Funny Commercials

I stumbled across this blog (Funny Commercials) and thought it was worthy of a mention. I really do like commercials, they just have to be good ones. I particularly like the CitiBank 'Big Boy' ad that is currently airing here in the States.

Minor Hair Fiasco

Okay, so it is bound to happen at some point when you take dyeing your hair into your own hands. This is actually probably the second time I would count it as a 'hair fiasco.' The first time was when I was 17, my senior year of high school, right after my parents moved to Korea, when I dyed my hair blue. No, the blue hair wasn't the fiasco; that worked out about like it was intended. A couple weeks before going to visit them in Korea for Christmas though, I tried to get my hair back to normal, which at the time was a medium blonde. I bought some sort of hair bleach and managed to turn my hair snot green. I tried again, no luck. I started to panic about a week before I was to see my parents, so I went into a salon. They did a test on a lock of my hair and found that, because of the metallics in the blue Punky Colour dye, their product managed to eat right through my hair. So, they wished me luck and sent me on my way. I decided to make a final stab at some shade of blonde, bought some light to medium blonde dye at the store, and tried it out. About an hour later, I no longer had glowing hair, but a pretty shade of blonde, albeit lighter than normal. My parents were none-the-wiser to the fiasco when I went to see them. My mom actually asked if I lightened my hair and said it looked nice (later, she found out why I had the panicked look on my face when she asked me). The news finally came out at high school graduation when Mr. McGeachy (perhaps my most favorite teacher at Camas High) was making 'predictions' and said that I would "become a L'Oreal hair color chemist specializing in primary colors." I fessed up to my parents right after the ceremony and we all laughed about it (whew!). So, you would think at 26 I would have learned to avoid potential hair fiascos and seek the help of a professional (I did for a while, but my professional/ cousin Jessi moved away to Montana and is no longer in the business). Apparently not. Here's the story. Most recently, I have been dyeing my hair kind of a red-auburn. The color looks nice I think. We were out one night and my roots were bugging me, so I bought some more dye, though not the one I usually get because the store we were at didn't have the right kind. I figured it would be okay since the colors on the box looked basically the same. My hair, however, turned out much more like the name (something like radically ruby red) than the color on the box. This isn't the fiasco. The color looked pretty good, but it was much more red than I had anticipated (you can kind of see it in the pics from Daniel's birthday). That was about a month ago. I was hoping that the color would fade some (I don't want to look like I use Kool-Aid for hair dye when I go in for interviews!), but it really hasn't. So, I decided to buy some dye remover on Saturday and strip my hair, then re-dye it to a shade slightly darker than my natural color (which I think is sort of a dark blonde to light brown), thus begins the fiasco. The dye remover/ bleach ran out about 3/4 of the way through my hair. While I waited for it to process and then rinsed it out, Daniel made a middle of the night run to the store to grab some more. Too tired to do it when he got home, we slept for a few hours. When we got up, we decided to finish, trying to use the same thickness for consistency and leaving it on for the same amount of time. Of course that couldn't work out right. That quarter of my hair ended up much lighter than the rest and was almost white. The rest of my hair had varying shades of light blond to dark blond to orange to red. I couldn't do much else to it (for fear of completely destroying my hair or making it fall out) and refused to go out in public looking the way I did. So on Sunday, Daniel helped me to color my hair. In all the time that I have been coloring my hair, I have never needed more than one box/ bottle of product. And my hair is several inched shorter now than it was for the previous 2 years of dyeing it. But apparently this time it was different. We ran out of dye just before finishing. There wasn't time to go get more to put on, so we even went as far as cutting the bottle open and scraping out every last bit. My hair definitely wasn't 'saturated' as the directions said, but I thought we did a pretty good job getting it mostly even. I let the color take and then rinsed it out, then applied the highlighting cream, hoping that some variation may make it look better. I timed it, rinsed it out, then gave my hair some much needed conditioning. My hair was still wet when I finally went to bed, so I couldn't tell how it was going to look. As it stands now, I think I must have about at least 5 distinctly different colors in my hair now. It looks a little funky. I've got blonde, orange, red/auburn, ash, and brown, not to mention the variations within each of those colors. I think when I wake up, I will actually style my hair as normal to see just how bad it looks. I'm thinking I might need to wait a week or so and do some deep conditioning in the mean time before I do anything about it. It really looked much better in my mind. Daniel understands why my last visit to a professional (at Dosha in NW Portland) cost me nearly $200. And he has also said that we will not be doing this again, therefore I can seek the help of a professional with no complaints about how much I am spending for vanity. I hope this all works itself out in the next week or so and that I still have hair. Time will tell I suppose...

Day 33 -- Suzhou to Shanghai to Tokyo to Portland and Home

I managed to stay awake all night, occupying my time by catching up on my blog. Daniel tried to stay awake as well, but he crashed at about 3:30am. I woke him up at 4:30am and he, mom, and I were ready to meet the driver to go to the airport by 5:30. I dozed a little bit on the way to the airport and we arrived plenty early for our 9:00am flight. Mom hung around with us for just a bit while we checked in, then we went on through security. No crying for any of us. We know that it is just about a month or so before we will see them again as the job is ending. Mom stuck around a bit longer just to make sure Daniel's fever didn't leave us stranded in Shanghai. All went well, so we all got on our way. After getting through security, we looked for something to eat. Really had no luck there as airports and international terminals just aren't quite what they are in the U.S. Sat down and slept on the oh-so-comfortable seats for a while. Daniel managed to stay awake so we didn't miss our flight to Tokyo. I slept again for about an hour once we got on the plane. That makes a total of about 2 hours of sleep I have gotten betweeen last night and today. Our flight arrived safely in Tokyo and we had some time to kill before heading to Portland. This airport is definitely better than the one in Shanghai as far as food options go, though we weren't particularly hungry after having breakfast on the last flight. We boarded our flight and left Tokyo around 3:15pm. The 9 hour flight ticked by VERY slowly and I never fell asleep again. I really had expected to, but it just didn't happen. The flight was mostly uneventful, which is a good thing. The only thing worth mentioning about it was that the flight staff kind of sucked. For our aisle, the experienced lady was kind of cranky and rude and the seemingly inexperienced lady was a little clumsy and blunt. She accidentally ran over the other lady with the food cart. We arrived in Portland at about 7:30am. Not bad for leaving Shanghai at 9:30am the same day. Daniel's mom picked us up and we went up to his parent's house for the day. I started getting tired on the drive there and decided I couldn't stay up any longer by the time we reached the house. It only took about a minute after I layed down before I fell asleep, thus screwing up my sleep schedule for many days (weeks?) to come. Many hours later, Daniel came in and layed down as well. And several hours after that, we finally woke up in time for dinner. Some hours after that, we finally went home and were awake all night and into the next morning. The 40 hour day is finally over. The trip was awesome and it was really good to get to spend time with Mom & Dad. We covered a lot of ground but also managed to relax and not make it an exhausting vacation. I love being in China and being able to utilize my language skills some. I also love just not being home sometimes. I wasn't ready to come back here, but I think part of it is that I'm not ready to get back to reality. There is so much to do when I get home, but nothing is really pressing except for continuing with the career search of course. We still have to get the house livable again and finish unpacking, sorting, repacking and storing all of our belongings (from our apartment, from the house, and from storage). That's a chore that I look forward to having done, but am not looking forward to doing. As for the career search, it is a downer. It should be this exciting time in figuring out the next step and looking towards new opportunities. However, doing it day in and day out becomes depressing, particularly when I am so frequently reminded that I don't have enough experience. It will all happen and everything will fall into place and my life will return to some semblance of order again, but it's probably going to take a while to get there.

