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Preparations for my trip to Chengdu were somewhat different from that of Nepal. Prior to my trip to Kathmandu, one of the owners of a neighbourhood bakery took me aside. Surinder was Sikh and he and his partner, Ashok, ran a bagel shop that sold fantastic curry. The bagel shop was later converted to an Indian restaurant (that still, in good Montreal fashion, sells bagels). When Surinder heard I was travelling to Nepal, he pulled me aside at the back of the bakery and asked with concern, “Have you ever been to a third world country?” Well, the answer to that was no. It was a little like asking Bilbo if he’d ever left the Shire. Surinder’s question, however, kindly alerted me to what was coming. Things were going to run differently. In ways I could not have anticipated, Nepal would be life changing.

Eight years later, I was more prepared for Sichuan. I had already experienced life in East Asia. I had encountered the beggars of Nepal on a manageable scale and the beggars in Northern India on an intense scale. I had dealt with scams in the sidestreets of Boudhanath and on the downtown avenues of Bangkok. I had experienced the beauty of Kathmandu, its delicious espresso and its restless urban energy. From there, I had visited the smoggy other-worldly dream of Varanasi, its old city, and its famous ghats by the river Ganges. I had tasted the bustle of spicy Thai modernity, the cool Ridley Scott futurism of downtown Bangkok. I also knew what it was like to sleep in buildings not insulated for the cold like buildings in Canada. Double layer that sleeping bag, eh.

While in Nepal, I had the chance to visit Shanghai and a few years later I visited Beijing. I was moved by the powerful dynamism coursing through Chinese cities. I saw series after series of new buildings in Shanghai. It felt like its denizens had torn down the old buildings of the Maoist era as quickly as they could. Out with the dreary, in with the aspirational. Oddly enough, when I was in Asia, I felt very at home and eight years onward, earthquakes were the furthest thing from my mind.