Jetlag Update

Firstly, here’s the fasting article that I mentioned a few days ago. ta-da!

And I must admit, so far so good. I definitely struggled a bit during my flight as I tried to set my body up for the new time zone, but when I laid down to fall asleep at the hotel I had no problem nodding off. More impressive was that I was able to sleep from 11pm until 7am only waking up once. Now, I’m still not convinced that the technique is flawless because last time I flew to China I think I arrived in the morning and had to tough it out through a full day. This time I arrived at night and all I had to do was make it to the hotel.

But if tonight’s sleep is as painless as last night’s and my return trip proceeds just as smoothly then I think it’s safe to say that fasting is going to become a standard part of my international travel routine.

Arrival

I have arrived in Beijing!! The flight actually felt very reasonable. I was flying Air China and I must admit it didn’t have some of the amenities that one grows accustomed to on American flights. Namely, no air nozzels and very limited TV screens. That said, the service and food was wonderful and the airfair was very affordable. I had a window seat which let me finish Dune uninterrupted. I even got a little sleep.

For this trip, I experimented with a jet lag technique that I read about in some online article. Basically, the theory is that if you fast before your trip and then start eating on the new schedule your body will force itself to acclimate more quickly to help you find and hunt food. I stopped eating at 8pm on Thursday and didn’t start again until 5pm Friday. Now that I’m in Beijing, I will try and sleep and we’ll see if this theory works well. I really hope it does because this is a short trip and I don’t have tons of time to dominate jet lag before I have to fly home and screw everything up again.

There should be plenty of updates this week as I have a computer in my room. As a start, here are a few pictures of my hotel room.

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Note the nice tall ceilings and the split brick columns. The pathway in the back leads into a second room containing the bed.

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There are a bunch of ceramic pots and camel and horse statues adorning the mirrored glass shelves. It’s a pretty nice room.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and get in touch with Mika’s sister. My colleagues don’t arrive here until tomorrow night so this would be a great opportunity to do something fun. Stay tuned!

Off to Beijing

Hello readers!

I’m off to Beijing. While it is a work trip, I should get some personal time on Sunday. Hopefully I’ll be meeting my friend Mika’s sister and her husband in Beijing. They live there and speak the language well, so it’ll be nice to have an English speaking friend nearby. Mika also passed on some great ideas for things to do while I’m there.

Things will very likely be quiet around these parts for the next week as I traverse the far east. If I find myself having some spare time to put up some scheduled posts, I’ll do so – though my time is limited between now to tomorrow’s departure. OR, if I can find internet access while abroad, I will update the website with some degree of regularity.

For those with publishing abilities, feel free to log in and post on the site while I’m gone. Two hints:

1. change the tag. Quickthoughts appear on the right, Features on the left (not recommended). Everything else in the middle. The default is a Quickthought.
2. For non-quickthoughts, add in a short quip for the optional excerpt (it’s found in one of the expandable tabs below the text editor) otherwise the site will double post your work.

Good luck!

The China Trip

I’ve begun preparations for my fast approaching China trip. I’ll be taking a half day at work tomorrow to conclude my work priorities and then flying out of JFK on Friday.

My apologies for the lack of updates in the last day or so, my prep has taken a fair bit of time. Additionally, I’m trying to squeeze in as many extracurricular activities as I can, while I can.

Stay tuned!