Headed home..photos will come soon

I managed to get everything typed up, but the photos will have to wait until I get home.

Day 32 -- Suzhou, China

I stayed on the computer way too late and didn’t get to bed until about 1:30am. Daniel was reading but didn’t feel well when we went to bed. He took some Theraflu a before bed and once during the night. I woke up about 9:30 and he woke up shortly after, still feeling sick. We checked his temperature and he had a slight fever. Mom called Mi (local travel agent/ friend) to book their trip to Thailand and also asked what temperature was allowed for leaving the country. Daniel was slightly over that temperature, so he has been taking Tylenol all day to try to keep the fever down and not get stuck here. He said he feels like it is the onset of strep throat, but doesn’t feel that bad. Mi even offered to bring medicine for Daniel to keep his fever down so we will be able to leave tomorrow. I did computer crap for a while and heard back from one of the old friends that I got in touch with yesterday. He said he remembered me as smart and charming in high school. I’m not so sure I remember being charming then or manage to pull if off now for that matter. Mom made me a yummy PBJ sandwich for lunch and Fong came to clean the apartment. I don’t think I will ever get used to an ayi working around us with us paying no mind and just going about our business. About 2:30pm, we headed down to Walking Street to visit Mei Mei at her silk shop. I was going to pick up some silk for a friend and Daniel for his mom. I didn’t find what I was looking for and a phone call to Daniel’s mom revealed she wanted something different then what was there as well. We made a last minute decision to have a bedspread made for ourselves of cashmere and silk. We are also having 4 pillow cases made for some throw pillows to match. They should be ready in a few weeks, so Mom will pick it up and have it shipped with their household stuff when they leave. That should be about the end of March. We walked around and bought a few other small items then took a taxi to Auchan to get a few last minute things. We took a cab back home. On the way, Mom talked to Mi to arrange a van and driver to take us to the airport in the morning. Dad was home by the time we got there. We got a confirmation on the driver from Mi and will be meeting him at 5:00am to drive to Shanghai for our 9:30am flight. Mi also said she wanted to come to the airport to see us off but has to do a tour tomorrow morning. Mom is going to come with us partially in case we get stuck in Shanghai for Daniel’s fever, but I think mostly because she wants to spend as much time with us as possible. I can’t tell you how many times today she has said she is going to miss us. We ordered pizza from Papa John’s for dinner and Dad and I did some blonding—blogging and bonding in the office together. Daniel fell asleep on the couch for a little while. Hopefully he is doing better. I finished the packing and went back to the computer. Figured I would get all caught up and stay up late so I could sleep on the flight tomorrow. Our flight gets in to Portland at 7:30am on the same day that we leave, so it can really screw with your body clock having a day that lasts 40 hours instead of 24.

Day 31 -- Suzhou and Yixing, China

We all got up early today. Dad went to work and the rest of us had a trip planned to Yixing (Pottery Town—the “ceramics capital of China”). We packed a lunch and left the apartment about 8:45am to meet the rest of the group that also signed up with EAS (the Expatriate Association of Suzhou) at 9:00am. The bus was cramped and it took us two hours to drive to Yixing. I slept much of the way there as there really wasn’t much to see on the way. The only vaguely interesting thing I saw was a line at the employment center in Suzhou that was 4-5 people wide going all the way around the block (which is more like 4 US city blocks put together). Apparently there is some understanding of a line in China. Anyway, we were told that many people quit their jobs for the New Year and then search for more prosperous work after the holiday. We arrived in Yixing at 11:00am and spent 2 hours there. There were some really nice ceramics and I guess a lot of expats go there to buy their dishes. I did see some really nice pots and vases that I wouldn’t mind having, but they were large enough for me to fit in and I really had no way of getting them home (much less affording them after not working for a month!). We walked around for a while waiting for something to jump out at us. Mom found a tea tray that she liked and Daniel mentioned that he saw a tea set he liked and was interested in. I told him there was one by the door that I liked too. It turned out to be the same one, so we decided to get it (a teapot and 6 cups) and also a tea canister and creamer to match. They used black clay with a white glaze and used a wax technique to write characters on each piece and keep the glaze off of that, so the black clay shows through the white. We went back to the bus about 20 minutes before we were scheduled to leave so we could eat our packed lunch. Shortly after 1:00pm, we headed back to Suzhou. We had to stop at Yumway again to buy something that we forgot, then we waked to Starbucks to sit and chat more with some of Mom’s Dutch friends. While we were there, they spotted Astrid, a German friend, walking by. She headed a few doors down to her dentist appointment only to find that they were running behind, so she came back to join us at Starbucks. Her husband is working here in China and she has been going to the University to study Chinese. From what Mom says, she picks up languages very well and already knows a lot of Chinese. She found out recently that her husband will be working on a job in Changsha for a couple years, so she just returned from a short trip there. That gave us something to talk about. When she found out that we had just returned from HK, she asked for recommendations on hotels there. I happened to have my notebook on me with the recommendations I got from my friend, so I gave them to her. Anyway, she is a very nice, down to earth person and Mom is kind of bummed that she is just getting to know her and both are leaving soon. But that is the life of expats I suppose. Took a cab back home and Dad got home shortly after. Daniel and I worked on packing our stuff. I’ve been trying to convince him to stay longer or be okay with me staying longer, but no go. Sara (Mom’s friend from Australia) came over and we all headed to Zen for dinner. They elected me to order. All the food we ordered was delicious and I found it difficult not to overeat. The only booboo was that the spicy and sour (hot and sour) soup had shrimp in it, so I couldn’t eat it. One of the waiters said something to me after a few exchanges that we had. I thought I understood, but double-checked on the translator later. I was right. He told me that my Chinese accent was good. He could be just yanking my chain or being nice, but it made me feel good nonetheless. It was raining really hard when we finished eating, so we sat and chatted a while until it let up a bit. When it did, we took taxis back to the apartment. I packed some more and tried to get caught up on my blog, but I really wasn’t feeling it. Instead I wasted a ton of time online and managed to get in touch with some people I haven’t talked to in more than 8 years via MySpace.

