JAPAN PART 1- HOME STAY!

This is way overdue, but I think I’ll be able to back up a few weeks and relive Japan through writing this. We ported in Kobe, Japan on November 13^th, and this was by far the most difficult immigration process yet. They did face to face passport inspection with everyone on the ship, which takes a considerable amount of time. I was signed up to do a one night home stay in Kobe, which started at 11am. We were the first group of students allowed off of the ship, and all of our host families were in the ship terminal eager to meet us. There were 60 students, and each student stayed with one family, which was different from India where we were either paired or tripled up for each family. So that meant 60 people holding up signs with all of our names, and we had to find our name among the whole crowd! After a few minutes I saw Arianne Templeton from across the room. I met my house mother, Haoko and she spoke good basic English. She had a picture of her family – her, her husband Hukoyoshi, and her son Shuishu. We talked for a few minutes about the trip so far and where I had been traveling, and she shared with a little about her family and about the Hippo organization, which is what the home stay what set up through. It is an international language association based in 8 different countries, and the main thing that they do is arrange home stays so people can go abroad and have places to stay all over the world. Once everyone was paired with their families, the head of the organization welcomed us and we were taught a welcome song in Japanese and also played some ice breaker games including a variation of Japanese rock, paper, scissor. We were all told to enjoy our time with our families and to meet back at the terminal at 5pm the next day! Hao said we would be carpooling with her friend, so then I met her friend, Rata, and the student the was hosting, Karina. We had about a 30 minute drive to their neighborhood, so Karina and I got to know each other and just chatted and enjoyed the scenery of Kobe, which was beautiful! It was autumn there, so the leaves were pretty colors and the temperature was just perfect. I thought I was going to miss fall completely this year, but luckily I got a little taste of it in Japan!! Rata dropped Hao and I off at her apartment complex, which looked really nice. Her apartment was on the third level, and had a beautiful view over a park and tennis courts. Their apartment was cute, and it was interesting when I realized there was hardly any furniture! They did have a kitchen table that they ate at, but the TV sat on the ground, and they just sat on a carpet in front of the TV to watch. There were no beds, just mats that they lay down for sleeping, and no dressers, just closets. Quickly I just placed my pack down because Hao had English class for an hour and a half that afternoon, and we were going to go have lunch at her friends house, where I would stay while she went to class. Hao’s family doesn’t have a car- they all ride bikes everywhere. So she got her bike and she walked it (since I was with her) to her friend’s apartment. Her friend Mum, also had her daughter, granddaughter, and another friend there for lunch. She had made vegetable soup, small snack sandwiches (tomato & cheese and also egg salad) and french fries! Basically an American lunch, which was funny because I wanted to eat Japanese food! But it was really good and they had some good pastries for dessert, so I couldn’t complain! The other woman that came over spoke really good English and had been to the states several times, and traveled rather extensively through Europe. She had photo albums with her when she was younger and stayed in California for 2 months, so she was fun to talk to. Mum was working on her English, and I think we made progress throughout the afternoon. Mum’s daughter also only spoke basic English, but she was really nice and sweet, and her daughter, Aio, was the cutest baby. It was her first birthday, so we had a little birthday cake and they taught me how to sing Happy Birthday in Japanese- it was fun. So I got to play with Aio for a little while, and around 330pm Hao came back from class. Mum let me borrow an extra bike that she had for the rest of the day, which was really nice of her. So we rode back home, which was beautiful. I hadn’t been on a bicycle since this past summer and riding through the park with the changing leaves was just beautiful- I couldn’t get the smile off of my face! Back at the apartment, Hao showed me some books that she had about Japanese culture and food. They were interesting to read through and as she prepared dinner I read the books and asked her some questions, it was very interesting. I read a lot about mannerisms and etiquette- things are done much differently in Japan than they are in the United States, especially with things like bathing. I read about how to properly take a Japanese bath, and I was almost hoping I wouldn’t have to because it seemed so confusing! I’ll explain more about that later…Oh and the toilet that they have in their home has a heated seat and all of these different functions and settings, it was pretty bizarre. I was also given a pair of slippers to wear through the house for the next two days. Wearing shoes in the house is considered very rude and never done. Even in some restaurants and public buildings, slippers are worn and not shoes. A little while later her son, Shui, came home from school and I got to meet him! He speaks a little bit of English, and he showed me a book that he has that talks about his family, what classes he takes in school, what his hobbies are and what other things he enjoys, and where he has traveled. He did a home stay in Australia last year and had lots of pictures from that trip that he enjoyed showing me. By using the pictures we were able to communicate OK for the most part and he taught me some Japanese words while I taught him some English words! He was 12 years old and plays basketball and piano. His favorite class in school is English and he wants to go to America on his next home stay. He was so cute and really fun to hang out with. The three of us sat down for dinner, which was absolutely delicious. It was a form of sushi, but not the type of sushi that we are used to in the States. It was basically all of the same ingredients, but not presented how I was expecting. It was a huge bowl of rice, seaweed, fish, eggs, and wasabi. So everything was just mixed together and it was so tasty! They were impressed with my chopstick skills, which led to me talking about my favorite sushi restaurant at home, Mr. Sushi. They got a kick out of it when I told them what was served and how it was served and all of the details. It was interesting to talk about what I thought I knew about Japan and what was true and what was just Americanized. After dinner Shui left for night school which is strictly English classes for 3 hours, that he attends every night. Keep in mind this was Friday night, and he was going to school, and he was excited about it—not something you would exactly find in the States.

            Hao said we were going to go to a Hippo Family meeting, which is what she does every Friday night. We cleaned up the dishes after dinner and we started talking about piano. She said she has been taking lessons for a few years now and it was her favorite thing to do. I told her that I used to play for several years until I quit midway through high school. She encouraged me to play something, and I was really nervous since I haven’t even sat down at a piano since I quit almost 5 years ago. I pulled one of the books out and dug wayyyy back into my memory about how to play. After a few minutes it more or less came back to me (I was only playing one handed…I couldn’t exactly jump back into it that quickly) and she came over and sat on the bench and started playing the left hand bass clef. It was really, really neat and one of my favorite moments of the whole trip. It was really special to share those few minutes with her playing- something that completely breaks the language barrier and eventually we had to get up because we were going to be late for the meeting. It made me want to start playing again once I get home, so Mom & Dad- there might be some hope!

            We rode our bikes about 10 minutes to the meeting, which was held in a nursery school. There were probably 20 people total, including children, teenagers, adults and senior citizens. We sang some songs first- in several languages- English, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. Then played some games, again in all of those languages. There were two other SAS girls there with their host families- Karina who I had met earlier, and Jackie, who I had never met before. Everyone sat in a circle and they had a microphone that would get passed around. In whichever language they preferred, everyone went around and introduced themselves and talked about their families, their hobbies, where they have traveled, etc. It is interesting because every Japanese person has a long name that they would say, and then would have nicknames that they preferred to go by or basically their “American names”. Once that was finished they actually broke us up in groups and each of us girls sat with 3 or 4 of the Hippo Family members and talked about where we had been so far on our journeys and they asked us questions about all kinds of things. The purpose of the meetings are really to improve their English and learn from each other. There was no leader at all, they would all just take turns talking and sharing stories and information. At the end they all talked about new phrases or words that they had learned from us- a lot of it being slang that they thought was funny. We taught them phrases like See ya later Alligator, Hit the Road, Just Google It, etc. It was funny to watch them understand it and then say it to each other. Overall it was probably an hour and a half long and it was really fun and the time flew by and all of the children there were so cute and fun to hang out and play with. Hao, Mum and I hopped on our bikes and road back home, which was again, really fun. I had my video camera out and was trying to film while riding which was fun. A lot of people ride bicycles in their area so I had a few close calls with people and railings, it was really fun. I dropped the bike back off at Mum’s and we said our goodbyes since we wouldn’t be seeing each other the next day. Walking back to Hao’s was a little chilly as the temperature had dropped, but it was not far away and we just enjoyed the walk. Back at home, her husband, Hukoyoshi, had come home from work so I had the pleasure of meeting him. While he ate dinner, Hao and I had some dessert. She had some different cake breads, some sweet rice crackers and some fruit, which was delicious. Huko didn’t speak much English at all, but he is a big tennis player, so we talked about tennis for a little while and then we were talking about what else I would be doing in Japan. I explained that the next evening we were going to go to Hiroshima for the day, then up to Tokyo for two days then down to Yokohomo, where we would be leaving from on the 18^th. They couldn’t believe how much I was traveling and how short I was staying in each city. I explained that we only have limited time in each country, so we try to see and do as much as we can in the short time that we are able to. He was very helpful in printing out maps for me and explaining how to get to the train station for the ship terminal and where to get tickets. When Shui came back from night school, he was very excited to do a magic show for me. It was so cute and he kept going behind his bedroom door and preparing the tricks before coming out and performing them. It lasted for about an hour- some tricks were better than others but it was very entertaining and we all laughed a lot. After that they asked me to teach them some American card games. It took me a minute to decide which game would be easy enough to teach quickly and I decided on spoons, since it is easy and really fun. (Many of you may not know how to play, I learned it at camp..). It is a fast paced game and they picked up on it quickly and we played a few rounds which was really fun, they enjoyed that. Then they taught me a Japanese card game which was also simple and fun and I wound up losing- oh well! Beginners luck wasn’t on my side. By this time it was about midnight and we decided time to go to bed. (I forgot to mention that Hao had bought a box of clementines (or the equivalent of) during the day and Shui kept sneaking them and handing me pieces, all very secretively. It was hysterical, and you could tell he enjoyed having another “kid” around).  So I laid out my sleeping mat, Hao gave me some sheets and blankets and I wrote in my journal for a few minutes before falling into a deep sleep and not waking up once!

