Its amazing to me how out of the loop I am already...thankfully for Facebook (once I was out of China and allowed to go on it), I realized it was Thanksgiving. It seems every year I have more and more to be thankful for. Either that, or I am just more aware of how blessed I am. Even though my Thanksgiving dinner consisted of two airplane dinners, it was still not too bad! So, backing up a bit, I left the beautiful city of Beijing to Shanghai via the super duper fast train (I'm sure that is the technically correct term:). It is pretty amazing being on a train that goes 300 km/hr. That whole experience of getting on the train was a tad stressful. Basically, traveling in a large group means that we were late, ... read more

Day 2...well, if the rest of my journey is anything like the past two days, I'm in for quite the ride! So, what are the odds of having a 11.5 hour flight out of chinatown (aka Vancouver) to China and sitting in an emergency exit window seat beside an oil typhoon? I guess the odds are in my favour because that is what happened to me. I do have to say, before finishing this particular part of this story, that since I'm traveling alone, I really have to trust & listen to my instincts about people and situations. After 12 hours of chatting to this guy, I felt like I had a good read on him and his business partner. So, rather than arriving in a city of 20 million people with no clue of where ... read more

Week one... Its been quite the week! So, after leaving Hong Kong (which has a huge airport. You have a subway station taking you from one terminal to the other), we arrived in Denpasar, Bali. Walk off the plane, and immediately you notice the slower pace here. The locals are so nice and seem pretty casual in their everyday life. Every morning and night (from my observations), they place offerings in front of every building or on alters. It is normally a little box made from banana leaves, with food and coins in it, with an incense stick burning. I accidentally stepped on their offering box.... oops! But, as you walk down the street, there are so many of these little offering things. Apparently its not disrespectful once they have said their prayer and set it ... read more

I have kind of been slacking in the blogs. I suppose it is because I am almost done here in SA, and my energy for blogging is basically gone, and I feel like I could write a book on my experiences just in the last couple weeks...hence, I just havent written much. I will do my best to try to capture some stories though! So after leaving Trujillo (the hostel of death), the four of us made our way up the coast to a city called Chichlayo. Once again, this city was just about as bad as the first. We stayed in a hostel which was nicely located right beside the place where all the taxis park. So around 6 in the morning, there was yelling, honking and excess noice. I actually cant fall asleep now ... read more

Where to begin... So my mom and sister arrived a week ago, and its been quite the week! First of all, nothing is worse than standing in an airport, waiting to see people walk out of the customs door, and 2 hours later, they still haven't. I am not sure why, but it took them 2 hours to get off the plane and go through customs. So, by the end of that, I was sooooo relieved that they made it to Lima! We all went from super excited to absolute horror when about 20 minutes after arriving at our hotel, my mom realized she forgot her purse on the floor of the taxi. Slightly a rookie move, because her purse had ALL her cash that she intended on spending for the trip, her new camera, passport, ... read more