Rice Barge from hell

Conjuring the memories from this event are hard as most of them have been suppressed hoping that they would never return. Yet, here I am writing, blanking on potential topics other than the lovely rice barge from hell.

The trip that my mom an I went on was partially with a guided tour. In the mornings we would go out in the group - leaving the evenings for us to do as we please. However, if you were a tourist who preferred to be in a group the majority of your trip, you could tack on extra excursions. The only problem was that when you were picking the excursions, they had written the activity headers in an enthralling manner. The headers were succeeded by vague descriptions, yet still appealing. Thus, explaining how we ended up on a ship with no way to turn back.

For the most part my mom planned the excursions, one of the few that we added was this "Traditional Thai dinner on a rice barge". My mom quickly ran the activity by me, "fun" I replied, despite the wary feelings about it. That was the end of it until the day of. The morning of, our two trip groups split again, and we boarded the bus in which we stuck close to our friends. We soon realized that in our half of the whole tour group, we were the only ones going for the dinner. Discussion to skip came up multiple times, but my mom and I decided why not, when will we ever be back? We met the group who was going on the dinner cruise, and like we assumed, we knew no one. That's fine other than the fact that it was family style dining and the only entertainment of the night was 3 hours of sober karaoke.

Upon seating, we were served a poor, mediocre at best meal, which I muscled through. 30 minutes later the servers got the brilliant idea to crank the mid-2000's pop songs that wear themselves out after approximately two minutes. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate karaoke, but after the 3rd YMCA, I'm done. Add to that no alcohol (only assuming that helps), and no friends, and you will be guaranteed a hell of a night. 

Famous Feelings

I was warned before final trip plans were made that I would be an entity upon arrival, and my mom even more so. I had the perfect assets for a family photo op, proven by our trip to the great wall and two hour detour to the Beijing olympic park.

Being blonde, fair- skinned, and comparatively tall, I was the root of much gawking and discussion. Little girls would follow me around and mime cameras to indicate that they wanted a picture, teenage boys would use their broken English to ask politely, and adults would just grab me, dragging me into the frame of their cameras. Aside from pictures, older men would ask me to marry them on a regular basis, their love for me was professed, and groups swarmed around me. I had an uneasy feeling at first, but eventually got caught up in the so called "fame". My mom would have to remind me that we had places to be and that I couldn't take a picture with everyone.

In the beginning, this experience didn't have much of a context- it was merely a funny phenomenon that would be the root of jokes between the other blondes on the trip, but on the flight home it became more. Just as people targeted me for pictures, I found myself migrating to a retired NBA player (Carlos Boozer: Bulls, Lakers, Jazz, Cavs) and asking timidly for a picture. I had no idea who he was, but his designer luggage, enormous stature, traveling assistant, and first class tickets tipped me off to ask for the picture. I had no idea who he was, but the rarity of his appearance was captivating, seemingly the same as my appearance to the people requesting pictures.

It was interesting to be on both sides of it. To be a commodity one day and then to seek out the commodity was crazy. It reminded me that fame is an everyday thing, a celebrity, whether athlete or singer, is a person too - an idea that I think we often lose sight of.