Family Reunion Vacation in Lake Chelan

Our vacation began on Friday night. My mom, dad, and older sister packed into our car with countless bags. We were going to a place called Lake Chelan. I threw a variety of clothes of different fabrics and colors into a bright orange bag. We brought some food along with us. I made ice packs and dumped salt into them so that they would keep cold.

The drive was very long. For the most part it was at night, and I had to struggle to keep awake and read directions out to my dad while we drove. My sister and I were on "deer watch" trying to make sure that we didn't hit any deer on the highway, but my sister kept on falling asleep.
When we arrived, it was already past midnight. Everyone was sleeping except for my Aunt Yimei, who was giving us some directions to get to the house. We had an entire room to our own intermediate family.

In the morning, everyone joined upstairs in the dining room--my aunts, uncles, cousin, mom, dad, grandpa and grandma, and my sister. We went for a morning swim and got slightly tanned, much to my dismay. Lake Chelan was renowned for hot, sunny weather.
One of the highlights of the trip was going innner tubing on the Lake Chelan marina. We rented a ten-person motorboat (although there were eleven people) and dragged an inner tube behind us at high speeds. I went in the inner tube many times. One time, the boat went so fast that water and foam flew into my face and I had to hold my nose and close my eyes--in order not to scream.

Thankfully, I was still wearing my swimsuit. I had the good luck to stay in the inner tube, but my sister and uncle were flipped over in the inner tube. My aunt got into the inner tube without a lifevest (for some reason she had taken it off), and we had to pull her back in so that she could put on her life vest. It was lucky, too--for she and my uncle were flipped over and had to swim back to the boat. I was in charge of holding up an orange flag that let other boats know when people were in the water.

We played card games like Bohnanza and Democrazy, played Olympic-themed charades (while watching Michael Phelps swim), and went swimming ourselves. We ate cake and ice cream, and I hogged a great deal of goat cheese. Since it was very hot inside the house, my Aunt Huan made some great smoothies to cool us all off. Everyone took photos and we had an official photo shoot at sunset.

All in all, our family reunion in Lake Chelan was an excellent experience.

A Trip Crabbing

Last weekend we went crabbing with our aunt and uncle near the Canadian-Washingtonian border. We started out in our aunt and uncle's golden car, which always reminds me distinctly of a fat pill-bug. We piled our things in the car haphazardly--my backpack rolled around at my feet in front of a keyboard-print pillow and a large green cooler, while our uncle bombarded us with math questions pertaining to the number of days it would take to drive so many miles, etc. These questions were successfully answered, and we soon settled into a long discussion about various types of food.

Ah...food! Our first stop was at the Bellingham's Farmer's Market, a large and busy place, smelling of kettle corn, herbs, and cheese sticks. Some of the booths were more homogeneous, lined up in much the same way with the same white canopies stretched over the poles. Others were more conspicuous, shading some creative artisan behind hat-stands or sculptures or jewelry. We purchased some fruit and vegetables (not to mention a temptingly sweet bag of sugar-coated pecans, and a cheese stick). The sugar-coated pecans had the texture of an obstinately hard vitamin, the crunchiness and crispness of an overbaked cookie, and had the same filling taste as a gulpful of sweet lemonade.

Our next stop was to start crabbing. Our other aunt and uncle were there, as well as our maternal grandparents. The crab-nets were heavy and bothersome. I watched (entranced) as our gloved aunt put a raw chicken leg into a small cage inside the nets as bait for the hungry crabs. Our other uncle threw the net, like a frisbee, into the murky water, where it splashed like a skipping stone. We waited expenctantly over a delicious lunch.

My aunt was at the epicenter of this lunch, chopping tomatoes and cucumbers while talking loudly in Chinese, watching the lines of our crab nets until she determined they were ready to pull, and laying out tasks for her minions (our uncle and me) to complete. Namely, putting cheese and/or ham into the sandwiches. Our grandmother's lunch seemed to be made up entirely of peanuts and watermelon, although I could be wrong.

