Thursday, June 22, 2006
My Favourites

I've got my favourite people posting on here because:

1. I can't; except for tonight - we got lucky and scored a night at a Best Western here in Macau which has internet access for the guests FOR FREE. That's a lie; an hour of internet comes free with the purchase of a beer, so we bought one. That's a lie too; we bought three.

2. They're better at this than I am anyway. Contrary to what Ashley said, though I do spend FOREVER on my posts, they are far from perfect. I'm just a freak when it comes to sharing one's writing.

3. They are my favourites - so wonderful and beautiful and I am so glad that I have them in my life. The .gif of the bloody cartoons, the cheesy metaphor, the dry wit and overall amazing sense of humour (didn't it just punch you in the stomach(?), it was so funny(!), the history they knew, the link(!) to a super old entry - they're amazing. There's one favourite that hasn't posted yet because she's too busy and I know that. I get to see her in a few weeks (read: 4), so I can beat her up later. Under the covers. Naked.

Ahem.

So 3 flights, 26 hours of travel, and 28 hours without fresh air later, and I was in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We hung out with the relatives, suffered immense jet lag, went shopping and then hopped on another plane headed for Hong Kong this morning. Since we arrived, we took a nice, long boat ride to Macau where we're spending the night and then we're headed off to see the city and China tomorrow. I'm not really sure what's happening and that's fine by me. I'm used to being in charge at home and now that I'm on vay-cay, I'm in Chill Mode. Which is a good idea, seeing that the weather here is in the high 40s with the humidex. I much prefer being hot over cold, so I can handle the sweating. Believe it or not, the thing that has bugged me so far is the air conditioning. They blast it in the buildings, so that walking in and out is like jumping between tropical and arctic climates. I worry about the condensation that could possibly build up in my cameras.

I'm here without any travel consultations and no shots whatsoever. I'm totally taking my chances with Avian Flu. I did come armed with 1 after bite pen, 2 bottles of sunscreen, 2 bottles of premium insect repellant, 2 tubes of mosquito bite cream and 72 tablets of allergy medication (to bring the swelling down). There are two things I fear in life: Death and mosquitoes. I think it's apparent that I fear mosquitoes more.

It's the night of the 22nd here - I love travelling so far back in time zones that we end up going forwards. I lost the 19th somewhere between Vancouver and the middle of the Pacific. As we were going from Toronto to Van City, I could still see the sun, just peeking, over the horizon (even though it had set in T.O.) and I thought it was so neat that I was chasing the sun across the country. I'll be doing quite a bit of chasing across many countries over the course of the next few weeks. I haven't even been away from home for a week yet and I feel like I've done and seen tons. Life here is so very different from anything that we know over in North America and I know that I am so lucky to be able to see it for myself. The world is a big place and it's filled with a lot of good, bad and different. I'm far from seeing it all and even farther from changing it. I'm perfectly fine with that. I'll let the world change me first.