it’s been a long 10 days and i’ve got tons of stories and video and photos to share but right now i’ve got to get over the jet lag from the past 24 hrs of flying, navigating airports, and canceled flights! will try to start getting the blogs up soon… zzzzzzzzzzzzz

update as of 6.28.09 – i’ll be posting the blogs as of the dates they were written, so scroll down to view them if you aren’t using an RSS reader – or better yet go to google.com/reader to sign up for an easy way to see all new posts from any of your favorite blogs at one time!

the great wall – one of the highlights of my trip! =)

the doors to the bus closed and i instantly felt like my adventure had begun. it’s always interesting to see your hometown through a tourists’ eyes and the #19 bus was most definitely a way to get the full impact. through waikiki via kuhio avenue, i glanced up to see the hotel towers overhead and hungover, badly sunburned tourists walking the sidewalk below. everything seemed slightly artificial – manufactured happiness, almost like disneyworld, mass-produced aloha spirit for your convenience. but as i rode through in air conditioned comfort, suitcase by my feet, i didn’t mind a bit. i was leaving waikiki and headed for the airport, ready to get on with my adventure.

every bus has an “aunty” that always sits right near the driver, up front. she’ll make it her duty to instruct boarding passengers on where or where not to sit, while dispensing unsolicited advice to tourists unfortunate enough to have chosen a seat next to her. i listened as our “aunty” told her life story to a couple from new jersey.

local families came on board once in a while – “look at all the people going to the airport. they’re all going off island. ask they people – they’re going off island.”

aunty aloha gets off at dole cannery and the poor couple is left to fend for themselves. they seem charmed and the woman tells her husband how friendly local people are.

i close my eyes to take in the sounds – someone’s ipod at max volume blasting rap music, a couple chatting quietly in japanese, the mechanical voice announcing the next stop, the hiss of the doors as they open and close.

it’s nice to be driving along without having to battle the H-1 traffic myself. i find that as a passenger, i take in so much more detail and see things i must have passed a hundred times but never noticed before. all in all, it was a leisurely way to spend an hour and 15 minutes, and for two bucks, quite a bargain. what a way to start my trip – a tourist in my hometown…

from this…

to this!

well, i guess this is it… tomorrow morning i’m catching a bus to the airport, and that’s that! hopefully i’ll be able to write on the road from internet cafes, but if not i’ve got trusty old pen and paper with me as well. we’ve got an 8 hr flight to tokyo, then 4 hrs to beijing, and we’ll overnight there. the journey begins now! =)

i’m normally a fan of online travel sites for booking and tend to enjoy doing my own research and travel planning. but in this case, because the trip is so short and for a specific timeframe, i decided to go with a travel agent who can lend her professional expertise to get all the details right. first, i asked for recommendations from my facebook friends and came up with a short list of agents to call. we had also used a “consolidator” company last year to handle our RTW tickets, so i sent my contact there an email as well, and waited to get back the various price quotes.

in the end, i went with aki at IACE travel, who found us a good deal, handled our hotels and all of my little requests, and eventually sent me the itineraries last night. if you’re looking for a good travel agent (especially for japan/asia) i’d highly recommend her – their office number in honolulu is (808)923-7070. aki was knowledgeable, helpful, and prompt to respond whenever i had a question.

we’re off to a great start… 3 more days and we’re off!! =)

i’ve always wanted to see the great wall of china, and i had it at #6 on my list. so i’m trying to figure out a way to work beijing into our itinerary for the trip to guilin. it actually shouldn’t be much of a problem since we will have to overnight in beijing (or shanghai) on the way to guilin anyway because of the way the flight schedules work out. i’ve been trying to coordinate it with joe, but hopefully i’ll be able to stay in guilin for a couple of days (possibly heading down the li river to yangshuo as well), then head up to beijing for a couple of days, where i can see the great wall, the forbidden city, the bird’s nest stadium from the olympics, and all those other things you think of when you think of china – or at least beijing.

