Journey to the South

Photo from DeviantArt

"Nothing in this world is difficult, but thinking makes it seem so. Where there is true will, there is always a way". - Cheng'en Wu, Journey to the West.

My arduous journey begins today as I head south to Durham, North Carolina to begin my research with the ruffed lemurs. Much like how the Monkey King had to abandon all of his monkey to learn more about the world,  I had to abandon my Monkey (and Serra, and Cloudy) to learn more about the ruffed lemurs. My parents and hubby sent me off at the airport. I was sad having to leave, but I'll be back in NYC in 2 weeks for the weekend so that softens the blow a little bit. I will miss my cats a lot in the mean time.

One of the most stressful thing for me (yet) was to pack my apparatus and hoping it will make it to Durham in one piece. I had to disassemble my apparatus and pack it in two parts: the shell and the mechanical parts inside. I packed my shell inside a large artist tote, wrapped with bubble wrap and hard cardboard. For the mechanical parts, I packed them inside a cardboard box and put it inside a luggage that's padded with clothes.

I'm happy to say that all my luggage made it to Durham, yes all 5 of them. I had checked 3 of my luggage and TIL that checked bag fee increases exponentially. I ended up paying $210 to check 3 of my bags. Oh well. Lesson learned.

I am most ecstatic when I got to my hotel room and opened up my luggage. Everything is in one piece! My acrylic pieces were not shattered! My mechanical parts are all intact! I did not lose anything. Woohoo!

Unboxing my acrylic pieces. Thank Darwin all the pieces are intact and not shattered.

I am settled comfortably in into my hotel room now. It's almost midnight [it already is after midnight]. The room is pretty comfortable but I hope I don't go stir crazy in here. Went to Walmart to get some groceries (grapes for the lemurs!) as well as some necessities.

Tomorrow is Sunday. Not sure what I am going to do. Probably take in what Durham has to offer. See you then!