Adieu, Adieu, to You and You and You

I've been logging into blogger almost every day for the past week. The "NEW POSTS" page pops up, and I sit there and stare.

It's happened. I have nothing else to tell you.

I could keep reminiscing about our trip, telling funny-at-the-time-you-had-to-be-there anecdotes from "when we were in Tibet/Australia/Namibia/Wherever". I thought about continuing with fresher-than-fresh live updates of our new lives and where they were going. I really, really tried.

Then I remembered why I never really got into the blogging thing before we left -- our lives are really just not that exciting. Life is good, but it's not necessarily blog-worthy. What can I tell you? I'm starting work soon, which is great. BG is working, and we've gotten into squash (the game, not the vegetable, though I do enjoy it roasted in olive oil or as soup.) We buy international wines at the liquor store downtown and not at the vineyards like we did in 2008. We keep buying honey pomelos and not eating them because we don't have a two-hour bus ride to kill. We go to dinner parties with friends where they play Norah Jones as background music and we discuss the pros and cons of laminate vs. hardwood vs. engineered flooring and whether or not a professional designer is really worth the money. Do you really want to hear about that?

I also didn't want to leave this part of our story unfinished, with a random dangling post about grocery shopping and senior's day. It would have disturbed my psyche to leave it like that. It needs an ending. This is it.

There is one final thing to say. I need to thank everyone who read this blog and lived vicariously through us. Reading your comments and knowing that we were still present in your lives, somehow, meant so much to us. Meeting new people and finding that we could actually be of some use to someone was really special. This blog was meant to be a way to let you all know that we were alive and well, but it ended up being so much more than that to us. It was a way for me to express how I really felt when confronted with the unknown, with the frightening, and with the staggeringly beautiful. I wouldn't have bothered recording like this if all of you hadn't been here to read it, and so I thank you all for reading, because now I also have a way to remember the moments which were so inconsequential at the time, but have become especially meaningful in hindsight.

This isn't really the end. You'll be hearing about our future adventures, and heck, when anything even remotely exciting happens, you'll hear it here. I promise.

In the meantime, thanks again.

What to Say?

I find myself strangely silent these days, without trials or tribulations worthy of writing about. The holidays were wonderful, and we've been catching up with friends and family. We've signed a lease for an apartment and are looking for a car, and our jobs are slowly coming together.

We're slowly realizing that our Trip of a Lifetime (TM) is really and truly over, and yet I hesitate to put Love and Chopsticks to bed. I haven't said everything I wanted to say. There are still stories to tell. Besides, if Love and Chopsticks comes to an end, it means that our journey is really over, and I guess I'm not ready for that.

Stay tuned, I guess.

Indulge Me a Moment

I'm going to step back in time to New Year's Eve 2007/2008. We were in Lijiang, south western China. Our wall-mounted "heater" blew tepid air and our toes were always cold. When we showered a pool puddle of water formed on the bathroom floor, because there was no tub.

That night it was so cold in Lijiang that it snowed, a rare event in that area. To celebrate the New Year, we splurged on dinner at "Le Cafe Paris", where BG had salmon and mashed potatoes, and I had the very French specialty of Mongolian tofu hotpot with noodles -- accompanied by a gallon-sized bucket of rice. "This country was built on rice," the waiter told me. "Rice is cheap in this country." Later, carbohydrate-induced torpor fully upon us, we walked the pretty, picturesque streets of Lijiang and contemplated the purchase of yak jerky.



Very late in the evening, well past 9:30, we decided that we were absolutely, thoroughly chilled, and returned to our guest house. We climbed into bed and watched a movie. I'm ashamed to say that we rang in the new year with the newest Transformers movie, Megan Fox and all. Guess whose pick that was?

This time we're ringing in the New Year with family and crab legs. I can't believe how much has happened since December 31, 2007.

Happy New Year!