            I woke up at about 9am to a delicious smell coming from the kitchen. Hao offered me to take a bath, and I accepted because I read that it is rude to decline. I was nervous because I had no idea how this was going to go. Well I ventured into the bathing room which is a tub that is filled with scorching hot water, a tile floor with no drain and a bath mat, a showerhead above the tile floor, and several pales and buckets- some filled with water and others that were empty. Basically I had read that you soak in the bath, but you don’t bathe in the bath, which made no sense to me. So I kind of cleaned myself, trying not to get soap in the tub, but also trying not to get the floor of the room soaked. It was an adventure, and I wound up feeling somewhat clean so that was all that mattered. After dressing for the day I sat down for a delicious breakfast of rice, eggs, cabbage (I think) and fruit. For the first time I had persimmon (no idea how to spell it). I later found out that it is a native fruit of Japan which is imported to the west coast…something I had never had. It was really, really good. Hao said that we were going to go to a park with Karina and her host famiy, and they were going to pick us up in about 30 minutes. I assumed that Shui was going to come but he said he couldn’t because he had a test in 26 days- 26 DAYS! I couldn’t believe that is why he was going to stay home on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Apparently he needed to pass a particular test to go to the high school that he wanted to go to and it was very competitive. He is so devoted to school it was so neat to see. I don’t think I have ever seen that in the States…

 Huko had already left for work, he has off on Sundays and Tuesdays, so it would just be Hao and I joining Rata’s family, which would be nice. We all piled into their car and drove about 20 minutes through the outskirts of Kobe, which was just beautiful. The trees were all different colors and the sun was out…I was SO glad I was experiencing a little taste of autumn weather!

            We got to the park and walked around for probably about an hour total. Rata’s six year old daughter, Keke, was adorable and she collects leaves so she was running in every which way and climbing trees to get particular leaves, it was precious. She didn’t speak any English, but Rata’s husband, Kamine, spoke pretty good English and was a funny guy so he was fun to talk to. They had a traditional tea ceremony in the garden which was quite the adventure. The women serving the tea were dressed in traditional kimonos and had their faces painted white. At first we had a small ball which was some sort of sweet. I did not like it at all, but ate it anyway (something I have gotten very accustomed to on this trip) and then they passed out small bowls of powdered green tea which was extremely bitter and also difficult to finish, but I did it all with a smile on my face! A woman was making the tea outside so we could which was very interesting. They said that this type of tea ceremony is very popular and very traditional in Japanese culture. After walking around a little more, on our way out there was a cart that was selling a particular type of sweet nut that you crack open and eat. Hao said it was her very favorite food, so she bought some and I tried it and it was delicious. I have no idea what exactly it was, but it was very good and unlike anything I have ever tried before. We piled back into the car and Kamine said we would go to lunch before going fishing! So we went to a nice Japanese restaurant where I told them to order what they wanted for me. So they ordered us udon noodles and also a soup. Both were extremely delicious. The soup had fried tofu in it which was delicious and some sort of fish, and the noodles had almost a sweet and sour sauce- it was a really good meal. Perhaps my favorite one in Japan. They taught us how to respectfully eat noodles, which is “with noise”. In other words, it is polite to slurp your noodles as you eat because it is a sign of approval, that you are enjoying the meal. Karina and I were trying our hardest to slurp while we ate which was very entertaining for everyone and quite the experience. After eating, there was a “hot spot” outside of the restaurant where you take your shoes and socks off and soak your feet in a bath of scorching hot water. It felt so nice and we stayed there for a few minutes just relaxing and digesting our wonderful meal.

            We hopped back into the car and drove about 15 minutes to a Rainbow Trout fishing pond. In the first pond there were coi fish that we bought little pellets to feed them. Kamine said it was one of Keke’s favorite things to do and since it was such a nice day he decided it would be a good activity for us. After feeding them for a little while, we got 2 bamboo and string fishing poles and some bait and began fishing. Karina and Kamine started, and Kamine caught one right off of the bat. Almost immediately after dropping the bait into the water, the fish swarm around and within seconds you either catch a fish or lose the bait. It was fun to watch and we had a bucket that we would put the fish into when we caught them. I think we caught 6 total and I caught 3 of them! I never knew I was such a skilled fisherman, haha.

            Well, Karina and I were both in for a surprise when we thought we would just put the fish back in the pond, but no- not at all. They carried the bucket of fish over to a register and paid per fish. Then they took the fish and Hao explained that they would fry them so we could eat them. Karina and I were shocked- we had no idea that we were going to be eating the fish that we had just caught! Literally 3 minutes later we had a plate of fried fish on our table that looked exactly like they did in the water, just dead. Head, tail, everything. Kamine explained that you eat the entire thing, just not the tail. I think Karina and I both threw up a little bit in our mouths when Kamine put the entire fish in his mouth except for the tail. Well, when else was I going to have the chance to do this? So I picked one up with my chopstick and bit the head off. I tried not to think about what I was eating, which was very difficult, but I got through it. Karina couldn’t do it, she had to politely decline. They didn’t understand why she wouldn’t try it and we explained to them that we had never seen anything like this. It is funny to look back on and laugh about but it was actually pretty disgusting to think about..

            All in all it was a beautiful afternoon and the weather was absolutely perfect. We walked around the pond for a little while after eating our delicious meal, then we got back into the car to drive to the terminal. We got there around 4pm and showed them the ship and all took our time saying goodbye and giving them gifts thanking them for hosting us for two days. It was actually pretty emotional and we all exchanged emails and took photos together, promising to keep in touch. I wish I had more time to spend with Hao and her family, but not in this visit. They were so hospitable and welcoming and I really enjoyed spending time with them. I am glad that I decided to do another home stay in Japan. Similar to India, it is difficult to actually experience the culture any other way than spending time in a home, doing exactly what they would do for two days. I hope that I get to see them again at some point in my life- either in Japan or the United States, but I will never forgot their graciousness and hospitality during my short stay in Kobe. Now all I had to do was wait for Ben & Lacey to come back to the terminal so we could make our way down to Hiroshima for the night!

PART 2 COMING SOON!

November 22nd!!

So tonight the ship is crossing the International Date Line! As we have been traveling east around the globe, we have been losing hours many, many nights during our time at sea. So as we cross the line, we will live our second November 22nd tomorrow. It is going to be bizarre because right now we are 16 hours ahead of East Coast Time, and as of tomorrow morning we will be 8 hours behind East Coast Time. Our bodies are already so confused by this point that I don't think it will phase us at all - nothing seems to these days! So in celebration of November 22nd x 2 we don't have classes tomorrow!! Everyone is very busy with school work though since we have barely done any over the last 5 weeks. Finals are coming up the first week in December, and most assignments are due before we get to Hawaii on Thanksgiving Day, so we are keeping ourselves busy. We are also ready for it to be hot and nice out again so we can start to get tan before coming back home to winter weather! I know I still owe a journal of Japan, which is in the works, it is just taking me awhile. In short, it was amazing and a great way to finish the journey through Asia. I had an awesome time traveling from city to city everyday, and Japan officially depleted just about everyone's bank accounts. It was quite expensive compared to the other countries that we have been spending time in.

