My trip in Yuannen and more

[Martin]

Wonderful explanation about the trip.  But what about the girl?  We don't need to know everything.  Yes we do.  No, really we don't but how is the relationship developing?  Have you kissed her?  Are you holding hands?   Is she warming up to you?  You're holding out on us!!!!!!

HAHAHA, inquiring minds want to know!

[ttwjr32]

great read enjoyed the details

[daghoi]

Some people have asked how it worked out between me and the girl. I probably have been to “frugal” about that part of the story. We are here for one reason, and that’s not travelling, I do understand that you ask and I’ll try to give you more details.

I met this woman the first time last august and did get along well, but nothing “special”. We kept contact during the winter and I wanted to know her better. Then I “invited” myself over for this travel, since she accepted that. I thought it must something there, at least a friend in the making. We started off like colleagues, but something happened during the days in LiJiang and we became a couple. Since I was sick we had to stay there and take things pretty easy. We could not travel and see stuff for a few days. So we got more time for each other and talked more about each other, and not about the travelling plans and things to see. How she cared for me while I was sick was also amazing and totally “won me”.  She also made me open up and talk more about personal things, like none has done before.

After a bumpy ride back home from Lugu Lake we are now at the main bus terminal at LiJiang and sort out the tickets to Tiger Leaping Gorge. As usual im standing there with two back packs and she is doing the talking, buying tickets and find which bus is leaving. This bus is leaving every 30 minutes during day time so we have a good option to chose among. She get’s tickets for one that is leaving one hours time. We leave the bus terminal and cross the street and check out the options for food. She eye’s the restaurant and the people working there and finally settles with on that just pass the criteria “clean enough”. It struck me time after time how serious she is about the food and places she it. I’m grateful for that, I spent almost a month there this time, and for that period I did not even have a hint of trouble with the stomach. It was yet another place with only mandarin menu. She orders two bowl of nudle soup, one small for her and one large for me. After a short while a bowl is placed in front of me and I must have put up a good face. The waitress and girlfriend start to laugh, it is the biggest bowl of noodle soup I have ever seen. First I thought it was to share, but is all for me….After 1third of that gigantic bowl we ask for the check and the cost for that gigantic bowl was 7-8 Rmb. After shopping at the next door pharmacy we go to the bus terminal and enters the bus.
This was a “full sized” bus, clean and modern, very comfortable so I sat back I really enjoyed the trip. I do love to watch the scenery and the small glimpses of daily life I can see from the bus. The scenery this way is more fertile and character of being at a lower altitude. Driving through forest covered hill’s with view to higher mountains peak (Alpine like peaks). We drive down towards the Jiangze yet another time here it flows slowly through nice farm lands. In the hillside there are rice terraces and along the river there is patches with wheat, corn and even potato. After 1 hours we can see the mountains which is a part of Tiger Leaping Gorge. The mountain peaks are approaching 6000 meter and the river bed is at around 2500 meters. (This is not exact numbers). Anyway it is very impressive view’s. I’m a bit anxious because this is something id like to see close up. During my travel I have seen that there are construction going on there and that part of it are closed for tourist. We get of the bus stop, and as we try to get our bearings. There is a guy there willing to drive us to a hostel inside the gorge. We do not have much time to spend there and want to investigate more before we agree on this. So we start to walk across the little river that is a tributary to Jiangze. Just after that the road into the gorge start and we are met buy two people that made us read a big sign. It tell’s me in more detail what I already know. Construction going on and not allowed walking in the construction area, all on your own responsibility. They write down my nationality and let us pass, we are heading for a hostel a few hundred meters further down. It is a warm day and the air is full of road dust, we are passed several times by constructions vehicles. I still have not given up on this, because it is hiking possibilities in the hill side that I cross my finger’s for.   We find our hostel and check out the room, very basic and a little dark. Still good enough for one night. We (she) talk with the host and a little later she relay the information to me. They do not recommend at all to walk at the lower part, pretty much warn us. Not surprised about that. The hiking in the hill side is available and safe, but it take more time than we have been told earlier. To be honest I am also afraid that it might be a little strenuous for my girlfriend. We both agree happy to walk back and wait for the next bus to Shangri La.

