Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Ship Life/Shipboard Auction April 15-April 20
Nothing too much happened this week on the ship. Everyone has just been panic with their Global Studies project as well as all the other woke they have to do. I have been hanging with the little kids on the ship a lot. Most of them are just really fun and precious. Specifically my LLC’s children Maddy and Sam, this brother and sister, Lizzie and Andrew Finn, as well as this adorable 4 year old named Silas who I call Huge Chubs
We had a shipboard sale going on this week. It has been a bunch of auctions for anything anyone wants to submit. The Finn’s submitted a trip to their family’s farm in Colorado Springs. This was part of the live auction. First off let me just say that people on this ship must be loaded because the things they bought for obscene amounts of money is unbelievable. Granted all the money goes to Financial Aid/grants so forth for the next voyage but still. Anyway, I really didn’t want to go to the live auction because I knew I would get too into it and end up spending money I didn’t have or something ridiculous. There were some good prizes like raising the flag as we come into port in Fort Lauderdale or reserved railing space to wave to your family as we pull in, and some other great ones like that, but they were just going way to high. The only thing I said I might bid on was the Finn Family Farm…and I did. I couldn’t help it. I ended up giving up to this one girl when she just hit a price I couldn’t afford to beat. It was probably for the best anyhow, I don’ t know when I would have ever made it out to Colorado. The family is just so sweet, however, that when they found out it was me bidding they opened their house to me at any time. Who knows I might just have to take a trip up there one of these days. So we are going to be in Brazil in a day and it’s bittersweet…it’s our last port. I don’t feel like I’ve been on this ship for 3 months at all and while I’m excited to go home I also never want to leave. :)
We had a shipboard sale going on this week. It has been a bunch of auctions for anything anyone wants to submit. The Finn’s submitted a trip to their family’s farm in Colorado Springs. This was part of the live auction. First off let me just say that people on this ship must be loaded because the things they bought for obscene amounts of money is unbelievable. Granted all the money goes to Financial Aid/grants so forth for the next voyage but still. Anyway, I really didn’t want to go to the live auction because I knew I would get too into it and end up spending money I didn’t have or something ridiculous. There were some good prizes like raising the flag as we come into port in Fort Lauderdale or reserved railing space to wave to your family as we pull in, and some other great ones like that, but they were just going way to high. The only thing I said I might bid on was the Finn Family Farm…and I did. I couldn’t help it. I ended up giving up to this one girl when she just hit a price I couldn’t afford to beat. It was probably for the best anyhow, I don’ t know when I would have ever made it out to Colorado. The family is just so sweet, however, that when they found out it was me bidding they opened their house to me at any time. Who knows I might just have to take a trip up there one of these days. So we are going to be in Brazil in a day and it’s bittersweet…it’s our last port. I don’t feel like I’ve been on this ship for 3 months at all and while I’m excited to go home I also never want to leave. :)
Accra, Ghana April 11-April 14 (MY BIRTHDAY)
Ghana time! Well it was definitely much different than any other place we’ve been to. Even in India there was stuff to do and here there really wasn’t too much. We were dock in Tema and were about an hour outside of Accra. Neither city had much to do but Accra had a little bit more. They told us that if you were staying overnight anywhere or had an overnight trip you had to get your passport, yet you couldn’t pick them up until after 12. Austin and I thought that meant we couldn’t get off the ship until then…but we could. We finally figured that out and got off the ship around 10:30 and met up with Kevin and Rebecca. The ship charged us $10 for a shuttle service from Tema to Accra. They supplied 3 shuttles that were supposed to be alternating, two from Tema to Accra and one from Accra to Tema, except all three were left Tema at the same time which means you weren’t waiting an hour in between you were waiting 2. After waiting about an half an hour the 5 of us, Abby, Ausitn, Kevin, Rebecca, Alyssa, and I decided to take the shuttle from the ship to the port gate and grab a taxi to Accra. Once we got to Accra we went to this ice cream/hotel/restaurant place called Frankie’s. We got some ice cream and walked around a bit…noticed that there wasn’t too much to do and that we were hungry. We decided to go to this place that the interport student suggested called Osanka Local. Kevin got Banku, which was this doughy ball that, with your right fingers, picked up and dunked into this soup of meats and whatnot. It looked and smelled interesting. I wanted shrimp but they didn’t have any. So then I wanted chicken but they didn’t have any. So then I was like, fine, I’ll have some fried fish…they didn’t have that either…so I ended up getting French Fries. It took forever to get served. We were there for 2 hours. There were a bunch of other students there with these really cool backpacks. Rebecca and I really wanted them. They told us about this crafts markets and then we booked it there.
This was different from any other outside market we’ve been to yet. In China, Vietnam, and India they were really pushy, but this was absurd. They would try to make friends with you first and then in return ask you to come to their shop and if you didn’t they would get a little upset. They attacked you…worse than the other places because it was both women and men and they would grab your arms and almost drag you to their stand. It was nuts. A few girls came back with “boyfriends” and “married.” Abby got her but grabbed a bit. We bought so much and a few of us wanted more so we left, went to an atm and came back. I got a drum with my name carved in it, that really cool backpack, a wooden carved Mancala set, and a mask. After our shopping we went back to Frankie’s to a have a drink and some food. It was like 6 o’clock and then we met the “free” shuttle and headed back to the ship. Austin and I both had overnight trips the next day and had to be up and ready at 5:30. We opted to not go out and just hang in, eat more food, and relax.
I will also finish this one a little later…plus my 3 day trip in Ghana is a story to be told in person, as well haha...especially how I spent my 21st birthday.
This was different from any other outside market we’ve been to yet. In China, Vietnam, and India they were really pushy, but this was absurd. They would try to make friends with you first and then in return ask you to come to their shop and if you didn’t they would get a little upset. They attacked you…worse than the other places because it was both women and men and they would grab your arms and almost drag you to their stand. It was nuts. A few girls came back with “boyfriends” and “married.” Abby got her but grabbed a bit. We bought so much and a few of us wanted more so we left, went to an atm and came back. I got a drum with my name carved in it, that really cool backpack, a wooden carved Mancala set, and a mask. After our shopping we went back to Frankie’s to a have a drink and some food. It was like 6 o’clock and then we met the “free” shuttle and headed back to the ship. Austin and I both had overnight trips the next day and had to be up and ready at 5:30. We opted to not go out and just hang in, eat more food, and relax.
I will also finish this one a little later…plus my 3 day trip in Ghana is a story to be told in person, as well haha...especially how I spent my 21st birthday.
Cape Town, South Africa March 31-April 4
Cape Town, South Africa! Probably one of my favorite ports overall. I stepped outside and knew in the first 5 minutes that I would love it here. I immediately wanted to move to South Africa. It was just absolutely beautiful. It was also the fist port where I didn’t have a ton of SAS things. I only had one SAS trip and it was the first day. Anyway….
The first morning I woke up and usually it takes awhile to clear the boat but we literally we allowed off right away. We were docked in a port like Hong Kong where there was literally a shopping mall right there. Abby and I had a trip to one of the many townships. Townships are full of people who were kicked out of their homes during the apartheid. They were moved to this collective “slums.”
Our trip was at one so we had about 3 hours or so to walk around. We were told it was not safe to walk from the harbor to the city and so we decided to stay in the V and A Waterfront and do a little shopping. This place was like Shelter Harbor in Hilton Head. It had some really small cultural shops and a ton of food. The only difference was that it had a huge shopping mall. It had live music in the middle of the streets as well…although not as good as Shannon Tanner of course haha.
At one we met up with our trip and headed to Khayelitsha Township. This is the largest township in South Africa and has about 2 million people. We get there and we are taken to this small stone building and inside there are little knick knacks that the people of the township made. They had some men playing the wooden xylophones greeting us. We were there for less than 5 minutes before the kids started to swarm. I went outside to hang with them. They were adorable and we started dancing to the music. It was great! Ahhh, I love kids. Haha
We got back on the bus and were driving to this other area in the township. We walked into this “courtyard”—and I use that term lightly because it was a small green field with a little playground and some rooms. It was home to the Philani project. We were shown around and we walked into this room with a bunch of looms. These women use old cloth, old shirts and term them into rugs, bags, place mats, etc. We got to she them making these giant rugs. All the money goes to this organization. It was amazing. From there we walked over to the school. There were only about 5 kids there because it was Easter and a lot of parents kept them at home (meaning down the dirt street). I sat down and played with these two boys who were just unbelievably adorable.
From there we headed to Vicky’s B and B. As we walked down the dirt streets and past these houses made of wood and whatever they could find, kids started swarming again. We hung out with them until we were being summoned inside the B and B. Each township has several bed and breakfasts so that travelers can stay and really get the feel of the township. I went back down to play with the kids a little more. The one thing that is the same in every country we’ve been is that children love cameras and love seeing themselves on the screen. They would ask for you o take there picture and then grab a your arms to see it.
From there we left and headed to a different B and B. We walked in and there were some tables set up for us. They served us some snacks. I can’t remember the name of the one type of food but it was essentially deep fried dough. It was amazing and a popular South African food. We also had muffins and these unbelievable apple pastries. YUM. The lady who ran this B and B went on to tell us about how she ended up there. Her story was great. The one thing I always say is that everything leads back to Pittsburgh…and it really does. She was telling us about her life, how she was kicked out of her home and sent to live in a township, and how she went to the U.S. to work with organizations that help South Africa and what not…and of course of the places she worked was in Pittsburgh. Abby and I cracked up. What were the odds? She also worked in Chicago and some other places in the states but ended up coming back and opening a bed and breakfast in the largest township in South Africa. I got her card because Abby and I really wanted to stay over one of the nights because we didn’t really have too much planned.
Along with the delicious snacks they showed us around their section of the township. And of course as soon as we stepped outside the kids swarmed…not that I’m complaining. We walked down the street until we hit this fence where there was this big open field where there were a bunch of kids playing. As we walked around the area the kids were told to stay across the street…did they listen…no haha. They would come running and just jump on your back. One kid brought me to the ground. It was pretty funny.
It was a great day. We headed back to the ship and met up with everyone and headed out to the shopping area to go to a bar. We went to this place called Mitchell’s. We had a few drinks and then everyone wanted to go to this street called Long Street. I wasn’t feeling too well and heard to be carful at night so I went back to the ship.
The next morning Abby and I wanted to Robben Island and to hike Table Mountain. We stopped by the ticket desk the day before and Robben Island tours were sold out until the day we left :(, which kind of sucked. We woke up and got this cab driver named Abi to take us to Table Mountain for what was supposed to be a 2 hour hike. It was the hottest day and I foolishly did not get up for breakfast because I wanted 30 more minutes of sleep. The first 20-30 minutes I was booking it and then all of a sudden I got extremely nauseous, light headed and miserable. I downed a ton of water, which I, of course, didn’t bring enough of. After we stopped once we stopped every minute for like 5 minutes. It took us forever and we were delusional. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do…harder than the Great Wall for sure…and I never thought I’d say that. It was a straight up shot. It was rough. It took us 3 long, hot hours. The funny thing is the day before other friends of ours told us the top was a cold HA. It was hot which made the walk even harder. At one point we took off our shirts and hiked up in our sports bras. Despite the long excruciating hike the view was unbelievable. Absolutely breathtaking. You felt like you were in heaven.
After we took pictures for about 30 minutes we took the gondola back down to the base. We were looking for a place to eat and about 15 minutes away was a beautiful bay/beach area called Camps Bay. There were a ton of restaurants right on beach. We went to this nice restaurant and ate outside. I had some amazing garlic butter prawns. Earlier that day we book this “booze cruise” on a pirate ship. Ya, a pirate ship. It was called the Jolly Roger and the crew was hysterical. Clearly the captain was trying to be like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean (the way he talked and moved) except he was super funny and kept cracking really good short jokes. One was…he asked me my name so I told him and he was like “that’s a long name for such a short girl.” We had a glass of champagne and relaxed as we watched the sun set. On the way back to the harbor I got to steer the ship. It was so cool! After that Abby and I went to get some food in the waterfront. We were in Cape Town during a huge Jazz Festival and since we couldn’t get tickets to the thing we thought we would go to this restaurant that had some jazz. There wasn’t much I would eat except prawns so we sat down and I ordered that…not knowing they were out of season…uh oh. I ended up paying about 50-60 dollars for prawns I could have gotten at different restaurant for less. I was a little mad that they didn’t tell me before hand but oh well…I mean they were delicious. After dinner we headed back to the ship to get a good nights rest because in the morning we were…shark cage diving!!!!
Abby, Patty, Mem and I had to be up and ready at 5 to head out to go shark diving. We got picked up a little late and then started driving for 2 hours until we got to the one spot. Everyone passed out in the car. It was about 12 Semester at Sea students and 4 other people in Cape Town on travel. We got there and they gave us a little breakfast, a run down and then we were set to go. We went out on to a 36 foot boat. There were in total about 25 of us and everyone had to get a wet suit, cap, goggles, and booties on. While we were getting ready they threw out the chum to try and lure the sharks near. Then we would get into the cage and hold on. The leader would then tell us to take a deep breath and go under the water to see the shark passing by. The water was freezing…about 56 degrees Fahrenheit. The first group got a really good look at a shark. Each group got to go under a few times. I was in the second group and we probably had the worst luck. We must have been in the water for 45 minutes to an hour and only saw the shark about 1 and a half times. The first time we went under the shark was on our left, which was where I was located in the cage so I got to see it quickly while it turned around and went to the back of the boat. Then we sat for like 30 some minutes until we got to see another. The visibility is really bad and therefore you can barely see the shark until it is really close. The second and last time we got to see the shark it literally came right towards the cage and then turned at the last second. The tailfin almost hit the part of the cage I was situated in. It was so cool. Yet, it happened so fast I only remember a flash of it all. The rest of the groups got really amazing chances to see these sharks…my group, unfortunately, not so much. But you could go to the top and get really fantastic pictures as the shark went after the chum.
After we were done they served us some lunch as they showed us the footage the videographer took. I ended up buying the disc and it is pretty awesome. Then they took us back to the ship and Abby, Patty, and I met up with Katie got some food at this Italian restaurant in the waterfront and then we went back to the bars there. We went to Ferryman’s, which was right next to Mictchell’s because they had some live music…and I say that loosely. They were like an overpriced karaoke group. They sounded so bad it was hysterical. On top of that you had these really drunk women dancing and it was sooo funny. We were cracking up. Katie actually tapped the girl and we named her Roxie and her friend Linda. After the bad band was done we went over to Mitchell’s for another drink and some food. The four of us went back to the ship fairly early and passed out. On the first day Abby and I set up a tour of Cape Point and the winelands with a group called Mile by Mile and we had to be up and ready at 9.
Abby and I got up the next morning to prepare for our full day tour of Cape Point. There was a marathon going on until 2 in the afternoon so they had to reverse our schedule and instead of seeing Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope first, we went to Stellenbosch—the winelands. First we went to this one winery called Zeven…which was not located in Stellenbosch (which is the main area for wineries and wine tasting). Zeven…was beautiful. We sat down at like 10 and started having some wine. I actually really enjoyed myself. I don’t know if I could drink several glasses of wine but I actually liked most of the whites I had. They had these amazing cheese…oh my god…I inhaled them. After we were done with the tastings of two whites and two reds we got a tour and explanation of the facilities and the process of making wine. I really wanted to buy a ship a bottle home to the parents, you as a thank you for this trip, however because of state alcohol laws the winery couldn’t guarantee that it would actually get to them. They could guarantee that it would make it to the U.S but actually getting it through the state was another question. I bought one of the cheese…this 6 month aged cheddar cheese…so good. From there we went to this place called Spier, which was actually in Stellenbosch. It was also a winery but it wasn’t as good as others. However, it had a cheetah and bird reserve and for just a few rand you could pet and play with them. We only had the time to do one so of course Abby and I decided to pet the cheetahs. It was so cool! They would take you in some cages, have you wash your hands and feet, and then take you to the fenced in areas where the cheetahs were. They would then take pictures of you with the cheetahs. Lastly, we went to this last place called Tokara for one last wine tasting. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first. The first was more welcoming you sat down at a table and they were just nicer. Tokara was set up more like a bar, however I was a lot nicer and had a better view.
After the wine tasting we headed into the town of Stellenbosch. We drove past the university and some of the homes. Here they only speak Afrikaans and some English. We passed a beautiful church and synagogue. The area reminded me of Shadyside in that it had real artsy shops and small food stops as well as some big named places. The town was just absolutely gorgeous. They had some kiosk/stands outside so Abby and I did a little souvenir/gifts for people shopping. We got back into the car around one (with the other couple that was with us) and headed to Cape Point. Once we got back closer to the city we had lunch at this small bay area in Simons Town. It was delicious. After we ate we went to the Penguin Colony. These penguins were pretty much just chilling out on the Boulder’s Beach. They were gated off a bit so they didn’t escape but every now and then you saw a few in the parking lot. You could enter the gate and walk around and get pretty close. At one point I was only about a foot away from one. You did have to be careful because they built their nests in the sand. As we drove to Cape Point we went through these small towns areas like Camps Bay, Clifton Beach, Kalk Bay, and Muizenberg. We got to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. We chose not to pay to take the bus up the mountain to the top of Cape Point but it was a gorgeous view either way and you could see the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope is the Southern most tip of Africa. Here is where you were supposed to be able to see the baboons. Sadly, I didn’t see them and that is all I really wanted to see :(. We got back into the van and headed back to the ship. We passed by Long Beach, which is the beach and area that had Monkey Houses and the worst tidal waves. It is the most dangerous beach because the tidal waves are so unpredictable. We also got to see Chapman’s Peak, which was amazing. As we drove under it our guide pointed out that they had to carve into the side of the mountain to create enough road space. It was barely held up by these columns. We stopped several times to take pictures; the views were breathtaking, especially the one stop we made to see Hout Bay. Lastly, we drove through Green Market Square and then headed back to the ship. It was a great day and we got to see and do absolutely everything!
We got back to the ship and met up with Austin, Kevin, Tyler, Rebecca and everyone else. Tyler went to bed while everyone else had planned to go out to Long Street. Now, I was avoiding Long Street as much as possible. We were warned about the city at night yet people still wanted to go even though there were perfectly good bars in the waterfront. Each night several people would come back with things stolen. One kids got his hands and knees torn up because he chased after a guy who pick pocketed him. Half the time it was people who weren’t even drunk. Whether or not they stole big things like phone and cameras or small things like money, IDs, and credit cards…it just wasn’t a headache I wanted to deal with. I had overheard Christina, a girl I work with at Pitt who is also on this trip, talking about going to the movies. She had invited me along and I told her I wasn’t sure what I was doing quite yet. And of course I ended up going to the movies. We saw the “Bounty Hunter” with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. It was so awful it was funny. The script and the concept were just terrible but every now and then there was a funny one liner. I didn’t care how good or bad the movie was, it just felt so nice to be back in a theater with some popcorn and a drink. I got back at like 1 and got some stuff done. The rest of my gang who went to Long Street got back at 3. None of them got anything stole but nonetheless I’m glad it was a risk I didn’t take and I ended up having a blast with a different group of people.
