On my Flight to Hong Kong, the same thoughts kept running through my mind about how it would feel to step foot in Asia. As we flew over the northern tip of Japan I couldn’t help but realize that I was 40,000 feet above a culture that I’ve truly only learned about through the media around me and the people I know that have experienced it for themselves. A few hours passed and we were flying over the southern extent of the Korean peninsula. A whole new culture, a whole new world, and something that I could only begin to understand by being there in person. Even though neither of those countries were my destination, preparing myself to step off the plane into a completely new atmosphere of social, structural, and environmental normalities overwhelmed me with excitement. This feeling quickly turned into that of a weary traveller unaccustomed to sleeping upright on a 14 hour, direct flight overseas. I waited in the airport to meet up with another student from the Hong Kong program, sitting tiredly and endlessly engaging in one of my favorite public pastimes, people watching. It dawned on me instantly that in a world this interconnected, the only major cultural divide I noticed was the language barrier. Other than that, the people, the tired faces, the screaming children, the frenzy of navigating through the airport, it was all the same as what I’m used to for traveling in the United States. These similarities carried into the city as we explored areas in Kowloon and Central on the first day.