All of our gadgets and tech unpacked when we got home!

I know what you’re thinking… didn’t you venture out into the world to get away from it all? Didn’t you successfully cut the electronic cord, shedding all the distractions to engage in daily debates, conversation and non-electrified noble pursuits? The short answer is, no! The behind-the-scenes reality of our journey, and the ability to leave home for a year, given educational priorities, career aspirations, visions of blogging grandeur and an obsession with photography demanded tools of the trade… times seven!

No one has ever accused us of traveling light, and the Trip Around the World kept our reputation intact. There was probably over 300 pounds of equipment that we carried and divided between our seven suitcases – all referred to as Troop Gear. Each time we moved locations, troop gear was assembled and divided up between each of us. This gear represented at least 50% of the weight carried across the world by us, including all of the technology, gadgets and the 35 pounds of text books the three older kids required to stay in educationally good graces. Most of it turned out to be useful; some not as necessary. Did we really need an electronic scale? No, Wescott, we probably did not. Did each member of our team need a personal iPad Mini? A resounding absolutely from all of us. Can you rely just on iPads, and leave your laptop behind? No, not if school work, travel booking, blogging and business planning are part of your agenda. Did everyone need their own camera? Maybe not, but the 80K + images will be with us forever!

For those of you contemplating a similar journey, here are a few tips from us:

Only have one cell phone with a US contract. We figured out half way through the trip that it was a lot more economical to buy a cell phone that you could swap out the SIM card in each country for a local phone number and plan. Skype was going to be our main go-to communication system to talk to people back home. However we realized that in many places, the WIFI just isn’t strong enough to support consistent connections. Lisa and I were fairly regularly on conference calls to places across the globe, and eventually we realized that having people call us on our local cell number was a much more reliable communications technology than relying on the Internet. In those first few months of travel, when we still relied on our AT&T iPhones for reliable connections, we had some horrendous cell bills!

Tech Check is Your Friend. While there were many things we probably didn’t get right on the trip, we did a great job at Tech Check, which we credit to coming home with all of the devices we left with. Almost every day that we would venture out into the village, city or countryside of the resident country, Lisa or I would yell the familiar “Tech Check!” call. That meant all iPads, computers, cameras, lenses, hard drives and phones needed to be collected and deposited into a designated suitcase, which was locked up. After a couple of countries, we realized that since all of our suitcases were cloth, it would be pretty easy to cut into our technology booty. So we ditched one of the bags and bought a hard suit case with built in locks, upgrading our security. Really tech check was more about keeping track of items and not leaving them scattered about for an easy poach than a highly secure vault; and the results kept us theft free for the entire year.

Be wary of Cellular Internet Service. When we arrived in Seville, Spain, we settled into our awesome apartment and reveled in the speed and power of the most awesome Internet service. With 7 iPads humming, YouTube videos, Skype calls and iTunes downloads abounded in the first 24 hours. And then, the pipe ran dry! Like a cripple trying to climb Everest, downloading an email took 10 minutes. The video player and Skype laughed at the mere click of intention. It was like cement was poured into the digital river of ones and zeroes keeping us connected. It tuned out that the house had a cellular modem, which only had 3 GB of data allocated a month. And, there was pretty much no way to get more bandwidth allocated! So much for productivity at the apartment. Wescott needed connectivity for online high school, and I was trying to speak to YouTube Creators around the globe. We spent a lot of time at a cafe in our neighborhood that offered unlimited WIFI. Actually, that turned out to work in our favor, as we met a wonderful friend named Julian, who took us under his wing for the 2 weeks we spent in Seville. We also ended up renting a room at local hostel in order to do Skype calls from midnight to 3 am, since the cafe was closed!

Sleeper Device that was Awesome: LED projector. On a whim, I purchased a tiny LED projector that measured 6″ x 5″ x 2.5″ so we could watch movies as a family. This turned out to be such a fun addition to the trip. We watched Khan Academy videos about art history, movies from iTunes and documentaries about a given location on whatever wall  that worked in our current home. We didn’t use it every week, but it turned out to be a fun event we all enjoyed, and I would definitely take it again.

