Scattered throughout the IES Beijing semester are a number of “Crazy Days,” or days that students wake up for class at 8 only to find that class has been canceled, and an outing or activity has been planned by the teachers and staff. This Tuesday, after our daily 8am 听写, the teachers announced that our classes were canceled and we could choose between trips to 香山 (XiangShan, the“Fragrant Hills”), the hutongs (more on that later) and 后海 ( HouHai, Beijing’s lake district), or one of the city’s prominent Muslim communities.

On Tuesdays, there’s a couple of students in our program that don’t have class all day long. So, we utilize these Tuesdays to the best we can! Two Tuesdays ago, my classmate, Tyler, and I went to the Shanghai Zoo! Here are some of the highlights from our day at the zoo.

One other big perk of going to Japan in the spring semester is the sakura! They started blooming around last week in Nagoya, which coincided with the start of the new school year for Japanese students. Club tables lined the main road through the college as the upperclass students handed out flyers and recruited freshmen.

I tried to make the most of the short time that sakura was around, and went to parks and sakura-viewing spots in Nagoya to appreciate the beauty:

Believe it or not, in between my various excursions to Papallacta, up Pichincha and most recently around Quilotoa (as well as many others), I also attend classes. My favorite class – Spanish – is taught by an incredibly caring and exuberant professor. While technically a grammar class, the emphasis is on oral fluency and with such a small class size (there are only 4 of us!) we spend plenty of time in conversation.

Hi, all. Trinity Week is upon us and so the beginning of revision as well. The weather has been very, very nice lately though — we’re talking low 60s F and sunny, here, sure it’s a miracle — and on Monday I took a break from studying (yeah, I know, pretty quickly, huh?) went to St. Stephen’s Green to document Dubliners soaking up all the vitamin D that has been denied them for the past five months.

Travel is full of all sorts of delights. Looking at your credit card statement after a trip, however, isn’t one of them. While some of the expense of travel is unavoidable, there are a few easy ways to cut costs during weekend trips:

1) Shop around and book early

This past weekend  I went to Izmir and Pammukale! The city of Izmir is located in the Northwest of Turkey. It is a beautiful city thats by the sea. Pammukale is a small town by Izmir that has beautiful hot springs. The are nicknamed “cotton castles” because of its white color. Below are some pictures of Pammukale.

“Where, if not in my own town, should the most extravagant and solid of my work endure, where if not here? - Dali