What Stands Before Us

**Edit by Josh**
So I guess I had the blog set to only allow comments from registered users. Sorry about that. It's fixed now; anyone should be able to comment on any post.
**End Edit**

So though I have my own Xanga account and though I promised to write more on it, I never did. You see, graduating college gave me an out from doing anything productive for... ummm... a while at least. But now I have a husband and a friend who want me to do this whole blogging thing with them. Thus I have responsibilities in the production department once more. Good, I guess. I know that I will be more than thankful for their push when one day I, in my hazy imaginings, try to look back on my trip in China and the greater length of time in South Korea and realize that nothing in my memory will match what I write down during the experience.

It is now vacation and, as all vacations seem to go, the days fly by faster than a glimpse at a shooting star. I recently realized that we would be leaving for China in a little more than a week and our final plans are not complete. While Josh seems to find this less concerning, I like to have our places of sleep and modes of transportation at least figured by the time we set sail for the red land.

Overall, I'm not quite sure what to think of this trip. I've never had a desire to see China. My vote was for Thailand and Malaysia this vacation. Actually, anywhere in Southeast Asia would have been welcome. Any of those countries would have been warm. However, Josh's vote won out. So we are now going to a freezing land the size of the States, and are hoping to traverse as much of the country as sanely possible while also enjoying the culture. Our original plan had been to stay to the big cities, seeing as we don't speak a lick of the language and Americans are not the most loved species in China. However, the wonderful travel book that Josh's folks gave us for Christmas opened up the endless possibilities China has to offer. Thus, we will probably skip Shanghai to see some smaller villages and more of the nature in South-Central China before heading on to Hong Kong. The revamped schedule is certainly more rushed than the previous, but at least now we will get to see more of small town China. It's like leaving out L.A. to see Colorado or Arizona. However, in the end, it all comes down to where the bus and train schedules can direct us.

What particularly interests me is how I will find a modern Communist country. We are allowed personal Bibles, but may not bring extras to share. We might be allowed to post on this blog, but then again, it may be blocked, which is when pencil and paper will come in handy. In a country with the highest rate of state sponsored executions (20+ a day) assigned for everything from murder to drug possession, what are the authorities like? What local stares will we face? Seeing as Beijing is one of the largest cities in the world and just had the Olympics, I doubt we will run into much trouble. We might be prime targets for petty theft, but I doubt Beijing will be discourteous to tourists seeing as tourism is one of its largest growing industries. I think that Xi'an, where the terracotta warriors are, and Hong Kong will both also be more than hospitable. I just wonder about the rest of our trip, particularly the train travel. What stories will we have to tell? Well, we'll see, we'll write, and hopefully, we'll have quite the (safe) adventure in this next month.