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Writing Blind

We've been in China for 3 weeks and surprisingly, this is the first time I have attempted to log into Blogger.

The connections here are slow, and I assumed since I could never LOAD my blog, I would never be able to UPDATE my blog.

I suppose even after I post this I will STILL have no idea whether or not I have actually posted, because I won't be able to check.

So I'm literally writing into cyberspace. Weird.

China has been...well...China.

I can say that Korea prepared me for China. There is such a sense of isolation, of being lost amongst the millions, that it can, at times, be quite a lonely place.

It has been filled with happiness and hope, awe and amazement, folly and frustration.

And anger. I have been very angry many times, due to lack of patience, in China. As it was not perhaps Thailand's fault, I don't think it is necessarily China's fault. You need a lot of patience anyway with this place. Four months in, you don't tend to have very much.

But we've turned a corner because we are in Beijing. Even typing that, I am stunned at what to write next. It just feels like this place, this far away massive power that you can never really get to. Only imagine what it must be like.

They will have the Olympics here in less than a year. And I'm here. Right. Now.

And so this feels like yet another milestone, another significant check on our list of to-dos. We have achieved this so far. And that makes it all the more easier to continue.

I feel as though my writing now sounds as if I'm on a trecherous quest. In some ways this is true. This is not the holiday that you may think it is, but that actually makes it all the more rewarding.

I suppose it will be hard to explain to people exactly what this feels like. And even harder to make them believe that I haven't been in Club Med for 5 months.

I suppose it also doesn't really matter what people want to think. It's important they know if they do accept this challenge themselves that it's not about cute pool boys bringing you gin and tonics and administering foot massages.

It's about testing your limits, your mind and more importantly, your stomach, to see just how far they will go.

So far, so good.

Mongolia - bring it on. One week today by train. Wow.

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