{"id":2954,"date":"2015-10-21T10:26:24","date_gmt":"2015-10-21T10:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=2954"},"modified":"2020-02-05T13:27:46","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T18:27:46","slug":"the-art-of-packing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2015\/10\/21\/the-art-of-packing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Packing"},"content":{"rendered":"

So it’s the day before you leave and you’re figuring out how to stuff a weeks worth of living into a carry-on and a backpack. I’ve been there! Some\u00a0items are obvious (i.e. clothes, toothbrush, cell phone) but others can be easily forgotten. I’m particularly forgetful and negligent so I always take 5 minutes and make a list. I subconsciously organize it into four categories: clothing, toiletries, electronics and miscellaneous.<\/p>\n

Clothing is easy; you just need to think ahead and make sure your clothing is suitable for your plans.\u00a0Checking the weather for rainy or cool weather is never a bad idea, either. I wrote down hiking shoes, fluffy socks and a swimsuit because we planned to hike a lot and\u00a0visit a\u00a0hot springs.\u00a0 You can also save space by double-dipping clothes and wearing them more than once. This is especially permitted with bottoms. Jackets are your friends and always remember PJs!<\/p>\n

Other than the generic daily health items, the toiletries section caters to your needs. I didn’t count on my hotels having shampoo\u00a0so I made sure to bring enough for the week. If you\u00a0have a special regimine with\u00a0certain soaps like I do,\u00a0make sure to mark it in your list so\u00a0tou don’t forget.\u00a0A new phenomenon I’ve recently appreciated is bringing a self-made first aid kit around with me. I always have a stash of headache pills, chewable\u00a0Pepto-Bismol\u00a0(these are lifesavers!), fever meds and band-aids in my bag lest I or somebody else needs them. I highlited, underlined and starred\u00a0my prescription medicine\u00a0so\u00a0I wouldn’t forget it.\u00a0The last thing anyone wants is to get sick during a trip, and sometimes it can be\u00a0 easily avoided by just having simple medicine.<\/p>\n

How long your electronics list is depends on how brave you are (and whether or not you have homework). I like bringing my pocketjuice portable charger, adaptor and headphones for the long trips and the occasional late-night video binge. The most important thing for me, however, is to explicitly write down chargers on\u00a0my list. Like aforementioned, I am forgetful and have\u00a0packed the device without its charger, so now I write it down. (As it turns out, for this trip I managed to pack all my chargers but forgot my Chinese cellphone! One day I will remember them all!)<\/p>\n

Lastly, miscellaneous. As the name suggests, anything that does not fit into the other categories can go here. For me this included things like the all-essential passport, itinerary plans, tickets, student ID, cash, insurance cards, jewelry, books, pens, a lot of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, sunglasses, Chapstick, etc. a small backpack is always handy, especially if you’ll be walking long distances like we did on the Great Wall and in the Frangrant Hills (Xiangshan). I always try to finish my homework before trips, but I had to do some of my homework about my trip so I brought it along as well. The long train rides were very handy for completing it!<\/p>\n

My packing list<\/p>\n

To me, packing is\u00a0a useful skill you develop and can always improve upon. I think it’s\u00a0like a fun challenge, or a puzzle!\u00a0You get better at rolling up clothes and stuffing medicine bottles into corners! I certainly learned a lot\u00a0packing for Shanghai! \u00a0Compared to a year ago, I can fit so much more into a suitcase-and I’ve learned to leave room for souvenirs! We’ll see how well I’ll be able to pack in December!<\/p>\n

Chinese words of the day:\u00a0\u00a0 Suitcase\u00a0 x\u00edngli \u00a0\u00a0\u884c\u674e<\/p>\n

Toilet paper\u00a0\u00a0 w\u00e8ish\u0113ngzhi3\u00a0 \u00a0\u536b\u751f\u7eb8<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So it’s the day before you leave and you’re figuring out how to stuff a weeks worth of living into a carry-on and a backpack. I’ve been there! Some\u00a0items are obvious (i.e. clothes, toothbrush, cell phone) but others can be easily forgotten. I’m particularly forgetful and negligent so I always take 5 minutes and make…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[191,260],"class_list":["post-2954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shanghai","tag-independent-travel","tag-packing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17203,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2954\/revisions\/17203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}