ni hao [or something like that]

to the kayla from may 2007-

you're about to have one of your greatest adventures.
this month you will travel to china with your nursing program.
some things i want you to know:

you will climb the great wall [and i do mean climb]
your lungs and legs will burn from the effort.
you will see numerous couples with newly adopted baby chinese girls strapped to their chests.
these people will be grinning stupidly and you won't understand why at the time.
but you understand now the love of a parent.

you will have a very memorable panic attack while in a gondola.
the gondola will be filled with people and they will all laugh at you.
you will be clutching the center pole and muttering to yourself while the gondola sways back and forth.
there will be a minor monsoon happening and you will be over a large bay in hong kong.
you will not think this experience is funny until almost 2 years later.
and then you'll think it's hilarious.
you will then go on to walk in the rain to see the world's largest buddha.

you will see the most amazing architecture.

you will walk on streets that are thousands of years old.

you will me amazed.

your favorite place will be the royal family's summer palace. 

it's on a lake and the grounds are gorgeous [last pic]

you will not learn to like chinese food like everyone says you will.

you will lose 10 pounds during the trip.

you will survive on coke, sprite and white rice.

fellow students will eat the fish eye right off of the fish 'for luck'.

you really should pack more granola bars.

when you return stateside, you won't eat asian food for almost 2.5 years.

you will travel to northern china to visit a nursing/dental school.

this will seem insignificant to you at first but you will quickly realize what a big deal the visiting americans are to the chinese students. 

the chinese students and faculty will treat you like royalty.

and you will don a white nurses hat and take blood pressures in a local park.

the locals won't care about their BP, they will only want to touch your blonde hair.

you will miss your husband immensely.
you will sleep on the hardest beds ever.
you will not see a 'western toilet' until the end of the trip in hong kong.
and 4 years from now you will be craving another adventure and it won't be possible at the time and this will make you very sad.

but you have a ridiculous amount of pictures to scroll through so you can relive this adventure from the comforts of your bedroom.
and you can do this while your beautiful daughter sits on your lap [and that's a pretty awesome adventure of it's own kind]


enjoy china!



ps. two of my favorite pics from the trip:

.