Sin City (Hong Kong).

Checking my luggage at the China Eastern Airlines counter, I realize that I only have 15 dollars to my name after paying the 50 dollar fee for having changed my ticket. The man at the counter tells me my luggage is 10 kilos overweight. Knowing how expensive overweight luggage fees cost, I did my start-fake-crying-but-still-look-pretty-i'm-so-helpless routine. He discreetly waived me through and I thanked him profusely. On my flight to Shanghai, I fell alseep without any need of melatonin, and woke up to a nice meal of spaghetti and beef, orange juice, strange fruity pound cake, and a shrimp salad. The layover went as expected, and at 6 PM I arrived at Hong Kong airport. I was extremely stressed, considering I thought I was to take the subway with my two big suitcases again (not after London!!). Thankfully, the airport is incredibly organized. Even though I couldn't afford a ticket to Central (my booker who picked me up from there had to pay for me when I got there), there was a beautiful bullet train that took us right into the city in less than twenty minutes. I then met Elaine, and was surprised by how everyone speaks english here. Since it was a British colony, they all have these strange Chinese/British accents. It's actually quite lovely, and something I have definitely never heard before. We got into a taxi to my apartment, where she informed me that I will be getting my very own room! She gave me my keys, my very shitty cellphone, a map book, and my sheet for the two castings tomorrow (apparently they work from monday through saturday here). We then arrived at the apartment; fourth floor. Let me tell you how happy I was to be graced with a big window. (You cannot imagine what it's like living in a basement for two months. You body clock doesn't function properly, you're always groggy, you never know what time it is and what the weather would be like outside.) My room is furnished with a big comfortable bed, a flat screen television, an extremely tiny ''kitchen'', a fridge, a microwave, my very own bathroom/shower, an open concept closet and a great a/c system. Even though fairly small, I have grown very fond of my new home. I have two girls living next to me. One is named Fernanda, who is from Brazil (most models here are either from Brazil or Canada...whou would've thought?). We spoke for a little about Hong Kong, and she told me what to expect. The other one I have just met today..she is barely home since she is living with her boyfriend in another apartment. She invited me to a private party with special guest Rihanna (!!!!!) on thursday.

I wake up Saturday morning and set out for my first two castings of the day. Carrying way too much stuff (heels, portfolio, map book, umbrella, two cell phones, water bottle..the list goes on), I bought my Octopus card charged with $150 HKD. Let me tell you, Hong Kong is the most organized city I have ever been to; subway included. Everything is in english, everything is extremely well planned out and easy to use. That being said, most of our castings are on Hong Kong Island, which is much smaller than anyone would expect. It usually takes around twenty minutes to get from one casting to another.

My first casting was hell. Not only giving me the wrong address, it took me much longer to find the damn place than I thought. Alot of the castings are in ''Industrial Buildings'', aka extremely hard to find, usually near highways/junk yards/not somewhere you would want to be hanging around. I waited at a random building for half an hour, wondering why the client would not open the door for me. I called the agency and they told me where to actually go. Thanks, Model One! This made me late for all other castings that day. There was also a problem with my cellphone at first; it wasn't receiving any text messages. You can guess how frustrating this was considering all of our castings are sent via text message. Thankfully it is now fixed. Meeting clients here is quite nice, though. Most of them speak English, therefore me working my personality and charm! Surprisingly, many clients have lived or worked in Toronto, therefore giving me some key conversation starters. Clients here also look at your hands and feet, measure very strange things (wrists, ankles, neck), and make you try on many different outfits (making you later for the other five casting you will be having that day). Everyone is also completely obsessed with my hair here. They just don't understand how it is so white. They say they have never seen this hair color before and keep stroking it like I am some kind of cat. I guess this explains why I have been put on hold for almost every casting that I have been to so far, and then some. I am on hold for four jobs this week, I had a job tuesday for a magazine, and I have a job tomorrow for a newspaper. I am also first option to shoot for Cosmo Girl!!! Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

