I thought I’d include this journal entry to provide a complete picture of what long-term travel can be like.
Despite the glamour and excitement of trekking around the world, occasionally we find our carefully designed plans
knocked off course by chance and other uncontrollable circumstances. Like today for instance.
       It all began yesterday when
we ventured out by bus again.
Only this time it was pouring rain
and we were trying to make our
way to a small town about an hour
and a half outside Hangzhou.
Skipping over the trauma of finding
the right bus and our delight at
somehow being adopted for the
day by a super nice couple from
Shenzhen, we learned how unfun
it is to spend all morning getting
somewhere only to have the
weather worsen and prevent us
from seeing most of the sights. We
dejectedly killed time trying to
make conversation with this very
nice couple who only spoke a few
words of English. Finally it was
time for our bus back to Hangzhou.

       When we got to our hostel
Jarrod came down with a nice cold,
no doubt caused by either 1) being
hacked, coughed or spit upon, or
Erin sitting all alone in the Hangzhou bus station waiting for our bus to Wuzhen.
2) being stuck in the rain all day. Either way, he was not feeling well and had a rock hard hostel bed to look
forward to suffering in.I’m not kidding—this bed could give you bruises. We jumped on the hostel’s one shared
computer to quickly check our email when we saw a Yahoo headline. Apparently the rain we experienced today was
part of a large typhoon making its way toward us. In addition to this, our hostel’s train booking system was down
so we were unable to make plans to get out the next day. Wondering just what a typhoon would entail, we went
to bed. We woke up to a continued downpour, but no damage or anything to be worried about. However, Jarrod’s
cold was now in full effect and traveling in the rain was the last thing that he needed to do. We decided to stay put
in our ultra non-comfortable hostel for another day until he felt better.

       So that’s where we are. I’m sitting on my 1-inch thick pillow on my rock hard bed journaling, and Jarrod is
trying his best to sleep on his equally uncomfortable bed in the opposite bunk.
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Typhooned in Hangzhou
The watertown of Wuzhen