Preparation Tidbits, part 1

I have spent the last few months preparing for my upcoming year-long trip in numerous ways, all of which will hopefully be discussed on this blog in the next month or so. Even though I'm still not quite finished with my southern road trip (two entries left!), I felt the following factoid marked a good place to start blogging in the present, rather than the past:

This past weekend I went with my father to MicroCenter, and we purchased an HP Mini Netbook, an adorable 60 GB mini-computer. It is my graduation present and I will be taking it with me on my trip. I'm expecting it to be a combination picture repository, entertainment center, travel agent, long distance phone, and word processor. I will be saving pictures, listening to music, scheduling flights, finding couch surfing or SERVAS hosts, and writing in a journal/writing essays and articles/here on this very blog.

Here is where I show the world exactly how nerdy I am: I have named my new netbook Passepartout, which is pronounced Pahs-partoo. Passepartout is the name of Phileas Fogg's manservant in "Around the World in 80 Days" by Jules Verne. I am feeling pretty pleased with myself.

My Left Foot, Volume Two

So the good news is that my foot is not fractured. After much hullaballoo, an under-construction hospital building (what optimists would refer to as "Radiology"), and much cajoling in order to get them to give me a lead apron, I took two sets of X-Rays and the doctor, "couldn't see a big problem." I don't really know what this means, but I looked at the X-rays and there wasn't anything in there that screamed "fracture," so I'm taking it as a win. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, though. I'm hobbling along with one crutch and trying not to think about it too much.

After some sad goodbying with my interpreter and her sister (whom I'd gotten pretty close to, they're the only Chinese people I've met so far who share my sense of humor and we giggled a lot together) I hopped a bus to Gongshan, the northernmost city in the Nujiang Valley. We went to Bingzhongluo, another town one hour north, today, and were within one hour's drive of Tibet. I kind of wanted to tell our driver to gun it and not look back, but... not so interested in getting caught by the law, and I didn't have my things with me. Tibet will come another time.

Anyway, I've been here a day and a half now and will be here another day and a half. I'm getting tired, but this last week should be fun-- back in Lanping with Jackson, Linda, and Xiong Li Mei, who is on summer vacation. I'll get to visit Xiong Li Mei's village and help her tend goats, which is her job when she's home from school. It'll be an adventure, that's for certain.

And when I have blogger access again (I'm having my mom post this as the computer I am is lacking a crucial plug-in to get into blogger): my Kashgar entry.