Bring a Couple of External Hard Drives. We live in a data-intensive world. Our phones shoot HD video. Our cameras create large files for each image. When you’re traveling, pictures and videos eat gigabytes like a legion of ants defoliating a jungle. That GoPro camera you think would be fun to use? It is fun, but just that one device required 300GB of storage per country! Luckily, external hard drives are tiny, light and packed with storage. We used 3 individual terabyte drives to support the 3 computer hard drives on our laptops. Luckily, we had no major crashes; but we needed almost every ounce of storage space.

Online High School is a Really Deceiving Name. The University of Nebraska offered a great solution for Wescott to complete his sophomore year of high school while traveling around the globe through their online course offering. While assignments, projects and tests were submitted online, all of the course materials took the form of workbooks… 35 pounds of workbooks! Given our spotty Internet connections, good old print and paper remained a relevant technology that allowed for theoretically consistent studying… if only there was a solution for procrastination…then we may have been able to shed pounds sooner in the trip as Wescott completed each class!

For you shoppers out there, here is a list of the technology and devices we took across the globe:

• (7) Apple iPad Minis
• (4) MacBooks – we started with one 11-inch MacAir thinking we could all share, which lasted about a month before we realized that wouldn’t work; then added a 13-inch MacBook Air that Mouni brought to Vietnam for Wescott as he needed a dedicated machine for school; then added a MacBook Pro for Cliff when he traveled back to North America for work; then added our other MacBook from home when we got to Carmel for Otto to code!
• (6) cameras including a Leica film camera, a Cannon 5D SLR, (3) waterproof Lumix point and shoots, and a GoPro Hero 3
• (1) mini tripod (never used it!)
• (5) SLR lenses
• (5) iPods
• (2) iPhones
• (2) Samsung phone with local SIM cards
• (2) wireless keyboards for the iPads
• (1) electronic weigh scale
• (15) Apple charging cords
• (7) Binoculars for safari
• (3) Headphone splitters
• (14) sets of headphones, thinking we’d lose some, which amazingly, we didn’t!
• (1) Jambox speaker for dance parties and movie watching
• (1) Optoma LED mini projector
• (7) headlamps / flashlights
• (1) solar charger (never used it!)
• (3) USB Memory sticks
• (3) 1 Terabyte external hard drives
• (2) sets of International electrical adaptors
• (300) Kodak T-Max 100 B&W film
• (14) Workbooks for University of Nebraska
• (4) Math textbooks
• (1) Literature textbook

Somehow we were able to have the privilege of surfing with the Green School’s surf program and be a part of their extracurricular program. That meant going to a specific beach every Saturday and meeting with the school’s surf instructors who would lead us into the water and surf with us. Then after the month was up, there would be a three night surf camp where all the kids who did surfing throughout the year would attend. We would also get to go. It would also be the chance where we could actually get to know and hangout with the students. Wescott would be going with the high school group on separate days and Otto and I would be going with the middle school group a week later. Since Saturday was the weekend, nobody was technically required to go to the weekend surf sessions, so for the first month in Bali, we didn’t see a lot of other students in the Green School Surfing Academy, but we would soon be immersed.

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7:30 am. The mornings of the surf week were always quiet, peaceful even. After breakfast everyone would go down to the beach and surf nonstop till noon. In total, there were 25 kids as well as multiple surf instructors, a few chaperoning dads, and Colin, who was in charge of the whole surf academy, in the water at once. We spent the week at a beach called Medewi in the western part of Bali where fishing boats lined half of the shore and dead fish was as common as sand. Once our arms started resembling that of a noodle, and only then, we’d all head in for lunch. A couple hours later, there would be an afternoon surf.

“Here’s the competition: there are two boards and two teams. One at a time, each person from both teams will go out and catch a wave. You’ll be scored individually by how well you surf that wave, but if you decide to catch and ride a whitewater wave you automatically get a 2. If you fall off, that counts. You don’t get to keep trying for another shot at a wave. So pick good. Then at the end we’ll add up all the scores and the team with the most points wins. And the first team to finish, where all their people have gone out and come back, gets an additional 10 points added and the second team only 5. So, you’ll have to think about performance as well as speed.”

