Everything comes to a close. Even this trip, and therefore, I suppose, this blog. I mean, I could keep on writing about all the excitement involved in moving back to New York City, finding an apartment, and then working in an office every day. I could turn my irreverent prose to the task of electrifying you by describing my morning commute — but you probably don’t want to read that. If you do, there’s American Splendor, which does a much better job anyway.
Of course, seeing as the last time I moved to New York I was screwed on 2 apartment deposits, arrested for riding my bike, lived with a prostitute, had the roof of my bedroom leak all over my bed, moved 3 times and lived entirely nocturnally… all within the first 6 months… it might actually be a lot of fun. Hell, I was part of one of history’s largest bankruptcies at the time too! And that was 4 years ago, waaaaay before everyone else started doing it!
Actually, I rather hope the next 6 months will be less exciting. I am keen to avoid things being “interesting” in the Chinese sorta way.
The picture above is of my beloved hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire. I arrived back in the old mill town on Monday aboard the Chinatown bus. This, interestingly, smelled more strongly of urine than the buses in China. I’ll be here for a bit to see family and to enjoy the beautiful NH summertime. Everyone around me won’t stop talking about how amazingly hot it is. I am finding the 80 degree temperatures quite cool, having been in Shanghai at over 40 degrees C just a few weeks ago.
Now, let’s do some statistics!
On this trip, I travelled on:
16 airplanes with 11 airlines (and no Frequent Flyer Mile memberships), innumerable trains from open seats in India to bullet trains in Japan, buses (in varying states of labelling and repair), cars, taxis, auto-rickshaw, bicycle, rickshaw, tram, shared pickup truck, sailboat, coracle, rowboat, motorlaunch, international ferry, donkey, elephant,2 camels, 1 yak, motorscooter, 3 bicycles (while avoiding cows in the road!), cable car, and a mountain ropeway.
I visited:
10 countries on 4 continents
Carrying:
2 backpacks, 6 T-shirts, 9 pairs of socks, 8 months’ worth of malaria pills, 2 credit cards (both of which got shut down for fraudulent activity), a pink umbrella, and a really really soggy passport.
And I didn’t get sick even once. Go me.
I also met a bunch of new friends on my travels, who are great people. I hope you come to visit sometime.
To all my readers, I hope you enjoyed this. It was a lot of fun to write and to live — and if you buy me a beer, you’ll get to hear heaps of stories that never made the online edition!
Tadhog Goes Walkabout (Part 3) 