fly away
I'm working on my summer travel itinerary. My little brother and sister are coming to visit me during the second half of August, but that still leaves me with the first half to do with as I please. So I'm wandering around Intrepid Travel, because I don't really want to travel on my own and they've come very highly reccommended.
Although I do admit that I'm currently torn between several of their trips. I've already decided that I'm going to China-- kind of. Naturally I want to see China-proper. The options are what tear at me the most, though. Do I go for the standard sights on my first trip and hit the highlights? Or do I head for my specialty area and visit sights along the Silk Road? Or, most daring of all, do I dare the most adventurous option and pack myself off to Kathmandu and Tibet, which I would desperately love to see?
I won't regret any of the trips, that's for certain. The appeal of the "standard sights" is that they're famous with good reason, and I'm swiftly running out of time to see Three Gorges before the dam is completed in 2009 (and I can't even begin to tell you how unhappy I am about that). For the second option, I've spent a good year studying the Silk Road and Islamic influence in China, and I'd love to see the places I've only read about in books. As for the third . . . I desperately, desperately want to see Tibet. I don't even know the source of my interest, just that I want to do it.
Always when I'm making travel plans I feel this strange sense of impending doom, as if my time in which to do so is strictly limited. This was perfectly understandable back when I was in England, since I had only the year in which to travel. But my time in Japan is limited, too, and when am I going to have so much vacation time, and be living in the Asian region, ever again? But there just isn't enough time to visit all the places I want to, not enough time, not enough money, not enough me, and I feel like I need to do it all now now now, before it's too late, before time runs out, before I lose my chance . . .
Perhaps that's one of the driving forces of my life, the reason for me being constantly busy and frantically running around. There's so much I want to do in my life, so much I want to accomplish, and I'm constantly oppressed by the feeling that I don't have enough time. Maybe it comes down to a constant awareness of my own mortality, an inability to see myself two years down the road, five years, ten. The future beyond a few months is blank and empty to me; I do not exist there. I never really thought I'd live longer than my teens, and then I couldn't imagine myself surviving college, and now I can't see myself after I leave Japan. Even as I make plans for the future, I can't quite believe that they'll ever come to pass. So I have to do everything, and do it all now, and I can't stop or hold back for anyone or anything. I can't wait, because to me, there is no future.
Although I do admit that I'm currently torn between several of their trips. I've already decided that I'm going to China-- kind of. Naturally I want to see China-proper. The options are what tear at me the most, though. Do I go for the standard sights on my first trip and hit the highlights? Or do I head for my specialty area and visit sights along the Silk Road? Or, most daring of all, do I dare the most adventurous option and pack myself off to Kathmandu and Tibet, which I would desperately love to see?
I won't regret any of the trips, that's for certain. The appeal of the "standard sights" is that they're famous with good reason, and I'm swiftly running out of time to see Three Gorges before the dam is completed in 2009 (and I can't even begin to tell you how unhappy I am about that). For the second option, I've spent a good year studying the Silk Road and Islamic influence in China, and I'd love to see the places I've only read about in books. As for the third . . . I desperately, desperately want to see Tibet. I don't even know the source of my interest, just that I want to do it.
Always when I'm making travel plans I feel this strange sense of impending doom, as if my time in which to do so is strictly limited. This was perfectly understandable back when I was in England, since I had only the year in which to travel. But my time in Japan is limited, too, and when am I going to have so much vacation time, and be living in the Asian region, ever again? But there just isn't enough time to visit all the places I want to, not enough time, not enough money, not enough me, and I feel like I need to do it all now now now, before it's too late, before time runs out, before I lose my chance . . .
Perhaps that's one of the driving forces of my life, the reason for me being constantly busy and frantically running around. There's so much I want to do in my life, so much I want to accomplish, and I'm constantly oppressed by the feeling that I don't have enough time. Maybe it comes down to a constant awareness of my own mortality, an inability to see myself two years down the road, five years, ten. The future beyond a few months is blank and empty to me; I do not exist there. I never really thought I'd live longer than my teens, and then I couldn't imagine myself surviving college, and now I can't see myself after I leave Japan. Even as I make plans for the future, I can't quite believe that they'll ever come to pass. So I have to do everything, and do it all now, and I can't stop or hold back for anyone or anything. I can't wait, because to me, there is no future.