laughing traveler

It was crazy to be the one taking care of my parents for the first time. They were staying in my apartment in China. I had done all the vacation planning and I did all the speaking at the restaurants or cabs in my limited Chinese. It was the first time I felt like a real adult and I feel they saw me as an adult for the first time as well. They came with full trust in me, when I asked what do you want to do while you are in China the answer was always, “whatever you want!” I soon found that I had to make some major adjustments to the way I make plans to accommodate for my parents. When I am with my friends, we want to pack as much into each vacation day as possible and all at the lowest costs. However, when I told my parents that hostel prices must be up because of the Chinese New Year and was a 100 kaui Hostel ok, my dad responded we were not staying anywhere that was only $15 US! Then he added that maybe we should be searching for a “hotel” rather than “hostel”. I laughed that I hav...

I will admit I was pretty stressed out about my parents staying with me in my apartment here in China. I even confided in my new Irish friend on my Chengdu trip that I was afraid my parents were going to take one look at where I live and drag me on a plane back to the USA. She had some very good advice, “You are full grown now, if they start pulling on you here’s what you do: excuse yourself and take a shot of your favorite liquor. Anything they don’t like just say it is a cultural difference, take another shot and embrace the culture!” I have got to go to Ireland! I am proud to say that I didn’t have to take a shot the whole time my parents were here! My stress turned into excitement when I got back to the Shenzhen Airport from Chengdu. My parents would fly into the same place the following day. As I walked through baggage claim there was a glass separation that I could see everyone’s family members pressed up against. A little baby boy broke through the security check point and run...

I love pandas so much that I woke up at 7am to take a bus to the panda research center! Apparently pandas are most active in the morning and that is the best chance to catch them up movin around and being cute! We booked the trip through the hostel so the driver come with us and took us on all the short cuts around the zoo. Kaye loves us so much he come on his day off from the hostel to hang out with us… or maybe it was because he loves the pandas so much, either way it was great! We walk in and a group of foreigners is all crowded around the red pandas but our guy sprints right past through them saying we don’t want to miss the giant pandas! The baby pandas and red pandas are more active but the full grown pandas are only active when they first wake up and we didn’t want to miss it. I was expecting it to be like the Washington DC zoo where it is one huge cage for one panda and it’s so big that all you can see is a black and white blur off in the distance. China knows how to do it! May...

The Hostel we stayed at, Lazy Bones, was awesome! It made me want to change my career path and work there forever. It was exactly how I imagine I would have things set up. It had a very hip bohemian feel; there where book shelves over flowing with a simple sign that said, ”Not for sale, book swap only.” There was also a box of items left behind by travels free for anyone who could use them. The owner is a young girl that runs the front desk and handles the money. Then the rest of the staff is all recent college graduates. They clients are mostly foreigners and everyone spoke beautiful English. There was a big living room that the guest and staff could hang out in, use the internet, play pool, watch movies on the big screen and order food or drinks from the bar. The tables where decorated by postcards from previous guests and drawings of everyone’s home town; which gave it a homey feel. They also offered tour packages like most hotels in China, but these were all for low budget. I feel...