I can't quit you Asia. There's just something about this place that keeps drawing me back. A friend described it this past weekend as catching the travel bug, and I think she hit the nail on the head. I needed to get back to the land of absurdity. A place where I am so painfully uncomfortable, that it is almost comfortable. This has been a dream trip that has been in the back of my mind for years now, especially since my second trip to Shanghai in 2011. It was always something i'd talk about after a few drinks at a bar, but never something i thought would actually come to fruition. But here I am in a grimey, aircondtioningless (thats a word right??) dorm room in Taipei, shirtless, sweating my balls off, and writing this compulsory blogpost.
So for a little background on this trip: we hit 7 countries in a little more than 6 weeks. Japan, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. (We have 2 separate layovers in Osaka, so yes, Im counting Japan as a place we hit. If you have time to eat a plate of sushi or a bowl of soba in the airport, that shit counts as a stop in my book). My friend from Wisco Stephen Roland and I put this together basically on a whim and it snowballed into this huge trip. We originally had a 3rd member of the trip crew, Jesse, but he got a sweet job in DC just a couple weeks ago and had to bail. So he's a complete jabroney for missing out.
Our itinerary is brisk and very ambitious traveling. We'll be doing multiple overnight buses and trains and won't have too much downtime in each spot. It's not ideal, but for the sights were trying to see, in the timeframe we set for ourselves, on the budget we think we can pull this off at, it seems like the right trip for us.
To do this extensive of travel, I had to quit the job I had with HP in Arkansas. My time really just came to an end. All the BS involved with the job and my dislike of the town I was living in for 13 months made me jaded on the whole experience down there and mentally I just had to get out to maintain my sanity. The philosopher Seneca once said, "Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind." I hope he's right...
This isn't a mid midlife crisis trip. At least I don't think it is... I'm not looking to find myself amongst the Buddhists in Thailand, though I am open to it. I just needed a clean slate, I'm young, I have no real commitments in the states, I saved enough money to pay for the whole trip with money left over when I get back, and had a friend who wanted to come with. It was the perfect storm of timing and desire that made this whole thing possible. So for all my friends and family looking to read my long-winded, but hopefully entertaining and candid posts about our travel, I'll probably be doing a weekly post or two about our experiences in Asia. Follow me on Twitter @nordy812, on Facebook, or on Flickr (which i still really don't know how to use, but it seems easy enough to figure out. It will probably be my go-to for the myriad of food
porn pics ill be taking). I should constantly update ya'll through those various forms of social media. Until then, we'll be checking out Taipei until Sunday when we fly to Shanghai.
Peace, Love, and Chicken Grease from the Far East,
Drew
No comments:
Post a Comment