the year of Dragon. rawr.

Chinese New Year is the biggest celebration for everyone in Hong Kong. A festivity of joy and love :)

Chinese New Year is sort of like Thanksgiving in America. Chinese New Year reunion all the family members together. The day before new year, families get together to eat a reunion dinner. At the dinner, people would eat food that symbolizes good luck in every way. For example, noodles symbolize a long life, fish symbolizes having money left by the end of the year (wealth) ... Additionally, there are a lot of fun traditions for Chinese New Year. Before the day of Chinese New Year, people clean their houses throughly and buy new items for the beginning of a new year. For example, new shoes, new clothing and all that all that.

The week of Chinese New Year, everyone wears red which symbolizes joy and happiness and brings luck to the start of the year. People will go visit families and friends to greet each other for a good start of the year and wish each other luck. In people's houses, you can find a red box full with candies :) It also symbolizes something - your house hold will be happy and sweet.

On the day of Chinese New Year, people won't eat any meat, so like everyone else my grandma made me a vegetarian meal :) I have been hanging out with my family a lot because they are all on vacation now. We saw beautiful fireworks and have been eating a lot of good food! I guess we all have had a pretty good start for the year of  dragon!

Anyway, Kung Hei Fat Choi - Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy New Year, tutti!

happy new year, everyone :) a new year, a new challenge (part of the new challenge is to keep this blog going haha)! and so here comes more interesting things about my life - another study abroad opportunity and this time to JAPAN!

after my little adventure in Europe this summer, I am moving to this new challenge - spending a good amount of time in Asia. I will be working in Hong Kong for about 3 months and then studying in Japan for about another 3 months.

A little introduction on these two places that I am going to be at.

Hong Kong is a food paradise where you can find food from all over the world and good food that ranges from thousand of dollars to two Hong Kong Dollars (HKD). Oh in case you are confused, Hong Kong has its own currency! ;) And it really is a food paradise because I LOVE EATING a lot, and I swear to you, I never eat some alright food because I can't eat a lot. Only yummy to my tummy :) Also, Hong Kong where most of my family lives, so I am also visiting them and living with them this time. It is going to be fun and interesting after living on my own for so long and now having everyone to treat me like a little princess buying me dessert all the time and all that countless things. Whoopsies.

Japan is another food paradise. WHOOPSIES but oh well I can't complain too much. I guess I will just be more picky on what I eat - just some super delicious food ;) Plus, I will be exploring a lot of places in Japan and doing a lot of walking, so I will need some energy (food) to help me achieve that, right? I will be drinking their tea and learning their healthy life style. Maybe going to hot spring and all that? Japan is a country full of cultures, art and traditions. Somewhat like Italy. I will be taking Japanese and a course called "Comparative Culture: Japan & West"about comparing Japanese and western artists which will be kind of related to the art history course that I took in Florence this summer.

Anyway, I will keep you posted and share everything that I experience on here!

How am I going to spend the moments of me missing the lovely Firenze?!

Ciao tutti! Come stai?

Sorry for my failure over the summer on keeping track of my adventure!! I think summer was a little too short and too exciting to make a record of haha ... In fact, I did have plenty of excuses but let's not look back! I promise you all that I will write plenty of posts when I live in Hong Kong and Japan upon this winter ;)

Now back to the main question - how am I going to relieve my homesick for Firenze (or Europe in general!)?!
Here is my little plan, ragazzi! I am going to tell you a story from this summer every time when I miss Firenze or Europe and when I have the time to do so.

Let see how I am going to make this works!

Story time ...

this is a picture of una (a cup of) cappuccino and a cioccolato cornetto (chocolate croissant)!

This is one of the things that I miss Firenze the most ... When I didn't have class on Mondays, Fridays and sometimes Wednesdays, I would still wake up fairly early - just for this amazing breakfast with Kristina :) The two of us would meet up at around 9 at the ATM (our spot haha) then walked over to Santa Croce to head to our little favorite cafe- Oibò :) 

All we would have for breakfast is always the same - a cup of cappuccino and a cornetto because they are the best. There are so many different flavors of cornette - chocolate, berries jam, honey, plain ... anything that you can think of. All fresh and warm! The first bite is crispy then it comes to the softness of it ... yummmmm :)       

Also, kudos to the guys that work there! They are always so sweet and I love it when I heard them saying "buongiorno, bella." It's so welcoming and just makes me smile from my heart :)) Plus, all the chocolate drawings that they would do in my cappuccino are just icing on the cake! Writing mi chiamo (my name) or drawing patterns and flowers ... who doesn't like that?! teehee

Anyway, that's my little sharing! Hope you will get a chance to get some fresh, delicious croissant one day in Firenze!  

