Not impossible to do

It's time again, but this time, the goal is a little less out there than South Dakota. The tickets we have say China…

Of course, our friends have already called us idiots—most had the courtesy to do it behind our backs—for undertaking such a trip without a tour. Even my well-traveled uncle told me last night that "it's not impossible to do."

The problem is the language. Apparently Chinese taxi drivers don't have the common decency to learn English. So unless you've got a card with the exact address written on it in the Empress's Chinese, you're in for a long, meaningless conversation that ends with you on the side of the road looking for another cab.

The truth is, I have every expectation of this turning into a disaster. You may have gotten the impression that, with the amount of stamps in our passports, Nicole and I have picked up some rudimentary orienteering skills. Such an impression would be faulty. In fact, we have spent several days of our lives in aggregate staring at maps, streetsigns, and landmarks without so much as a single spark of recognition going off in our heads.

I remember fondly one occasion when we set out looking for a restaurant on a river. We spent an hour trudging around a market neighborhood, before we found the river.

In any case, don't expect any more posts for several days. We'll probably be wandering, broke, around Beijing.