On Friday night, Fernanda and her Brazillian friend invited me out for my first model dinner/night on the town. She informed me that here, there are model dinners and events planned monday/wednesday/friday/saturday. The partying never stops in Hong Kong, apparently. We then took a taxi to an Italian restaurant hosted by a promoter. At first, it was extremely awkward for me; there were two huge tables of models I didn't know, and the brazillians immediately met up with all of the other brazillians and started chatting away in, you guessed it, brazillian. I just kind of sat there feeling embarrassingly lonely until I saw a girl from Next Toronto that I had done a show with for Toronto Fashion Week. THANK THE LORD! We immediately took a liking to each other, and she introduced me to a bunch of other amazingly sweet models. One was an almost retired red headed model from London, another a half-asian vegan from California, a set of twins from Brazil. We sipped on red wine and I watched as they feasted on everything I told myself I would never touch knowing that I have to be stick thin for Tokyo in November - calamari, six different kinds of pasta dishes, pizza, garlic bread (so cruel...). At around twelve, we all set out to the club district. This, my friends, is where I start lacking in words. Think of the biggest club you have ever seen. Multiply it by a hundred. All packed in the same district. Mostly foreigners, people pouring out on the street still drinking. Model clubs are even more intense. We got to ''Roxbury'' and we were met by around two hundred models wearing feathered boas, mixed with business men clad in expensive suits and cigars. We went to the area where there were free drinks everywhere you looked. It was jammed packed and as crazy as a club could ever be. It makes my head spin to think how there are dozens of clubs just like this one, with just as many models and just as many free ordeals as the one I just so happened to be in. We laughed and danced and drank, and then ventured to another club called Volvic. Another club where models hang out and get the ultimate treatment of hand stamps and body guards and champagne in crystal glasses. This club had mirror walls, which made me extremely confused when I tried to find the bathroom. There was also marble white merry-go-round horses and cotton candy. Finally, after meeting many models and having a lovely, lovely time, Krysten and Ingrid walked me to the taxi stand at around 5 in the morning and I went home and slept like a baby.

Now, this is the part where I try to explain the extraordinary Hong Kong. It is very hard to understand the charm of the city, since most of it is found the small details. What's amazing about Hong Kong is how harmoniously the old and the new come together. It is so seamless that you're fooled into thinking this is the way things have always been. It really does offer you small moments of perfection. You encounter the traditional Chinese ways; incense smell from a far away temple. The old ladies selling dragon fruit and leeks. The content look in people's faces chowing down on a bowl of congee. The organic ''world peace'' cafe's with buddhist volunteer waiters. And then, without warning; the Chanel boutiques, the five star hotels, the modern architecture, the five-star Japanese restaurants, world class airports and gigantic international supermarkets selling everything from prosciutto to shwarma. At first, it was extremely overwhelming. Honk Kong is the most crowded city I have ever been to. Thankfully, people are amazingly well coordinated and self-aware when it comes to walking around. It's as if they are on auto-pilot. I have never gotten bumped into, nor have I ever gotten frustrated. There is complete walking etiquette; people stand on the right side of the escalator (this was unheard of in Seoul), and when people are actually in your way, they apologize profusely in English for minutes on end. As for friendliness, I find it very strange. You could ask one person for directions, and they will stare at you and mumble something and walk off angrily. Then you ask the people who will make it their goal to see you to your destination, no matter how far (this lady walked me half an hour to a casting and bought be a green tea afterwards). I think every asian country is split into two types of people; people who are jealous of foreigners and do not approve of their culture (this is mostly older people), and the people who are absolutely fascinated by you and want to know every single thing that you did that day and more. However, Hong Kong is the place where I get stared at the most of any country I have visited. I don't just mean half assed stares. I mean full on, mouth open, unshakable staring. It gets a little bit awkward on the subway, as you can surely guess.

As much as I am a little bit lonely here, I really do love it. At first it was so overwhelming I didn't know what to do with myself, but I'm getting the hang of thing. I wish I had more time to hang out with people I've gotten to know here, but I am bombarded with castings and jobs. I am the only model that I know of that is constantly going to castings and working so intensely. I'm not complaining..I do need the money come Christmas shopping and Tokyo. And I did come here to work. But sometimes I wish I had company.

Airport Chronicles (Incheon Airport).

so here i am, once again, wasting time at another international airport. it's crazy to think how much time i've spent sleeping on wooden chairs, drinking coffee, watching families and lovers, greetings and farewells. to be honest, i can't complain. i love being here. i love being in the middle of all of this hustle and bustle, watching people of every ethnicity going on their own adventures. people buying gifts for their families wherever they might be (gotta love those hundred dollar fruit baskets in asia!). people in groups going on tropical islands, anticipating the tan and the pina coladas. in a way it makes me feel sad that i cannot share my time in airports with the people i love most of the time. even though they're usually gigantic, i feel very intimate here.

