They come, they eat, they leave (Christmas in the States)

The Cocoa Powder incident of 2013

I promise we didn't come to Utah for the food, but that's sure what it looked like. For those that are curious, the title comes from a fantastic movie, A Bug's Life. It's the ant's mantra when the grasshoppers come for their annual food collection, "They come, they eat, they leave..." I'd be lying if I said we didn't stuff ourselves silly with American food every day during our vacation. It was fantastic. But we also had a blast hanging out with friends and family. Before we left, we swore that 2 weeks would be plenty of time to get everything done on our agenda. We had a long list of friends to hang out with, and lots of wonderful family to catch up with. In addition, we had a 3-page shopping list (not kidding) and all our annual medical exams. Did we have enough time? Not even close.

Safari park and feeding the tigers

China, the land of rules and regulations, is surprisingly apathetic when it comes to the worth of an actual person. Maybe this culture develops from living in a country with almost 1 billion people. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there and you better fend for yourself. You see examples of it every time you walk out your door. The fact that I barely get a "ni hao" and absolutely no eye contact when I check out at the grocery store. The old man in the subway that shoves me out of the way to get to the door first. The constant game of chicken that you play every time you try to cross a street (I have a green light AND a little crosswalk man that says it's MY turn). The stories could go on and on. I don't like it, but I'm a little more used to it. It's just China.

Even knowing all of this about China, we were surprised to find ourselves in a metal cage surrounded by a lot of hungry tigers, thinking, they'd NEVER let us do this in the States!