Three things that annoy me about travelling;

1. Have you ever wondered why traditional food in touristy places is food that locals traditionally don’t eat? Why isn’t it just called “food”?
2. One time, in Dublin, I saw a Tim Hortons. Seeing this coffee shop outside of Canada left me feeling betrayed by my own people.
3. I roll my eyes at; English menus listing burgers and trusty chicken strip dinners, Starbucks on every corner, and rows of gift shops stocked with overpriced key chains and shirts that say “my grandma went to (some tourist trap) and all she got me was this lousy t-shirt”.

What do these complaints have to do with my recent trip to China? They prove I’m a hypocrite. I love my Westernized things and missed them dearly throughout my 9 days in the most foreign and internet censored country I have ever been to. No Google, no social media, intermittent internet, and equally intermittent English.

The four of us started in Beijing, a city of more than 20 million people. Without Google to direct us or translate for us, everything from finding a bathroom to finding a bank was like a Scavenger Hunt. At the restaurants, the menus came in Mandarin, the waiters didn’t speak English, and did I mention, NOOO Google?! Tired, desperate and hungry, we resorted to making pig noises and clucking like chickens to order food. I’m still not sure what we had for dinner that first night because as it turns out, only English speaking chickens say “cluck-cluck” and pigs don’t snort in Chinese.

Yes, at first it was frustrating. It took a bit of time and a load of patience, but eventually, Chinese China won us over. Getting around became a form of entertainment. At the top of our Charades game, we found our way to Tiananmen Square and then the Forbidden City, the largest complex of palaces in the world. We strolled along the same streets where for 500 years, only the emperor, his family, his women, and castrated men had strolled before. I’m not a man, but I can’t imagine choosing between removing my balls and entering the palace with my balls where the punishment for doing so was death.

When it comes to shopping, Beijing takes the rice-cake. Let me just explain that there wasn’t a complete absence of English. Suffice it to say, the Chinese understood such words as; Michael Kors, Gucci, and Hermes. Shopping for top name brand “inspired” purses, wallets, clothing, and jewellery gave us a bit of a sign language reprieve. On the other hand, finding the stores was a game of Hide & Seek and then getting a taxi to take us back (because we shopped too much) almost broke our spirits. Locals watched with raised brows as we squeezed onto the back of a rickshaw secured to a motorbike with duct tape. We held on tight to garbage bags filled with leather goods—it was a damn miracle we didn’t lose a wallet, our driver, or an arm, weaving in and out of traffic like we were.

By the end of Beijing, we had learned a trick or two. Before leaving our hotel in the morning, we used Bing—Google’s lesser-known distant cousin—to screenshot pictures of water bottles, farm animals, toilets, and Starbucks. This was helpful when we were thirsty, wanted to ask waiters for a beef dish (cow pic), tell our adorable driver we needed a pee break on the way to the Great Wall of China, and most importantly…find Starbucks (I’m a hypocrite).

The Great Wall of China was by far my favourite stop in Beijing. It was just as shown in pictures only better. We spent a good amount of the day here and it still wasn’t enough. Each time I made it to a crumbling watchtower I’d fret, contemplating if I had enough time to zip on over to the next one and still make it back to meet the driver. I must’ve hiked four or five kilometres of the Great Wall, tempting fate. By my estimate, that leaves another 8843 more to go! If I were to repeat this excursion daily, it would take me as long to make it across the wall as it did for almost a million men to build it: 2000 years.

After Beijing, our group of four split in half and two of us continued on by train to the ancient walled city of Xian. “What’s in Xian,” you ask? Only one of the biggest and most important archeological finds in the history of forever: Terracotta Warriors. Eight THOUSAND life-sized guys buried two THOUSAND years ago with the first Emperor. The Warriors’ sole purpose was to protect their master in his afterlife. Each gigantic pit we explored, one of which was longer than four Olympic size swimming pools, had endless rows of generals, acrobats, horses and chariots. Discovered by some farmer back in the 70’s, archeologists are still painstakingly excavating it today, having uncovered only a fraction of the funerary art. We watched in awe as they worked with wee brushes and grazed at the red dirt with what looked to me like a toothpick and dental floss. I could never do that job.

The last leg of our journey took us to Shanghai. Still no Google or burgers, but this modern city sprawling along the Yangtze River felt familiar, comfortable. It was busting at the seams with tourists and an endless supply of tacky t-shirt shops filled with overpriced key chains. We jumped on board a double-decker and went from one end of the city to the other, gleefully playing the traditional part of the happy tourist. People sort of spoke English and could nearly almost direct us to all the “traditional” food places. We had foot rubs for westerners, bought overpriced tea, and ran from one Starbucks to the next with tears of joy. At night, Shanghai’s bright lights and futuristic skyline climbing high above the clouds resembled so many giant cities that I love. It was like New York—only it was Shanghai!

But you know what? Part of me was sad that I no longer needed the pictures of the cow, the chicken, Starbucks, or the toilet. I was just getting used to being out of sorts. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to have a caramel macchiato, but what’s the sense in travelling to someplace new if you don’t become uncomfortable? Isn’t that the point? If not, then what is? It’s funny: we complain when a city is built for tourists, and then we complain when it isn’t. We travel in search of something different and when we find it, we panic and look for a common ground. Why?

I have no idea. I’m no expert on this paradox of wanting to be uniquely the same. But I’ll tell you what…I’ll keep at it until I discover the reasons behind our obsession with simultaneously fitting in and standing out. I’ll work at being comfortably uncomfortable as I work through my travel bucket list. As soon as I figure it all out, I’ll fill you in. You’re welcome.

Three things I love about travelling;

1. Meeting proud locals eager to make me feel at home in their country.
2. Being completely lost and trying to communicate with locals who don’t understand me but want to help.
3. Connecting the dots between differences even if I don’t understand why we do it, but finding something familiar and remembering we’re all the same is reason enough for me.