Over the summer a lot of you know that my family and I went to Asia. There, we stopped at China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Cambodia. I guess I would just like to share a bit more about my trip because it was a wild one! During my trip I learned that beyond America, there are people who live a completely different life than we do. It still amazes me how many people are on this earth and how similar we are in a lot of ways. So let's take a blast from the past (see what I just did ;) and allow me to take you through my twisted adventure.
China was ... different and that is all I'm going to say. Just kidding. My parents signed up for one of China's many tourist walkthroughs where for one week, you spend each day visiting tourist attractions. It was really cheap plus they said that every night we would stay at five star hotels. Hmm... fishy. However, my family has never been to China, and we can't stay "Chinese people who have never been to China" all our lives! Our plane ride was China Eastern for around sixteen hours or so. The plane ride was same as the tourist experience... horrible yet affordable. The plane was packed with jumpy passengers and a lot of kids! At first it was okay but after a while it got really stuffy. Especially with our three hour delay in the plane. Shanghai was currently experiencing a storm so we flew down to a near by airport station. I was taking a nap and was so excited when I work up because I thought we landed in Shanghai. Big mistake. For three hours we were cooped up in the plane with "reduced" air conditioner (gas purposes I'm guessing??) Surrounding me were kids running up and down the aisles while smelly the heavy air of puke (my worst fear.) Since the plane was pretty much lawless, my dad, sister, and I went to the back of the plane where the flight attendants were chilling. Still, it was the space of a closet. Not to mention my mom was getting really sick and too up our whole row lying down. We tried our best to remain calm and know that God is with us. It was really bad so I took a nap and constantly woke up waiting for us to take off again.
Eventually, we landed in Shanghai and ran straight out of the plane into a bus with several people standing in it. I was thinking "this is sooo ghetto." Finally we arrived at the air port station only to wait a couple more hours for our luggage. My family and I raced to find our tour guide at 1:00am in the morning. It turns out he was just about to leave to find no one else was coming. Thank God!! Another 45min. passed and we finally reached our hotel. It was very nice and the food was really good. But note that that was only the first night. Some nights we stayed in a cheesy hotel that smelled like smoke in the lobbies. Every night I remember constantly looking for wifi anywhere possible.
Going to a foreign country especially like China takes a toll on your body. Every single day I felt nauseous and my stomach felt numb. I was breaking out into pimples all over my for head and only felt relaxed after a nice shower. Jet lag was not even the worst of our problems. We met some really nice people at the tour and brought some to our church after we came back. If I were to sum up that whole trip I would give it one word: wild.
Taiwan was our breather. In the comfort of my mom's uncle and aunt's home we got to sleep all day and relax. Which is something we never did in what seems like to be forever. There we spent two weeks shopping our socks off and playing with my uncle's lazy dog. I love Taiwan and would never forget how clean their subways are. Or how nice the people act even though you are a stranger. Or the funny looks I got when I tried speaking Chinese or spoke regular English. Everything there was comforting and really cute. I want to go back someday and take it all in again without China draining my energy out before hand.
To think of it now is different than actually being there. Now, I feel like Taiwan was perfect. Of course would think that after my mom has been brain washing me about it almost all my life. But it really was heaven after China. Shortly after, it was time to head off to Thailand.
Thailand has one of the most largest airport station ever. It had really cool escalators that ... wait for it... were flat and inclined. It's a lot cooler when you are actually on it. There we met the missionary and his son on a three hour car ride to
Cambodia. Of course we had to stop at 7 eleven for some Thai ice tea which my brother later on barfed the whole way back to the airport. When we finally got to Cambodia we passed through the large buildings of casinos and then passed through the rest of the where the people lived. Imagine one long dirt road branching off to longer mud roads. That was basically it. The trip wasn't as strenuous as an actual missions trip. Like I said, we traveled before Cambodia.
Meeting new people and seeing first hand on how they lived couldn't have been more of a reality check for me. These people actually live here every day working while I claim I am suffering from school. What? It really shocked me on how poorly our world's money is dispersed. Think about all the doggy day spa's and animal rescue sights there are when on the other side of the planet there are people living on dirt. It's just not right. Not to mention, these people can still manage to smile :) Although, ever day you don't feel clean at all its easy to let loose and get a little roughed up. They only time you are clean is when you are sleeping. By the end of the trip we were just about ready to go back to Taiwan but they were currently experiencing stormy weather. We had to stay one more day in Bangkok until we could spend two more days in Taiwan. We stopped by 7 eleven again and guess who decided to drink a huge cup of Thai iced tea?? On the drive back to the airport station Andrew threw up all the way. Chubster and I were like... eeeeeeeeew!
So now you got an official taste of what our adventurous summer was. If you read to whole thing, good for you! If you tried reading the whole thing in one day and didn't, it's alright! I took several days just writing this thing. If you didn't read it at all, I have nothing to say to you because you aren't reading this. Have a nice week and become a member. Becoming a member just means you are a supporter. It's not going to send you spam mail or any kind of that junk :) basically it's harmless.
p.s Excuse the punctuation, grammar, and spelling mistakes. If you really want to, email me some corrections :P
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