travel plans!

I'm excited... I've booked time off work in March for my trip to Paris and Berlin. I've also finally found a few interesting places to visit in Paris that I didn't see the first time around. Also, there are a few places that I would like to go back to. When I was in Paris a few years ago one of Ryan's co-workers showed us around and brought us to some pretty cool little spots - a tea room, some random phở restaurant in the suburbs (where Ryan accidentally rubbed some hot peppers into his eyes and proceeded to start crying), a big garden (maybe le jardin des tuilleries?) I know this sounds kind of lame but it was pretty cool - a whole other side of Paris we wouldn't have seen without him there...

I'm excited at the thought of traveling again but I'm also afraid that 10 days won't be enough... I'm scared that it'll go by so fast that by the time I get settled into traveling, I'll have to come home. And I know that I probably won't want to. I feel like this trip is a risky decision... That maybe this is just like a taste of what I wish I could be doing all the time... Realistically, I don’t know how I could make it work… I’ve thought about it a lot but I just don’t know that I could afford to not have a permanent office job and go traveling… or maybe I could if I were really good at what I was doing… I don’t know… need to think about this some more.


Next month I'm planning a short 3 day trip to the windy city. I've been there before (for Lollapalooza a few years ago and a few times when I was young doing the cross-North America drive with the parents.) I really find it to be an interesting city. Amazing architecture, strange food (ungh... deep dish pizza?), interesting cultural stuff... People don't really talk about Chicago much – I think it gets overlooked a lot. I have to be honest - it was tempting to go to New York but 3 days is not enough time for me in New York City. And so off to the windy city I go. I’ve found some cheap flight & hotel packages so I’m looking forward to this.

Trips like this small 3-day one will probably be the only thing to keep me going once I get back from Paris. All of my 2009 vacation days are going to be saved up for a big trip I’m planning for December – 4 weeks in Tokyo and surrounding area… or maybe 3 weeks in Tokyo and one week in Korea. I haven’t quite planned out the details yet but I have about 11 months to figure those out.


On a somewhat unrelated note – class on Monday was good. It further reinforced my feeling that I need to study more! I feel like my lack of vocabulary is really slowing me down. I’m okay with the particles I’ve learnt so far, same with sentence structures… I just seem to be lacking words. I’ll probably spend another day at the library on the weekend studying…

I went climbing last night for the first time in months. It was a sad state of affairs. My night started with bouldering which was going nowhere because the thought of falling 10 feet scared me (I know, ridiculous!) So then I switched to top-roping… By then my hands were getting raw and I started getting tired. Ryan said that on my last climb he saw my confidence come back. I was 4 or 5 moves from the top - all of a sudden I remembered how to climb again. (The climb itself wasn’t very hard but I guess the last couple of moves were a little tricky.) When I haven’t been climbing for a while I usually find myself getting nervous near the top of climbs. I didn’t feel that way last night once I got tied into the rope… it felt more like it was just a matter of remembering how to move. I need to get my endurance and finger / hand strength back. I’m so out of shape.

Plans for the weekend: hockey, studying, and climbing…