We had lived in China for 1600 days. I taught at two different schools, and my now-wife, Seana, had taught at three.
We had three different apartments – the one with the bidet, the one with the IKEA couch, and the yellow submarine (it had yellow walls).
We had traveled to probably some 10 or 12 different countries, taking about 4 vacations a year. We had been to Japan three times, for example, with one trip where she came back with 1 new ring on her finger.
I had $28,000 in the bank, and Seana had about $18,000. We thought it was so much money that it would never run out.
Despite all of these numbers, the most important number was coming in August of 2019 – 2. Two tickets on an airplane out of Shanghai, and two tickets that were going to be the first leg of our journey back to the United States to try to make our fortunes there. Where were we flying? Borneo.
The unknown numbers in all this? How long until we would make our way back home, and how much money was it going to cost; how many people would we meet along the way, and how many countries would we see?
Realistically, what were the chances that we could pull off being backpackers at all? Almost none?