We were sitting on the beach in a half circle around Colin while he was explaining the afternoon’s game. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at all nervous. It was just for fun, but still, I couldn’t help the butterflies surfacing inside me. I’m confident enough in my surfing ability yet when you add the pressure of catching a good wave, riding well, and doing it somewhat fast, then I had no idea how I would hold up in that situation. Not to mention that the board was as tall as me, give or take a few inches, and I’m like five-foot-nothing! I’ve never ridden a short board before so this would be very interesting. We were soon divided into groups and the first two people began to paddle out. When it came to my turn, I decided to just go out the back like I normally would and catch a wave. Unfortunately, none of the waves were looking that good, and when a good one did show up,  I was too late because the person from the other team was already riding it back. I was alone… For now.  I needed to catch a wave, but time wasn’t on my side.  Heading back in, I managed to snag some whitewater, barely getting up. Definitely not one of my best rides. Though thankfully, unlike some kids back on Mercer Island where to them gym equals the equivalent of the Olympics, nobody seemed too upset by my lackluster performance.

7:00 pm. Dinner was finished and by now night was fully upon us. I was rooming with two other girls―really five if you take into account the fact that it was an adjoining room and we had opened the door to allow easy passage. Sprawled across three of the beds in one of the rooms, I watched passively as all the girls took out their iPhones and I was reintroduced to the digital world. I had forgotten what this was like―what I myself was like―to be in the same room hanging out with someone while simultaneously not being there at all.

“Do you have Facebook?” One girl had put on music and was blasting a rap song.

“No,” I casually answered.

Another girl was texting with a boy, saying something about liking him and stressing about how to reply back to each incoming message.

“Mmm,” and the girl talking to me went back to her Snapchat.

A different girl then asked, “you have a phone?”

“Yeah, but I left it at home. I didn’t bring it on my trip.”

“Oh okay,” and next to her the ‘mmm’ girl looked up; laughed saying, “I could never do that,” which got the other girl laughing too.

7:30 am. The next day led primarily the same path as the last, but later there would be no afternoon surf. We would then be leaving the following morning.  So with the rest of the day  free, we decided to go for a swim in the pool, accompanying those already in who had the same idea. About an hour later, I had to get out because one of my ears became so clogged with water that I couldn’t hear anything. I spent the next thirty minutes trying unsuccessfully to get the water out when everybody started coming back in. While they showered and changed, I filled the time by sitting on my bed with a water bottle in hand, voraciously gulping down the awkwardness of not knowing what to do with people you just met with each single drop. I probably drank the most water in that couple of days than I had in the whole year. But, soon we all settled down and played a few games of BS and listened to music until we noticed it was time for dinner.

11:00 am. We arrived late morning at the Green School, where Mom was waiting eagerly for us with kombucha and raw peanut butter cups. I waved goodbye to a few of the girls and then we simply drove back to Ubud, passing the now familiar rice paddies.

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” Otto and I replied, almost in unison.

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While my surfing wasn’t stellar, and the waves weren’t perfect, I realized that what I will remember most is that you can be halfway around the world and find a group of friends that make you feel like you are right at home.

I would constantly dream about coming home.  Literally: almost every week I would have a dream about coming home and playing with the dogs, eating lunch with my friends, or going in the hot tub. I would spend hours planning out my daily schedule for Mercer Island, down to the finest details, like what I was going to eat for breakfast, or what deodorant I was going to buy.  Otto and I regularly discussed the topic of “the first thing we were going to do when we step foot in our house again.”  I know what you’re probably thinking, but don’t even start.  I know it is a waste of time.  I should be spending my time enjoying the miraculous medina of Marrakech, not scrolling through Evo and trying to decide what skis to buy next winter.  The thing is: it was all a coping mechanism.  I desperately tried to fill up that hole left by the part of me that stayed behind in Seattle, and yeah, it killed a lot of time, but I think it did help combat the sickness for a while.

Now that this trip is coming to an end however, I feel my homesickness subsiding.  I still look forward to the day we return, but I am also scared.  I think back on the past year and am always left smiling to myself: happy, but with a hint of despondence.  I am glad that I had all of those amazing experiences, but I guess that I was wrong all along: that I don’t want it to end after all.

As if I didn’t already have enough to make me realize this truth, I recently read an article titled: “The Hardest Part Of Traveling No One Talks About.”  As I read the last paragraph, I finally knew that, somewhere in the wild plains of the Serengeti, or perhaps in the peaceful rice patties of Ubud, I too had contracted what is known as the travel bug:

“This is why once you’ve traveled for the first time all you want to do is leave again. They call it the travel bug, but really it’s the effort to return to a place where you are surrounded by people who speak the same language as you. Not English or Spanish or Mandarin or Portuguese, but that language where others know what it’s like to leave, change, grow, experience, learn, then go home again and feel more lost in your hometown then you did in the most foreign place you visited.”

