It was also events like the following that made me wish for more similar people: On the plane my brother was commenting on the name John Doe and how it’d feel if one was named John Doe… and into my head came a thought about a girl named Chlamydia but I really couldn’t share that with him. I wasn’t feeling up to explaining all that to him in case that particular name hadn’t exactly reached his ears yet.

And of course there was that one incident with the male-voiced GPS.

So that was my TIL, I actually missed things.

“…watching the people, the businesses, the cars and all the rest of our lives become less than a dot on the face of the earth, only a part of the collective mass of “human”. All the drama, the problems, the life-changing events melting into insignificance in the “big picture”.”

This is how I Carpe Noctem apparently. Imagine the power that plays its hand behind the wonder that is the “big picture”, how does it all get there, what drives the development? Balls of light everywhere, giant domes of light far more often than you would think. We’re not special.

Might as well start by directly quoting the beginning of my notebook for now, even if I’m totally not obligating myself to do anything else in order or quote anything else from this book verbatim. Yes.

*ahem* *flips back to the first page*

————————

3/11/11 – 4:59 pm

Already writing and it’s been less than an hour on the move. It was nice leaving school early (right after holding a fireball in my hand ), before any of the traffic rush, and being able to hear the last bell of the day (you know, that pivotal one releasing a whole school full of people on spring break) from my driveway as I’m about to leave the house. But anyways. I always write when I have things to say (…right?), and the something that caused me to pull out my notebook at this moment and start writing this time is this: We just passed a road called “Vargas Dr.”

Thank you.

…what a good time to take a look at my China journal, hm? Back to the past, two years…

———–

5:53 AM, 4:53PM Texas time, senior graduation’s about to start and Pomp and Circumstance is starting to play. I originally woke up at 1 but nobody else was up so I went back to bed until later. When everyone DID wake up, we went for a walk around the neighborhood. The rest of the morning was spent eating noodles for breakfast, watching the two birds in the house do decisively sexual actions [O.O I don't remember that part of my trip... good thing I'm reading this again, isn't it? >_<] and doing a mini-church at home (with me playing the piano). Plus Play Solitaire and Minesweeper somehow.

For lunch we went to this… restaurant, I guess? You know how asians are known to be bad drivers? Imagine a road in China.

I assure you, it was worse. There were motorcycles, 3-wheeled carts and a few cards all over the road, going every direction possible, left, right, diagonal, straight at you etc. A few intersections had traffic lights, but nobody listened to them anyways. The general right-side of the road rule had been seemingly dissolved; we spent the first part of the drive driving in the dead center of the road and when we were actually driving on the right side, motorcycles were driving in the same lane, going the opposite direction. People were walking across the road everywhere. Keep in mind China is more dense in population than the US, it was chaos. And yet my grandmother drove  casually, talking to my mom while randomly weaving around the road. My mother on the other hand was about to have her 211th heart attack.

Finally after reaching the restaurant we went up to the 3rd floor and entered our own private room with a couple couches and a large dining table in it. We were served tons of different plates, the most interesting probably being the fried ice cream.

[These words are scribbled around the page] Sunday drivers, mad drivers. Hurts to sneeze

Upon returning home (at, like, 8 AM) my mom talked with people, and we pretty much wandered around going nothing. I sat down to play at the piano for a bit. The piano (especially the high notes) was really out of tune.

The rest of the day so far has consisted of eating a large lunch and tons of fruit before and after lunch. My grandmother’s sister brought over cases and cases of fruit. Now everyone’s napping and I’m listening to music and writing this.

2:20 PM | 1:20 AM in Texas, day of senior graduation

—

For dinner we had wine, sparrow and turtle, among other things, afterwards I felt so tired I kept falling asleep and waking myself up by almost falling out of my chair.

My dinner had beef, shrimp, bok choi, mushrooms, and noodles. On the side was bread, fruit and some weird macaroni thing that I didn’t touch. Airplane food looks surprisingly good, though I think I had a bit too many meals today. Tried futily to go to sleep for hours upon end and watched the end of a couple movies, 101 Dalmations, and American Sweethearts (I think that’s what it’s called).

Central Time: 4:10 AM | China Time: 5:10 PM | 25 hours and 10 minutes so far

—

June 6th

Well, here I am, in China. As soon as we stepped out of security we were spoiled. Our Yi Fu and Da Yi (Aunt and Uncle, two of many) were there to greet us… with 2 bouquets of flowers, one for me and one for my brother. The car we were in apparently has a proximity alert that you can activate that beeps faster when you back our and get closer to a car. I can see uses for that in America. The first time he put it on though, it sounded to me like a bomb was going to go off xD.

We drove for quite a few hours until finally, at 9:30 [PM], we reached my grandma’s house. We were greeted with happiness (and a pink pair of sandals for me to wear in the house). I wandered around, noting the abundance of pictures of me and my brother. We were then served dinner (#2) where they were constantly filling our plates (they fed us a lot, did I mention they had snacks for us in the car riding home?)

