Post-Japan plans

I can take a ferry from Kobe that goes directly to Beijing (actually Tanggu but it doesn't matter) for about $200 (I might be able to get a student discount---thank you Brandeis for not printing expiration dates on the students IDs). I don't know the details of the ride yet, but its a much better option than the Osaka-Shanghai plan I originally had. From Shanghai, I would have had to take a train north to Beijing (a 14-hour trip) and then take the same train back south to continue on towards Vietnam. I'm jazzed.

At the moment, the plan is to travel around Japan in mid-January, then take the ferry to Beijing, see the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Mao-soleum, the old and new Summer Palaces, etc;, then head south to Nanjing, Shanghai and Sichuan, (or first head to Chengdu and Tibet), and then head through Hong Kong and Guangzhou before crossing the border into Vietnam. From Vietnam its onto Cambodia and Thailand. That's as far as I've gotten.