Other than all of this- life on the ship is good. Everyone seems to be in pleasantly good moods which is nice. I am getting back into a schedule which is nice and catching up with friends who I didn't necessarily see much between ports. I am also fully recovered finally, but unfortunately Dani has been really sick for the past couple of days. The food on the ship is getting worse and worse, good thing we all bought snack food in Japan to keep us going until we get to Hawaii. Along with getting my work done, I am also working on a DVD of all of the pictures and videos I have taken along the way, which consumes a lot of my time, but I know the final product will be completely worth it. Grey's Anatomy has also been keeping me quite occupied at night once my brain no longer feels like working. We plan on having a marathon tomorrow once our brains are fried after getting all of our assignments finished! Feel free to email me for the rest of the time before I get home (Dec 14th) since I will be able to respond since I am on the ship for all but 4 days from here on out! This trip has been amazing, and I am going to miss living on a ship, in the middle of the ocean and doing my homework out on the deck overlooking the ocean with no land in sight, but I am very excited to get home- to see my friends and family and be home for Christmas (Christmas music is already constantly played in my room) and for winter!! I'll post the Japan update in the next couple of days!!

Peace and Love

 

It's a little Chilly in China

We arrived in Hong Kong the morning of November 6^th with absolutely no game plan. All I knew was that I only got half of my laundry back – shorts and t-shirts, not the half that I needed! So that got me a little flustered to start…

Stacey, one of my good friends on the ship, lived in Hong Kong for 3 months this summer and said just to wander around the city, and the only thing she truly recommended was going to Victoria’s Peak to see the view of the city. Our boat was ported at Kowloon Island, so we took a short ferry ride over to Hong Kong Island and basically wandered around for a few hours with some friends. We found a few markets, some good food, and my personal highlight: Seeing a Christmas tree being decorated in the center of a plaza!! There were actually a lot of Christmas decorations and holiday spirit throughout Hong Kong which got us all pretty excited! Around 4pm we took the tram up to the top of the peak to catch the sunset over the city. It was absolutely gorgeous and we just hung out up there for awhile taking photos and having some snacks…it was pretty relaxing. So then we headed back to the ship to see the Light Symposium that goes on every night at 8pm. It was a little corny, but pretty cool- it was definitely the nicest skyline we had seen yet and there was music and lots of lights – it lasted for about a half hour, and it was a beautiful night so it was definitely worth seeing. Most of us wound up staying in that night- some of the boys went to see the new James Bond movie, but Lacey and I stayed in and watched Grey’s Anatomy. We were able to make a few phone calls, and I called my friend T who goes to Ithaca and is studying in Beijing this semester. We had been in touch via email, but I gave him a call to confirm my flight itinerary and my plans once landing. He agreed to meet us at the airport and help us get to our hostel! So I headed to bed rather early that night…I had been feeling pretty crappy all day so I wanted to get rested before heading to Beijing.

530am approached quickly and our 19 person group traveling independently to Beijing was headed down the Gangway at 615am. It was a complicated process getting from our ship to the airport…including a ferry, a train and a shuttle, but eventually we made it, with not much time to spare. We all successfully boarded the plane (except one who had to take an earlier flight and planned on meeting us at the Beijing Airport). We landed, found Hillary, and T found us!! It was great to see a familiar face and also to be with someone who spoke Mandarin- so helpful! He showed us where to exchange money and gave us a few pointers. Group decision was to go to Tiananmen Square and see the Forbidden City before it closed because this would be our only opportunity to do so. We all split up into 4 different taxis, T and I made plans to get together later, and we were off! Once our taxi pulled up, we realized that meeting in Tiananmen Square wasn’t going to be the easiest thing to do…but we figured since the plan was to do the Forbidden City, we should stand at the entrance and hope everyone would find their way there. All but one taxi did. We waited for 45 minutes, hoping they would show up, but they never did. And it was COLD. Much colder than the weather we have been used to for the past few months. I quickly changed from flip flops to sneakers and busted my new North Face jacket out while we waited…They never showed, so we went in thinking they must have gone in before we even got there.

Well the actual gates to the Forbidden City, which were further down than we knew, closed at 330pm, we thought they closed at 430pm. So we were able to walk around, but not go into the city which was pretty disappointing. We did see Mao’s Mausoleum from the outside but again, the inside was closed. There was a student art exhibit that we were encouraged to go see, which was really neat. Several of us bought artwork. Ben had said that his sister bought a series of four paintings- the same picture of the Great Wall, but in all the four seasons. They only had one of those, and I wasn’t in love with it, so I didn’t get it. But I didn’t see another grouping like that again…oh well. All of the boys that we were with bough big bomber hats that had the communism star on the front. So as they walked down the street in a group of 8 you could imagine the laughs that they got, and the number of Chinese who wanted to take pictures of them, with them- you would have thought they were celebrities, it was quite comical. Well as we ventured to find our hostel, now that the sun was set, Andy came running out of a restaurant because he saw us walking by. The 4 of them said they walked around the city for 3 hours looking for us- they went to the hostel, called the dean on the ship to get our numbers (but none of us had international phones) and just walked. We asked if they went to the Forbidden City, they said no. So how did the other 3 taxis miraculously make it there…? Haha oh well at least we all found each other. So we dropped our stuff at the hostel, which was called the Far East Youth Hostel. Very friendly staff, pretty clean, the beds were hard (too bad)..all in all decent place. I called T, agreed to meet him at his campus at 8pm, and 5 of us headed down the street to a small place for dinner, which I think may have been the best meal I had in China. One of my friends, Ricki, is part Korean and part Japanese. So she speaks both of those languages, and a lot of the characters are the same, so she is great to have around. She also knows a lot about the culture, so it was great having her advice on what to order, how to use our chopsticks, proper etiquette, etc. We had the best sweet and sour pork I will probably ever have. After that fabulous meal, Lacey and I caught a cab and had the driver take us to T’s campus. He met us at the entrance and it was really neat to see a Chinese campus. I forget the exact name of his school, but I think it is the International Studies University of Beijing. About half of the students there are Chinese and the other half are international. I met one of his friends who was from Texas, and another girl who was from Singapore. They were all pretty intrigued by our travels, but all we wanted to talk about was China!! All in all we had a great night- they showed us where all of the Westerners go, and then where all of the locals go – HUGE price differences. We didn’t stay out too late because Lacey and I had to be up at 8am the next day, so T and Cody brought us back to the hostel and then caught a cab back to their campus. We had decided that if we could get our outgoing flight changed to the following day then it was scheduled for, then we would stay with them another night in Beijing. That didn’t wind up happening, unfortunately, but it was still a great night and fun to see someone else from Ithaca on the other side of the world…who ever would have guessed??

So 8am rolls around, we all get up and dressed and ready in the lobby by 830am for the tour guide to pick us up. As already recounted in the story below about how we found out about Kurt, there was quite a delay and we wound up getting picked up around 930am I think. There was a little shop a few minutes down the street that sold these bread/vegetable sandwiches that were only 1 Yuan each which is about 30 cents and they were such a delicious breakfast. We kept them in business that morning because we all kept going back to get more!!

Our tour guide was Serena and she was a 24 year old girl from northern China who has a degree in international tourism. She was super nice and sweet and had good English, so she seemed like she would be a lot of fun!

Well that morning, filled with the confusion about what happened with Kurt, we rode on the bus for a little while before heading to a pathway where the 12 Sacred Animals were. It was absolutely beautiful because their autumn was just coming to an end, but it was the first glimpse of autumn we had seen yet!!  From there we headed to the Emperor’s Palace and spent a good hour or so there seeing the Ming Tombs and palace itself.  

We had lunch after that at a little restaurant that was pretty good. Peking duck was fabulous!!!! Maybe my favorite food item of the whole trip?? The tea warmed us up and they ordered all of the food for us which was wonderful because we didn’t have to choose anything!!

