The story I read today about an adolescent girl with psychiatric problems being pushed out of China before the Olympics reminded me of details people need to consider before moving to another country to live with their children.

The girl, who is from Ohio, was living in Beijing with her parents. Her mother was a teacher at one of the international schools. After moving to China, the girl began to get into trouble due to some psychological issues. Prior to the Olympics, the Chinese officials put pressure on the family to get the girl out of China.

According to the article in today's Columbus Dispatch, the Chinese government wanted it to be smooth sailing when the guests arrived so people who were problematic, such as, political dissidents and protesters were removed from the city's scenery. The girl happens to fit the profile of undesirables.

Now that the girl and her mother are back in Ohio, they are having a hard time getting services to help the girl because they are technically not residents of Ohio anymore. They have overseas residential status, sort of. The health insurance they had in China doesn't cover them in the U.S.

In the meantime, the father is still working in China in order to make enough money to return back to the U.S. Depending on the contract he has, he may not have the cost of a flight back covered in his contract if he has to leave early. This is conjecture on my part, but plausible.

Remember Michael Fey, another teenage Ohioan who had issues while he was living in Singapore with his mother and step-dad? He was also sent back to the U.S., but not before being arrested, jailed and caned for punishment.

Although living the expat lifestyle overseas can be a wonderful experience, for people who have children with special needs, it can turn into a disaster. The support services are generally not there when it comes to special education and mental health issues. At least they are not typically as available as they are in the United States, and people can be left stranded to try to deal with problems on their own with little to no help.

Schools the students attend can be supportive up to a point, but they are in a position where they need to maintain a good relationship with the country in which they are located. If the boat springs a leak, so to speak, the person causing the leak my be dumped overboard. It's not personal. It's business.

If you're contemplating moving overseas with your family, know what services are available in a country before you ever sign a contract and get on that airplane. This is particularly important if you have a special needs child. The stress of adjusting to this new life can cause issues not anticipated as this Ohio family found out.

My daughter is approaching driving age. Gaad! Let's just say, I'm not thrilled. Dings and dents abound in Columbus. This is a city. It's not that people drive like maniacs, but there are many cars and many possibilities for an amiss to happen while navigating the roads. Dents and dings are the mildest forms of mishaps.

One day though, it's inevitable; my daughter will be driving. To get her ready for the day when she hits the road on her own, I've come across a guide that could come in handy. In July's Car&Travel: New York, a AAA publication, is a blurb on AAAStartSmart, a newsletter that is geared for teen driver education.

Developed in partnership with the National Institute of Health, the on-line newsletter, published every two weeks, covers topics such as driving at night, teen passengers' seat belt use and drivers' distractions. It gives tips to parents on how to set limits and what limits to set.

I can see how this newsletter might help illuminate the issues that occur with teen drivers to help parents know what to expect and how to prevent a problem before the problem ever has a chance to happen. For example, setting limits such as not letting a teen drive with other teens in the car since teens are a major distraction for teens.

To get the newsletter go to AAA.com/StartSmart and register.

Last summer when we were in Seattle we missed out on the public toilets. After reading about them in this New York Times article, I can't say I'm sorry.

Five automated public toilets were opened in 2004, but one detail was overlooked when deciding where to put them. Location. Location. Location. As it turns out, the public toilets were put where too many drug dealers and transients hang out.

Even though the toilets are supposed to clean themselves after every use, the traffic was the messy type and too much for a self-cleaning toilet to handle. The trash left behind by the users created a situation where the automatic cleaning system didn't function. Plus, the toilets were used for other types of business besides toilet business. Drug deals, prostitution, smoking crack--that kind of thing.

Eventually, though, the toilets became so nasty, even crack addicts didn't go in them.

Since the toilets cost Seattle $5 million dollars, the city is interested in recouping some of the loss. They are up for sale on eBay for $89,000 a piece. I know someone who turned a Port-A-John into public art with decorations. Perhaps an art museum might want to take the initiative and buy one.

The problem with the toilets isn't the toilets, it's the people who use them. Because other cities have tried similar toilets, Seattle's problem has created a stir.

