Xodan's China Blog: Epilogue

An epilogue?! What the hell, where is rest of the stuff?! Well, it’s in the works, but synching up photos from 8+ cameras and plowing through notes takes surprisingly long time plus all the RL stuff left undone before the trip are pressing on a little bit. So I thought I’ll start with my feelings now right after returning from the trip, while they are still fresh in mind. I’ll try to get at least one or two entries done per day now that I’m back in home.

Actually I’m writing this at 4am in the Monday morning and not really feeling sleepy. I guess my clock is still in Changsha time. I still have some stuff unpacked and most of the other stuff is still one huge random pile on the kitchen table. I guess I’ll have to sort it all out eventually, but I don’t really want to. It just gives such finality for the whole trip. It is now over and back to the everyday grind.

I had an absolutely wonderful time, both in the event itself and for the whole duration of the trip. It was great to meet all the new people and make new friends. Of course the language barrier did complicate things here and there a bit, but other than that everything went fairly smoothly. There were so many great new things I’ve never experienced before that I’d love to go to China again sometime.

I’ll definitely miss Changsha and the people there. While Beijing is of course much more developed city and a true metropolis, people there seemed so used to tourists and quite a lot of the stuff seemed to be adapted to western standards. Also there where so many people try to get your money it felt a little bit awkward for a Finnish guy at the beginning. Changsha felt much more like a part of the real China, it was just so vibrant and a little bit chaotic. Of course we only saw a very small portion of Beijing in the two days we were there, so my impression might be wrong.

We do have tons of photos and hours of video footage, which will surely convey our feelings much better than just mere words. It takes a while to sort them all out. Just a fair warning: I got a stuffed up nose about 6 hours after landing to China, either from some pollen or dust, and it remained so for the whole trip, so don’t be surprised if my voice sounds a bit nasal in some of the videos. It seems to be clearing now.

I’d like to give huge thanks for the whole Dream team, Mr. Tin, Luvis, Jimmy, Steven, Mimi, Sonny, Pan Pan, Jared, Nicole, Selina and all the other great new friends we got to meet. Also greetings for For the Horde guys, especially to HANS! I can never look at him with a straight face anymore. Stay tuned for more blog entries from our trip of the Dream.