Tag: adventure

July 4, 2018 – This Isn’t America (OOTD #321)

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Once again, I’m out of the country for the 4th of July.

This is the second year in a row that I’ve been away for Independence Day — last year I was in the air flying to London, and this year, I’m in Nepal for a religious studies conference. Will I ever get to just relax at home with some barbecue and enjoy my city’s small fireworks display?

Whether I do or not, I wouldn’t have traded a day in the US for the day I had on July 4 in Nepal. There were no fireworks, no parades, no 4th of July sales, and no Americana-themed outfits (though I guess you could argue that my top is blue with white stars, kinda like the flag), but what I got to do instead was even better.

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plant aunt

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Once again, I spent most of my time sitting in class during the conference session, and only afterwards did I get to go out and explore Nepal. And once again, I decided to head up the mountain and go into town and see what there was to see.

This time, I went out with my two roommates, Elsa and Haya, and Haya’s friend, Sadiq. With no particular vision or plan in mind, we started walking.

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DhulikCall me 🇳🇵

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After climbing through some brush off the main road, the first sight we came across was a nice view of some rice fields at the base of a hill. I guess to anyone who lives in Asia, the sight of rice fields isn’t really anything to write home about, but for me, it was cool. Plus, the lighting was good, so I got some good photos.

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This Is (Not) America 🇳🇵

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[insert lotr quote about wanderlust]

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From there, we went into the old part of town. Or at least, I think it was the old part of town? There were no signs that I could read, or people whom I could ask, but after walking past several more “contemporary” (quotation marks because I don’t really mean it as an architecture style, but more as a description of the age of the buildings) shops and houses, the road grew narrower and the designs seemed to grow more traditional.

In the US, traditional might mean Victorian or colonial style homes. In Nepal, though, traditional seems to mean more ornamental — for lack of a better word, oriental. To me, an American who doesn’t really see much oriental architecture, it was really cool to see.

While in the old section of town, we came across a temple. I’m not sure if it was Buddhist or Hindu — like I said, I had no ability to read signs or ask locals — but at any rate, it was neat. It didn’t seem to be in use as a religious site, at least at the time when we visited, but more of a local hangout. Some kids played football around the courtyard, and friends sat on the steps and chatted.

At the top of the steps leading up to the temple, there was even a nice view of the town of Dhulikhel. It would’ve been the perfect place to set off some 4th of July fireworks — you know, if I had them.

Overall, it was a less than conventional Fourth of July — but not less than fun. In fact, I think it beats my average Fourth of July activities (i.e. shopping the sales at the mall.)

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my trip to Nepal. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: The LOFT

Skirt: The LOFT

July 3, 2018 – Dichotomous (OOTD #320)

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There are two distinct outfits in this blog post, so allow me to tackle them one by one.

Outfit #1, the main outfit for today, was actually not one I had intended to pack. I was afraid the leather pants would be too warm for monsoon season Nepal — and I was kind of right. Even sitting around in an air conditioned resort, I found it to be a little uncomfortable.

Why did I pack it, then? Well, it’s a really cute outfit. It was so cute I even got a living, breathing male who was not my father to compliment it — not like, the way I looked in it, or anything of that nature, but the outfit itself. How often does that happen? I don’t think many guys outside of the fashion industry ever notice the composition of outfits.

The second reason why I brought it was because I needed to bring more clean clothes. I didn’t really have the ability to do much laundry while at the resort, so I decided to simply bring enough clothes to do me for the 21 days I’d be away. In other words, there will be a lot of laundry to do when I finally do get home.

It was just another normal day of sitting around and chatting about Islamic theology and modernity, so there’s not a lot to report on that front. What there is to report about is what I did after the session was over for the day, and that is where outfit #2 comes in.

Outfit #2 is basically just a rehash of an outfit from a few days back. In fact, it literally is just the same outfit, but minus the jacket. I knew I’d be going out and possibly getting sweaty and/or dirty, so rather than go out in the cute outfit I’d been wearing the majority of the day, I went digging in my dirty clothes pile and threw these together. If it’s already dirty, there’s no harm in getting it dirtier, right?