Day 30 -- Suzhou, China

Dad was already at work by the time I woke up this morning. The rest of us spent the day mostly being lazy, watching TV and DVDs all day. We did manage to laundry, which is quite a chore. We also discovered that Fong, the ayi, ruined one of Daniel’s shirts. She doesn’t understand that you can’t iron directly on a decal on a shirt. She apparently did, then promptly folded it and got the decal stuck to another part of the shirt. I had another bad headache. I realize after skimming through my journal how many headaches I’ve been having lately. I don’t think it’s related to caffeine, but I’m not really sure what is causing them. And only being able to take Tylenol because of my Crohn’s Disease really sucks. It doesn’t seem to make much of a dent on the headaches. I guess I should see if there is something else that I can take for them. (Okay, I realize this is worse than my normal ramblings. I’m going to leave it in regardless.) Dad got home around 5:00pm. He said work was a big headache and he had over 400 emails from during vacation. We headed to Jack’s Place (an excellent Italian restaurant) on Bar Street for dinner. On the way there, Dad got a call from a friend/ co-worker to shoot the breeze, talk about where the job was at, and to see if he was going to the TA (Technical Advisor—my dad’s title on this job) Conference in Bangkok, Thailand next week. Dad hadn’t heard about it, so he will have to see if he can sort through his emails for some more info tomorrow. We took a cab back to Yumway (“The way to Yummy!”), a tiny shop that imports Western food in Suzhou Industrial Park, to buy a few much desired Dr. Peppers (it’s been 3 weeks!) and some sandwich fixings. We also bought some DVDs at the store next door and then took a cab back to the apartment. We vegged for a while and went to bed about midnight.

Day 29 -- Hong Kong to Shanghai, China to Suzhou, China

Daniel and I weren’t sleepy after we got done packing, so we watched some TV for a while I caught up on my journal. National Geographic had a show called “MegaCities” that happened to be about Hong Kong. It was really interesting to learn more about the city that we had just been walking around. After that was another relevant show about Macaques that brought me to the same conclusion I had a few days back at Monkey Islet—they are smart and not so nice. We shut off the TV about 2:00am and went to sleep. Morning came too early for me, but I suppose that’s my own fault. We walked to McDonalds and I got an Egg McMuffin. I know they aren’t that good, but I had been craving one for a while and would take it any day over the Chinese attempt at Western breakfast that I’ve had so much lately. We walked around in the Hung Hom/ Whompoa area for a while before going back to the hotel to do the last little bit of packing and check out. We checked our luggage downstairs at noon and had two hours to kill before meeting our driver to go to the airport. We left the hotel and walked around some more, mainly just enjoying not having anything to really do. Mom and Dad bought some electronic Sudoku games, one for me and one for Dad. We decided to head back to the hotel and had some smoothies and sodas before leaving at 2:00pm for the airport. We arrived with plenty of time to catch our 5:30pm flight, so we checked in our luggage and then stopped at the bookstore (with books in English!) as Mom, Dad, and Daniel all exhausted theirs on this trip. Lunch was at Popeye’s Chicken and was just as bad as it is in the US. Proceeded through the security gate. Daniel showed the guard both of our tickets and we went through. Dad showed the other guard both his and Mom’s tickets and let Dad through but promptly stopped Mom demanding to see her ticket. Dad had to come back and hand her ticket to her. He then wanted to see her passport, so she had to get that from Dad too. The guard must have been either grumpy or just in another world when he looked at both tickets and flipped through the two when Dad first handed them to him. At the gate we sat down to wait. An employee came by to check tickets and initial them. Dad handed both his and Mom’s to her and she initialed both. Daniel handed both of ours to her and she initialed them too. Then she turned back to Mom and said “I’m sorry, I didn’t see your ticket.” Again, I guess she just didn’t pay attention to what she was doing. I had a killer headache again most of the day and was ready to get on our way and out of the airport. I was happy to see that we had exit row seats thinking “yay! More legroom!” Well, it was more legroom, but everything else about the flight pretty much sucked. I guess I can’t really say that; we landed safely at the correct airport and there were no screaming babies. They wouldn’t let us stow our bags under the seats in front of us, no matter how far we got them under the seats. They said it wasn’t allowed in an exit row. I suppose that’s probably true, but all the overhead storage was full by us, so they took my bag 7 rows ahead of me to store. I didn’t get a chance to grab my book, more Tylenol, my water, or anything out of it. Daniel held on to his camera bag arguing that there was about HK$80,000 worth of equipment and that he wasn’t going to let them put it out of his sight. They let him keep it and went about their business, which apparently didn’t include telling a woman she shouldn’t be walking as we reached the runway. They announced numerous times that the flight time was 1 hour and 40 minutes when in actuality it was 2 hours and 20 minutes. I’m not really sure where they lost the 40 minutes. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. My headache put me to sleep pretty quickly. They brought drinks while I was asleep, so Mom and Daniel woke me up to so I could have my 3 ounces of juice. I went back to sleep and about an hour later they brought dinner. There aren’t any seatback trays in the exit row, only the ones that fold out from the armrest. These only cleared my stomach by about 3 or 4 inches, so they definitely didn’t work for Dad. Dinner was horrible with only the rice and the butter being edible. They didn’t bring more drinks until well after dinner was finished. I was really thirsty, so I managed to order and finish 2 cups of water and a cup of Coke before the flight attendant even moved past us. About 15 minutes later, during our final descent they came by to collect food trays and garbage. This was closely followed by the immigration, customs, and health forms. They gave us Chinese language customs forms, so we had to wait until they could bring us English ones. The only reason we had a pen and our passports/ visas to fill out these forms was because Daniel was so insistent upon keeping his camera bag and they were in there. Everyone was still filling out the forms when we landed and were taxiing, of course not being able to use the trays during that time. This was possibly the most disorganized flight I’ve ever been on and I will try to avoid flying China Eastern in the future if possible. We got off the plane and went down the steps to go get on the shuttle bus to the terminal. A Chinese man that had been sitting behind us stopped us and said we left a red bag. It was Mom’s camera and was apparently out in plain sight on her seat. She went to the security guard at the bottom of the steps and tried to explain. He didn’t understand and walked away, perhaps to get someone who spoke English, but I’m not sure. She took the opportunity to run up the steps and told the flight attendant who let her go back to her seat and grab it. Just when Mom gets tired of the cheating and dishonesty that is the way of life here, someone redeems her faith in people (About a year ago, she left her cell phone in a taxi and someone turned it in to the police station, so she got it back). We took the shuttle towards the terminal. There are no seats on the shuttle, so everyone stands for the short trip. On the way, we came to some abrupt stops, which caused mass piles of people towards the front of the shuttle each time. At the terminal, we got through customs no problem. We picked up our luggage and headed outside the secure area into a large mass of people. Somehow my Dad’s driver, Mr. Ni managed to find us in all of that. I guess there aren’t too many big white guys there though. We got to the van about 8:30pm and headed back to the apartment in Suzhou. Getting back to the pushing and shoving, the lack of toilet tissue in the bathroom, the honking of the horns (in HK, they don’t really honk their horns unless it is necessary whereas in most of China they honk for any reason—especially the second the light turns green, despite the fact that they are 15 cars back in the line), the inability to use turn signals, the dinginess of most surfaces, the lack of respect for property, the lack of pride in many cases, the cold buildings (they say it’s better for your health, but I think it is to save money on heat), the hawking of phlegm (even indoors onto the floor), and the often completely ass-backwards logic, I realize how different China really is from Hong Kong. Going from HK back to China in just a few hours provides a very stark contrast of the two. Don’t get me wrong, I do love being in China and it is not filled with only bad, annoying, or bizarre things. It’s just nice to have some of the pleasures that you don’t really even think about on a day-to-day basis until they are abruptly removed. We arrived at the apartment at about 9:30pm and made some soup for dinner before heading to bed. Dad has to return to work tomorrow and isn’t exactly looking forward to it. He is the last GE guy on the job here and has already been told that they want to release him as soon as he gets back. As ready as he is for that, there is a lot to be done yet and he still has to go butt heads with the customer for a while longer.

