People keep asking me for a photo of myself so, after a year of blogging I finally relented. Here I am, second from right, along with dancer Tien Chen and my bodyguards at the airport in Seoul last year.

As the print under my name above suggests, I am a dancer with the Shen Yun’s International Company. I’ve toured with the group for nearly three years now, and every season from December to May I travel around the globe to perform and share China’s glorious ancient culture. Sounds pretty glamorous, right? When you actually meet me in person, however, it may be a bit hard to believe.

It’s certainly not even close to New Year’s Day yet, but the upcoming tour season is definitely on its way!

After the final show in Melbourne, everyone climbed aboard the buses for a special treat—we were going to see the “penguin parade!” It features little penguins which, at a height of about 31 centimeters, are the smallest penguins in the world. Due to their small size, they are prey to many animals both on land and water. The penguins’ white bellies and dark blue backs protect them from watchful predators in the sea and air during the day and the darkness at night shields them as they march back onto land into their burrows. We hoped to catch glimpses of the penguins at sunset.

Every country offers something unique: we had a lot of hands-on BBQ experiences in Korea, and we’re going to have more than enough bubble tea and Asian snacks in Taiwan. Before actually arriving in New Zealand and Australia, I thought the only cool aspect of these countries was the awesome warm weather—but boy, was I wrong!