Fancy World Traveller

For most of this week my dreams have been so mixed up and nonsensical that I haven't been able to make enough sense out of them to record them. But last night was back to clear and interesting.

It started out in Japan where I was visiting my host mom and we decided to go shopping. We went to this store that had a variety of things. There was a lot of jewelry and clothing but also lots of kid's toys. At one point I was looking at these rainbow-colored puzzle pieces that you had to try and make a cube out of, only I couldn't get them to fit together and it was really difficult- they would change shape as I picked them up. I looked around at the earrings and the dinosaur toys and then at the clothes a little bit, and was excited about the fact that the blouses were small enough to actually fit me (I have trouble finding clothes that fit me here in the States because of how small I am, and in real life Japan it really was easier). I wasn't sure if there was a dressing room though, so I settled on a couple of dinosaurs and a necklace or something.

After that it turned out I needed to get dressed up for something. Now I was in a mall, but my closet was in this room off to the side where I could change. I had some really crazy clothes and was having trouble putting together anything that matched. I was getting pretty frustrated because I would put on one thing and it would turn into something completely different as I put it on, so that I would end up not matching again. I somehow didn't catch onto this for awhile though and just kept at it. Finally someone came in to help me (whoever I was with; maybe my mom?) and she had found someone to do my hair and make up. And after that I totally looked like a movie star, which I thought was pretty weird and not me but I figured it was just for this big event I was going to.

I actually don't remember what happened next, just that after awhile I ended up in an icy field with my parents, crossing it carefully because there were those concrete blocks they put at the end of parking spaces lying everywhere, only instead of concrete they were made of ice. It turned out to be a memorial of a war with the blocks symbolizing something. After awhile it turned out we had crossed over the sea into China and were right on the edge of Shanghai.

It was pretty cool because it looked like a Chinese watercolor painting of a rural landscape. My parents explained that they had wanted to show me Shanghai because they really liked going there on their trip over the summer (which is true). We went down a hill into an alley that looked like it belonged in Europe with medieval stone buildings really close together. It was after dark and I was kind of scared, but my mom started talking to the locals in Chinese (which she really is learning, though she was way more advanced in the dream) and sorted out where we should go. I was a little worried because I suddenly realized I didn't have any of my medication with me, and I didn't know where I would find something that I could eat. At the same time I was glad to be there though, because I felt that if it had been up to me I would have been too cautious about these things to visit China in the first place. And I was really glad to be there and learn something.