andreinicoara.com

I’m bad at it. I am leaving on Saturday and I still have no hotel reservations, no real plans, and I still have printouts from Lonely Planet lying around the house – unread… Even my passport is still at the embassy (Vietnam embassy, going there on Thursday to pick it up).

These 2 weeks I tried to do so many things that of ocurse I screwed up some of them. And I’m leaving on holidays tired, with a slight cold, and with unfinished business left at home. So, beside NOT doing research for my upcoming trip, what’s new?

• finally managed to go to Online MeetUp conference, an event organized by Orange, taking place at Orange Concept Store, in order to mingle with people from the online world…interesting experience
• today I am spending a lot of time at RoNewMedia at some workshops and the gala for best Romanian websites. I actually was in the jury, so I am really eager to find out the winners – this though means I will arrive after 10pm home. Again.
• met with elementary school ex-colleagues – so many years later and so little have people changed. And I mean this in a good way! Was a joy to talk with most of them!
• moved office – descended one floor – which meant irregular access to business email and network – so yesterday was a pretty useless day. Of course, I have to compensate the following days!
• I still have a backlog of photos to process, especially from Nijikon2009 – where incidentally I met an old friend who was promoting Warhammer (the miniature game)

And now? Back to booking.com, travelblog.org, lonely planet et all.

Yesterday I picked my passport back from the Chinese embassy in Bucharest. It was a bit strange that I had to have hostel reservations (I am used to make those as late as possible), but in the end it all worked out fine.

I will leave on April 24th and return on May 5th. It is unfortunate that for a destination so interesting I was not able to take a longer vacation, but I can consider it a sort of test visit. If I like China – which I am almost sure I will – I will return another time.

My main destinations will be Beijing and Shanghai, but I will definitely check the surrounding areas.

Just as I did on my previous trip (Spain and Portugal), I will try to keep people updated on what is happening, and also upload photos to the blog. I am really eager to start the trip, as I foresee a lot of interesting and awkward situations because of the slight language barrier