Paris Pictures

Here are some pictures from Paris:

Paris

Fast Plane to China

For quite a long while now there has been this looming question in my mind: When and under what circumstances will I be able to enter into China?

China has always been a place that I have wanted to travel to ever since I was very young. So, in a way, a trip to China has been a long time coming. I felt very disheartened that it seemed like I was going to need to travel back to America in order to obtain a tourist visa in order to get into China. After a lot of phone calls, questions, bookings and aimless wanderings through the streets of London in search for a way to get a Chinese visa, I am happy to say that I have secured it, finally. In fact, I will have more time in China then I thought I was going to be allowed. I have a double entry visa, meaning I can enter into China twice between now and February. Each time I enter the mainland of China I will have 60 days to visit. In other words, I have a visa that is good for 4 months of time in China since all I need to do is go to Hong Kong and then turn right around and come straight back. This is quite exciting, considering I thought the best I was going to be able to pull off (if I was going to be able to get a visa in the first place) was a 1 month stay. So this is a wonderful turn of events and I am quite excited about it. On top of that, since I already had to book flights into and out of China in order to secure a visa, I do not have to now worry and contemplate making travel arrangements.

I am certainly going to use the flight that I already booked to get into China, however, the flight that I booked leaving China I will most likely need to cancel or change. Thankfully, I found a carrier that will refund my ticket completely upon cancellation. If I end up changing to a different flight, if that flight happens to be more expensive than the first booking, then I will only need to pay the difference in the cost. The flight in question is from Hong Kong to Japan. I do want to see Japan at some point, but I will probably not head there on the day that I happened to book.

On September 13th I will be flying to Beijing. The instructions for turning in an application for a Chinese visa was very specific and stated that I needed to provide "flight" details in and out of China. I did not want to leave any chance of having my application rejected so I booked flights instead of booking a train ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway like I had always intended. This has certainly made things easier, but I am a bit disappointed I will not be able to experience the train. I am quite relieved though that I do not need to deal with obtaining a Russian visa as well. From what I have read and heard, those visas are even more difficult to obtain and are much more restrictive then Chinese visas. My first thought about how I would leave China involved me on a ferry to Japan. I was quite excited by this prospect, but again did not want to stray from the very precise directions of the visa application instructions. Also, there was no way for me to prove that I had reservations on a ferry leaving China with most companies I found.

Being in Beijing so soon after the conclusion of the 2008 Olympics will be an interesting experience. I think I am going to spend a few nights in Beijing so that I may check things out. I want to see some of the buildings that were constructed for the Olympics and just explore around in general. I was made to book a hotel stay for the purpose of getting a visa. It was not difficult finding a relatively cheap hotel in Beijing, however, I am thinking that it will probably be more of an experience to my liking if I stayed in a hostel rather than a hotel. I am still contemplating and considering this. In either case, I should not be out any money because my hotel reservations are fully refundable as well. After a few days in Beijing I will be headed straight for Jiaozhou where the volunteer project is located that I am interested in.

I have been communicating back and forth with one of the main people at the volunteer site over the past several weeks. It seems that once I am in the country on a tourist visa, it should not be very difficult to get me set up with a work visa. In which case, I could be in China for much longer than 4 months if I choose to do so. Then again, there are also some very inexpensive flights from China, Thailand, Japan to Australia or New Zealand. Who knows what the future holds. I am quite excited for my trip to China though.

Passion Purpose and Meaning

A week from tomorrow I will be getting a on train in London heading for Paris. Life, again, is about to change. I have grown accustomed to life here at my cousin's in Seaton, England. Things here are quiet (except for the occasional pigeon that will not stop hooting), safe, and relaxing. Well, it is a relaxing environment anyway. My mind is rarely ever relaxed.

Being able to come and live in a new place for as long as I have has been a wonderful experience. I have been able to participate in things that I never dreamed I would be able to partake in. I have invested a lot of time into making Jerry and Charlotte's house function better and I hope to one day be able to look at the finished product of their home and all the projects that have started or will be starting someday soon. Working very closely with Jerry on his test which he has such a passion for has been a rewarding undertaking. The test is coming along quite nicely I feel and I am excited to see what the future of the test will bring. All of my numerous stays in London have been great. I find that London can be a great place to just walk around in; even if there is nothing you intend to do, walking London you see so many things and many different faces (most of them international). The last time I was in London I must have been giving off an impression that I live there because many people kept stopping and asking me how to get to this place or that. Amazingly, I knew exactly what they were talking about and how they should get there. I felt as though I was back home working in a police uniform once more. It was at that point I think I realized that I had been here in this country for to long and that perhaps I have overstayed my welcome.