Anyway, after finishing up classes, a group of us decided to go out for a walk into town. Town? Is that the right word? We’re in Dhulikhel, which is about an hour outside of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Dhulikhel could perhaps best be described in American terms as a suburb of Kathmandu, as it’s a primarily residential area outside of a major city with some of its own shops and businesses, and yet, it’s so far from what I typically imagine a suburb to be like. Village seems to be best word to describe the collection homes that dot the side of the mountain (which I saw yesterday), town seems to be the best word to describe the feeling of the ‘’downtown’’ shopping district, and suburb seems to be the best word to describe the location of Dhulikhel in relation to Kathmandu. The point is, I don’t really know what Dhulikhel is, other than a relatively small place where I’ll be staying for the next to weeks.

There were six of us who decided to go out for this adventure: three Notre Dame students (including myself), and three Pakistani students. And thank goodness those three Pakistani guys were there, otherwise we probably would not have made it very far away from the hotel. None of the six of us could speak any Nepali, but the Pakistani guys could speak Urdu, which I guess is similar to Nepali, or otherwise the Nepali people could understand Urdu. Anyway, they were able to walk into shops and ask for directions around town, which was fabulous, because I doubt Citymapper would do me much good in Dhulikhel.

The instructions we were given by the locals was to head to the ‘’1000 steps temple,’’ which was about a 30 minute stroll away from the hotel. As the name suggests, it involved walking a lot of steps up to the top.

Was it actually 1000 steps? I’m not sure. We only made it up a couple hundred of them before we reached the giant golden Buddha. Giant gold Buddha was not the temple we had in mind to go to, but when you reach a giant gold Buddha in the forest, you’ve got to stop and see him. 

Only problem was, the gate was locked.

Apparently, the gates to gold Buddha closed at 5:30, and we arrived at 6. At this point, we split into two camps: those of us who wanted to try to get in, and those who wanted to go home. As the photos suggest, the first camp — the one I was a part of — won.

One of the guys with us managed to climb over the gate and unlock it from the inside, allowing us all to get in. And I’m sure glad he did, because when else am I going to get to see a giant gold Buddha statue in my life?

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my trip to Nepal. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Outfit #1

Top: H&M

Outfit #2

Top: Vintage (thrifted)

Pants: Thrifted

July 2, 2018 – A Foggy Memory (OOTD #319)

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I swear, there were mountains here yesterday.

I’ve seen a lot of fog in my life, but never like this. It’s so dense that you literally cannot see the giant green mountains all around but only the thick white curtain of mist — it’s a little disorienting. I feel like I’m in a video game with a bad draw distance.

Also, apparently these giant green mounds of earth that I’ve been referring to as “mountains” are not, to the Nepali locals, mountains, but rather, big hills. Apparently, it’s only a mountain if it’s capped with snow. I guess I can’t really argue with the locals, but to my sore knees that regret the hike I did down the “big hill,” it certainly feels more like a mountain.

After classes, a group of us decided to venture further down (what I’m going to call) the mountain and see what there was to see. Despite still struggling with jet lag and low-key wanting a nap (though I did get four hours the previous night instead of two! Yay!), the FOMO got the best of me and I decided to go. If the other Notre Dame students were going to go out and do some bonding, then I was too.

Unfortunately, the only shoes I brought for walking in were my running shoes, which are just fine for the relatively simple hiking I do in Kentucky, but apparently not fine for the Kathmandu Valley. While a lot of the trail is pretty easy, in parts where it’s rocky or particularly steep, I found myself having to grasp hold of whatever trees or plants were around in order to keep my balance. While there weren’t really any places where feared careening off the side of a cliff, I did fear falling in the wrong way and twisting my ankle.

While I suspect the views down the way would be even more spectacular on a clearer day, they were still pretty beautiful to my eyes, which have really only ever seen mountains in the form of Appalachia. Along the trail, there was not a whole lot to see — some houses, with local people doing housework like hanging up clothes to dry or weeding their garden, and some stray dogs. I mean, it was still leagues away from the suburban American neighborhoods I am used to seeing, but after the initial shock wears off, a hut is still just a hut, even if it is very different from the kind of homes I am familiar with.