Germany

Sorry for the late updates! I am really failing on this but it's okay because I am enjoying my life in Italy. No rush for me! Plus, my excuse for this: Italy is too old for technology and internet hahaha

so back to my little travel stories ... I am indeed very happy that I made it to Germany. A lot of crazy things happened right before I went on the trip but of course everything worked out fine! I even thought about not going but I am really happy that I went. Thanks to all the great friends that I have all over the world and tried to help me to figure things out and finding a place to stay!

Here is a little rundown of my traveling: 1. a train ride from Firenze SMN to Pisa Central 2. another train ride from Pisa Central to Pisa airport 3. a flight from Pisa to Frankfurt Hahn 4. a bus ride from Frankfurt Hahn to Frankfurt Main 5. a train ride from Frankfurt Main to Kassel 6. a car ride from Kassel to Blomberg 

I traveled from 1 pm to 12:40 am so that was pretty interesting. I thought I would hate traveling for so long on my own, but I ended up enjoying the experience a lot because when you are by yourself you will start to observe everything around more and just begin to enjoy the surroundings. 

Thinking back to my childhood, I never had a good impression about Germany because of history. Then I began to change my mind when I met a first German friend, Lisa in high school and more friendships to come through out my life. I love my visit to Germany. I know that Germany is a richer country than Italy, but it is interesting to see the difference between these two European countries. Germany is a lot more modern than Italy when it comes to city planning and the streets are just so much nicer and walker-friendly lol The street in Italy is old, but still I adore this place as how it is.

Germany is also very eco-friendly which I totally love. The whole country encourage people to recycle and in order to do that, whenever you put a can or bottle into the recycling bin, you will get money back depending on the amount of your recycles.

Anyway, that's pretty much I have to say about Germania. A beautiful country with beautiful people. I definitely want to go back again to visit!

My thoughts of Roma

Well Rome in English!


The trip was pretty much a dream for me. Walking through Rome, visiting the Coliseum, sightseeing around the city on the tour bus, everything is adventurous, exciting and fascinating. Rome is a city full with art, culture and history, so walking around the city is like exploring in a museum.  I love museums and go to museum all the time at home; however, this “museum” is definitely my favorite. All the architecture in Rome is pieces of unique art. All the colorful buildings have their own characteristics with the wooden long windows, different types of artistic doors and distinctively decorated balconies full of beautifully bloomed plants. I can just walk in Rome all day and night and enjoy the beauty of the city. 

I loved my visit at the Coliseum because I finally saw it with my own eyes but not the pictures on my European history book anymore. I touched it and felt the antiquity of it. Moreover, it reminded of my college essay on fencing (I promised I am totally not nerdy like this but you know MEMORIES! haha) I wrote about one of my experiences at a fencing tournament, “I am standing on the strip with my foil, countless people surrounding the bout, like the walls of the Coliseum.” Being at the Coliseum definitely brought back memories about fencing and just the strong desire for winning each match. 

Of course I visited a lot more other places too in Rome, but y'all know the touristy stuff! I would say Roma is good for 2 days the most. It is a little to touristy for me and too much of a business, but definitely go visit if you get a chance to because it is an experience over all :)

A New Cultural Experience!

Ciao Tutti! (Hi Everyone!) I have wanted to start blogging again since I got accepted to study abroad in Italia this summer. My journey indeed began in late June in Roma then to Sicilia and now I finally settled in in my apartment in Firenze (have stories to tell about my apartment experience too)!

I definitely have a lot of stories to tell from days that I slacked off (well I was traveling and didn't have the best internet, but still no excuses, right?) I will try to catch up with y'all (yup got that from living in Texas :)) with all my stories!

To be honest, I have been "studying abroad" (if you call my 6-year of studying in America that lol) since I was 13, this study abroad experience is interesting. I went to America knowing English and now I am here in Italia knowing zero Italiano, so that was challenging (I'm totally loving it though, can you tell?) Plus, I have been to the states multiple times before I decided to move and study there. However, this is my first time to Europe. Scary enough? Quite! (still loving it!)

Now I am just gonna simply share today - 4th of July! Happy Birthday to America x
I went to the open market with a friend - Kristina that I met on my Sicilia trip. It was a lovely experience and I totally loved it. I love making friends as most people noticed and at the market, I began making friends with venders that I talked to. Of course, I spoke in Italiano too :) My limited Italiano that I had 3 classes of and more to come. So you greet people with "Ciao, michiamo NAME. Come ti chiami?" and you end the conversation with "Piacere" Simple and lovely :)

Anyway, ciao tutti! (bye everyone) I am going off to a Mexican restaurant with my friends and a concert for 4th of July! Enjoy the celebrations!