The truth to this paragraph is almost ironic. My parents have a current list of countries going in Notes with a heading that says, “Trip Around the World 2025,” and I am already thinking heavily about college gap years. I guess the reason why I am struck with both despondence and comfort when reminiscing about the past year, is because I have once again contracted homesickness. A piece of me may be anxiously awaiting my return to Seattle, but I know reclaiming this piece will not make me whole again. For another piece of me is waiting out there… an airplane ticket away.

Yve, Otto and I in the Kuranda tropical rainforest of Queensland, Australia 

Pro #1: I man up and take some responsibility

Have I learned more about biology and calculus while traveling around the world than I would have in a school building with a teacher standing in front of the classroom drilling me for six hours a day? No, probably not. However, my hard work has generated a whole different type of knowledge. The lack of deadlines, onslaught of classes, and knowing that it all lay in my haphazard hands stressed me out. I felt as though I was flat out not in good hands. I know my reputation better than anyone.  Although I may go into something with high hopes and good intentions, more often than not, inherent procrastination knocks on my door for a reality check, takes its toll, and all of a sudden, a month later, I finally turn the assignment in, 29 days later than expected.

Be that as it may, that was the old me. The new Wescott has learned the importance of time management, deadlines, and schedules. Boring, right? It may sound boring, but without these newfound skills I wouldn’t become a Junior next year. Instead, I would be retaking biology and math while regretting every second I didn’t make a schedule or commit to a deadline.

Con #1: I have to man up and take some responsibility

Another lesson learned from this enriching school year online is that responsibilities take up a whole lot of time! Almost everyday, I have to actually plan out when I am going to make a schedule for tomorrow and how long it will take. A question I often struggle with nowadays is, “Where do I draw the line?” “When does a good thing shift into too much of a good thing?” “How many wheat grass shots do I ingest to reach the optimal level of health, without drinking so many that I start spastically puking my guts out?” Through extensive research on the subject of good-schedules versus over-scheduled-schedules, my current answer to this question is, “When I know exactly, down to every single minute, what I am going to do tomorrow, I have taken it too far.” I have been in this position for weeks on end at times: over planned, lackluster, uninspired, and usually unproductive. I try to find balance by only planning the things that absolutely need to be planned and leaving the rest to chance.

Pro #2: free time

A bonus to taking classes with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln High School, fresh out of the Mercer Island School District, is that you will instantly see a dramatic difference in the free time department. To be frank: Mercer Island School District requires much more of your time. I can’t even begin to count the hours I dedicated to High School last year as a Freshman at Mercer Island. The free time available once you cut out all of those tedious hours hunched over a desk doing some busy work, like extremely precise formatting, empowers the exploration of what you personally want to do. I, for example, am now able to study computer science and logo creation with lynda.com, cook a new recipe everyday, and exercise much more often.

Con #2: it gets lonely

With online high school you find yourself a little lonely at times. There isn’t a physical teacher to answer any random questions that pop into your head.  There aren’t any smart kids to collaborate with and form study groups in preparation for upcoming tests.  And, most importantly, there isn’t a hilarious friend to distract you all class long from learning. There is a tight-knit community in high school. It’s like any job I suppose, the people whom you work with can motivate you to return day after day. You may have to endure a long, hairsplitting lecture or two, but all of those classes are worth it to be able to hang out with your friends during lunch time.

I really miss the simplicity of raising my hand, asking a question, and getting an answer as well. When your high school is online and your teacher is on the opposite side of the planet, things get slightly more complicated. You have to email the school with a question and wait nine hours for it to be the morning because the time zones are different.  Then they have to forward your question to your teacher, who has to respond, send it back to the school, wait some more, then send it back to me.  Finally, after all the back and forth, I learn what the teacher meant by, “How many harms are there in data table number five?” Harms was a typo, she meant to say “herons.” This whole process takes between four to six days and is very labor intensive. It’s the little things I took for granted.

