5-Jan-2011 I finally arrived in Sydney last night. I told my friends Rachel and Shirley about 7 years ago that I would come and visit them sometime...better late than never! I bid a choked-up good-bye to Aaron in Hanoi two days ago. He was preparing for his trip to visit his sister in Shanghai. I'll miss him a lot, but at least it's only for a month. After some last minute haggling (which I won't miss) for a suitcase to carry the paintings I bought the other day, I caught a cab across Hanoi to the airport. To get a good deal on my trip I flew from there to China to spend the night in Guangzhou airport before flying out to Sydney the next day. Before leaving Hanoi I read that without a visa I wouldn't be able to leave the airport in China, but to my surprise when I got there they put a 24 hour stamp in my passport and set me free! There was some confusion about whether I was supposed to collect my bags, but luckily after a while, I found them and grabbed my trousers a...

2 February 2011 Last night in Shanghai and my first picture with Meredith Meredith and I retreated from Hangzhao earlier than originally planned. While the area did have the potential for some good hiking it was just too cold and wet and to really enjoy them. So, we hastened back to Shanghai, hid out in the warmth of Meredith's apartment watched some documentaries and did occasionally ventur  out to go to a Korean bath house or a restaurant. Meredith booked a flight to Sanya, an island resort town in the south China sea, to get in some much needed thaw time. Rusty This month of winter has been enough for me. I don't know how she does it. I look forward to dispensing with my puffy jacket and a return to summer. Next stop Sydney. Outside Meredith's apartment on the way to the airport. So long puffy jacket! Parting shots of Shanghai on the way to the metro stop Outside the metro stop

Last year around this time I created a spreadsheet called "Trip Budget." Sifting through travel websites I put together a vague six month budget including travel through Greece, Turkey, Georgia, India, Sri Lanka and southeast Asia. In Greece we started keeping a detailed accounting of our expenses and kept up the practice through Vietnam. The original spreadsheet, since renamed "Trip Budget Rev 2" has experienced huge growth and now consists of over half a dozen spread sheets (must to the chagrin of our netbook). I'll put up a few Travel Economics posts with analysis of the data. For the first installment we'll look at the averages over the period from May 2010 through January 2011 when we were traveling through Greece, Turkey, Georgia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Note that airfare and visa costs are not included here. The average daily expenses for Jean and myself Original Budget Categories Lodging : Hostel, hotel, mote...

25 January 2011 The lake's out there. I promise. One of Meredith and my goals was to make it out of the city. With Chinese New Years fast approaching this endeavor was becoming increasingly difficult. We ventured out into a railway ticket agent near Meredith's and found a rather lengthy queue. Our first choice was a ski resort near Beijing but the trains were all booked. Yongshuo, an artsy, historic town, where a friend of Meredith's is living was also a no go. We ended up with tickets to Hangzhao, a town centered around a lake to the east of Shanghai. It's a popular weekend getaway sport for city dwellers. Between exercise sets Meredith had a last minute gig come up so I spent the first day in Hangzhao on my own. I caught an express train out of Shangahi that according to the onboard LCD panel hit speeds over 300 km/ hour. We made it the hundred miles to Hangzhao in less than an hour. I'm still trying to come to terms with the size of China. Emerging from...

I've been a pretty regular listener to the radio program This American Life for a while now. One of the episodes that hooked me early on was one they did back in 2001 about superpowers. The first act (story) of the program takes on the question: Which is better, the power of flight or the power of invisibility? Jim Hodgman takes an informal survey throwing in the follow up query of why and what would you do if you had that superpower. The responses are funny and provide interesting insight into our behavior and motivations. Meredith and I got on to the subject of superpowers one evening. I drew a comparison between her elementary teacher by day - cabaret dancer/Shanghai socialite by night existence to the Clark Kent/Superman persona. Where Clark Kent had blue spandex hidden under his shirt and tie, Meredith might have a bejeweled bikini concealed beneath her blouse. Where Superman dispensed with Kent's thick glasses to change his identity, Texas Blue applies heavy makeup, gli...

18 January 2011 Shanghai has been experiencing an unprecedented chilly winter. The Siberians are up to their old wind tricks again. I sure am glad my winter experience is only a brief one.

17 January 2011 Meredith had some parent-teacher conferences to attend to so I was on my own for the day. In the mid-morning chill I caught the metro down to People's Square where there are a profusion of museums. I decided on the Shanghai Museum of Art. Ironically, for quite some time now, Jean has been talking about going to an art museum. Pity. Upon entering, with it's lofty ceilings and neat, minimalist architecture, the museum had every appearance of its western counterparts. The striking difference were my fellow museums visitors snapping madly away with cameras and phones in blatant disregard for the clearly marked signs forbidding such activity. However, the docents didn't seemed concerned with so I furtively took a few pictures myself. People's Square Nostalgia mixed with fear The Artist's workshop More of the artist's workshop And more Note that I was just in the the museum of Art. The museum of contemporary art was next doo...

15 January 2011 A Friendly reminder on the train Oddly enough, over the past six years, I've seen more of my sister on foreign soil then at home. When we last parted it was a muggy August morning in the midst of the hubbub of New Delhi. Meredith was bound for the beaches of western India before flying back to Shanghai and Jean and I were making our way south to Mumbai and onward to Sri Lanka. When my sister and I get together adventures tend to ensue. There was the impromptu waterfall abseiling in Azerbaijan, rambling through eastern Europe and onto Oktoberfest with our brother , Paul, and most recently the bus ride from hell , a bit of paragliding and hanging with the kids from Delhi in India. Meredith met me at train terminal in Shanghai, Friday afternoon. The 24 hour train ride was restful. The only other occupant in my six bunk compartment was a genial, middle-aged Chinese man who offered me a steady supply of fresh fruit from his cache. Meredith and I filled each oth...