Monday, August 8th 10:17 AM

I've found that in my sixteen years on this Earth, the beginning is a good place to start. All good stories begin with a beginning. And in hopes that this story will evolve into a tale of adventure and new expericnes, thus I begin with the beginning.

The morning was a blur of boxspring matreses, packing tape, and growling of teenage tummies. The famous pantry was not living up to its West name since there was barely a lick of nutrition to be found. The fridges were empty and the showers cleaned of all traces of life. Although seeing my home reduced to a mere shell was pushing the tears, the straw that broke this camel's back was saying goodbye to my friends. Friends who were always there for me, friends who listened to my rambling collections of english words. Friends who would let me sleep in their beds and eat their food. Friends of all friends was what I was forced to leave behind. But they will always be able to live in my heart. I won't truly loose them. The only thing I have lost are their physical forms. And in all honesty, I can spoon with a pillow and feel the closeness.

It is nearly impossible for a trip to go smoothly. No trip is complete without some glitches. Well, a glitch such as forgetting to eat breakfast or not brushing my teeth ( neither of which I did anyway ) is quite aceptable and expected. But a glitch like oh lets say, not havinbg enough room for the your luggage...well that one tends to be a wee bit trickier than the avergae joe's problem. Which brings me here, careening down a highway in Virginia at 66 miles per hour writing to you.

The car is piled with suitcases hastily packed by myself and cats caged into beige plastic jails. There is no rhyme nor is there any reason to how everything is packed into this dazzling gold rental mini van. Brings me back to the good old days of swim team carpools. But that musn't be discussed at the moment. For now all I think of is Washington D.C. Washington D.C., the place which calls itself home to the building where my airplane will lift my family and I off of the Earth for hours at a time where we will be confined to identical chairs, strapped in, and force fed peanuts. Plane rides can be such joy. I do hope that there is an interesting group or couple accomopanying us on this trip so that I won't be forced to use all the precious battery on my iPod. That would upset me.

But now, I opt to recline as far back as possible and turn up my iPod as loud as it can go so to drown ou the sound of screaming cats and enjoy my commerical breakfast of a bacon egg and cheese bagel from the all american restaurant.....mcdonalds.

10:47 AM

I am listenin to "Here and I go Again on my own. I find it very fitting.

Tuesday, August 9th 8:46 AM

We arrived to your nations capitol at 2:00 sharp. I must say my mother had impecable timing for this trip. Dropping off cats in an airport is an exhaustin event. You have to drag them all over Washington National airport and get them checed by every Delta personel available it seems. But once that was over and done with we traveled to the Country Inn and Suites where I was able to get a good nights rest on the sleeper sofa. But before I fell asleep I had to go to target and return a dvd. This particular dvd is normally 39.99 bu for some reason the regster kept rining it up as 5.99. Needless to say I was quite happy to pay only 5.99 if that would stay at the price. But of course, they called over everyone to see what the spectacular register did to my purchases. I caused quite an employee fiasco I must say. ON the way back to the rental van I stumbled across a Virginia Tech ID Card. Jaime L Sinclair's ID card to be exact about it. I did what any red blooded american would do.....i kept it. No, im just kidding. Did you really think I had any use for a picture identification card of a girl who looked nothing like myself? I mailed it back to the adress on the back. I felt like a very good citizen and wanted to walk to the white house and tell george that I was helping to keep his colleges in running condition. Which brings us to this very moment, the moment where I will step into my last shower on the north american ontitnent and then I will proceed to hop onto a plane to Korea.....more updates from the plane (hopefully) and then from korea! all my love

2:26 PM

We made it safely on to the plane with only a few slight delays. We got to the airport on time and unloaded our 12 bags onto one of those roling carts. They had it stacked to the brim or eles I was tempted to hop on for ashort ride. Something tells me that no one else would have found that as acceptable as I did. I could bore you with all the details of weihing in our bags, checking passports, etc etc. But I would much rather explore the social aspect of my trip. We have to fly on Korean Airlines and in Korea, they dont speak english nor are they cauacaiisn. Needless to say, My mother, my brother and I are the only white people on this flight. There is an upside to not bein oriental right now. The pilot always speaks in Korean and then speaks in what I assume he thinks is good english, but it really isnt. The flight attends are all very nice and Korean. They speak to you first in Korean and I am getting a huge kick out of doing the blinking innocnet face and looking stupid until they realize that they as well speak greek to me. I think Greek might be a little more familair to me though....While we were waiting to board the plane, I was astonished at how prety asains can be. Maybe its becuase I stood out in the crowd and I had other asians to compare them to, but i was like oh crap, i was sur i would be the prettiest one on the flight. oh well, my hopes for an on flight afair were shot when i found I had the middle seat anyways. Having someone hit on me over my mom's head, somehow just losses all of the beauty and romance it once held for me.

My tummy is turning with pizza hut pizza and dry peanuts. My hands are the most sanitary they have ever been right. And having said that, I am going to go back to staring dumbly at the Korean Daily News. the pictures are pretty......