After that we all loaded on to the bus for about a 3 hour ride outside of Beijing to the part of the Great Wall that is unrestored and where we would be camping. When we first got there we had to walk very quickly up so that we could see the sunset. We caught the tail end of it, and I think we were all overwhelmed that we were actually at the Great Wall (at least I definitely was). The view was unlike any view I ever knew existed. It seemed like the Wall never ended, it just went on for miles and miles- we couldn’t see any end. And boy was I glad I bought a hat and gloves earlier in the day because it was getting quite cold. We only spent probably 30 minutes up there before it started to get pretty dark, so we walked back down and got some dinner (even though it felt like we had just eaten lunch). We psyched ourselves up for getting ready to sleep out on the wall and started to bundle up. I put on leggings, shorts and sweatpants…a long sleeve t, sweatshirt, fleece and jacket- along with gloves and a hat, and two pairs of socks and my sneakers. At the bus we each got two sleeping bags and a sleeping mat, and there were enough tents for about half of the people. I opted to sleep out under the stars because I didn’t think the tent would really make that much of a difference. So we set up all of the tents that needed to be pitched on a flat clearing right next to the watch tower. Then we just kind of walked around and went exploring. Mitch and Ricki have really nice cameras so they were experimenting with different night settings on their cameras and got some really amazing pictures. There were a few other SAS groups who were using the same tour agency, but had different guides, and they were all more or less in the same area as us, but we didn’t see them much. I think it was around 1030pm or so that we turned in to our sleeping bags because a) we were freezing and b) we were waking up at 630am for sunrise!! It was Ben, Mitch, Frank, Greg, Lacey and I who slept together a little away from the group and sadly I kept a few of them awake for awhile because I was coughing my life away. I did eventually fall asleep for a few hours before awaking again having to go to the bathroom- the most dreadful feeling ever. But by this time the moon was gone and the sky was absolutely magnificent. It reminded me of the starry sky I saw one of the nights in the Amazon – it was so gorgeous, it just looked like the entire sky was glittered. I debated whether or not it was worth it to get up to go to the bathroom, and eventually I decided to, which led to not being able to warm myself up again once I crawled back into my sleeping bags. But oh well- gotta do what ya gotta do. Well we woke up about 20 minutes before the sun actually rose over the mountains. It gave us a little time to begin wrapping up our sleeping bags before climbing to the top of the watchtower and seeing it come over the ridge, which was beautiful- and finally we began to warm up a little bit!! We took lots of pictures, and explored a little bit just enjoying the sunshine on the Great Wall of China!!! We packed all of our things up and headed down to the bus to put our gear away and grab some breakfast before embarking on our 10K hike that would take a few hours. At breakfast about half of our group had convinced themselves that they didn’t want to do the full hike and would stay on the bus and meet us at the other end of the hike. A few of us spoke up and said how absolutely ridiculous that was – they were at the Great Wall and they were going to sit in a bus instead of hiking for a few hours!? I couldn’t even believe the thought crossed their minds, but I was sure a few of them were going to stay behind. I’m not sure what hit them, but when the time came to get ready to hike, everyone decided to come. Serena had warned us to take off layers- that we were going to be hot, so I took off my fleece, but couldn’t bring myself to shed more layers than that. Well 45 minutes later, I realized I should’ve listened to her. I started off by just taking my sweatshirt off and tying that around my waist…after that came the sweatpants…and then the jacket. So I was literally carrying more layers than I was wearing! I also looked like a mess because I had been too cold to put my contacts in so I just had my glasses on, had been wearing a hat the whole day before….but we were all in the same boat so it was all good! I’m just glad that I had my good sneakers and not my casual ones because it was quite the hike. The part of the wall that we were on was more than 500 years old. There has been no reconstruction or renovation of any sort, and some parts were definitely quite treacherous. For the first hour or so, there were all of these people who kind of latched on to you and wanted you to buy their souvenirs. They also tried to tell us some history about the wall and explained to us that we were actually in Mongolia for a little while, which we didn’t even know!! But eventually they left us and we were free to hike on our own! It was quite tiring, especially with the lack of exercise that we get while we are on the ship! It total it was about a 3 ½ hour hike, up and down stairs the entire time! I fell once, just wasn’t paying attention to my footing, but no injuries- not to worry! I knew my knee would we incredibly sore the next day, but that’s not what was I concerned about at the moment! We had the perfect weather for the hike- it was sunny out but not too warm. It was chilly, but not too cold. We just happened to have too many layers with us when we started. It was probably one of my favorite days of this entire journey. It was so refreshing to be out in the open, on the Great Wall of China!! After I had seen Kate’s photos (friend from home who was studying in Xi’an last semester) of the Great Wall, I knew it was somewhere that I knew I had to visit. Never would I have imagined it to be only a few months later. It was just a great day, and I hiked with different people over a few hours which was nice because a few girls on the trip I didn’t know that well, so we really had a great time chatting and telling stories. It was just a really special day that I will never, ever forget. At the end of the hike, there were two guys from the States who were just walking and when they heard us speaking English they asked where we were from and we started explaining Semester at Sea and everything and we were with them for probably the last 30 minutes or so – a decent amount of time to touch on where we had been and what we had done. It was amazing to try and recap everything into a short conversation, and actually impossible. The highlights, sure that’s possible, but to explain everything is overwhelming. That’s when I realized I am so glad that I wrote my journals because there is so much that I would forget, even that I have forgotten from only two months ago.

Once we made it to the end, over a cable bridge, there was the option to take a zip line down, but Erica and I took our sweet time buying t-shirts and missed the opportunity by the time we got down there- oh well! So we hiked down with the other half of the group and let’s just say when we had the chance to sit down for lunch, we all just wanted to crash. Everyone was glad they did it though and as tired as we were, I think we were all on a high from the hike. It was a quick lunch, I think we were still in shock that not only did we hike for 6 miles…but that it was up and down stairs…and that it was in China on the GREAT WALL!! Let’s just say that as soon as we loaded the bus, we all passed out for a few hours. By chance, I woke up for the sunset, which was beautiful, then went right back to sleep. We were running a little late due to some traffic, so our stop at the Bird’s Nest and Swimming Cube were short and sweet, but at least we got to see them. It was crazy seeing that all in person, what I watched on TV every night this past summer during the Olympics, and we pulled up just as the buildings were lighting up, so that was really neat to see.

As we pulled into the airport, Lacey and I decided against changing our flight and staying for another night. By this time I was pretty sick – I could not control my cough and all I wanted to do was get some medicine and crawl into bed for a day or two to get better. I’m not even sure how it happened, but we were able to find a hostel for all 19 of us (we were almost positive we would have to split up). They had two available rooms with 10 beds in each. Perfect- a boys room and a girls room, we couldn’t have asked for better. I literally laid down as soon as we walked into the room and fell asleep immediately. Everyone else went down to the restaurant/bar that was on the first floor in the hostel, but I had absolutely zero desire. We woke up for breakfast in the morning (banana and pears in this milky oat mixture…very tasty) and we were planning to head to the ship which was supposed to get into port at 8am meaning it would probably get cleared by immigration by 930 or 10am. Well just before we were getting ready to head out, our friends Chad, Peter, Michele and Meg (who we had seen the day before on the Wall) walked into the lobby with a girl from China who was trying to help them find a place to put their packs for the day. We started talking with them, and earlier we had tossed around the idea of a Chinese Acrobat show, a highly recommended sight in any of the large cities. The girl who was with them, Lisa, said she could help us get the tickets and would call her friend if we wanted more details. We said sure, so she was able to tell us that for 12 of us the tickets would be about $32USD each. We thought it would be worth it and she offered to buy the tickets for us and then meet up with us later in the afternoon so we pick them up. We thought that it would be strange for someone young to put up that much money and just trust that we would show up later to pay and pick up the tickets. But we talked with her for awhile and she seemed genuine and has traveled extensively herself and realizes how helpful it is when people offer to do such things to make it easier. So we decided to meet her back at the hostel at 4pm to pick up the tickets! Now we just had 5 hours to spend in Shanghai. The group split…naturally into boys and girls. The boys wanted to go on a river cruise and the girls wanted to go shopping. I was in no mood to do either since I was feeling awful, so Britni, Lacey and I just decided to walk toward the port (it was far…from where we were either a cab or subway ride away) since we just wanted to kind of take it easy. So we walked and walked and walked, with our packs, until we thought we were somewhat in the right area. We took a seat around noon to get some lunch, which was an adventure in itself. Basically we just pointed to pictures in the menu without knowing what we were ordering, but it was OK. The fried rice was really good, and if the sweet and sour pork didn’t have bones it would have been REALLY good, but it did the trick. We were really looking for some American food, since we had eaten Chinese food every meal for the last 3 days…but were unsuccessful. So we made our way to the ship around 130 because we knew the line would start to get long with everyone coming back from Beijing. We sat there for awhile before Frank and Jared (my neighbors who were also on the trip with us) came up and then we played Asian hacky sack for about 30 minutes (it is very different from the US- weird I know..) and finally the ship was cleared around 315pm. All we wanted to do was shower (it had been a few days) but we had to go meet Lisa at the hostel. So Ben, Lacey and I sucked it up and collected everyone’s money and went to go meet her. Low and behold she was there, with all of the tickets. Through all of our heads we were of course wondering whether or not they were actually legitimate tickets, but we were pretty confident in the exchange. She was just so nice and seemed so happy that she could help us out, and really, she was a huge help. We would have had no idea where to go or how to go about it without having internet resources or anything. She was a real sweetheart and we were very grateful for her helpfulness and kindness. So we got back to the ship and had to wait in a massively long line, some of the group went to eat since they had the time to shower and such, but we all just showered and caught a quick bite to eat on the ship then headed to the show. Our tickets were legit and we were about 7^th or 8^th row which was fantastic. The show was AWESOME! There were 12 different acts, everything from balancing acts to bicycle tricks to hula hooping and juggling. Then the final act was the ball of death, where ultimately 5 motorcycling were looping around in this huge metal cage- it was really nerve wracking to watch, and really awesome! We were so glad that we went, the show was about an hour and a half long and totally worth the 30 bucks! We had heard that there was a Coldstone Creamery in Shanghai, but we didn’t have the energy to try and find where it was (hardly anyone spoke English) so we settled for McDonald’s. I got a McFlurry (second one of the trip) and fries and was completely satisfied. It is funny how many times I have been to McDonald’s once I broke the ice and went one time, I just keep going back because it is so convenient and easy and cheap! Some people went out to a sports bar to watch some football, but most of us just went back to the ship to catch up on sleep.

