Disclaimer: The content in normal font is the original text from the journal I wrote on this trip when I was eleven, and my comments from current 22-year-old me has about younger me’s writing are italicized.

Day 2

At 4:30 AM, aunt tracy got me up and ready. I almost left my shampoo and conditioner at my aunt’s house. Because those aren’t replaceable. At 5:15 AM, my grandma came to take us to the airport. Gary was there too. Seriously where are all these people coming from? I feel like Tex Avery was just having a ball these couple of days. Aunt Tracy and I waited in line at the check-in for about 45 minutes. The trick to avoid this is to have flights at awful hours super early or super late when no one wants to deal with it..but youll be one of the few people there and don’t have to stand for ridiculous hours. Eh even if your flight is at a normal time, just get there way early and chill at the airport, talk to people, make connections even before anyone takes off. After we passed the security, we went to starbucks for breakfast. How did I survive this long without food? I had a café latte and a blueberry muffin. Our airline is Air Canada to Vancouver. I got headphones and listened to classical. I found out that the back of my gameboy battery cover broke, so when I play, it feels weird. I still have the gameboy, it still has no back, and I still occasionally play it. Warioland for the win. Aunt tracy taught me how to blow bubble gum, with regular gum. It was very hard and I only got one bubble. I still struggle with this skill regardless of the gum. For drink on the plane, I had ginger ale towards Canada. I still always have ginger ale on my flights. I played an activity card game with my aunt. We had lunch at the airport. I had a mocha latta chill and a shrimp tempura bowl from cinnabon. Cinnabon has tempura bowls? The tempura bowl was pretty much like a cup of noodle bowl. ah, there it is. It got soggy. It was pretty good actually. How low were my standards then? Oh, I almost forgot, I am still waiting for the plane to go to China. I am so excited already. Our flight is 10 hours and 50 minutes at an altitude of 30,000 feet. Good thing I was afraid of heights. For the first set of drinks I had Chinese tea. For the snack with the drink, we had Chinese trail mix. I am listening to classical again. The first movie I watched was “After the Sunset.” It is about two diamond thieves. I liked it. That’s all the description we get? Really? I will go back and watch it now because I am curious. For lunch-ish on the plane, I had a twinkie like dessert, what? gingerale for drink surprise, a salad that I didn’t eat also surprising, and a stirfried pork and noodle dish that I ate with chopsticks. I watched an episode of Taxi which was very funny. I also saw an episode of Alias. But of course it was adjusted so that kids can watch it. I had two more cups of tea and worked on my TIME magazine homework project for a little while. Awww how cute I cared about school haha at least enough to bring work on vacation. I am pretty sure the final project is still on the table at my mom’s house…I kind of want it but it is probably better off on that table than on the table at my place where it would end up. The next movie that was on was Sideways. For dinnerish I had a nasty pork and rice dish with a sauce. For dessert, I had a vanilla icecream cup and fruit. For drinks I had a coke. No gingerale? I had another cup of tea, but spilled most of it in my hair. Ughh! How? I am sooo taking a long shower tonight. At this time we have 1.5 hours until we land in Beijing. For snack, I had chicken flavored cup of noodle soup that we bought, and more tea. What? I could hardly resist it. It was so good. When we were landing, I saw the wall. I was assuming everyone who reads my journal to know which wall. The Berlin Wall, duh! We got off the plane and went into our hotel room at Jian Gou Garden Hotel. Our hotel in Beijing has an indoor pool, a beauty salon, a fitness area, gymnastics, games, and pretty much anything else you can think of. I started feeling sick so my aunt and I went down to the lobby to have a cappuchino to keep me awake for dinner when we meet the tour guide and the other tourists. Coffee is always the cure…let it be known. I am the only kid. When we sent an email to my mom and Gary, we found out that we had $200 of Japanese money, instead of Chinese. I mean…its close? So my aunt had to go to the atm for an exchange. We met our companions and our guide named Bo. We had a meeting before we went to dinner. I almost didn’t make it because I hadn’t slept for 26 hours. So coffee isn’t always the cure. That’s kind of disappointing. Buuuuut I will still drink it, she says as she holds a large vanilla bean doubleshot coffee and protein drink. It is currently 12:30AM but I don’t have work tomorrow and I set a goal to finish typing up my china journal by the end of the weekend. For dinner we had white rice, spicy lamb, delicious pork, and roast duck. We also had this lemon-sweet chicken which was quite tasty. All of the animals? I do remember liking the sauce that comes with the duck more than the duck itself. I haven’t had duck since then, but that was more because I became vegetarian less than a year later for a significant amount of years. For dessert, there was watermelon and for drink, I had jasmine tea. Watermelon as a dessert…you know? I am totally okay with this. We went back to our hotel, I took a shower and a bath. I thought I was tired. I got ready for bed because we will be getting a wake up call at 7:30AM. Good night to me. Finally! Oh so I AM writing to me…I know what my aunts name is. Sixth grade logic.