The next day we woke up and planned to meet up with Austin and Kevin and all the other people who were back from their three day safaris. Austin, Kevin, Abby, and I did a little present shopping in the waterfront and then headed to this other huge mall called Center City Mall. It was absolutely massive. There really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary there…just like a normal shopping mall except it was gigantic. We walked around for a little and just hung out and had a good time. We noticed there was a small amusement park outside but we assumed it was closed because we couldn’t hear anything running and it was Easter day, but as we were driving away in our cab we saw that it was. We were kind bummed. As I’ve mentioned before Austin has smoked hookah in every country and he obviously couldn’t find any on his safari so he was determined to find some on the last day. Our driver from the day before told us about this place in Green Square Market called Cubana. We headed there for a few drinks and some hookah. We hung out for about 2 hours…didn’t do anything too special and then headed back to the waterfront because Kevin wanted to buy something else. We shopped around a little more and then got back on the ship in time to do tax refunds. Haha Overall, it was nice relaxing last day in Cape Town.
The first morning I woke up and usually it takes awhile to clear the boat but we literally we allowed off right away. We were docked in a port like Hong Kong where there was literally a shopping mall right there. Abby and I had a trip to one of the many townships. Townships are full of people who were kicked out of their homes during the apartheid. They were moved to this collective “slums.”
Our trip was at one so we had about 3 hours or so to walk around. We were told it was not safe to walk from the harbor to the city and so we decided to stay in the V and A Waterfront and do a little shopping. This place was like Shelter Harbor in Hilton Head. It had some really small cultural shops and a ton of food. The only difference was that it had a huge shopping mall. It had live music in the middle of the streets as well…although not as good as Shannon Tanner of course haha.
At one we met up with our trip and headed to Khayelitsha Township. This is the largest township in South Africa and has about 2 million people. We get there and we are taken to this small stone building and inside there are little knick knacks that the people of the township made. They had some men playing the wooden xylophones greeting us. We were there for less than 5 minutes before the kids started to swarm. I went outside to hang with them. They were adorable and we started dancing to the music. It was great! Ahhh, I love kids. Haha
We got back on the bus and were driving to this other area in the township. We walked into this “courtyard”—and I use that term lightly because it was a small green field with a little playground and some rooms. It was home to the Philani project. We were shown around and we walked into this room with a bunch of looms. These women use old cloth, old shirts and term them into rugs, bags, place mats, etc. We got to she them making these giant rugs. All the money goes to this organization. It was amazing. From there we walked over to the school. There were only about 5 kids there because it was Easter and a lot of parents kept them at home (meaning down the dirt street). I sat down and played with these two boys who were just unbelievably adorable.
From there we headed to Vicky’s B and B. As we walked down the dirt streets and past these houses made of wood and whatever they could find, kids started swarming again. We hung out with them until we were being summoned inside the B and B. Each township has several bed and breakfasts so that travelers can stay and really get the feel of the township. I went back down to play with the kids a little more. The one thing that is the same in every country we’ve been is that children love cameras and love seeing themselves on the screen. They would ask for you o take there picture and then grab a your arms to see it.
From there we left and headed to a different B and B. We walked in and there were some tables set up for us. They served us some snacks. I can’t remember the name of the one type of food but it was essentially deep fried dough. It was amazing and a popular South African food. We also had muffins and these unbelievable apple pastries. YUM. The lady who ran this B and B went on to tell us about how she ended up there. Her story was great. The one thing I always say is that everything leads back to Pittsburgh…and it really does. She was telling us about her life, how she was kicked out of her home and sent to live in a township, and how she went to the U.S. to work with organizations that help South Africa and what not…and of course of the places she worked was in Pittsburgh. Abby and I cracked up. What were the odds? She also worked in Chicago and some other places in the states but ended up coming back and opening a bed and breakfast in the largest township in South Africa. I got her card because Abby and I really wanted to stay over one of the nights because we didn’t really have too much planned.
Along with the delicious snacks they showed us around their section of the township. And of course as soon as we stepped outside the kids swarmed…not that I’m complaining. We walked down the street until we hit this fence where there was this big open field where there were a bunch of kids playing. As we walked around the area the kids were told to stay across the street…did they listen…no haha. They would come running and just jump on your back. One kid brought me to the ground. It was pretty funny.
It was a great day. We headed back to the ship and met up with everyone and headed out to the shopping area to go to a bar. We went to this place called Mitchell’s. We had a few drinks and then everyone wanted to go to this street called Long Street. I wasn’t feeling too well and heard to be carful at night so I went back to the ship.
The next morning Abby and I wanted to Robben Island and to hike Table Mountain. We stopped by the ticket desk the day before and Robben Island tours were sold out until the day we left :(, which kind of sucked. We woke up and got this cab driver named Abi to take us to Table Mountain for what was supposed to be a 2 hour hike. It was the hottest day and I foolishly did not get up for breakfast because I wanted 30 more minutes of sleep. The first 20-30 minutes I was booking it and then all of a sudden I got extremely nauseous, light headed and miserable. I downed a ton of water, which I, of course, didn’t bring enough of. After we stopped once we stopped every minute for like 5 minutes. It took us forever and we were delusional. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do…harder than the Great Wall for sure…and I never thought I’d say that. It was a straight up shot. It was rough. It took us 3 long, hot hours. The funny thing is the day before other friends of ours told us the top was a cold HA. It was hot which made the walk even harder. At one point we took off our shirts and hiked up in our sports bras. Despite the long excruciating hike the view was unbelievable. Absolutely breathtaking. You felt like you were in heaven.
After we took pictures for about 30 minutes we took the gondola back down to the base. We were looking for a place to eat and about 15 minutes away was a beautiful bay/beach area called Camps Bay. There were a ton of restaurants right on beach. We went to this nice restaurant and ate outside. I had some amazing garlic butter prawns. Earlier that day we book this “booze cruise” on a pirate ship. Ya, a pirate ship. It was called the Jolly Roger and the crew was hysterical. Clearly the captain was trying to be like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean (the way he talked and moved) except he was super funny and kept cracking really good short jokes. One was…he asked me my name so I told him and he was like “that’s a long name for such a short girl.” We had a glass of champagne and relaxed as we watched the sun set. On the way back to the harbor I got to steer the ship. It was so cool! After that Abby and I went to get some food in the waterfront. We were in Cape Town during a huge Jazz Festival and since we couldn’t get tickets to the thing we thought we would go to this restaurant that had some jazz. There wasn’t much I would eat except prawns so we sat down and I ordered that…not knowing they were out of season…uh oh. I ended up paying about 50-60 dollars for prawns I could have gotten at different restaurant for less. I was a little mad that they didn’t tell me before hand but oh well…I mean they were delicious. After dinner we headed back to the ship to get a good nights rest because in the morning we were…shark cage diving!!!!
Abby, Patty, Mem and I had to be up and ready at 5 to head out to go shark diving. We got picked up a little late and then started driving for 2 hours until we got to the one spot. Everyone passed out in the car. It was about 12 Semester at Sea students and 4 other people in Cape Town on travel. We got there and they gave us a little breakfast, a run down and then we were set to go. We went out on to a 36 foot boat. There were in total about 25 of us and everyone had to get a wet suit, cap, goggles, and booties on. While we were getting ready they threw out the chum to try and lure the sharks near. Then we would get into the cage and hold on. The leader would then tell us to take a deep breath and go under the water to see the shark passing by. The water was freezing…about 56 degrees Fahrenheit. The first group got a really good look at a shark. Each group got to go under a few times. I was in the second group and we probably had the worst luck. We must have been in the water for 45 minutes to an hour and only saw the shark about 1 and a half times. The first time we went under the shark was on our left, which was where I was located in the cage so I got to see it quickly while it turned around and went to the back of the boat. Then we sat for like 30 some minutes until we got to see another. The visibility is really bad and therefore you can barely see the shark until it is really close. The second and last time we got to see the shark it literally came right towards the cage and then turned at the last second. The tailfin almost hit the part of the cage I was situated in. It was so cool. Yet, it happened so fast I only remember a flash of it all. The rest of the groups got really amazing chances to see these sharks…my group, unfortunately, not so much. But you could go to the top and get really fantastic pictures as the shark went after the chum.
After we were done they served us some lunch as they showed us the footage the videographer took. I ended up buying the disc and it is pretty awesome. Then they took us back to the ship and Abby, Patty, and I met up with Katie got some food at this Italian restaurant in the waterfront and then we went back to the bars there. We went to Ferryman’s, which was right next to Mictchell’s because they had some live music…and I say that loosely. They were like an overpriced karaoke group. They sounded so bad it was hysterical. On top of that you had these really drunk women dancing and it was sooo funny. We were cracking up. Katie actually tapped the girl and we named her Roxie and her friend Linda. After the bad band was done we went over to Mitchell’s for another drink and some food. The four of us went back to the ship fairly early and passed out. On the first day Abby and I set up a tour of Cape Point and the winelands with a group called Mile by Mile and we had to be up and ready at 9.
Abby and I got up the next morning to prepare for our full day tour of Cape Point. There was a marathon going on until 2 in the afternoon so they had to reverse our schedule and instead of seeing Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope first, we went to Stellenbosch—the winelands. First we went to this one winery called Zeven…which was not located in Stellenbosch (which is the main area for wineries and wine tasting). Zeven…was beautiful. We sat down at like 10 and started having some wine. I actually really enjoyed myself. I don’t know if I could drink several glasses of wine but I actually liked most of the whites I had. They had these amazing cheese…oh my god…I inhaled them. After we were done with the tastings of two whites and two reds we got a tour and explanation of the facilities and the process of making wine. I really wanted to buy a ship a bottle home to the parents, you as a thank you for this trip, however because of state alcohol laws the winery couldn’t guarantee that it would actually get to them. They could guarantee that it would make it to the U.S but actually getting it through the state was another question. I bought one of the cheese…this 6 month aged cheddar cheese…so good. From there we went to this place called Spier, which was actually in Stellenbosch. It was also a winery but it wasn’t as good as others. However, it had a cheetah and bird reserve and for just a few rand you could pet and play with them. We only had the time to do one so of course Abby and I decided to pet the cheetahs. It was so cool! They would take you in some cages, have you wash your hands and feet, and then take you to the fenced in areas where the cheetahs were. They would then take pictures of you with the cheetahs. Lastly, we went to this last place called Tokara for one last wine tasting. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first. The first was more welcoming you sat down at a table and they were just nicer. Tokara was set up more like a bar, however I was a lot nicer and had a better view.
After the wine tasting we headed into the town of Stellenbosch. We drove past the university and some of the homes. Here they only speak Afrikaans and some English. We passed a beautiful church and synagogue. The area reminded me of Shadyside in that it had real artsy shops and small food stops as well as some big named places. The town was just absolutely gorgeous. They had some kiosk/stands outside so Abby and I did a little souvenir/gifts for people shopping. We got back into the car around one (with the other couple that was with us) and headed to Cape Point. Once we got back closer to the city we had lunch at this small bay area in Simons Town. It was delicious. After we ate we went to the Penguin Colony. These penguins were pretty much just chilling out on the Boulder’s Beach. They were gated off a bit so they didn’t escape but every now and then you saw a few in the parking lot. You could enter the gate and walk around and get pretty close. At one point I was only about a foot away from one. You did have to be careful because they built their nests in the sand. As we drove to Cape Point we went through these small towns areas like Camps Bay, Clifton Beach, Kalk Bay, and Muizenberg. We got to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. We chose not to pay to take the bus up the mountain to the top of Cape Point but it was a gorgeous view either way and you could see the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope is the Southern most tip of Africa. Here is where you were supposed to be able to see the baboons. Sadly, I didn’t see them and that is all I really wanted to see :(. We got back into the van and headed back to the ship. We passed by Long Beach, which is the beach and area that had Monkey Houses and the worst tidal waves. It is the most dangerous beach because the tidal waves are so unpredictable. We also got to see Chapman’s Peak, which was amazing. As we drove under it our guide pointed out that they had to carve into the side of the mountain to create enough road space. It was barely held up by these columns. We stopped several times to take pictures; the views were breathtaking, especially the one stop we made to see Hout Bay. Lastly, we drove through Green Market Square and then headed back to the ship. It was a great day and we got to see and do absolutely everything!
We got back to the ship and met up with Austin, Kevin, Tyler, Rebecca and everyone else. Tyler went to bed while everyone else had planned to go out to Long Street. Now, I was avoiding Long Street as much as possible. We were warned about the city at night yet people still wanted to go even though there were perfectly good bars in the waterfront. Each night several people would come back with things stolen. One kids got his hands and knees torn up because he chased after a guy who pick pocketed him. Half the time it was people who weren’t even drunk. Whether or not they stole big things like phone and cameras or small things like money, IDs, and credit cards…it just wasn’t a headache I wanted to deal with. I had overheard Christina, a girl I work with at Pitt who is also on this trip, talking about going to the movies. She had invited me along and I told her I wasn’t sure what I was doing quite yet. And of course I ended up going to the movies. We saw the “Bounty Hunter” with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. It was so awful it was funny. The script and the concept were just terrible but every now and then there was a funny one liner. I didn’t care how good or bad the movie was, it just felt so nice to be back in a theater with some popcorn and a drink. I got back at like 1 and got some stuff done. The rest of my gang who went to Long Street got back at 3. None of them got anything stole but nonetheless I’m glad it was a risk I didn’t take and I ended up having a blast with a different group of people.
The next day we woke up and planned to meet up with Austin and Kevin and all the other people who were back from their three day safaris. Austin, Kevin, Abby, and I did a little present shopping in the waterfront and then headed to this other huge mall called Center City Mall. It was absolutely massive. There really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary there…just like a normal shopping mall except it was gigantic. We walked around for a little and just hung out and had a good time. We noticed there was a small amusement park outside but we assumed it was closed because we couldn’t hear anything running and it was Easter day, but as we were driving away in our cab we saw that it was. We were kind bummed. As I’ve mentioned before Austin has smoked hookah in every country and he obviously couldn’t find any on his safari so he was determined to find some on the last day. Our driver from the day before told us about this place in Green Square Market called Cubana. We headed there for a few drinks and some hookah. We hung out for about 2 hours…didn’t do anything too special and then headed back to the waterfront because Kevin wanted to buy something else. We shopped around a little more and then got back on the ship in time to do tax refunds. Haha Overall, it was nice relaxing last day in Cape Town.
Ship Life March 25-March 30
Ship life is good as usual. Nothing too different, but like I mentioned before in between ports they always try to do something fun for us and this time it was the Crew Talent Show. This is when members of the crew put on acts. There are four dining staff members who everyone LOVES; Perry, Darwin, Mezrum, and Allen—all Pilipino. People would go crazy…as if they were super stars. Some were more talented than others. There was this one guy who worked below deck and no one really knew him but damn could he sing. It was unbelievable. It was just an amazing and fun night. You had everyone performing from laundry staff, to stewards, to the AV guy, and all the stewards. Being on the ship, as routine as it can get, is always a great time.
Port Lois, Mauritius March 23-March 24
Oh Mauritius. Mauritius was probably my least favorite port. We woke up around 7:30 and had breakfast and then Abby and I had a trip to Adventure Park and to Flic en Flac Beach. Rebecca, Abby, Austin, Kevin, James (from London), Martin and I were all supposed to stay over night at this apartment on Flic en Flac. We all had different schedules and were supposed to meet up there after everyone’s trips.
Anyway, Adventure Park was basically a high ropes course and I love high ropes courses. I had a blast. The first part of the park was more independent. You were in a harness and you hook yourself up to the wires and walk across these really rickety bridges that were just wires and planks of wood. The second part of the course was more high ropes, with nets and zip lines. It was amazing. We were in the middle of the jungle where the mosquitoes were really bad. Everyone put on Deet yet we were getting bit up like crazy. People were covered with 20+ bites. I covered myself with dirt to help keep them off and it seemed to work for the most part. After the park we went to the beach and separated from the tour group to find our apartment. We could not find it for the life of us. Abby and I walked up Coastal Road and couldn’t find the building people kept saying it was ten minutes in the opposite direction we walking. We walked up and down this extremely long road (probably about a mile one way) two-three times each way. We kept asking people and all of which had no idea of this place; they had never heard of it. At one point this lady in a grocery store called the postal office that said the mail from this place kept getting returned and that they didn’t think it existed. Abby and I started to panic. We finally decided to go to the police…which was at the opposite end of this road. They help us out by taking us in their police car and driving us around until we found it. I was miserable. My bad knee was killing me and I was staving. It was about 4:30 and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We finally find the place. We must have walked past it at least 4 times. Abby and I find the place and try to figure out where we check in…and there is no place. There was a number for a security guy and we called it. He comes out and tells us that it is impossible to stay at the apartments for one night; they are apartment complexes that you live in. He also told us that James and Austin had been by earlier. The finally conclusion…we were scammed. Luckily, Rebecca was the only one who put down money so I didn’t loose anything and her mom is figuring it out. It’s unfortunate because it was through Expedia, which seemed legit, yet there wasn’t a phone number, which should have been clue number one that something was weird.
Anyway, Rebecca and Kevin were supposed to meet us there at 6:30 and the current time was about 5. The security man pointed us towards the beach saying that is where Austin and James went. We had run into friends earlier who told us that a bunch of SASers were staying at the Hilton…which was all the way down the opposite side of the street. We decided to look for the boys as we walked along the beach down to the Hilton. As you were looking at the beach the Hilton was all the way down the left side of the beach…so we started walking. But unbeknownst to our knowledge Austin and James were just right of where we started walking and we missed them. Like I said I was beyond miserable. We had been walking for over three hours straight after having a serious work out at the Adventure Park. Every part of my body was aching and I still hadn’t had food. On our way down to the Hilton we ran into one of the older woman on the trip and sat down with her for about 10 minutes to bitch and moan.
Once we hit the Hilton Beach Resort and it was beyond gorgeous. And we found a few of our friends. We decided that our best bet was to squeeze into their room and help lower the cost. (It was a good thing we didn’t because they got kicked out later that night.) We change into our swimsuits and swam for about 10 minutes and then had a drink. We planned on going to dinner with this new group of people when Austin called. He was slightly drunk and decided he’d meet us halfway down the beach. So we picked up our stuff and walked back down the beat…again! Ahhh We ran into the older lady and the dean’s wife and gave up walking and decided to sit down and have another drink and make Austin walk further.
It was the first time we sat down for more than 10 minutes all day and it was about 6:30. As we were sitting there we got a call from Kevin and Rebecca who ran into the same problem we did. I kept saying…we know we got scammed and can’t stay there, let’s just go to the Hilton where we know we can get a room. They insisted we come back to the apartment as opposed to them meeting us at the Hilton. Clearly, I was annoyed. They had just gotten there and didn’t spend half their day walking up and down this street. Despite that, we hopped a cab and went and met them to find that nothing had changed and we were still out of a place to stay. We then hopped a cab back to the Hilton and because we all walked up to the counter they knew we had five people (Martin and James separated from the group) and wouldn’t give us just one room. We would have had to pay $100-$160 and no one wanted to spend that kind of money so we left. I was so unbelievably pissed that I spent the majority of my day and half walking around getting scammed. We decide that we need food. It’s 9 o’clock and I still hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I was being a bitch to say the least and I kept apologizing. I mean I knew it was because I needed food and to just sit, but I was so angry I couldn’t help but snap at people as hard as I tried. We found this restaurant that had food I’d eat, drinks, and hookah. Things were starting to look up. I got my SoCo and Lemonade and some of the best garlic butter shrimp. The food was so good I had to order a second plate.