it's crazy how two and a half years ago, my international career had started right where i am now; Incheon airport. how scared i was, being in the big scary world by myself at the tender age of nineteen! i've seen more than i could've ever imagined i would. from kimchi in seoul, to monkeys at the pet stores in tokyo, to sweaty sweaty castings in athens...i am extremely excited (and just a teensy bit nervous) to explore Hong Kong. apparently i will be living with many other models (try 20, male and female) in the heart of the island, pretty much as central as you can get. sometimes i wish they wouldn't always put me in the richest, most western area of the entire country. it makes me feel a little bit strange when you're surrounded by things you already know so well. that's why, after Hong Kong and Tokyo, I want to go on a real dirty, sweaty, real adventure with elliott; INDIA! i know it will be tough - i will be whiny, dirty, and probably quite uncomfortable most of the time - but i know it's something i need to do to keep my head straight.

i really did have an amazing time in korea this time, though. i met two lifelong friends that i miss more than i could say (lauren and letecia). they will both be in new york for a long time, so we will definitely be able to have many reunions in the big apple! i explored, i traveled outside of completely westernized apgujeong...speaking of adventures, let me tell you what happened on jeju island (i also posted many pictures on facebook for you all to enjoy!);
on the second day, our plan was to tackle the tallest mountain in south korea - mount hallasan. usually i am not up for vertical hiking for six straight hours, but i knew i would never get to experience something like this again (and i also didn't want to seem whiny and weak to elliott, of course!). we took the bus on the winding hills, heading up through the forest. we realized when we got there that we were too late to climb to the top; apparently if you arrive at the resting area before 1 (around 4 1/2 hours hike from the bottom), you are not permitted to go any further. what a bummer! we started our trek thinking we could just sneak by whoever it took just to see that amazing lake/crater on the top. poor elliott had his huge backpack on the whole time since we didn't find a hotel close enough to where we wanted to stay..what a trooper! let me just say it was a great hike up - and when we got to the resting area, we were the last one's there. the attendents kept an extremely close eye on us because they thought elliott's bag was full of camping gear (which it wasn't), so they kept rushing us to start our trek down. it was shitty because you couldn't even see ANYTHING from the rest hut. it was just a place where you could buy ramed and chocolate bars. damn...so at around 6 we started our journey down the mountain. it was getting a little bit dark, especially since most of the trail is through the forest. but we didn't care - we had the mountain all to ourselves! and this is where things got intense. about 45 minutes down, we decided to relax and have a smoke and enjoy the scenery. we sat down, listening to the crows and the birds chirping...how relaxing! until.........we heard a rustling in the leaves.
''elliott, what the fuck was that?'' said nervous nathalie
''don't worry, you always freak out about everything! relax, it's probably just a small animal. there is no real danger until the crow crows'' explained irritated elliott
...THE CROW CROWS.
A FUCKING HUGE CAT OF SOME SORT ROARS LIKE I'VE HEARD ONLY IN THE ZOO
''IT'S A JAGUAR, RUN UP THE MOUNTAIN!!!'' screams elliott
i have never ran so fast in my life/been so scared in my life/never felt so much like fainting in my life. we were fucking ALONE on the mountain! so we found a pole with the emergency number, and we called it. the guy spoke english, but when we told him what had happened, he just told us it was either a wild deer or a wild dog. WHAT THE FUCK? THAT DID NOT SOUND LIKE ANYTHING SMALL OR NICE! so they didn't want to come pick us up, so we ran for four hours down the mountain, full of endorphins and sharpened wooden stakes at hand (we must have looked like crazy westerners). we finally got to the bottom and i felt like passing out....so tired and scared!
the rest of the trip was amazing....swimming in the ocean, taking huge ships sailing past beautiful islands, sleeping in hilariously tacky motels for 25$ a night. enjoyed some well deserved soju and watched sunsets from the mountain tops. worth much more than a pair of prada shoes, if i can say so myself!

Mud Festivities (Seoul)

It all started on friday afternoon, when all four of us decided to take the two and a half hour bus trip to Boreyong Beach where the Mud Festival was being held. We thought that, even if it was pouring and cold for a july evening, it would be amazing to be there for the first day/opening ceremonies. We woke up at 7 on Saturday morning, had McDonalds breakfast and walked through the thunderstorm to Apgujeong station. Elliott, being our tour guide once again, took us to the express bus terminal two stations away, where we took the ''excellence bus'' for around twenty dollars a head. We bought Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (original, of course), our beloved fermented rice wine, and played silly camp games the whole way there. Thank god we were in the back so we were only annoying half the people on the bus. After being obnoxious and annoying for an hour and a half, we all suddenly fell fast asleep for the last half hour of our ride. When we woke up, it seemed like we were in a different country altogether. Everything was green, everything was surrounded by mountains and the ocean. Things were a quarter of the price, people spoke absolutely no english, damn, it was the real Korea! As soon as we got off the bus we realized that;

1) We clearly did not come prepared. It was fucking freezing. We only had brought our bathingsuits and a flimsy pair of shorts. We didn't think about it being so windy since we were near the waterfront. We had only brought our money, cigarettes, and disposable camera's all in a communal ziplock bag.

