Here I go...

After Malaysia I visited Thailand and China. I spent three weeks visiting the terracotta warriors of Xi'an, the pandas and teahouses of Chengdu (four baby pandas in a row lying in a crib, so cute!), the Three Gorges (and Three Small Gorges, and Three Mini Gorges, who knew?) on a "cruise" down the Yangtze, strolling along the 1920's Manhattan-esque Bund in Shanghai, and finally, scrambling along the Great Wall outside of Beijing. This will all be posted eventually in the blurbs below.

My original plan was to then park it in Beijing and eat dumplings with my aunt for a month. On November 30, Typhoon Durian ripped through southern Luzon, in the Philippines. A week later my travel buddy Marc, the operations director for Hands On Disaster Response, was asked to deploy and set up a volunteer relief operation there. And...I got to come too.

Less than 24 hours later, we flew to Manila to research, meet with agencies, and prepare. This afternoon, we'll fly to Legaspi, a city in the middle of the affected area. There is still no water and power, so communication may drop off for the next few weeks. I will likely have limited cellphone reception (+63 918 663 9840), and an even more limited ability to charge my phone.

I've set up a system so that we can use Marc's phone to connect his laptop to the internet; I'll see if I can email and post using that. Updates may also be availabe at the Hands On Disaster Response website. In the meantime, take care and wish me good luck! (And oh yes, once we get set up, feel free to come on out and volunteer!)