Before we ate we ran into a friend who had a beach house and had a bunch of alcohol left over and invited us to go. But before we did we wanted to eat and find a place to stay. We ran into different friends earlier who told us where they were staying and were staying there for 200 dollars (for 3 people). The plan was for three of us to go and get the room and sneak the other two in. Well, that didn’t work so well because like the Hilton they wouldn’t put 3 people in one room…so we had to switch and the two others had to go and get the room and the other three snuck in. It was kind of ridiculous because the rooms could fit four comfortably. They were double beds but they were rock hard…no exaggeration.
After we got settled we started walking to try and find our friends beach house and surprise surprise we couldn’t. We just gave up and went to this outside bar, which was in this small complex area. It was actually a lot cooler than I realized now that I look back on it. We sat down and finally had some time to relax. It still wasn’t that much fun because people I was with were now the ones mopping. Luckily, a bunch of SASers showed up and I ended up having a decent time. I even played in a fountain with a bunch of people and accidently dropped my wallet in the water. We finally went to bed around 2 am.
Rebecca, Kevin, Abby, Austin and I woke up the next morning around 9. I woke up with my legs covered in bug bites. They almost looked like a rash. Abby had a ton from Adventure Park but her bites showed up right away and there were just about 15-20. I was covered. You couldn’t even begin to count there were so many…several hundred if I had to guess and extremely and unbearably itchy,
Anyway, we had to be on the ship at 6, but they always tell us to get there 2 hours early to avoid lines. By the time we left the hotel it was 9:30. We didn’t want to sit down for breakfast so we went to the grocery store and stocked up on food. I really wanted to go to beach. I had walked it up and down 3 times and never really got to “be” on it. But first we had to go to this piercing place that was in the complex because Austin really wanted to get his nipples pierced…ya I know strange/tacky but if you met this kid it would make complete sense and be funnier than gross. Kevin promised that if Austin got his nipples pierced he would get his ears pierced and Abby had been looking for a place to get her nose pierced. We stopped by and it was closed and were told to stop by again at 12. At this point it was 11:15 and I really wanted to go to the beach. So we went directly across the street and chilled in the water for 45 minutes. I would have liked to have stayed longer but the piercing place was open and that took priority haha. We go in and everyone is getting a piercing but me. They guy who did the piercings spoke very little English and spoke mostly French. Side note: Being on this island made me realize how much French I have forgotten and how much I’ve missed it. So Abby was the first to get hers done, then Rebecca got her third hole, and then Austin, followed by Kevin. After everyone had gone I decided I wanted to get my nose pierced. However, the guy wouldn’t let me because of my legs. He thought I ran a risk of infection because he didn’t know what sort of venom the bugs left. I was really sad. It took me a lot of courage to even decide to do something like this and then I couldn’t even get it done. I was a little disappointed. Flic en Flac Beach was about an hour away from Port Louis where we were docked. Port Louis was supposed to be really nice and had a beautiful shopping area called the Waterfront.
We caught a cab immediately after the piercings at about 2 to head back to Port Louis and walk around. But of course on our way back there was a huge accident so it was a good thing we left when we did because we would have risked being late and getting dock time. Side note…again: dock time occurs if you show up late for on ship time and it basically means once we dock at the next port we get a few hours off our time in the country. It could be the first day, first few hours, or it could mean you have to get back on the boat earlier on the last day in a port. Basically you don’t want to be late…ever. Anyway, we had the best taxi driver and he was really nice and we super helpful and luckily new some back routes that got us to the Waterfront in record time and with about an hour to an hour and a half to spare. We walked around the shopping area and then headed back to the boat.
My legs were so bitten up and swollen that I immediately went to the clinic. I was not the only one with these bites there were about 15-20 girls, all who had gone to Adventure Park. They had no idea what the bug was…all they knew was that it was an inset that was Deet resistant. At first it was just really itchy, but then I noticed at dinner (literally 20 minutes after I got back on the ship) that the bites were spreading to my back and I ran back down to the clinic. I was told to literally scrub down in Purell and then come back. I was almost in tears it was miserable. I went back down and they decided the best course of treatment was Prednisone and Benadryl to help me sleep. The Benadryl did nothing. I was up all night scratching. The Prednisone finally kicked in after awhile, but its been about 2 weeks since and I still have red dots all over my legs :(. They should go away soon though…hopefully.
Overall, my time in Mauritius stunk. Abby and everyone keep saying that they had fun, but when you really break it down it was a terrible day and a half with some glimmer of fun here and there. The second day was definitely better though.
Nothing too much happened between Mauritius and Cape Town. We had another Global Studies exam, which I thought I failed and somehow managed to pull off a 92 with a 4 point curve. Other than that things have become pretty habitual on the ship. I say I’ll wake up for breakfast but I always sleep in. I get up for class…go to class…and spend most of the rest of the day doing stuff for classes and watching tv and movies. No surprise there. Haha Abby, my roommate, and I couldn’t be more perfect for each other. We both love movies and tv, so it’s not just me sitting alone watching stuff all day. And Austin is in our room almost 24/7 haha. It’s funny because at school my room is never the party room and here, and especially lately, there is always someone else in our room at all times. It’s so fun. I’m having a blast.
When you’re in a country for so many days you actually look forward to being on the ship, getting back into your routine. It’s become home and you really do miss it.
Anyway, Adventure Park was basically a high ropes course and I love high ropes courses. I had a blast. The first part of the park was more independent. You were in a harness and you hook yourself up to the wires and walk across these really rickety bridges that were just wires and planks of wood. The second part of the course was more high ropes, with nets and zip lines. It was amazing. We were in the middle of the jungle where the mosquitoes were really bad. Everyone put on Deet yet we were getting bit up like crazy. People were covered with 20+ bites. I covered myself with dirt to help keep them off and it seemed to work for the most part. After the park we went to the beach and separated from the tour group to find our apartment. We could not find it for the life of us. Abby and I walked up Coastal Road and couldn’t find the building people kept saying it was ten minutes in the opposite direction we walking. We walked up and down this extremely long road (probably about a mile one way) two-three times each way. We kept asking people and all of which had no idea of this place; they had never heard of it. At one point this lady in a grocery store called the postal office that said the mail from this place kept getting returned and that they didn’t think it existed. Abby and I started to panic. We finally decided to go to the police…which was at the opposite end of this road. They help us out by taking us in their police car and driving us around until we found it. I was miserable. My bad knee was killing me and I was staving. It was about 4:30 and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We finally find the place. We must have walked past it at least 4 times. Abby and I find the place and try to figure out where we check in…and there is no place. There was a number for a security guy and we called it. He comes out and tells us that it is impossible to stay at the apartments for one night; they are apartment complexes that you live in. He also told us that James and Austin had been by earlier. The finally conclusion…we were scammed. Luckily, Rebecca was the only one who put down money so I didn’t loose anything and her mom is figuring it out. It’s unfortunate because it was through Expedia, which seemed legit, yet there wasn’t a phone number, which should have been clue number one that something was weird.
Anyway, Rebecca and Kevin were supposed to meet us there at 6:30 and the current time was about 5. The security man pointed us towards the beach saying that is where Austin and James went. We had run into friends earlier who told us that a bunch of SASers were staying at the Hilton…which was all the way down the opposite side of the street. We decided to look for the boys as we walked along the beach down to the Hilton. As you were looking at the beach the Hilton was all the way down the left side of the beach…so we started walking. But unbeknownst to our knowledge Austin and James were just right of where we started walking and we missed them. Like I said I was beyond miserable. We had been walking for over three hours straight after having a serious work out at the Adventure Park. Every part of my body was aching and I still hadn’t had food. On our way down to the Hilton we ran into one of the older woman on the trip and sat down with her for about 10 minutes to bitch and moan.
Once we hit the Hilton Beach Resort and it was beyond gorgeous. And we found a few of our friends. We decided that our best bet was to squeeze into their room and help lower the cost. (It was a good thing we didn’t because they got kicked out later that night.) We change into our swimsuits and swam for about 10 minutes and then had a drink. We planned on going to dinner with this new group of people when Austin called. He was slightly drunk and decided he’d meet us halfway down the beach. So we picked up our stuff and walked back down the beat…again! Ahhh We ran into the older lady and the dean’s wife and gave up walking and decided to sit down and have another drink and make Austin walk further.
It was the first time we sat down for more than 10 minutes all day and it was about 6:30. As we were sitting there we got a call from Kevin and Rebecca who ran into the same problem we did. I kept saying…we know we got scammed and can’t stay there, let’s just go to the Hilton where we know we can get a room. They insisted we come back to the apartment as opposed to them meeting us at the Hilton. Clearly, I was annoyed. They had just gotten there and didn’t spend half their day walking up and down this street. Despite that, we hopped a cab and went and met them to find that nothing had changed and we were still out of a place to stay. We then hopped a cab back to the Hilton and because we all walked up to the counter they knew we had five people (Martin and James separated from the group) and wouldn’t give us just one room. We would have had to pay $100-$160 and no one wanted to spend that kind of money so we left. I was so unbelievably pissed that I spent the majority of my day and half walking around getting scammed. We decide that we need food. It’s 9 o’clock and I still hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I was being a bitch to say the least and I kept apologizing. I mean I knew it was because I needed food and to just sit, but I was so angry I couldn’t help but snap at people as hard as I tried. We found this restaurant that had food I’d eat, drinks, and hookah. Things were starting to look up. I got my SoCo and Lemonade and some of the best garlic butter shrimp. The food was so good I had to order a second plate.
Before we ate we ran into a friend who had a beach house and had a bunch of alcohol left over and invited us to go. But before we did we wanted to eat and find a place to stay. We ran into different friends earlier who told us where they were staying and were staying there for 200 dollars (for 3 people). The plan was for three of us to go and get the room and sneak the other two in. Well, that didn’t work so well because like the Hilton they wouldn’t put 3 people in one room…so we had to switch and the two others had to go and get the room and the other three snuck in. It was kind of ridiculous because the rooms could fit four comfortably. They were double beds but they were rock hard…no exaggeration.
After we got settled we started walking to try and find our friends beach house and surprise surprise we couldn’t. We just gave up and went to this outside bar, which was in this small complex area. It was actually a lot cooler than I realized now that I look back on it. We sat down and finally had some time to relax. It still wasn’t that much fun because people I was with were now the ones mopping. Luckily, a bunch of SASers showed up and I ended up having a decent time. I even played in a fountain with a bunch of people and accidently dropped my wallet in the water. We finally went to bed around 2 am.
Rebecca, Kevin, Abby, Austin and I woke up the next morning around 9. I woke up with my legs covered in bug bites. They almost looked like a rash. Abby had a ton from Adventure Park but her bites showed up right away and there were just about 15-20. I was covered. You couldn’t even begin to count there were so many…several hundred if I had to guess and extremely and unbearably itchy,
Anyway, we had to be on the ship at 6, but they always tell us to get there 2 hours early to avoid lines. By the time we left the hotel it was 9:30. We didn’t want to sit down for breakfast so we went to the grocery store and stocked up on food. I really wanted to go to beach. I had walked it up and down 3 times and never really got to “be” on it. But first we had to go to this piercing place that was in the complex because Austin really wanted to get his nipples pierced…ya I know strange/tacky but if you met this kid it would make complete sense and be funnier than gross. Kevin promised that if Austin got his nipples pierced he would get his ears pierced and Abby had been looking for a place to get her nose pierced. We stopped by and it was closed and were told to stop by again at 12. At this point it was 11:15 and I really wanted to go to the beach. So we went directly across the street and chilled in the water for 45 minutes. I would have liked to have stayed longer but the piercing place was open and that took priority haha. We go in and everyone is getting a piercing but me. They guy who did the piercings spoke very little English and spoke mostly French. Side note: Being on this island made me realize how much French I have forgotten and how much I’ve missed it. So Abby was the first to get hers done, then Rebecca got her third hole, and then Austin, followed by Kevin. After everyone had gone I decided I wanted to get my nose pierced. However, the guy wouldn’t let me because of my legs. He thought I ran a risk of infection because he didn’t know what sort of venom the bugs left. I was really sad. It took me a lot of courage to even decide to do something like this and then I couldn’t even get it done. I was a little disappointed. Flic en Flac Beach was about an hour away from Port Louis where we were docked. Port Louis was supposed to be really nice and had a beautiful shopping area called the Waterfront.
We caught a cab immediately after the piercings at about 2 to head back to Port Louis and walk around. But of course on our way back there was a huge accident so it was a good thing we left when we did because we would have risked being late and getting dock time. Side note…again: dock time occurs if you show up late for on ship time and it basically means once we dock at the next port we get a few hours off our time in the country. It could be the first day, first few hours, or it could mean you have to get back on the boat earlier on the last day in a port. Basically you don’t want to be late…ever. Anyway, we had the best taxi driver and he was really nice and we super helpful and luckily new some back routes that got us to the Waterfront in record time and with about an hour to an hour and a half to spare. We walked around the shopping area and then headed back to the boat.
My legs were so bitten up and swollen that I immediately went to the clinic. I was not the only one with these bites there were about 15-20 girls, all who had gone to Adventure Park. They had no idea what the bug was…all they knew was that it was an inset that was Deet resistant. At first it was just really itchy, but then I noticed at dinner (literally 20 minutes after I got back on the ship) that the bites were spreading to my back and I ran back down to the clinic. I was told to literally scrub down in Purell and then come back. I was almost in tears it was miserable. I went back down and they decided the best course of treatment was Prednisone and Benadryl to help me sleep. The Benadryl did nothing. I was up all night scratching. The Prednisone finally kicked in after awhile, but its been about 2 weeks since and I still have red dots all over my legs :(. They should go away soon though…hopefully.
Overall, my time in Mauritius stunk. Abby and everyone keep saying that they had fun, but when you really break it down it was a terrible day and a half with some glimmer of fun here and there. The second day was definitely better though.
Nothing too much happened between Mauritius and Cape Town. We had another Global Studies exam, which I thought I failed and somehow managed to pull off a 92 with a 4 point curve. Other than that things have become pretty habitual on the ship. I say I’ll wake up for breakfast but I always sleep in. I get up for class…go to class…and spend most of the rest of the day doing stuff for classes and watching tv and movies. No surprise there. Haha Abby, my roommate, and I couldn’t be more perfect for each other. We both love movies and tv, so it’s not just me sitting alone watching stuff all day. And Austin is in our room almost 24/7 haha. It’s funny because at school my room is never the party room and here, and especially lately, there is always someone else in our room at all times. It’s so fun. I’m having a blast.
When you’re in a country for so many days you actually look forward to being on the ship, getting back into your routine. It’s become home and you really do miss it.
Ship Life-Neptune Day March 17-March 22
So in between ports they always try to do something fun. Before India it was Sea Olympics and this week, on our way to Mauritius, it was Neptune Day. Neptune Day is the when we celebrate crossing the equator for the first time. There are rituals and traditions that real sailors do when they cross the equator for the first time. One of which is pouring fish guts on your head and kissing a fish. We had fake fish guts, but it sure smelled real and of course I participated. It was a lot of fun. The other big tradition is shaving your head. Both symbolize you transforming from a pollywog to a shellback. Shaving your head is like the big thing to do and you get a lot of boys and girls doing it. I knew a bunch of girls were going to do it but I had no idea how many. It was literally almost a 50/50 split of both girls and boys. I was also surprised at how many girls could rock the look and so many boy couldn’t haha. I was very close to shaving my head. I knew I would actually do it but seeing everyone participating made me really want to consider it. But I love my hair too much and I really don’t think I could pull it off like Mom. Plus, I could have a lumpy head who knows if Mom and Dad dropped me on my head or not…it could explain a lot haha just kidding.
That night we had the talent show and oh my god there are some extremely talented people on this ship…some amazing singers. Everyone should hear these people because they WILL be famous. I was definitely jealous. haha
That night we had the talent show and oh my god there are some extremely talented people on this ship…some amazing singers. Everyone should hear these people because they WILL be famous. I was definitely jealous. haha
India March 11-March 16
We’ve docked in Chennai, India…On the first day I had a trip that I had to do for class and by the time we were allowed off the boat I didn’t have time to explore the area prior to my trip leaving.
In India you have to wear pants that cover your legs and a shirt that covers your shoulder...while it’s 90 plus degrees outside. We were also told that it was extremely dirty. They lined some of the ship hallways with cardboard so that when you tracked in the dirt it wouldn’t get all over the place. Well, it was really hot and pretty dirty. I expected the extreme in terms of dirt. I expected to walk outside and have a sandstorm of dirt. It wasn’t like that. It was like sand in the sense that there was a lot of dirt on the ground but it definitely wasn’t swirling around in the air.
So my trip…it was called “Socioeconomic Problems in Chennai,” quite a mouthful. It’s description said that we would be traveling to the slummiest of the slums and walk around and take it all in. It mentioned that the families ask that we do not take pictures. Erika, my Digital Storytelling professor, emphasized the no picture rule as well. I immediately was upset. I understood the point of the assignment…being there in the moment, not allowing a camera to be in the way of you really experiencing everything going on around you, and that sometimes you’re too worried about taking a good picture as opposed to just, again, being in the moment. I like taking pictures. I think pictures help me remember and help capture a moment. Of course that moment may not transfer as well to the photo but it helps spark the memories and gives you a physical storybook of your adventure. Now, since it was the families’ wishes to not take pictures it was a lot easier for me to swallow and “obey.” But, I did bring my camera…just in case.
I have had a few issues with the Field Program booklet. (I think I’ve vented about this before but oh well, now you have to hear it again). This booklet has the description of every trip that Semester at Sea does. As I mentioned, this trip was supposed to be going to the slums, seeing how the lowest class lives…it wasn’t. Usually, when this happens it’s not a problem because I enjoy myself anyways, but this time I was more disappointed than usual. I did enjoy myself, but it wasn’t what we were told was going to be happening.
Anyway….back to the trip…we drive to this place…that yes, is somewhat slummy. We get off the bus and start walking down these unpaved, rocky, torn up streets until we reach this building. WE walk into the building and this woman greets us and tells us about the place. This area is where families and children got displaced after the tsunami, as well as children they’ve gotten off the streets. Each home is tiny, they sleep on the floor with no mattresses, and the “families” have several kids and a mother as well as a specific religion. This was more like a village than a slum. It was described as an organization that was more like a “project” where they brought these kids and women and taught them sanitary, cleaning, green jobs, and education, etc. After the introduction this group of women walked in they were the ones in charge of garbage and waste. They showed us where they took garbage and turned it into manure. This organization takes these people who are struggling off the street and teaches them good ways to live. They showed us around some of the stonewall buildings/facilities like the room where they teach the women cosmetology, sewing, and other useful trades. After this they took us to the school and classrooms (and I used that word loosely). The rooms had a ton of decoration, pictures the kids drew, but there were no desks. They all sat on the floor in circles and had one pad of paper and a chalkboard. It had its similarities and differences from the Vietnamese Elementary School. It was different in the fact that you didn’t realize how privileged the Vietnamese kids were until you saw how unfortunate these Indian children were. The Vietnamese had desks and enclosed paved courtyard where as this village had a stone wall around a dirt area, which acted as their courtyard. It was similar in the kid’s excitement to see you. They too treated you like rock stars and would ask for your autographs and we asked them for theirs.
