The Inaugural Blog

Rather than flood your email inboxes with stories and photos that you may or may not be interested in reading/seeing, I've decided that it would be far more efficient to set up a travel blog that you can choose to visit at your own volition.

For those of you who are not aware, I am exactly one week away from departure from Toronto Pearson International Airport, bound for Asia! I'll be hitting Hong Kong temporarily, but I'll be spending most of July and August travelling through China, Mongolia, Tibet, and (hopefully) Nepal or Vietnam. The purpose of the trip is twofold: it's part personal 'vacation' (although sometimes travelling doesn't seem like vacation), and part research. I'm super pumped to go, but I will admit that I'm feeling some stress over the thought of sleeping in hostels and being on the road non-stop for almost three months.

Before departure, I have three critical tasks to complete. If anyone has any recommendations for any or all of these categories, let me know.

1. Find cute and comfortable shoes for the trip (in a moment of temporary insanity, I almost seriously considered those hideous"crocs", but I just can't bring myself to be seen in public and immortalized in photo wearing them).
2. Stock my iPod with new music and podcasts for the road.
3. Choose some books to take for the LONG plane and train rides.

One last thing, I should explain the title of the blog. "Chasing Chinggis" is my homage to Genghis Khan, who is known as Chinggis Khan, the great ruler/warrior in Mongolia. Since the Mongole Empire under his rule covered huge parts of where I'll be travelling, it seems only appropriate.

I don't have much to say right now, but to those of you who I don't see before departure, or potentially won't be seeing in September, have a great summer, and please keep in touch!

Steph