Greetings readers. I write to you on a new dawn for nyesmind. The original purpose for this blog was to document some of the travails of my last semester of college spent abroad in Tianjin, China. Two things occurred. The first was that I found a way to subvert the great firewall and access facebook. After being once again connected to our ever ubiquitous social networking site, nyesmind no longer was my main line of communication with the digital world. The second was that weebly started to give me issues in terms of uploading pictures. The first made blogging a chore, the second made it a big chore. However, this time around things are going to be a little different.
Somewhere in Yunnan province the masturbatory nature of my travels hit me. Traveling alone kind of sucks. Yet, that I've nobody to travel seems to be a fact of life that will remain for some time to come. Further, one does not learn about Japanese culture by visiting the imperial palace. One learns about a society's culture by purchasing toothpaste, riding the subway, getting lost kayaking. So what the hell was I doing, temple hopping all by myself? Sure these places were kind of neat, but did they really justify the massive investment such a trip called for? Moreover, what the hell was I planning on doing in my future travels? Earlier tonight the answer came to me. Nyesmind. It shall be my traveling raison d'être. Hmm... actually, that sounds a little bit much. Let's dial it back a little with a qualifier. “At least for the Hong Kong portion of my next trip”. Maybe even one more. “Or certainly an important facet of my day to day life at any rate”. That works. One or two entries a week is a good enough reason to wake up and take pictures of things.
But beyond Hong Kong, Nyesmind will serve a further purpose. Starting in March my main focus in life is learning Mandarin at Liaoning Shifan Daxue in Dalian. Hopefully after a year or two I'll come back to my home country with a skill set worthy of a living wage. During this time a meticulously kept weblog should help to keep my English language skills intact, keep me sane, push me to a more adventurous lifestyle all the while documenting my experiences for posterity. Dalian seems to be quite an interesting place too. Within spitting distance of North Korea, I'm told it's a destination for Korean refuges. As a port city Dalian attracts an eclectic mix of non-western foreigners, yet at the same time it is one of China's more modern cities. So over the next few years expect more out of nyesmind.weebly.com. Hopefully it will serve us both well.
Somewhere in Yunnan province the masturbatory nature of my travels hit me. Traveling alone kind of sucks. Yet, that I've nobody to travel seems to be a fact of life that will remain for some time to come. Further, one does not learn about Japanese culture by visiting the imperial palace. One learns about a society's culture by purchasing toothpaste, riding the subway, getting lost kayaking. So what the hell was I doing, temple hopping all by myself? Sure these places were kind of neat, but did they really justify the massive investment such a trip called for? Moreover, what the hell was I planning on doing in my future travels? Earlier tonight the answer came to me. Nyesmind. It shall be my traveling raison d'être. Hmm... actually, that sounds a little bit much. Let's dial it back a little with a qualifier. “At least for the Hong Kong portion of my next trip”. Maybe even one more. “Or certainly an important facet of my day to day life at any rate”. That works. One or two entries a week is a good enough reason to wake up and take pictures of things.
But beyond Hong Kong, Nyesmind will serve a further purpose. Starting in March my main focus in life is learning Mandarin at Liaoning Shifan Daxue in Dalian. Hopefully after a year or two I'll come back to my home country with a skill set worthy of a living wage. During this time a meticulously kept weblog should help to keep my English language skills intact, keep me sane, push me to a more adventurous lifestyle all the while documenting my experiences for posterity. Dalian seems to be quite an interesting place too. Within spitting distance of North Korea, I'm told it's a destination for Korean refuges. As a port city Dalian attracts an eclectic mix of non-western foreigners, yet at the same time it is one of China's more modern cities. So over the next few years expect more out of nyesmind.weebly.com. Hopefully it will serve us both well.
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