I finally went on a vacation!

It's been almost two years since I worked in this company and finally i decided to take a vacation! Ideally I think 3-4 weeks would be the best but I only got total of 3 weeks and I think my manager highly recommend me to take 2 weeks at a time. So i guess 2 is better than 0 in this case.

I went to 3 different cities in China. I really want to travel to Europe and see places that I haven't seen yet. But both my grandmas are pushing mid 80s and both of them have their fair issues of health problem. One had a stroke and now she is bed bound and cannot speak, and the other one is always afraid of dying alone without anyone knowing and constantly going to the hospital (maybe 5 times a month) to spend loads of money on medicine and services she absolutely does not need. So I guess I still have sometime in the future to visit those really ideal vacation spots and for now I will visit family and squeeze in some traveling in my home country, it can still be fun.

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Home

I missed my connecting flight. I first waited 6 hours at Seoul because my flight was delayed for 1.5 hours, and plus all the time I spent in Beijing where I was supposed to catch my flight home, I missed the flight. yeah that was pleasant....

Home is what I expected. It is very uneventful. The streets are dirty and people looked weird. It is very disappointing compared to my trip back home 2 years ago. I saw a lot of hot guys that time and many of them are over 6'2". This time, other than fugly, there was fugly. I lived at my bedbound grandma's house. She can't speak anymore and she answers everything with a No. She is lovely though. I can't help but remembering her glorious days when she was commanding the entire family.

I treated my insane grandma a lunch, it was what i expected, she had a good time but then proceeded to screaming about how she would die alone at home. She is a very strong woman; her voice is able to make some echos in a fairly small room in her home.

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Beijing

Beijing was a long trip for me. I had to stay there for about 5 days. It was dirty and extremely hot. Olympics wasn't enough to save that city.

I was living at a friend's place which was a one bedroom apartment with a small kitchen and bathroom. The heat made that room almost unbearable without a AC on and because of the moisture, the AC just makes u feel a bit sticky when it is on.

I got a heat stroke the 3rd day and I was getting pissy. I mean don't get me wrong I had fun, catching up, visiting the Sacrificial Altar of Heaven and just having fun with childhood friends. But I god damn hate this place. My friend who I was living with is getting sick too. So when I was planning to move to a hotel room on the 3rd night, my uncle who lives 3 hours of flight away called me. As soon as he knew my condition, he booked a room at the Holiday Inn and flew over to spend time with me. I mean how amazing can this guy be.

My uncle is also my mom's best sibling and he is the only one who knew I was gay. We actually had a chat about this "problem" before he flew back. He offered some "options" all in good intention I believe. One is to marry a girl and see if I can turn. Two is to marry a girl and get her pregnant and divorce her in China by doing it without hurting anyone. Isn't this just wonderful. I shot him down on both accounts and explained him about being gay. We had good conversations despite he offered those two crazy ideas. I think we felt closer. I told him about my plan of getting a surrogate and raise my children with my future husband and he thought that wouldn't be the ideal way since the children need a mom and dad. I told him he sounded like a crazy Christian lol. I think he had a better understanding of the situation. Before we parted our ways at the airport. I told him now it is his duty to make my mom feel comfortable with my plan and he has no choice but taking on the tasks. I think he kinda agreed.

Oh btw, I did go to the famous bird's nest and watercube from the olympics. It was great but I guess before of my high expectation I wasn't that impressed. But I did get a stamp collection for 120 dollars, it looks nice :p

The last highlight of my trip was a Spanish hunk...

At the well known beijing gay club called Destination (still years behind the international scene) I met with this super cute hunky Spanish guy. I wasn't talking to him initially but with a cigarette we started to talk. communication was a bit difficult since his English was kinda broken with heavy accent but we managed to grope dance and kiss with each other. Then we went to the backroom and blew each other a bit. But I guess the security wasn't too happy and we didn't finish the business lol Hwoever I will forever remember his cute face especially the look he gave when he was on his knees looking up.

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Shanghai

Shanghai is a much much better city. Because the International Trade Expo kinda thing is happening in 2010, skyscrapers are like mushrooms popping up everywhere. Since there was a hurricane landing some city nearby, the weather in Shanghai was extremely comfortable. Even when it was raining a bit it still felt soothing rather than annoying. I met up with my LA friend dodo and we lived at Renaissance Marriot hotel. It was so nice! I loved every moment at that place. The highlight at this city however, was from the traditional shopping technique in China called extreme haggling. lol. Who knew the modern transformation wasn't enough to woo me but this rather cheap way of shopping really made our day! What is also amazing is the counterfeit production of luxurious goods. From what i heard because of the Expo, the commerce department has already cracked down a lot of their operation but there was still enough production to go around.

The food was inexpensive and for the most part tasted amazing and we took a good amount of pictures everywhere. It was busy yet not overwhelming, perfect way to end my entire trip. I am definitely coming back to shanghai again in the future.

Unfortunately I didn't get to check out Shanghai's gay clubs which supposed to be 4-5 years ahead of those in beijing. Oh well there is always the next time. here are some pictures. pictures time up, deleted hehe.