Within four days we’ve lost four hours. During the day I’m miserably tired and at night I can’t sleep. It’s awful. Other than that though, things are going great.

I’m turning in my semester-long journal on my Japan readings and my consumer-oriented piece for Traveler’s Journals today. Yesterday I finished my global studies readings and a couple days ago I turned in my sixth and final paper on geohazards. Three exams to go and I’ll be home free. The sweet thing about exams on the ship is that the teachers only have one to two days to grade the tests and report the grades back to us, so I’m hoping that, in turn, we have shorter, less complicated exams in order to make grading easier.

Last night was the Ambassador’s Ball. The girls wore dresses, the boys wore suits (many of which were made in Vietnam), and after eating a fancy five-course meal with pre-arranged seating and Champaign, we danced the night away. One of the teachers on the ship also danced the night away, only while grinding on the students while wearing jeans and her bikini top...pretty sure she was drunk. Needless to say, it was extremely entertaining. Then at 10:00 they put out this amazing dessert bar with a million kinds of cakes and seriously, just so much it was ridiculous. Oh yeah, and before the dinner we watched a preview of the voyages DVD and a 45-minute slideshow of pictures. As many joked, “It was only the most important night of our lives.”

Today is the 29th for us. So is tomorrow. It’s all very confusing to hear people refer to a date by “the first 29th.”

We’ll get to Hawaii Thursday night and have all day Friday to do as we please. Still debating Pearl Harbor or not.

Less than ten days on the ship. One girl in the voyage DVD preview said that, “I’m ready to go home and see my friends and family, but after a week I’ll want to come right back here.” That’s how I’m feeling right now too.

Japan!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! By the time I post this everyone back in Illinois will be enjoying turkey and all the goods. I, however, had my Thanksgiving dinner basically a day before everyone else. But all the same I did have a Thanksgiving dinner. The ship served us turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green beans, cranberries, and pumpkin bars but because everyone was eating mass amounts of food, the food ran out over and over and over. The cooking staff couldn’t keep up! I waited in line with the girls, cheering each time a new dish was refilled and then announcing, “Ohh, it’s already gone,” three minutes later before we had gotten to that spot in line. The pumpkin bars were even harder to get and disappear within thirty seconds each time a tray was brought out, no joke. Janelle resorted to asking for the turkey carcass and going at it at the table. A waiter brought another carcass out for her later to and by then we all wanted more turkey so badly that we joined in at stabbing at it. After dinner with the girls we sat in Carrie’s room, exchanging pictures via a thumb drive and then I ran upstairs to the open mic in the Union titled “Turkey Coma Coffee House.” So yeah, I may have missed out on turkey with the family for the second time in a row, but I still had some type of a Thanksgiving so I can’t complain. I hope everyone’s is having a good one back home.

Oh and happy 21st to Kari Winter! A little late, I know, but the ship’s internet was down the entire time we were in Japan.

So yeah, I was just in Japan!! My blogs are getting harder and harder to write because I have so much to say and not enough patience to get it all out, and I have finals on my mind so yeah. Either way….

So Sunday was my first day in Japan. It came so quickly that, as I walked around the city of Himeij that day, my mind was having trouble registering the fact that I was indeed in Japan, the country I have been studying for the last semester.
Carrie, Erin, Sarah (this girl who did the Merida trip in Venezuela with me) and I were off the ship by 12:30 but had to wait in line for money exchange for an hour because other SASers had beat us to the line in the port terminal. We took the train into downtown Kobe and from there took a train to Himeiji, a nearby city with the most famous/beautiful castle in Japan. While on the train to Himeiji two American boys boarded the same car as us. One was super cute, to the point that I made the girls find time to turn around and check him out because his eyes were so great. As the train neared our destination I overheard them talking about the castle as they stood up to get off. Carrie suggested to me we jump on with them in our journey. “Hey are you guys headed to the castle?” I asked. And so the rest of our day was spent with the two boys: Ed and Sarge.
Ed, the cute one, was half Japanese and moved to Japan two years ago to teach English to children. He told us about how his mother moved to the U.S. thirty years ago and was cut off from her Japanese family. She hasn’t seen them since. Sarge’s story was that he moved to Japan two months ago for work. He and Ed know each other from college.
Since Ed had been to the castle many times before he led the way telling us to feel free to stop and take pictures whenever. He was just really nice and really cute and I loved that we hung out with the two of them although I didn’t get too much of a chance to talk to Sarge. The boys asked if we had plans for the night but unfortunately we kind of did. I would have gladly changed them but I don’t think the girls felt the same way. So after our visit to the castle and hanging around outside for a bit, we took pictures together and went our separate ways.
After our visit to the castle we walked around the mall area of Himeiji, looking for somewhere to eat dinner. Oh and can I just say that in Himeiji, and throughout Japan I assume, there are malls that look like streets. Like, you walk down the street and turn onto another street and it’s an extremely long covered stretch with hundreds of stores. In Himeiji there were so many streets like this, all in the same area. It was so cool.
We finally found some random place to eat and settled on it because as I put it, “they have food.” A bowl of udon, wheat noodles, later and we were headed to the train.
The four of us then took the train back to Kobe, got back on the ship to quickly clean up, and left once again, this time to find saki. We were supposed to meet up with some other girls but they bailed on us, meaning that yes, we could have hung out with the boys, but whatever…I’m over it. Some guys were handing out flyers for cheap beer outside of the port terminal so we set out to find this bar called “Second Chance.” After getting lost numerous times we finally found the bar, which turned out to be super small and really not that cool. We still drank though and took shots of saki. Next door to the bar was a convenience store and in Japan public drinking is allowed so we each bought a beer at the store. A beer, by the way, which came with a free toy attached to the top of the can! Two hours later, after a mandatory stop at McDonalds, we were back at the ship.