Pro #3: learning World History, among other classes, while traveling the world

Oddly enough, our trip itinerary actually corresponded pretty closely with my World History course syllabus. We started out in Italy and during that time, I was reading all about The Renaissance, The Statue of David, and Leonardo DeVinci in my World History textbook. Not long after, I found myself answering questions on my World History tests about ancient paintings from the prolific Minoan civilization that resided in Greece. After taking the test for a while, I realized that I had already answered half of my test, not based on what I read on a textbook, but by reflecting back on the previous Tuesday.  We drove twenty minutes from where we were living, over to the famous Minoan port, Phaestos, and gazed upon excavated and preserved Minoan paintings of bulls, gods, and athletes competing in sports. My stories go on and on: learning about the Swahili kingdom in Tanzania, the Vietnam War in Hanoi, and ancient Chinese history while hiking the Great Wall. Without the invention of online high school, none of this would have been possible. I would have had to choose between passing sophomore year OR going on a trip around the world. It was awesome when I discovered that I had the option of sophomore year WHILE on a trip around the world.

This year has renewed a lot of mysticism around school that has slowly depleted throughout my school career. The first day of school, real school (I’m talking Kindergarten here,) was magical. It was new, weird, and oddly fun because I was learning and that was interesting. Over the years, I lost the excitement about learning, the lust to know more about something. Why? Did the subjects get more boring? Did the material get too confusing? Where did I lose my six year-old sense of bewilderment? I believe it all got too familiar–too routine and mundane. I believe that I got tired of the same schedules, the same desks, the same classrooms, the same everything.  Self-induced fascination eventually waned to obligatory reluctance and what used to be fun in Kindergarten was now a job. I needed to shake things up. I needed to take a trip around the world and take classes online. I loved it, but it was more of rehabilitation than a way of life that I would want to continue indefinitely.

I am done rehabilitating and ready for normal life. I am once again excited for the first day of school.

Getting some work in as I wait for the family to catch up on The Great Wall.

[University of Nebraska profiled Wescott on their website….you can read the article here if you want]

And now I’m here.

About a month ago, I was waning on the strong-held belief that Bali truly was something out of a dream and that it wouldn’t live up to the hype. My mom and dad had thoroughly taken every word in the thesaurus synonymous to amazing when describing what it was and would soon be like. I began to question how amazing something possibly could be, because certainly there had to be a limit, right? But as these things usually go, I was wrong and all for the better.

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Having the most artists per capita, Bali seemingly dominates when it comes to the arts. Whole towns dedicated to one form of medium creates either an awe-inspired sharp intake of breath, or an overwhelmingly dizzying affect causing heads to spin, though in most cases … both. While I can’t believe that there can be that many wood carvings, stone carvings, silver jewelry, paintings, etc. I know now that nothing can ever quite compare and that I’ll never find a place that comes even remotely close. That no words can accurately describe the sheer awesomeness (or craziness) that is Bali. So, as we are fully surrounded by artistic vibes there isn’t really much of a choice, but to be zealously drawn to do a class in some sort of trade. It didn’t matter much on which art we learned. Besides, during our stay there’d be plenty of time to do multiple classes if we so desired, and with that we all decided to begin our stint by taking a class in jewelry making.

I’m now sitting at a work table, pencil to paper, with a sheet of silver eagerly awaiting to come to life at my side. No lectures and no demonstrations. We simply walked into the class and once we were all introduced they gave us a clipboard attached with a blank piece of paper and a pencil. Some books were available―to pull inspiration from―containing pictures showing dozens of rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. Two other women are seated, already deep in the process of construction. The open studio is filled with sounds of hammering, sanding, and in the corner a blow torch spits its fire.

When I’m done drawing out my design, one of the four or five guys helping comes over and together we brainstorm the most effective way to transfer my creation from paper to silver. I have no idea as to how the silversmiths get started in creating just the simplest of projects, let alone elaborate ones. So, though I say together, I mostly mean he took my design and figured what would need to happen in order for me to succeed in making it. Selecting different tools and other apparatuses and placing them in front of me, I was ready to get started. At least, he was gesturing at me to get going. I’m not exactly sure how to use any of the contraptions, well, aside from the hammer. He must’ve known this by the hesitance in my eyes and the awkward way I grip whatever it is that I’m holding, because after only a few seconds, there he is showing me the correct way of things. Then, seeing as I’ve got the hang of it all, he goes off to help a newcomer who has just arrived. And after a couple laborious hours go by, there I have a shiny new piece of jewelry.