After shopping of ice cream and water we end up at different side if the roads. I take position where we got off the bus, she somehow ends up diagonally at the other side. As she is standing there she is approached by a guy with a car and chat with him for while. After some time I want her over to my side of the road so we not miss the bus. She does not respond to my waiving so I leave the bags and walk over to her. She tells me that this guy has offered to drive her to a view point at the other end of the gorge. It only cost like 100 for the whole day, the drive only took a couple of hours we could spend a few hours there and drive back and catch the bus again. Like this we could fit this in on our way back from Shangri La. Off course this price was only “valid” for single Chinese woman. After she talked to me the driver tell her that if we are two he have to double the price…..We never take him up on the offer.


While standing on the wrong side of the road the bus appear, we waive it down and run across the street and get onto the bus. As the bus start to drive I ask her is she got the water, she looks at my and I look back where we just stood.  On a concrete pillar the water bottle stands like a piece of modern art. 

We have a 2-3 hours bus drive before we get to Shangri La. Im sure you are tired of reading it, but the scenery is still breathtaking. We drive trough small canyons and there are a river flowing next to the road. In the hill side there are tree and scattered among them are other tree’s with white flowers. We are slowly ascending to higher altitude, we can see the landscape is changing. Still dramatic the flora is changing to more robust “species” adapted to the stronger climate. Eventually we reach the high plain where Shangri La is located. This is around 3200 meter above sea level. There are almost none tree and all the vegetation is very low. As we drive into Shangri La the sun is setting and it starts to get darker. Thanks to my wonderful and organized girlfriend we are all set up alredy. From the bus she has called a hostel and there is a driver waiting for us to take us to the hostel. As soon as we get off the bus we feel the change in climate. There is a freezing cold wind blowing as I load our back packs into the minivan. The hostel is located not far from the airport at Shangri La, it is a very quiet area. Only a few farm houses and grass plains around. So it is perfect for us that at now are more focused on one another than we are on the sightseeing. As we drive I notice a difference from what I have seen most other places. There are less people walking, less cars driving and they all drive more controlled and slower. Very little use of horn compared to other place. Make no mistake, way more that here in Norway.

As we walk into the reception my girlfriend breaks out in a big smile. She says to me “look it is the same girl behind the reception that worked in the hostel in LiJiang”. They started chatting like old friends and after that we were secured top notch service. It still amazes what a people person she is and how she get people to talk. I complimented her for that couple of times. She almost responded kind of  “guilty “and she responded that she did not do or say anything to achieve that. I had to assure her that I thought it was a good quality with her and that it was something that she was born with and not something she “did”.  I learned yet again that it is important that we fully understand what we say to each other and what the motive are. The next morning we woke up with the most wonderful sunshine into the room and we can hear soft cattle bells and rooster calling their harem. We stay in bed and after during the “pillow” talk I learn that I almost ruined everything early on in Lijiang. Still not sure if it was something I said or did, we talk a bit around it. She do not want to be specific about what it was, but she insist that we leave this and there is no need to talk more about it. I do not pressure her about more details. Off course I have thought about this, but the only thing I can think of is a bad joke I told. At one of the hostel we needed to wash some clothes. As always she had spoken to the people working there and they were happy to talk with her. We did not figure out the washing machine and did not find the soap to use in the machine. Off course she goes to the reception and het help. After that I made a joke about girl chatting up us men and get them to help us. I noticed she did not like it and I told her that it was a joke and talked a bit around it to make it more innocent and after that it “seemed” ok, again communication. She has never confirmed it was this, but it is the only thing I can think off. If it is something else then it has to be something really subtle.