Day 28 -- Hong Kong

Housekeeping woke me up at 9:00am this morning. I wasn’t dressed, so I ran to the closet and tried to find a robe. No luck there, so I held the door shut (I couldn’t find the other lock in the dark to make sure it was done) and told her to go away. She kept standing there, knocking on the door. I yelled for Daniel to push the ‘Do Not Disturb’ button next to the bed. She finally left and I managed to sleep again for a half hour before Mom called to see if we were up. We dragged our butts out of bed and got ready to go. We had spotted a Pizza Hut near the hotel, so we stopped there for an early lunch. Back to the hotel to grab backpacks and catch the 1:00pm shuttle to TST. From there we took a ferry across the channel to Hong Kong Central for a whole HK$2.20 per person (about 28 cents US). We walked around for a bit and then took a Tram to the Peak. The view must be great on a clear day or evening. It wasn’t a bad view while we were there, but it was a little hazy. There was also a cold wind that kept us from hanging outside too long. Took the tram back down and then took a bus to the ferry terminal where we knew a bus line would go to the South side of the island. We found the right bus and rode to Stanley Market. We took the express bus which was supposed to take only 20 minutes. I’m not sure how long it actually took, but it seemed much longer. I guess that could have been the headache and the carsickness from sitting on the upper level of a double-decker bus in the very front seat. The seat actually sits in front of the front wheels, so turns feel rather abrupt there. We got some warm drinks at a café in the market and then shopped around for a while. We didn’t buy anything until the last shop we stopped at and that was only because we saw some rice patty worker hats that I had been wanting. Basically the big flat cone-shaped hats made of dried grass. We took the bus back to the ferry terminal and then the ferry back to TST. Just a short distance away from the ferry terminal is Harbour City Mall. In there, we walked into a sportswear store so I could look at shoes (not that I need more, it’s just an addiction that I have). We found a shirt kind of like the trendy ones that you see at Old Navy or A&F or whatever, that say ‘Property of such-and-such Athletic Department.” This one said “Property of Portland State Athletic Department.” I would have bought one just for the novelty but the colors were so damn ugly. They had a funky green, a pastel yellow, and a pastel blue. Sadly enough our own Portland State Bookstore also invests in these tacky colors instead of sticking with the standards and school colors (green, white, black, and grey). We also hit the Toys ‘R’ Us there to look for the 20 Questions game for Mom and Dad to buy. We walked in and hit the jackpot. Not only did we find the game, we also found PEZ dispensers for the first time in Asia. We ended up with about 25 dispensers, primarily Disney related. We hit KFC for dinner and went back outside to Starbucks. Daniel and I decided to forgo going out to clubs in Lan Kuai Fong as we had planned on earlier. We all took a cab over to the Temple Street Night Market, open from 4pm to midnight. We cruised from end to end perusing the different vendor stands. Mom and Dad bought an oil painting of Hong Kong and Daniel and I bought two that we will frame after we get home. I took some video of a plate of prawns still moving, ready to boil or fry or whatever it is they do to them. Mom and Dad bought a suitcase (we’ve all acquired way too much stuff to fit into the ones we have), which gave us a short-term storage unit for the big bag of PEZ dispensers. I also found a purse I liked and dealt on that until I realized I was pushing for just one more dollar (US) off, so I gave in and bought it. We were all pretty beat physically, so we took a taxi back to the hotel. When we got there, we regrouped to re-pack and be ready to checkout in the morning. Finished up about midnight and Daniel and I went back to our room.

