Vietnam 11/8-11/25 [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately, this blog has become a bit of a pain to keep updated. So, I've decided to put up some pics until I can get back into it. Derek [View Full Entry]

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Yunnan Province: Kunming - Dali - Lijiang - Quatou - Shangri La (Zhongdian) 9/29-2007-10/13/2007 Warning: Some of the material in this blog may be unsuitable for children. After arriving in Kunming, I decided that I was in the mood for a massage. After the long hours in the car on the Tibet adventure, my back was a bit angry with me. So, I made my way up to the massage parlor attached to the hotel I was staying at. Now....you may or may not know that asian massage parlors often offer "extra" services for a fee. I've seen these quite often [View Full Entry]

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Tibet 9/19-9/28/07 After going back and forth between taking on Tibet or giving it a miss due to permits, high trip costs, expensive plane tickets to get out there, etc., we decided that we'd probably never find ourselves so close to Tibet again. So, we said screw it. We'll go to Tibet, suck it up, and pay the extra money that we hadn't originally budgeted for. Wow am I glad we made that decision. Tibet was awesome! I feel like I use that word to describe every enjoyable place I visit, BUT, it was truly awesome. I stepped off the plane [View Full Entry]

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Pingyao - Xi'an - Chengdu 9/5/07-9/19/07 This part of the trip was a bit of a whirlwind. We only spent a few nights in each place...except for chengdu, which I will explain why later. Pingyao So lets see...Pingyao was a pretty cool little old city. The city itself has a huge stone wall surrounding it and the traditional chinese style buildings with the upturned corners. It seriously looks like the setting for a Bruce Lee movie. We popped into a local restaurant for a nice bowl of noodles and yak meat...mmmm...yak meat. Actually the meat was pretty good...a bit gamey but [View Full Entry]

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Beijing 8/28/07-9/4/07 The flight in from Guilin wasn't bad at all. However, it was crazy to see the thick cloud of brown pollution that hovered over the city. I feared for my lungs. After we landed and got our bags (they made it again!) it was instant mayhem. The language barrier has really come into play here. Nobody speaks a word of English besides "Hello!!" We've resorted to pointing and chirades. The locals just look at us like we're crazy. We found our shuttle into the Xidan area and were again dropped off into the abyss. We found a cab that [View Full Entry]

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August 25, 2007 - August 26, 2007 We were ready and waiting for our bus to Longsheng at 7:20 am and luckily we were there on time (Michelle is a very punctual person, Andy and I are not) as the bus only stopped for a minute. We spent about 30 minutes stopping at various places around town to pick up more passengers. We pulled off to the side of the road and the bus driver mumbled something in Chinese and then got off the bus. I looked at Andy and Michelle with a puzzled face and everyone immediately jumped up and [View Full Entry]

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August 16, 2007 - August 27, 2007 Our overnight bus arrived in Yangshou at about 5:30 am and dropped us off at a gas station, which we thought must have doubled as a bus station. Michelle was supposed to meet us at the bus station so she could bring us back to her apartment. (Michelle has been here for the last month teaching English) We stumbled off the bus dazed and confused after our 10 hrs of not a whole lot of sleep (sleeping on a bus is not as easy as I’d hoped) and Michelle was nowhere to be seen. [View Full Entry]

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Timeline: Los Angeles > San Francisco > Hong Kong So, we've landed. Its been a whirlwind of new food, new ways of transportation, and overall a "thrown out of your element" state of living since we've arrived. But, its not a bad thing. Its actually quite the opposite. We hopped off the plane and onto a bus that wisked us off into Tsim Sha Tsui, otherwise known as the tourist district. We were dropped off in the general area of our hostel and set off to try and find it. Every few feet you hear "Excuse me, you want rolex?" or [View Full Entry]

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Well, the time has finally come to take the big plunge. Its funny. I've been freaking out/ super anxious/ counting down the days to taking off and now I've reached this weird "eye of the storm" type calm. I can honestly say that I have no idea what to expect on this trip and I don't think I'd want it any other way. I'm so excited to experience life outside of the SoCal bubble that we fall into sometimes. Anyway, it was hard to say goodbye to all my friends and family and like I've said before, I wish I could [View Full Entry]

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