"The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated."
-William James

OK, I confess I am falling behind on my blog updates. So much has happened over the past few days that I am having a hard time just trying to put everything in order, much less have it all written properly to be posted on this blog. So please bare with me.
I do feel that it is important however to thank everyone in New York, Colorado, San Francisco, Brazil and China who has been reading my blog and sending messages of encouragement, both in this blog and via direct email. It it great to know that you are taking the time to follow my adventures and mis-adventures here in the land of the Three Kingdoms. I read every message of praise, encouragement and questioning, and those messages keep me motivated to keep writting this blog. I hope you are being entertained, because I've been putting myself into some very embarrasing and even dangerous situations in order to make sure that I will have something fun to post here for you, so that you can laugh at my expense.
Also, I'd like to address some questions that have been raised here in the blog and alos via direct email:

Q) Do my postings imply that I hate or despise Chinese people?
A) Not at all. To mare I stay here, the more I am fascinated by China and it's many nations and peoples. There are some things in China that I do not like or enjoy, but that does not mean I think less of the people who live here or that I find them to be inferior or less worthy than anyone else. The Chinese are a very industrious, clever and creative people. I think Brazilians and Americans in special have much to learn from them. But that does not mean that I feel that the Chinese have no room for improvement. They certainly do! But so does everyone else. In this blog I put all the impressions that I gather during this trip, both the good and the bad. But please do not interpret this as "Chinese bashing" because it is not. Brazilians and Americans are as flawed as the Chinese and everyone who knows me longe enough know how much I criticize things that both Brazilians and Americans do.

Q) Why only "girls" show up in your blog. There is no male backpacker in China? (SIC)
A) Not true. See my posting about the day I spend in Xi'an. Also, you will see on later posting that I meet and hang out with many male backpackers (just did not have the time to post those yet). But the truth is that, yes, you will see more frequent post about female backpackers than male backpackers. Why? Well, it is just that I LOVE smart women. I like to hang out with smart women, I like to chat with smart women, I like to have smart women arou nd me. It is a weakness I have. Smart women are able to give me different perspectives and points of view on things that many times escapes the male mind. How many times in my life I had smart women point out holes on my points of view that I could never had noticed by myself but it was pretty obvious to them. I like smart women because they challenge my beliefs and points of view in ways that no man could. So I love them, because I learn a lot from them. And female backpackers tend (generalization warning) to be quite smart, well informed, articulate and clever. So whenver I can, I give them preference over male backpackers. That is why.

Well, this is all for now folks. I have many funny, tragic, erotic and interesting stories (with pictures) that I hope to post very soon, so please come back. Also, please keep the comments coming. Have a good one everyone!