This is the first email I sent my friends from China... its date is May 8th. (I think)

Hello Everyone... Ni hao! (that means hello, but also goodbye, and I think, how are you..) Luckily, I can use it in several situations because that's the extent of my Mandarin. I landed in Hong Kong after traveling over the top of the world (very weird to watch the little plane on my little TV screen cruising over the arctic...).I can't believe it, but the 16-hour trip wasn't too awful. I managed to sleep for awhile and that took a chunk out of the flight. Plus, you can't beat the Asian airlines. Their service is sooo good. Now if only I could fly in first class and see what it's like up there.... sigh. :) I didn't really get to see much of Hong Kong, but it was pretty easy to get my way around the airport and into my hotel. Because of the British occupation, everyone speaks English and all the signs are in English also. HK seems like the Asian version of NYC with some definite exceptions. There are these huge, HUGE skyscraper apartment buildings and you can see that they are virtually crumbling apart. And every window has laundry flapping from its balcony and on the top are about a hundred TV antennas crammed together in little clusters. That's about all I got to see... I was back at the airport today at 3pm to catch my flight to Beijing. Oh... I did have lunch at the hotel restaurant and that was pretty tasty with one exception... the pork pieces still had huge, crunchy bits of gristle in them. Eeeeeekkk... I MUST examine my food more closely before diving in. I picked up a taxi at the airport and -- despite reading warnings about this!!!! -- I managed to get ripped off by the taxi driver. I think I just paid for his kids to go to college. Oh well... I've learned a lesson, right?

Hmmm... I guess that's it for right now... not much has happened yet. I'm getting used to brushing my teeth with bottled water... trying to figure out how to make myself understood (not as many people in Beijing speak English), adjusting my body clock (what the h*ll time is it anyway!?) and trying to ward off the culture shock which I can feel starting to seep in.

'til next time...
Angela