Needless to say, there won’t be any traveling happening for me personally for the rest this year, if not into the next. It’s a sad thing to say really because a part of what I enjoy most is traveling abroad and visiting places I’ve never been; last Summer’s trip to Japan was in many ways a high watermark in my life. Unfortunately due to the current circumstances, being stuck in a metal tube many thousands of feet in the air is probably not the smartest thing to do.
For the past five Januaries, I’ve flew back home to China to visit family, and I’ve already resigned to that fact that the streak is over: I won’t be making the same trip this year. Even though it would be right at the end of December as usual, it’s hard to predict what sort of normalcy the world will return to by that time. Never mind the dangers of being clustered together with hundreds of people inside an airplane: I don’t want to return to a hometown that’s still dealing with the affects from the coronavirus. As much as I wish to see family members, if Guangzhou is lacking its typical vibrancy, it would be a wasted trip.
I think this would have been the year I finally make it over to Europe, perhaps a trip surrounding the legendary Le Mans 24 hours race, or the 24 hours of Nurburgring (both races have been rescheduled from their usual July slot to September). That’s obviously out the window now, but being that I never been to Europe, there’s an absence of longing for and fondness that I carry for my beloved continent of Asia. The “old continent” can will have to wait a bit longer.
Had it not been Europe, I would have probably gone back to South Korea this year for the second time since the trip in 2017. With another two years of Korean language learning under my belt, I was ready to experience the Korean culture fully and unreservedly. More importantly, there’s the numerous variety of Korean food I’ve been missing since the last trip, dishes that I simply cannot find here back in the States. There would’ve been lots of eating going on, but alas there will be no beginning-of-Summer trip in 2020.
To quote the Terminator: “I’ll be back”.
The vibrancy…