Survived the flight

So I just survived a 16hr flight from chicago to HK. Overall it was a little rough. None of the audio jacks worked in my row so i couldn't watch the movies. I'm used to flying with individual video screens in front of your seat but this flight didn't have that, just the overhead ones.
Luckily, there was free beer, a usb port in the kitchen so the crew let me charge my ipod halfway through, and they gave me an extra chicken dinner (I paid $1,300 for the flight, I'm going to take advantage of it).

Halfway through, they made an announcement asking for a medical doctor. Apparently someone passed out towards the back and they were unresponsive. From what i heard, there 5 doctors on board, surgeon, internal medicine, and an ER doctor. When we landed, everyone had to stay in their seats until the paramedics came and went.

I got about 8 hours of sleep on and off so i should be ok to run around tonight. We touched down at 7pm hk time, 5 am home time which means that i did a full 24 hours of traveling.

On the flight to chicago i sat next to Rachel, a recent college grad from U W eau claire who has been teaching english in a suburb of japan for the past 4 months and is planning on doing it for 3 full years. I haven't been to japan yet so it was cool to hear about her experience.

One of the best parts of a trip like this is meeting all the different people that i otherwise wouldn't meet at home. I'll write down little blurbs as the trip goes on.

Just waiting now to get through customs, get my bag, and look for Kimberly.

On my way!

I just got through, what felt like an hour long line through airport security. After only one time of wearing a pair of pants that were too big and having to take off my belt about 10 different times, I've gotten into the habit of just wearing sweatpants and a hoodie and keeping everything in my bag. It's comfy and everyone is so stressed out from traveling that they're most likely not going to judge my fashion sense.

My backpack weighed exactly 35 lbs (Speedy dog not included) with my winter gear, 10 pairs of hand warmers, camera, tripod, and 6 days worth of clothes. I took a duffle bag last time that weighed 40lbs and I only wore about half the clothes.

I remembered to bring a pedometer for the trip so it will be interesting to see how far I end up walking in total. I booked the plane tickets for all the cities last night for about $550 total which isn't bad. Also booked the first night of hostels for each city. I only did one night so I would have flexibility to go to a different place of it doesn't work out. It will be $14 a night for the both of us. I wanted to go $5 a night but my parents weren't ok with us sleeping in a 6 person dorm room :/
Beijing: happy Dragon hostel
Shanghai: rock and wood hostel
Seoul: not sure yet

Packing done...in my head

It's the day before I leave and up to this point, I've only made lists and thought about packing. I've been on lots of trips before and I never seem to break the habit of doing things last minute.
I bought a new backpacking backpack that's 75 liters in size and so far I was able to pack the essential stuff for myself.
I'm only bringing enough clothes for about 5 days and will find a place to do laundry halfway.
Unfortunately, since it hasn't been lower than 70f in Hong Kong, my sister, Kimberly, has had no reason to bring her winter gear. Which means that I have to figure a way to pack two pairs of boots, winter jackets, etc. because Beijing and Seoul have the same winter weather as Minnesota.
Everyone at work was really nice and wished me well on my trip yesterday. I drew an out of office message on my whiteboard on my desk that I'm pretty proud of.

New Adventure!

Hey everyone
I'm really glad to be blogging about another trip that I'm going to be on. It's super exciting that I get to go back to Asia exactly a year after my last trip. This time I will be more prepared especially after all the mistakes and stuff I learned from last time. I really don't have many expectations on what to do or what I'll get to see.

For those that didn't follow me on my last trip here's a link to my blog: http://loo-china-trip.blogspot.com/
For those who did follow me, I have to say a big thank you for keeping up with my posts, over the course of 3 weeks, I got about 950 pageviews which is pretty cool!

The basic itinerary for my trip is that I'm leaving on 12/30 for HK, arrive at 7pm New Year's Eve
1/3 Shanghai
1/7 Beijing
1/11 Seoul
1/14 Back to HK
1/16 Leave for home

It's a lot of traveling to cram into 2 1/2 weeks but I think it should run smoothly except that I haven't gotten my passport or Chinese visa yet from the travel agent. Also, looking at the weather in Beijing and Seoul, it'll be colder than Minneapolis, so that might be an issue. But other than that, I've got a new camera, bought an REI backpacking backpack to make traveling easier, and I'll be doing all my blogging from my smartphone.