Day 1 & 2

The trip has started well with a flight from CLE to ORD to Hong Kong. No delays or travel difficulties. The 15 hour leg ORD-HKG was a bit long, but not too bad really. I had a good book that Aunt Janette gave me called Rediscovering Catholism and watched two good movies. I saw the Ernie Davis story about the Syracuse running back-good story. It was a strange coincidence that I sat next to a guy I knew and across the aisle from another guy from the China Resource Network that I belong to. It always makes you feel a little more comfortable when you have people you know to chat with. With all this to do plus sleep 4 hours, the trip actually went pretty fast.

Once in Hong Kong's airport (new since my last visit) I ventured around checking it out. It's very modern and has many Western restaurants. I had the tough choice between Burger King, Ben & Jerry's and Popeye's chicken. I went with Popeyes just for the "that's cool" factor. The chicken wasn't equal to USA but the Dirty Rice tasted the same.

It's pretty amazing that Asia has advanced as far and as fast as it has. I recall flying into Hong Kong's old airport in 1999 and being hit by a wave of cultural differences. Today, I would be happy if our USA airports were this nice. Their culture has advanced amazingly, and besides the language and Asian faces, you could have been in any new USA airport-same stores, same products but with a beautiful spit polish look.

I had 5 hour layover awaiting the HKG to Bankok leg. Like usual, many Westerers are roaming around waiting also. I noticed a Muslim man in full robe garb is on his knees doing his prayers in an East corner in front of me. How interesting that I just finished my daily prayers and logged my entry into my Lenten journal. It struck me that on this feast of the Annuciation, how God is there for all of us. As St. Athanasius said, "At the moment of Jesus's conception in Mary's womb, God became human so that humans might become divine. " So whether it be the Muslim in front of me, the Chinese child watching Cartoon Network next to me or myself in prayer, we are all called.

Also I logged on my email and saw messages on Facebook from two people I hadn't hought about in years. One was my old OSU frosh roomate Scott Conway. and the other was Eddie Obermiller from Central. I have to admit this Facebook thing is really kind of cool to reunite with people after all this time. I journey down to my gate past two Starbucks, a Gucci and Apple electronics store. How far I've come-how far we've come.