traveling
traveling is weird. Sometimes you think about it and plan for months ahead of time. Sometimes the time comes and it just happens. This time around, I've been so busy for the last month that it's completely shocking that I'm supposed to go to China tomorrow. I can't remember ever being quite as unprepared.
then again, on further reflection, when I was about to go to china for a whole year, I ended up not packing until the night before - my flight was at 7-8 am, and there I was at 3 am, with my mom helping me find stuff and asking me why I left things to the last second yet again. I don't know if I've ever had another travel experience that was as intense. Saying goodbye to mom was tough. I was really focused in on life. Everything seemed significant. I had a great couple of flights on Korean Air through Seoul, and somehow the airplane food was the best I've had (bibimbap!) and I watched a couple of great movies that I still think about today: More than Blue was one, I can't remember the other.
As I landed in Beijing it was already nighttime. I remember flying through a really dense layer of clouds (or more accurately, smog) and being filled with tension...I was also under the impression that once I got off the plane, I could no longer speak anything but Chinese - because of the "language pledge" that was part of the program I was doing where we were only supposed to speak Chinese at all times except to family/friends back home...so I got off the plane and immediately began stumbling my way around for the next day, somehow miraculously finding my way to my dorm in the process. The first time I went out to get food was probably the most stressed out I ever was in my entire year there. Finally, on the second day I was there I bumped into a teacher in my dorm and as I tried to talk to her in Chinese she said "you can speak in English for now, you know..."
Here's hoping that this go-around will be as memorable in its own way.