Day 27 -- Hong Kong

“Now that you are in Hong Kong, what are you going to do?” “I’M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!!!!” I was so excited to go to Disneyland today. I know that the park here isn’t that big, but some completely mindless fun is something I have been craving since about a year and a half ago when I started my grad program. We got up at 9:30am and had some carbs, er, breakfast at the hotel. We packed our bags, checked out of the hotel at 11:00am and checked our luggage in the lobby. Just down the road from the hotel is an MTR (subway). We walked there and got on our way. We had to make two transfers to get to the Disneyland line. At the second transfer, we walked across to the Disneyland platform and were greeted by Disney music over the speakers. When the train pulled up, it had Mickey Mouse shaped windows. Inside it was very plush with cushy benches, Disney character statuettes, Mickey shaped handholds, and, of course, more Disney music. We arrived outside the park and took a few pictures by the entrance sign. Into the park and headed into Tomorrowland for some rides. We rode the Orbitron (goes around in a circle and your ‘spaceship’ moves up and down. Next up was Space Mountain. I’ve been on it at Disneyworld in Florida, but this was Daniel’s first time. My eyes were watering so bad from the cold gusts of air by the time we got done. The picture that they take during the ride was pretty funny, so we decided we had to get one. Grabbed some caramel corn for a snack then onto the Buzz Lightyear ride. Two people sit in each car and have a joystick to spin the car around and two guns. The idea is to help Buzz beat Zorg by hitting the targets with your laser guns. From there we visited Fantasyland. We went on a few rides there and then into Mickey’s Philharmagic. You get glasses when you go into the theater for a 3D show. There were what looked like little speakers between each of the chairs on the back side. During the show, however, they spritzed out water, air, and scents to go along with whatever was on the screen. They also had bigger gusts of air and other effects throughout the show. Way cooler than I thought it would be. Went back to Tomorrowland for the only Western food indicated on the guide-map and another go at the Buzz Lightyear ride. From there we went to Adventureland and took a river ride. There were three lines: one for English, one for Mandarin, and one for Cantonese. You definitely don’t see that at the Disney resorts in the US. We did a couple more things there before heading to Main Street to see the afternoon parade with all the Disney characters. The songs alternated between English and Chinese versions. After the parade we went to see the Lion King show in Fantasyland. It was packed, but there were no bad seats in the house. The show and songs were done in English, but there were two guys dressed up as baboons that would translate the important parts and transitions into Cantonese. It was quite amusing to watch. Daniel and I decided we should do Space Mountain one more time before we left, so it was back over to Tomorrowland. We got the front car on the ride this time, which made it even more fun. We also did the Buzz Lightyear ride one more time since we were there and had the time. We spent the rest of our time there cruising the stores and bought a few things. Mom had mentioned to me several days back that the one thing she really wanted from Disneyland was a Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse (from the original cartoon that Mickey debuted in). We found one, but Mom didn’t buy it for herself. I guess she just decided to not spend the money on herself and buy gifts for other people instead. Daniel and I decided to go ahead and buy it for her, but didn’t tell her. On the way out of the park, she told us that she did end up getting a Steamboat Willie Mickey and pulled out a mint tin with him on it. We also stopped by a Disney fountain to take pictures. Mom and Dad sat down and had Daniel take a picture with their camera. I asked them to stay there so we could get one with my camera too. So I handed Daniel my camera and handed Mom her Mickey. She made the “you didn’t have to do that” face and said thank you. I told her she couldn’t make that face for the picture though. The whole time at the park, the lines were pretty short and often there was no waiting at all for the rides. Granted it was a weekday in the off-season, but I still expected it to be worse. Where the lines were an issue was waiting to see the characters. Each character had a station where people could line up to take a picture with them, unlike in the US where the characters walk around the park and seeing them is more of a chance meeting (at least it was the last time I was at Disneyworld). The bathroom lines were a close second to the characters, but done in a completely different fashion. I’m used to getting in a line near the bathroom door and waiting for the next stall to open up before the first person proceeds. Here, however, everyone goes and stands in little lines in front of each stall. It makes for a really crowded bathroom and some people waiting an extra long time if they happen to pick a bad line. It’s just a little strange. We took the MTR back and walked to our hotel to pick up our luggage. Grabbed a taxi and went to another hotel that we had booked for the final two nights in Hong Kong. I think Mom had some rewards points to use and this hotel would redeem them. Anyway, we headed to the Harbour Plaza hotel in the Hung Hom area. The hotel is very nice and right on the water to be able to see the lights of Hong Kong. We checked into the hotel and walked to the Outback Steakhouse about two blocks away. Returned to the hotel about 10:00pm and were all exhausted from the fun day at Disneyland. Took a hot bath to wind down and went to bed by 11:00pm.

Day 26 -- Hong Kong and Macau

We had breakfast at the hotel today. Not much there that I could eat, so we’ll call it a carb-loading day—lots of bread and pastries. We extended our reservations for another night before heading out. Left the hotel at 11:00am and took a cab down to the ferry terminal. We got there about a half later and went through customs and the health checkpoint before leaving for Macau. The ferry took just under an hour and a half. Went through customs and another health checkpoint upon arrival in Macau. Hit the ATM for some Macau Patacas and stopped by a tour center to see what they had to offer. Had we opted to do it, it would have been a reasonable price and we would have seen a lot of interesting places, but it also would have meant a lot of riding around and less than two hours of free time after the tour. We hit the city on our own and mostly walked around. The signs are mostly in Chinese and Portuguese, but there were some in English as well. At least we could kind of read the Portuguese to figure out things if there wasn’t any English. We found a café for lunch and briefly checked out the shopping center it was in to see what was there. We decided we should do a geocache while in Macau, so we found one that seemed interesting and meandered to figure out how to get on top of the highest hill in Macau. It took a walk through the city, a ride up in a cable car, and some meandering around the paths. The cache was relatively easy to find. Not a big chance of it being plundered or taken away by people cleaning up the area because the park seemed to have plenty of garbage laying around just off the pathway. We continued on and walked through the city a bit more. The Macau Tower is an attraction that can be seen in much of the city. It’s really just a landmark and place to view the city like the Seattle Space Needle, or the Shanghai Pearl Tower. We made our way over to it and headed up to the top. For some reason, there were two white tigers near the lower level elevators. I guess it’s just some sort of exhibit, but it was just them in a glass room. Cool to see them, but perplexing nonetheless. Up the elevator to visit three different lookout levels. There were some other attractions here at the tower, but I was too big of a wuss to do them. They had a skywalk (walk around the outer rim, 233 meters up (732 feet), outside with no railing, tethered in a harnesss), a less intense skywalk (same as before except with rails), a mast climb (with harnesses, you can climb to the top of the mast atop the tower 338 meters high (1109 feet)), and a skyjump (walk out on a platform, in a harness, rapidly lowered to the ground from 233 meters up by a cable with two stabilizing cables beside you—kind of like a more controlled skydiving or a bungee jump without the recoil). It looked fun, but also cold and I tend to get a little dizzy when I’m up high without a REALLY good sense of security. There were also some bouldering and climbing walls at the base of the tower and a zip line. Grabbed some sodas and water before heading down. We stopped at the Toys ‘R’ Us store on the ground floor of the tower. Bought some pretty inconsequential stuff like Legos and a 20 Questions electronic game. Took a cab back to the ferry terminal, changed our leftover Patacas into Hong Kong Dollars, then managed to switch to the earlier 7:30pm return ferry instead of waiting until 8:30pm. We only had a few minutes, so we had to hustle to get through customs and get to our ferry. I showed Mom and Dad the 20 Questions game and they thought it was pretty cool. We’ll try to look for some for them to give a few people as gifts (cheap entertainment) before we leave Hong Kong. Got back to Hong Kong/ Kowloon just before 10:00pm. We walked to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. The food was good and the entertainment was better (a Filipino cover band). After dinner we walked back to the shuttle pick up in TST and went back to the hotel. It only took me a few minutes to fall asleep while I was flipping through the channels on the TV.

