The last two years have been quite a ride. I've watched myself grow emotionally and musically more than at any other time in my life. I decided to take this trip to continue that growth, reward my body and mind and to take a step back from my world and hopefully appreciate everything even more. I've lived such a blessed life and I feel a lot of us often take our blessings for granted, myself included.

I am lucky enough that one of my best friends immediately said he would love to take this trip with me. My job would be to map out our destinations and his would be to find flights, sort out visas and figure out how to travel to and from the various countries.

I've always wanted to visit Thailand. In Bangkok, they have what is called the Chatuchak weekend market which is the largest in the country. With 5,000 stalls, it's estimated that 200,000 visitors come each day. It's no secret that I'm just like any other girl and loooooveeee to shop! (It's a Girl Thing ;) #cornybuttrue, so I knew this was something I had to see. I'm not a huge beach lover, but I know I'm going to appreciate the beauty and landscape that Thailand's beaches have to offer: white sand and clear blue water for starters. I've been scuba diving once before in Key West when I was 15 and I fell in love with it. It's the most peaceful, exhilarating and beautiful thing I've ever experienced. This trip was the perfect excuse to get certified, so Darren and I did a 4 hour pool class outside of Nashville, studied the long book (boorrrinngg), took a 3 hour class and a 50 question final exam. To finish our certification, we are required to complete four open water dives, which we plan to do in either Vietnam or Thailand.

Most people hear about Vietnam in history books. I knew Vietnam was where we had a war that caused one of the largest uproars and upset a lot of the US population. My dad has talked about his hippie protest days back in the 60s and 70s, but I had no idea that Vietnam is a country which has quickly been becoming quite popular with tourists. I was talking to one of my best friends Dad one day, who lives in Bangkok most of the year, and when asking where I should travel to after Bangkok he said Vietnam. He said it had beautiful landscape and I should spend a good amount of time there. Since having that conversation with him, I've talked to others who have traveled there, and everyone has had great things to say. So, it’s a done deal. We’re set to visit Hanoi in the north, Saigon in the south and many more rural areas of the country. I can't wait.

Cambodia is right next to Vietnam. I thought it would be silly to be so close and not see Angkor Wat in Siem Reap. Angkor Wat is a very large ancient temple and looks incredible on Google Images! ;)

North Korea. I don't know where to start. My friend and I are most looking forward to this experience. Since being told we would be allowed into North Korea I have been doing a lot of research and watching every documentary available. It's incredible what an education I've gotten on history, politics, life... and this is all even before our trip there! I came to find that I really had no grasp on Communism and how a lot of the world still lives outside of the United States. I can't stress enough how strongly I recommend you watching a few of these documentaries if you haven't already.

North Korea is the least known and least traveled place IN THE WORLD. Very few have an opportunity to see North Korea like Darren and I will. A lot of people are nervous when I tell them we are going, especially my family. But we jumped at the chance of a lifetime. This could be the most eye opening experience I've ever had.

We have also planned our NK trip around the Arirang Mass Games. You absolutely have to YOUTUBE "North Korean Mass Games" if you've never seen it. I'm very excited for this, it's going to be incredible! We're staying in NK for four nights, and at all times will have two guides and a driver. After being in South Korea (we have a few days in Seoul on our way to Asia), it will fascinating then to see NK. The only way to fly into North Korea is through Beijing. We have one day in Beijing to pick up our visas at the DPRK embassy, then off to NK we go! On the way back we’ll spend a couple of days in Beijing doing touristy stuff, like seeing the great wall of China, Forbidden City, etc.

Day 1, THE FLIGHT

We were seated in business class in a middle group of two chairs. Not three minutes after the plane took off the older man next to us (4 feet away) waves over one of the flight attendants, starts jabbering at her in Korean and motioning his hand toward us in complete Seinfeld-style. Darren says to me, "I know it, I'm telling you that guy is complaining about us to her." I said, "No way, you don't speak Korean." All we were doing was laughing our butts off after having not seen each other for a while. Well, apparently being annoyed is a universal language because five minutes into the flight we were asked to change seats!

Our food on the flight was pretty great except for the time when Darren hastily feed me a tiny little thing which after inspecting the bowl I discovered was a tadpole of some sort. I had opted for the ‘western’ service, he the Korean. Yuck. I'm not THAT adventurous of an eater by choice.

Day 2, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

My feet are about to fall off. This city is HUGE. We started walking with no destination in mind this morning, crossed a big bridge and ended up so far away from where we started we probably covered 20 miles.

We made a feeble attempt to find our way back, and eventually hopped into a taxi to do the heavy lifting for us. Did I mention that hardly anyone here speaks English? Our taxi driver was laughing with us the whole time as we tried communicating back and forth. He even called an "English" speaking interpreter, who didn't seem to know any more than the driver. Luckily one of the few inexpensive things in this city are cab fares.