We have since taken four more classes. But, by no means, are we experts. In fact, I’ve gained such a strong respect for silversmiths and their trade of art. Walking down the streets in Ubud, I find myself stopping at the windows of jewelry shops and looking at their displays thinking how hard that must’ve been or trying to deconstruct each piece and guess as to how they made it.

The thing that makes these silver classes so unique is that you book a time and then walk right in. People are coming and going, you can stay as long as wanted or needed, and the five or so guys working there are just cruising around making their way to each person and helping if called on. Whatever your imagination comes up with, you can guarantee that it’ll come out looking very professional, yet still handmade and personal. For me, it’s definitely been one of the many highlights here in Bali.

This is the scene at Chez Monique’s studio in Wayan’s family compound.

Otto became an expert at using the saw to make intricate shapes.

By the end of our first 3-hour class, Otto had finished a cool 3D yin yang pendant.

Wescott learning some skills with the buffer.

Wescott made an ice axe that he is going to put on a leather bracelet when we get back home.

I decided to make a ring with wording on the inside.

Here it is done!

Our gang with Wayan after our first silversmithing class…                                                                                                                               Wayan told us he has never had any group take so many classes with him

I only now how 3 tipe of offerings.  I now how to mack the triangal sqare flower offerings. The flower tipe of offering is sapost to have 8 petose.  It’s also like how you mack pepol.  The triangal and the sqare offering is cindove the same.  Becoase you haft to do the same thing epsept you haft to do the triangal closer to the ather Side of coconut lefe.

In case you don’t now the Bali pepol do offerings every morning and les in the after noon they do it beceas they belive in god.  I learned how to mack offerings from this varey nice bolins family. The mom named Made tot me how to mack offerings with putu. I like macking offerings because they r simpl to do and it’s fun.

STEP 1: You need a mini stapler, staples, scissors, coconut tree leaves and flowers. Also incense and a cracker.

STEP 2: To do the square, you cut the leaf 1/2 way and then twist and staple…make sure you cut all the sides the same length

STEP 3: This is what it should look like when you are done with the square.

STEP 4: Fill in the bottom with more leaf and staple it in.

STEP 5: Then you can add a few more pieces for decoration if you want.

STEP 6: Then you add flowers.

These are all the shapes I learned to make.

If you can’t already tell by my tone of voice, I was skeptical. No, I am not trying to pull a fast one on you guys by substituting “The Great Wall of China” in for the word “Parthenon” with my previous The Pretentious Parthenon blog post, albeit the attitude was not dissimilar as we sightsaw around Greece.

What can I say? My eyes have an exceptionally voracious appetite. You know how people are always saying: “Feast your eyes!” when they show you something marvelous?  Well, frankly, my eyes do not feast. Actually, maybe they do feast, but more accurately, are never satisfied.  In plain English: I’m not one for sightseeing. Which is a major problem because sightseeing has been a main objective throughout this entire trip. I don’t know if I was always this way though, because we used to hike a lot at home and I always thought that was fun. Now that I think about it: this trip has totally spoiled my eyes! My eyes have sampled holy lobster rolls from the Mattapoisett Oxford Creamery, and now just roll their eyes (pun intended) whenever you say, “We’re going to go down to the xyz restaurant and get some lobster rolls.” Yeah, a great view is great and all, but unless it’s the Santorini Caldera, Sagrada Familia, or a couple of baby cheetahs, you can count my eyes out.

In addition to my eyes being picky about what they “feast upon,” they also tend to rest on their laurels. In other words: they like the lobster rolls at Oxford Creamery, and why would they mess with a good thing? Why try the lobster rolls at the other restaurant two blocks down the street? My eyes are content and aren’t exactly eager to try anything new any time soon.

Hey. No judgment: they like what they like. Fortunately, for my persnickety eyes, they don’t get to choose what goes into their mouth and what doesn’t; my parents do that. Unlike my eyes, my parents’ eyes want to try every lobster roll restaurant the world has to offer, so there wasn’t really ever a debate when it came to going to see The Great Wall.

