On the Road Again, Just Can't Wait to Get On the Road Again..

The bus ride from Shangri-la to Lijiang was kind of enlightening.  It was a bit strange, knowing we had passed all of this scenery once before, but having been asleep prior, so seeing it anew for the second time.

There weren’t a lot of memories from the ride itself, I tried to doze off through as much of it as possible, using Christine’s shoulder and the window beside me alternatively as headrests, and mostly failing. The first memory I have, distinct, after getting on the bus, is getting off it at a terrible rest stop.

As was usually the case, this meant ice cream for me.  For once, it mean ice cream for people other than me, too, and a good amount of stretching for everyone.

Soul Searching in Shangri-La pt. III

Sorry, two weeks of shoddy internet activity plus sharing my computer with some friends while they worked on their finals prevented me from being able to keep tearing through this stuff.  Now, though, almost everyone I know in Shanghai has returned, more or less, to the United States, and I therefore have far too much time on my hands.

So, we woke up on Sunday.  I guess the shocking events of the previous night wiped me out, as I actually did manage to get enough sleep such that when I woke up, it was all systems go.

Soul Searching in Shangri-La pt. II

 So there we were at the entrance of our first ever Tibetan Buddhist monastery.  I'm not really sure what kinds of preconceptions any of us had about it, and the culture of the area.  It's one of those topics, you know, the sort of thing everyone has heard of, but most people know nothing about, and are nevertheless attracted to it because of this discrepancy.  I tried to keep my mind clean of it all, and just accept whatever was inside.

Soul Searching in Shangri-La pt. I

(Note: The next 48 hours of traveling, or so, works best as a contiguous unit, but is also around 14 or 15 pages of text in MS word. So, I’m chopping it up in three sections that will be posted in rapid section. It should be easy to figure out where to start)

So there we were, aboard what was for all of us our first ever overnight bus. I can safely say it is not what any of us were expecting. During my time in Japan, I had glimpsed a variety of long haul tour buses, and they came equipped with double decker chairs that would recline in an almost bed fashion, that looked relatively comfortable. They had toilets.

Midnight Express

So, Saturday morning we get up for our first full day together as a group of fourteen people. I’m pretty sure this whole entry is going to be dedicated to the clusterfuck of that day, so this isn’t going to progress the timeline too much, but it’s probably worth it.

Here was our itinerary for the day:

1) Eat

2) Get on a bus to go to a place called Jiuxiang

3) Come back, then get out stuff and go on a overnight bus to Shangri-la

And that was it.

All Aboard for Yunnan

Alright, so we’re going to interrupt the broadcast to bring a special report about a place called Yunnan. Afterwards, I will return to the schedule of events from Korea, as I want to try to write them down to assist my own memories anyway.

First, an introduction of sorts is necessary, I think. The lowdown of this place, and my adventures there, is that I went with a group of 14 people including myself. Most of the people who went with me are also college students from California studying in Shanghai, at Fudan University, just as I am, but a few are from other parts of America, one person comes from Spain, and another is Chinese born and raised. Our group, plus or minus a few people, were originally planning on going to Tibet, for a one week break in China known as Golden Week, which runs from October 1^st to October 8^th. 

Bon Voyage

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As always, I know it’s been a while. I’m conflicted right now about whether or not to write about Korea, or just skip to the meat of what’s going on in China. This entry is going to wrap things up in Japan, and over the weekend I’ll decide what’s next. Either way, after this entry, I’m going to skip forward to a trip I just went on a couple weeks ago to Southwest China, to the province of Yunnan.