Halfway Round the World

I know you've all been waiting in eager anticipation of when I would be back to the blogging world. Although a less clever title than Study Ablog or The Last Suppers, On the Road Again is much more dynamic. It needs to be, because this time I'm not just going to some of Durham's finest eats, or even to Madrid; this time, I'm heading all the way to China.

My best friend from high school and I are gallivanting through the country for the next two weeks and I couldn't be more excited. The summer between senior year and real life seems the perfect time to go, since it's keeping the notion that I'm done with college at bay. (I clearly haven't accepted that yet – I was so tempted to make the subtitle of this blog 'where the blue  devil is she now?' but I resisted.) I also think that now's the perfect time because I'll likely never again get such a great travel partner.

 

Reasons I'm allowing Lauren to tag along:

1. I try to keep a ginger by my side at all times.
2. This will be her fourth time in China.
3. She's nearly fluent in Mandarin. (I had her teach me one key phrase – wei sheng gien zai nar…aka "Where is the bathroom?")
4. Unfortunately, "Where is the bathroom?" is not enough to get me through all of China.
5. She has actual Chinese friends who she promises will buy me dinner.
6. We could make up for the fact that the most recent picture I could find of us together (above) is from 2009 and give the social media driven world proof that we're still friends.
7. There's no one else I'd rather be in East Asia with than with an East Asian studies major. (Or maybe it was a minor? Unclear, but she literally studied Asia in college.) To be fair though, regardless of her choice of study, there's no one I'd rather go on such an exciting trip with than one of my best friends!

Armed with a printed booklet of our messages to each other from 2007 to the present (upwards of 100 pages long), travel Scrabble, some snacks, and our nooks to get us through our long and arduous plane rides I'm hoping to arrive in Beijing unscathed. Our flights sort of suck – we're stopping in Canada and then stopping in Hong Kong and traveling for a total of 20+ hours – but Lauren assures me that Cathay Pacific is a great airline. We were also strategic in our seat selection the other night. By leaving a middle seat empty between us, we're hoping we'll be able to snag the whole row as there seemed to be a lot of empty seats on the flight and the middle seat is clearly a last resort.

Once in Beijing and beyond, I'm unfortunately going to have very limited internet access between a lack of wifi and a lack of democracy. As a result, I'm going to have to email my posts in. This has one very important implication: if I make a typo, then I'm going to embarrass myself and be unable to edit my posts. I know this, and yet, I'm going to try to carry on with this mission anyway. I have two main reasons. First of all, I was jealous that Galonsky has been keeping an awesome blog about his adventures through Asia, and that Lauren has one, too; I'm all about doing what the cool kids are doing. Secondly, I've had so much fun blogging in the past, I knew I couldn't resist trying it again!

 

Away we go!