It's past midnight and I'm not tired, so what better to do than post a short note? This weekend was great; Friday night was spent aboard a huge boat out on Lake Michigan with a few friends, Saturday was a great day to catchup with Pete & Andy, and the majority of today was spent researching my 'where do I go in Asia for 3 weeks in September trip?'.

The hinderance of going to Mongolia has been the cost of flights; $2000 and up. There's no way that I'm wasting $2K on a flight, as I will spend a small fortune by the time the trip is over. I was looking into going to Tibet, but since China requires so much paperwork to get into Tibet, that trip would probably cost me about the same price and cause me significantly more grief due to only having 3 weeks of holiday.

My new plan is to fly into Beijing; take a train to Ulan Bataar (Mongolia), and spend a couple of weeks in Mongolia before heading back to Beijing to fly home. If I have a few days in Beijing, I should have enough time to check out the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and possibly the terracotta soliders in Xi'an. I cannot research this plan anymore today; I think I spent about 8 hours in front of the computer sifting through the Thorntree message boards http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com random blogs, travelogues, tour operator sites, and US State Department websites.

This week I get to settle back into the familiar schedule of life in Milwaukee - no work trips this week! I plan on playing frisbee golf, going to sailing class, playing some video games, going bike riding, and riding my motorcycle. I'll finally get to enjoy one of the best seasons in Milwaukee, since I haven't been around all that much lately.

Check out this website - it's a great view into North Korea. I found it while browsing through the northeast asia forum on lonelyplanet's website. The photos are amazing, and many are great indicators of how terrible it must be to live in the Communist country. There's one photo in particular that stands out in my mind; it's a photo of the oceanfront, surrounded by barbed wire and an electric fence. It's meant to keep the citizens from escaping...it's all very surreal and I cannot compare it to anything that I've ever experienced in the past.

Photos of North Korea