In the journal I wrote as an eleven year old, seen in posts referring to China in 2005. Wow that was a decade ago already. I wrote a lot, but unfortunately it seems more of a “this is what I did” diary without comments on how the experience actually was for me. I also, refer to my aunt as “my aunt” instead of her name frequently because apparently im talking to someone who doesn’t know her? Also there are red pen marks everywhere in the writings as though I am proofreading or grading myself? In a different font, I wrote more about my experiences and how I felt and what I saw and my reactions towards what younger me wrote. I fill in the blanks about my experiences with what I remember. It is interesting what the memory retains. Some things I remember like they happened earlier today and other things I don’t recall at all. I have learned my lesson: record everything now and sort through it later. I believe I did that for my most recent Peru trip, and will have posts about that trip when I get to it haha.

Some things eleven-year-old me left out were the sanitation, my TIME magazine, and the tv shows. So briefly, whenever you need to relieve yourself, it appears you can do that anywhere. If your nose works, be mindful and prepared. Granted this is based on ten years ago so maybe it is different now! I did see a little boy peeing in the middl of Tieneman Square, so that was interesting. My sixth grade geography project was to pick a country and create our version of a TIME magazine. Since I knew I was going to china before the project, I picked that. I believe I attempted interviews, inserted pictures, wrote some articles, and hand painted the cover based on the cover image of a real TIME magazine. As for TV shows, I watched Chinese tv shows in the hotel room and enjoyed them more than some of the shows I was watching at home at the time. Not all of them had subtitles, but I still enjoyed the ones without them because it was fun reading expressions and understanding what was happening at least on some level that way.

Disclaimer: The content in normal font is the original text from the journal I wrote on this trip when I was eleven, and my comments from current 22-year-old me has about younger me’s writing are italicized.

Day 10

We had breakfast at the hotel buffet again. I had a cup of tea and noodles. We went outside to go to an aquarium but I got a really bad cramp in my ribs to the point where I couldn’t breathe very well. I stayed home and waited. Aunt tracy came back with three packs of chopsticks for gift. We went to the aiport and had lunch there. I had a bowl of beef and noodles. It was a little spicy. We got on to the plane and I had ginger ale for the first round of drinks. For the first meal I had a disgusting chicken dish with ginger ale. For the second time, I didn’t eat the plane food. I ate a cup of noodles that I got in china. I don’t know what flavor it was because it was in Chinese. When we got to the airport, we called gary and my mom to ask them where we should meet them when we get back to LA from Canada. And thaaaaaaaaaaat’s all folks!

Disclaimer: The content in normal font is the original text from the journal I wrote on this trip when I was eleven, and my comments from current 22-year-old me has about younger me’s writing are italicized.

Day 9

I got up at 7 am to have breakfast. I didn’t sleep very well. I kept getting up and aunt tracy woke up with a headache. We had breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast, we walked over to where we seemed to have bought everything. I bought a pair of red slipper shoes, another outfit (pink), a panda, and a chop (stamp) with ink. I still have all of these too. We went back to the hotel shortly and left to go on a three hour cruise. We went to Haagen dazs and had a double soop of “cookies and cream and tiramisu.” Aunt tracy had a caffe latte. On our cruise, there were tables to sit at. I had pepsi and gum. Appetizing. Tonight we are having our farewell dinner. I wore my light pink dress from America. We went to bed earlier than usual. Wow I had so much to say about this day…

Disclaimer: The content in normal font is the original text from the journal I wrote on this trip when I was eleven, and my comments from current 22-year-old me has about younger me’s writing are italicized.

Day 8

We had breakfast at the hotel. It was a buffet also, but they didn’t have bacon or anything like that. I had two pieces of toast, rice congee, black tea and other stuff that wasn’t very good. To the Chinese I am tall. I stand at a solid 152.4 cm! We went to a museum and saw a lot of ancient artifacts. After that we went to the Jin Mao Tower. It is 88 stories high. I got an ice cream cone and got in the elevator to the 87th floor observation deck. I got sick because I am still afraid of heights. Ew. I got a sprite to slow down the taste. That doesn’t even make sense. Good job. I had lunch down at the bottom of the building. The only people that weren’t with us were Max, Mac, Lynn, and Gary. We ended up seeing them briefly but they didn’t come back with us. We had lunch at the tower. I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and an apple puff. We ate a lot of American food for not being in America. I don’t do that anymore on principle. On our way to a psychedelic tunnel under water, teenage boys came up and tugged on my backpack. I would say this wasn’t my best experience but it was okay. I mean I survived. Aunt Tracy yelled at them aha. Silly hooligans. The tunnel was cool because there were different sections of lights that you could get a seizure from the flashing. We went to the hotel and watched some diving. Damn they have skills! We took showers and then met downstairs to go to an acrobatic show. Even I could do some of that stuff. Only some though.