I finally did it. After months of talking and thinking about it, I’ve committed to my trip to Asia. I had been planning to go to Vietnam to meet up with Diamond and Alex, but in the end it seemed too difficult to coordinate. I tried a number of different itineraries to take me through China, Vietnam and eventually to Thailand, but none of the flights made any sense, and it started looking very expensive and complicated. I’ll meet up with those guys another time or for another trip. Instead, I’m going to focus on China. My trip flows pretty smoothly, I think.

1. I’ll fly directly from Toronto to Beijing on October 1.

2. I’ll travel the region and end up in Shanghai. I’ll fly from Shanghai to Guangzhou on October 14.

3. I’ve arranged for a home stay in Guangzhou, which is near my family’s ancestral village. The home stay means I’ll get to live with a few young people in their home. It’ll be great to see the place from a local’s perspective. I may try to arrange home stays in other parts of China too. I’ll explore the southern part of China for a while too. I’m interested particularly in Macau and Kaiping. By October 24, I need to be in Hong Kong, so I can fly to Bangkok.

4. I’ll work in Bangkok on Openface projects, and also try to set up some studio photography opportunities in Bangkok as well. I have a project in mind, but I don’t want to talk about it yet until I have it solidified a little more. On October 31 I’ll fly back home with a stopover in Hong Kong.

So that’s it! There are lots of gaps in my trip, which is how I like it. I’ll do some reading and learning about China before I go, but I want to try to figure most of it out on my own after I hit the ground there. Now I begin the tortuous wait until it’s time to go!

Note: The flights cost $2277 including an extra fee for paper tickets. No e-tickets were available for this itinerary. Anyway, I always like to keep track of this kind of information for posterity.