Blogs from Guangdong, China, Asia - page 7

Today was mostly spent traveling and eating. I was exhausted and tried to sleep for most of the day on the bus, but my parents sat in the row behind me and every time I’d start to fall asleep, one of them would poke me. Mom was trying to translate Chinese to English, and was texting Olivia in New York and then trying to get me to read it, and Dad kept poking me on the head every time we passed a Starbucks or KFC’s or McDonald’s (and there’s a lot). Then Mom started poking me to see if was sleeping, then to ask if I was sleeping. I had just fallen asleep again when Dad hit me in the eye with a can of Chicken Wing flavored Pringles. I was a little grumpy at this ... read more

I've solved the Genghis Khan mystery! Today on the bus, my mom let me sit next to her (because I have all the drugs and she was still feeling a little sick), and we were talking about who my real father could be. But then, I looked at her arm, and it turns out she's the one who has the Genghis Khan roots! Either she has some Native American blood stemming from those who walked across the land bridge during the last ice age, or we're about to find out on this trip that gingers come from China. Or maybe this whole legend thing is not real. I think it's the land bridge hypothesis though. The first village today was Karen's mom's village (not my mom, my grandmother's village on my mom's side is in Pennsylvania). ... read more

The first reviews are in for comeback blog #1, and early indications sound like the sequel is never as good as the original. Olivia said I lost my wit, Rachel said I didn’t mention that I had a second dog (shout out to Biscuit) and Mom said the whole blog was “flat”. When I asked her how “flat”, she said, “it just wasn’t as funny as what you used to write, but don’t ask me if you don’t want the truth”. Tough crowd. I won’t be discouraged though by all the critics because great writers are never recognized for their brilliance and superb writing during their lifetime. And my blogs are like Game of Thrones—the first couple episodes are to set up the rest for an outstanding season. Today was the official start to our 2 ... read more

Hey guys, So after Macau and Hong Kong and Immigration, we were pretty wrecked yesterday, so we just stayed in bed till lunchtime, then had lunch, then had dinner, then went back to bed, so that explains the absence of a blog. Today was vaguely more interesting though, although I think we slept for the same amount of time...We were hoping to go to a tea market to check it out today so we were taken to one a couple of blocks from where we are staying, we made it to the second floor, I'm not sure if it went any higher but it's, as you can probably imagine, filled with tea. That's one thing I really love about China, everything is sold in clumps, like when we went to Dafen the other day, all the ... read more

This week marks China’s National Week, a week long celebration of The Republic of China. Our first year here, so why not embrace all that this beautiful country has to offer? Monday was the official start of the holiday week, very similar to the USA’s Labor Day. Most businesses and all government offices were closed. Our day started rather lazy American-ish. We woke around 10am, had a very American breakfast (egg white omelette and fruit) and went to the gym. Thinking we were much closer, we thought we would go to Huaxing Temple. After a lot of research, it was determined that we would go another day. Instead, we hit another local spot / not-so tourist tourist trap: The Dafen Oil Painting Village ————— After wandering around the metro of Dafen, ignoring the multiple KFCs, McDonalds, ... read more