Raphael ended his Eastern Europe/Central Asia/Silk Road trek last week in Shanghai, where I had first met him a year and a half ago at Hongqiao airport on the way to our Tibet adventure. Herr Bick is quite the fortunate traveler, having missed both the tsunami last December and the earthquake in Kashmir. It was good seeing him again and to hear of his unusual and fascinating encounters with people from all walks of life. There was the Austrian professor who gave up a life of drugs and moved onto a life of women, and converted to Islam so he could have multiple wives. Then there was the German dude who worked for one year after college, then decided that that was “enough” and has spent the last few years riding his bike literally around the world. Then, there was the big-headed Californian who was living in Shanghai who liked to eat nothing but chili peppers and whose idea of long-distance travel is to cross the river from Puxi to Pudong.

Oh wait, that last guy was me.

Raphael stayed at my place his first night back into town and kept saying how good it felt to be back in civilization. Of course, saying this after someone had hawked a loogey on his foot just went to show how many backward places he had been to on his trek. Then again, after X many days of not showering, maybe the phlegm actually helped to make him smell slightly better, since I had unwisely allowed him to spend an hour on my laptop in my room before his first shower in X many days. Later, I had to defumigate my room by spraying every 3 cubic feet with sprays from the Aqua di Gio that Shirley got me back in the late nineties.

Another historic moment brought on by Raphael’s visit was my first ever experience at all-you-can-eat-and-drink Japanese without getting so much as a buzz. Then again, there is something about drinking with a compellingly granola German Jehovah’s witness that makes getting piss drunk less than palatable. As his diet the past week through China had consisted of smog and cookies, I watched his eyes light up as he ordered everything from the cow tongue to the eel, then watched my hopes of a healthy dinner melt away as the teppanyaki chef slammed a stick of butter onto the beef, then drenched it in oil as he cooked it over the grill.

I’m not sure when I’ll see Raphael again. He’s headed to South America next, where he will take a few days to go to Antarctica to spread German wisdom to the penguins. During our dinner together I fretted about not living my life to the fullest. Raphael himself had been putting off starting at the prestigious McKinsey consulting firm so he could see the world, and here I was making a pittance with only company I’ve ever known, without any plans on going anywhere that didn’t have a Starbucks.

Me: Raphael, I’m feeling like my life has no direction and ambition when compared to you.
Raphael: I’m still hungry, think you could handle another order of ice cream?

Raphael’s challenge left me with a sense of purpose that had been missing in my belly for quite some time, so I took him up on it. We ate ice cream and watched the chef slap more butter onto big, fatty pieces of steak, and I realized that my life was damn good. Who the hell wants to be like Raphael and climb Kilimanjaro anyway?

I’d rather be that Austrian dude with the four wives. Now that’s something I’m willing to shoot for!