Around the World .... again (this time the whole thing, not just 2/3 of it)

Only 2 weeks after returning to LA, after my 2/3 of the way round the world trip, I couldn't stand being at home anymore and decided to repeat the trip. This time I would circle the globe completely instead of going 2/3 around then 2/3 back (actually more miles for the astute readers out there). I will fly (or take train) from LA to London to Hong Kong, to Beijing, to Mongolia, to LA. There could be some changes to the itinerary. I may swap Mongolia for Bangkok. Or just stay in Beijing. I have a 3 week flexible timeframe in China. I may or may not take the train from HK to Beijing and then Beijing to Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia). A lot depends on the cost difference between train versus plane and my tolerance for boredom. Each of those train trips is more than 24 hours. The plane more like 2 to 4. Big difference. I'll just have to price shop when I get there because you don't save much money by booking ahead on internal/local flights and trains.

Truthfully, the trip happened so soon after the last one because my 100 year old grandmother died in England. So, because I wanted to go to England to attend the funeral, I thought I might as well go round the world again. I mean, who wouldn't? Given time, money and opportunity? I plan to revisit many of the friends I met the first time. I will also hopefully meet many long lost relatives at the funeral. Some I haven't seen for over 25 years.

I am only on the very first stage of the trip, so I plan to add photos and text updates as they occur. Or certainly within a few of days of the events. I now have a new Macbook notebook computer to update the blog with.

My photos show: my lovely passport and chinese visa, just to prove I'm not making this all up, and various stages of the journey. Bus and plane. I should have gotten photos of the train but sometimes you just forget to whip out the camera as often as you should.

I took the bus to from my place in Hollywood to LAX airport to save a little bit on taxis. This trip is expensive so I have to try to cut costs wherever possible. Using public transport is definitely a moneysaver and can earn you a "free" night in a hotel. It cost me $4 on the bus to the airport. It would have been probably $40 in a taxi. I chatted to a fun family from Mexico on the bus. These really are my people. I know more people from Central America than anywhere else now, and my Spanish is "muy bien".

Then I took the Virgin Atlantic plane to a rainy London. It's a fairly painless 11 hour flight. The plane was almost full but I met some cool people to talk to. I talked to a young american woman who moved to London to work in the fashion industry. I seem to know quite a few people in the fashion industry now. Fortunately, the heavy-set woman in the photo next to me moved to another seat so I had a little extra elbow room after she left. She was an English woman returning from a vacation with her family. I noted how British women are getting bigger and bigger, but are quite American supersized yet. Except for Hollywood and West LA, where people are almost unusually drop-dead gorgeous.

The underground train from Heathrow airport to London St Pancras railway station was full. Hmm, I'm seeing a pattern here. I chatted to some Australian girls (one was quite gorgeous) who had just come from Hong Kong. "Hey, that's where I'm going next!" I announced in an excited manner. We discussed the socio-pyschological benefits of a night in Lan Kwai Fong, the Hong Kong, ex-pat bar/club district.

The train from London to Sheffield, where my family lives, was full too. Hmm. A big football game had just finished in London (Derby versus West Brom) and I met some cool people again. Mostly good-natured Derby fans who were happy Derby won. It was standing room only on the packed train, for 2 hours. For the last 1 hour of the journey when the Derby fans left, I invited Jean, a female student from Taiwan studying in Sheffield, to sit with me. We had a nice chat about Taiwan/China relations and other fun topics. She was gorgeous. "Be still my beating heart" -William Mountfort 1705.

A personal note: I used to be so shy when I was a much younger traveller. I only talked to people if they talked to me first. Which means in England you would probably never talk to anybody. Now I just come right out and start conversations with almost anybody. I almost never regret it. Occasionally, I will be met with almost complete silence or a one-word, leave me the hell alone, answers. But, in the vast majority of cases, I have pretty rewarding social interaction. Better to have tried to start a conversation and fail, than be forever wondering what might have been. I am influenced in this line of thinking by the famous poem:

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all. -- Alfred Lord Tennyson 1850

The poem applies to love and romance, which I am a big fan of and participant in, but I apply it to many things in my life.