4:45 PM

Oh...thats excititng. I am updating at a time that ends in a 5. Don't ask. After hours on a plane, the little things really amuse and entertain me. Such as the cologne and plug in the bathroom. Its an American plug but it is 115 volts. Which is only five volts over what you americans use ( i like being able to call yall you americans...it makes me feel worldy). I seriously debated the life of my iPod b/c it could possibly kill it. After about two seconds of pro and con lists i found the cons ouweighed the pros. Cons being it might fry it for good and then i would have no more music. Pros being, well, I would have the satisfaction of knowing i had a fully chraged iPod. The cologne was fun. I squirted it around in the bathroom and found that cologne is only for men. None of it smelled good on me. Im sure I held people upduring my little sprtiz and dance game I was playing in there. But i payed for the flight too. I took my complimentary toothbrush and korean toothpaste too. I may go back for more sometime too. I also ate my first meal of the flight. It wasn't half bad. I took a picture of it. they had some canned water. which, as odd as it sounds, tasted good. It was mineral water but they may have forgotten o actually put the minerals in mine. But if they didnt have some sort of malfunction at the plant, i am now enhanced with calcium, phosphate, and magnesium. I felt like I was drinking chemistry class. Using dimensional analysis I could probabaly tell you exactly hjow much of each mineral was in the h2o. But why in the world would I want to do that?! After the meal, we were informed ( IN ENGLISH YAY!) that we were to lower our window shades so that we could view the screen in a more condusive atmosphere for the televission. I was fully expecting Miss Congeniality 2 to come on becuase that is the scheudled movie for this flight. But no, i first went through 13 minues of in seat exercises which were highly entertaning. esecially when I looked back and saw 38 Korean/Japanese/Chinese people staring intently at the screen and doing exactly as the three people in chairs that looked 1400 times more comfotable than this one. In China they have early morning exercises that EVERYONE does. And we wonder why other countries think of americans as fat, lazy, and stupid. Once that was over I hoped that I would be able to watch the subtitled movie..but no. Now I have to watch Korean music videos. and they were cool for about 8 minutes. Now I am just terribly annoyed at how bad they sing and how I have NO clue what they are saying. This plane is hot as balls ( blythe... )

p.s. this one little girl wont stop staring at me. Its so creepy.

August 12 4:45 AM

I'm here! Okay, so I've been here for a day or so. but nonetheless I am a resident of Hong Kong. Parker decided that he wanted to write a novel on the plane and he used all of the batery for the computer. What are the odds. he hates to write. When we got here my dad met us at the airport along with someo of his employees who carried all of our bags and crap. We drove through Hon Kong nd he pointed out all te stuff, but we were sooo exhuatsed. But as soon as we got to our new home, everyone woke up and we were up for a long time. Hong Kong isnt as I had pictures it. I know that after saying that it merits an explanation but it is just so hard to explain it all. I love the Chinese people. The are all so nice. The city is so peaceful and not scary at all! No one is ever really yelling and there arent big crowds of people where I am. I think becuase there arent any creepy gangster black people I feel more safe. It so racist and I hate that but Chinese people are all so calm and relaxed. But back to my journey...Jet lagged and all the jazz, I woke up ay 6:22 yesterday morning and as you can see by the time on this, I am still waking up very early. I'm eating at all the right times and getting sleepy around nine or so but I cant seem to stop waking up before the sun. We walked around Hong Kong until about nine thirty AM. We walked down to Hair Pin Beach, and it is so beautiful, I have to go out and just take pictures all day. But the pictures cannot capture the splendor of all of it. It is all so beautiful. Everyone really must come here and visit. Before you die, make it a point to take a trip to Hong Kong, trust me, its worth it. After the beach trip, we went to Stanley Market for food and other things. Stanley Market is my new favorite place, but whats REALLY weird is that I knew a girl named Lizzy, who was coming here ( shes the one who lives below my flat ) and we passed this tall blonde american girl, and there are NOT many of those so my mm was like hmm I wonder if it is her. Then she insisted on yelling her name out over the crowd, which i found to be terribly embarassing, until IT WAS HER! So ours moms freaked out and we all went to dinner that night ( which was last night so this all happened yesterday ) at this little hole on the wall called Lucy's. It was reall good. I had teryaki salmon and she had some sort of rice dish. We decided that we can come there when we are shopping in Stanley from now on. The coolest thing about the market place is that is thrpugh all these allies and you go back into these litle hole in the wall sort of shops and everything is o cheap, but you pretend like it is really expenve and the store owners will bargain with you. I got a new skirt and a pair of earrings and a bag today. It all makes me so excited. Everywhere I go, I see things that I want to send back to everyone. I want to send back a Hong Kong care package. Give me an idea of things you want ( bags, earrings, buddha dolls, clothes [but thatd be hard bc i might not be bale to size it right ], etc etc ). Today at ten, I have an appoitnment at the school to register for classes. I really want to take Modren Dance and Rock climbing as my PE electives. And they have a class on EXistensialism! I really want to take that. I thought Danielle might enjoy that since she liked that a lot. ( or you at least understood it really well...) and then orientation is from 1-3. In between that time, lizzy and i are going back to stanyley to shop. I DID see a cite boy in the market and he was with his not so cute friend/brother but they had englih accents and i wass like wheeeeeeeeeee goodness. AND THEN we met someone in the market who knew my moms friend and they got all excited and started talking, and the best part of it all is that she has a son my age who plays guitar, is taking a lot of the classes that I want to take and hes CANADIAN! It was s crazy. Sorry this entry was so lacking in creativiity but it is so hard to descirbe it all. I was thinking next year around sept to december some people could take a big trip out to see me! I realy want to show people around Hong Kong becuase it is such an incredible place. I miss va beach though, i really am craving some hess pizza but im going to settle for a hot dog...yes i know, hot dogs for breakfast. I think its goodness. <33333333333333