I-Fest: The World Comes to Claremont

My friends and I enjoy bao buns from the China booth
My friends and I enjoy bao buns from the China booth

I have been waiting for today for literally three years.  Why?  The annual International Festival, of course!  International Festival (a.k.a. I-Fest) is one of my absolute favorite events at the Claremont Colleges.  Put on by the 5C’s International Place, it is a day for the community to come together and celebrate international cultural diversity through food, dance, song, crafts, and more food.  Have I mentioned how much I love food?

If you, too, love food then I-Fest is definitely the place for you.  There are so many tasty dishes to try from countries all over the world.  Everything is always delicious, and today’s festival definitely did not disappoint.  Unfortunately I was unable to go my sophomore year and was abroad last year, so I had to wait three years from my first I-Fest freshman year to today’s festival.  But it was all worth it.

This is definitely something that I will come back for if I still live in LA in the future.  Luckily as a student you can buy I-Fest tickets with flex or Claremont cash, which makes everything that much easier because it doesn’t feel like real money anyway.  With these tickets you can buy flowers, baked goods, and other fun commodities, and of course FOOD!  So much food!

Tacos from the Mexico booth
Tacos from the Mexico booth

Some of the things I got to eat today (and the country booth they were from): bao buns and scallion pancakes (China), milk tea (Hong Kong), flan and tacos (Mexico), chicken satay with peanut sauce (Indonesia), potato dumplings (India), coconut ice cream and sticky rice (Thailand), bulgogi (Korea), baklava (Turkey), magwinya (African countries), chicken with tzatziki and roti (Armenia) and alfajores (Colombia-Chile-Ecuador).

My friends and I went all out.  Everything was so delicious!

We all take an eating break
We all take an eating break
Booths representing countries from all over the world!
Booths representing countries from all over the world!