            The next morning after breakfast Lacey, Erica, Steph and I decided just to walk around a little bit. All we really wanted to get accomplished was some shopping at a market (we wanted to get Beijing 08 apparel since we didn’t have the chance to in Beijing) and to get Pizza Hut- we all had a craving. Well about 10 minutes into our walk, a group of friends asked if we could take a picture of them in front of a monument. Then they asked us to get in the picture with them. There were four of them and four of us, and they were all extremely excited to talk to us. So we kind of paired off and were talking for awhile, probably about 20 minutes. They all had surprisingly good English and said that they were students and were traveling in Shanghai for holiday. Most Chinese people have their Chinese names, then a western “nickname” that they introduce themselves as. So our friends were named Sherri, Alfred, Jasmine and Corinna. I talked to Alfred about everything from Obama and where I had been traveling to table tennis and what kind of computer I used. They were really friendly and talkative; it seemed as if they wanted to practice their English with us. Eventually they invited us to a tea ceremony that they were going to a few blocks away. They had never been before, and it is a very traditional ceremony in China. So we decided to go and it was lovely. We chose four different teas and each got to have a small cup of each one. There was one made of ginseng, one of jasmine, one called 8 medicines and another that I cannot recall. I personally liked the medicinal one the best, perhaps because I was feeling under the weather. But it was very interesting and we were taught how to properly hold the cup and a lot of the history behind Chinese tea. It lasted a little over an hour long and was a really cool thing to get to do that, we would have never found on our own. They were interested in talking about cultural differences between Americans and Chinese- from marriages to clothing to music and so forth. It was neat to get their perspectives on a lot of issues and topics that we had been wondering about ourselves. After the ceremony we walked with them a few blocks to People’s Square and saw a Pizza Hut, so we had to decide to split from them. I feel like they were offended that we wanted to eat Pizza Hut instead of Chinese food, but we tried to explain to them that we had been eating only Chinese food for the past 4 days and just had a little craving that we had to satisfy. So we said our goodbyes, exchanged email addresses, and made it to Pizza Hut, where to say it nicely we vegged out. We were pretty hungry and didn’t hold back at all- it was delicious. From there we stopped at a department store called Metersbonwe that they had suggested to us as a cheap, local store. It was huge and we each bought a few things- and I found my token Asian sweatshirt that I had been thinking about since the beginning of the voyage. By this time it was already time to get back to the ship! All around People’s Square there are these guys who have little pamphlets of knockoff shoes, purses, wallets, you name it and they try to get you to come to “their store”. Erica and Steph did it the day before and basically they take you to a store that is tiny and remote and through an apartment building and up a tiny, narrow set of stairs. We had no desire. We didn’t make it to the market, but I think the tea ceremony wins any day over that anyway since we have been to more than our fair share of markets and discount shopping. For the next two days on the ship I literally slept the entire time. I NEEDED to get better before traveling through Japan and I knew sleep would be the most effective remedy. Luckily it worked out because upon arrival in Kobe I felt a whole lot better and ready to take on a full travel schedule for 5 days. It is so bizarre having only 2 or 3 days between each country because as soon as we get on the ship we barely have time to unpack and repack and get all of our plans together. I’m finishing this now as we are about to leave Japan, but I can say that as the leader of our group, I was a little nervous when the night before our arrival in Kobe we had no place to stay and no idea about the train schedules or anything. But we did know that Japan is a very safe country and rather easy to navigate, so I wasn’t too worried. And I can happily say that it all worked out and we had an AWESOME time. But as a wrap up for China- I LOVED IT. My only regret is not going to the Silk Market in Beijing, but oh well, we can’t do it all. The food was great (nothing like American Chinese food) and the Great Wall was a sight like none that I have ever seen before. It was a lot of traveling through China, but it was totally worth staying off of the ship between the two ports and traveling independently.

REST IN PEACE KURT LESWING

It is with tears that I write this email. A fellow classmate was killed in a car accident while we were in Hong Kong. This is how I received the news:

It was about 9am on November 8th, and a group of 19 of us were sitting in the lobby of the Far East Youth Hostel in Beijing where we had stayed the night before. We were waiting for our tour guide to pick us up to take us to the Great Wall. Our guide called us at 830 saying they were running a little late and would be there within the half hour. Then we received another phone call from the tour agency saying that someone named Shalina Akins had called them trying to get a hold of a student named Vince, who they thought was in our group. Ben was on the phone with them, and all of the information he was told was Call Shalina at this number she wants to talk to you because one of the people on your ship died. That was the only thing we had. Immediately the two people who did have cell phones who we were traveling with tried contacting the ship. It is difficult because we only have contact information for when the ship is in port, and by this point it had already left Hong Kong and was en route to Shanghai. I bought a calling card and Ben and I tried about 5 phones, 5 different hotel lines, none of which were going through. We were able to get a hold of the tour guide and have him call the number, but that wasn't working either. Basically, we tried for about an hour, until the guide finally arrived , and were unsuccessful. Once on the bus that they picked us up in, all Serena (our guide) could tell us was that one of her friends who is a guide for the same agency called and told her that there were girls on her trip crying because of someone who died on our ship. She said she thought it was a girl, but didn't have any information. We finally found out around 1pm from a text message that Lauren, a girl in our group, got from her mom telling her that his name was Kurt Leswing and he was hit by a drunk driver the night our ship was in Hong Kong. At this point, I still could not put a face with a name. While we were in Beijing we ran into a few other SAS groups- either independent or sponsored trips, and all of the information was vague, rather unknown. We later ran into Kurt's roommate, Vince, who I know from the Sea Olympics committee. We saw them drinking and knew immediately that it would be a rough night for them. I'll write later about my China trip, which was nothing short of amazing despite this awful cold and cough that I am fighting. But to get to the details, everyone got back to the ship today, and at 8pm tonight they had an informal gathering to formally address the entire shipboard community of the happenings. The information is still vague...still eerily unknown. This is what they do know:

He was out with friends and was last seen at 1230am at a bar called the Happy Valley Sports Bar, which was about 6K from the ship. From then, his whereabouts are unknown. He apparently got in some sort of altercation with a taxi cab driver and a cop around 2am. It was nothing big, sounds as if they were just arguing over the cab fare, and a cop just walked over to make sure everything was OK. It was around 3am that the accident was reported. Kurt was hailing a cab and was in the street. A cab driver had swerved to avoid hitting Kurt, but the car following the cab did not see him and struck him. He was unconscious when someone approached him only seconds later and never regained consciousness. The driver was found to be intoxicated and the investigation is still underway with the Hong Kong police. The accident happened 3K from the ship. So seemingly he had been alone for about 2 and a half hours that night, and the only form of ID that was found on him was a credit card. It was not until later that morning around 530am when immigration officials were aboard our ship processing passports that our administration was told the news. As soon as Kurt's passport surfaced, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. The official recognized the name and requested that our Dean of Students and our Head of Security go to the mortuary to identify the body. It was a few hours later when the ship began contacting those traveling throughout China as well as those that were aboard the ship, and news travels pretty fast, even through a huge country.

It was all so surreal, and it was the moment I stepped on the ship yesterday afternoon around 3pm that it really hit me. His picture was posted in Tymitz Square (where we board the ship) along with the letter that was sent to his parents and a biography of Kurt. I was finally able to connect the name and the face. Someone who I had never spoken to, yet knew exactly who he was. Every face is now a familiar face on this ship, it is only so big - there are only 700 of us who live, eat, sleep, study, travel all in a very small area. We are now a family, and this is a tragedy for all of us. I cannot imagine what his family is going through- his family in Milwaukee and his twin brother who was studying in New Zealand this semester. But our thoughts are with them, and we have the chance to send pictures, cards, thoughts, anything to his family from the ship. A commemorative service will also be held after we depart Yokohama, Japan in about a week to remember Kurt. It is hard to stomach, this whole situation, and I feel so much for his close friends on the ship. It is almost unbelievable the connections that we have made with people on this voyage so far. We have only been on here for 2 and a half months, and I feel like I have known some of my friends that I met in early September for so much longer than that. This tragedy will only bring us closer and hopefully open our eyes even more to the realities of life.

