Well, last night was when the journey began, I guess. I really didn’t feel like packing, and basically put it off until the last minute. So here I was at…near 1:00 am, finally getting into bed. Doesn’t sound too bad, but I woke up at 4:00am, and left for BWI at 4:30am to catch a 7:00am flight to Seattle.

On the van to BWI was my parents, Ian’s Aunt and Auntie Liao (one of the people in the RCS chorus). When we got to BWI, we met up with Eric and his mom (yup, welcome to Eric and Kevin’s _____ Adventure Part II).

Coincidentally, we met Sang at the airport. He was taking a 6:50am flight to LA for a volleyball tournament with the Maryland JO team. Same times, same flight companies…interesting.

I basically slept the entire plane ride. IT would have been nice had there not been this little baby that just kept yelling, and yelling, and yelling. Not crying…just yelling.

So we get to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at around 9:20am PST, but had to wait until around 11:40am until we met up with our tour group. I don’t understand how we wasted 2 hours, but we did (I did some college reading…boring).

When we met up with the tour group, we met the other four people with us that we knew: Jane and Peter’s parents (Uncle Andy, Auntie Grace), Uncle Hsu, and Auntie Mao (…it’s so weird describing them like that…but that’s Chinese for you).

Our tour gruide’s name is Stephen and our first stop was Seattle Chinatown for lunch. From Chinatown we rode along the coast of Puget Sound, I believe, to our next stop, the Space Needle. Seattle is a really nice city, but the roads are a bit hilly. Oh, along the way I also saw Safeco Field…pretty cool.

The Space Needle wasn’t as impressive as I imagined it would be. Still, Eric and I had our fun at Seattle Center (where the thing’s located). We took pretend pictures of leaning on the needle, ran around the large fountain and rode the fake whales.

Okay, just sitting in a bus gets boring…and listening to music, I basically pass out and fall asleep. So, on our trip from the needle to the University of Washington, I accidentally slept…and Terry’s dad took a picture of my mouth wide open (beautiful…).

The Space Needle

Some Cute Geese

The point of the stop at U of W was to go to the bathroom. Hehehe. Our next stop was this dam…don’t know which one. It was pretty interesting because they have this fish ladder for salmon that swim upstream. As mating season is now beginning, we saw a bunch of fish just jumping up the ladder….cool…Another cool and cute thing was the shiplock. Well, the shiplock wasn’t cute, but it was this family of geese that was anxiously awaiting to go downstream. It was two adult geese and six baby ones, and everyone was worried that they would get rammed by the boat. Well, eventually the gates opened and the geese got through, and everyone cheered. However, to get through the second gate, the geese would have to wait for another boat. >_<.

When we were preparing to leave the dam, I think the parents were observing this couple that was tanning on the hill. They pulled out the binoculars and everything. I don’t know, but I think the word “naked” was involved…(here we go with the sex comments again…and from parents…).

Our next trip was a trip around Seattle before heading for the US-Canada border. We went across a floating bridge , and saw Bill Gates’ residency.

As we headed north for the border, I slept…again…unintentionally…again (this will be a recurring theme of the trip…). We stopped in Richmond, British Columbia for dinner, and then went to the Sandman Hotel for the night. Richmond was like founded by Hong Kong-ese people, so everything here is all Chinese and stuff.

Once we checked into the hotel, my parents left to go pick up my grandmother (actually my grandaunt…long story) from Vancouver.

Now our group of 14 is complete (Terry’s parents too), and I’m writing…actually writing…these entries because my dad no longer has a laptop. Have to wake up at 6:15 tomorrow morning and now it’s 11:30pm…just like school all over again…fun. Good night.