We've had a lot of fun today, gotten great exercise, but I'm kind of sorry we're spending three days here. I haven't seen any other tourists, which tells me this isn't a big tourist destination. The city itself reminds me of New York. It's crowded, pretty smelly in spots, cosmopolitan and a little dirty. I thought because a lot of places we're visiting are going to be inexpensive Seoul would be too, but that's not the case. We're spending $70 a night on our apartment and there's a mattress on the floor with tiny hard bean filled pillows, and a refrigerator. HA. No furniture....and no sink in the bathroom, with the shower head over the toilet (Very European). Also, we have a number of captive giant crickets in our room that Darren refuses to kill, and we are running out of upside down cups under which to trap them. Buy more cups or get them to share prison cells? That being said, now that we've walked around a ton, we figured out we are in THE BEST part of town by far. It's like Soho in NY or Rodeo Drive. Very trendy with lots of cute restaurants and shops. So, I'm willing to slum it with the bugs :).

We've eaten some interesting things so far, but nothing compared to what's going to come. Darren is big into bullying me into trying food that is either not recognizable or vaguely recognizable as a critter of some sort. I like to call it all mystery meat. He also keeps saying that this city is all women, and wonders if the mystery meat we're eating is the men they've chopped up. Creepy. As I type this he's made an informal survey counting the number of women vs. men that have walked by. In just a few minutes the count 32 to 12. Sounds like I might be leaving him in South Korea. ;)

Technology ROCKS. Skyped my dad in a restaurant today for the first time... ridiculously awesome. At the moment, we're on sitting on a busy hip street having coffee before dinner. I just heard a Taylor song followed by a Carrie song. Back to back NASHVILLE! Well..... gotta run! We still have to eat some men (I mean dinner) and find a Karaoke bar.

XOXOX Jesse Lee

Day 3, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

Waiting it out till we get to fly to Vietnam. Ha. We've spent the whole day eating and stopping in at coffee shops. There’s nothing pressing on our schedule but we did have a lot more fun than we should have laughing and making shadow puppets on the ceiling in our empty room a while. At least we're easily amused. :)

Here are a few Seoul observations:

- A lot of women here carry umbrellas when it's sunny. I like that they're all pale like me. ;)

- We thought there would be Karaoke bars EVERYWHERE... we were half right. You can stand anywhere on the street and see about 5 Karaoke places at the same time, but they are all in basements and for private parties!? You rent a room with your friends and sing, NOT in front of a bunch of people!? So odd!

- Every other building is an independently-owned coffee shop. So if you're a big coffee drinker this is the place for you!

- Tipping is none existent here. In fact, we've tried twice and both times they said too much and handed it back to us! We were trying to be nice and they are just too nice and honest! *Refreshing.

- All three nights that I've been here I've woken myself up talking in my sleep! SK makes me have craazzzyyyy strange dreams! In one nightmare my dog, Honey, jumped in a fish tank and was eaten by one of the fish. Probably because I've seen so many fish tanks on the streets in front of restaurants!

DAY 4, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

We woke up early only to find that our flight didn't leave till 7:50 PM. I was bummed we had that much time to kill, but it ended up being our best day in Seoul. In yet another coffee shop I overheard a Korean man speaking on the phone with an American accent. We struck up a conversation and it turns out he was from California.

We then joined him and his Italian friend for a bite, which stretched into some drinks, dessert and the rest of the day. We followed him across the street to the grocery store and purchased some high quality beef. We took it to an old lady running a hidden soup stand. She cut our meat for us and we dipped it in her various piping hot soups. It's incredible how the meat cooked a little just by dipping it in the soup. Definably never thought I'd be eating raw meat.... was kinda proud of myself! Our new friend kept going back into the grocery store and returning with all sorts of bizarre Korean liquors and wines that we polished off. We then went on a tour of maybe the most insanely expensive shopping mall I’ve ever seen. There was nothing but high-end designer stores, FENDI along with similar designers, even had a big baby clothes selection! The cheapest thing to buy in this place was dessert at their restaurant. $35 USD for four bowls of shaved ice with beans on top. Expensive and terrible. Whoever had the idea to put beans, ice and fruit together, should be taken out to eat a real desert!

We got to the airport with just enough time to hijack the piano in the Asiana lounge. Nobody kicked us out! The flight was a short three hours with a nice service. We arrived in Hanoi and were met at the airport by someone from our hotel. The city looked absolutely crazy from the taxi window but we were just too wiped to go exploring when we got in, so we crashed.

DAY 5, HANOI, VIETNAM

Our hotel in here in Hanoi is really nice! A cute little boutique hotel all recently redone with a friendly staff and good breakfast. We got going early and took a good walk around the old quarter and the lake around which it sits. The streets in Hanoi are chaotic to say the least. Countless motorbikes enter an intersection from five different directions with no traffic lights or pattern whatsoever, but somehow it works. People are generally friendly and at least smile an apology after they hit you, which is exactly what happened when a man on a scooter hit me.

