Young, Free, & Living on a Shoestring in China

More graduation pictures!!! I can't believe I'm a college graduate! Now it's time to make the decision on whether or not I should get my Masters. Decisions, decisions.

The FIU graduates in Tianjin, China with the student services coordinator, Joe. This man has helped is with everything and look at these awesome Chinese inspired cords we got for graduating!!!

At the David Guetta concert. Who would ever think you would ever attend a concert at the Great Wall?! Life has been crazy for me the last few months because China continues to provide me with so many opportunities. I'm so thankful for getting another chance to be b k here and even though I'm a graduate and school is over, life is just beginning. Now I'm off to travel trough China for 3 weeks before going back home! What can I say? I love this country!!

David Guetta on the stage at the left and the Great Wall of China is lit up at the right.

Went to a prep rally today for the opening ceremony of the university's Olympics. It was awesome and unlike anything I have ever seen!! It's great to see how the students here in china are just all about fun and putting on a good show. It's unfortunate that its that time of year again to start packing, as you can see my room is a mess!

Made it to Disneyland in Hong Kong!!!

Hey all! I'm currently in Hong Kong. In case any of you saw the news, I'm sure you heard about the big earthquake in China. Well, this was in southwest china so thankfully the school is not located there nor Hing Kong, which is where I'm currently located. It's super muggy and humid here today. Yesterday I was in Shenzhen and I got to meet up with a dear friend of mine who I met at the TUC-FIU campus during the fall semester of 2011. Yesterday's weather was gorgeous!!! I also met up with my old teacher from high school who taught me English my junior year and just so happens to be living in Shenzhen! The world is not so small after all. You never know where you will end up. Always have an open mind. Anyways, we just got to the hostel in Hong Kong, which was a mission to find, and we are about to go out and about. Tomorrow we will be at Disney!!! Yay!!! Until next time, start preparing your trip to China!

Am awesome Portuguese lunch!!! The best veal I have ever had. So delicious!

Well it's that time again when I have to go on a visa run! In case you don't know, when you get a visa from China, you need to leave the country every 60 days. It's kind of a pain, but it's also a great excuse to see other parts of Asia! So here I am in Macau. It's the Las Vegas of Asia, as its the only place gambling is legal. Its known as the billionaires playground! So I flew into Hong Kong and then just simply took a 55 minute long ferry to the island of Macau. This place is awesome and I gambled some, I won $30 but hey it's better than losing any money!! Tomorrow we are leaving to Shenzhen where I will get to meet up with some of my former Chinese students from last year!! So excited :-)

The Egg which is Beijing's center for the performing arts! Went to my first ever opera in china! There are so many first times that you can have in China!!!

My biggest thoughts right now are my accomplishments in China. By this I mean, what all did I want to get done this semester? I'm going to work on a list this week and as soon as I have it I will post it up. There are less than 2 months left so I need to make sure I get this list all checked off! Until next time, Bye!!

Sleeper train to Bangkok during the day the beds converted into seats.

View of Penang, Malaysia from a hilltop.

Hey guys! I know I haven't posted anything in a while and I'm really sorry! Backpacking has been very time consuming since I'm doing 5 countries in 19 days, not including china. So as you have seen I started off in Singapore. Singapore was a beautiful city! It's a place I recommend to everyone! It's expensive, but it was worth every penny. If any company offered me a job to work in Singapore I would take it in a heartbeat. I love the place! There are so many different cultures put into one. From Chinese to Arab to Indians and those are only to name a few! It's a county full of advancement, culture, and cuisine. Fusion food is everywhere and the chili crabs are to die for! I miss Singapore just thinking about it! We left our second night in Singapore at 11 pm so we had almost a whole 40 hours there. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I honestly thought Malaysia was a really run down country and not much to see because I never heard of the country really, but boy was I wrong! It's a country that you can tell is slowly but surely growing. The petronas twin towers (which I posted a picture of) was stunning. It kind of makes you set back and be like wow am I really in a third world country? Unfortunately it rained for the two days we were there but that did not stop me from walking around and trying lots of food. Their wide rice noodles are delicious! The first night we went to a sky bar and had a gorgeous view of the towers while enjoying a few cocktails and snacks. It was relaxing considering the stress we been having from traveling. After two days in KL we took an overnight train to Butterworth which only took 7 hours. By walking outside of the train station and over a bridge, we took a ferry to Penang. It's a tiny island off the coast of mainland Malaysia. Really beautiful and extremely hot. We walked for 10 hours straight non stop throughout the city. We took this train like mobile up to the top of a high hill in Penang where we got a stunning panoramic view of the island. It was awesome! Then we went to the largest temple on southeast china where we ran into Jimmy Choo! Or rather he ran into us! At first his name didn't click but he talked to us like he was famous so I looked him up to find out he is a huge shoe and handbag designer! He was such a nice man and so concerned about us and if we were enjoying the country. After some great sightseeing in Malaysia, the next day we left to THAILAND! The train left at 2 pm from Butterworth and arrived in Bangkok at 12 pm the next day! The 22 hour train ride was not that bad though. When we first got on there were seats, but I went to sleep, I was exhausted. Then we got to the Thailand border so I had to get off the train and go through customs. Once back on the train, I got to order dinner and then after eating the seats were converted into bunk beds. I slept all night though it was freezing on the train. We finally made it to Bangkok where they had luggage storage so we did not have to carry our bags around the city. We were only in Bangkok until 5am that same day. We really only came here because its a means to transfer to the next train to get Cambodia. It was great to walk around the city for the day and eat nonstop! The pad Thai they sell on the food carts don't even compare to pad Thais in America. No where close. Got a little bit of shopping too, took a river cruise, saw the grand palace, and got a tattoo. :-) Right now I'm in Cambodia and I'm in love! Ill be posting later what exactly I e been doing here. In the meantime ill post some pictures! Backpacking is amazing and I'm so grateful for the opportunities I have been given. I hope I inspire at least one person to do something they never imagined they could do!

Made it to Malaysia. This is a view of the Petronas Twin Towers from a sky bar we had drinks at. Fun fact is that thy had an emergent evacuation of everyone from these towers right after getting word on the attack on 9/11 at the Twin Towers in New York.

Chili Stingray. Never in my life did I think I would eat sting ray nor did I think it would be the juiciest and most tender thing ever!!

The staple dish of Singapore: Chili Crab! I don't even really like seafood but this was the best thing I think I ever ate. The chilies are spicy, but so flavorful and matches perfectly with the sweetness of the Indonesian crab. Made fresh to order!