Once again, though, we did not make it far down the side of the mountain before the sky started getting dark and it was time to go home. Despite the increased physical strain of the climb, I still found it easier going up. I’d much rather strain my leg muscles trying to maintain my stamina going up a hill than strain my brain trying to maintain my balance going down.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get to make it down to the village that’s supposedly at the bottom of this mountain; I just don’t think there’s enough time or enough daylight given the scheduling of the conference. I guess tomorrow, I’ll go up the mountain and into the city and see what there is to see there.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my trip to Nepal. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Pants: The LOFT

Top: The tiny clothing section of my local Kroger

June 30, 2018 – Calm Before The Storm (OOTD #317)

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Here I am, my first full day in Nepal!

This was the day that most of the students attending the Madrasa Discourses conference were to be arriving, meaning I was finally not completely alone at the lodge! My two roommates arrived, one of whom is a Notre Dame student I was vaguely familiar with before Nepal, and one of whom is a Pakistani woman in a full niqab (who arrived at like, 1 AM in the morning, the poor thing).

In all, there are about 20ish Pakistani students, 20ish Indians, 7 South Africans, and 7 American students from Notre Dame. Since there was no programming today, those of us who arrived in the afternoon (or like me, the previous night), simply hung out, chatted, and took meals together to socialize and kill time.

An American student, a Pakistani-German student, and I were all feeling energetic enough to go for a short hike after lunch, so we decided to venture down the mountain of Dhulikel. We heard there was a village at the bottom, but little did we know, that village was probably a solid two miles away. Two miles isn’t bad when you’re jogging on flat terrain, but walking down a steep mountain is another thing. We didn’t even make it a quarter of the way before giving up and turning around, sweaty and exhausted. Meanwhile, several local Nepali people walked by, steady-footed and swift, to put us all to shame. At least we got a pretty view of the area as we went down.

I wanted to get some sleep after our walk, but I knew it would be best for me if I stayed up all day and didn’t sleep until the night. The jet lag was hitting me like a truck at that point, and even though I desperately wanted to take a nap, I resisted.

That night though, I of course had very little luck actually sleeping. I got about three hours before my Pakistani roommate showed up, and after that, I really wasn’t able to sleep anymore. My body kind of hates itself for the nine hours and forty-five minute time difference, so I guess I can’t blame it.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my trip to Nepal. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Abercrombie

Pants: Forever21

Scarf: My mother’s closet

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Kathmandu Preparations

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This is it, my last weekend in the US before I leave for Nepal!

I have a lot still to do — packing, applying for my visa, completing some reading, just to name a few of my upcoming tasks. I’m hoping actually do get some done this evening, we’ll see though. I have a bad habit of falling asleep with the light on after finishing up an evening blog.

Perhaps most concerning of things on my to do list is some reading I’d really like to do before I head off — reading that totals about 350 pages. And it’s not really even exciting reading, just dull academic stuff. That’s not to say it won’t be interesting, just difficult to motivate myself to do considering it’s not a necessity for a grade. Heck, I even had difficulty motivating myself to do academic reading in school when it was a necessity for a grade.

Thankfully, though, I have a few days off from work before I go, so I should have time to do all the travel preparations I need to do. I’m a little nervous to travel to a foreign country by myself, and I’m not at all looking forward to my six hour layover in Chicago, but once I’m settled, things should be alright. It’s just the process of getting settled that worries me.

I have a hard time getting excited for things before they occur, but once I’m actually in Nepal, I should be able to enjoy myself. I’m less likely to excitedly anticipate an event, and more likely to forlornly reminisce about it afterwards.

On a final note, check out this blop tongue from my cat this morning. He’s a good boy. I’ll miss him when I’m gone.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

June 2, 2018 – Closure (OOTD #296)

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This is it — two years after I wrote my very first blog ever on a real estate team’s website about the Red River Gorge area in Kentucky, I finally get to visit it.

