last post

On a gorgeous day in San Francisco yesterday! 

This is my 199th post for this photoblog! I had a lot of fun keeping this blog and it was a great pleasure being able to share my photos with friends and other photography lovers online.  This is not my first blog nor do I think it will be my last, but this post will mark the end for this blog. 

I began this blog before going to grad school in Vancouver, and now, 1.5 years later, I have graduated with  a MA and have completed two exciting internships! In between, I did a lot of traveling,  took a lot of photos, met a lot of new people, and had many fun experiences and shared many great memories. 

Now, a new beginning is unfolding for me. It time to find a real job and start my career. I don't know how long that will take and where I will go next, but whatever I end up doing and wherever I end up going, I believe that I will find happiness there!  

I trust in life and I'm ready to go where it takes me. 

Many thanks to everyone who has supported this blog. Whether you are a friend who regularly checked up on me, a regular visitor or a passerby who left me a kind note (or a couple more), or another photographer who expressed an appreciation for my photos - thank you! I greatly appreciate it all.

With my warmest regards, I say goodbye on behalf of my blog!

-Aimee. 

:)

20 hours in Shanghai!

I haven't done "A Day in Photos" blog for a long long time because for a long long time I haven't taken that many photos in one day! Finally I had the opportunity to do so on my trip to Shanghai. It was really brief, but I had a really fun and happy time. I met up with two good friends from Canada and we enjoyed our time in Shanghai together =) 

We stayed in Shanghai for about 2 days, but this post will just feature some of 20 hours we spent in the city!

Rain rain go away... Shanghai had a rainy day!

We started our day super late, and by the time we got to our first visiting destination, it was already afternoon! But here we were inside the Moon Boat (Saudi Arabian Pavilion) at the Shanghai Expo.

The whole room was like a movie theater and everything was movie around you, including the path you're standing on (which was slowing moving you forward). Really crazy stuff!!! 

At the Old City Temple, a place with lots of colourful lights and festive lanterns!

A street full of shops and food places.

This is inside a food court and there were soooo many kinds of little eats to chose from!

Little crabs.
They look kinda cute and kinda scary. 

Here's my friend David deciding what to pick for us to eat! 

Our awesome dinner that night!!

Fanyi ready to eat! Yum yum! ^^

Aww our soupy baozi haha!! Cheers!!

Massive dragon light structure for the Year of the Dragon!

More colourful lights we saw while walking in the Old City Temple.

Here we are in Pudong, a super developed area with lotta skyscrapers and things made out of concrete and metal.

Walking the rain with colourful splashes below our feet :)

A bubbly pic of us :) taken with David's camera.

Chilling at the hotel. Eating some Lindt chocolates and drinking some herbal tea. 

We went to Cloud9, a bar on the 85th floor for a cocktail drink.
Here's Fanyi and her fancy blue drink that I don't recall the name of! 

The amazing view from the bar!

Our little midnight snack while watching tv.

My fruity brunch with a yogurt drink. 

And that was all!
This was probably one of my best moments in China this time. Shanghai is a really exciting city to explore and I was really happy to see Fanyi and David in China. I also met up with my classmate from grad school in Vancouver, and that was great too!

Now I'm back in California, moving towards my next life stage. I'm job-hunting for a real job!

fading shades

I like how the colours of the mountains gets more faint as it stretches out into the horizon, so that is why I call this post "fading shades"! 

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I went to visit Beijing's aquarium park with my friend Astha yesterday and I realized how much I like aquariums. There is something very fascinating about sea creatures swimming around effortlessly in a colourful underwater world. I really liked looking at the jellyfishes and the vibrant coloured little fishes. Unfortunately we only got to see half of the aquarium park because we came in too late.... ahh, disappointing!

黑白的长城

The Great Wall of China in black and white!

*****

The internet situation here is not too ideal, so I don't get to blog as much as I would like! I still have a few more photos I'd like to share, but I must go now. 

branches

Empty tree branches standing against the sunset glow.

The photos taken during my hike on the Great Wall of China! I went up there today with two friends and had a great time! I shall post more photos of the Great Wall in my next blogpost. Now I am tired, and just want to have a good night's rest after a long day of walking and climbing.

water droplets

The first three photos are bits of the last photo!

Photos taken in front of the Government House in Victoria, BC. 

I was very fascinated by these pretty water droplets!!

****

I am currently at Vancouver Airport, about to embark on my flight to Beijing. I just wanted to make a blog post before I leave Canada.

2 more months left in China. 

above the clouds

As the plane approached its landing...

Hello beautiful Vancouver!! :)

I had an iced capp and sandwich from the first Tim Hortons I saw after my landing!

It's nice to be back in Canada again, even if it's brief! 

白望山

Photo taken at Bai Wang Shan (Mountain of One-Hundred Look) in Beijing when hiking there last weekend.

Kaifeng's night market

Went to Henan province this weekend and got to see Kaifeng's famous night market! There were a lot of interesting dishes to eat and little things to buy. I really enjoyed trying out new kinds of food there. I like how the food came in small quantity and were quite cheap in price! I got to eat quite a lot of stuff, and perhaps the best thing I ate was this the salted duck egg sushi...  never had such a thing! It was really good!!  

One of the food stalls at Kaifeng's night market. A lot of the sellers are of Hui ethnic group (usually of Islamic religion).  

Some kind of fish cooked in some interesting way... didn't try it, but thought these fishes looked quite unhappily dried up... 

Lots of different kinds of meat on a stick. You can eat them BBQed. I love the lamb and chicken wings stick the best!!

Aside from food, there are also little cute things that you can buy. Here are some colourful nightlights... there is even a Hello Kitty one ^_^

A little perfume stall. They mix liquids and then put it on one of those hanging tiny bottles. 

A warm thanks to my good friend Fanyi for taking me to this interesting place and for hosting me this weekend in Henan!! =)

rush

The busy streets of Zhengzhou, Henan.  

Gosh I stress out every time I cross the streets here in China! 

under the beaming sun

Went on a day-trip to Jehol (aka 承德/Chengde) with my Vancouver friend Astha who is also in China now!

This is city where the Qing imperial family came to spend their summer.