Apparently Kurt had been moved by Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu while he was aboard the ship for a short visit while we were in Capetown, South Africa, and he used this quote quite frequently, "Take the anger from your hearts. Wipe the tears from God's eyes. And live a life of love." Rest In Peace Kurt Leswing November 7, 2008.

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM

This post may or may not turn into a compilation of emotions that I felt while traveling through Vietnam. We have been told since the beginning, that there will be one port that opens your eyes – that changes your perspective on things – that leaves you as a different person when you leave that country. Well, for me, it happened in Vietnam. To my parents, brother and Nate, who were the only people I had the chance to briefly talk to before having to run through the port to catch the ship, it probably didn’t sound like that because I had been going going going for 5 days and truth be told, the reality of what I saw and what I experienced didn’t set in until this morning, after watching the live broadcast of the 2008 Presidential Election. And it actually started two nights before we got there, when we were shown a documentary called Bomb Hunters, which was directed by the husband of faculty member on the ship. It was the story of the people of Cambodia, and how the Vietnam War affected their current day lives. It showed us the brutal living conditions in present day Cambodia caused directly by the bombs that the American Government dropped. I had NO idea that there were even bombs dropped in Cambodia, and that the Cambodians go bomb hunting now to sell the metal as their only source of income, and extremely dangerous task. And once I started to think about it, I knew very little about the Vietnam War in general. Why? Because we were never taught about it in history classes. It was not a war that we won, so it is not a war that is talked about. I knew it was a controversial war, a highly unsupported war by the American people, but I didn’t know why. I had no idea why or how we got involved in Vietnam, so the 3 days of classes between Malaysia and Vietnam really opened my eyes. I heard facts and information that I had never thought about before, like we dropped 4 times as many bombs in Vietnam than we did in Europe during WWII. I had no idea over 4 million people were killed in this war, and the roles that the French, Japanese and Chinese held during the conflict. I had heard that the Vietnamese people are some of the most friendly to Americans in the world, and I thought, how is this possible? If we bombed the shit out of them only a few decades ago. Kesho, my radical, passionate sociology professor told us this the day before we pulled into port, “The Vietnamese know there is a huge difference between the American people and the American Government.” This, I came to find out, was eerily accurate. And here is what I did in Vietnam for 5 days…
        Our ship got cleared around 12 noon (Oct 30…and might I add that the night before we had a “Halloween Party” on the 7th deck…we were the Spice Girls – original I know. I was Ginger Spice and we had few resources to work with, but lots of people were very creative!), 3 hours later than expected due to the tides of the river and the incapability of making it upstream faster. We had originally planned on going to the Cu Chi Tunnels that day, but needed to change plans because there wouldn’t be enough time. So Steph, Erica, Lacey & I took the shuttle to downtown Ho Chi Minh City (about 10 minutes from port) and found a tailor so that we could get custom made dresses. It was a little difficult with the language barrier, but we went to a place that former SASers had recommended. After describing the designs of the dresses we were looking for, they then sent us to Ben Than Market with the needed measurements and types of fabric that we needed. I found a beautiful silk print that is blue, yellow and pink- very loud and bright and fun that I loved. So I brought that back to the tailor and they took all of my measurements and said it would be finished on Nov 3rd! We grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby café and continued to shop in the market all of the afternoon. This place is huge, packed and cheap- a shopping paradise, basically. They except US dollars as well as Vietnam Dong, and have everything from TShirts, to jewelry to artwork to fabric to fresh flowers to china sets – all of different quality, and all negotiable. I don’t even remember all that I bought that night, but it was fun, despite the fact that we are all so over bargaining. It was exciting in the first 3 or 4 countries- now it is just annoying and stressful. We came back to the ship to shower and get ready then met Peter, Stacey and Jack to go out to dinner. Peter and Stacey are both vegetarian, so it was a little difficult finding a suitable restaurant, but we finally found one that was very nice and had delicious food. It was only the beginning of what seemed to be hundreds of spring rolls and pho (noodles) over the next 4 days. After dinner we went two doors down to a German bar that some of our friends were at, and the bartender was a really sweet Vietnamese girl who spoke decent English and was so friendly and helpful showing us a map and explaining where we were and how to get to where we needed to get to- she was lovely. So we walked a few blocks to a club called Apocalypse Now. Ironic, huh? That proved to be a fun place that was of course swamped with SAS but had good music and dancing and caused me to stay out too late as usual.
        Dani and I both had to wake up at 430am to get to the airport, so it was kind of a hectic, frazzled morning for the both of us- we were both headed to Hanoi (the capital) but she was going with SAS and I was traveling independently with 5 other friends. The 6 of us were able to catch a cab and get to the airport, luckily, with enough time to spare because there were problems with my reservation and long story short I wound up having to buy a new one-way ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and had to pay cash – luckily I had $100 USD on me, but they were all single dollar bills, so that was comical because I had to pay $87 and Peter has pictures of me behind AirAsia desk looking up my reservation because they didn’t speak any English. That was frustrating, but there was nothing I could do so I just had to deal. The airport was MUCH smaller than we anticipated, but our flight left on time so that was nice. I naturally conked out as soon as I sat down on the plane, and woke up when we landed….and Eric told me the news that we did not land in Hanoi, but he did not know why. Eventually we figured out that the runway in Hanoi was flooded, so we were circling for awhile, but then had to land because we were running out of fuel. Luckily a very nice man who spoke good English came up to help us because he could tell that we were distraught (this is now at a tiny airport that only has 4 outgoing flights a day that all of Hanoi’s flights were being diverted to). We basically figured out that we were only 70km from HaLong Bay, which is where we were planning on driving to from Hanoi the next day anyway. They said it should take only about an hour and a half, compared to a 3 and a half hour drive from Hanoi, so we did not get back on the plane, found a driver, and went to HaLong Bay! It was a little overcast, but not raining, so we were able to charter a boat for the 6 of us and go spend the day on HaLong Bay, which is one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World. Nothing can describe it, not even the pictures, but it was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking and magnificent all at the same time. The rock formations are certainly wondrous. We went into a few beautiful natural limestone caves and got to hike through the dense forests surrounding the bay. We also had a delicious feast of fish, shrimp, squid, rice and vegetables on the boat, and then went out for an hour long kayaking adventure, where we could go through small caves and navigate through narrow canals.  It rained a little bit, but was quite refreshing. After that I took a brief powernap on the boat because I was dead tired, and we were only out for another few hours before heading back to where we started! After negotiating some prices, we were able to hire a driver to go back to Hanoi. This was at about 5pm, so we planned on arriving around 9pm. Well, about 2 hours into the drive, we hit torrential downpours. And talk about a language barrier, our driver spoke NO English. He did have a friend who spoke broken English who he would call every once in awhile and have Peter talk to her, but even that was a hassle and difficult. I don’t even know how to recount the last 4 hours of our ride, but basically the rain was SO hard and SO steady that the streets were flooded to the point where people were walking around in water up to their wastes. Cars were abandoned, people riding their motorbikes were struggling to walk them through the puddles, buses were breaking down left and ride, and we would sit in one spot for 20 or 30 minutes at a time. At one point our driver wanted us to get out and start walking, but we refused because we had no idea where we were or where we were going. Long story short, we eventually made it into downtown Hanoi in the Old Quarter. He didn’t know exactly where our hotel was, so we just got off at the Hilton, assuming they could point us in the right direction since we knew we were close. It was about midnight at this point, so we obviously paid the driver much more than we agreed upon and after another short cab ride finally made it to the Hotel Gecko, which was a lovely place tucked away in an alley. We crashed HARD that night, I was asleep in seconds from laying down, and the morning rolled around way to quickly. Breakfast was included, so we headed downstairs and talked to the manager (a 25 year old girl from Australia who just started working there 3 weeks ago) and she gave us some good pointers, where to go, what to do, what to eat, etc. So we set out in the heavy rain around 930am with quite an ambitious itinerary. Our hotel was right near Ho Kiem Lake, a beautiful location, despite the fact that the lake was flooded – but we were able to see several of the pagodas and temples around the lake, and the Martyr Monument. We walked to the Opera House (which was closed unfortunately) and St. Joseph’s Cathedral and then caught lunch at a nice café. Then we made our way to the Revolutionary Museum- which took about 2 hours to go through. It was quite an eye opener seeing the perspectives of war from the Vietnamese instead of the Americans. It was more than a history lesson could ever teach me, seeing everything from newspaper articles to bombs that were dropped to all different types of flags. The museum was broken down into sections. The first was the struggle for independence for almost one hundred years, the second was the Resistance War (known to us as the Vietnam War) and then the end was their steps to building a unified nation. I am not a museum person, and I loved this one because I learned so much that I feel like I should have known, but was never taught. It was absolutely horrifying to see images and read facts about what the American Government did to millions of innocent civilians in a war that to me seemed pointless. I think after that museum we all felt extremely moved and definitely effected by what we saw and learned in only 2 hours.