When I first arrived here in the UK, I had no intention to stay as long as I have. I figured I would be here at the most 2 months. After leaving to go on a tour of Scotland and Ireland I made the connection that something was wrong and I was not doing what I wanted to be doing. Yes, I was traveling; yes I was seeing and doing things that I had never done before, but I was not happy doing it. I felt lost, confused and alone with no answers and no escape. The prospect of coming back to Seaton sounded better and better every day that went by when I was up north. And so I returned to my cousins and to the projects that I had left uncompleted. I can now leave Seaton feeling somewhat satisfied with the amount of things I have gotten done in my time here.

Besides the last few days, emotionally, I feel have made progress in the recent past. I think I am on the right track to something good...not really sure what that good thing is. I am currently in Seaton by myself. Jerry is down in London. The day that he left things fell apart in my head. It has been a rough few days. I keep thinking about how I felt when I was traveling in Scotland and primarily Ireland. I cannot help this feeling of dread that I will experience the same thing again once I leave here on my way to Paris. I would like to think that things will be different this time around; that I am more prepared or something like that. I don't know...I suppose we will see what happens. Certainly this time will be different because I am heading to Germany where I will volunteer for 2 weeks. After that, things are still up in the air regarding where I will go next, but I am dedicated to getting to China. I will be applying for a tourist visa for entry into China this Tuesday. Fingers crossed, Wednesday I will have a visa in hand. In which case I will be flying into China on September 13th.

One of things that I have come to understand is that I feel as though I have no purpose in life at the moment. I have no reason for being here, and by here I mean life in general. I think this is one of the contributing factors to why I felt as I did when I was traveling Scotland and Ireland and why I feel like I do now. There has only been two times in my life that I can say that I truly felt like I had purpose and reason for being here. First was police explorers and second was Irene. Being here in Seaton has allowed me to feed off of my cousin's purpose. His passion has fueled my drive, but it is not my passion, my reason, my purpose. Now that drive has ended and my brain is again left to ponder the future and the big IF that has been on my mind for a long time now. Will I ever again find that thing that gives me my own fuel, my own passion, my own purpose? I suppose if I had no fear of not finding it then it would not really matter if I find it or not. I do carry that fear, however.

In other news, one of my credit card numbers was stolen and used for purchases in Florida. It is a good thing I caught this now because it is much easier for me to deal with this stuff while I have a base to work from rather than dealing with it on the road in hostels or internet cafes. It is much better to make phone calls to America when I do not have to worry about how much time I have left before I get kicked off the computer. My bank has cancelled my card and has issued me a new one, but cannot send it overseas. Thankfully, my parents are being kind enough to help as the middlemen in the transaction of getting me my new card. The only problem is: I do have another credit/debit card that I can use to get money, although I have not tried it here in the UK. I am also not 100% sure I remember the pin number. It might just so happen that I will have no money except for what is on me until I get to Germany. Amazingly, this is not stressing me out. In fact I am somewhat indifferent to it all. I know that it will all work out somehow or another. If only I had that same feeling when it came to my travels in general...or more importantly, my life.

It is upsetting to me that I am missing out on so much in my friends and families lives. I am missing getting to see my nephew and niece grow up and change. I just hope that when I do return I will be able to cultivate strong meaningful relationships with them even though I have been absent from their lives. I am missing out on friends and family members weddings. Today is my friend Jonathan's wedding day. I already missed my cousin V's wedding. I am glad I got to see pictures from it though. It looks like it was a wonderful day and I was sad to have missed it. Missing important events like this causes conflict in me, but I guess not enough to get me to come home though. It now looks as though I will miss the birth of the next child to be christened a Burgess come September. I have missed both the birth of Daniel and Laela which I now look back and wish I had the foresight to have made a better decision with regards to being there.

Change

My time in the UK is coming to an end. My 6 month tourist visa expires at the end of August. It is now time for me to set my sights on what I will be doing in the future and where I will be going.

I find myself in a realm of constant fear and doubt. I wake up every morning and the first conscious thought that comes to mind evokes a feeling of deep rooted fear. My stomach tightens and churns, my heart rate quickens and I take a deep breath to try and ward it off. Though I cannot say for sure what it is that I fear, I can make guesses and say that it is my future or my health or death. Perhaps I fear that there will never again be a time when I wake up with a clear and fresh mind; a mind that has no worries and can live life in the moment.

Living life in the moment. Living for the here and the now. This is something that I cannot remember ever doing. I am always thinking about the future and what I need to do now to make myself happy later and in doing so, ruin the now. I can see this conundrum yet I do not know how to fix it. I can barely remember a time when I did not think and live like this. In fact, I am not even sure there was a time when I was not constantly thinking about the future and what it holds for me. Certainly every day of school was a daily means of torture in the now so that perhaps sometime in the future when I had a good job and a house and a family then I could start living life happily on a daily basis in the moment. It is hard to say what I thought, or rather, how I thought, prior to elementary school.

