I'm Leaving On a Jet Plane

It's been a while since I've made an international flight. Not super long. Two and a half years?

One of the differences I feel this time is not so much the "I'm going somewhere!", but more the "I'm leaving." aspect of traveling. This isn't the first time I've felt jaded about travel and I'm not sure why the aversion. I kind of like doing touristy stuff and browsing the little kitschy shops. What I dislike is the pressure I feel to take an obligatory photo of said landmark or landscape with someone in the foreground. I like the feeling of being far far away from everything familiar and being able to adapt and test my limits of going with the flow. I dislike constantly worrying about forgetting something, whether it's when I first leave, every time I leave the hotel, switching transportation, or leaving from a restaurant or event. I also don't like being super paranoid about things like money (is that guy going to rob me), the water (being sick on the go sucks), the time (don't want to get left behind).

I think for once in my life I'm kind of feeling like a vacation where I don't actually do all that much and I spend all of my time sitting in the warm shade reading and all events and food and water are perfectly safe. Like an all-inclusive cruise. Mmmm, food buffets 24 hrs/day! Now there's something to get excited over ;).

Also, taking a longer vacation caused a lot more organizing and training of back-ups than I anticipated at work. Everyone wants to get their shit out the door on Nov. 1st. So slightly bad timing. But I'm sure everything will work out. /supersincere

One thing that I remembered though that will make this fun is that Zach and I will not need to drive anything anywhere. So we can drink at any time!  All times! Vacation is awesome! However, I have no idea what kind of alcohol is available in China. Are there cocktails? I don't remember drinking much when I was in Japan either. I'm again glad that Zach talked me into bringing another and bigger check-in luggage because I'm going to need something to bring back the booze. Foreign, exotic booze is so cool that we don't ever drink it (case in point, the rum that we brought back from Jamaica two and a half years ago).