After that awakening I walk out on the balcony and look at the beautiful morning. While she showers I prepare some noodle for brunch. We eat it on the balcony and watch the gorgeous day, the Yak cattle and black pigs in all sizes are roaming free, we have great fun of watching the piglets running around on their tiny legs.



This area is not far from Tibet and the most people living here are Tibetan and hence it is much Tibetan culture around. We decide to visit a Buddhist monastery which in the city. I will not bore you with details, but it was well worth a couple of hours. The monks were really relaxed; they chatted and posed on pictures with us. After the visit we took local bus back to the city center. We shared that with 6-8 monks and we all paid 1 rmb for the trip. No tickets were given when paid all money just left in a open plastic box. I just waited for the wind to blow it all out the window. At the end stop we walk into the “old” city. Kind of similar to what we experienced in LiJiang, less crowded off course. We walk around and find a small restaurant that my girlfriend approves to. The thing that kind of  “sold it “ to her, was when she looked at the woman working there. She said the cook looked clean and the vegetables were on display on shelf in the restaurant. Covered by light fabric. I was the one noticing the place as we walked there I saw this woman rinsing a couple of apples outside the shop and hand it to the husband sitting and watching TV. I did comment on that, said something like that looks like the woman do most of the work. We ate at this place a couple of times and learned more about that.

This place was a combination of small shop / restaurant, only 3 tables I think. They cooked us a good basic meal. As usual girlfriend gets the host talking and we get information about the old city and were to go. After a “round” in the old city we call the hostel and they send the car of us. Since the hostel is located outside the city they offer very reasonable rates for pick up. I think we paid 3 rmb to be picked up. Next day the weather is still good so I suggest we head for the mountain behind the hostel. There is a cable cart bringing people up to over 4500 meters. I have never been to that altitude and want to try it and see the view from there, girlfriend agree. The driver tells us that since they have a kickback for bringing people there, they drive us there for free. Talk about honest driver, he could easily have charged us the few rmb’s and we had happily paid. As we approach I notice that she is getting a bit anxious, she and the driver talks about renting clothing and buying compressed air to bring up there, just in case. Im more reluctant, we have been at 2500 meters for the better part of a week, then we a few nights at 3300 meters. So I would believe that we are pretty good acclimatized for the height. Since I have no experience with this I kind of follow the flow. She is quite anxious and at one point I tell her that we do not have to do this and if she like we can go back to the hostel or city. She says it is ok and that we shall do this. We go to the entrance and after I tell them my nationality we get the information that the upper part may close so if we want to go there, we should change to the upper lift at the halfway point. And rather spend time there on the way down.


As the cable thing start I understand what she was scared of. It was the height, the poor woman is sitting facing me and looking down in the floor and squeezing my arm. I try to comfort her best I can. Half way we get off and I ask if we shall go all the way, obviously she knows I want and say yes. Same thing again, at one point the wagon stops and we hang still for a short time (1 minute or 2), it is some wing and the wagon moves from side to side. I also get a bit anxious. It is ok when we are moving, but just hanging there is kind of spooky for me to.  I try to be calm and talk about the small restaurant we had dinner at the day before and try to distract her. We start moving again and we get to the top, there is one happy woman getting off there. We walk around there for almost one hour, I feel very little to the height problem, but she uses the compressed air we brought. On the way down it is the same thing, squeezing of my arms and this time I ask her to look in my eyes. At the half way it is nice pasture and even some shops, We relax there for a while and discovered that we have spent more time that expected here. We both are happy, and we enter down the last stretch. Down there the driver is already waiting for us. He tells us that when we left he waited there for 30 minutes to se if we would call him and com down straight away. Now he even has a can of compressed air on the car and offers that to my girlfriend.

Back at the hostel we have a walk around the area, look at the farm animal getting herded inside again. We have dinner at the hostel and take an early night.


