My job as a travel agent, essentially, is to participate in planning other people’s vacations to the fullest extent they want me to participate. I am, admittedly, a bit of a control freak when it comes to details, so when it comes to planning my own travels I have my own set of planning criteria, lists, and spreadsheets that usually materialize over the time from the beginning planning stages to booking the vacation, to traveling.
Today, I actually am embarking on a completely different
kind of vacation….one that I had ZERO input on planning. None. Zip.
Zilch. (YIKES!!) and I'm going to do a few blogs on it along the way.
My daughter was invited to participate in a cultural
exchange trip to China last November as part of her high school swimming. If any of you have read any of my previous
blogs, you can figure that letting her go see new things without me wouldn’t go
over so well. So…….I volunteered to
chaperone. I wanted to experience China
and this would be a good, comfortable way to do this (I think!!).
The group that organizes this exchange has been doing this
for more than 20 years with multiple trips per year over a few different sports
focuses. They have this down-pat and
have all the planning done. They have
guides that they have used for years on-site and have hour-by-hour itineraries
ready to go. My job? To help corral kids and make sure that our part
of the group gets to where they need to be when they need to be there.
So, we are at the airport now and getting ready to board our plane. Our flight is non-stop to Beijing and then a
connection to Guangzhou. I’ll be posting
as much as I can, but with the unknown internet situation and a 15 hour time
difference, keep checking back for an update. -- Kim
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