Today is Thursday, August 19th. I arrived back in Japan from China on Tuesday and now that I’ve let my memories sit for a bit I feel I can write an adequate letter about my experience. Although I’m sure that the details will speak for themselves, I feel I should first say that this was an amazing trip, probably the best I’ve ever taken, for the sheer amount of sights, experiences and adventure to intake in a mere week. My only complaint is that it was too short.
I couldn’t have asked for better people to travel with. There were nine of us in total. Seven travelling from Japan, everyone employees with the company I had just finished working for, and two from Korea. We had our plane tickets and were all set to meet in Beijing. Chris and Brent were already there and I would be meeting them at the hostel we would stay at, while my fellow travelers from Japan had opted for a hotel.
Before I even talk about touching down, I should talk a little about the history leading up to this trip. I had a rocky road in getting to this country. I was one click on a keyboard away from cancelling my plane ticket after my infuriating experience at the Chinese embassy in Tokyo while trying to get my tourist visa. In fact, if it hadn’t been for my friend encouraging me to sleep on it and see what would happen, I would have ended up dropping the whole trip before we got news from another city down the train line of a travel agent that could process a Chinese visa. At that time I was still feeling bitter, but I wanted to see China so much that it didn’t take long to move away from that. By the time the night before the trip came I was pretty much as excited as I’ve ever been… as excited as I was boarding the plane in Vancouver for the last leg of my journey to Japan two years ago. This was China. It’s the place Canadian kids think they can reach if they dig a hole in the earth deep enough. Except even a few years ago I probably hadn’t fully imagined that I’d one day be going there.