Summer, 2016. 17-year old Meilin was beginning her second job (the first one being a grocery bagger at Kroger when I was 16) at a real estate company as their blogger. The idea was that by writing blogs about local events in Central Kentucky, I could draw more traffic to the site, and by extension, more clients to the realtors.

On my first day, my boss suggested I try a blog about the Red River Gorge and Natural Bridge national forest area in Kentucky. I didn’t really know much about the area, but I did some research (thank you, TripAdvisor) and came up with the “Top 5 Things To Do In Red River Gorge In June.” It wasn’t revolutionary, but it was well(ish) written, and was my first experience realizing that I liked blogging.

I’d link to it, but sadly, since I left, most of my old blogs were purged from the website. It’s okay, you’re not missing much.

Despite writing my first blog over Red River Gorge, at the time of writing it, I had no memory of ever being there. I knew it existed, and I knew I had gone before as a little kid, but that was the extent of my knowledge. Any memories I had of actually being at the Gorge were hazy and faded. After completing the blog though, I decided to put it on my list of things to do while in Kentucky — a list that’s admittedly not super long.

Anyway, I ended up going to the Gorge hiking trails last summer with my dad, but on our trip, we never made it to Natural Bridge, which is arguably the main attraction to the whole national forest area.

Finally though, two years later, I got to see it with Amanda! Or at least, got to see it as an adult who could actually remember the experience instead of a child who was bitter that her parents were forcing her to go out and hike instead of sitting in the car and play video games, which is pretty much what happened the last time I was at Natural Bridge.

And now that I have my closure, consider this blog closed. Bye!

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: ASOS

Shorts: Francesca’s

May 29, 2018 – Playground Fashion (OOTD #294)

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We’re getting awfully close to OOTD post #300, aren’t we?

My post upload schedule has been sketchy at best recently, but hey, at least it still exists! Just a few more days, and I think we’re due for OOTD #300. Amazing.

You know what’s not amazing? The 90+ degree weather we’ve been getting these last few days in Kentucky.

I know it’s summer, and I know it’s the South, and so I should really be used to this heat by now, but I’m just not.

I imagine the reason why I’m not used to the weather yet is because I insist upon dressing in turtlenecks in late May, even though it’s already oppressively hot and humid outside. Some little voice in my head tells me that that might be the reason why I can’t stand the heat, but I don’t pay attention to it. I mean, it can’t be my fault that I’m uncomfortable when I dress completely inappropriately for the weather, right?

In fairness, the office I work in during the day is pretty chilly, and I spent most of my time sitting or standing idly, so it doesn’t make sense to dress for summer weather in the way I might want to. I can freeze in my office or burn in the couple of moments when I have to go outside, so between the two, I’d rather brave the brief heat.

Besides, shaving every day is also a major hassle. But like…my unwillingness to do that every day definitely doesn’t have anything to do with dressing in long sleeves on hot days. Nope, no way.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: The LOFT (thrifted)

Skirt: Forever21

May 25, 2018 – Flower Clocks and Frankfort (OOTD #291)

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You ever have one of those experiences where you think something exists, but you aren’t positive if it’s real or if you imagined it?

For me, that was this flower clock in Frankfort, Kentucky. I thought I remembered reading about it a long time ago while doing research into things to do in Kentucky (spoiler alert: there’s not a lot), but no one I ever mentioned it to knew what I was talking about.

It was never something I cared enough about to Google to confirm its existence, so for many years, I pretty much just forgot about it. I figured I’d made it up, or otherwise, it was somewhere other than Kentucky, and since I never had any reason to go to Frankfort, I never bothered to search for it.

That was until I began my internship in Frankfort — now, I’m there every week, so the mysterious elusive flower clock was on my mind again. I figured, maybe I’d come across it one day, or otherwise, go searching for it sometime after work — you know, not really something I would actively search for or think about, but if it happened to be convenient to check out sometime, I would.

Interestingly, it wasn’t even me who found it. It was my dad. He came to pick me up from work, and I asked him to take some OOTD pictures for me before we left for home. I suggested some potted flowers outside of the Capitol building to serve as the background, but my dad said he had something better in mind. We got out of the car, walked about two minutes away from the Capitol building, and…

There it was! The mystical flower clock of my dreams!

