Getting Ready for China - GAME TIME, HNH!

The packing. The cleaning. The last minute realization that "oh! I don't have a place to stay in Beijing! And I don't want to run around the city from booked-out hostel to booked-out hostel carrying 100 pounds of luggage!"

So that's how I leave America-- making last-minute, highly sporadic changes of plans and brushing off my dusty Mandarin with hostel reservation desks over Skype.

Currently, the plan is to land in Beijing, immediately buy a ticket to Xi'an (where I studied last fall), and head directly there for a week of visiting friends. Then I'll take a train to Urumuqi to meet my old Japanese friend, the esteemable Sekine Nobuatsu, for a bit of hardcore travel in the western desert province of Xinjiang.

By the end of August, me and my 100 pounds of luggage will hopefully have arrived intact at Dalian, north of Korea, where I'll resume my studies and begin my career as miscellaneous English-Chinese jack of trades.