Europeans have managed to use public toilets just fine. Folks in the U.S. are trying to figure it out.

The one in the photograph is in London. According to ILoveButter who posted this on Flickr, it costs money to use the toilet. However, it is very clean.

Greetings from Belize!

Something just dawned on me today while walking through "downtown" San Pedro, Belize: you can judge the "development" of an area by whether or not it has soymilk readily available in grocery stores. Sure, I'm waiting for a flurry of criticism on this post, but hear my logic first.

I'm not lactose intolerant, but a lot of my friends are. Seems like everyday, I hear about someone, or their child, being unable to drink milk.

The generally accepted idea is that early Europeans developed enzymes to digest cows milk, which helped get them through tough northern winters. Much of the world doesn't have this ability. Why? They don't drink cows milk. Babies drink mother's milk, and there it ends most everywhere.

In the West, you see milk everywhere there's refrigeration. And most people drink at least some. But now, it seems, more and more Westerners are developing allergies, and developing intolerance to milk. So, they switch to soymilk...if they can afford it.

And where did it all start? Probably China, where soy has been widely used for many centuries...but not generally as a soymilk drink. From what I can find, the first soymilk factory was founded in Paris around the turn of the last century by someone of Chinese origin, and some production followed in the U.S. and elsewhere. It took off in Hong Kong too, where it beat out Coke for a while.

But the big production of soymilk didn't come until the 1990s, and it seemed to start only in the most affluent, urban areas. (A ten-fold increase occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.) Where did I see it first? San Francisco, then Seattle and Portland, then Manhattan. It followed in most other cities in the U.S., from what I can tell. (You want to test me? Ask for it in every Starbucks outside major metro areas.)

Hence my "soymilk development index": where you have Westerners with the most money to burn and increasingly discerning tastes, you'll find soymilk.

Can you find it on Ambergris Caye (the most touristed area in Belize)? You bet, two brands.

The other night we were sitting with a friend enjoying a few Pacificos when he asked if he could turn the fan on to keep the mosquitoes away. As one who always get bitten by these bloodsucking irritants, I was more than happy for the fan to keep me bite-free. As he clicked the fan on, our friend casually mentioned that with the rainy season comes dengue fever, which is not too dangerous,"unless you get Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF)..."

Excuse me? The what?

Before we left on this trip we went to the travel clinic to get the necessary shots as well as the medications we might need. As we will be traveling through high-risk malaria areas we stocked up on anti-malarials and brought along a good supply of bug spray. I figured malaria, not dengue fever, would be our biggest health risk. Truth be told, I have never been too concerned with dengue. I know that it can make you quite ill, I know there are no drugs to treat it but what I didn't realize was that you can potentially die from it.

World travel is a wonderful thing--or can have dire consequences when cultures clash. Having sex in a public place isn't exactly celebrated in western culture, but it's not uncommon--particularly under the cover of night when the stretch of a beach seems private.

In some cultures having "safe sex" is more than using a condom.

In Dubai, if you get caught having sex in public, you will get arrested and face years in jail--six in fact. Such is the possible fate of Michelle Palmer, a British woman who has worked in Dubai for three years. She and her male companion were caught having sex. If all goes well, she might only be in jail for three months--the minimum sentence.

The story is not complicated. Palmer, a manager of ITP Publishing was at a champagne brunch where the bubbly stuff flowed. Eventually, smashed and feeling frisky, she and a man headed to the beach for some adult fun and letting off steam.

Unfortunately, the police came along. Having sex in public in Dubai is not the only big no-no. So is having sex if you are unmarried. So is being drunk. Three strikes, you're out. Or in--as in jail.

This article in MailOnline gives the scoop. As I'm reading between the lines, I see a traveler's tale that is not so uncommon of others I've heard. When living in a culture that is different from ones own, it's difficult to stay vigilant--to not slide into comfort and think that you're safe when you are being yourself.

These women SHOULD have gotten jail time, no?

Perhaps it's the word amusement that helps make amusement park accidents seem so devastating. The latest accident I heard about on the news tonight is too awful to imagine and is a reminder to go over safety lessons with teens over and over and over again.

