Wednesday, September 30, 2009

See the world

I want to travel the world. Pretty much that's it. I don't really want to buy anything when I go to see the world, I just want to SEE the world. I don't want to have to worry about people kidnapping me, or taking my money, or running out of money...you know all the important stuff...I don't want to have to worry about that. I just want to see the world. Everywhere I haven't been, I want to be there. Everywhere.
I've already been to some places, but it's only a few next to the grandness of the rest of the world left for me to wander and explore.
Perhaps I should come up with some sort of show, like 'Wild America' or 'Rick Steves' (except with a less annoying voice), and I could be paid to go to all these places.
I wouldn't need much, just a backpack of the essentials and a walking stick-like Gandolf's from "The Lord of the Rings". The essentials being: clothes, toothbrush, deodorant, you know the things that can make you have a friendly appearance that won't have people saying, "Eww" and throw money at you to get you to go away-though that's not a bad idea to get extra spending cash for more essentials when those get worn out or gross.
I wouldn't carry a map. I wouldn't have a time span, unless I was doing something like-SEE THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, kind of thing-you know for that show idea.
To see the world in one lifetime would be my goal. What will come of this goal well, we'll have to see.

Check list:
Mexico
Argentina
Canada
Germany
France
Luxemburg
Belgium
(picture is the delicacy of Bamboo worms in China)

Friday, June 19, 2009

China May 2009-7

Monday
Last day of clinic. Sitting here, waiting for more people. Sunny just showed James my resume for a man. He's a Winner!! Hahaha...no.
On Sunday I went into dad's room to use the computer and someone came in and ate a peanut butter sandwhich. I was sick for half of the day. My throat was swollen, eyes were red, and my stomach hurt. Around 3:30 we went to this lake where we got to go fishing. I caught a shrimp with my bare hands-cool. (I was feeling better.) Then we had dinner and headed back to the hotel.
Hum....dreaming.
People are here.
If only I could tell you the things I day-dream about.... :-)
Later Monday night
I played basketball with some local police, 3 on 3, Anna and Pastor Dave were on my team. Afterwards we went to dinner across the street. We told jokes and stories to make each other laugh. And then it was a quiet ride home for me, leading into a shower and then devos, followed by thanks to each team member. Sigh, today's clinic we had served over 200 people!! Yeah!!

China May 2009-6

Saturday, early morning before I knew the time
Yesterday was 3rd clinic day. The day where we had to sleep overnight in the village in bunkbeds with Tom and Jerry (well just Jerry) attire. But I've skipped ahead.
I woke up Friday morning with the thought that it was Thursday-wrong!!
It was a tough wake up morning. I had a tight right shoulder from playing the 'tops' with the natives and having the air conditioning on while I slept. It's okay-Cindy, Janet's mom, is the nurse and can give me a massage. (She did-plus a few others helped out!) We did devos and headed out for breakfast. We had breakfast of rice noodles again! They are so tasty.
We were off for out 2 1/2 hour drive to the village with 'little' mountains and winding roads. I sat in the back of the bus, across from Julianna and behind Cindy and Anna-behind us in the long seat was Dad, Dorothy, and James. James kept looking over my shoulder seeing what I was doing-he saw that I was doing Sudoku and has never been taught, so he asked me to teach him later.
About an hour was left by the time we stopped for a potty break at this little park-stretch our legs, try to not step in huge mudd puddles. Back on the bus.
We got to the government house-where we would be doing the clinic. We had time to stretch our legs, look around, go pee before we walked up the road through the village to lunch.
There were little chickens, hens, dogs running around at the lunch place. Ok clarify only the chix and the hens were running around-the dog lay lifeless with his tongue hanging out...in the fridge; not the whole dog-half of him.
We headed back to the government officials house to set up for clinic. We saw over 120 people in that afternoon, giving out 126 pairs of glasses. I did the reading part of the clinic again-I loved it. After the clinic we all headed back up the hill for dinner, in the rain. This meal was mostly grean looking with green leafy veggies, cucumbers, rice, a little meat and I had a coke to drink.
(not written down in journal-recall from memory)
It rained of course that night, yet the officials still wanted to play a game of basketball against the Americans. We played...so scary. I cut my lounge pants off so that they were make-shift shorts. I only had crocs to play in--not a good idea. The ground was so slippery. We played--Americans against China Government officials. Such an awesome game. Oh did I mention that I fell?! Yup, wipe out. Everyone was so nice, course they all thought I scraped/ripped/broke something...not a scratch!
(Course I was a little sore in the morning.)
So our clinic the following morning didn't have hardly as many people as the day before, so we closed up shop early and decided to head home--stopping on the way at a little park. Headed back to the hotel for a restful night and day off the next day!

