My Taiwan Adventure

So it is officially July which means the end of the semester....... AAAAAH! So much to get done by the end of the month! That probably means I'll be practically living at school until the chaos is over. Whatever happened to summer vacation? (The truth is we don't have one here) This past weekend I went to Fulong beach and it was a lot of fun. However, I didn't take into account how much stronger the sun is in Taiwan so I was a little sick the next few days. No worries, I'm all better now! All I know is I feel like I need another vacation after this. Love to everyone! I miss home! <3 PS- I'm reading A Journey to the West, and Fellowship of the Ring :D

Another week has passed and I haven't gotten myself into gear with those photos.... O:-) (I will I will I will!) It's just me and my roomie for a couple weeks because someone lucky gets to go on a business trip around the world (literally). Yesterday we saw a lion dance show together. It was meant for tourists so granted it wasn't completely authentic, but it was still awesome to see! The lion acted just like a big dog- it was so adorable! There were lots of tumbling and stunts too! A typhoon is close to Taiwan right now. It's just passing us by so there's lots of rain. What else is new? I got a bike! It's new ... only because it was going to be a pain to find the perfect used bike. But it's silver and her name is Stella. Now I can ride to the library! :D I tried hula dancing class with my roommate and it was pretty fun! Very relaxing and it's hard not to be happy when you hear hula music. I think I'll try a few more classes this summer. I ma...

...will be busy. My classes have graduation performances on Saturday so I don't think I'll have time to add more to the China trip series this weekend. (I will try!) Just wanted to let y'all know... <3

 HK Subway Station  So here's the real scoop on Hong Kong and China-- it's a FABULOUS place to visit! And it looks like everyone else knows it too, because it's become one of the most popular places for vacations. So, needless to say, TOO MANY TOURISTS. For me I say my vacation started Monday, May 23rd, because although I had to work.... I was having a blast, which, unfortunately, isn't something that happens every day. Everyone at school seemed really happy- no stressing about upcoming events and I got to do my favorite thing with my kids: art projects!!!!! :) But, technically, I didn't have a real break until the next day when I got to fly out to Hong Kong! We were only there to get my Chinese visa, but I really really want to go back. Hong Kong is super trendy. It's big, but everything's closely packed in. You can get lots of places by walking or short taxi rides and it's pretty foreign friendly, since it was owned by the British for a hund...

Hey it's really been too long since I've gotten around to updating my blog. But I'm going to China until June 6 :) I'll definitely have things to talk about then!

I started the "La Promenade" painting at least a week ago. Here's the first layer! With underpainting you're supposed to make it very thin and just use basic basic colors to block in your images. I hope it turns out! I'll show you the next layer when I get the time to add it! love and inspiration, Rachel

I can't get the scanner to work so I'm taking low quality pictures to give you the exclusive scoop on the amazing stuff happening the past month. I started this class not knowing how to read or write a single Chinese character. Let me tell you- without an alphabet this was an extra challenge. Okay I lied, I could write But let me not drag this one out and show you the before: (and the after) I could only write really simple characters from looking at the worksheet. The rest I wrote in pinyin (the established phonetic alphabet for Chinese). Take a look at what I can do now: Zero pinyin! I can write these characters in the first draft without writing pinyin first. Yes, I have to look in my dictionary for some of them but I AM SOOOOO proud of how fast I've been able to pick up this skill. No, I've not caught up yet with the other students who've taken a semester of Chinese before me, BUT I'm getting there. Just don't ask me to test and remember how ...