As a parent of a teen, I know that the diatribe of safety lessons may not actually keep my daughter that much safer, but what else is a parent to do? Children get past the point where we hold their hands as they go from one ride to the next.

When they are little, we snap photos as they go in circles on rides that only go in a slow circle. Police cars, motorcycles, boats, fire engines--all with fake wheels and steering wheels that follow each other around and around. We wave at our children and they wave back, thrilled each time they come closer to us and then move further away until they stop and they are with us once more.

Then, the children who were once content to be at an amusement park with us--their parents, are chomping to go off on their own and we let them. We tell them the warnings. We tell them what not to do. We say, "Be careful."

Mostly they do.

But when they don't, it can become a nightmare.

Saturday a young man didn't heed the warnings and set off over fences of the restricted area of the Batman roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta to retrieve a baseball cap. That's one of the theories of what he was doing there where the ride could hit him.

The force was so great that he was decapitated. [see CBS News article.]

I have never told my daughter to not jump a fence at an amusement park. It's one more item for my list. Maybe it will do some good.

Here is a page from the Web Site Safer Parks that details risk factors for various types of rides to help you and yours be safer this summer if you are heading to an amusement park.

Also, here's a post Justin wrote in June last year about other ride accidents that points out the importance of safety.

The news of the recent ferry accident in the Philippines reminded me of the many ferries I've taken in my travels. The journey across the wide mouth of the Gambia River between Banjul, the capital, and Barra, on the side of The Gambia where I lived, comes to mind the most.

Sometimes I made the trip in a large open wooden boat called a pirogue that would have given my mother a heart attack if she had known what I was up to.

When traveling in countries where bridges are scarce, ferry crossings are necessary. If you want to get from here to there, you step on. Generally, thoughts of accidents and the lack of life preservers are fleeting. Instead, one enjoys the thrill of watching one shore grow further away as another comes closer.

In the Gambia, a ferry is filled with people, cars, trucks, animals, motorcycles--basically whatever can be crammed on. It's a mish mash of no order in particular. I always headed to the top deck to escape the crush.

Of all the crossings I've made in my life--and I'm not sure I could count them all, there's only one that I should have never tried. Once, in a hurry to get to Banjul and not willing to wait for calmer waters, I climbed into one of the large wooden boats as it rocked furiously on the churning river.

Food was once again on our minds here at Gadling. Actually, a lot was on our minds, but almost everyone had something to say about food.

• Grant wanted to know if you could eat what Andrew Zimmern eats on Bizarre Foods. Grant couldn't. I'm not particularly fond of intestines either.
• Matthew told us what foods to avoid in Japan.
• Erik told us how to not lose food because of motion-sickness.
• Iva told us how the Chinese are renaming their food so we don't get sick from the names.
• And, Kelsey reminded us to ask for the bill in a restaurant in Mexico so after you've eaten, you can pay.

Oh, and one more. If you're around Heather in the galley of an airplane, keep your hands out of those lemons!

Lots of people get motion sickness. It is rumored that Christopher Columbus even had trouble with sea sickness. Fortunately, you don't have to dread that ship, car or plane trip for fear of "un-packing your breakfast" in full public view. There are a number of effective treatments and preventions for those who suffer from motion sickness -- the goal is to keep trying until you find one that works, for you!

The basic problem with motion sickness is not in the stomach, but in the discoordination of the visual signals sent by the eyes, the inner ear (responsible for balance) and the brain. The Travel and Tropical Medicine Manual cited one study involving over 20,000 passengers crossing the English Channel and the North and Irish Seas. Their data showed that motion sickness was more common in females than males and the older you were, the less likely you were to be effected. Over one-third of the passengers in the study felt symptoms of motion sickness. For the lucky ones that have never felt motion sickness, the symptoms include cold sweats, nausea and weakness.

Where to sit and Where to look

Choose a seat with the smoothest ride, if possible. Over the wings of a plane, the front seat of a car, forward facing seats and laying flat on your back are all places to help minimize motion sickness. When the "feeling of yuck" starts to creep in, try to focus on a distant object (it will be moving the least) or close your eyes. Avoid reading or focusing on objects close by -- their motion is much more obvious.