Today I started posting my travel journal entries that I wrote while on the road in China and Hong Kong. They are backdated to the day they were written. Here’s some links to all the entries, along with pictures and videos from my trip that you might find interesting:
Some post-China reflections:
- I am trying to enroll in Chinese at Santa Monica College, but they are full up for the time I wanted for Fall 2009. Spring 2010 here I come!
- My first meal back home, a Chipotle burrito, tasted like Chinese Eastern’s Chinese taco which was drenched with soy sauce.
- American place names now sound more foreign than Chinese. I realized this when a gentleman sitting next to me on the SuperShuttle mentioned Fort Lauderdale.
- The Chinese people for the most part truly admire America and are trying to emulate our successes.
- I dropped from 187 pounds to 180 pounds thanks to my visit, something the gym never did for me. Thank heavens for not being able to pick up food with my chopsticks. My coworker had the opposite happen to him - he left at the same time as me and got back at the same time but was in Argentina and gained 3 pounds. Too much steak there!
- I traveled around 15,000 miles in total, a similar amount to my Europe trip. When I add that on to my car mileage, I have now definitely traveled a greater distance than the equatorial circumference of the Earth!