China May 2009-5

5:55 p.m. Thursday
Today was a day of rest. We had a light breakfast and devos before we headed out to the tea factory. We got to see the history of tea making, we got to try some, and then we bought some. We headed for lunch-where we sat on tiny stools and I ate a chicken tail. Walk down the hill to our entertainment of the natives dancing, singing, and making us join them in various things. Everyone wanted to have their pictures taken with us. The most handsome guy of the village was single and 21-I got a picture with him.
We traveled down another hill to see the agriculture and waterbuffalos! It rained a little bit on us as we traveled back up the hill. It was refreshing!
Now I'm sitting, waiting for dinner in the same place that we had lunch.
(not written down in journal-recall from memory)
Alrighty, so the various things that the villagers made us do were: we had to 'hop' with them through these bamboo poles, spin tops with them, dance, and then we sang with them. An amazing few hours.
The waterbuffalo licked my arm, probably because it was salty. One of the villagers sat on the buffalo--it was like seeing a rodeo--that buffalo didn't like it at all!
The handsome, 21 year old, heartthrob of the village graced us with his talents of voice and guitar. Pretty amazing!
For dinner, up at the same place we had had lunch, they served us watermelon as an 'appetizer'--lots of watermelon. And then we sat down to an awesome meal that they had prepared for us. And before we were done eating a group of the villagers came around to our tables with shot glasses full of rice wine--they wanted to toast us, three times! It was an interesting flavor and toast...I didn't understand anything but Sunny was right next to me translating and Cindy was also translating from across the table. The villager was thanking us for coming on our day of rest to their village and for allowing them to make us lunch and dinner. They were so greatful that we were there and that we participated in the activities with them.
We also decided to toast...some in English others in our group did Mandarin.
After the toasts everyone agreed to sing, again, to each other. We sang them the doxology--in English-- and some other Christian songs. The officials were right there, listening to us. Amazing! The villagers sang back to us some of their tribal songs and popular ones sung in China. It was truely an awesome experience.

Monday, June 8, 2009

China May 2009-4

9:55 p.m. Wednesday
My devo's were interesting-short and sweet. We headed to clinic Day 1 after devo's, but first we grabbed a bite in a side restaruant. We had rice noodles with toppings and pork filled buns. It was very delicious and very filling.
Set up for clinic.
People were already there-waiting. Set up was a little rough but it was our first time. I was at the distribution station- which is: I read the paper and get several pairs of glasses that the person might like. It was so busy in the morning, but around 12:30 it slowed to a stop and we had lunch.
While we were still having lunch we had a line start forming. It was slow for about a half hour and then it picked up so fast. But it went by pretty fast. There was one little old lady-wearing a light blue shirt with a white thick scarf around her head-she had the funniest, most contagious laugh and smile. She pretty much made my day.

Cleaned up around 5:30 and headed to dinner-another hole in the wall. So much, yet delicious. We had devo's once we got back to the hotel. And after devo's a group of us went out to the pavilion outside our hotel to see the dance concert that had representatives of the groups of the natives. Chinese kids!

China May 2009-3

7:03 a.m. Tuesday (Shuang Jiang)
Woke up, had devos, and awesome breakfast and headed out to the market to shop for stuff! I found my supporter's gifts. Then we had a spicy lunch-mmm-except I couldn't fully enjoy it because since I had woken up my throat was swollen and I'd felt dizzy.