Truth be told, it wasn’t that great. It’s pretty, don’t get me wrong, but there were a lot less…flowers than I thought there would be. There were really only one kind of purple ones concentrated around the middle. It was cooler as a giant raised clock than as a floral arrangement.

Mostly, though, I was just excited to find out that the flower clock was real. Now, on to prove the existence of Sasquatch.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket & skirt: Forever21

Top: H&M

May 19, 2018 – Railroad Track Adventures (OOTD #287)

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For part one of my May 19 adventures, click here.

I ended up wearing two different outfits on May 19 and going to several different locations, resulting in many photos, so I decided to split these blogs up.

Quick refresher: in part 1, Amanda and I went to the rooftop of a parking garage and took some photos with the University of Kentucky’s library in the background. It wasn’t quite the elusive downtown building we were searching for, but we figured it would do.

Well, similarly, these hiking shots along the train tracks and underneath the bridge weren’t quite what we were searching for either. Rather, we had hoped to do some hiking at Raven Run, which has some nice trails but is about a half an hour drive out from Lexington. We actually made it all the way there and drove up to the parking lot, just to realize that the park closed at like, six o’ clock, even though the sun wasn’t going to go down for hours.

So much for “trails close at sundown.”

Dejected but not defeated, we turned around and drove all the way back to Lexington for another half and hour, determined to find another place to live out our hiking dreams. We decided to walk around a different park, one that was a little less like hiking and more like strolling that we’d been to the previous summer.

We got some shots near some train tracks, and with some colorful graffiti that was in the tunnel under the train tracks, so it wasn’t a total loss. I just thought it was funny though that neither of our plans that day — hunting down the mythical downtown rooftop with views of the city and hiking at Raven Run — turned out the way they were supposed to.

It was all okay, though. We had fun, and afterwards, we ordered some Chinese and watched Deadpool to congratulate ourselves for achieving basically nothing we had set out to do.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Adidas (thrifted)

Top: H&M

Hat: Notre Dame bookstore

May 19, 2018 – Rooftop Adventures (OOTD #286)

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And I’m back at it again with the parking garage photos.

 

If you’ll remember, a few months back over my spring break, a friend and I attempted to find a particular building in downtown Lexington that had a pretty view of the city. We’d seen it several times in other people’s Instagram photos, so we knew the relative location, but try as we might, we never found it. Now that summer break’s begun, we thought we would have another shot at finding a nice rooftop for fashion photography.

And we were successful! Sort of.

This still isn’t the elusive parking garage rooftop that we saw in so many Instagram posts, but this is a different one that I believe still makes for some good photography. The big building behind us is the University of Kentucky’s library (much nicer than Notre Dame’s in my opinion, even though it doesn’t have a gigantic mural of Jesus on the side of it). It’s not quite the downtown scene we were looking for, but I still thought it was fun.

Once we were up there, I whipped out my handy dandy remote camera feature on my Apple Watch, and we were in business to take some photos of ourselves, even though there was no one there to take them for us. Amanda drove her Prius up to about two feet away from the ledge we stood on, I balanced my phone against my purse atop the roof, and we got these fun shots!

 

Don’t play on rooftops though, kids. It’s dangerous. Do as I say, not as I do.

In actuality, though, this was a much safer set up than the previous parking garage we tried. It was less a ledge and more of an entire platform, so as long as we were careful, we were perfectly fine. I wouldn’t do cartwheels, still, but I felt pretty comfortable.

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oh look, another parking garage

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Plus, there was grass below us instead of concrete, so if we tripped and fell, at least our blood would splatter across the soft grass instead of the hard concrete.

 

As cool as these shots are, I’m still not quite satisfied. I mean, it’s just a library behind us — not the downtown city scene that I saw in so many people’s photos. I guess we shall have to keep searching.

 

It’s alright though. We do have the whole rest of the summer.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Tobi

Bralette: Aerie

Pants: American Eagle