2) The mud festival was filled with all of the people I was trying to get away from in North America; the drunk frat boys, the obnoxiously loud westerners, the bitchy jealous white girls. We were constantly being harassed, especially as we were clean. Gross tourist men would rub their disgusting muddy bodies all over ours (''you're too...CLEAN!!!!''), girls would say things like ''where did your boobs go?''. We decided after all of this, we had to fit in and get fucking dirty! So we go to this area where everyone basically picks up mud from the floor and whips it at each other. It was all fun and games until people started whipping us in the face. I'm surprised no one got hurt, since there were rocks in the clay. I lost my flip flops twenty minutes in. It was really, really annoying. We then looked around and found all of the mud slides promised on their official website, but they all had lineups no shorter than two hours longs. Think of Disney World, except while you're waiting in line, people are pouring booze over your head, slapping mud on your ass, and all the while you are so freezing because you thought it would be a great idea to not bring any dry articles of clothing after you jumped into the ocean to clean off.

What's a group of girls (and one guy) to do to stay away from crazy foreigners, keep dry and stay warm? DRINK SOJU IN THE FOOD TENT! Elliott, obviously always finding himself into the center of attention, started playing the communal piano and everyone started roaring with excitement and all praised him and started lining up to play with him. We met some alright foreigners from New Zealand and the states, and chilled with them for a long while at our table. The girls and Elliott ate five hamburgers and fries, we all drank, OF COURSE, way too much and ended up, as usual, drunk. At around nine we decided it was warm enough to go swimming again. Bad idea. We were freezing and drunk and all decided it was now time to catch the bus home. We walked to the bus station and kept asking people where the bus was, but no one understood us. No signs were in English and finally, this one man said that we had missed the last bus going anywhere. All of the other tourists were either staying in hotels or catching a chartered bus back to Seoul. Oh, fuck....FUCK! We didn't have enough money for a hotel, we were soaked, dirty, and tired. We started freaking out (except for Elliott, of course). We started walking around trying to find a hotel that was cheap, but everywhere was booked up (this poor city lives for the two weeks of festivities to pay rent for the rest of the year). There were mosquitos everywhere (I got thirty-two. I counted). Being stupid drunk idiots, the only idea that came to our head was to hitch hike back to Seoul. Everyone laughed at us when we said we wanted to go to Apgujeong. Finally, these three young guys picked us up and said they were driving us to the bus station. Climbing in, it felt like a clown car; five of us in the back, two in the front. I wasn't too scared to hitch hike because I knew Elliott would take care of us, and that Asian people are usually very nice to pretty foreigners (I had read it in a book). They told us the buses were done running anywhere for the night, and that they knew a hotel we could stay at. They bought us all coffee, one of them called his qife who spoke english to talk us through what was happening, bought Elliott shoes because he lost his in the ocean somewhere, and drove us to the ''hotel''. This is where things got fucking weird. We say our thank-you's and goodbye's, and we go inside. No one spoke english, but as soon as we got in, they seperated us from Elliott, gave us towels and prison-type uniforms and brought us to this locker room. I was getting freaked out until we saw dozens of naked asian women bathing in A SPA WATER WORLD!!!! There was tree sap pools, massage tubs, lukewarm springs, you name it! We stripped naked and jumped in like Totoro stylez, getting told off for not washing ourselves in the single showers first. It was the best experience I have ever had, especially after a fucking mud fest! After we got all relaxed and cleaned, we put on our prison pyjamas and wondered if this was actually a place to sleep. Meeting back up with Elliott, we all go upstairs and this epic place just never ceased to amaze us; it was a Korean family style night spa!! There was a huge main room, and about ten different mini rooms with each a different theme. The ice temple room (the whole thing was made out of ice), the salt room (huge salt rocks on the boiling floor), the oxygen room (that gave us a head rush), the list goes on...let me tell you, I have never felt more relaxed in my entire life. it felt like a dream. I could go on and on, but I will just conclude by saying we all slept on the floor with mats and strangers, feeling more safe and sound than I have ever been. We woke up feeling like a million bucks, took another run at the hot springs, dried our clothes on the amazing rooftop in the sun, and found our way to the bus station. Passed out, woke up in Apgujeong and got a huge slap from Korea reality - great, back to the moldy smelly model basement.