I awoke to the dull roar of the engines and the gentle rocking of the airplane. As I sat up, I half expected to have a tight knot in my neck. However, as I gently moved my head around, I realized that I had been quite comfortable as I slept. I looked around and instead of seeing rows and rows of cramped uncomfortable seats I saw only twenty-eight seats arranged in pairs. This was no ordinary plane ride. This was the beginning of an extraordinary adventure that gave me a look at my ancestral country which I had always hoped to visit.
Because my grandfather is Chinese my grandmother has always wanted my brother and me to see the country of his birth. So, for 16 days during the summer of 2007, we departed on a trip to the mother land.
The stop in
Once we got to the hotel in
The next stop on the trip was Xian. While there, we experienced a musical complete with a man who could play the socks off a tone deaf man with some pan flute looking instrument. The next morning we saw the terra cotta warriors. The sheer size of the army was vastly intimidating. If they had suddenly come to life on the spot, I probably would have wet my pants and run for the door.
After visiting Xian, we flew to
When we landed in
We rounded off our vacation with a trip to a small fishing village before we went to
Prior to stepping on the first plane on our trip, I was expecting to visit a part of the world where I had never been. What I got was an opportunity, an opportunity to become closer to my family, to meet new people, and to have little dumplings with soup inside them.
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