As we were leaving these three girls followed us, holding this jump rope. They started asking us to jump rope with them and we had a blast. More and more kids came out to meet us in the streets. They were so cute and I had a great time. I still would have like to have gone to a real slum as opposed to an area that was more like a project. Not being able to take pictures was very tough and even more frustrating when we realized that they directors/families/and kids had no problem with the pictures and in fact wanted to have their pictures taken. Overall though, I had an amazing time…I mean I got to play with kids how could it be bad?
I only had one night in Chennai before I left for my Taj Mahal trip. It was Rebecca’s birthday and since drinking is not of the norm in India we went to a hookah bar to celebrate. Now, I’m not a huge hookah smoker and I don’t really know good from bad, but out of all that I’ve smoked that was the best. I had a great time and got back around 11.
I will be finishing this later...sorry
In India you have to wear pants that cover your legs and a shirt that covers your shoulder...while it’s 90 plus degrees outside. We were also told that it was extremely dirty. They lined some of the ship hallways with cardboard so that when you tracked in the dirt it wouldn’t get all over the place. Well, it was really hot and pretty dirty. I expected the extreme in terms of dirt. I expected to walk outside and have a sandstorm of dirt. It wasn’t like that. It was like sand in the sense that there was a lot of dirt on the ground but it definitely wasn’t swirling around in the air.
So my trip…it was called “Socioeconomic Problems in Chennai,” quite a mouthful. It’s description said that we would be traveling to the slummiest of the slums and walk around and take it all in. It mentioned that the families ask that we do not take pictures. Erika, my Digital Storytelling professor, emphasized the no picture rule as well. I immediately was upset. I understood the point of the assignment…being there in the moment, not allowing a camera to be in the way of you really experiencing everything going on around you, and that sometimes you’re too worried about taking a good picture as opposed to just, again, being in the moment. I like taking pictures. I think pictures help me remember and help capture a moment. Of course that moment may not transfer as well to the photo but it helps spark the memories and gives you a physical storybook of your adventure. Now, since it was the families’ wishes to not take pictures it was a lot easier for me to swallow and “obey.” But, I did bring my camera…just in case.
I have had a few issues with the Field Program booklet. (I think I’ve vented about this before but oh well, now you have to hear it again). This booklet has the description of every trip that Semester at Sea does. As I mentioned, this trip was supposed to be going to the slums, seeing how the lowest class lives…it wasn’t. Usually, when this happens it’s not a problem because I enjoy myself anyways, but this time I was more disappointed than usual. I did enjoy myself, but it wasn’t what we were told was going to be happening.
Anyway….back to the trip…we drive to this place…that yes, is somewhat slummy. We get off the bus and start walking down these unpaved, rocky, torn up streets until we reach this building. WE walk into the building and this woman greets us and tells us about the place. This area is where families and children got displaced after the tsunami, as well as children they’ve gotten off the streets. Each home is tiny, they sleep on the floor with no mattresses, and the “families” have several kids and a mother as well as a specific religion. This was more like a village than a slum. It was described as an organization that was more like a “project” where they brought these kids and women and taught them sanitary, cleaning, green jobs, and education, etc. After the introduction this group of women walked in they were the ones in charge of garbage and waste. They showed us where they took garbage and turned it into manure. This organization takes these people who are struggling off the street and teaches them good ways to live. They showed us around some of the stonewall buildings/facilities like the room where they teach the women cosmetology, sewing, and other useful trades. After this they took us to the school and classrooms (and I used that word loosely). The rooms had a ton of decoration, pictures the kids drew, but there were no desks. They all sat on the floor in circles and had one pad of paper and a chalkboard. It had its similarities and differences from the Vietnamese Elementary School. It was different in the fact that you didn’t realize how privileged the Vietnamese kids were until you saw how unfortunate these Indian children were. The Vietnamese had desks and enclosed paved courtyard where as this village had a stone wall around a dirt area, which acted as their courtyard. It was similar in the kid’s excitement to see you. They too treated you like rock stars and would ask for your autographs and we asked them for theirs.
As we were leaving these three girls followed us, holding this jump rope. They started asking us to jump rope with them and we had a blast. More and more kids came out to meet us in the streets. They were so cute and I had a great time. I still would have like to have gone to a real slum as opposed to an area that was more like a project. Not being able to take pictures was very tough and even more frustrating when we realized that they directors/families/and kids had no problem with the pictures and in fact wanted to have their pictures taken. Overall though, I had an amazing time…I mean I got to play with kids how could it be bad?
I only had one night in Chennai before I left for my Taj Mahal trip. It was Rebecca’s birthday and since drinking is not of the norm in India we went to a hookah bar to celebrate. Now, I’m not a huge hookah smoker and I don’t really know good from bad, but out of all that I’ve smoked that was the best. I had a great time and got back around 11.
I will be finishing this later...sorry
Thursday, March 11, 2010
On the Boat/Sea Olympics March 3-March 10
So the sail between Vietnam and India is about 6 days. There really isn’t too much to tell about life on the boat, except we did have Sea Olympics one the 7th. Now, this has been the highlight of ship life. Sea Olympics is Color War…you know overnight camp Color War. Now each section of the hallway is divided into sea’s. This has been this way from the start. My sea is the Bering Sea and my LLC is Rob. They split you up so that your LLC can hold Sea Socials and other fun events so that you can meet people in your sea/part of the hallway. It’s like how an RA sets up events so you can get to know everyone in your hall/dorm floor. Now our sea has been pretty close from the start. Because we can’t get internet in our rooms we always sit out in the hallway (we can pick up the signal there). So we’ve gotten to know everyone that way. People from other seas always walk down our hall in astonishment, because it is always a party out there. We are also one of the only seas that have been talking about the Sea Olympics since day one. Color War, at least at EKC, was always 2-3 days. Here it was only one day. You signed up for different competitions and tried to win. The award for winning…being the first of the ship in Ft. Lauderdale. Win or lose I was not even planning on getting off the ship right away. I want to be able to say goodbye to everyone, but at the same time I don’t like to lose. I signed up for Tug of War, Dodgeball, and Wheelbarrow race. I ended up dropping out of the wheelbarrow race because it was part of the relay race and me and this other girl Kerry wouldn’t have been fast enough so we got two boys to do it instead.
Now we decided our team would be called the Bering Sea Ninja Crabs and the color we were assigned was black. You had to make up a cheer so ours was to the Men in Black theme song and went like this:
“Here comes the sea in black
Gold medal defenders
We are the Ninja Crabs
Other seas surrender”
We would the repeat that and at the end we go BBEERR-IINNG (I’ll have to imitate it for you) and then make claws with our hands and make a pinching sound. It was hysterical.
Tug of War was embarrassing. The Red Sea had a stacked team. They had two guys both way over 200 pounds, plus this huge girl who plays softball. Everyone lost to them in two seconds. Our team was the smallest for sure and we got pulled about like rag dolls. The first time we didn’t hear them say “go” and no one even got a chance to pull. We asked for a redo and they gave it to us…not like it mattered. But we thought if we were going to lose, we were going to lose trying. We lost worst the second go around haha.
Then we got third in trivia but the person who proctored it gave a hint to the team that knocked us out in the finals. The question was how many students are on this boat…we guessed 585, and the correct answer is 586, and the proctor was like “ew so close” so the other team knew what to guess. Then we had dress up your LLC and it had to go with the topic of sustainability (since that is the theme of the voyage). We collected water bottles and punched holes in them and made a dress out of them for Rob and we didn’t even place. Once you see all the other ones you’ll be amazed at how we didn’t place. Then there was the lip sync competition. The songs were randomly given out and we got Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” (a pop song). We had probably a top 3 performances and didn’t rank because the judges didn’t know the song and picked all the kid friendly ones (Yellow Submarine, Thriller (and they just repeated the dance), Bohemian Rhapsody (which was funny and deserved to place), and Under the Sea). While I know I’m bias, the top 3 should have been our, Bohemian Rhapsody, and a sea that did the Spice Girls.
Okay, so we got shafted a few times. Going into lunch we were not ranked very high at all. But after lunch we dominated. We got second in limbo even though we should have gotten 1st. The girl who one ducked her head to the side when she went under which you are not really allowed to do. Kelly, our limb-ist played fair the whole time. Oh well, second is still good. We got first in Dean White Says (Simon Says) and tied for first in the pull up contest, and third for spirit, and second in dodgeball.
Now I was on the dodgeball team. There were four of us, two guys and two girls. I forgot how much I missed playing dodgeball until this game. We rocked it. I was named MVP, unofficially, by my teammates. I have always played defensively. I’m not strong enough or accurate enough to throw but I can catch. So even if it was three on one I would just roll the balls back to the other team and let them throw it at me and it worked. I continually was the last person in and continually kept bringing people back into the game to help win it. We made it to the finals and we ran into some problems. One of our guys shoulder got all messed up and he couldn’t throw it as well. Overall, dodgeball was frustrating because the “ref” kept changing the rules. One rule was if a person gets hit in the head and it is bad enough then the person who threw it is out….not the person who got hit. Well, the first game (it was best out of three) I was the last one in and I got nailed in the head. Dead center on my ear and when I felt to the ground I simultaneously get hit in the butt with another ball. I was pissed because the ref called me out because two balls hit me. But when I stood up I couldn’t hear out of my left ear. It was like right after I shot the gun at the Cu Chi Tunnels. I personally thought that under the circumstances and the rules the guy should have been out and I should have gotten another shot. We lost the game and we got second. Overall, it was a blast and I had an amazing time and will probably do intramural dodgeball when it starts up.
They left a few scores unrevealed for the final ceremonies and going into them we were in third place. We expected to place in some of the events that were being announced but they only one we placed in was spirit. After everything was said and done we ended up getting knocked out of third and into forth. :( But as much of a bummer as it was I had the most amazing time.
That night they cooked us a barbeque and I ate so much corn. Now the pool, I think I mentioned before, is really tiny. After dinner, everyone piled into the pool, clothes and all. We tried to see how many people we could fit in the pool. It was nuts. We got everyone from staff to the children in that pool. There are some crazy pictures. At first I wasn’t going to get in and then I was like ‘hell I’m on a ship’ and jumped in. Uh, it was one of the best days on the ship by far.
Oh and most importantly, that mask I bought in Shanghai finally came in handy. It scared the crap out of so many people because it looks like a real face just painted. It’s so hard to explain. But I wore it every second I wasn’t eating or involved in an event. It was hysterical.
I’m going to try to load some pictures on here from my friend’s computer. So you’ll get to see some of the stuff from Hawaii all the way through the Sea Olympics hopefully soon.
Tomorrow I’ll be in India and will write here as soon as I can.
Now we decided our team would be called the Bering Sea Ninja Crabs and the color we were assigned was black. You had to make up a cheer so ours was to the Men in Black theme song and went like this:
“Here comes the sea in black
Gold medal defenders
We are the Ninja Crabs
Other seas surrender”
We would the repeat that and at the end we go BBEERR-IINNG (I’ll have to imitate it for you) and then make claws with our hands and make a pinching sound. It was hysterical.
Tug of War was embarrassing. The Red Sea had a stacked team. They had two guys both way over 200 pounds, plus this huge girl who plays softball. Everyone lost to them in two seconds. Our team was the smallest for sure and we got pulled about like rag dolls. The first time we didn’t hear them say “go” and no one even got a chance to pull. We asked for a redo and they gave it to us…not like it mattered. But we thought if we were going to lose, we were going to lose trying. We lost worst the second go around haha.
Then we got third in trivia but the person who proctored it gave a hint to the team that knocked us out in the finals. The question was how many students are on this boat…we guessed 585, and the correct answer is 586, and the proctor was like “ew so close” so the other team knew what to guess. Then we had dress up your LLC and it had to go with the topic of sustainability (since that is the theme of the voyage). We collected water bottles and punched holes in them and made a dress out of them for Rob and we didn’t even place. Once you see all the other ones you’ll be amazed at how we didn’t place. Then there was the lip sync competition. The songs were randomly given out and we got Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” (a pop song). We had probably a top 3 performances and didn’t rank because the judges didn’t know the song and picked all the kid friendly ones (Yellow Submarine, Thriller (and they just repeated the dance), Bohemian Rhapsody (which was funny and deserved to place), and Under the Sea). While I know I’m bias, the top 3 should have been our, Bohemian Rhapsody, and a sea that did the Spice Girls.
Okay, so we got shafted a few times. Going into lunch we were not ranked very high at all. But after lunch we dominated. We got second in limbo even though we should have gotten 1st. The girl who one ducked her head to the side when she went under which you are not really allowed to do. Kelly, our limb-ist played fair the whole time. Oh well, second is still good. We got first in Dean White Says (Simon Says) and tied for first in the pull up contest, and third for spirit, and second in dodgeball.
Now I was on the dodgeball team. There were four of us, two guys and two girls. I forgot how much I missed playing dodgeball until this game. We rocked it. I was named MVP, unofficially, by my teammates. I have always played defensively. I’m not strong enough or accurate enough to throw but I can catch. So even if it was three on one I would just roll the balls back to the other team and let them throw it at me and it worked. I continually was the last person in and continually kept bringing people back into the game to help win it. We made it to the finals and we ran into some problems. One of our guys shoulder got all messed up and he couldn’t throw it as well. Overall, dodgeball was frustrating because the “ref” kept changing the rules. One rule was if a person gets hit in the head and it is bad enough then the person who threw it is out….not the person who got hit. Well, the first game (it was best out of three) I was the last one in and I got nailed in the head. Dead center on my ear and when I felt to the ground I simultaneously get hit in the butt with another ball. I was pissed because the ref called me out because two balls hit me. But when I stood up I couldn’t hear out of my left ear. It was like right after I shot the gun at the Cu Chi Tunnels. I personally thought that under the circumstances and the rules the guy should have been out and I should have gotten another shot. We lost the game and we got second. Overall, it was a blast and I had an amazing time and will probably do intramural dodgeball when it starts up.
They left a few scores unrevealed for the final ceremonies and going into them we were in third place. We expected to place in some of the events that were being announced but they only one we placed in was spirit. After everything was said and done we ended up getting knocked out of third and into forth. :( But as much of a bummer as it was I had the most amazing time.
That night they cooked us a barbeque and I ate so much corn. Now the pool, I think I mentioned before, is really tiny. After dinner, everyone piled into the pool, clothes and all. We tried to see how many people we could fit in the pool. It was nuts. We got everyone from staff to the children in that pool. There are some crazy pictures. At first I wasn’t going to get in and then I was like ‘hell I’m on a ship’ and jumped in. Uh, it was one of the best days on the ship by far.
Oh and most importantly, that mask I bought in Shanghai finally came in handy. It scared the crap out of so many people because it looks like a real face just painted. It’s so hard to explain. But I wore it every second I wasn’t eating or involved in an event. It was hysterical.
I’m going to try to load some pictures on here from my friend’s computer. So you’ll get to see some of the stuff from Hawaii all the way through the Sea Olympics hopefully soon.
Tomorrow I’ll be in India and will write here as soon as I can.
Vietnam February 26-March 2
Vietnam time….
Abby, Tyler, another Abby (Abby Y), Austin, and I got off the boat and walked around Vietnam. The one thing that we were told to do is get a made-to-fit dress/suit in Vietnam. So we went looking for a place. The girls and guys got separated unfortunately. Abby, Abby, and I all got dresses…for pretty cheap. I wanted a certain dress but with a certain cut and they couldn’t make it that way. So I settled with the original cut, which sucks because it doesn’t fit me very well. But for the price that I paid, it at least makes for a good story. Plus, when am I ever going to get a hand made, made-to-fit dress again? After we were done we realized we lost the boys. However, the plan was to get these clothes made and then go to the War Remnants Museum, so we knew where they were headed. So we hopped a cab there and when we went to pay Abby and Abby got ripped off…again. Abby Y was in the front seat ready to pay and Abby had some money out in the back and the driver reached behind grabbed all the money and gave us change. Either way, the definitely over paid. We got to the museum and they weren’t open yet and as we were walking to find lunch, we saw the boys. The 5 of us found this hotel sort of place and had a small meal. After which, we went the museum. It was one of the most devastating things I’ve ever seen. Before we went into this museum we saw some of helicopters, planes, and tanks from the war. We followed this sign to the Tiger Cages. There we saw a guillotine and cell rooms. There were even wax figures inside. One looked so real, and was looking straight through the peephole, that it made you jump. Inside, there were two floors of pictures and articles. My favorite part was this small gallery room that had pictures kids, from the ages of 11-15, drew. They were amazing and all about peace…definitely drawings I could not have done at that age.
From there we went to the Reunification Palace. When we were in line to buy tickets these three guys asked us if we knew this guy on Semester at Sea…we didn’t. We all got to talking and they were in Vietnam for the weekend because they were studying abroad in Singapore. One of them has an aunt and uncle who live in Blawnox…what are the odds. They were pretty cool and we invited them to join us at a club (where all the Semester at Sea students would be) later that night. We walked around and it was pretty cool. It wasn’t until 3 days later did we find out that we missed the whole second and third floor. It was cool nonetheless. After the Reunification Palace we went to the Ben Thanh Market. This market was huge and it was inside. Now the temperature was in the 90’s with 0% chance of rain. It was humid and then you had this market that was indoors, jammed packed to the point where you could hardly move in between stands. It was soooo hot. I don’t think I’ve sweated that much in forever. This market was pretty cool because at five o’clock it turned into a night market on the street. This market was just like the one in Shanghai and Hong Kong but with different things. We were told the other thing to do in Vietnam was to buy pirated movies…and of course I did. I bought a ton over the span of the 5 days I was there.
We received this list of places to eat and we picked this one called Blue Ginger to go to. It was a traditional Vietnamese restaurant. It was super cheap. I got shrimp spring rolls, both Abby’s got a meal, and Tyler and Austin essentially got two meals. The total cost ended up being 40 dollars, with Austin paying about 12 of it. They also had traditional live music. Overall, it was a really good restaurant and we kept recommending it to people. Now, eating in Vietnam was probably the worst for me. I tried a ton of different things but I also had French fries with every meal. However, the Ketchup had like the after taste that tasted like wine…no joke.
That night everyone was going to this club called Apocalypse Now…go figure haha. We got there pretty early and I just wasn’t feeling it. Abby and I had a pretty lousy time. The drinks were expensive (we’ll expensive in Vietnamese terms, not in American haha) and it was just overrun, again, by SAS kids, but this time I just didn’t have a good time. It got a little better when the three boys we met earlier that day showed up, but in the end…not so much fun and headed back around 1ish.