Next morning we relax around the hostel and 1-2 pm we get the driver to take us the new city. We walk around and she looks for “Tibetan” things to bring back home. I’m just happy to walk around with her and look at people and different shops. A few hours later we find our way back to the old city, there is a few things that id like to pick up for my sister and nephew. When we get there im starting go get hungry. I tell her that I do not shop that well on a empty stomach so I suggest we get something to eat first. She asks if I can find the way to the place we ate the other day. It is just a few “blocks” away so it is easy. When we get there the couple smiles and greets us.  As we check out the menu the woman there cut an apple in half and give the half to the man, he is still watching TV. I comment on the apple and I think the man understand that im talking about him, because he prompts put the apple on the shelf. My girlfriend starts talking to the woman and mentioned about the apple we saw last time, and that she was eating again. She tells her that she loves her apples, but her husband is not that happy about them. She tries to get him to eat more of that. What happens from here it is not easy to give a correct picture of in writing. It is one of those things that you need to be there to understand. The girlfriend and the woman working there are talking like long lost friends. After a long time we are able to order some food, but the chat is constant going. Very friendly and natural, my girlfriend translates all the time. The woman tells all about their family and their restaurant. My girlfriend tells, surprisingly much, about us. My first impression of the couple was that is was the lazy man and hard working woman. I turn out that is almost the opposite. She tells us that she is the luckiest woman in the city. The man very much runs that shop and the restaurant, after that he is helping his parent at the farm. The two sons of her is raised by the grandparents, so she need to do very little with that to. Like this it goes on for a long time. She tells us that we look so happy together and we look at each other all the time. She shouts to her husband that he should take her for a long vacation so that they could hold hands and look into one another eyes. He just smile and shakes his head, he take part in the conversation from time to time. Fill in some details and facts. She tells us that after working the shop for 5 years they do not speak anymore, just watch the TV together. Even that said they seemed happy together. Im not sure how long time we spent there, but it must have been three hours, it was getting dark. After some time we felt like we had said all that could be said, we ask for the check. Then I see my girlfriend get a strange expression in her face and she hesitates for a few seconds. She tells me in with a low voice. She don want us to leave, she want us to sit around for some more time and chat, she will not give us the bill yet. I almost start laughing, but I feel the magic is still there, we are on vacation and still have some time before we need to go back to the hostel, so if that makes her happy I can spend some more time there. I ask them about the shop etc, and the tourist industry there etc. After some time we are “allowed” to pay and leave. It was a strange few hours there, it felt like we all were all old close friends and that we could talk about anything. It turns out to be one of the small and surprising things that I remember best of the trips.


After the long restaurant visit we pick up a few tourist souvenirs for friends and family. The hostel car comes and bring us back to the hostel were we have to pack. Next day we start on the return to Beijing and eventual back to Norway for me.

If you have read so far I hope you understand that things between us are great and we are truly a couple, crazy for each other.


Thanks for reading so far.  I did not manage to finish my story this time, so in a few days I hope to have the last chapter finished.

Uploaded a few pics to album Yunnan II

[shaun]

Good read.  Can't wait for the next installment.

[RobertBfrom aust]

A terrific read so far , regards Robert .

[ttwjr32]

good read keep on posting

[Paul Todd]

 Thank you for taking the time to write and share you adventure with us. China is a special place indeed and everything is looking good for you two. I just love happy stories!!!!!

[Scottish_Rob]

Great read, very detailed

[daghoi]

Hi !

It have been busy last week so i have not been able to write about the last few days until now.
Thanks for the feedback, i now it has been long post’s, but i hope you have gotten some enjoyment out of it. So this is how the last few days evolved. Afraid it is a long read once more, but it is the closing chapter   .