How do I go about thinking and living my life in a way that I have never experienced or known before? As long as I can remember everything I do in the now is a means to an end, but never the end itself. I want to live a life with purpose and meaning. I want to live life with a reason for being. I want purpose in the here and now. I cannot stand living out my days in fear, suffering and depression with only a slight glimmer of lighted hope off in the distance that perhaps some day I will figure all of this shit out and be at peace within. It seems as though the more time that passes and the more thought I give it the more that light dims. A fundamental change within seems like the only course of action. Yet at the same time I am afraid of doing so.

I fear that in change I will lose everything that I have and know. I fear the loss of my friends and family. I fear the loss of me and my identity. In essence, I fear that by changing how and what I think I will lose everything that is important and good in my life. It then becomes this never-ending struggle in my head of needing to change but not wanting to at the same time.

This trip is all about change. One reason I left home was to distance myself from all that I know so that change would be an easier task to accomplish. Yet here I am at my cousins in a place that feels safe and comforting doing things that feel helpful and noble feeling as though I am stuck.

And so, again I look towards the future and to the next spot on the map where my feet will fall. I now know that it will be Paris next. I will be there for a few days starting on the 10th of August. Then it is on to Germany where on the 16th I will start a volunteer workcamp helping a communal village; doing what, I am not exactly sure. After that, I am leaving my itinerary open with only one exception.

There is a volunteer place in China that I have found that is quite exciting for me. In my search for a volunteer experience I have been looking for something exactly like this. The place is called The Wuzhi Experiment and here is the website. Given the opportunity, I would leave straight from the Germany after this upcoming volunteer position is completed for Wuzhi. However, due to the Olympic Games, it does not seem like I can get a visa for any duration of stay in China at this point. I find this quite odd because I would have thought the Chinese government would have made it easier for people to get into their country rather than more difficult. Alas, last April China implemented policy changes to the issuance of visas making it much more difficult for everyone to enter into China for any reason.

I have had the thought that I could come home after Germany and then leave for China once the visa restrictions are lifted in October after the Games are over. I would love to see everyone as I have been looking forward to it since I left in February. I do now know what will happen though. I can stay in mainland Europe for 90 days without a visa which could carry me all the way into the first week of November. There is also no assurance that the Chinese government will in fact lift the visa policy changes that were made in April after the Games have concluded.

Forced Inspiration

From Pictures of Me

My hair is getting pretty long.

I feel that it is time that I write something even though I have not really had the inspiration to write anything. I thought that years from now when I reread these blogs, I do not want to have to guess about what I must have been doing during this period when I was not writing anything.

I am back in Seaton, England at my cousins house once more. I have been spending much of my time here helping my cousin develop his test which I have mentioned on my blog before. It is exciting to have come so far in the development, yet there is still so much more to do. Lately I have been working on a parallel version of the test which basically entails making a whole new test that is assessing exactly the same things as the first test. A second version of the test is highly useful when it comes to testing people a second time because it will maximize the possibly that the only reason a patient is performing better on the test is because they are actually getting better and not just because they have already taken the test once or twice before and have learned it (although that would be a good thing for a brain injured patient).

When I am not working on the test I am typically thinking about my future and what my life holds for me after my time here in England. My UK VISA expires in late August. So one way or another, I am going to be leaving here come late August. I have been spending a lot of time contemplating where it is that I will go and what I will do when I get there. Home has been a huge consideration, but it does not feel right. Besides, I have no clue what I would do what when I got there. One thing that I have not really done very much of on this journey so far is volunteer. That was one of my major goals before leaving. I did some volunteering for a short period of time when I was in Mexico, but I did not feel like I was contributing very much. At that time I was just concentrating on coming back home after being glad to be alive after the sailing debacle. Anyway, one thing that I have been doing is trying to find a semi full time, medium term to long term volunteer position that sounds right for me. Not exactly the easiest of tasks. I have found that there are a lot of websites designed to help people just like me. Most of these sites (like to many things in this world) are all about making money and nothing else. They act as middle men to hook up volunteers with places that are looking for volunteers. You then end up paying them, the middle men, thousands of dollars to come and do some volunteer work which does not include the price of travel to the volunteer destination. Who knows how much of that money goes to the volunteer program or community and how much stays in their pocket. These people are providing a service though, so I guess it is only fair that they get paid for their service. I think I am still a little bitter about the prospect of having to pay money to volunteer my time. Or perhaps I am just cheap, like my father says. In any case, I am weary of these sites and how they try their best to sell these programs that sound shady in some respects.

Now then, having said all that; there are lots of possibilities of where I can go and what I can do provided I fork out some dough. Lately my focus has been looking for volunteer positions in China and the surrounding area like Thailand and Japan. There are some interesting programs I am currently considering, but I have not made any definitive decisions as of yet. Stay tuned as I will certainly write a blog when I know for sure where I am going and what I am doing.

I have also added a couple of random pictures to my England Album; have a look:

England