The next day it was just Abby, Tyler, Therese, and I hanging out. We wanted to go to this Mangrove park thing but it was like a full day/overnight thing and it would have cost about 55 per person. No one really wanted to do that so we spent the day walking around again. It wasn’t as much fun because there really is not too much to do in the city after you see the museums and whatnot, but I still had a great time. Anyway, we got some lunch at a local café that had, Vietnamese food, American food, and French food. It also had a bakery attached to it. It got a pizza and it was delicious. Tyler eventually split off. The three of us girls ventured back to the Ben Thanh Market to look at the movie selection. We ran into these two other girls who told me about this Disney movie collection/box set at this mall right by the Rex Hotel, where we got dropped off (via shuttle from the pier). At most stands you could get movies for a dollar. There was one right outside our ship every night that was one for a dollar, but on our way over to the mall we found this place that sold them for about 80 cents. There I found this box set label “Oscar Awards.” I assumed it was the tapings of all the awards shows. I realized when I got back that it wasn’t. It was every Oscar Award winning movie plus a few. While finding every taped award ceremony would have been like finding the Holy Grail, getting 125 movies for super cheap isn’t something I can complain about. After that we finally got to the mall and of course I got the Disney box set. It’s amazing. We headed back to the ship to figure out what we were going to do for the rest of the night. We decided to go to the Rex Hotel. They had this bar and live music on the roof. We went there and it was filled with a ton of people, with a lot of SAS kids mixed in. It was nice just sitting there and having a few drinks, but it was also a little expensive in comparison to other bars. We didn’t stay out too late because Abby and I, as well the other people we were with had trips the next morning.
The next morning Abby and I woke up and headed out for our SAS trip of the Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels. We had a small group of people, which was nice, and I knew most of them. On the way to the temple we learned about Caoism (as a religion). Once we got there we had some time to walk around. There was a long courtyard, for a lack of a better term, with puppet shows about the religion and the temple. We finally went inside, but first we had to take our shoes off. Our tour guide could not even go inside with us because she had to stay outside and watch our shoes. Once we got in there we were able to observe a service, which was a little boring…not going to lie…but only in the sense that, from an uneducated person (of that culture) like myself it seemed like they weren’t doing that much. Yet at the same time I was fascinated. After the temple we stopped to get lunch. Here is where I tried probably the most Vietnamese foods. It tried their many types of noodles, the most popular being Pho (pronounced Pha). I also had several spring rolls, which I think contained some pork. Overall, the food was delicious.
From there we headed to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The first thing we did was watch a film, from the eyes of the Vietnamese, on the Vietnam War. We learned more about the tunnels and their purpose. Next they took us to one of the hatches in the ground. Our guide from the Cu Chi Tunnels (different than our overall guide) showed us how to get in and out of the tunnels. We all got to try. The space was extremely tiny and there were some really tall guys on the trip; one I think was about 6’3” or so. He had some troubles once he was inside. I, on the other hand, was kind of comfortable. Considering, I am about the size most of the Vietnamese soldiers were, I fit pretty well inside. From there they showed us fake set ups of different bunkers, a real U.S. army tank that was left in the woods (with AK-47 gun holes in it), and all the different types of traps they used. Now, I was really excited because I had heard from trips that went the day before that we were going to be able to shoot machine guns (M16, M60, and AK-47). They took us to the shooting range and I was so pumped…not because I like guns or anything, but how many times can you say you shot an AK-47 or rather shot an AK-47 in Vietnam…you can’t. I bought 10 rounds and headed down to the gun. There was someone there to help you and I needed help. They loaded the rounds for you and got you set up. Because I’m so short I had to stand on my tip-toes in order for the gun to rest on my shoulder properly. Instead of just pulling the trigger and let it go, I fired one round at a time. They gave you earmuffs but it didn’t do much. After you had shot, your ears were clogged. It took a few minutes for them to clear up. And I was down there for 4 other people helping them take pictures, so it took like 15 minutes for my right ear to “de-clog.” But It was so much fun. I don’t think I’ll ever shoot one again, but it was quite an experience. After this we headed to an actual tunnel. For tourists, they took a tunnel and widened it so that they could get through easier and they also added lights. It was awesome. I fit down there pretty comfortably. I mean you had to duck either way. The tall boys were struggling. By the time we were done their backs and quads killed. We didn’t go too far just about 20-30 feet. I really wanted to go further but that’s where they tourist tunnel ended. I had a fantastic time. It was absolutely amazing. When we got back to the ship, Abby and I opted to stay in for the night and watch a scary movie she had bought. We both fell asleep around 12:30.
The next morning I had my Mekong Delta trip and Abby had a service project trip. Luckily, I knew several other people on the trip. The first thing we did was go to a Buddhist monastery and saw another gigantic Buddha. From there we traveled about to hours to the Mekong Delta. We then got to these boats and headed down the river and got off and headed into this little village. We then sat down and ate all these different types of fruit. I tried something called a Jackfruit. It was like rubber on the outside and texture was weird but it wasn’t bad. Then we saw how they make coconut candy, which was very cool. All of this was taking place in huts. It was very touristy but interesting nonetheless. As we were heading to the next stop along the river trash got caught in the engine of the boat and in the middle of the water we had to get from one boat to another. It was humorous. :) Then we stopped off at another dock and saw some more coconut candy making. We walked through this area and everyone was just hanging out in hammocks. Now, this is really cool in Vietnam…rest stops were just huts and hammocks and tables. It’s very cool. Anyway, all of a sudden we see these horses with carts behind them. We took these horses through the village area, which was very cool…again very touristy but I had a blast. We got off the carts and walked a little to another part of the village where we were to have honey tea. But before we sat down for tea, we were allowed to hold this snake. Not just any snake though…a python…a friendly python.
After tea we got back in the boat and went to lunch. Lunch was pretty decent we had elephant fish and prawns. I tried the fish rice wraps and it wasn’t too bad. We also saw a water buffalo just hanging out in the water right next to where we were eating. After this we walked a little ways and got into a canoe…the type the women and fishermen use. The villagers paddled us down the river and back out to the open Mekong Delta and then hopped back into our boat and headed home.
The last night was one of my favorites so far. As soon as I got back a bunch of my friends, who were coming back from Nha Trang, wanted to go to the Hard Rock Café…ya I know, we’re in Vietnam and we went to the Hard Rock Café. The group was Austin, Kate, Rebecca (a professor’s 18 year old daughter), Abby, Martin (from Norway) and me. What made the night even better than good American food was that they had Southern Comfort and Lemonade (my favorite). Part of the reason I wasn’t having a fun nightlife the first day was the lack of my favorite drink and Hard Rock had it, which just made my night. Because I knew that wherever we went there wouldn’t be SoCo and Lemonade so I had three in the span of about 2 hours and because I’m tiny and can’t hold my alcohol I was a little drunk haha. From there we went to a hookah bar. Austin has smoked in every country so we went along with him to fulfill his Vietnam quota. So the running joke of the night was that I was drunk by 8:30, dizzy by 10 and sobered up again by 10:30. After the hookah bar we went looking for another one and decided to head back to Apocalypse Now…I wasn’t happy about this. On our way there these women who owned this small bar literally dragged us into their empty bar…Hot Chili. It ended up being a great time. Kate convinced them to give her a free tequila shot if she bought two. Then she did a bunch of card tricks and bet them another one. They were amazed! Absolutely astonished that she continually guessed their cards. After a few more drinks we left, promising them we’d return, and headed to Apocalypse Now and it was just as bad as the first night. Austin, Abby, Kate, and I left and went back to Hot Chili where we played extreme Jenga. It was ridiculous. The shapes they made out of the Jenga blocks were crazy. Abby, Austin, two bartender ladies, and I played several games, while Kate taught two of the other women how to do card tricks. We hooked up our ipods and rocked out. It was one of the best nights I’ve had so far. We came back at about 2 am that morning and woke up at about 7:30 for my trip the next morning.
It was our last full day in Vietnam and I had one last trip. This trip was a short four-hour trip to a local elementary school. It was by far my favorite trip. Kate was on the trip with me, as well as my LLC’s (my RA) and his family. Words cannot describe how much fun this trip was. Once we got there they gave us a little information about the school. The headmaster couldn’t speak any English so our guide had to translate for us. After that they let us go in the courtyard where the kids were playing and just hang out. At first it was like “ooookkk, what do we do?” But then kids started coming up to us and then they all started bombarding us with their notebooks and pieces of paper for us to write “Hi, my name is Natalie,” or some variation of that. You felt like a rockstar signing autographs. After a bit of that Sam, my LLC’s 8 year old son, and I wanted to play hacky sack with the kids. Now, their version of a hacky sack is not an American version. It has feathers and it’s flat, but has like foamy springs to it. It’s hard to explain. Anyways, Sam and I wanted to play but we didn’t know if/how we should ask. You almost felt like you were back in elementary school and sheepishly going up to people and asking if you could play with them. Well, we ended up asking and had a great time trying to play this game.
After they were dismissed we were separated and went to different classrooms…about 4 of us per room. The first room I went in was full of 8 year olds and they immediately started throwing paper at us to sign. Then they too started writing their names for us. I have a pile of them that I will keep forever. There was this one girl, who probably spoke the best English in the class, who was absolutely awesome…definitely my favorite…probably because she kept giving me hugs. It was precious. I was in heaven…high on life. We then rotated room and the next two or there were really well behaved. You definitely felt awkward because of the language barrier and if they weren’t asking questions, you didn’t know what to say. Each class sang us this song that of course I recorded. I came back to the ship about 12 in the afternoon, soooo hyper. I had an amazing time and it just made me high on life and giddy. I was bouncing off the walls, nuts.
The day before a friend of mine Aaron told me of this place where I could get 2 movies for a dollar…so of course I wanted to go there. Back at the ship, after my trip, I met up with Rebecca (a professor’s daughter, who I’ve become good friends with), Kevin, and Austin and the four of us hit up this movie place. We were there for at least 2 hours going through every bin of movies. I was in heaven. I mean why would you not raid the store…when else are you going to find 50 cent movies.? Austin and I headed back right after that and then hung out on the pool deck of the ship and played some ping-pong. At about 8 o’clock the boat left Vietnam and was sailing for India.
Abby, Tyler, another Abby (Abby Y), Austin, and I got off the boat and walked around Vietnam. The one thing that we were told to do is get a made-to-fit dress/suit in Vietnam. So we went looking for a place. The girls and guys got separated unfortunately. Abby, Abby, and I all got dresses…for pretty cheap. I wanted a certain dress but with a certain cut and they couldn’t make it that way. So I settled with the original cut, which sucks because it doesn’t fit me very well. But for the price that I paid, it at least makes for a good story. Plus, when am I ever going to get a hand made, made-to-fit dress again? After we were done we realized we lost the boys. However, the plan was to get these clothes made and then go to the War Remnants Museum, so we knew where they were headed. So we hopped a cab there and when we went to pay Abby and Abby got ripped off…again. Abby Y was in the front seat ready to pay and Abby had some money out in the back and the driver reached behind grabbed all the money and gave us change. Either way, the definitely over paid. We got to the museum and they weren’t open yet and as we were walking to find lunch, we saw the boys. The 5 of us found this hotel sort of place and had a small meal. After which, we went the museum. It was one of the most devastating things I’ve ever seen. Before we went into this museum we saw some of helicopters, planes, and tanks from the war. We followed this sign to the Tiger Cages. There we saw a guillotine and cell rooms. There were even wax figures inside. One looked so real, and was looking straight through the peephole, that it made you jump. Inside, there were two floors of pictures and articles. My favorite part was this small gallery room that had pictures kids, from the ages of 11-15, drew. They were amazing and all about peace…definitely drawings I could not have done at that age.
From there we went to the Reunification Palace. When we were in line to buy tickets these three guys asked us if we knew this guy on Semester at Sea…we didn’t. We all got to talking and they were in Vietnam for the weekend because they were studying abroad in Singapore. One of them has an aunt and uncle who live in Blawnox…what are the odds. They were pretty cool and we invited them to join us at a club (where all the Semester at Sea students would be) later that night. We walked around and it was pretty cool. It wasn’t until 3 days later did we find out that we missed the whole second and third floor. It was cool nonetheless. After the Reunification Palace we went to the Ben Thanh Market. This market was huge and it was inside. Now the temperature was in the 90’s with 0% chance of rain. It was humid and then you had this market that was indoors, jammed packed to the point where you could hardly move in between stands. It was soooo hot. I don’t think I’ve sweated that much in forever. This market was pretty cool because at five o’clock it turned into a night market on the street. This market was just like the one in Shanghai and Hong Kong but with different things. We were told the other thing to do in Vietnam was to buy pirated movies…and of course I did. I bought a ton over the span of the 5 days I was there.
We received this list of places to eat and we picked this one called Blue Ginger to go to. It was a traditional Vietnamese restaurant. It was super cheap. I got shrimp spring rolls, both Abby’s got a meal, and Tyler and Austin essentially got two meals. The total cost ended up being 40 dollars, with Austin paying about 12 of it. They also had traditional live music. Overall, it was a really good restaurant and we kept recommending it to people. Now, eating in Vietnam was probably the worst for me. I tried a ton of different things but I also had French fries with every meal. However, the Ketchup had like the after taste that tasted like wine…no joke.
That night everyone was going to this club called Apocalypse Now…go figure haha. We got there pretty early and I just wasn’t feeling it. Abby and I had a pretty lousy time. The drinks were expensive (we’ll expensive in Vietnamese terms, not in American haha) and it was just overrun, again, by SAS kids, but this time I just didn’t have a good time. It got a little better when the three boys we met earlier that day showed up, but in the end…not so much fun and headed back around 1ish.
The next day it was just Abby, Tyler, Therese, and I hanging out. We wanted to go to this Mangrove park thing but it was like a full day/overnight thing and it would have cost about 55 per person. No one really wanted to do that so we spent the day walking around again. It wasn’t as much fun because there really is not too much to do in the city after you see the museums and whatnot, but I still had a great time. Anyway, we got some lunch at a local café that had, Vietnamese food, American food, and French food. It also had a bakery attached to it. It got a pizza and it was delicious. Tyler eventually split off. The three of us girls ventured back to the Ben Thanh Market to look at the movie selection. We ran into these two other girls who told me about this Disney movie collection/box set at this mall right by the Rex Hotel, where we got dropped off (via shuttle from the pier). At most stands you could get movies for a dollar. There was one right outside our ship every night that was one for a dollar, but on our way over to the mall we found this place that sold them for about 80 cents. There I found this box set label “Oscar Awards.” I assumed it was the tapings of all the awards shows. I realized when I got back that it wasn’t. It was every Oscar Award winning movie plus a few. While finding every taped award ceremony would have been like finding the Holy Grail, getting 125 movies for super cheap isn’t something I can complain about. After that we finally got to the mall and of course I got the Disney box set. It’s amazing. We headed back to the ship to figure out what we were going to do for the rest of the night. We decided to go to the Rex Hotel. They had this bar and live music on the roof. We went there and it was filled with a ton of people, with a lot of SAS kids mixed in. It was nice just sitting there and having a few drinks, but it was also a little expensive in comparison to other bars. We didn’t stay out too late because Abby and I, as well the other people we were with had trips the next morning.
The next morning Abby and I woke up and headed out for our SAS trip of the Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels. We had a small group of people, which was nice, and I knew most of them. On the way to the temple we learned about Caoism (as a religion). Once we got there we had some time to walk around. There was a long courtyard, for a lack of a better term, with puppet shows about the religion and the temple. We finally went inside, but first we had to take our shoes off. Our tour guide could not even go inside with us because she had to stay outside and watch our shoes. Once we got in there we were able to observe a service, which was a little boring…not going to lie…but only in the sense that, from an uneducated person (of that culture) like myself it seemed like they weren’t doing that much. Yet at the same time I was fascinated. After the temple we stopped to get lunch. Here is where I tried probably the most Vietnamese foods. It tried their many types of noodles, the most popular being Pho (pronounced Pha). I also had several spring rolls, which I think contained some pork. Overall, the food was delicious.
From there we headed to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The first thing we did was watch a film, from the eyes of the Vietnamese, on the Vietnam War. We learned more about the tunnels and their purpose. Next they took us to one of the hatches in the ground. Our guide from the Cu Chi Tunnels (different than our overall guide) showed us how to get in and out of the tunnels. We all got to try. The space was extremely tiny and there were some really tall guys on the trip; one I think was about 6’3” or so. He had some troubles once he was inside. I, on the other hand, was kind of comfortable. Considering, I am about the size most of the Vietnamese soldiers were, I fit pretty well inside. From there they showed us fake set ups of different bunkers, a real U.S. army tank that was left in the woods (with AK-47 gun holes in it), and all the different types of traps they used. Now, I was really excited because I had heard from trips that went the day before that we were going to be able to shoot machine guns (M16, M60, and AK-47). They took us to the shooting range and I was so pumped…not because I like guns or anything, but how many times can you say you shot an AK-47 or rather shot an AK-47 in Vietnam…you can’t. I bought 10 rounds and headed down to the gun. There was someone there to help you and I needed help. They loaded the rounds for you and got you set up. Because I’m so short I had to stand on my tip-toes in order for the gun to rest on my shoulder properly. Instead of just pulling the trigger and let it go, I fired one round at a time. They gave you earmuffs but it didn’t do much. After you had shot, your ears were clogged. It took a few minutes for them to clear up. And I was down there for 4 other people helping them take pictures, so it took like 15 minutes for my right ear to “de-clog.” But It was so much fun. I don’t think I’ll ever shoot one again, but it was quite an experience. After this we headed to an actual tunnel. For tourists, they took a tunnel and widened it so that they could get through easier and they also added lights. It was awesome. I fit down there pretty comfortably. I mean you had to duck either way. The tall boys were struggling. By the time we were done their backs and quads killed. We didn’t go too far just about 20-30 feet. I really wanted to go further but that’s where they tourist tunnel ended. I had a fantastic time. It was absolutely amazing. When we got back to the ship, Abby and I opted to stay in for the night and watch a scary movie she had bought. We both fell asleep around 12:30.
The next morning I had my Mekong Delta trip and Abby had a service project trip. Luckily, I knew several other people on the trip. The first thing we did was go to a Buddhist monastery and saw another gigantic Buddha. From there we traveled about to hours to the Mekong Delta. We then got to these boats and headed down the river and got off and headed into this little village. We then sat down and ate all these different types of fruit. I tried something called a Jackfruit. It was like rubber on the outside and texture was weird but it wasn’t bad. Then we saw how they make coconut candy, which was very cool. All of this was taking place in huts. It was very touristy but interesting nonetheless. As we were heading to the next stop along the river trash got caught in the engine of the boat and in the middle of the water we had to get from one boat to another. It was humorous. :) Then we stopped off at another dock and saw some more coconut candy making. We walked through this area and everyone was just hanging out in hammocks. Now, this is really cool in Vietnam…rest stops were just huts and hammocks and tables. It’s very cool. Anyway, all of a sudden we see these horses with carts behind them. We took these horses through the village area, which was very cool…again very touristy but I had a blast. We got off the carts and walked a little to another part of the village where we were to have honey tea. But before we sat down for tea, we were allowed to hold this snake. Not just any snake though…a python…a friendly python.
