Hi!!!, Back again! I promise, this is the last post about summer. In case you missed them, I gave an overview in Part 1 and shared my favorite eats in Part 2. Well, as the title says, I’m going to talk about my trip to Ukraine!

Why Ukraine

I’m a HUGE Russia/USSR junkie. I also missed my chance to go to Russia in the spring last school year, so I guess a trip to Ukraine isn’t too surprising right? Actually, I didn’t go on any old family vacation; I went as part of the China Delegation for the SAGE (Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship) world cup, which happened to be hosted in Odessa.

SAGE is an organization based in California that hosts a global business competition for students. A group of friends and I actually started a project, but the regional qualifiers happened to coincide with SATII testing 😦 Luckily, the China delegation had a couple of spots open. I applied and was accepted!!!!!

What I loved…..

1. The Event itself was AMAZING. The first day was a culture fair, and the other countries really brought their A-Game.

We handed out these cute keychains that resemble foods and some bookmarks

Each country also did a short performance, which was really cool to watch. Unfortunately, my phone ran low so I didn’t get any footage 😦

The competition was also very interesting. It’s actually amazing what some of the teams did. Israel’s team is developing an interactive emergency wristband for senior citizens and actually got government funding as well as grants from 5VC firms!

2. The weather and views were even better than the competition. We were given free time on the third day to explore :

 

 

3. FOOD!!!!!! Granted, the meals they provided us at the hotel sucked, but everything else was AMAZING, and incredibly cheap. Seriously, a bottle of kefir was only 20 hyrvnia (less than a dollar). In Shanghai, a small thing of Greek yogurt costs upwards 28RMB (around $4). The fruit  and rye bread were also incredible. My favorite, however, had to be the cured fish

 

Sure, it doesn’t look appetizing, but trust me, the flavour is superb. Basically, the freshness and salt removes any fishiness while preserving the fish’s natural oils. The flesh, both times I had this, was tender and not too salty. Anyways, its available in pretty much every grocery store, but for the best, head to the beach and pick a stall!

What didn’t go so well….

Only 1 thing didn’t quite work out: the traveling

First of all, the flights were at the worst times. Honestly, the flight there departed at 3am and the flight back arrived 1am…. so much for a getting enough sleep…….

The on-site visas also got screwed up, so my team ended up stuck in Kiev for nearly 6hrs while they figured things out. In the mean time, we missed our flight to Odessa and had to take a 6hr bus ride instead…….at least we didn’t have to take a 22hr bus to Kenya like the Ugandan team

So that’s it for this post. I hope the ending didn’t bum you guys out. Overall, I highly recommend visiting Odessa, or the rest of Ukraine for that matter.

Anyways, August is almost over, which means crab season is starting! See you guys next week with a recipe!

 

 

 

• Travel