        From there we tried to get to the Hoa Lo Prison, where American pilots were held captive by the French Colonizers (which I will explain later) but it was just about to close when we got there, so we would have to go the next day, which was fine because we were pretty drained from sightseeing all day. So we lightened the mood a little bit by shopping! What else?! We just walked around some markets and bought a few things…before heading to a cute pizza place for dinner which was nice because I can’t remember the last time I ate pizza. From there we went to the night market, where we bought so much in the first hour that we had to go back to the hotel to drop everything off before continuing. Stacey and I went back to the market after dropping off our goods and Sam & Peter went to get massages. Once Stacey and I finally said no more, we found a cute balcony restaurant because we were in the mood for dessert. Once Stacey saw Vegetarian Spring Rolls on the menu, she immediately had to get them, then we saw they had a whole vegetarian menu, which was really exciting because it was the first place we had seen that! So I had some great ice cream while she had spring rolls before heading back to the hotel around 1230am – the boys were already asleep from their massages, haha. The next day, we had even more to do, so we were up and out by about 830 to go to the “backpack capital of the world” as we called it. I kid you not when I say there were hundreds and hundreds of knockoff North Face backpacks for as far as we could see. I’m also not kidding that about 2 hours later…between the 4 of us we bought 21 North Face bags. RIDICULOUS, we are aware, but it was so worth it. Stacey got 9 for less than $100 USD. Some are better quality than others, some are fake and some are real, it can be hard to tell. But they are manufactured in Vietnam, so regardless, they were dirt cheap. I bought a new pack for myself which I have been looking forward to all trip because the buckles on mine are all cracked and there are holes in it – I mean, I have had it since about 7th grade, so it was time. Around the corner from Backpack World was Shoe World, where I bought a pair of really fun black & pink sneakers for dirt cheap. Of course, at this point we had to go back to the hotel to drop everything off. From there we hired a driver for the day and had him take us to whatever other sights we wanted to see, because there was a lot to do. We started off by heading to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. His body was in Russia, so it was not open and we could not go in the tomb, but we were able to see the Changing of the Guards which was pretty neat, and also see his House, as well as the Museum. The Presidential Palace was also right there, we didn’t go in but the grounds were absolutely beautiful. From there we headed back to the Prison which was again quite the eye opening sight. It was a French fun prison where hundreds of Vietnamese were held captive, and later where many American pilots were kept for quite awhile, including Senator John McCain. The prison was considered Hanoi Hilton by the Vietnamese because they claimed that the American soldiers had it so easy that it was barely a prison. There were pictures of the pilots playing volleyball, watching movies, cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and playing instruments. It was interesting to see it from their perspective, once again. Who knows what it was really like? McCain I suppose.
        After the prison we went to the Museum of Ethnology which was interesting to see all of the indigenous tribes of Vietnam and learn about all of the different ethnic groups that make up the country. By this point we were pretty much burned out of museums and the such, but it was still a fun museum with lots of visuals which was good because I was over reading. We headed back to the hotel to take a quick nap before showering and getting ready for dinner (we went back to the same place Stacey and I went the day before) and got a FEAST since it was our last night in Hanoi. Then we headed to the Water Puppet Show, which is quite the interesting form of entertainment in Vietnam. They are hugely popular, and sell out every night, usually a day or two in advance. Basically, it is a pool of water with a curtain that puppeteers stand behind waste high in water and maneuver the puppets out of our view all around the pool of water. There is also a live band a singers that play on the side of the stage. There is no way to describe it without showing pictures and videos to you all – it is just a very bizarre theater arts that I am so glad we went to see because it is such a cultural staple in Vietnam. Stacey and Sam went to do more shopping after that while Claire, Eric, Peter & myself went to get foot massages which were amazing. I had never had one before, and it was glorious, and they served us hot tea! A 30 min foot massage for $4USD…who would pass that up?? After that we were exhausted and ready for bed! We woke up around 530 to catch a cab for our 8am flight back to Ho Chi Minh City. I had bought a Lonely Planet Japan guide book so I stayed up the whole flight reading about what I was going to do in Japan and transportation, etc. I think it was the first flight ever that I did not fall asleep during, which was pretty notable…and also which made my pretty tired for the last day in Vietnam!! So right when we landed in Ho Chi Minh we decided last minute that we would have time to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels if we did it quickly. So we found a driver, and drove about an hour and a half to the tunnels. THIS was an eye opening experience. I will be honest when I say that I didn’t know much about the tunnels at all, I even think part of me thought that the Americans lived in the tunnels. Well, how wrong I was. We saw a video at the very beginning of the tour which was in our eyes, ridiculous. It just seemed like such propaganda against the Americans, talking about the people of the Cu Chi region who were reigned as heroes when they shot down the “American devils”. But it was truly impressive the 250km of tunnels that they constructed. All of the ones that we went through (except for one) were enlarged by 40% so that tourists could walk through them, and that is NOT comfortably. We were all hunched over, our backs were touching the top of the openings. There was one that we did go through that was 70 meters long, that honestly was quite frightening. Stacey legitimately had a panic attack because it was so dark and so claustrophobic. We were literally crouched down on the ground and all sides of our bodies were touching the walls and ceiling and it was extremely difficult to walk through. I could not imagine how this is the way the people of the Cu Chi region lived during the whole war with the Americans, and how they won from living in those conditions. We felt bad because we kind of had to rush through the rest of the tour because we needed to get back to Ho Chi Minh, but we were SO glad that we went there to see the dense jungle that so many soldiers lost their lives in and where we fought in a war for so long- it was really the first time I had been to a place where I knew so many thousands of American soldiers died from war. Never would I have imagined…
        The two hour ride back to Ho Chi Minh got us to the ship around 4pm, and on ship time was 9pm. We all had certain things that we had to do, including going back to Ben Thanh market for several different things, and then going to the tailor to pick up our dresses/suits. I got to the tailor around 630pm, which turned out to be an hour long mess. The dress was beautiful and fit really well, except for this little bubble that was right in the middle of the dress. Basically, they sent me across the street to the third floor of this apartment building, where about 15 tiny Vietnamese women and girls were sewing there little hearts out, and it was craziness up there for 45 minutes. First they tried to iron it out, but that was not going to work, so they had me in the dress, out of the dress, drawing with chalk, stitching while it was on me, ironing more, stitching more, taking stitches out…basically mayhem. And none of them spoke English- and I just wanted to leave for 2 minutes to get my bag since Stacey was still at the tailor with it, so that they could go do what they needed, but they never let me. So after 45 minutes I told them I needed to leave and just kind of took the dress and left- and I didn’t actually try it on the final time, but that is OK I can get it fixed at home if it still needs more. By then it was about 745pm and we had to get back to the ship because there is typically a lot of students getting on the last hour, so a long line is possible. So we rode on motorbikes back to the port. Somehow Steph and I both got on to one, but she got the helmet and I didn’t…and I had bags of stuff- it was quite interesting – then I burned myself on the exhaust pipe when I got off but it was OK. I saw a pay phone across the street which I had a calling card that I had bought in Hanoi….but of course like all other public phones in Vietnam it was broken. Luckily there was a nice man who saw how much distress I was in and let me pay him $2USD to use his phone, so I was able to talk to my parents for a few minutes, then Darren for a few minutes which was SO nice. I was on the phone with Nate when I saw an SAS shuttle bus come in, which usually means that there are a LOT of people on it, which a LOT of stuff, and there was no way I was getting stuck behind them on the gangway, so I hung up and then RAN to the gangway, and luckily beat them by only a few minutes, and had 40 minutes to write 10 postcards. So I apologize to those who are getting postcards from Vietnam and they are so messy and frazzled, but I was on quite the time constraint! So that was my Vietnam experience, and it didn’t settle in until the next night when we had a panel of faculty members on the ship who told personal accounts of their lives during the time of the War and how little I knew…how my family had been affected and the entire country. It was an emotional night to say the least of stories being told and the highest of feelings coming out to the whole shipboard community. I am too tired to write about the election right now, but perhaps if I have time in the morning, I will write more about that. Let’s just say, almost everyone on the ship has Obama Fever, and no one went to class this morning because we were all crammed into the Union watching the live coverage that we were able to get. Many tears were shed and it is surreal not being anywhere near the United States for this day that will forever be remembered in American history. 

