Reunion

Five and a half years ago, Angie, Katie and I headed out on an epic journey across China and Thailand. They say ignorance is bliss, and we were most definitely blissfully ignorant of the ambition and absurdity of our plan. Knowing what I know now about a China, and knowing how little we knew then about China (not to mention how little Chinese we spoke), I shake my head in sheer wonder that we actually survived the trip.

The three of us taught at the same private university, and when it came time to plan how to get down to Thailand for our company’s annual meeting, we opened up a lonely planet, found some pictures we liked, and decided to somehow get there.

Only thing is we were traveling at the peak of the massive spring festival migration. A factor we were terribly unaware of. Well, we knew it was around spring festival. We knew people traveled. We just didn’t know train stations became massive camping grounds and train tickets were worth well more than their weight in gold.

Luckily, we had the family of a student helping us along the way. That family had a random “uncle” who with a special piece of paper ushered us through the throngs of thousands waiting at the Guangzhou train station and deposited us on a train. Without tickets. Eventually we managed to purchase sleeper tickets while on the train. How we managed to do that without language skills is a bit of a foggy detail.

Due to our lack of foresight and wisdom and frankly common sense, we ended up seeing and doing a lot.

Including staying in the smallest hostel room EVER in Hong Kong.

And riding elephants in Thailand. Which, by the way, if you’re planning on riding on an elephant head, wear long pants. Their heads are very hairy. And their hair is very sharp.

After leaving a gorgeous island off of Phuket, I learned a very important lesson that served me well in the next five years of winter traveling. When traveling, ONLY go south. Do not travel in China after the warmth and beaches of Thailand. You will be cold. You will be miserable. You will just want to go home.

The three of us did make it home and lived to tell about it. Currently, I’m staying at Katie’s house in Wheaton while I study pretend to study for comprehensive exams. Angie lives a couple hours away in Peoria, so Katie and I decided to drive down to catch up and meet Angie’s beautiful new daughter Eloise.

There was much catching up to be done, and we were even joined at lunch via skype by another friend who taught with us that year. It’s amazing to look back at where we’ve come from and the changes of the past five years. Who knows where we’ll be at by the time of our next reunion!