilla ice cream and 5 dollars for two cards, one for my father and the other for my father-in-law.

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Today was a pretty sunny day with a blue sky. People brought their dogs or lovely kids to this market to get some thing. There were also some artists performing around corners.

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Then, I took Green west to Taste of Champaign-Urbana which is held by The Champaign Park District.

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Before entering the park to enjoy food, I have to get tickets at this booth.

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Various food items include hmaburgers, chicken grills, thai food, ice cream, hot dogs, sandwiches, gyros, lemonade, and much more!

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I had a corn dog for my lunch....and a cup of dippin dots

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There's a feast for ears too. You can enjoy free concerts all day long here from some of the best bands. Listening to music from these bands under under this such a sunny day is a different experience.

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There's plenty of fun for all ages. A booth sold suger bear for pocket pets and tought people how to adopt this cute animal in the family.

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One booth sold sugar bears as pets, actually pocket pets. A man sitting in from of the booth held a sugar in his hand. It is really cut and tamed. He said sugar bear are small marsupials which are native to rainforests of Australia and Indonesia. They like to eat any fruits and vegetables that are sweet. And,sugar bears are very safe to people and very clean. However, it's so expensive to have a sugar bear, though the cost of food for raise a sugar bear is much less than that for a dog.

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I also stopped by taking a look in some artist booths located throughout the park that weekend. From paintings and pottery to ceramics and crafts, there's sure to be something different for me at Taste of Champaign-Urbana 2009.

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Before I left, I dropped by the booth of MTD and got some free gifts.

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Tour in UIUC Campus

UIUC has many wonderful buildings and facilities for students, such as Illini Union, Quad, Libraries, ARC and greeny lowns.

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The computers installed in the Labs are tatally brand new Apple Mac.


The main transportation in Champaign/Urbana for students, except driving cars, is MTD, a convenient and free tool to access to many places.

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Market Place

Just arrived at CMI UIUC

After taking a short flight from D.C. to BWI and transferred at Chicago, I arrived UIUC yesterday.
CMI Willard airport is local one and is owned and managed by University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

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Ming-che picked me up at 14:30 and showed me some places for shopping glocery. He also told me how to take bus in local area. Ming-che is so kind and so patient to help me adapt this new environment.
When moving into the house subleased from a student posting it on the UIUC TSA website, I found this is a cheap place to live;however, I have to endure something, such as poor housing management, no mail pick-up for residence, poor utilities...etc. It's jsut kind of trade off.

Moreover, I went to National City Bank to open accounts. Without bank accouts I couldn't banking in a easy way. I got two accouts and am supposely to have a debit card 10 days later.

Also I went to IEI to register my language program and I have to visit IEI office several times in the following days.