Afterwards, my grandma showed us around and gave us weird singing tops that made me think of the pit percussionists [xDD], a fan, a mini umbrella and I swear my grandma just handed me a laptop.

So that’s China so far, it’s 11:54 PM here and I’m not that sleepy, jetlag for sure. We left LA 1:30 PM Thursday and 13 hours later it’s 11:54 PM Friday. Huh.

Reminiscence: Everyone speaks Chinese in China (Der.), which is fine by me, I understand most of it, but my brother’s had issues. Like once he was served soup and continually told it was hot and to drink it slowly, he didn’t understand them, drank the soup and had to run off to the bathroom to cool his tongue. Later, when asked by Ching Ching (our grandma) to show her his teeth, he stuck his tongue out, misunderstanding of course.

Other note: Everyone takes one look at me and exclaims that I’m pretty and have gotten prettier with age, and by comparison my brother has well… not. He was a lot cuter when he was little. It was a bit disconcerting seeing as they were all saying it (without apparently communicating with each other). Is that supposed to be an insult or compliment?

Pictures of me on the wall. Beware the evil littleLeevi glare xD

There are interesting parts but you have to find them xD.

Watch out 2 things, the pictures I took and random facts/reminiscences.

Thursday June 5th,

Day after we get out of school and we’re leaving for China already. We woke up at 3:00 AM and arrived at the airport before anyone else… seriously. After we walked in other people came in but the exact moment we walked in… the airport was deserted. It was actually really creepy.

After waiting for a while for the Frontier people to show up we checked in, stood there forever while the lady called her manager about a complication and eventually we got our bording passes. We then went to the gate and waited another 30 minutes. During that time I gave my brother a 4×4 rubiks cube to mix up, the took it back and solved it while an old couple nearby stared and talked about me ( D= ). Finally, we got on the place to Denver and the rest of the plane trip was normal, with me trying to go to sleep. Oh and our airplane? Apparently all the Frontier planes have an animal mascot and ours was something the polar bear.

Upon arriving at Denver we had about 30 minutes to go to the bathroom (ever been on a bus for a while? This is the same) and board the next before take off. This time we were headed towards Los Angeles. I watched Jumper throughout the ride and my brother thinks he saw the Grand Canyon.

In Los Angeles we had to leave the airport and come back in through the rigorous security checking again due to the “complications” mentioned earlier. That alone took up more than an hour. We had some time to grab some lunch for on the plane though (sushi) and buy my brother candy, a keychain, a magnet and a clock thing because he threw a mini tantrum (at age 11 Dx).

When we got to the gate they checked out boarding passes then pointed us out to a… bus? We didn’t ride the bus to China, sadly, but instead rode the bus for quite a while to arrive at the end of the airport where our plane was. LAX (Why is X the 3rd initial?) is a gigantic airport, suffice to say.

In the place (it was a lot bigger than the other two) they had all the normal safety announcements… except in Chinese first, then translated into English for the .01% that needed English. And their safety presentation? So much better than the American ones, they had a video of it, complete with examples and animation. The flight attendants were better too and actually acted more lie attendants. It was also a nice experience to have little hot towels given to you to wash your hands. For lunch (did I mention they served us lunch and dinner?), I chose to have fish, which came with rice and bok choi apparently. On the side we had bread (with butter) and for dessert, some strawberry cheesecake block. For dinner… well I haven’t had it yet at time of writing.

Started: 3AM | Now (Central time): 6:00 PM | Now (China time): 7:00 AM… tomorrow | 15 hours traveled so far

Who else thinks I’ll have major jetlag?

Next up I have my journalish entries and stuff and I’ll need some non-boring stuff to lighten up the boring days . Ask away, everybody!

*scribble*

-I may not get money at Chinese New Year at home but I visit China and get money dumped on me. Huh.

-How do they make Chinese fonts? I know they exist but… really? A new image for every word?

-How a Chinese restaurant works:

1. When you first order, somebody from your party goes to order tons of little and big dishes.
2. They bring a few plates at a time and continue bringing dishes all through the meal
3. Food is cooked and delivered faster than in America
4. They’re always refilling tea/drinks, bringing in new plates and taking out finished plates
5. Food tastes better

Overall I like Chinese restaurants a lot better than American ones.

-Schedule

• Pre-breakfast-Bread or porridge
• Breakfast-Wonton/dumplings or eggs
• Snack-Whatever
• Lunch-Eat out or eat at home, many dishes, resembles dinner
• Snack-Watermelon (I think it was in season, it was everywhere)
• Sleep-Nap time, I sit and enjoy the peace while everyone sleeps
• Dinner-Chicken, Mao Dou, Turtle etc.
• Snack-Soy drink, apples
• Sleep-Nighttime, der

“Oh no, the Chinese are coming D=”