A Great Dinner Course

By Byoung Goo Kim
(Orange class)
August Student of the Month



This was the first time I tried this restaurant and because I’m leaving Seattle, it will be the last time. I can't rave enough about how happy Queen Sheba makes me.

From the moment you walk in, the atmosphere makes you feel at home. It's clean and beautifully decorated, and you feel just as comfortable on a date there as you do enjoying a meal on your own. Every table is a little unique, and every host, server and chef has their own personality.

This restaurant serves great authentic Ethiopian food. There is lamb, beef, chicken, potatoes…and so on.

I recommend sharing dishes as there is a lot to experience. Whenever I visit a restaurant, we always share dishes so that we can experience more flavors and dishes. Some of the dishes are a little too oily but overall it is awesome for an African experience.

I'd highly recommend it to anybody.

The Queen Sheba is a great place to stop in for dinner or anytime.

After the great dinner why don’t you go to have some desserts? Near the Queen Sheba there’s a place for desserts.

For a late night sugar craving or if you also like the out of the way independent type coffee and dessert place the B & O is the place to be!

For me the decor, flavors, and certainly the company that I am with makes every visit I have had there pleasant. So you can either go with a friend or two and fully enjoy each other's company or by yourself with a book.

Interview with a Supervisor of Parkland Starbucks

By Azumi Kawabe
(Yellow class)

I had an interview with DJ who is a shift supervisor at Parkland Starbucks.

How long have you been working at Starbucks?

Over two years.

What is the most important thing for you to work here?

I have two. First of all the feeling that I love this company, to keep mission statement and seek excellent customer service as intro-during something for customers, etc. The other one is benefits. All partners have to get benefits fairly; not only full-time partners but also part-time partners.

Why did you choose this job?

I was in central Washington for college. I learned PE (Physical Education) and had a connection to the Starbucks so I started to work here.

What is the most difficult thing when you work?

I think Starbucks is not a fast food restaurant, but also especially this Starbucks had a drive-through system so drinks should be prepared in around three minutes. It means speed is also important. So I sometimes struggle for balance between customer service and speed. In addition, I think the relationship is important but that depends on each customer. Some customers want or need talking with a partner or having fun or good feeling through a cup of coffee but others just need coffee so we have to watch and think about each customer.

Does this job match with your personality?

Yes. I love this job. I didn’t like coffee before I started to work at Starbucks, but now I have coffee every day, even when I do not work. If customers who have never been to Starbucks before, come, I will talk with them and introduce them to coffee. What today’s coffee, café latte and Frappuccino are and I like that and have fun with them so I think this job matches me.

I heard that Starbucks especially Parkland Starbucks is very involved with the community. In the store, there is a basket to gather school things like notebooks, pencils and crayons for a nearby elementary school as a donation. They donate pastries for school or people once or twice a month. When I worked at Starbucks in Japan, I have never seen or heard about donations so I really like the system and I think this is excellent. Besides, personally, I found there are so many kinds of decaf coffee at the store. In Japan, there is only one kind of decaf coffee (coffee beans and coffee). My father likes decaf coffee but he sometimes hesitates to order decaf coffee because it causes trouble for employees and sometimes employees look like they think it is annoying. In the United Sates, I feel like each partner and Starbucks coffee company think well about each customer and their needs.

Basketball at PLU

By Jason
Jeong Seok Lee
(Orange class)

“Wow, this place is very good for playing basketball.” This was the first sentence when I went into the PLU’s gym for the first time. I thought it was quite right that I chose this school by reason of the basketball court. Actually, it was hard to play basketball indoors in Korea because there were few indoor basketball courts and it was difficult to use them. Therefore I had no opportunity to play basketball inside the gym before I came here. Also, I couldn’t use the indoor basketball court in my university because my university’s basketball team always played in the gym for practice and real game with other teams. However, I could use the indoor court in PLU many times. They shared the court many times even though PLU has its own teams for men and women. So I have played basketball indoors since I arrived in the U.S.A.

I could make many foreign friends with playing basketball in the gym. Everybody knows basketball makes every player get along like a house on fire, so I made many good friends. Besides, I could have many chances to talk with American guys after I played a game with them. I’m sure that was so great for improving my English as I’m an abroad student who cannot have many chances of talking with natives. One day, when one of them asked my opinion about Seattle Super Sonics, we discussed that a lot. It was one of my good memories what I did something good for English here.

I want to recommend you play some sports like basketball if you like sports even if you are a girl. It certainly helps you make many friends. If you don’t like playing any sports, you have to try that because, it’s very important not for your only relationship with foreign friends, but also your health in America. You may know that it’s easy to get fat here because of food. Why don’t you play basketball if you cannot, for the life of you, play any sports?