Day 25 -- Sanya, China to Hong Kong

Another early morning for us. We met Caddie downstairs to get our airline tickets from her and ride to the airport. In town, we met her husband. He drove us the rest of the way so she could go do some work in the office. We got to the airport by 9:45am for our 11:30am flight. We had to figure out where to check in as her husband didn’t speak any English to offer us guidance. We walked into the security/ customs area and there was no one there. We found the customs declarations form and started filling it out. An employee brought us departure cards to fill out, so we did that and started forming a line behind the yellow line on the floor along with 5 or so other people. When the security/ customs agents arrived, they told us to go back further and form another line behind a different desk. We did that, got to the front, and then were shown that we had to fill out another form and get at the back of the line again. This form was a health form that had questions about if you have had a cough, headaches, fever, etc. in the last 2 weeks. I chose not to report my headaches that I’ve been having as I didn’t want to take any chances. They also look at you with a heat sensing infrared camera to check your temperature for fever. These are all precautions to help prevent the spread of bird flu. We got through that line and up to the declarations line again. Mom and I didn’t claim anything; Dad and Daniel claimed their computer and camera equipment so it wouldn’t be an issue when we came back in from Hong Kong. Mom and I got through quickly while Dad was still trying. The woman was talking to him in broken English, so I tried to hang back and help in Chinese. A security guard ushered Mom and I through to scan our bags and wouldn’t let us go help. Dad had to fill out the form again and list serial numbers (even though the form only said ‘model number’). He also had to claim how much was paid for them and not just the value. He explained that one was purchased many years ago and the other was a company purchase, so he didn’t know what the purchase prices were. He finally made up prices and was allowed to go through, provided he understands that he MUST bring them back to China. It didn’t seem to matter how many times he said that he lives in China or showed his resident/ work visa to them, they just didn’t want to believe this big white guy lived in their country apparently. In the mean time, the guard that ushered Mom and I through motioned for Daniel to go to the other line (‘No goods to declare’). He followed his directions and was promptly sent back to the other line by the agent there. When he finally got to the agent, they started hassling him too. He argued that the lenses didn’t have serial numbers (not true, but he didn’t want to unpack the bag and write them down for all four lenses). They asked for the one on the camera, so he showed them where it said ‘D70’ as we had written on the form. They decided if it said that on the camera it must be the serial number then. They finally let him go through, scanned his and Dad’s bags, and we were on our way to yet another line to check in. The line to check in was relatively painless. They weighed our bags and sent us to another line for customs clearance. This is where they actually check your passports, see if you are who you say you are, and in some countries see if you have visited any forbidden countries (this is usually in the Middle East and religion based though). They looked at mine with a microscope under a black light for a few minutes, stamped it, then sent me through. It didn’t seem to matter that the name on my passport didn’t match the tickets. It does have an amendment on the back page, but she never even looked at that. I went through while she checked out Daniel’s passport. She asked for additional ID from him (I guess the bleach blond hair on a picture from 9 years ago just didn’t look like him) before letting him through. Dad and Mom were in another line where they struggled to explain that they live in China and their visas were different. The agent used the microscope on Dad’s passport and then let them through. In all, the customs/ security/ etc. took us 40 minutes to clear. Maybe 2 minutes of that was actually spent waiting in line; the rest was spent with them giving us the standard hassle. It’s not always this bad traveling in China, this airport was particularly a pain in the butt though. We had about 20 minutes before boarding time by the time it was all said and done. The plane was very small. There were only 12 and a half rows, 4 seats wide – 50 seats total. Even though it was small, it seemed to have more legroom than our last flight and was reasonably comfortable. The nearly two hour flight put us into Hong Kong shortly before 1:30pm. We were ushered through customs and zapped in the head with a hand held temperature gun before we were allowed into the airport. We hit the ATMs to get Hong Kong Dollars and headed to McD’s for lunch (they only served us seaweed covered peanuts on the flight which we all opted not to eat). After lunch, we figured out where to catch our hotel shuttle and headed for town about 3:15pm. Connie and I got in touch on the way to the hotel and made plans for dinner. She had already made reservations and figured out that our hotel had a free shuttle to get us where we would meet her and what time it left. We got to the Metropole Hotel in the Mon Kok area around 4:30pm and got settled in. We took a shuttle at 6:00pm down to Tsimshatsui (TST) and walked a few blocks to meet Connie at 6:30pm. We walked a little ways to Knutsford Terrace and she treated us to an excellent dinner. Everything we had was great and we had no worries about accidentally getting food we were allergic to. We had a good chance to visit and catch up with each other. Dad asked her if she knew why Chinese people need a visa to visit Hong Kong (even though it is considered part of China) but Hong Kong people don’t need a visa to visit Mainland China. Her answer was that the Chinese government wants to ensure that the Chinese people would return to China and know that the Hong Kong people definitely want to return to Hong Kong and not stay in China. We all thought that was a pretty good explanation seeing as how Hong Kong is very modern with seemingly greater freedoms and higher standards of living. Mom and Dad have promised her a barbecue at their place next time they are all in town since she insisted upon treating us to dinner here. After dinner, we all walked around town for about an hour. Connie pointed out places to shop and other things around town and took us down to the waterfront for a view of the city lights of Hong Kong Central. We headed back to the shuttle bus about 9:30pm and went back to the hotel. I had another killer headache and fell asleep fully-clothed, over the covers, with my feet hanging off the side of the bed.

Day 24 -- Sanya, China

We got up early again to meet Caddie at 9:30am for our “local tour.” About ten minutes before we were supposed to meet her, we got a text message saying to wear shorts and bring clean clothes. We new there was a hike, but not entirely sure what this was all about. Dad was feeling sick, so he decided to stay at the hotel. The rest of us went down to meet Caddie, still wearing pants, and asked what the deal was about the text message. She finally explained that we would be hiking through water, with bad knees and each of us only bringing one pair of shoes, we opted out. I think we would have liked to see some of the sights, but I don’t think any of us were disappointed about missing another local lunch. Mom went back to her room and Daniel and I stayed downstairs to eat breakfast. Just as we were finishing up, Mom and Dad came down as he was starting to feel a little better. We enjoyed the weather poolside for a while and decided to walk over to a nearby street market. Headed down to the beach and walked around a while, had some ice cream, and then went back to our hotel. A while later we walked to the Holiday Inn for lunch. It was very warm outside while we were eating, so Daniel and I decided we wanted to go swimming again. Finished up lunch, walked back to our hotel, and then let our food settle for a bit. By the time we got to the pool, it had cooled considerably. Daniel swam and I dangled my feet in. I decided to stay out of the pool and read for a bit. Headed back up to the room and tried to help mom book our hotel for Hong Kong. She finally decided to book one for one night so we would at least have a place to stay when we got there. If the accommodations were okay, then we could extend the stay. If they were bad or the location was inconvenient, then we would try to find something else. After booking the hotel, she came across another site with some reviews. It turns out that this is the hotel that SARS was traced back to in Hong Kong a few years back. Of course we all harassed her about it, but this could be possibly one of the better places to stay as I’m sure they’ve taken extra precautions since then. I’ve been in touch with my friend Connie who is from HK. We met in Portland through a friend/ classmate of mine who used to work with her at Nike in HK. When she is in town, we usually hang out at least a couple times. Anyway, we didn’t think we were going to be able to meet up because she is heading to Shanghai to visit a friend during the time we planned on being in HK. Turns out that the train we were going to take from Haikou (North side of Hainan Island) to Guangzhou to HK is full, so we will be flying there instead. This puts us in a day earlier than the train, so we should be able to see each other tomorrow for dinner or something. We decided to take a walk around to find someplace different for dinner. We checked the menu in a few hotels as we passed by, but ended up walking a kilometer and a half away to the Resort Horizon hotel. There wasn’t anyone else in the restaurant (it was after 9:00pm by the time we got there). The only other people we saw down there was about a hundred or more people attending a McDonald’s Operations Meeting. They had catering, music, and entertainment and were quite loud in the courtyard next to the restaurant. Gave us something to watch during dinner anyway. We walked back to the hotel, of course with many taxis honking along the way, and went to bed by midnight.