After tea we got back in the boat and went to lunch. Lunch was pretty decent we had elephant fish and prawns. I tried the fish rice wraps and it wasn’t too bad. We also saw a water buffalo just hanging out in the water right next to where we were eating. After this we walked a little ways and got into a canoe…the type the women and fishermen use. The villagers paddled us down the river and back out to the open Mekong Delta and then hopped back into our boat and headed home.
The last night was one of my favorites so far. As soon as I got back a bunch of my friends, who were coming back from Nha Trang, wanted to go to the Hard Rock Café…ya I know, we’re in Vietnam and we went to the Hard Rock Café. The group was Austin, Kate, Rebecca (a professor’s 18 year old daughter), Abby, Martin (from Norway) and me. What made the night even better than good American food was that they had Southern Comfort and Lemonade (my favorite). Part of the reason I wasn’t having a fun nightlife the first day was the lack of my favorite drink and Hard Rock had it, which just made my night. Because I knew that wherever we went there wouldn’t be SoCo and Lemonade so I had three in the span of about 2 hours and because I’m tiny and can’t hold my alcohol I was a little drunk haha. From there we went to a hookah bar. Austin has smoked in every country so we went along with him to fulfill his Vietnam quota. So the running joke of the night was that I was drunk by 8:30, dizzy by 10 and sobered up again by 10:30. After the hookah bar we went looking for another one and decided to head back to Apocalypse Now…I wasn’t happy about this. On our way there these women who owned this small bar literally dragged us into their empty bar…Hot Chili. It ended up being a great time. Kate convinced them to give her a free tequila shot if she bought two. Then she did a bunch of card tricks and bet them another one. They were amazed! Absolutely astonished that she continually guessed their cards. After a few more drinks we left, promising them we’d return, and headed to Apocalypse Now and it was just as bad as the first night. Austin, Abby, Kate, and I left and went back to Hot Chili where we played extreme Jenga. It was ridiculous. The shapes they made out of the Jenga blocks were crazy. Abby, Austin, two bartender ladies, and I played several games, while Kate taught two of the other women how to do card tricks. We hooked up our ipods and rocked out. It was one of the best nights I’ve had so far. We came back at about 2 am that morning and woke up at about 7:30 for my trip the next morning.
It was our last full day in Vietnam and I had one last trip. This trip was a short four-hour trip to a local elementary school. It was by far my favorite trip. Kate was on the trip with me, as well as my LLC’s (my RA) and his family. Words cannot describe how much fun this trip was. Once we got there they gave us a little information about the school. The headmaster couldn’t speak any English so our guide had to translate for us. After that they let us go in the courtyard where the kids were playing and just hang out. At first it was like “ooookkk, what do we do?” But then kids started coming up to us and then they all started bombarding us with their notebooks and pieces of paper for us to write “Hi, my name is Natalie,” or some variation of that. You felt like a rockstar signing autographs. After a bit of that Sam, my LLC’s 8 year old son, and I wanted to play hacky sack with the kids. Now, their version of a hacky sack is not an American version. It has feathers and it’s flat, but has like foamy springs to it. It’s hard to explain. Anyways, Sam and I wanted to play but we didn’t know if/how we should ask. You almost felt like you were back in elementary school and sheepishly going up to people and asking if you could play with them. Well, we ended up asking and had a great time trying to play this game.
After they were dismissed we were separated and went to different classrooms…about 4 of us per room. The first room I went in was full of 8 year olds and they immediately started throwing paper at us to sign. Then they too started writing their names for us. I have a pile of them that I will keep forever. There was this one girl, who probably spoke the best English in the class, who was absolutely awesome…definitely my favorite…probably because she kept giving me hugs. It was precious. I was in heaven…high on life. We then rotated room and the next two or there were really well behaved. You definitely felt awkward because of the language barrier and if they weren’t asking questions, you didn’t know what to say. Each class sang us this song that of course I recorded. I came back to the ship about 12 in the afternoon, soooo hyper. I had an amazing time and it just made me high on life and giddy. I was bouncing off the walls, nuts.
The day before a friend of mine Aaron told me of this place where I could get 2 movies for a dollar…so of course I wanted to go there. Back at the ship, after my trip, I met up with Rebecca (a professor’s daughter, who I’ve become good friends with), Kevin, and Austin and the four of us hit up this movie place. We were there for at least 2 hours going through every bin of movies. I was in heaven. I mean why would you not raid the store…when else are you going to find 50 cent movies.? Austin and I headed back right after that and then hung out on the pool deck of the ship and played some ping-pong. At about 8 o’clock the boat left Vietnam and was sailing for India.
China February 16-February 23
So 6 days in China and 2 days in Hong Kong to cover…here goes.
The morning of China was a little rough…frustrating. There was an original set group and more and more slowly it expanded from 6 to about 13. That’s WAY too big of a group to really travel, especially in the crowded streets of China. It was just frustrating because while you didn’t want to be mean and leave people behind, you also didn’t want to hang with such a large group either. In the end it worked itself out and there were only 8 of us.
The first thing we did in Shanghai was go to the bank and then ate food. We ate at a place that had the Chinese name and then the English translation, which was “Come A Pot of Spinal Cord Lamb”…hysterical. We were cracking up. There were a lot of poorly translated things in China. It was a steam pot lunch…of mutton…yum my favorite. Unsurprisingly, I did not each much for lunch. The whole idea behind this meal is that they give you a huge pot of raw mutton and uncooked potatoes, yams, noodles, and a few other things that no one knew what they were. I only ended up eating a little bit of the noodles and this gigantic bottle of coke (about the size of two of my hands).
So after that my friends and I went shopping…my roommate Abby, and my friends Austin, Tyler, Kevin, Mem, Alyssa, and Buddy. We walked around this street called Nanjing Road in the Bund Area and immediately found this knock off store and the family that owned it was really nice. We stayed there for a bit because Austin got 16 pairs of socks for 2 dollars and Tyler and Kevin were haggling over a zippo lighter and a laser pointer. Eventually Tyler got both and Kevin got just the laser pointer. This laser pointer was ridiculous. They said you could see it up to 2 kilometers and I definitely believe them…it flashed so far.
They took us from one of their stores to another. The one woman gave me a super discount on a purse because she liked my face. We continued to walk around and then decided to take a rickshaw ride to this other blackmarket shopping center called Tao Bao. The rickshaw was soooo much fun. The motorcycles looked like they were going to break down any second. It was two per cart and really somewhat shady, but extremely fun. Austin and Abby filmed it so I’m going to get a copy for sure. The one told us that it would be 30 yen per cart and then as we were trying to organize our money to pay, the guy was like 300, 300, and then “assuming” we didn’t understand took the money out of our hands and hopped back on his bike and left…we got majorly ripped off but since there were 8 of us it wasn’t that bad and made for a really funny story.
The shopping center was a five story inside mall. But not how you would think. It was just stands all lined up in a row and while they said each floor had different things, they generally were all the same. We shopped around and of course I got some stuff for super cheap and had a blast and I learned how to haggle. I had lost my scarf at that internet café in Japan so I got a knock off Burberry scarf. I really wanted a Longchamp bag so I got a navy blue one. The last thing I got has a pretty funny story. We were walking around and found this story, which had army helmets and gear (like “vintage” stuff—collectables). There were these masks, a green one and a black one. They looked like real human faces (but without the eyes, of course). I think they were meant to hold goggles but Mem and I really wanted to try them on…so we did. Then Austin decided to buy it. We all continued to walk around and as we were leaving Mem, Tyler and I decided to buy black ones as well. The masks are really creepy. I had no idea when I was actually going to use it but it has come in handy (I’ll tell you about it later) :)
We then ate at a Chinese fast food restaurant and I got this really good shrimp but the sauce that it was in was only so so. It was so hard to order. At first we weren’t going to go because we didn’t think they would have an English menu. We started walking next door to a sit down Pizza Hut but the wait was too long so we went back to the fast food Chinese place, which turned out to have an English menu and the food was delicious. Kevin decided to try pig ears. Again, unsurprisingly, I did not. He was the only one that thought they were ok. Everyone else was gagging.
Then we decided to go back to the ship and get dressed and go to this club called M2. It was this really swanky…like high end. You had to “buy” a table. You had to spend so much money on food, alcohol, and drinks. You could have just stayed at the bar but we were there so early that we had to buy a table. It was so much fun. We drank, we danced, and had a great time. The morning was a little rough haha but it was one of my favorite nights yet.
So the next day Abby and I went to Suzhou with a Semester at Sea trip. This is a town built on the water. It was really fun. We saw about three different gardens, which surprisingly hasn’t gotten old yet. We also took a boat ride down the Grand Canal. So we traveled via this tiny boat through the village area. It was really neat…pretty impoverish…but very cool. Instead of doing about 4 different gardens we went to the local silk factory instead. They showed us the whole process of how the make clothes and quilts. I even got help stretch out some of the silk to create the comforter. It was a great day. It’s one of those trips that is too hard to explain and only pictures will do. Hopefully, you will all get to see my pictures. On a side note…I’m going to try to put some up via my friends computer. Anyway, I didn’t end up going out that night because I desperately needed to pack for my Hiking the Great Wall trip.
The next day was when I was to leave for the Great Wall for 4 days in Beijing. The first day was pretty boring. We just got on a plane, which was about 2-3 hours and then we had another 1-1:30-hour bus ride. We stayed in a 5 star Chinese hotel. This hotel had a bowling ally and an archery range. It was fabulous. The rooms were gorgeous. I wish I had taken pictures of everything and the rooms. Before dinner we walked around the strip area and went to this mall, which was a lot of fun. A girl from my hall, Kate, who I have become good friends with, was on this trip with me. She and I walked around the mall together looking for a hat and some gloves for here (which we wouldn’t end up needing). She was hungry so we thought we would check out the food court. It was a really small food court because on the ground floor there was a grocery store. As we walked around everyone, and I mean everyone was starring at us. I started getting really hot and she started turning red. I mean we must have unknowingly been naked or something because, without exaggeration, every head was turned. It was the first time I felt like a foreigner. After which we went to the area with the massage chairs and sat there for about 45 minutes. Then we had dinner at the hotel and this became the first of many family style, Lazy Susan meals. We pretty much all just hung out and after dinner Kate and I went to McDonalds for a late night bite.
The next day we woke up pretty early and headed to the Great Wall. We walked the Simatai part of the wall to the Jinshanling part of the wall, which was to be the hardest hike of the two days…and it was. This part of the wall really looked like what you expected the Great Wall to look like…high walls, stone, bricks, etc. It was definitely a lot hillier than expected. A lot of the people on the trip expected a much flatter terrain. We hiked for about 6 hours and in total about 6 miles. We had a bagged lunch on the wall, which was not very good. Luckily, Kate and I planned ahead and bough food in the grocery store and brought it. There were these farmers who stand at the start of the wall and try to sell you things…including themselves. You can pay for them to carry your bags and anything like that. One person paid for a farmer to be here photographer. The farmers would walk the length of the wall with you in hopes that you might by something. I also met this kid Martin, from Norway, but studying in New York, who is also a film major. He and I talked movies for the majority of the day. Haha Anyway, the hike was rough and exhausting. It was by far one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Some of the steps were up to my waist, which made it that much harder to walk up. All the guys with the long legs were fine and then there was me whose quads were on fire. It was so much fun and absolutely an amazing experience. That night we all just hung out at the hotel and Kate and I got more McDonalds later that night after another Lazy Susan dinner.
The next day we woke up and headed out and hiked from the Jinshanling part of the wall to the Gubeikou part. This was more of a typical hike. We were walking through the mountain areas and there were no walls along the Great Wall. It was almost like a raised path. Everyone had voted the night before on what we should have for lunch and the consensus came to getting McDonalds ordered to the Great Wall. So the first time in SAS (and this trip coordinator) history, McDonalds was delivered to the Great Wall. They (other tour guides, farmers) had to hike 2 and a half hours just to bring it to us. You only had the option of chicken or beef, but the chicken was a spicy chicken sandwich and I struggled eating it after one bite. And if that wasn’ upsetting enough, there were no French fries. Anyway, we hiked to the highest part of the two hikes, which was pretty cool. We actually could not take pictures facing one direction because it was owned by the military and we’d get in trouble. We hiked about 4-5 hours and about another 6 miles. And then bused to a different hotel in the city of Beijing. There were three other trips going to Beijing and all of them were at this hotel. Because the other trips had been there earlier all the double rooms were taken so almost all of us got a single, king size bed, with a couch, all to ourselves.
Now all meals were included and there was some amazing food. I don’t think I have ever eaten that much rice and chicken before in my entire life but each were different so it was amazing. All of the restaurants we went to were Lazy Susan style, which meant you ate way too much food because there was just so much of it. I have finally gotten down the skill of the chopsticks. Our first night at the new hotel we ate a restaurant called the Roast Duck, which is famous for the roast duck. I was a little worried at first because I didn’t like the rice and the chicken was really spicy. But then they brought out these shrimp that were doused in garlic and butter. They were so good that I had to order another plate.
That night we went to a bar across the street called Blue Green Club. The bar tender was amazing and apparently had won a ton of awards/competitions, including the Absolute Vodka Competition. I’m not really sure what that means entirely, but he was really good and made some really unique drinks. It was a lot of fun and it was filled with all SAS kids. It was the firs bar to have my drink Southern Comfort and lemonade. Yum I didn’t get back to the hotel until like 2 and one of the trips had to be up at 4:30 for their 7-8 o’clock flight. Austin was on that trip so he didn’t want to go to sleep…just wanted to pull an all-nighter. I ended up hanging out in his room until 4 am talking, having a heart to heart. It was a good time.
So I went back to my room and got 3 hours of sleep. I had to be up at 7 am for our last day in Beijing. We went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Both of which were amazing. We learned a lot about the architecture and meanings behind the buildings. Interestingly enough but not surprising, the one topic that was off limits was talking about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I definitely took a ton of pictures. After that we went to a traditional Chinese Tea House and tried some teas…well everyone else tried different types of teas…I just sort of hung out. Then we left for the airport and headed to Hong Kong. The flight from Beijing to Hong Kong was about a 3-4 hour flight. Had you been sailing with the ship from Shanghai to Hong Kong, you would have had an extra day in Hong Kong, but if you were on a Beijing trip you got one less day there. The night I got back I just stayed in because we didn’t get back from the airport until 10:30-11 o’clock.
The next day, my first day in Hong Kong, Abby and I slept in and then went to lunch at McDonalds…haha I know a lot of McDonalds on this trip. Then we and two other girls from Bucknell, Therese and Mary went shopping in Mong Kok. It was almost set up like New York City with its “grid format.” There were three streets we went to for shopping. One specifically for sporting goods, another for electronics, and other called the Lady’s Market, which was just knock off/cheap stands everywhere (like the Shanghai “shopping center”). For dinner we went to a place called Modern Toilet. Here you sit on real toilets (not hooked up to the plumbing obviously) and ate off of sinks covered in glass. There were urinals on the wall that would like up different colors and all your food was served in ceramic shaped American toilets, Asian toilets, and urinals. Part of the menu read: With every one meal you get one large urinal. We all got a good laugh out of that. The lamps were shaped like poop, as well as display windows with pillows shaped like poop…hysterical. We were super embarrassing because we couldn’t stop taking pictures, but it was just such a clever idea…how could you not go wild with your camera?
That night we went out to this area called Lang Kwai Fan on Hong Kong Island. [Earlier we were on the island of Kowloon and you have to take a ferry to Hong Kong Island]. This area is known as Bar Street and it was overrun by SAS kids. We were all supposed to go to this club called Dragon-I, but it was lame so we hung out at other bars…specifically one called Bull Dogs. It was a lot of fun and packed with SAS kids. The street wound around the corner and there were even more students. We pouring out in the streets and at one point moved the party in this one street area. It was a lot of fun and I think I accidently stole a cup from Bull Dogs. Ooops. Definitely didn’t mean to do that.
The next morning Abby and I had a trip to Lantau Island/Buddhist Monastary. We got to see the largest suspension bridge and got to see some beautiful views. From there we visited a local beach, which really wasn‘t all that special, but I had a good time. Then we traveled to this fishing village. It was really cool and interesting to see how they lived. We walked around the market area…which smelled awful but was very cool. You could have taken a boat ride and have saw pink dolphins (ya apparently there really are pink dolphins), but Abby and I opted not to pay for it. We then took a bus to the Big Buddha…the biggest iron (I think) Buddha outside. It was massive. I got some really great pictures there. We walked down these steps to the monastery area at the foot of the Buddha. There we ate in a monastery and had a vegetarian lunch. It actually was not that filling and I had 6 mini spring rolls, which were delicious. I also accidentally tried tofu. YA I KNOW! It was alright. It came with the lemon sauce, which made it taste better, but it was more of a texture thing for me. It was a little weird and awkward to eat and there wasn’t much to it. It’s not something I think I’ll be eating again anytime soon, but at least I can say I tried it.
We have a two days break and then we are in Vietnam.
The morning of China was a little rough…frustrating. There was an original set group and more and more slowly it expanded from 6 to about 13. That’s WAY too big of a group to really travel, especially in the crowded streets of China. It was just frustrating because while you didn’t want to be mean and leave people behind, you also didn’t want to hang with such a large group either. In the end it worked itself out and there were only 8 of us.
The first thing we did in Shanghai was go to the bank and then ate food. We ate at a place that had the Chinese name and then the English translation, which was “Come A Pot of Spinal Cord Lamb”…hysterical. We were cracking up. There were a lot of poorly translated things in China. It was a steam pot lunch…of mutton…yum my favorite. Unsurprisingly, I did not each much for lunch. The whole idea behind this meal is that they give you a huge pot of raw mutton and uncooked potatoes, yams, noodles, and a few other things that no one knew what they were. I only ended up eating a little bit of the noodles and this gigantic bottle of coke (about the size of two of my hands).
So after that my friends and I went shopping…my roommate Abby, and my friends Austin, Tyler, Kevin, Mem, Alyssa, and Buddy. We walked around this street called Nanjing Road in the Bund Area and immediately found this knock off store and the family that owned it was really nice. We stayed there for a bit because Austin got 16 pairs of socks for 2 dollars and Tyler and Kevin were haggling over a zippo lighter and a laser pointer. Eventually Tyler got both and Kevin got just the laser pointer. This laser pointer was ridiculous. They said you could see it up to 2 kilometers and I definitely believe them…it flashed so far.
They took us from one of their stores to another. The one woman gave me a super discount on a purse because she liked my face. We continued to walk around and then decided to take a rickshaw ride to this other blackmarket shopping center called Tao Bao. The rickshaw was soooo much fun. The motorcycles looked like they were going to break down any second. It was two per cart and really somewhat shady, but extremely fun. Austin and Abby filmed it so I’m going to get a copy for sure. The one told us that it would be 30 yen per cart and then as we were trying to organize our money to pay, the guy was like 300, 300, and then “assuming” we didn’t understand took the money out of our hands and hopped back on his bike and left…we got majorly ripped off but since there were 8 of us it wasn’t that bad and made for a really funny story.
