Travel

I accepted offer from the Graduate School of University of Maryland, and this summer I embarked on a trip to US that would hopefully lead to a bright new chapter in my life.

In short, from my home city of Hangzhou(杭州), it was a Cathay Dragon flight to Hong Kong, connecting onto an Air China flight to Beijing, and then the next morning another Air China flight to Newark, after which I would take Amtrak to Union Station, Washington DC, after which it was a Uber ride to College Park, Maryland, where my school was located.
From the moment I decided on this itinerary, I knew it would be phenomenal.

After two weeks touring the nation of Sri Lanka, it's time to head back home and get ready for the next chapters of my life.

Summer of 2017.
To celebrate our graduation, some friends of mine planned a two-week vacation to the island nation of Sri Lanka, an island of various amazing sights.

There weren't many places to choose from in the middle of July, as most of South Asia were in their rainy season. The other alternatives under my consideration were South Africa and Central Europe. Well, we had difficulties finding accommodations in South Africa's Kruger National Park since its peak season, and flights to Central Europe were a little bit beyond our budget. So, my friends and I chose Sri Lanka which was closer to home, and July was just in between its two major rainy seasons.

At 24XX CNY (36X USD), the return flights to Sri Lanka by Malaysia Airlines were a bargain. The only disadvantages were that the connection time for our outbound trip were just 75 minutes, this plus the delay-prone Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG) mean we were very likely to miss our connection. So to keep any potential delay, person or baggage from ruining our vacation, we opted to stay two nights in the town of Negombo by Colombo Airport (which was usually a short pit stop for most visitors to the nation). This wasn't too much of a problem, as any delay would be well covered by our insurances. And it turned out that this helped.

Fourth day of our Sri Lanka trip.
Today we were in Trincomalee, where the nearby Pigeon Island National Park was arguably the best snorkeling site in the country. So when planning this trip my friends insisted that we spent a night or two here enjoying water activities.

Third day of our Sri Lanka trip.
The plan of the day was to visit the temples scattered around Anuradhapura in the morning, and had our driver took us to the coastal town of Trincomalee on this country's Eastern shore.

Second day of our Sri Lanka trip.
The plan of the day was to meet up with our chauffeur driver for the rest of our journey through Sri Lanka, then drive up to Anuradhapura, the first capital city of a major Sri Lanka kingdom, with many cultural relics sprinkled around the city.

First day of our Sri Lanka trip.
We didn't have much sightseeing planned for the day, apart from dealing with jet leg, which we addressed by sleeping all the way till noon. It was the natural thing to do as we arrived on a late-night flight and checked in at the hotel late yesterday early this morning.

On the afternoon of May 9, my friend and I travelled on 5 trains for 5 hours covering 171.2 km and reached Tokyo Narita Airport from Gora, Hakone to conclude this eleven-day journey to Japan.