We caught a great deal of small crabs, one of whom seemed to be in raw-chicken-leg paradise, having managed to get halfway into the cage and feast upon his reward. We threw him back. My sister's official role was to prod the little crabs who got stuck on a bit of the dock that protruded out beyond our reach, with a chopstick or popsicle stick or whatever struck her fancy. I helped, and felt a feeling of satisfaction afterwards, as though I had saved the world. (It is a simliar feeling when one gives an ant struggling with a bread-crumb a lift in your palm back to its home.)

Every so often I would observe the number of crabs lounging in the tepid water inside my aunt's hat-shaded bucket. I thought it was over six, although I never would know for sure.

The Phantom of the Opera

I have already written about some details of my New York trip but here is something I forgot, unfortunately, to write about:

1. The Phantom of the Opera musical

• The Phantom of the Opera musical tickets cost $234.00 even after an enormous discount; the theater, however, was quite crowded, with people in bulky raincoats flooding in from all directions.
• The Phantom of the Opera was supposed to be scary but I thought it was more exciting than scary and more comical (in some parts at least) than exciting. Some of the parts I liked best included the fact that they actually threw fire on the stage, the elaborate costumes, and the fancy stage props.

2. The United Nations building

• The UN building was quite an interesting building but we had a not-so interesting tour. We paid a great deal of money for a cheesy, uninteresting tour; our tour guide would say very quietly what room we were in and a few small details before moving on. We listened jealously to the other group as their tour guide described in detail the origins of a statue, nuclear weapons, etc.
• One of the meetings we listened to was quite boring. Apparently the UN people seated listening to the speaker thought so too; some were picking their nose, others were chattering among themselves, and I thought I saw somebody pull a cell phone out of their pocket.

Speech in NY

I have just returned from New York with my ears hurting, runny nose, and two enormous cardboard posters with my smiling face printed brightly to the side of "Adora Svitak--A Child Prodigy Speaks". They were nice posters but they gave us some trouble at the airport; brobdingnagian cardboard posters in gigantic Kinkos bags aren't exactly the regular carry-on luggage. It was stored in the coat closet on the plane during the flight.

The flight itself was not the worst I have experienced. I was not forced to make use of the small, strangely clean white "Motion Sickness" bag conveniently tucked into every seat pocket--there were times, however, when I felt slightly queasy. We had bought a very interesting and educational card game about headlines from the New York Post about memorable events over the century; we spent some time playing this while eating cake and drinking ginger ale.

I made a speech at the Longwood School, a wonderful, innovative school with classes divided not by walls but by bookshelves or lockers. This idea might sound ridiculous but really I thought it was quite a good idea; walls sometimes restrict movement, while there is less waste of material and space with this idea. The students were highly intelligent; I talked with some of them after my presentation to get feedback on my presentation, how I might improve it, etc., and they also asked me questions. I was also questioned by reporters from MiddleScoop, the school newspaper; a great deal of the questions were better than the ones adult reporters ask me, and I enjoyed the experience immensely.

I was also in Long Island to give a speech at Stony Brook University's renowned Charles B. Wang Center; I sold out the emergency copies of Flying Fingers and began autographing things like my poetry and story writing booklet, tickets, even scraps of paper when people were desperate. There was a reception with delicious Chinese food and chocolate milk that I drank thirstily as I answered questions from all sides; sometimes people would be asking me whether I could take a picture with them and snapping about one hundred pictures; other times they asked where I got my inspiration from, when I began writing, etc.

It was quite a nice event on the whole; the Wang Center was a beautiful place, dedicated to sharing different cultures with the rest of the world--this was even reflected in the wonderful resturaunt, Jasmine, which had all kinds of different foods. My favorite was probably the samosas I got almost daily. There were serene, relaxing gardens with small ponds and bridges; there was an impressive display of a model of a Chinese chariot, and the Wang Center had many fountains that calmed you a great deal.

I had about three to four microphones clipped onto me when I was making my speech; it was amazing they did not fall off or at least get tangled together. I was quite relieved to take them off, however, and prance off to explore the rest of the Wang Center.