A Rough Start, But a Start None The Less

Since my last post plans came together. I'm currently in Seoul, Korea at my friend Jon-o's house.

But from the beginning: I bought a round trip to Seoul for a month starting January 14. The rough start was that I mis-read my ticket, missed my flight and United didn't have any good solutions for me other than dropping $800 additional bucks to get here 4 days later than I had planned. Soooooo, I kept the United "credit" - got onto the internet and found a ticket leaving the next morning for $200 more than I had originally paid. ($1000 for a next day ticket! Somebody's on my side for a deal like that) I bought it since over the next 6 months I'm spending a LOT of time in airports, and I'll be able to use that ticket for anything from flying to India, back east to the Outer Banks or back from Alaska. Whatever, it's money in the bank and luckily I have the credit.

Now I'm here for 7 days, and then Jon-o & I are off to Hong Kong January 23rd. Supposedly spending 2 nights on Hong Kong Island, than a boat ride for a night in Macau, and then back to Kowloon (Hong Kong mainland) for the actual Chinese New Year festivities. I may have a cocktail or 2 ;)

At this point Jon-o has to go back to Seoul for work, and I catch another flight to Bangkok. This part of the trip is still very much up in the air. Because it's basically February at this point I'm leaning towards not going into northern Thailand and heading south toward the island of Phuket. South of there is the Krabi Peninsula where I hope to spend a few days deep water soloing. (rock climbing over water without ropes)

From here I hope to travel to the east coast and catch a ferry to Cambodia, travel overland to Phnom Penh, take a boat to Siem Reap & explore Angkor Wat. Eventually circling back to Bangkok (overland) - flying back to Seoul for 2 nights and then home on February 12th just in time for Dorothy's birthday.

I'm back in SD on the 18th of February, 12 days later I board a plane for 3 weeks in Australia & New Zealand.

I'm not sure if I'm road-tripping to Alaska in April or June, but whatever, either month will work out.

The first week of May I'm climbing Mount Rainier with 2 old friends (Jimmy Diliberto & Andy Gough) - details have yet to be ironed out but it seems this is actually going to happen. I can't wait.

Sometime shortly after that I'm leaving for New Delhi for some India exploration, but the real goal is to meet Gough & Scott Jablow in Kathmandu for our trek to EBC. (Everest Base Camp) - this one needs to be ironed out more, they've already bought their tickets and I WILL be meeting them there, I'm just not sure when I'm coming back since I'll need to travel back overland to New Delhi for a flight back to Cali.

July we're heading to the Outer Banks for some R & R and after that, well, I'm pushing for Portugal, Spain, Morocco, maybe Egypt. But my Dad might get us involved in a Mediteranean cruise, which isn't such a bad thing, just a little more "civilized" than I'm used to.

Who knows if this can all happen, I'd like it to but don't have any idea where I'll stand financially at that point. We shall see...