the revisiting series: sevilla

Three years back, three of my girlfriends and I went backpacking through France and Spain.  One of our stops was the little town of Sevilla in southern Spain.  Quaint, wonderfully saturated warm yellows and reds, contrasted against blue skies--it was undeniably a relaxing escape into an early summery, lackadaisical atmosphere.

(Note: I had a bad case of over-exposing my photos back in the day...)

the revisiting series: firenze

As it is commonly heard among all enthusiast young student travelers, "if I had more money, I would go all over the world."  Luckily endowed with the opportunity to study abroad for the first four months of 2010 and then work abroad the summer of the same year, I was by no means moseying around with pockets full of cash and wealth.  But to the best of my ability and stringent budgeting, I managed to visit several places, cities, and towns that have left a lasting, memorable impression in my life.

It is now 2011 and the only place I've gone to is England to visit my lovely boyfriend, given that I'm still financially recovering from last year's adventures.  So here's a visual return, a nostalgic sigh and toast, to those past visits!

goodbye chinatimes

Goodbye New Oriental Cool Camp. You were very far from cool. You were also a hot mess. To escape your hot messiness, we merely escalated towards more hot messes which tended to turn into shit shows. It was kind of like a hell froze over for 6 weeks type of an experience. But I loved you nonetheless. For those very failtimes that allowed all of us to share, bond, learn, and grow as a collective and as individuals.

Goodbye Chinese kids. You were an amazing bunch and I am honoured to have met all of you and interact with you all. Some of you had insane names (Gentleman Fan Fan, Freedom, Circle, Killer, Mango, Panda…I will NEVER forget you guys). Some of you were a little too eager to befriend us. But I love you all. And I miss you guys. Keep learning, keep fighting. Maybe one day, we’ll see each other again.

Goodbye fellow foreign teachers and Chinese TAs. You were also an amazing bunch of people. And we became friends through our shared crazy failtimes. I miss you guys. We bonded over the strangest things and as a result, we have inside jokes that no one in the entire world will ever understand except for the bunch of us. Some of you were big characters; that’s okay; it just makes my storytelling that much more awesome. :P

Goodbye China. You were extreme. Extremely hot, extremely chaotic, extremely unorganized, extremely intense, extremely crazy. You never really made sense but at the end of the day, we found ourselves laughing at all the shenanigans and the next morning, alive and mosquito bitten to an entirely new level.

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THIS IS MY CHINA BLOG.

My updates will be there. It's actually under my job requirement to blog as much as possible and take as much pictures as possible (as well as video-taping as much as possible). I am nerve-racked, emotionally a little under the weather, a bit unprepared but looking forward to more adventures and challenges in life. Catch ya'll there.

thirty days of sharing: day eleven

11. a photo of you taken recently

Taken by Teresa over at First Impressions in Oxford over the Thames River

thirty days of sharing: day nine

09. a photo you took

Vernazza, Cinqueterre. (Liguria, Italia)
What a magical place.