Portland, OR -- moustache "fiving"

This might be a long one, guys and girls, so prepare you a nice warm cup of tea and settle in.

I will get to the following in today’s blog: plans for the big trip (when & where), reason why I’m doing this, what I have to get through in order before this can even take off, etc etc.

I was suppose to get a whole bunch of things done today, however, due to a faulty slave cylinder that is leaking in my car, I find myself stuck at home instead of running around town like a chicken with its head cut off trying to tie up loose ends around town. It ended up taking me a good 2 hours to pull out the old slave cylinder, put the new one in, bleed the clutch system, then proceeded to tighten the clutch back to normal. (Thanks Luke F. for giving me directions- would have been faster if you were here buddy.) But I completed the job without the help of any directions or manual and I am very proud of myself for actually being successful.

 

Here’s part of the list I must get through before skipping town:

-          Sell car

-          Contact bank to tell them I’m traveling

-          Buy more gear from REI

-          Forward all mail to a new address

-          Pack up everything to move to a temporary place

-          Figure out flight plans, weather conditions, to all places that I’ll be at

-          Pack up rest of belongings to be shipped to Singapore

Yes, I am having a huge headache from all this important shit. Why can’t I just drop everything and leave? Society has designed it in a way that it is hard to do that. But I will give them the middle finger and move on silently, undetected. Well, that wouldn’t work because then I’d have to end this blog but I know that if I did that, all of you who are reading this would be sad and mourn from not hearing from me again. Did that sound egotistical? Hope not.

After posting my entry yesterday, I immediately posted a note on my Facebook account to get some exposure. I then proceeded to check my blog every 10 or so minutes addictively to see if I have any followers and asked those that I’ve tagged to see if they have read it yet. I felt like a 12 year old school girl giddy with excitement and obsessing over her lover. Plenty of people who have read it have gotten back to be asking me what this trip is all about, why I am doing this, and how long will I be gone for. Well the reason I did not mention any of this in the first entry is because I was using that as bait – and it worked damn well at that.

I had planned on completing this entry to be posted last night, however, because of many minor mishaps I prolonged it to today. Spent the first half of the day packing and throwing away miscellaneous crap that I have accumulated over the years. It’s amazing how much random shit you can accumulate over the years. Well most of that is gone now, so I feel “lighter”.

Now to the juicy part that most of you are anticipating this whole time. I know, I know, I should have just started with this and kept it short. However, that would mean that you wouldn’t have known what happened before I started this trip, and I wanted to force all of you to read about my “fun-filled” life because I’m selfish like that. I unveil to you my plans… Bear in mind it is a tentative schedule and I kept it as non-specific as possible to avoid any concrete plans. I want to be on my own schedule – most of you can relate to this. Well here it is:

 TENTATIVE ONLY!! Trip Itinerary

City    Country Time Spent Visa Requirements

London England April-May no

Glasgow  Scotland April-May no

Dublin    Ireland   April-May no

London England April-May no

Lisbon  Portugal May-June no

Strait of Gilbraltar Morocco May-June yes

Madrid Spain    May-June no

Barcelona Spain   May-June no

Raine   France June-July no

Paris France    June-July no

Lyon France    June-July no

Geneva Switzerland June-July no

Milano Italy July-mid July no

Roma Italy    July-mid July no

Naples Italy July-mid July no

Lafayette, LA USA August to October : 2 month break for 2 best friends' wedding

Athen Greece Oct-Nov no

Istanbul Turkey Oct-Nov no

Sofia Bulgaria  Oct-Nov n/a

Bucharest Romania Nov-Dec no

Budapest Hungary   Nov-Dec n/a

Vienna Austria       Nov-Dec no

Munich Germany   Dec-Jan no

Cologne Germany   Dec-Jan no

Luxemburg City Luxemburg Dec-Jan no

Brussels Belgium   Dec-Jan no

Amsterdam Netherlands Jan-Feb n/a

Copenhagen Denmark Jan-Feb no

Stokholm Sweden    Jan-Feb no

Berlin     Germany    Jan-Feb no

Frankfurt Germany   Jan-Feb no

Prague Czech Rep.   Feb-March no

Warsaw Poland       Feb-March no

Kiev Ukraine            Feb-March yes

Moscow Russia        Feb-March yes

St. Petersburg Russia Feb-March yes

Mumbai India           March-April yes

Agra/Jaipur/Delhi India March-April yes

Kathmandu Nepal     March-April yes/on arrival

Llasha Tibet             March-April yes

Xinjiang China         April-June yes

Ulaanbaatar Mongolia April-June no

Beijing China            April-June yes

Tianjin China          April-June yes

Xian China             April-June yes

Shanghai China        April-June yes

Macau/H.Kong China April-June yes

Guilin/Yangshou China April-June yes

Hanoi Vietnam        June-Sept no

Vientaine Laos        June-Sept yes/on arrival

Phnom Penh Cambodia June-Sept no

Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam June-Sept no

Bangkok Thailand      June-Sept no

Pattaya Thailand     June-Sept no

Phuket Thailand      June-Sept no

Ko Samui Thailand   June-Sept no

Langkawi Malaysia Sept-Oct no

Penang Malaysia    Sept-Oct no

Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Sept-Oct no

Johor Bahru Malaysia Sept-Oct no

Singapore Singapore   Sept-Oct no

Well, that is the plan. Its suppose to be a year long trip with a 2 and a half month vacation to a vacation spent in Lafayette for my 2 best friends' wedding, but we shall see how far I can go with what little money I have and overcoming random obstacles. It is 1:40am and I am getting tired. I've spent the majority of the day packing and moving to Thevi's basement, where I am currently typing to you now, and tomorrow is another day of moving. There's more errands to be ran and I'm just absolutely knackered. That means overwhelmed/tired/exhausted for you American folks out there. I will add another post tomorrow regarding the reasons why I am doing this and hopefully it'll make sense to you, because it's still complicated to me. Good night all.

P.S. Moustache "five" to Caroline! We will dance like spider monkeys in Amsterdam!