Remember that time I was going to post about our Chinese New Year travels?
Remember that time I was going to MAINTAIN this blog?
Dammit. Now it's June and too much time has passed to adequately catch up with everything I've missed out updating on so I'm just going to look forward and try to start fresh for the summer. I expect to have much more time to myself until August than I've had since April, so let's see if we can revive this thing before it flatlines all together!
Now for some life updates: I have since travelled a lot more around Asia, finished my semester in Hong Kong, officially said goodbye to all of the incredible people I've met there, travelled around Thailand for two weeks, and have moved to Long Xuyen in southern Vietnam to start my internship for the summer!
I'm working with
Pacific Links Foundation who work to combat human trafficking through preventative measures (more on that later, no worries) and also provide support for trafficking survivors to ensure they can successfully move forward in their lives so that their past doesn't define them. They've taken me on for the summer to do a bunch of different tasks, but what most excites me is that I'm responsible for designing and hosting my own confidence-building, self-defence workshop for a summer camp that will host about 700 GIRLS. Woah.
This is a very brief life update for right now, so here have some photos and (very) mini stories until next time!
Today's Little Thing, Happy Thing: Staedtler pens. Those triangle-shaped ink pens that come in packs of ~16 colours or so make everything I write down beautiful. Even though I haven't been updating the blog, I have been keeping track of stuff myself in my favourite notebook and there's just nothing like the way they make everything cooler!
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| After we left the chilly weather of Seoul, Nathan, Chris and I found paradise in the Philippines. Having so much extended family and old family friends there is such a blessing! We started in Anilao with one of my dad's high school best friends and his whole family, where they taught us to windsurf, took us scuba diving, and made the MOST AMAZING food. A bunch of other exchange friends ended up visiting places like Boracay in the Philippines too, but nobody got to experience just how fun it is in the Philippines like we did ;) |
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| Seriously, I wasn't kidding about the food! Tita Emily totally and completely spoiled us - this dinner had shrimp paella, grilled lamb and the freshest lobsters I may ever have. The boys and I had to roll ourselves up the stairs at the end of the night we were so full; even sharing one beer with Tito Pancho was almost too filling after that meal! |
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(Pictured L-R: Timmy, Nathan, Chris, me!, Alej, Carl, Carolina, Angelo, Luis)
YAY FOR MANILA!!!!!! After our weekend in Anilao, my family in Manila insisted we come stay with them for a while and we'd be INSANE not to take them up on that! I've only met these cousins in person once before, but when we get together it's honestly like we've grown up side by side anyway. Basically the whole Miñana clan showed up to welcome us to Manila, and to welcome Nathan and Chris into the family! |
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| Sweaty, dusty, red-faced and smiling at the top of Taal Volcano, which is a Volcano with a lake inside that has a volcano inside that lake that has a lake inside that volcano that has an island in it. Confused yet? The smaller lake that you can see there in the background is literally boiling in some places because of the geothermal heat escaping from cracks in the bottom! |
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(Pictured L-R: Julia, Winnie, Hinley, Chris, me!)
After returning to Hong Kong for a week of midterm papers from HELL, 9 of us re-packed our bags and headed to Taipei, Taiwan for the weekend. Casual, right? Between all the street food (decidedly overall the best of anywhere we'd been to) and the selfies we had taken, it was an awesome few days. Here's arguably my favourite photo from that trip! |
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Seriously, the selfie game was STRONG. Here's us perfecting our technique in front of Taipei 101, which was so tall that on a cloudy day like that one you couldn't see anywhere near the top!
Missing from this photo: Chris (because he took it), Amy (because she's afraid of cameras or something?), and Juliana (probably updating Instagram with a beautiful photo of the Xiao Long Bao we had for lunch that day) |
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| Back in Hong Kong for a while and goofing around at the hugely successful International Food Festival created and organized by Angela, the single most driven, ambitious, and generous girl I know. What a blast! |
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| Foregoing a friend-filled trip over the Easter break to hang out in the Philippines again with more family was so so so worth it. I've given up trying to figure out how exactly everyone here is all related, but that's pretty much unimportant when you're in the Philippines anyway :') Cousins, sun burn, San Miguel, and (again) entirely too much food made this my favourite Easter ever, no question. Thank you Tantuicos!!!! |
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I wasn't kidding or even slightly exaggerating when I said Angela really is incredibly generous - one night she invited a huge bunch of friends over for the sole reason that she wanted to cook Peruvian food for us all! Naturally it was amazing, because she's Angela and everything she touches turns to gold. That's her with the funny face and flower necklace!
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| Classes eventually ended, but before exams came around full-swing there was just enough time for the IASP Exchange Formal and Goodbye Party. If I do say so myself, we clean up pretty damn well the 3 of us. Winnie and I also tied for "Best Dressed" of the evening so high-fives to us! |
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| It takes a very specific kind of awesome to be able to purchase the most cliché Chinese shirt you could find from Mong Kok, and actually be able to successfully pull it off. Tabbe is undoubtedly that exact kind of awesome, so of course he had to be my date even though I might have pretended to hate it a little bit (but shhh, don't tell him!) The next day was his birthday too, where we properly partied hard on a #JunkBoatDrunkBoat out in one of Hong Kong Island's bays (baes?) |
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| The next day we wasted no time and were Myanmar-bound. Here's us in the lobby of our hostel in Yangon. Unfortunately we're missing Angela (long story), but Myanmar was still 100% my favourite trip all semester. Just amazing, even if it'll always be Burma to you. |
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(At the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar)
In 5 months and the thousands of pictures taken, this is probably my absolute favourite photograph. Chris is incredible at capturing candid moments and even though I can't remember what Nathan and I were cracking up about, this photo completely encapsulates our dynamic in a single shot. It encapsulates a lot of stuff really - if I were to choose a photo of me to best describe my exchange experience it would probably be this one. |
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Yes, I am wearing every loud pattern I own. Yes, those are elephant pants. Yes, I am content representing Canada in this exact way. Yes, too many other tourists gave me weird-ass looks as we tried to get the shot.
If I thought Yangon was cool, Bagan was UNREAL. I'd go back in a heartbeat. |
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| After Myanmar we found Angela again (yay!) and also found ourselves in Angkor Wat. I think the pagodas and temples in Myanmar totally spoiled me for Cambodia, but it was still breathtaking in its own way. We were also kind of into coordinating our outfits the entire trip because we're cute. |
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| Eventually we made it back to Hong Kong and somehow survived Finals. Then it was time for the day I'd been dreading since January: the day Nathan and Chris had to head back to North America, while I was staying in Asia for the summer. We took this picture right before saying goodbye at HKG, right before they headed through security and I headed back to a basically empty campus. Ugh, these two. Thank GOODNESS they're Canadian and I will actually see them next year in person! |
Okay that's enough for now. Expect more photo dumps soon because this is fun, and I'll keep updating with thoughts and feels about my Vietnamese summer too!
