First day

I'm travelling with my boyfriend, Alex for the next 3 weeks in New Zealand. We'll part ways when he heads home to San Francisco and I move on to Bali.
Our trip kicked off Christmas Eve day with a flight to Honolulu where we laid over for 7 hours. The stop was long enough to take an afternoon stroll into Waikiki.
We had lunch with my ex-coworker, Elise. Then spent the rest of the day checking out the beach and having drinks. Not a bad way to break up a flight across the Pacific.

Ala Moana Beach, Honolulu

Alex and myself

We landed in Auckland the next morning on the 26th. Christmas day dropped into the void when we crossed the international dateline.

Where I'm going - to the best of my knowledge

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After months of procrastination and people's loss of faith in my intention to go on this journey, I finally put together a plan for a 6 month trip around the world. Here's the full itinerary:

Dec 24, 2012 - Depart from San Francisco
Dec 26 - Auckland, New Zealand
Jan 14, 2013 - Bali, Indonesia
Jan 18 - Hanoi, Vietnam
Jan 26 - Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in Cambodia
Jan 30 - Bangkok and Phuket in Thailand
Early February - Yangon, Myanmar
Feb 14 - Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Yangshuo, Guilin, and Hong Kong in China
Mar 11 - India
April 8 - Kathmandu and the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal
April 20 - Turkey
May - Greece, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria
Jun 1 - Provence, France
Jun 12 - Venice, Italy
Jun 21 - Fly back home


How I chose these places
Besides avoiding places I've seen before, there were a few filters I applied when planning the stops. I definitely knew I wanted to see the Old World - particularly S/SE Asia and the Orient. I also wanted to focus on cultural and historic locations more than anything else. They make for good visual inspiration for my dreams. But there's still a lot I'm not including in this trip that I would have loved to see, which is why this is only the first of many circles across the Earth...hopefully.

Who I'm going with
Mostly by myself. Yup, Asian girl traveling alone. One eventually acclimates to the awkward stares from people wondering if you're of their same species. Thankfully, I found a few people to sign up for various increments of this trip.

My travel philosophy
Keep it cheap as much as possible. I'll frequently take advantage of hostels and public transport. Let's see how much worse buses can get from the SF Muni. I must admit, though, I'm a pampered old lady and I plan to spoil myself with luxury housing and food every here and there.

What happened to my job, you ask?
I quit in July. As much as I enjoyed my little Dilbert life, it was time to break free from the golden handcuffs and try something new. I plan to bum out until sometime in 2014 when depleted monetary resources will force me back to the working world. But who knows. Maybe I'll stumble into Shangri-La before then.