I recently flew to China and I knew that it would be much harder to keep momentum due to a language barrier and my disinterest in the women there. But I did it anyway.

Excerpt #1:

It was fucking cold, goddammit, and I was waiting for a bus. I saw a very cute caucasian girl waiting on the other side of the bus terminal and it was really not in my interest to move, let alone approach at that point. Thoughts like "she probably doesn't speak English" and "she probably doesn't want to talk anyway" were going through my mind.

A bus comes by and she get's on and I think "oh well I guess that's that", but then she promptly get's off the bus. For whatever reason that triggered me to approach her.

Me: Hi, English?

Her: Yes, actually!

Me: Wow that's pretty rare here. Where are you from?

And we shoot the shit. We had a very pleasant conversation and I had no intention of closing. It was simply to prove to myself that I could approach in any situation.

Excerpt #2:

This was at the airport in Tokyo, Japan during a 6 hour layover. I sat down at an internet café and saw a beautiful girl there. I literally sat for 40 minutes, with two seats in between, mentally preparing myself for the approach before I told my mind to just shut up for two minutes and do it. Again, thoughts like "does she even speak English?" and "what if she's tired and I'm disturbing her peace?" kept popping up.

Same opener, nervous as shit this time:

Me: Hi, English?

Her: Haha yeah I'm from Austra ---

Me: Wait I was going to guess! You have a nice accent.

I don't quite remember most of the conversation as it went on for about two hours, but it involved batman, prawns and the word "cunt". Again, no intention of closing, just getting past approach anxiety in high pressure social situations and seeing how long I could hold a conversation for.

After the first hour and a half, I told her I needed some coffee so I shuffled her to a coffee lounge and from there it kind of started to dwindle and die. I found myself trying to think of the next thing to say, laughing nervously and playing with my fingers, so that's something to work on.