Liz was excited. She was going to Asia with her mom. Neither of them had ever traveled out of the United States before. They were going to fly to Hong Kong. After staying in Hong Kong for three nights, they would travel on their cruise ship to Shanghai and Beijing.

"Beijing is inland, so we have to take about a two-hour bus ride to get there from the port. I forget the name of the port. Anyway, we're going to see the Great Wall, the Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. It's going to be so cool!" she told her neighbor Jane.

From China, the cruise ship would go to Pusan in South Korea, and finally to Tokyo. From Tokyo, they would catch a flight back to Los Angeles.

"The trip is going to last three weeks. It's only going to cost us $2,800 each, IF we can control our urge to shop," she laughed.

"I hope your trip is more fun than mine was," said Jane. "I took a cruise to the Bahamas, but almost all the passengers got sick. I caught some kind of virus that made me throw up for almost three days. They gave us a discount that we could use on a future trip. Ha! No more cruising for me."

"We've heard about those disasters," said Liz. "Mom and I are going to be washing our hands every 30 minutes, and we're bringing surgical masks with us."