It is Friday the 21th of May as we leave the hostel in Shangri La and we are driven into the center of the small city to the bus terminal. It is a dusty and cold “corner” of the city, among concrete building from the 60/70 I would guess, not pretty, but functional. We by the bus ticket for the ride back to Lijiang, were we the next day have plane tickets back to Beijing via Kunming.  Even though the bus drive to LiJiang is like 4-5 hours I still kind of look forward to it. It do like to see the landscape along the road, sitting next to this charming woman. I start to feel that bittersweet feeling of something great coming to an end. I try to suppress that and enjoy the moment. Not much goes on during the bus trip, we hold hand, look into each other eyes and she ”demand”s the occasional kiss. In the afternoon we get off at one of the bus terminals in LiJiang. We get an taxi to the old city and find our hostel. This is the same hostel we stayed at earlier so we have no problem finding it in the narrow and confusing roads of the old city.  As we check in my suspicions are confirmed. As we called the day before and booked room, we were quoted a very good price for the room. I belived that it must be the small room next to where I lay sick for on earlier. This room has no window and has the smell of concrete dust and water damage. I we briefly check other opportunities, but all room are taken and since we are leaving early next morning I except it. We are due to leace around 6 am for the airport next morning. My girlfriend efficient organizes transport and makes plans without telling me everything. I ask her about our options on how to get to the airport tomorrow. She tells me that we shall take a taxi to a hotel were there is a shuttle bus to the airport. The taxi cost something like 30 rmb and the bus cost 5 or 10 pr head to the airport. I ask her about what the cost for a taxi direct to the airport is, she checks with the front desk. It is something like 30 km to the airport so I except it to cost a bit. When she comes back she tells me that the hostel has a driver we can call, it will cost 80 rmb for both of us. Then we can sleep for 30 minutes more, so we quickly agree to use this guy. Only catch is that we have to call the drive ourselves 10 minutes before we shall meet him! Kind of strange…. We are told to meet him at one of the entrances to the old city next morning. After a night of not so good sleep in the loosy room, we get up, the lady calls the driver. He answer straight away tells us to just wait at the hostel and he will meet us there. He shows up and turns out to be very house warm. First he uses the shared toilets facilities there, lot of noises, clearing trough, flushing etc. Then he fills the waterbottle before we walk to the car. As we drive out of the old city there are a couple of women cooking and selling food from a food cart. They are making those pancakes like things, with some spicy chili sauce. We have not had breakfast yet, so my girlfriends stop the driver and the driver say a few things to the woman cooking. There is s short queue of people there, but she decides to server us first. She has one almost reday for a guy waiting, she hands that one to us as she handles the payment she instructs the customer waiting  to add chili sauce on the next one which is promptly handed over to us.  As we eat our slightly spicy breakfast we drive towards the airport. As so many other times on this trip I can enjoy the sun rising and see the people start their work in the field. LiJiang is a small airport so check in and security is quickly done and we sit at the departure hall and wait. I notice more western people here than I have seen in one place for several weeks.

We got affordable plane tickets to Beijing, only thing was that they included a 9 hurs stop over in Kunming. So our first stop is Kunming.

Kunming is warmer than LiJiang, we are still at at good altitude around 2000 meter above sea level I believe. I do change to t-shirt and some lighter pant’s, then we check our bags and my girlfriend head, yet again, to the information desk. She is not afraid to ask. After discussing the different alternatives for how to spend the day, we decide to go to the area around Dianchi lake. Many of you know Kunming as you know it is known as spring city and are famous for its flowers. That is a well disturbed reputation it was a lot of beautiful flowers and greenery. After a 20 minutes taxi drive we leave the taxi at a nice walkway along a lake. We choose one direction and start to walk hand in hand the sun is shining the weather is nice and yet another of those perfect days. People are fishing along the lake, the most popular place is around a big sign, I get the text translated and off course it states: “No fishing”. I see they catch one fish, it think it was 10 cm. Across the lake there is a big hill/small mountain with walkways and pagodas. I think that it can be a nice walk up there only catch is that we have to take a cablecar to get there. My girlfriend did not like height, but she suggested that we should go up there. So we bought the tickets and tok a seat face to face. Looked in each other eyes and, yet again she squeezed my arm, can’t believe how strong that little woman is. My felt a little bad dragging her up there, but she kind of assured that is was ok and that she wanted to go. Up there we had a nice walk, enjoyed the view quietly together, I started to feel even more that my return to Norway was approaching and this dream was coming to an end. We spent a few hours up there before we tok the cablecar back down. Down there it was time to head to the city center to get something to eat. Since there are no taxis showing up there we find out that we have to take the bus. Again lucky me, girlfriend sort it all out for me, cant belive how this would have been without her. We need to change bus halfway and go off at a certain landmark, and then there will be a restaurant specialized in Yunnan dishes around the corner. Finally the bus get there and we cram us on, it is full of people, eventually we can go off, the next one appear instantly, jump on that one. It’s is a bigger bus, but still crowded, after some time more people go off and some seat become available. I offer her to sit, but she says I shall take the seat. I sit down, it has been a long day the heat is taking it toll. Sometime later I start to doze off, I fell the head is starting to nod, try as good as I can to balance it. At some point I feel that I get I good rest, later at a hard turn I wake up. I discover that my girlfriend is holding her arm around my head and supporting it to her side!