After lunch we headed to the airport in taxis and a van for our hour flight. That plane ride was horrible I felt sick to my stomach-Janet kept me company with her farce voice for Bobbie the Happy tea bottle (who apparently was in love with me), plus the row of Chinese boys in front of us had questions for us. Once we got into the bus for out two hour ride I took some motion sickness pills to help with my queasy-ness. The scenery was beautiful-rolling hills-thousands of crops.
Dinner was with the government officials-good stuff-I was feeling better. I saw three geckos, took some pictures, peed in a hole, and got attacked by mosquitoes.
We drove for another half hour and got to our hotel.
Unloaded all the luggage and then got out room assignments Julianna and I got settled into our rooms, and then headed to dad's room for devo's-it was Julianna's turn-and we got to sing "Seek Ye First". We went back to our rooms to sleep but I had to write my devo's for this morning.
This bed is hard. Off to sleep.

China May 2009-2

Sunday night 7:30 p.m. (Kunming), May 10
Mosquito. That's my night for you. That little bugger kept me awake for the few hours I had to catch some sleep. I turned on Julianna's iPod to "Groove it out", a playlist, which started with Linkin Park & Jay-Z's "99 Problems/One Step Closer" and ended with "Tell Me 'Bout It" by Joss Stone. We were ready to go to breakfast at 7:40ish.
The most amazing hotel breakfast spread I've ever seen. They had from fresh fruit and veggies to omelets, bean buns to chicken feet, spicy potato wedges to make your-own-soup. I believe I had watermelon, apples, pears and white kiwi; two bean buns, sweet bun, ham, two red/green plum fruits, potato spicy wedges, and warm orange/pineapple juice.
Julianna got sick, so she and dad stayed home, while the rest of us (plus Joel, Anna, and Sean) went to Chinese church via bus.
The church service was held in all Chinese, but recently they were able to put it on earphone sets that translated everything. I got one of those. The hymnal was bilingual so English was on one side and Mandarin was on the other. It made it easy for Janet and Cindy-who are from China, on the trip with us, along with the CA group- to follow along as I did.
After church we mingled with some of the locals-finding out that one of them has a brother in S.F., CA. Church was almost two hours long-never complaining about my church being too long! Our group headed to our spot of destination for lunch. We had two big tables-almost twenty people-each filled with six or seven different things to eat. Unreasonably the tea cost more than the soda's and water. Anna and Joel made a big fuss about my allergies, watching everything I ate and telling me what was good and not good for me to eat. More fuss than necessary.
After lunch we split off into groups and all ventured around Green Lake. The sun was blazing hot, yet nice to feel coming from Michigan. Janet, Julianna and I took multiple pictures while dad and Pastor Walt (from the IL group)talked and walked around.
Around 3 we split up and half of us stayed and took taxis while my group took Joel's van. Blazing hot-Julianna, Janet, and I piled into the back, Walt and Dorothy (from the IL group, whom can't seem to remember my name) sat in the middle, Joel drove and Steve (from IL group, married to Dorothy) had shotty. Joel forgot his key to the office so we went to his family's apartment. Waiting for the other group we met Joel's family again his two daughters and wife.
Our group then went to the office to have orientation, just some background info on Sean, Anna, and Joel the mission work throughout China and what our two weeks were going to be like.
The group walked to dinner at Hong Dou Yuan and again squeezed into a table. We had about 10 dishes swiveling around, one of which had a blackened chicken head and foot. Dinner's dishes were a bit more spicy, but handleable-with some Coke. We decided to walk, again, to our hotel. Good exercise, and we got to see more of the culture and shops.
We had devos in 1609-dad's room- he talked about our yolk and Jesus taking ours and we taking His. After that it was off to bed. Wait-I called mom after devos to wish her happy mother's day. Bed.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

China May 2009-1

May 9, 2009 2:05 a.m.
First inflight meal-didn't eat-was like a pork/beef bun. Second was beef eggplant, rice, 4 carrot slices, one slice of pineapple cantelope muskmelon, bread roll, salad. Third meal, which I just finished, was seafood-shrimp-, rice, green beans, coleslaw, pineapple shortcake, bread roll. After second meal I took three Advil PMs and zonked out for 8 hours, waking with only 2 1/2 hours left. The plane is 38,000 feet above the ground going 433 miles per hour, and the temperature (in case I had wanted to step outside of the plane as we were flying 437 miler per hour) was -70 degrees F.
In order to fall asleep, since the sun was out all the way there, I had my Advil PM (of course), my eye cover, earplugs, pillow, blanket, and I plugged into the radio-turned to Relax radio.
7:10 a.m.

