JFK International

I had the best driver ever. We spent the entire ride to JFK discussing Lil' Wayne versus T.I., the origins of gunpowder, how Chris Brown allegedly assaulted Rihanna before the Grammys, his cousin's incarceration issues, etc. I was trying to be wary of the fine line of asking questions to seem interested and asking the wrong question. After arriving at the terminal, he asked me what time I would be landing in "Chinatown." I had to hold in my laugh so hard that I think I caused an aneurysm. I love this guy.

Walking into this terminal at JFK is like going abroad already. I usually don't see Cartier, Hermes, & Bvlgari stores in La Guardia (usually just Au Bon Pain and Anne's Pretzels or whatever.) I am currently surrounded by Chinese people of all ages and Caucasian businessmen.

Driving out of the City today was like a quick flashback of the past year and a half. Chelsea, 5th Avenue, Madison Square Park, Gramercy Tavern, the Lower East Side, Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, and then the Manhattan city-scape as we were driving away. I'll miss you and everyone here; but its on to Beijing now. My lovely mother came up to help me pack...meaning, she packed while I put things in various piles. I am surprised that she and Dad are not trying to discourage me from going because last year when I had arranged everything to move to Hong Kong, she and Dad were adamant that it was not the right time. In retrospect, I'm very happy they did because I would have missed out a lot of good times in New York.

I'm sorry for those I wasn't able to see one final time before I left the City. More reason for all of you to come to Beijing! Jeanette and I are planning a trip to Tibet in July; let me know if you're interested! You can fly to Beijing ahead of time and we'll explore the Capital City before getting lost in Tibet, ;).

I'll be putting an Urtak.com polling widget on here once I get to Beijing. If you don't know what that means, go check out Urtak.com and then imagine a mini-version for questions based on China. Hopefully, I can use this blog to answer questions that friends and family have about life in contemporary China. More from the Middle Kingdom in a few days...