Eventually after quite some time at the bust, I think it must have been like an hour, we go off and find the restaurant. It turns out to be a crowded one and different customers that I have seen other places. All orders are placed at a boot at the entrance, we get a receipt. Since it was a unorganized queue I have no idea what was ordered. My girlfriend had to fight her way to the counter and placed some order without being able to discuss this with me. Im sent upstairs with a receipt and instructions to find a table. When she get up there it is with a big conspiring smile. She is carrying a couple of dishes and more will arrive from the second floor kitchen. She had ended up ordering some specialities. Snail’s, some sea weed I think, stinky tofu, yes that is the name. some sweet soup, and some more. Apparently the snail was popular noticed that many people was having that. They just tasted the spice it was cooked in, so no problem. The stinkin tofu was a different story. It was stinking like h.. I thought someone with bad hygiene had walked by us when it was placed at the table. The other stuff was more convential.  After the meal we walked outside and looked at the city. Close by it was a big pedestrian street. We walked down there and I’m sad to say. In my three visits to China, I have never seen more beggars combined. Some was strongly handicapped, like just the torso and head, they had different “trolleys” to drive around in. Apparently this must be some kind of a problem there. Center of this pedestrian street was blocked by some statues with very narrow passages between, it was also a big sign about how you could get help ! It stated something like, if you lived there and there, you could go there, and so on, I even think it stated the authorities could help you contact relatives and by you tickets “back home” or where you wanted to go/could go.

On the other side of this “road-block” it was a big fountain. In the fountain it was lot of goldfish, it was packed. There it was possible to rent fishing rod to fish after them. We had great fun of watching the people there. I particular noticed this cute little girl. Probably 8’ish year old, lovely white summer dress and, she was a killer fisherman. She really got the hang of this, got one after one on the hook, not afraid to touch it either, grabbed it with both hands and placed them in her bucket.  After walking in the warm evening sun and watching various street artist we headed back to the airport. Small troubles find the right bus, but in the end we arrived there with plenty of time to reach our plane.

After security check we ran into some tv celebrity, I noticed something was going on. People working in the shop walked outside and people stopped up looking at this woman. I was told the name, but off course I have forgot it. Off course this woman was well dressed and hair well done, but she was so skinny, unhealthy skinny. Probably suffered from anorexia, it was sad to see and also knowing that she probably was a role model for many woman. I discussed this briefly with my girlfriend and told her that no normal straight man find that attractive.


After boarding the plane and well seated, starting to relax after the small evening meal. It was time for me to be scared for the second time on the trip. It was a big plane were the coach is divided in two section by toilets etc. We sat in the front half and suddenly I heard these hard and shouting voices in mandarin. I have heard a few domestic fights during my travel, but this was so hard and hostile and I really woke up. All these hijacking and terror threats we read about these days did not help either. It took like 15 seconds the stewardess’ shouted to. Suddenly to good sized male stewardess came running down between the seats. Shortly after it all came to an end, but I got good scared there for a minute or two. Rest of the trip we held hands and dozed on one another shoulders, and luckily no more incidents happening. Around 2 am we arrived at her apartment and then we had been on our feet for almost 20 hours so we fell quickly asleep.

