Chia’s Family Trip to Guizhou, China in 2026

Few Words before We Begin

I’ve already forgotten how many times I’ve made the decision to reintroduce my very own blog site after I’ve cancelled my previous WordPress CPanel subscription. Unfortunately, this decision was only kept in my mind. I’ve downloaded the backup for the previous blog posts that I’ve written, and they have since been sitting quietly on my machine for years.

Now that a wonderful journey had just ended, I was absolutely determined to materialize the experiences from my mind into words before they faded away and were cleaned up by my brain. And apparently, there are noting better to store words other than a blog.

The design of this blog has been finalized for quite some time. It was just that I kept procrastinating to get the very last 13% of the progress finished, which is to convert it from React to using Astro as the framework that handles static content better. This trip is now serving as the source of motivation for me to finally get it completed.

Prologue

Born in a family that is neither rich nor poor, travelling isn’t a luxury for us, but neither is it the norm. As 2025 was about to end, at a family dinner, my aunts proposed a trip abroad the following year. All of us were excited, suggesting countries and places that we could visit. Having watched a decent amount of videos and shorts showcasing the crazy cityscape, my own wish is to visit Chongqing, China, a city built in the mountains.

Decisions were not made at the end of the dinner, nor any time soon after that. Life went on, and just when I was about to forget this matter, I received a document from my dad. It was a PDF highlighting a trip itinerary. The trip was to be in China, but not in a place I was expecting: Guizhou, a province I knew only for its Moutai. There was a little disappointment in me right at that moment, thinking that touring this province might not be as fun as the others. However, little did I know how marvellous this place actually is, until I actually stepped foot on it.

Attached below is the itinerary document that I received.

So yeah, the decision of the trip destination was made, and the rest was just waiting. It was October when the trip plan was finalized, and the trip would happen in March of 2026. My uni semester had just started, and I was getting busier and busier with the coursework, leaving me barely any brain capacity to worry about the trip.

However, there was a slight timing issue. There were two time slots for the trip, as can be observed in the itinerary document: 13 Mar to 20 Mar, and 20 Mar to 27 Mar. Initially, we settled on the latter, but unfortunately, that time slot doesn’t have enough slots left, leaving us with only the slot before that. I remembered clearly that this matter was informed to me by my aunt when I was on my way back home from lunch.

It would be dishonesty if I told you I wasn’t panicking at the moment. The reason is that the earlier time slot actually collides with the final week of my upcoming semester in February 2026. If something happens during that time that requires me to show up in person, I would be absolutely cooked. However, my rationality quickly got back online.

My university is kind enough to provide flexibility for students to select their preferred set of modules to take part in for each semester, and for the upcoming semester, my original plan was to choose a few MPU subjects that were delivered on a fully online basis. I opened up the student portal on my phone, navigated to the course description document for the subjects that I was planning to select, and lo and behold, they were indeed taught online, and no final exam was required. I was chuffed a bit, but still a bit worried about the group assignment, whether it requires any in-person meeting or not.

With that said, I still told my aunt to proceed with the trip planning, telling her that everything should be okay. The trip was hence confirmed, and documents like passports were being collected slowly but surely. None of that matters to me, as I was focusing on my client’s project to get some pocket money ready for the trip.

2D1N Trip Back to KL

Time flies; the very last day of 2025 ended just like any other day in my life. There were only a few days left before I needed to depart back to KL from my home for my final exams. They went pretty smoothly except for a module named “Software Process and Lifecycle” that is packed with theoretical stuff that requires memorization. I crammed a little a few days before the day of the examination, revising all the stuff being taught by the lecturer. Luckily enough, my brain functions extraordinarily during the exam, and the eight pages of answer scripts filled to the brim with my neat handwriting produced within 2 hours had successfully gotten me a tasty A in my academic transcript.

Three A’s and one A minus with a CGPA of 3.92 marked the end of the second semester of my pursuit of the Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering. The A minus is definitely not because I sucks but due to some personal hatred of the lecturer toward me. Can’t blame him, I guess, one without an open enough mind would feel painful teaching a student with decent experience. I’m not boasting or anything, but that lecturer’s character is truly a bit troublesome, thinking that all his students must be trash.

My train back home happened the day after the exam ended. Day after day had passed, and the trip to China was getting closer and closer. I was fully immersed in my client’s project during that period in time, a specialized enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for his SME that includes a customer relationship management (CRM) system, an event planning system, a role-based permission management mechanism, and a commission management system, just to name a few. A case study for the system is definitely part of my plan in the future.

It was just an ordinary day when I heard that my parents were going to Shanghai for a visit to a machinery expo. It was a 5-day trip one week before our trip to Guizhou that, unfortunately, didn’t include me. I wasn’t disappointed as I used to be when I was a child, since, of course, my brain is mature enough to understand why they didn’t count me in. That trip was partially considered a business trip, after all.

So I thought, this was a great opportunity for me to get back to KL to fetch some clothes from my hostel room for the upcoming trip. Round-trip flight tickets were bought, but not fully utilized eventually.

On March 2, both my parents and I departed from home, but to different destinations. They were heading to Changi Airport while I was flying back to KL. Thus began their exciting trip in the metropolis of China, while I was chilling out in my hostel. I’ll leave it to my parents for another blog post detailing their trip (if there would ever be one).