Where I went in China

With the devastating earthquake in China so soon after my return, I have had about a dozen people e-mailing to ask if I was close to the affected area in Siuchan or Chengdu. While I wasn't in Siuchan province, I spent two weeks in the neighbouring provinces of Yunnan and Hunan.

View Larger Interactive Map

The maps of China on Google and Yahoo are very limited, so the map in my travel journal couldn't find the places that I visited. So, I made this map using the satellite versions to help find the "smaller" cities that were not marked on the maps. The red cross on the map is Chengdu, about 60km south of the epicentre of the earthquake. Places visited during my most recent trip are marked in red, my 2004 trip is marked in blue, and my visit to China during my 1992 trip to Asia is marked in green. You can click on the coloured markers and an info bubble opens up with some details. If you view the larger map, there is a table of contents on the left, listing all the places I visited, which is also clickable.

Photos from my travels are on Flickr which also has a map showing the geographical location where the photos were taken. It is a great feature, but it won't let me add other markers to the map, so I couldn't add a marker for Chengdu.

The Google / Yahoo war rages on. I live in two worlds that just can't get along. I like Picasa (Google) for offline photo organization, but I use Flickr (Yahoo) for online photo storage. They don't work together. This blog is in Google, but my travel journal was on Yahoo, for easier integration with my photo site. The map couldn't locate many of the places I visited (despite populations of a million or more), so I had to create a Google map too. I guess that I just have to face that I'm a blogging geek and should just enjoy the fact that I have choices. It is like my friend's recent dilemma: she regularly went to two different gyms - one for squash and one for fitness classes. She couldn't pick just one gym to join, so she continues to go to both. I have learned from her that accepting this is half the battle. But will Google win the war?

On the road again...

To get my mind off renovating, it is time for me to hit the highway, or actually the airport, and set out on a foreign adventure. 2007 was a pretty good year, with trips to Paris and New York. I figure that 2008 is the perfect time to revisit Beijing, and see for myself how the Olympics preparations are coming along, and spend some quality time with my good friends Zerlina and Lennox. They've been living in Beijing for years and are planning to move after the Olympics. So if I want to see Beijing again, this is likely my best chance.

I will spend thirty days in China, which seems like a lot of time, but when you're traveling in a country as vast and as populated as China, it is almost insignificant. This time I will go to Hunan, Yunnan, Beijing, and Shanghai - a good compliment to my 2004 adventure in China. I want to go to Mongolia and Tibet, but that will have to wait for another trip. I hear that the sand storms this time of year are not so pleasant.

If you want to read about my travel adventures or see some photos, check out my new travel blog. I'll be updating it from the road. But I'm not leaving until March 20.