COMICS: First Day in Embassy

By Jonas Tsai (Yellow class)

How & Why Did I Get a Driver's License?

By Ju-Young Lee
(Yellow class)

Although I had driven a car for more than two years before I came to the United States, I did not even get an international driver’s license, because I just could not even imagine that it would be so tough to live in Tacoma without having my own car. After all, I decided to purchase a used car. Of course, the first thing I had to do was pass the test for a driver’s license.

According to what all my friends who already took the test before said, all I had to show the staff of the department of licensing were my passport and I-20, so I brought them to the department of licensing. After I entered there, I picked the ticket showing my turn, and my turn came after waiting in line for almost an hour. I was just really looking forward to taking and passing the test. However, I was rejected by one of the staff in the department of licensing. The reason why I was rejected was that I didn’t bring someone or some documents to prove that I’m living in the U.S. The guy who treated me said, because the number of people who live in America as students has increased steadily year by year and they don’t live here for a long time, the government decided to be strict and stern to the international students. He reminded me again to take someone who can prove to the department of licensing that I am a resident. I couldn’t help it then…I just went back home without any result.

Two days after I waited for my turn in vain, I went to the department of licensing again with my host mother, Marilou. Finally they accepted all forms that I gave for an application. As soon as I applied for it, I took a written test. Before I took the written test, I had heard about the test a lot. Some friends of mine failed that test once or twice, and they were very embarrassed and even ashamed of talking about it. That fact made me feel little bit pressured, besides, I had not studied much for the test. Despite the fact that I did not prepare for the written test well, I passed it a lot easier than I thought. (so some people call me ‘superstar’… I’m kind of tired of being called superstar). As a matter of fact, I planned on taking the test in English, but I was kind of in such a hurry to buying a car as soon as possible at that time, that I just took the test in Korean.

As far as I knew, a driving test in the U.S. is more difficult and pickier than the written test and a driving test in Korea. So I prepared for the test by asking Dong-Jun the way that I would drive. When I was perfectly ready to encounter all kinds of tests, I did not have my own car. Therefore I decided to borrow a car from Suna, the former student of the month and called ‘English Legend’. As I expected, my merciful Suna allowed me to use her car without hesitation. (when I took the driving test, I pretended to be so pure and nervous on purpose to make the inspector give me good scores.) On account of my friends’ help and kindness, I had no problem taking the test and could pass the test at once easily.

P.S. It was illegal to drive a car for me before I received the driver’s license. Since I used to take over the driving for Cynthia who is my girlfriend, I really needed the driver’s license. Now everything is taken care of. I’m totally ready to take care of her.

COMICS: How to get to the TRA? (Tacoma Radiology)

By Jonas Tsai (Yellow class)

Locksmith

By Suna Kim
(Yellow class)

One of my Japanese friends who had studied in Embassy CES visited Tacoma again last week. He said he wanted to meet his friends here and travel to many places that he missed before. His first plan was to go to the Olympic National Park which is about three hours away from Tacoma, and he invited Naoko, Goo, and me to go along with him.

We met around at 9:00 a.m. in the PLU parking lot. Everything seemed to go well just as planned. The weather was good enough to enjoy our trip, and none of us were late. I had to leave my car in the parking lot because we were going to use a rental car. When I was about to get out of my car after parking, I suddenly remembered that I forgot to take out a music CD from my car audio. Therefore, I started up my car again and grabbed the CD. After that, I locked the door using button inside as usual—it is actually my habit to lock the door before I get out of the car—and naturally I got out of the car.

However, as soon as I closed the door, I felt something was missing. It didn’t take a long time to realize what was wrong. I was looking inside of the car for a while without a word as if I was frozen. As you can already imagine, I left my car key inside and just locked the door. At first, I didn’t get it seriously because my friend did same thing as me a week ago, but he unlocked the door easily with his house key. Thus, I also tried to open the door like him, but unfortunately my car had a too good lock system.

I went to my uncle’s house first since he has the spare key to my car, but he was not home at that time, and I didn’t bring my cell phone. Great! My dear friend Goo, who knows a lot about cars tried to unlock the door with a hanger like a taxi robber in movies, but it didn’t really work. We ended up calling my host family and they suggested contacting the company called “a Locksmith” which provides service to open locked doors.

When I called the company at first hoping that everything was going to be fine soon, I was frustrated because the operator was a non-native speaker. Neither of us could understand each other very well, so it took a long time to make her get it. Anyway, she said a technician would be there in 25 minutes, and the technician directly called me to say he would arrive in 15 minutes. While we were waiting for the man, Goo kept trying to open the door by himself, but it still didn’t work.

