Today, June 9, 2015, my blog is two years old. What started out as little more than a convenient way for me to keep a personal online diary and to stay in touch with family and friends has grown beyond its original bounds. I’ve written 267 posts which have received 31,770 page views from 9,649 unique users in 135 countries and territories.* This is still small potatoes by big-blog standards, but nonetheless very gratifying to me.

In the two years I’ve been maintaining this site, I have written about my travels to 15 countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia, Morocco, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, the USA, and Vietnam). It’s been an exciting journey for me — and I’m not done yet. In my very first post, I wrote that I wanted “to travel, to come to know Chinese culture from the inside, and to gain some perspective on my own culture by viewing it from afar.” Substitute “global” for “Chinese” in that statement and I think I’m doing that. Along the way, I’ve also written about books, bicycles, motorcycles, movies, terrorism, unauthorized public art, teaching, music and religion.

I’d like to thank everyone who has visited this site, encouraged me, commented, and given me ideas for what to do with it next. You rock!

* The countries and territories I’ve had hits from are Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Georgia, Greece, Germany, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guernsey, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jamaica, Jersey, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Réunion Island, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zambia.

Here’s a map of my visitors: