China 2006

In 2001 I spent about half a year in China, most of it in Mudan Jiang, a smallish city in the north- eastern part of the country, teaching English and falling in love with a number of new found friends. For some time now, Gordon* and I have been trying to plan a trip to return and visit both the motherland and these friends. Although scheduling, money situations, health conditions, etc. never seemed to be right, we finally just committed to a trip for this past October.

To be honest, I really wasn't nearly as excited about it as everyone assumed I was, or as much as I felt I should be. I have become rather obsessed with my business in the last year or two, and it was really hard to leave it for 2 plus weeks, especially since I was already weeks behind in my work; I'm maybe the slightest bit clingy and I really don't like being sans Shawn for so long; plane tickets and traveling are expensive; my Chinese language had regressed some; etc. etc. Even after arriving I was still not so excited for the first day or two. But as soon as I saw my old "family", it was all immediately worth it. I had a fabulous trip and was so grateful that I had decided to do it. The following entries chronicle these 16 days. I posted them backwards so they could be read in chronological order.

*Gordon, known by several names for some reason but always to me as Gordon, had already been in China for about 6 weeks when I arrived in 2001. We immediately became very close friends living, working, and eating in sync for that time of our lives.