I was really sorry that I ruined our perfect plan. My friends teased me and sometimes complained for a joke, but I knew they were trying to make me feel better. Yet, the technician didn’t come by the time he was supposed to arrive, and I got another phone call from him saying that he would come in 10 minutes. Again, he didn’t keep his word. Whenever any cars appeared, I cried, “Smith!” desperately, but nobody responded. Now, there were no more smiles on my friends’ faces. I felt so sorry, but there was nothing I could do. The more time went by, the more worried I was.

Finally, the smith arrived at the parking lot after one hour and unlocked the door in three minutes. He opened it very easily. He just made gap in the door with a small pump, and then just pushed the button on the door using a strong iron wire. That’s all. We were actually disappointed because we expected more professional and complex tools. However, the more surprising fact was that it cost $134. At this moment, I felt a little bit dizzy. My friends warned it would be expensive earlier, but I had never thought it would be this much. Anyway, I had no choice but to pay.

It was already 11:00 a.m. when we were ready to set off again, so we, after all, changed the plan to go to Mt. Rainier since it takes less time to get there. The rest of the day was totally fine. Actually, it was great because we enjoyed beautiful views and had a lot of fun. From this mistake, I learned a lesson that I should be careful all the time. I really appreciate my friends’ great patience and kindness once again. Also, I would like to give you advice to always have a spare key with you. If you are in the same situation as me, just call Goo. Now, he knows how to deal with this. Do not believe the smith’s promise about time!

COMICS: Very Common

By Tomomi Hirose (Yellow class)



Girls love to talk about the diet... I'm also one of them.
Please tell me if u guys know the way to shape my body.
Recently, I can't play soccer because of the typical weather in Tacoma, it's so frustrating!!!!!!

Strange Night in Tacoma

By Naoko Motoyama
(Yellow class)

We thought this Sunday night would be great. Since we had a three-day weekend, it was perfect timing for us to go out somewhere fabulous and fancy. We had a perfect plan to enjoy the middle of the holiday.

Our plan was to go for dinner at restaurant called “Indochine” which is located in downtown Tacoma. Indochine is a very nice place to have dinner because inside Indochine has a cosmopolitan atmosphere, with moody, indirect lighting. There are several independent tables separated with partitions so that people can enjoy dinner privately without being bothered by noise. The food they serve is delicious and inexpensive. It’s worth visiting Indochine. I’ve been there twice before, by the way.

Our plan was to have dinner at Indochine, having a nice conversation for maybe two hours, then go to a music bar called “Chop Stix” which is famous for its nice music and atmospheric interior. I’ve never been to the bar so I was very excited to go there. But, our plan totally failed. Both Indochine and Chop Stix are closed on Sundays. What a sad situation we were in! We didn’t give up. I came up with an idea. West and East Café is located close to Tacoma Mall. It serves good food and also has a comfortable, nice atmosphere. We made sure on the internet that they are open on Sundays. The web site of the café said “Sundays; dinner 4:30 pm-8:00 pm”. They said nothing about this three-day holiday. As the bar was closed, we compromised with going to a movie after the dinner. Yet, the café was closed.

It was already one and a half hours before the movie started and we were starving. We had to be flexible any way. We tried to go to Olive Garden, but there was a long waiting line. The place we finally could get to eat was Applebee’s.

How pathetic we were.

The story wasn’t over yet. We were meeting friends at the theatre to watch a movie together. They were supposed to buy tickets for us as we had dinner later than we planned. One of them called me and said he couldn’t go to the movie because he had locked himself out of his car. Our bad luck had influenced my friends!!

We headed for the theatre anyway. After a few minutes, the same friend called again and said he could open the car with his room key so that they could come to see the movie with us. It was five minutes before the movie. The movie we watched was a horror movie called “Halloween”: too much violence, murder, and no concept.

What a strange night it was!

It will be a funny memory later, I hope.

Japanese Food Recipes

By Azumi Kawabe
(Yellow class)

The Cultural Differences Between Colombian and American People

By Mauricio Quintero Duran and Juan David Crus Idarraga
(Red class)

We have identified some remarkable cultural differences between our country and the U.S.A.

1. American people are very punctual for appointments; they are always on time. Colombian people are very frequently late.

2. In the U.S.A. all streets have very good signs and traffic signals, which people respect to the culture. In Colombia it is quite the opposite: the drivers don’t have enough street and traffic signs. The highways in the U.S.A. are very wide and well maintained. I Colombia they are thin and not well maintained.

3. The bus service is safe and comfortable in the U.S.A., and they think about disabled people. In Colombia, the public transportation, especially the buses, are unsafe and uncomfortable.

4. Another difference is the parties, because the American people just drink and talk. In Colombia, people like to dance and eat typical Colombian food.

5. In Colombia people are more polite than in the U.S.A., especially American people are impolite, just in some cases, some of them don’t like to help foreign people.