I GREW MY BOOBS IN CHINA
Chapter #26 “Postcard“

I wanted to tell her how the local ladies in our dorm room on our Yangtze River boat cruise had brought a plastic bag FULL of duck tongues to snack on, and to see her face when I told her I had eaten one myself…

I wanted to tell her about the crazy Belgian guy who carried his fishing pole with him everywhere he went and how his wife only shook her head, because he’d never once caught a single fish on their seven-month backpacking trip, but he still insisted he was a fisherman and would one day catch a great big fish.
Chapter #27 “Stepping Back”

As I was trying to pronounce the word for stairs, I was also wondering if the men who built them had been giants. They were much too tall for the people of today, and I imagined great big warriors, armed with giant bows and arrows and wearing pointed helmets, leaping up and down them, defending their territory.
Chapter #28 “A Series of Beijing Events”
Chapter #29 “New Territory”

It seemed that the moment we crossed the invisible boundary line and left China’s gorgeous green rice fields behind, the land before us was transformed into a lifeless desert. We found the stark demarcation completely bizarre. “It’s almost as if the earth knew it wasn’t China anymore,” Mom said, looking out the window.
Chapter # 30 “Anything Goes ”

My first visit to a local Mongolian home was a bit shocking. The ger was completely open inside, consisting of just one big, round room that held a sink, a colourful dresser, four metal-framed beds lining the felt walls, and a fireplace/stove in the middle. The roof was supported by reddish-orange poles in the traditional Mongolian style.

Can you imagine being able to pack your whole house onto the backs of a few camels?” Mom reminded us about seeing a nomadic family in travel mode a few hours before. They had been transporting their ger on a couple of camels loaded with the orangey-red support poles and the ger’s felt cover.