I didn’t believe the hype. Pictures from countless tourist flyers and posters cluttered my mind with scenes of a big stretch of wall, shoulder-to-shoulder dense with hordes of people and a ridiculous multitude of tour buses. This is what my mind was preparing itself for as we drove to the hotel.

We rolled into The Great Wall Box House late in the afternoon. I really needed to take a pee. Our driver from Beijing to The Great Wall Box House didn’t speak any English, and since I wasn’t really up for playing “I really need to go to the bathroom” charades with him, I painfully endured two straight hours as my bladder quivered on the brink of explosion. Because I ran straight for the bathroom like a maniac, my eyes didn’t get a chance to behold the meal they would soon be “feasting upon.”

At first glance, it was greater than I ever imagined: long stretch of ancient, rugged, crumbling path with a great heap of worn stone that resembled a watchtower here and there. It was magnificently peaceful. Nobody was in sight and no tour buses were idling out front. It was just us, the Box House, the quaint town of Gubeikou and these mystic hills that cradled amazing, antique pathways and bits of historically mind-blowing stone.

We reluctantly rolled out of bed for sunrise the next morning. As we climbed a brisk and relatively steep hill, the main attraction came into view. A methodically winding wall, lit up with a golden hue by the first rays of dawn, slowly awoke, like a drowsy serpent regaining consciousness after an eternal slumber. There it lay, waiting for us, the first to greet on this fine day; for as far as the eye could see, not a single person was in sight. The wall seemed to beckon to us that humbling morning. It seemed to be enticing me to trek onwards, and to discover the secrets that lay deeply imbedded in every ancient crack, hole, and crumb of stone. “The things I have seen and the adventures I have witnessed are beyond belief.” It said. I took one step forward. One foot lifted from familiar weather-beaten dirt and landed on ageless, everlasting stone. I envisioned the feet that had been here, in this same situation, before mine, the people who had took this step ages ago. Maniacal Huns storming Chinese forces?  Chinese soldiers hastily preparing for war?  Maybe. A swift messenger who brought vital warnings of a Hun invasion at least.

My imagination had a field day with those thoughts, and my eyes, they just stood there: awestruck by the taste of the lobster roll they just put into their mouth.

View of the Great Wall at sunrise the first morning

This is the section of the Great Wall which was right next to our hostel

Me on Great Wall Jinshanling which is a section that has been fully restored and even has a gondola!

Seeing Tiananmen Square for the first time was like finally seeing the face of that person you always hear so much about from your friend or family member: they almost never look anything like the way you pictured them. Tiananmen Square did not surprise me in terms of shape, for it was square as I suspected, but it fell decisively short in the awe-factor. In other words, I guess I expected more of this place I heard so much about in home and school. The way my teacher droned on and on, you too might have suspected some sort of mystical aura to be radiating off of the well-worn tiles. But alas, it was a square; a red square full of flustered tourists, flashy cameras, and perpetual commotion.

Now, while we are approximately a world away from China, I realize that the Square is not about what you can physically see, but what it represents. Nobody in “The Hunger Games” looks at Katniss’ Mockingjay pin and sees a gold pin. They see an idea, they see revolution against the Capitol.  But the thing about ideas is that they can be interpreted differently depending on perspective.  Some see a gold pin and hope, while others may see a gold pin and chaos.  What do you see when Tiananmen Square comes to mind?  I think that the name one uses to refer to the protests of 1989 gives you a lot of insight into what their thoughts about the whole event are.  I made this chart to help categorize people based on my understandings:

Wikipedia: If you are Wikipedia, a walking dictionary, or extremely passive person, you will use an amenable term like “The Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989.”

The Everyday Westerner:  We as Westerners are typically critical towards the manner in which the protests were dealt with on June 4th. By manner, I am of course referring to the way in which the government slaughtered hundreds to thousands of unarmed civilians in the streets. We call it as we see it: “The Tiananmen Square Crackdown,” “Protests,” or “Massacre.”  I will refer to not only the mass killings that took place in Tiananmen Square, but the event as a whole using the term, “Tiananmen Square Crackdown.”  I went with “Crackdown” for no philosophical reason other than because it sounded familiar: not as harsh as “Massacre,” but more descriptive than “Protests.”