It is quite interesting that this is supposed to be a socialist country, yet you are surrounded everywhere by countless independent businesspeople. Tiny restaurants, street workers of different sorts, store after store of clothing and a massive amount of flea market-type junk. Who is buying all of this stuff? We bought our tickets to the water puppet show for that evening (we were told this was a must-see) and had a snack in a coffee shop above one of the main squares of Hanoi. Lunch was interesting. Darren is the type of person who will eat anything except for bugs. The dirty little holes in the wall where old women cook you mystery meat while pigs feet sit on the floor around them scare me. But, he finally talked me into one. Surprisingly, not bad!

All along I had planned for us to go to Halong Bay from Hanoi, but had no idea how to get there or what to do once there. We spoke with the concierge at our hotel and he convinced us that we needed the best suite in the finest boat/cruise in the bay. Three days, two nights, five stars. I hope we are not disappointed.

Holy lame. The water puppet show was definitely worth the $5 admission! Not because it was good, but because it was so cheesy and ridiculous that we were cracking up. Some nice girls from London were sitting next to us and they thought it was awesome. To each their own. Every time the lights came on enough to see, my friend and I reached for the program to see how much longer we'd have to sit there. But now we have another memory that gives us something to laugh about.

DAY 6, HALONG BAY, VIETNAM

The drive from Hanoi to Halong Bay was about 3 hours. We went in a van with some other people and instantly made friends with two nice couples. Jenny and Paul from Ireland, and Jenny and Chris from Switzerland. They were only staying on the boat for one night, but we all hung out the entire time. I can't tell you how nice it is to meet fellow travelers and become instant friends with such cool people who live all over the world.

The ship was above and beyond what we were expecting. It's absolutely beautiful and we got a big suite and good sized bathroom with a huge Jacuzzi. It opens to the front of the boat with a private balcony. As the boat took off, we quickly saw why everyone said we just had to see Halong Bay for ourselves. It's so incredibly picturesque; I've never seen anything like it.

We spent some time Kayaking through caves and rock formations. Later we toured a small fishing village that essentially floated on the surface Waterworld-style. We saw children in an elementary classroom bobbing up and down on the water. Very bizarre.

The dinner served on board was fantastic. Best food I've had yet on this trip. The crazy captain of this ship also seems to enjoy providing the evening's 'entertainment.' To boil it down, he had a keyboard, laptop and sound system and sang cheesy Karaoke with an Italian accent. Yes, I got up and sang. It was surreal and hysterical. It didn't last long as the six of us had polished off a bunch of wine with dinner and went to continue the party on Jenny and Chris' balcony until late that night. On a whim I then decided to jump off the second story of the boat and go for a night swim and everyone followed. We star-gazed through a crystal clear sky in the warm water. There were no sounds and we were surrounded by the insane rock formations of Ha Long Bay. Magical

DAY 7, HALONG BAY, VIETNAM

We skipped the 6:30 AM Tai Chi and joined the others for breakfast on board before they left. We then took a 'day boat' to an island about two hours away. Bicycles were waiting for us and we rode them up the mountain and into the jungle. At one point I stopped at a small house to pet a woman's kitten and she gave Darren one of the crabs that she was eating on her floor. The ride was exhilarating and I don't think I've ever sweated so much in my life. We eventually ditched the bikes and continued our hike up through caves and deeper into the jungle.

The trek back seemed to move a lot more quickly now that we knew the terrain and we stopped once or twice again. Yet another man invited us into his home, insisted on taking pictures and did not want us to leave. He kept saying 'Sit, Sit,' and manhandled us around the place forcing us to sit in chairs. He was nice, but it was hilarious and we needed to keep moving. Lunch was waiting for us on the day-boat. Afterwards we stopped for some extensive kayaking and cave exploration. At one point we rowed under the small opening under what could only be described as a mountain of rock above us and came out the other side into a round body of water surrounded by the massive rocks jutting straight up around us. The space was expansive but it seemed like the only sounds were from the lapping water and our own breaths. We drifted around for a while and then exited back through the rock tunnel before the tied had a chance to seal us in to a massive tomb. The day boat eventually made it back to the big ship.

On board our cruise and along for our Halong Bay adventures was a woman named Terri from California. Terri grew up in Vietnam and just happened to be working in food service for the US Embassy in Saigon before and during the war. A week before the fall to the communists they gave her an option: leave the embassy right now and go back to your life in Vietnam, or get on a plane immediately, come to the United States and potentially never see your family here again. She chose the latter and had to leave ELEVEN siblings and the rest of her family in Saigon without any notice. She was eventually reunited with many of them, but not for over ten years. It was very interesting watching this hip California girl experiencing parts of her native country for the first time and interacting in her native language.

We napped and enjoyed another great dinner including stuffed squid. It was freezing in the dining room, so after the first course we moved to one of the tables out on the balcony and finished our dinner service there. The captain started the evening's performance. I'm fairly certain he was wanting me to join him again, but we snuck out after his first song. We crashed early like old people at 9:45, but old people who had climbed a mountain, kayaked and sweated like never before all day long.