Back in 2005 I traveled with my brother and sister to China and Hongkong. Sis chose to travel instead of celebrating her 18th birthday with a party. Of course with my ever protective and conservative parents she wouldn't be allowed to go on her own. I can't remember exactly the names of the places we stayed in and went to but all I know is that it was a great adventure and experience for the three of us.

We first landed in Shenzhen, China and stayed there for two days. It was great that the night market was just walking distance from our hotel so we didn't have to spend extra for our shopping trips. We were told by our tour guide to be careful of the street foods but we're too curious of the yummy smelling foods on the grill so we didn't really care much of the warning and just enjoyed some food tasting.

Of course it was so darn hard to buy what you want if it's something beyond your reach and had to be ordered from the counter. The vendors not only didn't understand English, most stores didn't even have any English menu available for tourist as if English interpreting in China was so unheard of. I remember it clearly when my friend was trying to order a milk tea and the way the guy said it was totally off, well at least he tried talking to us in different language.

There's one incident when our group was heading back to our rooms and a group of Chinese people got into the elevator with us. Our group was shocked when they all started talking because of their loudness and it was like as described by one of the guys we're with, "cat fighting in the streets". (Oooops no offense to our Chinese friends, it all happened in China) The older people in our group started talking out loud too in our own native language trying to tone down the other noisy group but it wasn't effective at all. My brother was really funny acting like a Chinese interpreting their words, he looks like one but doesn't know how to speak their language! You might think we're rude to make fun of the other group considering we're just tourists in their own land but believe me....their voices were echoing all over the elevator.

It was indeed a fun experience seeing a whole new place and meeting all other new people. Our hotel room was facing a huge modern mall with beautiful faces on the billboards. It was rather a pleasant sight for me admiring the structure itself and also the beautiful faces there. We managed to shop and haggle good enough even if our Chinese-English interpreting was terribly bad. I think it helped that we all look (kinda) like Chinese that's why they gave us better deals for our purchases. I am happy I had the chance to travel with my siblings because I don't think we can still do that kind of bonding considering we have our own separate lives already, perhaps in time with all our kids.