travel jitters.

Tomorrow I'll leave for China. But in the mean time, I'm here in Atlanta with family friends. So I've had a good deal of time to think about what is going to happen. Besides the total euphoria I get about the fact I'll be exploring an ancient civilization, I also think about international hostility such as nuclear testing and imprisoned American journalists in North Korea, a brewing coup in Iran, terrorism, disappearing and hijacked planes. They are awful thoughts, I know, and certainly not something one wants to think about when you are about to be on a 13 hour flight. What about that movie "Taken" where the naive American tourists are abducted and then sold in an underground sex market. Fiction has be to be inspired by truth, right? I haven't had travel jitters like these when I traveled in the past because before, I went to western Europe. I was safe in a first-world country. Then again, in the movie "Taken" the Americans are in Paris...

When I go on trips I try not to have a list of things to do. It's such an arduous process trying to complete a "to do" list. There is no joy in that. It shouldn't be burdensome. Besides, there is no worse disappoint than not completing what you set out to do. I try to let the place and culture reveal itself to me. Walk around a city or town and let yourself discover things. It's amazing what you will find, or what will find you, if you let yourself get lost a little. Of course there are things I would like to see, such as the Shaolin Temple, Chin Woo School, and the Forbidden City, but this is not all of China. They are famous structures and things we associate when we think of China but it is definitely more than that. I hope to discover things that foreigners do not often do, something that hasn't been watered down by tourism. I hope to walk the road less traveled.