Tomorrow is my last day of teaching until March 5th. Yep, that’s right … I have five weeks of vacation (for the Chinese New Year, or “Spring Festival”) right around the corner!

To take advantage of this wonderful time, I’ll be heading southwest to the lovely and talented Yunnan Province. It’s well-known as a beautiful place with a deep and rich conglomeration of cultures … and most people who have been there claim that they could’ve stayed indefinitely. I’m guessing that the same might happen to me. I’ll be traveling with various friends (Daisy, Rick, Natalie, Amy, Heidi) and will probably make some new ones along the way too!

After my classes tomorrow, I’ll hop on a bus for Changsha. Then after flying to Kunming tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be taking an overnight bus to Lijiang, where I’ll stay for a couple of days. From there, I’ll visit Shangri-La (sometimes called “Zhongdian”), Tiger Leaping Gorge (a 2-4 day hike to the deepest gorge in the world), and/or Lugu Hu (a beautiful lake on the border of Sichuan Province). Then I’ll head south to Dali and Dali Old Town for a couple of days, go back to Kunming, and finally trek south to Bannan.

That’s the tentative plan for the first 2-3 weeks. After that it’s all uncertain … I’ll probably hang out in Yunnan for another week or so then either head south into Thailand/Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia or head east to Hong Kong/Shenzhen/Macao/Guangzhou. Who knows? I just have to be back in Changsha on March 2nd for our WorldTeach midservice weekend.

One thing is certain … I’m ready to bust this joint!

Posted to webeldotnet on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 10:26 pm EST in China & My Life (comment feed). If you refer to this post on your blog, please trackback. Thanks!