MONSOON MALAYSIA!!!

So I’d say that so far Malaysia was definitely the most relaxing point up to this point. I had an FDP (Faculty Directed Practicum) on the first day and a service visit on the last day. I had thought about going to Kuala Lampur for two nights, but decided against it because with the hectic plans that I had coming up in Vietnam, China &Japan, and after the intensity of India, I wanted to just relax and take it easy while in Malaysia, which turned out to be a FABULOUS plan. Well what a surprise, it was raining when we pulled into port!! At this point we have still not pulled into port on a nice morning. The port in Penang is not very big, and our ship could not dock there. This meant we had to take tenders to and from the ship to get to shore, which yes was an experience, but also a hassle. They left from the ship on the hour every hour and left from the shore on the half hour every hour, and each tender fit 100 passengers. Usually we are used to coming on and off the ship at our will while docked, but in Penang we would pretty much take whatever we needed for the day and just stay out because it was such a hassle. So on the first day I had an FDP called Ethnic Communities in Malaysia for my Sociology class. Well let’s just say that we sat on a bus for about 3 hours and learned NOTHING about the ethnic groups within Malaysia –it was a waste of time and money, and the students as well as the professors were absolutely disgusted with the trip itself. Luckily some of my friends were on it, so at least it was bearable, but still annoying. Once that was over and done with, Ben, Mitch and I decided to go to the Chocolate Boutique (I know, right up my alley) because apparently they had lots of free sampling. So it was a nice little place, and apparently the chocolate was phenomenal! From there, the boys were DYING for American food, so we headed to Gulley Plaza which is a pretty nice mall and after shopping and browsing around for a bit, decided to grab dinner where else but CHILIS! It was happy hour so we had beers and bottomless chips and I must admit it was pretty nice to have Chili’s appetizers and fries and all that good stuff. After that extended meal we headed to the night market, which was probably about a mile long with cheap, cheap shopping. We did a walk one way to see what there was, then bought things on the way back! I didn’t buy too much –just some trinkets and decoration type things, but they had everything from knockoff Prada and Louis Vitton purses to Lacoste polos and Rolex watches –quite the variety. Ben &Mitch bought ridiculous silk robes with dragons on them, and my big purchase was Season One of Grey’s Anatomy…I wanted to buy just one season to make sure that it worked on my computer. Each disc (CD or DVD) cost 4 Ringetts which is about $1.15 USD. We were able to catch the 11:30pm tender back to the ship to settle down and watch some Grey’s and it worked!!!

           The next morning I caught the 7am tender with Chad and Peter (two guys who live a few doors down….Chad is a ski racer from Oregon, and Peter is a boarder from Utah –obviously we all get along well) to go to an island north of Penang called Langkawi. The ferry ride was about 2.5 hours and we just slept the whole time since it was early. The weather was a little overcast when we got there, but still hot and nice out. We were able to find a decently cheap hotel right on the beach and ran into two SAS girls who had also just gotten there- we grabbed some lunch then just laid out all afternoon which was so relaxing and something I had not done all voyage! We showered and got some pizza on the way to a hotel where we were meeting Steph and Lacey who had taken a flight from Penang and landed around 830pm. After they dropped their packs off at our hotel, we went out for the night and met some friends at a bar that turned out to be WAY too packed with other SAS kids for our liking, so we went to a different club in a hotel called Enigma, which was quite an interesting place. There was a good mix of Malays and Americans and Europeans –and there was a live band playing the most interesting variations of anything from Nelly Furtado to ACDC to Jason Mraz to Black Eyed Peas. They were quite entertaining to say the least. So that was a fun night and a late one at that. The next morning we got breakfast at a cute restaurant right at the beach that we had walked by the day before –and then the skies OPENED UP. It had rained a few times the day before, but only for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. Well this lasted for about an hour…so we went to an internet café to kill some time, before realizing that it wasn’t letting up any time soon. Our plan was to go to Seven Wells, which is a system of waterfalls and watering holes with natural waterslides. Also, there is a cable car that goes to the top of a mountain which is supposed to have an incredible view. Well the man at the internet café said that it wasn’t storming up there, so we gave it a go. Big surprise, it was raining even harder there –not really a surprise since it is the heart of monsoon season right now. So we thought about it for about 3 minutes, then just decided to go for it. It was warm out, so we weren’t cold, just WET. So we started hiking up to the waterfall, which probably took about a half hour. Once we got there it was beautiful and overwhelming, but people had already gotten out of the water because it was getting too rough from all of the rain. After hanging out for about 10 minutes, two staff members from the ship (one LLC and one of the counselors) were on the other side of the watering hole, which was now quite a dangerous, fast-flowing body of water. Well, there was no really safe way to cross, and it was so loud from the rain and the flowing water that we could barely even yell to them. They had crossed earlier in the day and been hiking on that side of the falls for a few hours, and when they had crossed the water was only up to their ankles –now it was up to their wastes. Luckily they had found a length of rope and were able to tie that to a tree, but even then, the water was flowing to quickly to cross. Eventually they were able to find a break the water that was only up to their knees a little while upstream and they were able to cross. Another man was not so fortunate, and as we were hiking down the fire company had just gotten there and they were going up to rescue him. The monsoon was pretty intense and basically lasted until the next morning. Of course that didn’t stop us from going back to Enigma that night, then to a reggae bar and also eating the most incredible Nan (a type of bread) at the 24 hour food court right next to our hotel. The next morning, after breakfast the weather actually cleared up which was LOVELY. And by chance we ran into Steph’s roommate Erica! One of her best friends is studying in Bangkok for the semester, so she flew to Malaysia to spend time with Erica, so it was great to hang out with her and hear about all of her Thailand adventures. We then caught the 230pm ferry back to Penang, even though we did not want to leave Langkawi. It was basically an island that many Europeans went to for Holiday, and there were a lot of backpackers, so over two days we met some pretty interesting people.

           That night back in Penang we caught dinner on the ship before heading back out to the night market because some of my friends hadn’t gone yet. Since Grey’s Anatomy worked, I bought every episode of all the seasons so far as well as a few more DVDs and a handful of CDs, and had a final great meal of Keoy Taw which is a noodle dish with vegetables that is fantastic and I had about 5 times I believe. Luckily we made it back to the pier for the last tender at 1am and finally got a good night’s sleep. In the morning Chad, Peter and I headed to                                 which is a huge temple. Some of it was under construction but it was really beautiful and a magnificent place with a fantastic view of the city of Penang. We were there for about an hour and a half, and then took a cab back to the pier because Chad and I were doing a service visit to the Cheshire Home, which is a facility for people with disabilities. I was under the impression that it was going to be children (I’m not sure why) but the residents were between the ages of 16-45 with a whole range of disabilities –mental and physical. It was a really difficult place to spend a few hours because the disabilities were pretty severe and there was a huge language barrier so it was somewhat difficult to interact with them. Mostly we either colored, played cards, or did some sort of craft with them. My friend Jocelyn and I spent most of the time in the arts and crafts room with some of the residents who made beautiful things- from Christmas ornaments to jewelry to hand woven mats. Several of us purchased many of their goods and even though it cost more, I was so glad I bought things from there instead of the night market because I know the money is going to benefit the residents and because the things were definitely hand crafted. It was never discussed what types of disabilities most of the residents had, but they were all mostly in wheelchairs and the majority seemed to have mental disabilities. It was a really rewarding experience because they loved having interaction with others (there are only 18 of them and they live there anywhere from 6 months to 2 years) and playing with things like Play-Doh and koosh balls. We were able to donate a whole box of supplies and toys when we left that they were clearly grateful for and they all loved taking photos with us which was really special. It was a great way to complete my time in Malaysia because the smiles were contagious and unforgettable.

           All in all the demographics of Malaysia are pretty interesting. In Penang specifically, I believe the numbers were…they both respected the other religion and it did not interfere with relationships or friendships at all which was very interesting to me because I am used to seeing the differences in ethnicity and race rather than religion.

           Overall, Malaysia is a very beautiful country and somewhere that isn’t first on my life of countries to visit again, but definitely I would if I was ever again in Southeast Asia. I feel like it was a great introductory visit into the region because many of the locals and other travelers spoke English and the food was great and the atmosphere was relaxed and welcoming. The days in between Malaysia and Vietnam were a little hectic, because there were only 3 and a half, but now it is rapid fire all through Asia. Starting in Malaysia, in 21 days we only have 7 days of class…so a lot will be happening and my goal is to stay healthy and not get sick between now and the end of Japan!! And maybe get a tan?? Just kidding I’ll worry about that for the 26 days following Japan… 

ps I will be posting Vietnam later tonight....I don't want to forget all of that before China so I am writing it tonight!