Where Is Hawkins?Where travel is cheaper than psychotherapy.

Well, I figured that I’d tell all of my 3 readers about my upcoming trip to China. I’m going with my buddy Eihab, who has been with me on asshat trips to Paris, Acapulco and Toronto who took about 5 minutes worth of convincing to come with. But he’s my bitch on this trip, mainly because I upgraded him to sit with me up in business class.

The plan is to spend roughly the first 36 hours after landing in Shanghai exploring the city. I doubt this will be really enough time, but what’s weird is that if you look on what to do in Fodor’s or Frommer’s about what to do in 3 days while in Shanghai, a lot of it is walking around and just chillin’. The on the morning of the 5th of May, we’ll be flying up to Beijing to spend the next 4 days/3 nights. The Great Wall is on the list – but there’s 3 places to see the Great Wall outside of Beijing. The most popular is Badaling, complete with a cable car up to the top. But I figure what we’ll both do is write up a list of stuff we want to see, compare it, and then do it in an efficient manner in order to cram in the sites but not feel hurried. And of course, have a fun time screwing around.

On the night of the 8th, the plan is to take the overnight train (12 hour trip) from Bejing to Shanghai and spend the rest of the day there and fly back the 9th in the late afternoon and just crash on the plane back home.

As of now, it’s in disarray. The only thing really planned is the first two nights at the hotel in Shanghai, but no plane/train tickets nor the hotel in Beijing. I’m a little worried being close to May Day (Why oh why did I schedule this around May 1st?) that we won’t be able to get tickets (that would suck).

I’m off to Shanghai, China on American’s new direct flight from Chicago the first week in May. Seeing that no one was playing along in the “guess where I’m going so you get free stuff” game that I was playing, I figured that there was no fun in building suspense anymore.

I don’t know what I’m planning, other than a bulk of the trip will be spent in Beijing where I will endeavor to cause an international incident. I know that the only real musts are the Great Wall (to be determined which part) and the Forbidden City, since I worked that exhibit at the Field. Other than that…. not sure yet. I suppose I should sit down and plan stuff out but that would sort of ruin the spontaneity of the trip.

I probably suffer from seasonal affective disorder because I’ve got a case of the winter blahs. I’m thinking I’m going to Bermuda for a weekend in April just to chill out.

So my gift package to Iraq showed up on Friday and apparently it was a big hit. I was told to send “fun things.” Naturally, my definition of fun things is different from other peoples’, so I went and bought things that shock, like these cool tanks and a lie detector. I figure Marines are a unique bunch and would enjoy toys like this.

This morning I got an email from a GSgt:

I got it two days ago and it is frikken awesome, we have spent the last two days making each other lie, just to shock the shit out of each other, confession though, I am taking the tanks home, way to cool. That was without a doubt one of the best packages we have received yet, thanks brother.

I probably should buy some of these for myself.

So for the last week on my right hand, I’m feeling an odd intermittent pain in my right trigger finger (those medical types refer to it as “the index finger”). Since most of my friends are IT geeks, I have no one to really run to for stupid medical questions. Tim’s lovely wife Holly is an anatomy geek and I sent her a question regarding my mystery pain. I did dig through my college anatomy book and gave up when looking for the specific tendon so I just put the cameraphone to use:

I love my Treo.

Oh, so the next hint for where I am going: You need a visa to go there if you hold a US passport.

You’d think that I would have learned this lesson already, but I seem to be a creature of habit. Outside of Philly Girl, there are two other women who seem to stick out in memory as having the same characteristics of wanting me close in their lives but not wanting me in their lives, if that makes any sense. But that happens a lot.

So I voted today for the Republican Primary in Illinois, which is a little like voting against the popular kid for student council. It looks like Judy Baar Topinka won the nomination for the Republican candidate for Governor, going up against Governor Dipshit, Rod Blagojevich in November. I hate them both because they are both douchebags. I wouldn’t trust either one of them to manage a paper route let alone hold office. I think I have to vote for Rod on general principles, but he just sucks.

I’m tired and going to get some sleep, although my last few nights have been incredibly bizarre in terms of sleeping, dreams and how I’ve ended up in the morning. It’s a bad thing when you fall out of the bed at night.

I got bored and took photos of the protest down Michigan Avenue. Here’s a link to the photos. Most of them suck. ISO 1600 with an IS lens was still like 1/3″ shutter speed so there’s blur on some. Sorry.

I felt like shit all of last week – tired, nauseated – all that fun stuff. I really think that I had the Norwalk virus, which sucks big sweaty balls. So I apologize for the shittier than normal blog posts over the last week. It’s not much fun when you’re moaning like a walrus on the couch at night for being sickly.

Is it worth coughing up some cash to have someone redesign the blog and/or moving the comments outside the Blogger comments?