The shopping center was a five story inside mall. But not how you would think. It was just stands all lined up in a row and while they said each floor had different things, they generally were all the same. We shopped around and of course I got some stuff for super cheap and had a blast and I learned how to haggle. I had lost my scarf at that internet café in Japan so I got a knock off Burberry scarf. I really wanted a Longchamp bag so I got a navy blue one. The last thing I got has a pretty funny story. We were walking around and found this story, which had army helmets and gear (like “vintage” stuff—collectables). There were these masks, a green one and a black one. They looked like real human faces (but without the eyes, of course). I think they were meant to hold goggles but Mem and I really wanted to try them on…so we did. Then Austin decided to buy it. We all continued to walk around and as we were leaving Mem, Tyler and I decided to buy black ones as well. The masks are really creepy. I had no idea when I was actually going to use it but it has come in handy (I’ll tell you about it later) :)
We then ate at a Chinese fast food restaurant and I got this really good shrimp but the sauce that it was in was only so so. It was so hard to order. At first we weren’t going to go because we didn’t think they would have an English menu. We started walking next door to a sit down Pizza Hut but the wait was too long so we went back to the fast food Chinese place, which turned out to have an English menu and the food was delicious. Kevin decided to try pig ears. Again, unsurprisingly, I did not. He was the only one that thought they were ok. Everyone else was gagging.
Then we decided to go back to the ship and get dressed and go to this club called M2. It was this really swanky…like high end. You had to “buy” a table. You had to spend so much money on food, alcohol, and drinks. You could have just stayed at the bar but we were there so early that we had to buy a table. It was so much fun. We drank, we danced, and had a great time. The morning was a little rough haha but it was one of my favorite nights yet.
So the next day Abby and I went to Suzhou with a Semester at Sea trip. This is a town built on the water. It was really fun. We saw about three different gardens, which surprisingly hasn’t gotten old yet. We also took a boat ride down the Grand Canal. So we traveled via this tiny boat through the village area. It was really neat…pretty impoverish…but very cool. Instead of doing about 4 different gardens we went to the local silk factory instead. They showed us the whole process of how the make clothes and quilts. I even got help stretch out some of the silk to create the comforter. It was a great day. It’s one of those trips that is too hard to explain and only pictures will do. Hopefully, you will all get to see my pictures. On a side note…I’m going to try to put some up via my friends computer. Anyway, I didn’t end up going out that night because I desperately needed to pack for my Hiking the Great Wall trip.
The next day was when I was to leave for the Great Wall for 4 days in Beijing. The first day was pretty boring. We just got on a plane, which was about 2-3 hours and then we had another 1-1:30-hour bus ride. We stayed in a 5 star Chinese hotel. This hotel had a bowling ally and an archery range. It was fabulous. The rooms were gorgeous. I wish I had taken pictures of everything and the rooms. Before dinner we walked around the strip area and went to this mall, which was a lot of fun. A girl from my hall, Kate, who I have become good friends with, was on this trip with me. She and I walked around the mall together looking for a hat and some gloves for here (which we wouldn’t end up needing). She was hungry so we thought we would check out the food court. It was a really small food court because on the ground floor there was a grocery store. As we walked around everyone, and I mean everyone was starring at us. I started getting really hot and she started turning red. I mean we must have unknowingly been naked or something because, without exaggeration, every head was turned. It was the first time I felt like a foreigner. After which we went to the area with the massage chairs and sat there for about 45 minutes. Then we had dinner at the hotel and this became the first of many family style, Lazy Susan meals. We pretty much all just hung out and after dinner Kate and I went to McDonalds for a late night bite.
The next day we woke up pretty early and headed to the Great Wall. We walked the Simatai part of the wall to the Jinshanling part of the wall, which was to be the hardest hike of the two days…and it was. This part of the wall really looked like what you expected the Great Wall to look like…high walls, stone, bricks, etc. It was definitely a lot hillier than expected. A lot of the people on the trip expected a much flatter terrain. We hiked for about 6 hours and in total about 6 miles. We had a bagged lunch on the wall, which was not very good. Luckily, Kate and I planned ahead and bough food in the grocery store and brought it. There were these farmers who stand at the start of the wall and try to sell you things…including themselves. You can pay for them to carry your bags and anything like that. One person paid for a farmer to be here photographer. The farmers would walk the length of the wall with you in hopes that you might by something. I also met this kid Martin, from Norway, but studying in New York, who is also a film major. He and I talked movies for the majority of the day. Haha Anyway, the hike was rough and exhausting. It was by far one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Some of the steps were up to my waist, which made it that much harder to walk up. All the guys with the long legs were fine and then there was me whose quads were on fire. It was so much fun and absolutely an amazing experience. That night we all just hung out at the hotel and Kate and I got more McDonalds later that night after another Lazy Susan dinner.
The next day we woke up and headed out and hiked from the Jinshanling part of the wall to the Gubeikou part. This was more of a typical hike. We were walking through the mountain areas and there were no walls along the Great Wall. It was almost like a raised path. Everyone had voted the night before on what we should have for lunch and the consensus came to getting McDonalds ordered to the Great Wall. So the first time in SAS (and this trip coordinator) history, McDonalds was delivered to the Great Wall. They (other tour guides, farmers) had to hike 2 and a half hours just to bring it to us. You only had the option of chicken or beef, but the chicken was a spicy chicken sandwich and I struggled eating it after one bite. And if that wasn’ upsetting enough, there were no French fries. Anyway, we hiked to the highest part of the two hikes, which was pretty cool. We actually could not take pictures facing one direction because it was owned by the military and we’d get in trouble. We hiked about 4-5 hours and about another 6 miles. And then bused to a different hotel in the city of Beijing. There were three other trips going to Beijing and all of them were at this hotel. Because the other trips had been there earlier all the double rooms were taken so almost all of us got a single, king size bed, with a couch, all to ourselves.
Now all meals were included and there was some amazing food. I don’t think I have ever eaten that much rice and chicken before in my entire life but each were different so it was amazing. All of the restaurants we went to were Lazy Susan style, which meant you ate way too much food because there was just so much of it. I have finally gotten down the skill of the chopsticks. Our first night at the new hotel we ate a restaurant called the Roast Duck, which is famous for the roast duck. I was a little worried at first because I didn’t like the rice and the chicken was really spicy. But then they brought out these shrimp that were doused in garlic and butter. They were so good that I had to order another plate.
That night we went to a bar across the street called Blue Green Club. The bar tender was amazing and apparently had won a ton of awards/competitions, including the Absolute Vodka Competition. I’m not really sure what that means entirely, but he was really good and made some really unique drinks. It was a lot of fun and it was filled with all SAS kids. It was the firs bar to have my drink Southern Comfort and lemonade. Yum I didn’t get back to the hotel until like 2 and one of the trips had to be up at 4:30 for their 7-8 o’clock flight. Austin was on that trip so he didn’t want to go to sleep…just wanted to pull an all-nighter. I ended up hanging out in his room until 4 am talking, having a heart to heart. It was a good time.
So I went back to my room and got 3 hours of sleep. I had to be up at 7 am for our last day in Beijing. We went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Both of which were amazing. We learned a lot about the architecture and meanings behind the buildings. Interestingly enough but not surprising, the one topic that was off limits was talking about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I definitely took a ton of pictures. After that we went to a traditional Chinese Tea House and tried some teas…well everyone else tried different types of teas…I just sort of hung out. Then we left for the airport and headed to Hong Kong. The flight from Beijing to Hong Kong was about a 3-4 hour flight. Had you been sailing with the ship from Shanghai to Hong Kong, you would have had an extra day in Hong Kong, but if you were on a Beijing trip you got one less day there. The night I got back I just stayed in because we didn’t get back from the airport until 10:30-11 o’clock.
The next day, my first day in Hong Kong, Abby and I slept in and then went to lunch at McDonalds…haha I know a lot of McDonalds on this trip. Then we and two other girls from Bucknell, Therese and Mary went shopping in Mong Kok. It was almost set up like New York City with its “grid format.” There were three streets we went to for shopping. One specifically for sporting goods, another for electronics, and other called the Lady’s Market, which was just knock off/cheap stands everywhere (like the Shanghai “shopping center”). For dinner we went to a place called Modern Toilet. Here you sit on real toilets (not hooked up to the plumbing obviously) and ate off of sinks covered in glass. There were urinals on the wall that would like up different colors and all your food was served in ceramic shaped American toilets, Asian toilets, and urinals. Part of the menu read: With every one meal you get one large urinal. We all got a good laugh out of that. The lamps were shaped like poop, as well as display windows with pillows shaped like poop…hysterical. We were super embarrassing because we couldn’t stop taking pictures, but it was just such a clever idea…how could you not go wild with your camera?
That night we went out to this area called Lang Kwai Fan on Hong Kong Island. [Earlier we were on the island of Kowloon and you have to take a ferry to Hong Kong Island]. This area is known as Bar Street and it was overrun by SAS kids. We were all supposed to go to this club called Dragon-I, but it was lame so we hung out at other bars…specifically one called Bull Dogs. It was a lot of fun and packed with SAS kids. The street wound around the corner and there were even more students. We pouring out in the streets and at one point moved the party in this one street area. It was a lot of fun and I think I accidently stole a cup from Bull Dogs. Ooops. Definitely didn’t mean to do that.
The next morning Abby and I had a trip to Lantau Island/Buddhist Monastary. We got to see the largest suspension bridge and got to see some beautiful views. From there we visited a local beach, which really wasn‘t all that special, but I had a good time. Then we traveled to this fishing village. It was really cool and interesting to see how they lived. We walked around the market area…which smelled awful but was very cool. You could have taken a boat ride and have saw pink dolphins (ya apparently there really are pink dolphins), but Abby and I opted not to pay for it. We then took a bus to the Big Buddha…the biggest iron (I think) Buddha outside. It was massive. I got some really great pictures there. We walked down these steps to the monastery area at the foot of the Buddha. There we ate in a monastery and had a vegetarian lunch. It actually was not that filling and I had 6 mini spring rolls, which were delicious. I also accidentally tried tofu. YA I KNOW! It was alright. It came with the lemon sauce, which made it taste better, but it was more of a texture thing for me. It was a little weird and awkward to eat and there wasn’t much to it. It’s not something I think I’ll be eating again anytime soon, but at least I can say I tried it.
We have a two days break and then we are in Vietnam.
Friday, February 12, 2010
February 9-February 13: Japan
Okay so brief update about the boat. After my last blog things started picking up. There were more activities to do. I’m doing photography club (well sort of). I’m doing Zumba, which is sometimes at the same time as Photograph club and I usually pick Zumba over it. I’m also doing Salsa dancing, which is tons of fun. I’m possibly helping out with this one minute film festival thing and according to some friends I have to do spiritual dancing. There’s also yoga but it at 6 am or 3:30 pm, and since no one wants to get up that early the 3:30 slot is packed. I have a bunch of friends and a lot of people I’m really friendly with. I don’t have too much work…more projects than anything else. So a bunch of us play cards the majority of our time each day.
So rumors travel really fast on this ship. The biggest one happened this past week. About 5 days ago there were rumors of really rough seas ahead…because of an underwater volcano eruption of the coast of Japan. When we were sailing from Mexico to Hawaii we hit some really rough seas because of storms. Rough seas are rated on a scale of 1-10 and they were a 3. Apparently, the rough seas we were going to hit because of this volcano were going to be a 5. They waves were pretty bad, but they were hitting front and back as opposed to side to side, which caused less sea sickness among people. I live on the 4th deck and the water was splashing my window. The people on the 2nd deck were almost under water when the waves hit. Some waves would hit and it would sound like we ran into a whale, or a manatee. It was nuts. Everyone was walking sideways at an angle. I walked into walls all the time and I know I walk into walls on a daily basis anyways it was still pretty bad.
We had sped up at the beginning of the sail from Hawaii to Japan and then slowed down because we were going to get there too soon. Once we hit these waves they had to slow done even more. Rumor spread that we were not going to get into Japan until 9:30 pm as opposed to the original time, 7:00 am. Everyone was real pissed especially those who were going on trips. On top of this the captain wasn’t telling us anything. Everyone was just left in the dark to spread more and more rumors. We were finally filled in…to a point…and they had told us we were getting in at 9:30am, still later than the original time, but at least we didn’t loose a whole day. They also said it was from bad weather and not the underwater volcano/earthquake thing…but it probably was. Haha
We got into Yokohama on February 9th and 9:30. I had an all day SAS trip planned. I was to go to Tokyo and see modern Tokyo. Tokyo is about an hour from Yokohama. The first thing we did was go to Hamarikyu Gardens. It was in the middle of downtown Tokyo. It was like a really small Central Park that you couldn’t through frisbees or picnic, but you could look at some really pretty plants and trees and it had a great view of downtown. After that we went to the Toyota headquarters. It was pretty cool and I like cars and all, but I almost wished we saw a little more of the city. But it was fun. They had a mall there…which I didn’t actually go into but it was huge. They also had a Starbucks and McDonalds. So of course I went to McDonalds. It was heavenly, but it was hard to order though. You had to point to the menu and the pictures, but they of course had an English version. The chicken tasted differently but still so good. After this we went to Akihabara. This is a huge electronic district. Originally, this was a huge place for black market electronics but as they hype got bigger they ended up becoming this massive district for legit top-notch electronics. We went into the main “mall” area. I was in heaven…Jason would have been in heaven. 8 floors of the highest quality computers, sound systems/sound quality, cameras, home appliances etc…it was unbelievable. They had camera lens so large they were spy/sniper like. I was so tempted to buy everything. After Akihabara we went to the Tokyo Tower. It looks just like the Eiffel Tower but its taller but weighs less. It was lit up so it was bright orange. It was super cool. We went to the top and got to look at some amazing skylines and the “Lookdown” window.
We got back to the ship at like 7:30 ish and got our computers and went to go look for an internet café. There were 4 of us and 2 of them need to finish booking independent trips. We spent a good 1-1:30 minutes trying to find the correct place and ended up going somewhere else. I would’ve liked to have done some other stuff instead, but it was fun, mostly because we could find what we were looking for and I got to use the subway. The internet cafes are literally a little room…well box, to yourself. You have a computer a big lazy boy lounger, which can be turned in to a bed-like thing. They gave you a computer, dvd player, xbox/playstation or whatever, and slippers. You paid by the hour. So it cost 4 dollars for one hour and you can do whatever you want. Since I didn’t really have much to look up I spent most of my time on Facebook. But since I was like 10-10:30 no one from home was one. We got back and passed out because we had an early morning trip the next day.
Okay day 2 in Yokohama…I did the Mt. Fuji and Hakone Trip. This might be my favorite SAS trip so far. We traveled about 2 hours to Mt. Fuji. Now 30% of the time you cannot see Mt. Fuji because it is too cloudy or foggy. One of our trip leaders, who is also the Dean of Students, has done this exact same trip 3 times and has never seen Mt. Fuji. It was amazing. There are 7 levels along the mountainside and we were only able to go to the 4th level because of the weather. It was several, I think about 7, thousand feet. I can’t stress enough how amazing it was. From there we drove an hour to Hakone. There we went to Hakone National Park where we took a boat across this lake to the Hakone Mountains. We went up via cable car a few thousand feet (not as much as Mt. Fuji though). The high we went up the foggier it got. It was to the point that you couldn’t see the cables anymore. Once we got to the top you could barely see anything. We counted and at first the visibility was 25 feet and then in a span of 5 minutes or less it dropped to about 12 feet or less. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We explored the top of the mountain. From there you were supposed to see Mt. Fuji, but you couldn’t see a thing. There was a Shinto shrine at the top so we walked around there. There was so much vog/fog (whichever is the correct term…I don’t know...I think it was vog) that you went up with dry hair and came down with soaking wet hair. I honestly think it wouldn’t have been as much fun if we were able to see. It was just hysterical how low the visibility was. But it was so much fun. We got back to the boat and my roommate, Abby, and my friend went to this restaurant close to the ship. We wanted some authentic Japanese food, but got a more Americanized menu. I order this Japanese tradition chicken dish. It was amazing. I so wish I could remember what it was called, but it was delicious.
So you had the option of staying on the ship while in transit from Yokohama to Kobe. It’s optional to stay on the ship but if you don’t you have to figure out your own transportation from Yokohama to Kobe. I plan on staying over in some countries but I didn’t think a Japanese hotel would be that much different from a United States one. I want to wait until Viet Nam or Cape Town…places where it will be different…and less expensive. Japan is the most expensive country in the world and I didn’t want to blow my money on hotels quiet yet. Plus, if you stay on the boat you get better food than the usual meal. So we got back to the boat around 9 and the LLC’s (the RAs) and the Dean of Students needed more movies for the next day. It was going to be an all day movie marathon. I was in heaven. So for about an hour or more everyone raided through my movies and picked like 15 that would play throughout the day. It was so nice to be able to sleep in and wake up whenever you wanted. I slept in until 11:30. Then I met up with some other friends who were on the boat and we traded pictures and then played cards for the rest of the day…all day, until dinner. Dinner was fantastic. It was a 5 course meal. They only do this when there are less than like 200 or so people on the boat. We started with fruit and/or calamari. I got the calamari…SURPRISE!!!! It was the best fried calamari I have ever had. And while I know I haven’t had much it was still phenomenal. Then it was soup and then salad. Then we had the option of I think grouper, cannelloni, and pork. I tried the vegetarian cannelloni…umm…no. I don’t think I’ll be having that again anytime soon. Without being to gross, it looked like someone threw up inside a crepe shape noodle. Then we had cherries jubilee and that was delicious. They were showing movies on the big projector screen all day. They showed Sex and the City, the Proposal, and Iron Man. Iron Man was after dinner so we went and watched that. Then we went to bed because I had another really early trip the next day.
The next day I went with Semester at Sea to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum. I was a 14:30 hour day. It took 5 hours to get there and 5 hours back. So we only spent like 3 hours in the actual city. I was so prepared to pass out and sleep the whole way but I could not fall asleep for the life of me. When we got there the first thing we did was see these memorial monuments in the park and the only building to remain standing. There were several monuments. One for everyone who died, another one for all the Korean’s that died, an iron cast bell, and one for the children.
Here is where people come and place origami cranes. This started because of one little girl. When she was 2 she was exposed to the radiation from the atomic bomb. While in the hospital she made over 1000 of these cranes. These cranes embody this idea of life, health, and peace. She died when she was twelve. To keep us busy on the bus we learned how to make these cranes and then were able to put them in the cases with all the millions of other cranes. Every year the Semester at Sea trip prior to makes 1000 of these cranes and links them together to put in the case. So we got to place the chain of cranes in the boxes…it was a really great moment. Also standing by this monument was this man who was a survivor of the explosion. He told his tale but by the time I got there he had finished.
From there we went to the museum. We walked around for about 30 minutes and then went to this movie that was screening. It was about 30 minutes and was a documentary. It was extremely gory, and heart wrenching. It was in black white and if it had been in color it would have been even more disturbing. You saw everything from skin dangling from people’s arms to scars and burns. We even saw and empty eye socket of a lady whose eye was ripped out by a piece of glass. The film was devastating. It’s one thing to learn about the events that happened but its another to see the results right in front of you.
