The power or travel is actually incredible. One person can make or break another's idea of a people and/or an entire country, and this phenomenon actually happens quite frequently. One of the most exciting reasons I enjoy travel, is obliterating stereotypes people hold. For many poor and unsuspecting souls, I REPRESENT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I am the living, breathing, sniffing, gargling, mumbling image of what they have seen in such movies as American Pie, and thus, their tangible source of information and target for many questions. A very special gentleman I met during my travels thus far was one of my first victims on this trip. Claiming he had never met an American before, he of course had many questions, and was very surprised by the stark contrast between my personality and actions, and those he had previously associated with American Citizens. "I thought Americans were very quiet and did not like to talk much" he said. Well, clearly he picked the wrong person to meet. By no means do I claim to be an ordinary human being, but I don't believe that most Americans are not talkative either - to each their own really. Actually, if anything I have heard such stereotypes as we are quite uninformed about world events and those pertaining to our own country, we have a severe case of ignorance, and we are the utmost of lacking in manners. Regardless, I enjoy showing others that you CANNOT put all people from a certain religion, race, or region into a box, although the desire to create this box is human nature; this box will be trampled and destroyed when you are exposed to real life.
On a completely separate issue, I will be heading to Chengdu (in the Sichuan province) this Wednesday to pet Pandas, visit the World's largest Buddha, and perhaps climb more mountains. The journey will be the longest of my entire life thus far, and will surely hold some interesting experiences. Just under 39 hours on a train with only a hard seat should prove to be a true test of endurance, hopefully including sleep! The roads beyond this get narrow and windy, as tourists need a permit to enter Tibet and also need to lay down an exorbitant amount of Benjamin Franklins - not happening. Instead I plan to travel in the Western Sichuan region to get an equally, if not more authentic experience of Tibetan Buddhism. The details on this will follow once I establish a home base in Chengdu. I can't bore you with too much to read at once can I? Well, I sort of did that with my last post...sorry about that :)
Random Observations: The Chinese do not wait to let the people off of the subway before getting on. They find it more useful to mindlessly plow through the masses...why I am still trying to figure this out.
On a completely separate issue, I will be heading to Chengdu (in the Sichuan province) this Wednesday to pet Pandas, visit the World's largest Buddha, and perhaps climb more mountains. The journey will be the longest of my entire life thus far, and will surely hold some interesting experiences. Just under 39 hours on a train with only a hard seat should prove to be a true test of endurance, hopefully including sleep! The roads beyond this get narrow and windy, as tourists need a permit to enter Tibet and also need to lay down an exorbitant amount of Benjamin Franklins - not happening. Instead I plan to travel in the Western Sichuan region to get an equally, if not more authentic experience of Tibetan Buddhism. The details on this will follow once I establish a home base in Chengdu. I can't bore you with too much to read at once can I? Well, I sort of did that with my last post...sorry about that :)
Random Observations: The Chinese do not wait to let the people off of the subway before getting on. They find it more useful to mindlessly plow through the masses...why I am still trying to figure this out.
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