Drinking vino in the middle of Venice

This place like a hollywood movie set - so unreal! And the cobblestones are so romantic (although I wonder how women can walk gracefully in heels).

Train from Vicenza to Venice

Approx 1 hour and 8.50 euros roundtrip.

My first meal in Italy

I'm ashamed to be dining at McDonald's but it was the only restaurant open after 7:30pm. And hey, look at this Italianized hamburger with mozzarella and herbed bread!

Final destination of Vicenza. What an adventure!

I took the bus to the train and then a cab to find this beautifully quaint hotel called Albergo due Mori in the town of Vicenza. Here's a view from my hotel room balcony (way better than the Venetian in Vegas right?). Temperature is a perfect 65 degrees.

Venice...finally!

After numerous delays I have finally made it to Venice! Btw, my flight from Munich to here served chocolate mousse! I'm already in love. Now I am traveling like a local and taking the bus to the train station to get to my hotel in Vicenza. Looking forward to meeting up with the rest of the group and celebrate our arrival with some vino!

On my way to Italy! (Hopefully)

It is time for another adventure and I am now traveling to Venice, Italy for my friends' wedding for the first 5 days. After the wedding, I will be exploring other parts of Italy by myself for 10 days.
Now I just have to get there first. I allowed myself to leave NYC 3 hours early, flying out of Newark Airport. Lucky for me, NJ Transit decided to have 30-60 minute delays. After I got on my train, it suddenly stop mid track for an hour and a half! I finally arrived at the airport half an hour before departure time. A little stressed and frantic about missing my flight, I find out that my flight has been delayed!
I gotta say, this has been some kind of miracle, however, it's an hour after departure and there is still no plane. Can traveling ever be stress-free??
So thankful I took a yoga class today. Namaste biotches!

Tiananmen Square Massacre - 21 years ago

It was 6/4, 1989. I was in the 3rd grade and in the middle of class when teachers abruptly sent us home. I don't remember any explanation given, but we were happy to end school early. On the school bus home, I remember seeing swarms of panicked people on the streets and distinctly remember a man with blood covering half of his face. When I got home, my mom told me that there was gunfire in front of Tiananmen Square...something about college-age kids being killed by the military.

That night, my mom and I were at my dad's office waiting for his phone call. He was already in the U.S. We never got a call because all the phone lines were down. All I could hear, as my mom and I fell asleep in his office, was the distant sound of non-stop gun shots.

Some reports claim that some 3,000 protesters were killed. A massacre, indeed.

This is something else I find conflicting about my home country - a country that places so much emphasis on education and intellectual property but in turn, do not know how to handle intellectuals when they use their knowledge to question their country. How do you expect to encourage your citizens to learn as much as possible, but try to limit what they're exposed to at the same time. It's like telling a dog to explore the yard, but making him stay in his cage.

Tiananmen Square Massacre