China

I am, more than likely, going to be teaching English in South Korea for a full year.

It's a bit of a scary thought.

My only experience with Asia, thus far, has been a three-week trip to China. I remember getting lost with my friend, Kim, in....oh, God, I can't even remember where....some "small" city north of Shanghai. I committed the name of the bar street to memory and repeated it to the cab driver, who nodded and drove off with the two of us. Every other time we'd been in a cab, it had been day, and the cabs were lucky to be moving at all. Not so this time-- the driver careened through the small, twisty streets-- and finally stopped, abruptly, in a dark, residential area. Kim and I looked at each other nervously, and stepped out of the cab. Several of the neighbors came out, and one woman motioned with her hands if we needed a place to sleep. The cab driver, figuring this wasn't where we wanted to be, hadn't moved. I tried to explain, in Chinese, what we wanted, and he said something, to which I nodded, just grateful we were getting out of there. He took us to the train station. At this point, we gave up and handed him the hotel card. Back at the hotel, we copied down the street name and just gave him that. Success! We stepped into a techno bar and ordered a grasshopper and a beer and proceeded to get hit on by a couple of Koreans who we abandoned to go dancing in the upper level of the club. And came back, and crashed.

Another time, we visited the town of Dali. My Chinese professor, who turns into a five year old boy when he comes home, ran around to all of us, nearly flinging us with a plate of watermelon. None of us really trusted it, having been warned by our professor (of all people), not to eat from the vendors. Poor Kim got attacked by a dog and had to be taken to a Chinese hospital. Despite her insistence that she'd just been vaccinated and her fear of needles, the doctor administered a rabies shot anyway. Meanwhile, a boy sat in the room, his leg bleeding, and another man came into the waiting room and vomited. Kim wanted to go home.

I think I might recall some more memories from past travels at a later time.