and then of course, there are the things that you can’t “see”… the things you have to feel, taste, touch, hear… i am so excited to just soak up the experience of BEING in china. i don’t really have an itinerary, per se, but i’m hoping to get a chance to practice my mandarin, possibly see if i can find a cheap cooking class, and jess gave me a mission of finding something cool to take a picture of on her phone (that she is nice enough to lend me for the trip – thanks jess!)

i listed “china” as #46 on my “100 places” list, but it’s just too huge to say i’ll check it off in a 10 day trip. but i’m going to see just how much i can squeeze into my first visit. someday i’ll have to come back when i can come at a more leisurely pace… =)

we’re still waiting for our visas to come back, but if all goes as planned, we should be leaving next tuesday! =)

so, in additional to my mandarin phrasebook and southwestern china guides from the library, i decided to download some “chinese survival phrases” podcasts from chineseclass101.com. i’d previously used their french podcasts (frenchpod101.com) and found them really helpful.

i made a couple of cds out of the podcasts i downloaded and i’ve been listening to them in my car. it’s going to take a while  for it all to stop sounding the same to me, so i’m just going to keep playing them on repeat. so if you see me sitting at a traffic light, talking to myself, you’ll know i’m not going crazy – just trying to learn a little bit of chinese! =)

even on a short trip like the one we’ll be taking, i think it’s really helpful to at least make an effort to communicate in the language of your host country. even if it’s just to learn please, thank you, good morning, how much? and where is the bathroom? in general, i’ve found that i’ll get better prices when i try to bargain in anything other than english. although this time, i’m a bit worried that my mandarin is going to be so hopeless that it might make things worse! we shall see…

joe and i have had a few phone conversations and the more i talk to him the more i am getting to know his personality, and you really can’t help but like him. he’s a great guy. he laughs constantly, and has a great sense of humor. he’s full of energy and especially proud of his recipes and his restaurant. and he’s really excited and nervous for this trip because he may be going to meet his future wife!

like many people nowadays, joe doesn’t have much time for dating and has turned to the internet as a way to meet new people who are also looking for love. so part of the reason for this trip is that joe is going to be meeting one of these women for the first time. when i first heard about this, i must say that i couldn’t help but think it was a bit strange. there’s just an automatic “picture bride” stigma that comes with this sort of thing. but then i realized, more and more people i know have met (and in some cases, married!) people from online dating sites, so why should i think that this is any different?

so i’m keeping and open mind and having a fun time listening to joe’s excitement as it grows, his fears as he prepares for the trip, and enjoying just being a part of the process. it’s like a trans-pacific blind date! haha. we’ll see how it goes…. =)

after months of trying to scrape by and make ends meet while paying off my last RTW adventure, i’ve found myself suddenly in the middle of planning for a new one! next month i’ll be heading to guilin, china and I couldn’t be more excited!

i’m not going to lie. the past few months have been hard for me. while i love being home and closer to my family and friends, i feel like while i was away last year i really got a better sense of myself and what i want from life. there’s so much more world out there to see! and i’ve just been itching to continue on my travels. it’s pretty much what keeps me going.

the attitude adjustment from a few months ago helped in terms of putting things in perspective, but after a few more weeks of interviews and being told countless times how they’ve “gone with another candidate,” i was really starting to get down on myself.

i was at work at hawaiian fire one morning when i got a call from aunty jo. i was with a customer so i let it go to voicemail and when i finally got around to listening to it, i couldn’t help but scream out loud! “i’m going to CHINA!!!!” i yelled, probably scaring my coworker half to death.

it’s a long story, but in the next few weeks i’ll be traveling with a friend of a friend to guilin, china. let’s call him joe. more to come about joe in the next post… yay, the blog is back! i’m so excited to have something to write about besides a fruitless search for work in honolulu! stay tuned…