 An Obedient Chinese Citizen:  The Chinese Government puts a lot of effort into diluting the severity of the Tiananmen Square Crackdown.  When talking with a friend of ours who grew up in China, the subject of Tiananmen Square came up.  We were shocked when he promptly told us that the Government refuses to talk about it.  The teachers are not allowed to cover it in school at all, nor are they permitted to answer any questions about the event.  Uneducated Chinese citizens commonly use names such as the “June Forth Incident” or simply “June Fourth,” the day that the People’s Liberation Army actually began killing protestors.

 A Slightly More Rebellious Chinese Citizen:  These citizens don’t let something like “government censorship” stop them from learning what they want to learn.  They are slightly more pugnacious and critical towards the government and use slightly more critical names like “June Fourth Massacre” or “June Fourth Crackdown.”  To bypass Internet censorship they use code names like “May 35th,” “VIIV” (Roman numerals for 6 and 4), and “Eight Squared” (which is equal to 64).  It’s pretty awesome.

 A Chinese Government Official:  If you are a government official in the country of China than you are most likely trying to eradicate the existence of the Tiananmen Square Crackdown from history, because, like those who were against killing the protestors, you would probably be ejected from the government if that is not your objective.

Ever since the Crackdown, the government has slowly been changing the name they use to refer to the event. It started off as a “counter-revolutionary riot,” however that was dialed down to simply “riot” after a while, this evolved into “political storm,” and finally they settled on an extremely neutral phrase: “political turmoil between the Spring and Summer of 1989,” which they continue to use to this day.

Tiananmen Square represents something different depending on your perspective.  The aura that I desperately searched for on the day that I visited Tiananmen Square was there, but I just couldn’t see it at that time. It is metaphysical; an intangible idea that varies depending on who you are. Now that aura is obvious to me. I can feel it radiating from all the way across the globe in an extremely symbolic square that came to life once I stepped across it’s storied past.

I don’t know how often you come across a place as extraordinary and awesome as Mood Food, but I’m just happy we did. Mom, Yve, Otto, Tuck, Jones and I ate here every single day for one month straight (sometimes for both lunch and dinner.) During our stay in Yangshou, we got to know the owners, Daniel and Yanzi, a couple of the coolest people we have ever met! Daniel teaches meditation; Yanzi teaches Yoga: together they are the ultimate health, mind, body, spirit power couple, and not to mention the life force behind the magical Mood Food!

All of us in a meditation class at Mood Food. We were lucky enough to be able to take meditation for a month with Daniel, a Qi Gong Master!

While Yanzi sets an incredibly fun tone with her constant jokes and carefree personality, Daniel is the innovation engine behind Mood Food’s legendary, rawsome recipes. “I woke up in the middle of the night and the recipe for this juice hit me: the Emerald Reviver.” That’s the level of raw passion we are dealing with here: dreaming about recipes for detox juices. Not only did Daniel teach me a great deal about meditation and healthy living, but he also taught me a great deal about zeal and the importance of finding your passion.

Power brownie! This was one of our favorites… a raw power bar! On our last day we ordered 12 to take to Beijing with us

Mushroom Medley! An amazing veggie dish!

Watermelon plate. The presentation of everything was almost as awesome as the taste!

Raw sun burger….another favorite!

Mood Food’s kombucha is the best in the world! …at this point, we have tried a lot of kumbucha around the world

When I say, “I am addicted to Mood Food,” this statement may sound a bit like a blithe hyperbole, but I am straight up serious! Now that we have finished our stupendous, life-changing stay in Yangshuo and moved on from Mood Food, we are all having withdrawals. When it is raining out, I long for Mood Food, the coziest place to cuddle up with pillows and sip on some healthy, warm, and delicious cashew milk. When I see a vegetable, my mind wonders back to magnificent memories of Mood Food, and my mouth yearns for a bite of their delicious aromatic broccoli dish! Day after day, night after night, Mood Food was always a highlight!

I mean, the fact that Jones, who insists on eating at McDonalds every day, and who’s favorite snack is potato chips, still asks, “Can we go to Mood Food and eat their garlic bread?” Justifies its excellence! I love Mood Food, it is one of my all-time favorite restaurants, and I would recommend visiting Yangshuo just to eat at this restaurant, chill out, study meditation, practice yoga, and make memories that will put a smile on your face twenty years later!

Jones with his daily order of garlic bread

All of us hanging out with Daniel on our last day at Mood Food!