You Can Count On Me

On our way home from Zurich, BG and I worked on our lists of "Top 10" things. We'll be putting it up in a number of separate posts for your reading pleasure -- also so that when we finally meet up with our friends, we can talk about more interesting things than, "What was your favourite country?" We want to hear about what's going on in your lives too!

Top Natural Wonders or Vistas

1. Milford Sound, New Zealand
   





2. Glacier Express Train from St. Moritz to Zermatt, Switzerland -- all seven hours.





3. Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam





4. Victoria Peak, Hong Kong





5. The sand dunes at Sossusvlei, Namibia





6. Fish River Canyon, Namibia





7. Cape Point, South Africa





8. Tiger Leaping Gorge, China






9. Poon Hill, Nepal





10. Yangshuo, China

Honourable mentions go to "Edoras", in New Zealand, and, of course, Mount Everest.

Most Memorable Historical or Cultural Visits

1. The temples of Angkor, Cambodia
2. The killing fields of Cambodia
3. The now-retired prison at Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, Cape Town, South Africa
4. The Taj Mahal, Agra, India
5. The Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
6. The Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet
7. The military fort near Jaipur, India
8. The giant Shiva statue near Grand Bassin, Mauritius
9. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, Australia
10. The streets of old Hanoi, Vietnam
    

Most Memorable Meals

1. Hot Pot dinner (including chicken testicles), Hong Kong
2. Fresh seafood feast with friends, Hong Kong
3. Bamboo chicken (including chicken feet), China
4. The Ganesh Restaurant, Jaipur, India
5. Breakfast in western New Zealand, where I was offered a chunk of freshly slaughtered wild boar
6. Gorgeous Indian meal (eaten exclusively with hands) in New Delhi, India
7. The Safari Platter (including five different types of wild game!), Cape Town, South Africa
8. BG's birthday dinner in Noosa, Australia
9. A traditional Christmas dinner with all the trimmings (for $9.00!) in Yangshuo, China
10. A huge seafood feed in the Sydney Fish Market, Sydney, Australia

Book Recommendations (based on the countries we visited)

1. Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts: called "the best bad book" in one review, this book is brutally written and terribly long, but paints a perfectly vivid portrait of India.
2. First They Killed My Father, Loung Ung: describes the destruction of her family and life during the regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia.
3. Catfish and Mandala, Andrew X. Pham: a Vietnamese-American returns to his birth country.
4. Himalaya, Michael Palin: written during the filming of the BBC documentary, describes perfectly the culture and landscape of the Himalayas.
5. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, JRR Tolkien: the movies were set in New Zealand, so of course you have to re-read the books.
6. The Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela: the great Nelson Mandela describes his incredible life (South Africa).
7. The Killing Fields, Christopher Hudson: another book about the Khmer Rouge (Cambodia).
8. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer: the author describes his summit of Mt. Everest and the disaster that followed.
9. Are You Experienced?, William Sutcliffe: A cynical view of the world of [sic] "real backpackers" in India.
10. The Life and Times of Michael K., J. M. Coetzee: Experience the life of a black, mentally disabled man in apartheid-era South Africa

Finally, our new top favourite foods

Note that Val and BG have two completely different lists...

1. Lychees, mango, jackfruit (Val). Mango with sticky rice (BG).
2. Espresso -- (V). Tim Tams (BG).
3. Black licorice (V). White chocolate Magnum ice cream bars (BG).
4. Spicy papaya salad (V). Puits d'amour (French pastries) (BG).
5. Sparkling water (V). Portuguese Custard Tarts (BG).
6. Rooibos tea (V). Lime & black pepper chips (BG).
7. Marmite/vegemite (V). Coconut and corn cakes (Thai street food) (BG).
8. Octopus vindaye (V). Luxemburgeli (meringue cookies)(BG).
9. Feijoas (V). Cauliflower with butter and breading (BG).
10. Macadamia nuts (V). Sand-roasted peanuts from India (BG).
    

