First trip to Asia (part 7: final thoughts)

Previously…

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

First of all, thank you to anyone who’s been reading this blog. It’s been a lot of fun reviewing what I wrote while traveling and finding pictures to bring the words a little more to life.

Second, now that I’ve been home for a couple of weeks, I’ve had plenty of time to think about the trip beyond only, “it was so great,” and “how beautiful was everything!” So here goes with something more reflective (though not necessarily serious):

1. Traveling to someplace I’ve never been to visit someone else makes for an unexpected and unpredictable trip. I’m used to both having something of an itinerary and following our routine combinations of wandering around, eating, getting coffee, and imbibing. Instead, we put ourselves in the hands of someone else and hoped for the best. It both worked out (it was, after all, so great) and was unlike what we’d have done, left to our devices.
2. I definitely, definitely cannot eat large dinners every night. I mean, I can do it, but the consequences (namely, serious weight gain) are undeniable.
3. I need to force myself into more uncomfortable situations like getting dim sum in Hong Kong. No one spoke English or was interested in catering to ignorant Americans. There needs to be more of that going forward. It was really our only such experience — we were always with Virginia’s father in Seoul, and the rest of Macau and Hong Kong was English-speaking.

So what next? Well, we have a lot of travel lined up over the next several months, in four different countries (so far). Given my very limited language skills, each will present at least some challenge some of the time. More importantly, we need to make time to find and do something we didn’t plan in advance, probably arising from all the wandering around. And try not to eat so much (no promises, though).