I must have visited the Great Wall of China at least ten times the first year I moved to Beijing. Dad had a lot of visitors and we’d always take them there. Then one day I thought enough was enough, I will not be dragged to the Great Wall of China even one more time. And true to my word, I stopped going.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been a tourist in my own country. But while I’ve been away for college for the past year, I’ve come to miss all the things about China I took for granted. So this summer when Dad asked if I wanted to go to 古北水镇 (gǔ běi shuǐ zhèn, Gubei Water Town), I said yes!

And even though the cause for this occasion was Ken’s birthday, the family decided to leave him at home for this trip, which was really just everything Ken could ask for. He’s not really about sight-seeing unless the sight is a monitor with a video game console attached.

PS: time travel back to the live feed of this day this morning

I never pack until the night of my flight, or rather, morning of, and this time it’s no different. We stay up until 3:00AM packing and watching movies all the while. I head off to bed without setting an alarm thinking that someone will wake me up tomorrow, but it turns out I should never make such assumptions. I’m stirred from bed by the ruckus at 8:00AM and we don’t leave the house until 8:30AM for our 9:55AM flight. It’ll be a miracle if we make it. For the record, it’s not my fault we’re late. Mom’s still showering. I don’t understand how anyone could be calm enough to shower with so little time left. Really, negative time left.

In the car we get to the topic of anime, although I’ve only watched up to episode 5 of Clannad because it’s too much of a commitment reading subtitles. Ken calls me a noob and says that I need to watch so much anime that I no longer need to read subtitles. He’s speaking from his own experience I suppose. I challenge him, ordering him to say something in Japanese. He quickly backtracks and admits he only knows a few phrases, and because he mostly watches fantasy, the phrases he knows aren’t very practical, but at least I know I’ll have someone to turn to if ever I need to say “let the battle commence.”