Yeah, yeah, I know

So, its been WAAAY too long since either one of us wrote a blog entry about anything that we are doing on our trip. Im sorry. Between travel days, flying over the pacific ocean, and waiting in immigration lines a multitude of times, somehow the opportunity escaped us. However, after spending the last 16 days on the beach, I guess theres hardly an excuse left to explain the absence of a post. So, here is a post to cover all days between November 4th, the day our Everest trek made it safely back to Kathmandu, until the kickoff of the 2nd half of The Trip. It might be a long one.



Nepal.


After the trek we headed to Pokhara, a small town by the base of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. Its about a 7 hour, very treacherous, very bumpy, very hot bus ride from Kathmandu to Pokhara, which we happily did with our new buddies Christina and Brian from New Foundland. The town sits on a lake so theres boating, theres hiking, theres eating, and theres happy hours. A lot of them. We spent about 10 days in the Pokhara area and over that time period, I think we attended 95% of those happy hours in search of the cheapest Everest beer. Three of the days spent in Pokhara were at a yoga center in the hills. This was a great experience as it forced us both to relax a bit more as well as experience one of the most widespread Hindu practices right at the source.


Instead of traveling directly back to Kathmandu, we made a stop along the way in Bandipur, a town located at the top of a ridge (only accessible by extremely overcrowded 4x4 taxis). As it is not completely easy to get to, it has been spared a heavy influx of tourist businesses and has remained an old, very Nepali, very local town that feels like time stopped moving in 1884.

After a few days in Bandipur, we spent our last few days in Nepal in Bhaktapur, which is the old capital of Nepal and a city rich with Hindu temples and local culture. There were so many amazing temples in a small area, and being in their presence was one of the most exotic and mysterious experiences we've had on this trip yet.





Hong Kong


We arrived in Hong Kong with food poisoning. 35 days in Nepal and we felt completely fine. Until our redeye flight to Hong Kong. My fever set off the temperature control at Hong Kong immigration which almost barred us from even entering the country. For our time in HK, we settled into a shoebox studio apartment in the middle of the city which was modern and new, a stark contrast to the parade of Nepali guesthouses we were used to. The next few weeks were spent hanging out with some much missed friends, visiting the Hong Kong racetrack, walking around Taoist temple complexes, seeing movies, visiting Macau, and going to see the Gorillaz.








China


Unfortunately, we had very limited time in China, however it proved to be okay as this was by far the most difficult country weve encountered in terms of eating and communication. No one speaks English and no one makes Matt-friendly pasta. The two stops in China we made were in Chengdu, and then again to Zhuhai.

Chengdu is a large city in the western part of China. It is the gateway to exploration of Tibet as well as being home to Sichuan cuisine. But screw that, lets get to the important stuff. This is totally where the pandas live. Their natural habitat is in the mountains immediately north of the city, and the ridiculously awesome Panda Research and Breeding Center is about a 20 min taxi ride from my hotel. We went twice. One day was spent feeding pandas, touring the grounds, cleaning their cages, and generally being happy people. The second day was The Day Annie Held A Panda On Her Very Own Lap. It was also the day six 5-month old panda puppies played in the garden and thoroughly entertained the Shustrins for about 2.5 hours. Theres not much else to say other than that I wanted so badly to steal a panda and bring it home. Thankfully, Matt talked me out of it since we figured Chinese customs officials might not look too kindly on that plan.





Zhuhai. Im not sure why one would ever go to Zhuhai. I know why we went though - because we could. It was an hour ferry from Hong Kong, had a overland border crossing into Macau, and we had one more entry left on our China visa. Thats about it. We spent our days shopping at the uber-massive underground mall for bootleg DVDs and China souvenirs, and learning how to pronounce Zhuhai. Its Joo-hi. Our nights were spent at the one western restaurant in the area, owned by a very friendly Zhuhai-ian. I know im being all negative about it, but being seriously now, there were 2 good takeaways from Zhuhai. The first was literally, a takeaway. Matt "forgot" that his hot springs uniform shorts were still in my bag when we left a hot springs resort, which was probably the only really worthwhile thing to do in Zhuhai. The second takeaway was the experience of being ushered through trapdoors hidden in the walls of various clothing shops that hid bustling bootleg DVD stores behind them. It was so 007. After 3 days of Zhuhai we'd had enough, so we crossed the border and spent a night in Macau, playing poker, drinking lychee martinis, and learning how to play Sic-bo.


Boarding a plane to San Francisco officially ended the 1st half of The Trip. We've traveled countless miles through 9 countries, 13 time zones, been through immigration checkpoints over 30 times and taken about 23 Gigs of photos. It was both really sad and amazingly empowering knowing we'd completed this part of the journey. We've come out the other side as a happier and stronger unit as well as having had some unforgettable personal experiences.
Once home, a 10 day break from traveling really hit the spot. There was bagel eating, sourdough bread eating, sandwich eating, Tostito-and-milk eating, football watching, free laundry, and plenty of family. It was a great way to kick-off the 2nd half of The Trip feeling refreshed and ready.