When we woke up it was midday Sunday and Monday morning I had plane tickets back to Norway. We spent the Sunday around her neighborhood, visited to local mall and had a coffee and something to eat for brunch. We had a good long chat there, usually im not a chatty person, but she makes me talk like no one in many years. She is an architect and her work is to design Shopping mall. So we decided we should go and see one of the malls she has been participated in designing and have dinner there. We head outside and get a taxi to an upscale area and enter into a very nice shopping mall. She tells me about why what shop is placed were it is and so on. At the end we go to the top floor for dinner. We have one of those “steamboats” dinners, were you cook your own dinner. It was a nice restaurant with white table cloth and dimmed lights, we flirted, touched each other hands and shared food. It was a very nice last dinner. We were due up around 6 again next morning for my flight se we slowly walked back towards her apartment and after some time we hailed a taxi and got back. I finished packing and prepared what I wanted to wear the next day. We sat down in her sofa for a few minutes and shared our thoughts about the last couple of weeks. According to her I had changed a lot, to start with I did not smile and did not talk. No I smiled more and talked a lot! I can say she had changed more, expect that she cared more for me!

She had offered to follow me to the airport the next day, since it was Monday I knew she should be at work. I knew that she is very busy at work and that she was expected to be there. So I felt I bit bad for her, because I did not know how that would work out for her. Apparently she was missed because it was a lot of phone calls going on in the taxi towards the airport . She did have time for it, because the same day I left, Monday the 21th of may. Hillary Clinton visited Beijing and the government had decided to close down several roads on central Beijing. The taxi driver was very annoyed and had to drive is to one of the out rings before he could turn towards the airport. I did reach the airport with good margin, checked my bags and we had time for a coffee and a snack before I had to go to my plance.

As I sat there I felt that it was kind of difficult to talk and I had that strange feeling in my throat and my eyes started to water…..It was no doubt this trip/adventure was over. We talked about how lucky we were to find each other and what our opportunities to be together were, when we could see each other next time. At the security gate I kissed her goodbye and as I walked down towards the train to the gate. I turned around several times and she was standing there looking at me. I tried to waive and as I walked down there I felt that I left a part of me there. It also felt so wrong to walk away from her. Needless to say, it was a long flight home and I was thinking a lot about her.

So how have things since I came back you might ask. I has gone tree week since I come back, I still miss her a lot and thin about her every day. We both work a quite a bit, so we communicate through e-mail and sms. I still wonder how we can spend more time together. At the moment I do not know how. I’m the guardian for my nephew he is 17 now and I still need to follow him for a few more years. My father is 85, still with good health, but I also help him with practical things from time to time, and I feel that I cannot leave him either. On the short horizon I hope to be able to go again in October to join her when she is attending close friends wedding.

It all ended great this time, the big question is how to keep the love alive when we not able to be together.

[Irishman]

Fantastic daghoi, truly a wonderful account of your trip. Thank you for sharing.
I wish you all the best.
 As well as email and text you should try calling her as much as possible.
Vodafone here have a special 3c a minute rate to China, just hearing her voice makes all that is wrong with the world right again. I would heartedly recommend this to you if possible.

[Martin]

Like Mike said, many of us have been in this exact place as you.  Hang in there.

[Arnold]

Daghoi , what do Mods want to do .. when nothing is going on in the Forum on slow days ? Well , it is .. read Stories just like yours here . Wonderful ! Remember , this Journey goes this way . 1st. uncertaincies 2nd. hopefully happy and successful meeting  3rd. the waiting period . So be very glad the first two are over and your on your last 1/3 of this .. what could be so rewarding and gratifying at the end (which I myself know about and others at that point ) can tell you .. it's hard but you'll find a way to keep the Fire burning between the two of you .
Otherwise , we'll need to kick you a** .. got it ?