This is the real reason I came back to the forums. To find this thread. And this, THIS is what I find!

I met up with JRuss. It turns out he is a she! She has blonde hair and uses the JRuss persona as a creative ploy. She's actually not that bad looking but is a lesbian, which explains her JRuss persona's somewhat masculine nature.

What part of "I solemnly swear I will not post about this," was confusing to you?! You're a lying piece of crap. I hate you now more than ever.

I hate to derail this thread.

For the americans who travel abroad, what did you guys do about health insurance?

Condoms.

Qi +1 :) and better buy them in your own country.

It's true. Asian-sized mini condoms are best for 12 year-old Westerners.

:X

----

In seriousness, what did you do?

Travel insurance.

But I'm lucky, my former employer is providing insurance while I'm traveling because I'm making a few sales calls while I'm traveling. But, I'm also Norwegian, so if anything bad happens, I can just fly back to Norway and it's all paid for.

when I was a student in china taiwan and france i was given insurance (france gives it to all students and my scholarships from the prc and roc governments included insurance). since i've been working in taiwan, ive had the same insurance taiwanese get.

Haha! I get them airmailed sometimes!

As for health insurance, I got none. Not even sure if it would work here. Hospitals seem to be pretty cash-based in China, although I've never actually been to one for anything other than simple visa check-ups. If I were in a tight spot, health-wise, I reckon I'd go to the local hospital to get stabilized, then get to Hong Kong or a modern city ASAP. Credit cards help, and don't believe American Express's crap. Go with Mastercard or Visa when travelling in Asia.

I have to say this may not be the smartest idea, to drop everything you own and leave. I would advise against it, but if youi decide to go, I've read on travel sites that many countries, especially Vietnam, will rip you off because of you are white, or look American, plain and simple.Dont drink their tap water, even to bruish teeth,. and learn some type of language a bit before you go. Dont buy from market vendors, and Do not dress expensively

went to aruba if you get sick your better off getting airlifted to venezuela they have better hospitals even a emergency flight to the bahamas isnt out of the question

For anyone else who's considering doing what I'm doing or going traveling at all, there are two people in this thread whose posts you can completely ignore: uga98 and Hellbender. But you probably already knew that.


And if you're interested, you can follow me around the world: http://yeahletsgothere.tumblr.com/

Despite what Gui says, my writing doesn't suck slimey fish-nads.

I don't know where I had found that before JRuss, but I had been keeping up with it anyway :P Glad to see you are having a good time and good to see you check in. If I lived in an interesting place you could visit me, but I live in boringsville, USA. :P

Keeping having fun mate.

I'm going to China tomorrow. Staying a month. Starting in Shanghai and gonna travel east on down into Vietnam. Anybody know if Tumblr is blocked in China or not? And better yet, know how I can get around the firewall? I'm considering paying for a VPN. Is there a better way?

And thanks, Noob. Glad you like it. I would totally consider going to Boringsville if it weren't so sucky. I hear it's the pits in the winter.

When in china, there are free vpns you could use. The times that i didnt use the university's vpn, which always was preferable, i used hotspotshield. It gets you around the great wall of china.
It causes a lag though, isnt working all the time and slows the most of the time already slow internet down even more. So if you dont have a faster and more reliable alternative to hotspotshield, you should consider paying for one. For sure thats not the worst idea.