Sweetness Follows

I'm finally wearing my own pyjamas. I finally dry myself after my shower with real towels, no more of the handkerchief-sized travel towels that don't actually dry anything. I wear jeans and sweaters, shoes with heels. I use a hair dryer. I have a manicure. One day I curled my hair; the next day I straightened it.

Just because I can.

I hug my mom and sisters and mother-in-law; I squeeze them until they squeal. I call my friends, drive a car, eat sushi. When I walk down the street I listen to the people talk and understand everything that's being said. I make cappuccino twice a day.

Just because I can.

My wardrobe seems endless, even though I can't find my winter boots or coat. Right now I'm pretty sure I'll never need to go shopping ever again... at least until Boxing Day sales kick in. The skies are grey and it's snowing like mad, but it's Christmas and I've never been happier to be suffering jet lag and an impending cold, because I'm finally at home and I'm not suffering alone.

Happy Holidays, all.

NUMB3RS

Now that the trip of a lifetime is coming to a close, we can allow the expected analysis to begin. We will start with the numbers; luckily, Excel is not necessary.

Number of flights taken: 19
Number of countries visited: 16
Number of kilometres: according to our RTW ticket, 39,000 or so.
Number of days away from home: 448
Number of times forced to watch Horton Hears a Who: 3
Number of times Step Up: The Streets watched voluntarily: 3 (I like dance movies.)
Number of pairs of shoes worn: 4
Number of boats ridden: 8 (me) + 2 (BG)
Number of times seasick: 1 (me) + 2 (BG)
Number of flat tires changed in a four-week trip through southern Africa: 7
Number of people being crammed into a 12-seater bus: 18
Number of months without snow: 20
Number of packages shipped home: 10
Number of laptop repair visits: 4
Number of times BG stayed up all night rebuilding laptop: 4
Number of teabags being brought home from Mauritius: 350
Number of kilograms of chocolate being brought home from Switzerland: 3.2
Number of photos taken on this trip: 15,000 or so.
Number of times violently ill from stomach bugs: 0 (Yay!)
Number of days a shower was skipped: 4 (not bad...)

This is a Really Bad Metaphor

I am a mess of emotions right now -- a fondue pot of gooey, cheesy joy bubbling excitedly, steeped in booze. Hm, that doesn't sound as good as I thought it would.

It just hit me that we are going home in less than a week. My head has known this for a long time, but my heart just understood it today, a few seconds ago, while I was shelling pistachios. I'm excited to go home -- to hug my mom and sisters, to see my friends, to go back to the lives we put on hold and figure out a way to make it work a little better for us. We're entering an experimental phase, one where we'll finally get to see if we did learn anything, if anything has changed. Our reactions to the environment we are in will be the gauge over the next while, especially since the first few months are bound to be a little hectic.



After much reflection, discussion, and analysis (Excel may or may not have been used) we have decided to return to Toronto. It's true that other cities were definitely on the list of nominees, but in the end, Toronto is home. We're working on the jobs, and we're beginning to look at cars and places to live. In a lot of ways, it looks like we're returning to our lives very much The Way They Were; in our opinion, the outer shell of life may look identical, but the inner workings will change fundamentally. We hope to be able to dig in our heels and not get caught up in the tornado that is city life so that we can spend less time fretting about the things that don't matter and spend more time doing the things that do. We hope to live less selfishly, to take less and to use less. We hope to give more instead, as we've learned how that endless cliche about giving and receiving is actually really true.

Expect to see us outdoors more and at the office less. Expect to see us smiling more, arguing less. Quality over quantity, meaningfulness over convenience. Culture and learning over television, family and friends over mindless surfing. We'll take courses; we'll volunteer. We'll join clubs, read books, babysit; BG may possibly explore the world of yoga. We'll do more things together too -- after all, 15 months of nearly continuous companionship means we'll likely feel kind of lost without each other, at least for a little while.

In the meantime, we have five days left in Switzerland, and there's chocolate to be eaten. See you soon.