Travel the World in 7 Links

Welcome to the Reader's Digest version of my adventures traveling and living abroad the past 2 years.

"Seven Links" is actually a project whereby travel bloggers nominate each other to produce links back to the posts they've written earlier, good posts that may have gotten overlooked in all the webbage that daily litters the Internet.

I'm thankful to Sally from Unbrave Girl (http://www.unbravegirl.com/)  and Brooke from Brooke vs. the World (http://brookevstheworld.com/) for nominating me for this project. And I have to say it's kinda awesome to be nominated not by one but two bloggers who I admire for consistently producing high-quality writing on their own blogs.

My Seven Links

1. My Most Beautiful Post

The reasons why I'm afraid to travel and why I travel regardless. This is my most honest post. That's what makes it beautiful, at least to me.

http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/2011/05/are-you-afraid-to-travel.html


2. My Most Popular Post

My top post at the moment goes to the time I visited the Taj Mahal without wearing any pants. (I like to phrase it that way -- "the time I visited" -- like it's something that happened long, long ago and not, umm, in January 2011.) Of course, the success of this post should surprise no one, seeing as how it draws in the two audience groups: the Taj Mahal enthusiasts and the partial nudists.

It wasn't until an online Twitter exchange with Sally came up that I realized exactly how many times I've forgotten to wear pants in the past two years: 4 and 1/2 times. In all fairness, three of these times were wearing the same "shirt dress" from H&M that actually proved to just be a long shirt, as I noticed after finally perusing the H&M catalog; the time when I absent-mindedly pulled on a pair of woolen long-johns and wandered down my apartment building's main hallway before realizing I'd forgotten to put a skirt on top of them (which only gets 1/2 points since I didn't actually exit the building); and finally, this -- touring the Taj Mahal without pants:

http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/2011/03/pantsless-at-taj-mahal.html

Mermaids don't wear pants, either.


My second most popular post also is from India. In the latter half of my trip there, I broke my foot and, in a small, very dirty Indian hospital, had a plaster cast put on from my toes to my knee. The pain in my foot was excruciating. But I really wanted to ride camels and camp overnight in the Thar desert. So I did.

http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/2011/03/camel-trekking-for-broken-legged.html


3. My Most Controversial Post

Pretty much all of my posts are  G-rated. Posts that you can read to grandma if you so wish. (Please read them to grandma. I need more followers.) The only exception to this may be my most recent post, the one wherein I am repeatedly solicited for prostitution in Korea. Best not to read this one to grandma; it'll only get her riled up and she can be surprisingly vicious with those knitting needles.

http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/2011/07/foreign-women-for-sale.html


4. My Most Helpful Post

While all my posts can be considered quite helpful if you process their contents in a "things-not-to-do" sort of way, my packing list post is probably the most helpful.

Okay, to be honest, it's only helpful to read for procrastination purposes.

http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/search/label/Packing%20List


5. A Post Whose Success Surprised Me

Meh. This category does not amuse me. But don't worry; I've cheated by adding extra links to other categories.


6. A Post that Didn’t Get the Attention It Deserved

I am going to have to go with all of them. Popular travel bloggers can get a page full of reader comments and support for posts about what they ate for dinner in Europe while I can write about really dramatic things that have happened to me in Asia, and I get . . . crickets. But I don't need to be the King of the (travel blogging) World. I just need the occasional person to believe in me. So if you haven't already, you should go ahead and read about how:

A man repeatedly attempted to break into my Seoul apartment during the wee sma hours of Friday the 13th. http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/2010/08/frightened.html

I was stranded for a week in Japan without money, so I ended up sleeping on the living room floor of a kind Japanese escort.
http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/2010/08/trouble-with-wishes.html

I fell off a train and broke my foot in India. Or possibly the random man who "reset" it while I was screaming NO broke it. You decide.
http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/2011/03/rise-and-fall-of-melanie-ehler_10.html



Fighting!


7. The Post that I Am Most Proud Of

The logic behind why I decided to live a second year in Korea. This actually isn't a post of pride -- I'm just putting it here because it amuses me. My reasons amuse myself.

http://odysseusdrifts.blogspot.com/2010/09/never-gonna-give-you-up.html


So there you have it: 7 links (um, rounded down to the nearest 7, that is) from Odysseus Drifts. The best links from my blog - so far. It's now less than three weeks until I start my around-the-world backpacking trip, so the adventures can only get better!

And to continue this project, I am nominating…

Tim from Good and Lost
(http://goodandlost.org/)
Julia from Mr. & Mrs. Globetrot
(http://mrmrsglobetrot.blogspot.com/)
Kelly from Tales from Heibei (http://talesfromhebei.wordpress.com/)