After the 2008 Beijing Olympics were over, the next major event China started looking forward to was the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. The Expo is the latest in a line of events that used to be called the World's Fair. When I was in Shanghai last year, the entire riverfront was closed as they were doing construction and maintenance to prepare for the estimated 100 million visitors the city would get the following year. Most of these extra people are Chinese, and the extra burden on domestic transportation turned out to be very much a spoiler for the rest of my trip. It proved to be quite difficult to get a long-distance train out of Suzhou, since all the train lines through there started in Shanghai, and were sold out much sooner than usual. Mike ... read more

Not much going on yet. This first few days I haven't left Mike's apartment often. He still has a few more days of having to go into school for a few hours, so mostly I stay home or take short walks around his neighborhood. The first few weeks of the trip was always meant to be just about hanging out with Mike, so I'm OK if I don't spend every day trying to cram in as much sightseeing as I can. So, that means my activities the last few days have mostly involved playing video games and watching movies...basically all the things we did when we lived in the same house in Montana. And that's just great. That's exactly what I wanted from the time when it's just the 2 of us here. Tomorrow (I think) ... read more

你好 (ni hao) from 台湾 (Taiwan)! Another meaning for "tai wan" is 太晚, "too late." That's about right. It's only 9pm here, but it's 7am in Bozeman, and on the 14-hour flight across the Pacific I was only able to get the kind of sleep a 6'4" man can get in an economy class airplane seat, so I'm feeling every minute of that 7am. I leave again for Hong Kong in 10 minutes, and get there at 11:30pm local time, where it will be about an hour before I can actually sleep. Hopefully being this tired now means I'll adjust to the jet lag quickly! Not much else to say - just wanted to leave a note from Taiwan while I had the chance and let you know I've survived the first leg of my voyage. ... read more