Sonoma County

Adventures in Asia... not quite to China yet but I'd like to chronicle the lead up to the big adventure as well. So here goes...


Started summer off with some good times with an old friend up in the beautiful Sonoma County.  We spent the day mostly just relaxing.  Took her dogs out to the park for some "dogerobie" followed by some home brewing.  Boiled some mash, bottled some brew, ate some pizza, and drank some home made beers and ciders.  The pizza was damn good (Pizza Gourmet) in Santa Rosa if anyone is interested.  The Gilroy was what I ordered, sausage, garlic, tomatoes, and more.  MMmmmm.

On the way back home I took a slight detour and stopped at the Marin Headlands for some pictures of the Golden Gate.  It was about as windy as I have ever experienced.  It was damn near impossible to keep the camera steady even with the tripod, which made taking good pictures pretty difficult.  As a result I resorted to a little bit of experimental post processing to make the photos hopefully look a little better.  I usually don't do too much with my photos in post (mostly because I don't know what I am doing) but I feel like the results were pretty good.  Let me know what you think?

Preparing

I am about 3 months out from beginning my teaching job in China.  August can not come soon enough.  I am ready to experience the food, learn the language, meet new people, explore a new part of the world, and become a more well-rounded person.  I wish that I could leave today.

I have begun watching documentaries on China, reading about the culture, the country, things to see and do, etc.  Because of that I seem to have China on my mind quite a bit lately.  The other night I fell asleep while watching a documentary on China, just after having spoken to one of the representatives from the school in China that I will be teaching at.  Because of this, I had China floating around in my head and I had a most peculiar dream.  I was in Australia, meeting up with an old friend for dinner.  However, I had just arrived from China and was in possession of a tiny, baby panda.  It was so small that it could wrap itself around my pointer finger and cling to my hand.  And that is just what it did.  It was afraid to be in a new place and it would not let go of my finger.  Needless to say dinner with my Aussie friend was quite interesting.  I could not pry the panda loose and people were all staring at me.  I wound up getting ejected from the restaurant due to the huge distraction I was causing.  Waking up has never been so bizarre.

Anyway, I am starting this blog now as I make preparations to move to Shanghai in mid August.  I hope to keep this blog updated with stories, photos, links, and more documenting my adventures in Asia.

Thanks for reading!