From there we walked around the rest of the museum. And at one point we were held up because a Nobel Peace Prize winner was going through the exhibit ahead of us. I’m not really sure who she is…most people weren’t. She started this Green Peace or Green Tree…I don’t know, something Green movement. The place was flooded with Paparazzi and new reporters. It was nuts…but very cool. A few other people and myself needed to find an atm, so we went off a little early to find one. It was really nice being able to walk around the city. More so, it was a spirit lifter. It was a lot of fun and let you leave such a devastating place with optimism and a smile on your face. The only thing I would change about this is that I would have liked to have seen the film first or gone to the museum first and then gone outside to see the monuments. The monuments, while extremely significant, felt less “moving” (for a lack of a better word) because I had no real sense of what happened (I mean outside facts that you learned in high school). Had I seen them second I think they would have felt more connected to them and might have taken more time to stop, put the camera down, and appreciate them.
So we got back on the bus to leave and I still could not fall asleep. I was exhausted but could not pass out for the life of me. We finally stop for dinner at the food court. There you walk up to a machine, look at a board, insert your money, pick your food, and then get a ticket. I ordered this rice, chicken, and egg thing…or at least I thought so. I ended up getting this bowl of noodles and some rectangular meat. I tried the noodles and they were only okay. The other thing looked like a piece of skin…ya gross I know. I wasn’t even that hungry so I shared it with someone. They ate the mystery meat (or seafood or whatever) and I ate the noodles. I was upset I really wanted that chicken thing…oh well. I got back on the bus and still could not fall asleep for the life of me. So I sat there and listened to music.
We got back to the ship 30 minutes earlier than we were supposed to. It was supposed to go from 8-11 but we go back at 10:30. I wasn’t exhausted until I sat down. I met up with Abby and then we tried to plan out what we were going to do. A few of our friends were supposed to wait for us and didn’t (or at least I thought they were supposed to wait). In every port (I think, or so far) there has been a bar that has given us a promotional night. Shooters in Hilo and Second Chances in Japan. The other girls were already there. I really didn’t want to go to this bar. It was going to be packed with SAS kids and it cast 25 dollars for free drinks all night. But if it was as packed as Shooters was then I had a feeling I would be paying 25 dollars for 2 drinks. In the end I decided to go, but we got lost and went in the wrong direction and it was a most 35 degrees outside. By the time we got there is was 12:30 and I was beat. We had been walking for like 45 minutes. We got there and there were a bunch of people outside telling us not to go in because it was tiny and there was no room and everyone was fighting to get to the bar. I decided I didn’t want to pay 25 dollars to maybe get a drink. Abby decided to go. As I started to leave I saw a friend and went with him to this bar across the street. It was this Bob Marley bar (that’s not the name…I actually can’t remember the name). It was tiny but there were only 25 SAS people there and you could get to the bar and whatnot. But at this point it was 1 o’clock and I had been up since 8 with no nap and I just couldn’t function so I hopped a cab back to the ship.
Okay next day….
Abby didn’t get back until 3 am and felt miserable most of the morning, so in that respects I was glad I didn’t stay. However, hearing all the stories, it sounded like so much fun so I was kind of upset with my decision. I came to the conclusion that I’m an early drinker. I like to start at 9 and go to bed at 12. Being out until 3 and having to get up early the next morning is not my idea of fun. Plus there will be plenty of bars in the next ports so if I really want to drink (which isn’t really the case) then I can.
Anyway, a few friends and I made plans to go to some hot springs today (our last day in Kobe). Getting Abby up was rough…she was exhausted. Half of the other people were M.I.A…A.K.A sleeping off the alcohol. There ended up only being 5 of us, but it was nice traveling in a small group. We were told the trip in it’s entirety would be less than 10 dollars…not the case. It took us 6 just to get to Mt. Rokko and another 10 to get a round trip ticket for the cable car to go to the middle of the mountain. We had a great trip over though. Everyone was so tired and two were hung over that everyone was just giddy. We get there and realize we have to take another cable car to the top of the mountain where the hot springs were. No one really wanted to spend that kind of money, especially when we didn’t know if it would cost more to actually use the hot springs. The thing with Japanese hot springs is that everyone is butt naked and women and men are separated. There was only one guy and he didn’t want to go by himself. In the end there was a unanimous decision to walk around. Up on the mountain were a lot of activities. There were jungle gyms, parks, a whole field of sheep, hot springs and more…all of which would cost at least 10 more dollars. So we decided to stay in the middle and hike around. There were some amazing views almost like Mt. Washington. It was also residential but they were literally built in the middle of the woods. We hiked for about an hour or two and then headed back. On our way back to the cable car there were three Japanese men taking a picture. They looked at us and asked us to be in their picture. We like SURE, DEFINITELY. It was super cool. Except the guy I was standing next to put his arm around me, which was really weird…but hysterical. And of course we got a picture as well.
On our way back we decided to try some sushi. We were all starving and wanted some lunch. But instead of finding a restaurant that had sushi we bought it from a convenience store (more or less). Even I know that isn’t the best place to try sushi and as expected I didn’t like it. But hey Errin, I tried it!!!!! Some of the others like it but not me. We decided to wash the sushi down with some good old McDonalds. It was delicious. Once we got back to Kobe, we were walking in this huge shopping area…like massive and we ended up meeting up with the people who were supposed to join us earlier. We walked around the outside and inside mall and then went to a restaurant with some of the other people who hadn’t eaten. Then we walked around some more and headed back to the ship. And now…I’m writing this.
I’ve been having a great time. I’m hoping to find a better balance between Semester At Sea trips and independent travel. Well, I’m going to go. Email time…I’m so far behind. Ooops. In 2 days I’ll be in China!!! Yay!!!
So rumors travel really fast on this ship. The biggest one happened this past week. About 5 days ago there were rumors of really rough seas ahead…because of an underwater volcano eruption of the coast of Japan. When we were sailing from Mexico to Hawaii we hit some really rough seas because of storms. Rough seas are rated on a scale of 1-10 and they were a 3. Apparently, the rough seas we were going to hit because of this volcano were going to be a 5. They waves were pretty bad, but they were hitting front and back as opposed to side to side, which caused less sea sickness among people. I live on the 4th deck and the water was splashing my window. The people on the 2nd deck were almost under water when the waves hit. Some waves would hit and it would sound like we ran into a whale, or a manatee. It was nuts. Everyone was walking sideways at an angle. I walked into walls all the time and I know I walk into walls on a daily basis anyways it was still pretty bad.
We had sped up at the beginning of the sail from Hawaii to Japan and then slowed down because we were going to get there too soon. Once we hit these waves they had to slow done even more. Rumor spread that we were not going to get into Japan until 9:30 pm as opposed to the original time, 7:00 am. Everyone was real pissed especially those who were going on trips. On top of this the captain wasn’t telling us anything. Everyone was just left in the dark to spread more and more rumors. We were finally filled in…to a point…and they had told us we were getting in at 9:30am, still later than the original time, but at least we didn’t loose a whole day. They also said it was from bad weather and not the underwater volcano/earthquake thing…but it probably was. Haha
We got into Yokohama on February 9th and 9:30. I had an all day SAS trip planned. I was to go to Tokyo and see modern Tokyo. Tokyo is about an hour from Yokohama. The first thing we did was go to Hamarikyu Gardens. It was in the middle of downtown Tokyo. It was like a really small Central Park that you couldn’t through frisbees or picnic, but you could look at some really pretty plants and trees and it had a great view of downtown. After that we went to the Toyota headquarters. It was pretty cool and I like cars and all, but I almost wished we saw a little more of the city. But it was fun. They had a mall there…which I didn’t actually go into but it was huge. They also had a Starbucks and McDonalds. So of course I went to McDonalds. It was heavenly, but it was hard to order though. You had to point to the menu and the pictures, but they of course had an English version. The chicken tasted differently but still so good. After this we went to Akihabara. This is a huge electronic district. Originally, this was a huge place for black market electronics but as they hype got bigger they ended up becoming this massive district for legit top-notch electronics. We went into the main “mall” area. I was in heaven…Jason would have been in heaven. 8 floors of the highest quality computers, sound systems/sound quality, cameras, home appliances etc…it was unbelievable. They had camera lens so large they were spy/sniper like. I was so tempted to buy everything. After Akihabara we went to the Tokyo Tower. It looks just like the Eiffel Tower but its taller but weighs less. It was lit up so it was bright orange. It was super cool. We went to the top and got to look at some amazing skylines and the “Lookdown” window.
We got back to the ship at like 7:30 ish and got our computers and went to go look for an internet café. There were 4 of us and 2 of them need to finish booking independent trips. We spent a good 1-1:30 minutes trying to find the correct place and ended up going somewhere else. I would’ve liked to have done some other stuff instead, but it was fun, mostly because we could find what we were looking for and I got to use the subway. The internet cafes are literally a little room…well box, to yourself. You have a computer a big lazy boy lounger, which can be turned in to a bed-like thing. They gave you a computer, dvd player, xbox/playstation or whatever, and slippers. You paid by the hour. So it cost 4 dollars for one hour and you can do whatever you want. Since I didn’t really have much to look up I spent most of my time on Facebook. But since I was like 10-10:30 no one from home was one. We got back and passed out because we had an early morning trip the next day.
Okay day 2 in Yokohama…I did the Mt. Fuji and Hakone Trip. This might be my favorite SAS trip so far. We traveled about 2 hours to Mt. Fuji. Now 30% of the time you cannot see Mt. Fuji because it is too cloudy or foggy. One of our trip leaders, who is also the Dean of Students, has done this exact same trip 3 times and has never seen Mt. Fuji. It was amazing. There are 7 levels along the mountainside and we were only able to go to the 4th level because of the weather. It was several, I think about 7, thousand feet. I can’t stress enough how amazing it was. From there we drove an hour to Hakone. There we went to Hakone National Park where we took a boat across this lake to the Hakone Mountains. We went up via cable car a few thousand feet (not as much as Mt. Fuji though). The high we went up the foggier it got. It was to the point that you couldn’t see the cables anymore. Once we got to the top you could barely see anything. We counted and at first the visibility was 25 feet and then in a span of 5 minutes or less it dropped to about 12 feet or less. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We explored the top of the mountain. From there you were supposed to see Mt. Fuji, but you couldn’t see a thing. There was a Shinto shrine at the top so we walked around there. There was so much vog/fog (whichever is the correct term…I don’t know...I think it was vog) that you went up with dry hair and came down with soaking wet hair. I honestly think it wouldn’t have been as much fun if we were able to see. It was just hysterical how low the visibility was. But it was so much fun. We got back to the boat and my roommate, Abby, and my friend went to this restaurant close to the ship. We wanted some authentic Japanese food, but got a more Americanized menu. I order this Japanese tradition chicken dish. It was amazing. I so wish I could remember what it was called, but it was delicious.
So you had the option of staying on the ship while in transit from Yokohama to Kobe. It’s optional to stay on the ship but if you don’t you have to figure out your own transportation from Yokohama to Kobe. I plan on staying over in some countries but I didn’t think a Japanese hotel would be that much different from a United States one. I want to wait until Viet Nam or Cape Town…places where it will be different…and less expensive. Japan is the most expensive country in the world and I didn’t want to blow my money on hotels quiet yet. Plus, if you stay on the boat you get better food than the usual meal. So we got back to the boat around 9 and the LLC’s (the RAs) and the Dean of Students needed more movies for the next day. It was going to be an all day movie marathon. I was in heaven. So for about an hour or more everyone raided through my movies and picked like 15 that would play throughout the day. It was so nice to be able to sleep in and wake up whenever you wanted. I slept in until 11:30. Then I met up with some other friends who were on the boat and we traded pictures and then played cards for the rest of the day…all day, until dinner. Dinner was fantastic. It was a 5 course meal. They only do this when there are less than like 200 or so people on the boat. We started with fruit and/or calamari. I got the calamari…SURPRISE!!!! It was the best fried calamari I have ever had. And while I know I haven’t had much it was still phenomenal. Then it was soup and then salad. Then we had the option of I think grouper, cannelloni, and pork. I tried the vegetarian cannelloni…umm…no. I don’t think I’ll be having that again anytime soon. Without being to gross, it looked like someone threw up inside a crepe shape noodle. Then we had cherries jubilee and that was delicious. They were showing movies on the big projector screen all day. They showed Sex and the City, the Proposal, and Iron Man. Iron Man was after dinner so we went and watched that. Then we went to bed because I had another really early trip the next day.
The next day I went with Semester at Sea to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum. I was a 14:30 hour day. It took 5 hours to get there and 5 hours back. So we only spent like 3 hours in the actual city. I was so prepared to pass out and sleep the whole way but I could not fall asleep for the life of me. When we got there the first thing we did was see these memorial monuments in the park and the only building to remain standing. There were several monuments. One for everyone who died, another one for all the Korean’s that died, an iron cast bell, and one for the children.
Here is where people come and place origami cranes. This started because of one little girl. When she was 2 she was exposed to the radiation from the atomic bomb. While in the hospital she made over 1000 of these cranes. These cranes embody this idea of life, health, and peace. She died when she was twelve. To keep us busy on the bus we learned how to make these cranes and then were able to put them in the cases with all the millions of other cranes. Every year the Semester at Sea trip prior to makes 1000 of these cranes and links them together to put in the case. So we got to place the chain of cranes in the boxes…it was a really great moment. Also standing by this monument was this man who was a survivor of the explosion. He told his tale but by the time I got there he had finished.
From there we went to the museum. We walked around for about 30 minutes and then went to this movie that was screening. It was about 30 minutes and was a documentary. It was extremely gory, and heart wrenching. It was in black white and if it had been in color it would have been even more disturbing. You saw everything from skin dangling from people’s arms to scars and burns. We even saw and empty eye socket of a lady whose eye was ripped out by a piece of glass. The film was devastating. It’s one thing to learn about the events that happened but its another to see the results right in front of you.
From there we walked around the rest of the museum. And at one point we were held up because a Nobel Peace Prize winner was going through the exhibit ahead of us. I’m not really sure who she is…most people weren’t. She started this Green Peace or Green Tree…I don’t know, something Green movement. The place was flooded with Paparazzi and new reporters. It was nuts…but very cool. A few other people and myself needed to find an atm, so we went off a little early to find one. It was really nice being able to walk around the city. More so, it was a spirit lifter. It was a lot of fun and let you leave such a devastating place with optimism and a smile on your face. The only thing I would change about this is that I would have liked to have seen the film first or gone to the museum first and then gone outside to see the monuments. The monuments, while extremely significant, felt less “moving” (for a lack of a better word) because I had no real sense of what happened (I mean outside facts that you learned in high school). Had I seen them second I think they would have felt more connected to them and might have taken more time to stop, put the camera down, and appreciate them.
So we got back on the bus to leave and I still could not fall asleep. I was exhausted but could not pass out for the life of me. We finally stop for dinner at the food court. There you walk up to a machine, look at a board, insert your money, pick your food, and then get a ticket. I ordered this rice, chicken, and egg thing…or at least I thought so. I ended up getting this bowl of noodles and some rectangular meat. I tried the noodles and they were only okay. The other thing looked like a piece of skin…ya gross I know. I wasn’t even that hungry so I shared it with someone. They ate the mystery meat (or seafood or whatever) and I ate the noodles. I was upset I really wanted that chicken thing…oh well. I got back on the bus and still could not fall asleep for the life of me. So I sat there and listened to music.
We got back to the ship 30 minutes earlier than we were supposed to. It was supposed to go from 8-11 but we go back at 10:30. I wasn’t exhausted until I sat down. I met up with Abby and then we tried to plan out what we were going to do. A few of our friends were supposed to wait for us and didn’t (or at least I thought they were supposed to wait). In every port (I think, or so far) there has been a bar that has given us a promotional night. Shooters in Hilo and Second Chances in Japan. The other girls were already there. I really didn’t want to go to this bar. It was going to be packed with SAS kids and it cast 25 dollars for free drinks all night. But if it was as packed as Shooters was then I had a feeling I would be paying 25 dollars for 2 drinks. In the end I decided to go, but we got lost and went in the wrong direction and it was a most 35 degrees outside. By the time we got there is was 12:30 and I was beat. We had been walking for like 45 minutes. We got there and there were a bunch of people outside telling us not to go in because it was tiny and there was no room and everyone was fighting to get to the bar. I decided I didn’t want to pay 25 dollars to maybe get a drink. Abby decided to go. As I started to leave I saw a friend and went with him to this bar across the street. It was this Bob Marley bar (that’s not the name…I actually can’t remember the name). It was tiny but there were only 25 SAS people there and you could get to the bar and whatnot. But at this point it was 1 o’clock and I had been up since 8 with no nap and I just couldn’t function so I hopped a cab back to the ship.
Okay next day….
Abby didn’t get back until 3 am and felt miserable most of the morning, so in that respects I was glad I didn’t stay. However, hearing all the stories, it sounded like so much fun so I was kind of upset with my decision. I came to the conclusion that I’m an early drinker. I like to start at 9 and go to bed at 12. Being out until 3 and having to get up early the next morning is not my idea of fun. Plus there will be plenty of bars in the next ports so if I really want to drink (which isn’t really the case) then I can.
Anyway, a few friends and I made plans to go to some hot springs today (our last day in Kobe). Getting Abby up was rough…she was exhausted. Half of the other people were M.I.A…A.K.A sleeping off the alcohol. There ended up only being 5 of us, but it was nice traveling in a small group. We were told the trip in it’s entirety would be less than 10 dollars…not the case. It took us 6 just to get to Mt. Rokko and another 10 to get a round trip ticket for the cable car to go to the middle of the mountain. We had a great trip over though. Everyone was so tired and two were hung over that everyone was just giddy. We get there and realize we have to take another cable car to the top of the mountain where the hot springs were. No one really wanted to spend that kind of money, especially when we didn’t know if it would cost more to actually use the hot springs. The thing with Japanese hot springs is that everyone is butt naked and women and men are separated. There was only one guy and he didn’t want to go by himself. In the end there was a unanimous decision to walk around. Up on the mountain were a lot of activities. There were jungle gyms, parks, a whole field of sheep, hot springs and more…all of which would cost at least 10 more dollars. So we decided to stay in the middle and hike around. There were some amazing views almost like Mt. Washington. It was also residential but they were literally built in the middle of the woods. We hiked for about an hour or two and then headed back. On our way back to the cable car there were three Japanese men taking a picture. They looked at us and asked us to be in their picture. We like SURE, DEFINITELY. It was super cool. Except the guy I was standing next to put his arm around me, which was really weird…but hysterical. And of course we got a picture as well.
On our way back we decided to try some sushi. We were all starving and wanted some lunch. But instead of finding a restaurant that had sushi we bought it from a convenience store (more or less). Even I know that isn’t the best place to try sushi and as expected I didn’t like it. But hey Errin, I tried it!!!!! Some of the others like it but not me. We decided to wash the sushi down with some good old McDonalds. It was delicious. Once we got back to Kobe, we were walking in this huge shopping area…like massive and we ended up meeting up with the people who were supposed to join us earlier. We walked around the outside and inside mall and then went to a restaurant with some of the other people who hadn’t eaten. Then we walked around some more and headed back to the ship. And now…I’m writing this.
I’ve been having a great time. I’m hoping to find a better balance between Semester At Sea trips and independent travel. Well, I’m going to go. Email time…I’m so far behind. Ooops. In 2 days I’ll be in China!!! Yay!!!
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