Day 23 -- Sanya, China

Got up early today in time to have breakfast before meeting our guide, Caddie (pronounced Katy), at 9:30am. We rode for about an hour and then took a cable car over a mountain/ hill to go to Nanwan Monkey Islet in Xincun. More than 2,000 wild Macaque monkeys live here. When we got off of the cable car, Caddie told us not to put our hands in our pockets or get anything out of our bags. She also said, “If a monkey jumps on your back or shoulders, don’t be frightened. They will move on if they don’t find anything.” I wasn’t really frightened of the monkeys, per se, but very uncomfortable. When we were walking around, she told me that ‘monkeys are very clever.’ I told her that is what bothers me.I know that they are smart, they are fighters, and they are not known for being nice. While there, we saw two gangs of monkeys clash. The dominant male from one group had apparently stolen a baby from another group. The two groups ran along either side of us, screaming, clawing at each other, and showing their BIG teeth. The dominant male also has two bodyguards that serve to protect him and are always close by. We also saw a comedy show with a few of the trained Macaques and a monkey prison where they lock up monkeys that attack or threaten people. There were two adult monkeys in there and one baby that had to go in because its mom was in there. We left Monkey Islet via a bus, then a ferry across the water. On the way back to Sanya, we passed through a tunnel. Everyone turns on their flashers (though not necessarily their headlights) the entire way through the tunnel. They also leave their turn signals on the entire time they are driving in the left lane. It doesn’t matter if they are just passing one car or ten, they still leave it on until they move back into the right lane. We had local Hainan food for lunch at a small restaurant. Being an island, of course it is usually seafood, so we had to specifically ask for a few non-seafood dishes. Lunch consisted of fish soup, a beef dish, a pork dish, sweet potato leaves, and pumpkin with sweet potatoes. So, basically I had sweet potatoes for lunch. I did try everything else, but pork and beef are to hard on my stomach and as for the fish soup, well, I have issues with eyes staring at me while I eat. It was pretty fishy tasting too, not like the good fresh fish we get back home. After lunch Caddie dropped us off downtown to walk around for an hour. We didn’t buy anything and thought the hour was a little much for what the town had to offer for visitors, but she was insistent that we needed time before our next stop. She went back to her office to do some work and had her husband picked us up at 3:30pm. We drove for about a half hour before arriving at the Nantian Hot Spring Resort. We got to spend 2 hours in open air pools. The pools vary in temperature, but most were 32° to 38° Celsius (90° to 100° Fahrenheit) or 39° to 43° C (102° to 109° F). There were some Chinese and a lot of Russians at the resort, so needless to say, there were a ton of Speedos. Also, apparently Russian women wear bikinis regardless of their age or size (yikes!). There was a ‘Coconut Milk Pool’ and a ‘Coffee Pool,’ both named for their color given by the minerals that are in them. We did go in the Coconut Milk one, but decided the Coffee one was just a little too funky for us. The hot springs were very relaxing. My bad knee felt great and my skin did too from all the minerals. I think I could do this every day... We got back to the hotel about 7:00pm and walked to the Holiday Inn down the road to see if they had something different for dinner. We ended up with Mexican, Italian, and American food, all very good. Also had a Filipino band performing during dinner. We walked back to the hotel about 9:00pm. I thought we were going to make it the whole way without a taxi honking at us. I was saying this to Daniel as we turned and made the step into the hotel driveway when one pulled up and honked. I should have known we couldn’t have a quiet walk back. Back to the room and crashed b 10:30pm.

Day 22 -- Sanya, China

We all decided we should sleep in today and just have a completely lazy day. Today is the 15th day of the Chinese New Year (apparently an big day for the holiday), so the guide we were in touch with recommended not doing any tours for the day. We have made plans for the next two days that should keep us pretty busy. We ate lunch at the hotel and chilled out in the room for a while before Daniel and I went swimming. It was a little chill, but way warmer than swimming in the Washougal River at home, and we do that every summer. I tried to lay out and soak up some sun, but the clouds were moving in and blocking the sun. Back to the room and got cleaned up. Killed some more time and had dinner at the hotel. We had thought about going to an entertainment show at the hotel, but decided we didn’t want to spend the money on seeing “The Creation of Hainan” and not really be able to understand it too. Dad got a haircut at the hotel and we headed back to the room. Mom worked on trying to book the rest of our trip and we watched a few DVDs. Some guards at a nearby hotel gave us a good fireworks show and we headed to bed by midnight. Not really like us to stay at the hotel all day, but we did enjoy the vacation from vacationing. We tend to hit things pretty hard when we travel because we never know when we will be back to that place.

