Chinese Wine and $12 ipods...

China is a hard place to describe. Beautiful, but not in a relaxing kind of way. I have tried to write about it, but nothing seems right. So, instead I will just cut and paste some snippets of emails I sent out during our three-week December 2007 trip…
“…Shanghai is AMAZING! We are loving this cheap, safe, organized, beautiful city! We have been here for 4 days and every day is a new adventure. Ryder found the best knock off market and has been going crazy! Cashmere sweaters... a game boy for Koa... DVDs...ipod shuffles for everyone (they are $12 each!!!!)... North Face coats.... Nike shoes... We also went to a beautiful aquarium, the world's highest bar (Cloud 9 on the 87th floor!), took the world's fastest short distance train (Maglev 430 k/h) and had all you can eat amazing sushi for $10! Tomorrow we are off to Beijing...”
“…We went to the Great Wall today and let me tell you, they should call it the F #%$*&G Great Wall! We hiked on it for a long time, took lots of pictures... Christmas Day on The Great Wall! Even better than last year's... ridding elephants in Thailand on Christmas! We ate Peking Duck for Christmas Eve dinner last night. Koa loved it. The rest of us stuck with the beef. At least, I think it was beef…”
“…I have to say, with great regret, that Chinese wine really sucks…”
“…Can you believe they have a Starbucks in the Forbidden City? That is just wrong. They also have places to get a foot massage. That, on the other hand seems perfectly fine to me…”
“…We went to a really old/cool temple today. You light incense and pray and then throw it in a HUGE fire. I prayed for Judy…”
“…Nai’a was sad to find out today that in China, the McDonald’s toilets are just holes in the ground…”
“…Xi’an was cold, like real cold. But those warriors are incredible. Qin Shi Huang was quite the man! First he declares himself emperor in 221 BC, then has 700,000 of his best workers make something like 8,000 terracotta dudes to protect him in the afterlife…”
“…We took out third Chinese overnight train. This one was WAY GHETTO. Just open bunks, three high and a lot of noodles being slurped for 16 hours straight. Ryder almost had a nervous breakdown. Totally ugh…”
“…We ate a great meal today, totally 100% non tourist-ish. It was one of those use-your-dictionary-to-make-sure-what-kind-of-meat-you-are-eatting kind of places. The waitress, who did not speak one single word of English was amazing and ran after us to return our $2 tip!...”
And this is a response from my dad:
“Cristiana, As you know, I am in a lifelong, affectionate competition with Angel [my godfather] over who has a better life. He continues to deny this but I don’t. Anyway, he usually beats me out in terms of the ALL AMERICAN FAMILY image – they have the family traditions down and get credit for that. On the other hand we smoke them in terms of interesting people doing interesting things with this life – adventurers and explorers. I am so proud of your courage and energy honey. You will always have time to settle and live the American Dream (here in Phoenix I hope!!!)– right now you should take it all in and be a citizen of the world. Love you sweetheart. Dad.”