All posts tagged: china

Cooking Classes

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For real this time! I’m back. As I look back on my journal entries, I realize that I’ve skimped out on detailing a lot of the adventures that I had. As I was saying in my previous post, I’m going to take my journal entries and detail them here for you guys, and so in this next post, I’ll be walking down memory lane to September 21, 2012 (backtracking a little, I know). I may not have noticed when I was in Beijing, but things happen really fast! With classes, activities, meeting new friends, you can get caught up in the hurricane of events and not realize how much is going on! My entry about Bambi was on September 25 – but I could have easily written about so many other things that happened so close in proximity as well! So here it is — September 21, 2012 Well, yesterday was quite cool. I had been meaning to take some cooking classes for a while. We have a BC coordinator that was supposed to help …

Video #2! Reposted

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Ah! My wonderful friend Nam Luong helped me upload this video! It’s not on my account, but at least it works! So this is my food vlog, but the VPN part is very outdated. Here it is though! Also! Special shoutout to my best friend, MATTHEW QUINN. He’s finally turned 20 and I’m super bummed I can’t be there to celebrate it with him. Sooo, that’s all for now! Many, many posts about my trip to Seoul coming up soon! Over and out, kv.  

Video #3

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So I’m almost going to give up on uploading the food video – but here’s a video about my chinese suction cupping adventure! It’s pretty outdated, and way overdue, but better late than never! Here they are! I think I’ll just try to do vlogs from now on – editing the other stuff takes way too long. Over and out, kimmivo.  

Meet Bambi! The Pup I Never Had

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Meet Bambi! The ~8 week pup my friend Kate and I took in for a couple of days.  We found him without a mom, hence, Bambi! It was rough at first; he was very shy. We found him on our way back from the subways after a day at the silk market – he was eating grass and chewing on beetles! Yuck. So we took him back and bathed him, gave him food, and waited it out. This smart lil nugget turned out to be one of the best things that has happened to me on this trip. He learned to respond to his name, when to sit, when to get into the purple bag we hid him in, AND he followed me to a T. Whenever I called for him, he’d come running! Cutest little thing ever. Needless to say, we got very attached to each other. Whenever I left, he’d come chasing after me, and when I had to give him away, I was close to tears. ): In a way, Bambi was …

Meet Mr. Qi! Guardian of the Confucius Temple

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I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated, but I’ve been really busy! I know my last real post was kind of depressing, but good news! I had a great last week! I now know what they mean when they say the people make the experiences, as last week, when Leanne and I went on our weekly adventure, a stranger turned friend really did make my day. Meet Qi Xian Sheng (Mr. Qi), who was one of the gatekeepers at the Confucius Temple. As we approached the stone tablets to take pictures, Mr. Qi popped up out of no where, and started directing my photos! He moved Leanne’s arms, posed for us, critiqued my photos, even was gracious enough to have me take a photo of him. Never had I met someone so willing to help before. He spoke no English, yet he made the biggest effort to speak in simple slow Mandarin so that I could keep up. As we finished exploring the temples and were about to leave, he stopped us …

Homesickness Settling In

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So I have to admit – this abroad experience isn’t what I expected so far. There’s a lot of work! I’m overloading this semester, which means I’m taking 18 credits, and even though all but one of the classes are once a week for 3 hours at a time. I don’t have class until 6:30pm Monday, and I’m done with class on Friday by 12:20pm, but that’s still pretty intense, given I have Chinese class 5 times a week. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been really cool going out, meeting new people, eating nummy foods, but it’s not really what you think of when you think of going abroad. I’m not going out every night, the classes aren’t easy, the people are kind of rude, and the pollution sucks. I guess this is that – “I kind of miss home” post. I miss having Vietnamese food, and American food, having people speak English, and I do miss being able to upload a YouTube video in less than 5 hours… I miss my family and friends …

Mini Updates!

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I haven’t updated in awhile, I know. The BC VPN has been down, and I just bought a VPN to use, so I’m still getting used to everything! I’ve officially been in Beijing for more than a week, and it’s been pretty bittersweet. Some updates regarding this site – I’m posting up pictures up in “KODAKS” now! So check out some of those when you get the chance. Once I get this video uploaded onto YouTube, I’ll also post it here – it’s about food! Nums. I’ve also been collecting little tips and whatnot, so I’ll have that soon too. Real updates and blogs soon to come! Hang tight! Over and out. kv.  

“I hope I don’t get sick of the food…”

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So the plane food was not the best stuff – greasy beef with cold udon noodles and fatty chicken with mushy rice. Then I had really bland rice noodles at a Korean place on campus that literally had no flavor. Perhaps it was because I couldn’t read the menu at all, see below, but at that point, I was just angry. I was hungry, tired, jetlagged, and kind of feeling a bit lonely. I was only one that had arrived from BC, and some students had arrived from American University but were getting settled and doing their own thing, so it was just Kimmi! Trying hard not to fall asleep and trying to keep herself busy and think about all the positives and not the scary looking hut I had of a room. (Seriously, my dorm looks like where they’d film The Shining.) Then for dinner, I had some greasy Beef Fried Rice that was not the hottest thing. So basically, I went to bed apprehensive of the following days, scared that I made the …

The Little Things

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I have officially embarked on my trip to China! Wait, what? It was just the other day that I was counting down the days and now I’m actually gone. How surreal. I’m on my United flight to LA, sitting one row from the very back of the plane, and right near the toilets. Great start, huh? I had the worst time checking in, as United systems were down, so that was an hour gone, than security took forever and boarded my flight 3 minutes prior to departure. And yet, I’m okay! Looking back on the last couple of days, I’ve been incredibly blessed. My family and friends came out to my goodbye BBQ and I had a ton of fun (and a ton of mosquito bites). I finished packing (with the help of my sister) even though I only started oh, yesterday, and today, my last day, I was able to spend time with those most important to me, my family. My mom and sister made me my favorite food before I left, which I …