Day 21 -- Sanya, China

Daniel and I slept in until 10:00am and Mom and Dad until 11:30am. We are really enjoying this vacation stuff. We finally decided to crawl out of bed and head downstairs to eat lunch. Afterwards, we took a walk down to the beach. The beach is nice, but a bit crowded here in Yalong Bay. There were WAY too many Chinese guys in Speedos. Just not something I like to see. We decided to take a “underwater sightseeing” trip on a boat. We paid one place, took our tickets to another, continued further and got big, chunky, uncomfortable life jackets, then waited on the dock for about 10 or 15 minutes before we boarded a ferry boat. The ferry took us across to another boat near a small island. We boarded the other boat and this was where we got to see fish, anemones, and various other sea life. It wasn’t exactly a glass-bottom boat though. It said ‘semi-submersible’ on the wall as we boarded. We went downstairs to a narrow area where seats lined the sides and there were many thick windows to peer out. It was reasonably interesting, but not uber-impressive. Most of the fish were small and the few larger ones we saw were not at all interested in the boat and food like the small ones were. Back to the beach where we got some ice cream and walked on the sand for a while. It was pretty warm and I knew that much more time out there without sunscreen would turn Daniel into a lobster, so we walked back to the hotel. Got back and napped for a while. I forget how draining the heat can be sometimes. After the nap, we looked online and figured out what tours, etc. we wanted to do while we are here. We were thinking about doing some of the tour stuff tomorrow, but the guide we contacted said that we should wait another day as it is the 15th day of the New Year. She didn’t explain much beyond that except that it is an important day. We finally headed down for dinner in the hotel again about 9:00pm. Finished up by 9:30pm and decided to take a walk. We went over to the Cactus Resort Hotel, which is located behind our hotel and checked out the pool and the ‘dancing’ fountain (coordinated with music and lights). My friend Steve told me that the pool here is the largest in China. I would believe it. I tried to get a decent picture, but there was no good vantage point without going into the hotel and finding a way up to the top floor balcony. We did check out the hotel a bit and all agreed that it would be a good place to stay when we come back again. We walked the loop back to our hotel. We figured it would be get to get out for a nice quiet walk after eating a big meal. The walk itself was good, but it wasn’t quiet by any means. The taxi drivers here are different from anywhere else I’ve been in China. Some places you just wave for a taxi and it will stop; some places you wave and they keep driving by you; some places you have to practically fight people for the taxi. Here, however, there are a plethora of taxis on the road and they very much want your business. They think that no one wants to walk (even just crossing the road to get to the beach or back to the hotel). If the taxi driver sees you walking, expect a honk of the horn and they will typically slow down until you acknowledge them and explicitly say for them to move on. It doesn’t matter that you just told the cab in front of them that you didn’t want a ride, they’ll still honk and slow down. It’s quite obnoxious and still manages to startle me when they honk right on my heels. Daniel has decided to get an air horn the next time he is here so he can honk back. Seriously, do they think that we are incapable of waving down one of the 30 taxis we see while on a short walk if we do want a ride? After the semi-relaxing yet noisy walk back to the hotel, we watched some DVDs again until falling asleep.

Day 20 -- Changsha to Sanya, China

I barely slept last night. The room was so hot from trying to get our laundry dry (by hanging it and cranking up the heat while we were gone during the day) and it never cooled down. We had to get up early in order to be able to spend some more time with Netta and Tai before we left. At breakfast, Tai had a blue mini M&M up his nose. Netta isn’t sure which way it went in—through his nostril or through the hole in his palate. Went back to the room to finish packing and then left about 11:30am to go to the airport. The taxi was so weighted down in the back from the four of us and all of our luggage. After arriving at the airport, we actually got service seemingly fast. A woman came back to us in line and got us our tickets. I think it was because we were Westerners, but I can’t be sure. We got checked in then found a restaurant to eat at. Two things that we tried to order they told us “mei you” which means don’t have. Finally managed to get some food then headed to our gate to catch our 2:40pm flight to Sanya. Three gate changes later, we got on the plane and headed out. One nice thing about flying over here is that we seem to only be on the plane for about 20 minutes before takeoff instead of sitting there waiting forever. I got a text from my friend Steve just after boarding and wrote back, of course boasting about the warm sunny weather I was headed towards. When we arrived at the airport into t-shirt weather, we called the hotel and managed to get a shuttle to come pick us up. The taxi drivers, for as much as they hounded us to use them, were actually helpful and told the hotel what we needed. Different than what I am used to because I am typically very suspicious of them and halfway expecting to be screwed. Proved me wrong this time I guess. We pulled up to our hotel, Universal Resort, which is an African themed hotel. It is quite nice and has zebra print everywhere—the chairs, the carpets, the headboard on the bed. We ate dinner here at the hotel out by the pool and Daniel and I also bought swimsuits (I’m almost positive mine is sitting at home on my bed waiting for me to pack it—doh!). Fell asleep watching DVDs.

Day 19 -- Changsha, China

Our plan today was to go with Jason, the guide, to a local mountain at 9:30am. The weather was too rainy for hiking at the mountain, so he decided to take us to the embroidery museum instead. Dad wasn’t feeling well, so he opted to stay at the hotel. At the museum, there was another family that we had seen at the adoption center. They were there with the six-year-old girl that they adopted. She was all smiles and her parents say that she hasn’t cried at all. She seems to understand her situation and what is going on. Tai was a grump most of the time. I gave him a fruit leather and that kept him occupied and in a better mood for a while. I asked the girl’s parents if she would probably like one too. They said it was okay. She figured it out pretty quick when I reached in my bag to grab one and said “Thank you aunt” in Chinese (I think it is ‘xie xie shen’). After the fruit leather was gone, Tai threw an even bigger fit, so we decided to forgoe another traditional lunch and went back to the hotel. Dad was feeling better by the time we got back, so he, Mom, Daniel, and I went to KFC for lunch. They screwed up the order (forgot two sandwiches and forgot to charge us for something else we had). I managed to use my Chinese to communicate well enough and got everything straightened out (no one there spoke English this time). On the way back to the hotel from lunch, it started snowing. It didn’t stick to the wet ground, but there were plenty of big snowflakes falling. Back at the hotel I went to the Business Center with Mom to finish booking our reservations. I had to use MSWord in Chinese to print out a document. It wasn’t so much reading the characters (I only know a handful) as remembering where different functions were found on Word. I took a short nap after we took care of the hotel reservations, then we headed to the other Wal-Mart. Again, this was just for something to do. When we got there, there was such a rancid smell outside. Not just a funk in the air, but something so bad that I was literally gagging and threw up a little. I really wish there was such thing as a smell recorder for cameras because there is no way to really describe the smell. Maybe fried baby shit mixed with dog shit? But then again, who would really want to smell a recording of something that disgusting. We rushed into Wal-Mart to escape the smell. We took some photos of the various things we saw and got funny looks for doing so. Bought a few to-go type snacks for us and for Tai. We also got him a little stuffed Winnie the Pooh. Hit McDonald’s again for food and had to use pointing and Chinese to get by as no one spoke English there either. I think my Chinese is improving a little as I managed to get the right number of the right things. We meandered awhile in the adjoining shopping center and again saw no other Westerners. We did manage to find a China Mobile so Dad could put more money on his SIM, or so we thought. They couldn’t handle it there because the phone was from out of town. They did give us directions to a big China Mobile about 10 or more blocks away where we could do it. We decided to hoof it and actually got to see a little bit of the city, but mostly just shopping centers and local restaurants. Finally made it there and Dad got the money added. Shortly after returning to the hotel, I got a call from Netta asking me to come get Tai. Apparently he had a poo accident and had to be showered. I went to the door and grabbed Tai, all wrapped up in a towel, and took him to Mom and Dad’s room to hang out while Netta finished cleaning up. We gave him the Winnie the Pooh and he was uninterested until we showed him that a spoon would stick to Pooh’s magnetic hands. That seemed to be pretty amusing for him. Netta came over and got Tai dressed for bed. Daniel and I were not at all tired, so we went to our room to watch movies for the rest of the night.