Stepped off the plane and set foot for the first time in China-Beijing. It was dark. We wandered around the stores checking out the different things. They have a TCBC and KFC. For a bottle of Evian water it was 28 yuan, which is like #3.75 American.

Meet Julianna. She's 29, staffer at St. Paul, Illinois. She really like the zombie version of 'Pride & Predjudice', 'Twilight' on tape, and 'The Dutchess' (the movie that was shown on the flight over).
On the plane to Kunming. Stuck in the middle between dad and a guy that smells of garlic-bad. All I wanted to do was sleep, but the people behind me are talking really loud, coughing, and hacking up lungs-plus the cabin lights are on, and the TV is playing. There is still about 2 hours left.
I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. New day-no flying-meet people-day of rest-go to church-shopping... I'm super hot right now. I can't take my sweatshirt off cause I'm wearing my MOST shirt. So hot. Waiting for the cabin lights to go off. Sleep.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

China May 2009


May 8, 2009 6:18 a.m.
Last night I set my alarm for 5:20 a.m.-we were to leave at 6 a.m. Going to bed at 10:40ish I was giving myself at least 6 good hours of sleep.
Dreaming...I had a wonderful, eventful dream. Don't ask me what it was about because I can't tell because I can't remember...because Dad came upstairs and woke me at 5:07 a.m.
"Wake up Snoodie,"
"Dad, I set my alarm-I have 13 more minutes!"
"Oh." And he was gone.
My eyes drift back when 5 minutes later a blinding light comes from the hallway outside my bedroom door, followed by "Snoodie!"...my mom.
Give me at least 5 more minutes, I thought.
"It's been about a year now..." started playing at 5:20. I got up, washed my feet, changed, packed up the last bit, cursed politely at the iPod for not charging overnight and not loading my Mandarin, took my luggage downstairs to mom and dad's scale to weigh it-39 pounds. Mom needed about 5 hugs before we were off. I watched mom and dad embrace and kiss. I love watching them.
We got in the car and were off. 5:57 a.m.-early.
1:30 p.m.
Checking baggage was easy, no problem going through security-one and a half hour wait. I was starving! So dad and I got some "Chile's to go". He got a banana and water, and I got a fruit cup ($4.99!), orange, and a water. Not much of a breakfast, but there was nothing else. The time flew and we were already boarding the plane. I found our seats easy enough-24 a/c. Someone was going to be sitting between us, easy fact-the flight was full(except for the row behind me which had an empty seat!). No problem I was going to be sleeping. I buckled in.
An Asian woman came into our row, but apparently didn't want to stay so, as I believe it was, her husband switched with her. I slept for an hour, woke up, peed, did some puzzles, went back to sleep for 2ish hours. This time when I woke up I looked out the window and saw snow capped mountains-beautiful. I ordered a glass of ice. We have about one hour left.

4:45 p.m.(S.F.)
Walked a bit to the international terminal. Had lunch at a Japanese place-I had a whole squid, and tried dad's noodle soup. His soup had seaweed, chicken, shrimp, squid, turnip or something, lettuce, egg, and noodles.

After lunch we headed back to find our terminal. We found it-the plane is huge, two stories, but our seats are small-cramped.


Instead of having personal monitors everyone has to watch the same thing-which is right in front of me, making it difficult to see it clearly. At least I have some leg room. The seats go a-c, d-g, h-j. Dad's in D and I'm in F no one is in either E or G. Eating beef jerky and almond M & M's...healthy!