I dedicated my entire day on Monday to visiting Hiroshima. I originally had not planned to visit the sight where the United States dropped one of two atom bombs, but after learning about it in my Modern Japan class and realizing that I would probably never again have a chance to visit the city and museum within it, I reconsidered. I’m really glad I went.
To save money I did the trip through SAS and drove to Hiroshima by bus rather than take the bullet train. In turn, I spent ten hours traveling to and from Hiroshima. Everyone was on the bus by 6:00 am. There were actually two buses because so many kids were interested in going. Carrie, Janelle, Erin, and Cynthia were all on the trip with me which made the day much more enjoyable.
Miserably tired from the night before, and still nauseous from drinking beer and saki and eating McDonald’s only six hours earlier, the ride to Hiroshima was quite miserable for me. I couldn’t get comfortable and didn’t sleep the five hours there as I had planned. So yeah, the ride to Hiroshima took forever. On top of that we made multiple stops at truck stops so by the time I finally fell asleep I was woken up again.
Upon arrival in Hiroshima we visited the T-shaped bridge that was the target of the atom bomb, or the A-Bomb as the Japanese use for short. Beside it still stands one of the few buildings in the city that remained standing after the blast. A plaque showed a picture of the devastated city completely turned into ashes with the building standing alone alongside the river. Since 1945 they’ve basically put a fence as well as a park around the building and turned it into a memorial. We continued walking through the cold fall air (by the way, there were beautiful golden and red trees surrounding the entire memorial site) and passed the flame of peace, which they say will continue burning until all nuclear weapons are destroyed and no longer exist. In the park there was also a monument for the children killed by the A-bomb. On top of the monument stands a child whose wings are outstretched. It’s supposed to be Sadako, the little girl who folded over a thousand paper cranes in hopes that she would not die from the radiation-caused leukemia that eventually killed her ten years after the bomb was dropped. Around the monument were several huge clear containers full of colorful paper cranes that people from all over had folded and brought to the monument in her memory. We continued walking and saw the coffin-shaped stone that lies at the end of a long walkway. Inside it are all the names of the 240,000 victims of the A-bomb in Hiroshima.
There were a lot of us SASers and I found myself disturbed and annoyed by students who were handing off their cameras to their friends in order to have their pictures taken in front of a monument or the ruins of the building left standing. I mean, I was taking my share of pictures. But to stand in front of such a devastating and horribly sad sight and smile to show that “you were there,” just seems wrong to me. For example, after visiting the museum, I, myself, was trying to let everything I had seen sink in and full of thought and sadness, but some SASers stood outside laughing and posing for pictures. I just don’t understand how, after seeing these pictures of burned bodies, and hearing about all the people who lost their lives in the exact location we were standing, some students could be so unaffected. I don’t know, the museum just really upset me and some kids seemed to care less than others and see the site more as a tourist attraction rather than a huge cemetery.
So anyway, about the museum. There are two in Hiroshima, but the main one, the one we visited, is not a state-owned business, meaning the slant on it was significantly less than it could have been. Besides, regardless of whether or not someone thinks the bomb should have been dropped, it still happened. The museum basically explained the course of events leading up to the bombing, the situation after the bombing, and the history behind nuclear weapons.
Inside there were wrist and pocket watches frozen forever on 8:15 am. Burnt and tattered clothing off victims’ bodies were displayed. Pictures of children accompanied belongings that were found next to their dead bodies including a lunch pail and a tricycle. The original steps from a bank were displayed and the shadow of someone who had been sitting on the steps that morning, waiting for the bank to open, was burnt into the cement. A picture of victims taken three hour after the bomb was dropped was blown up and placed on a wall. A volunteer at the museum came over and explained to me how a Japanese newspaper photographer took photos of the immediate destruction but because the sites he was seeing were so gruesome and tragic he could only take a few photos. “My viewfinder became clouded with tears,” it said next to the picture following a short description of it. It was a pretty large museum with more to see than I had time for. School children filled the three levels of the museum, reading captions under pictures and then scribbling notes onto some paper. I spent a half hour watching a film about the aftermath of the August 6 and the people who, years later, were still dieing and suffering from mental and physical effects of the radiation of the bomb.
After visiting the museum we loaded back into our buses and stopped at a Japanese garden. On the way I tried desperately to truly embrace what went on here 60 years before. Underneath all the new pavement and buildings is one huge cemetery. I pictured the screaming, the crying, the horror that survivors witnessed, but couldn’t. It may have been because I was low on sleep, but either way, I was just really really sad after leaving the museum, and understandably. I started thinking about WWII in general and all the people that died in the Holocaust and then I got to thinking about the Vietnam War and the pictures I saw at the War Memorial Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. I thought about the Armenian genocide that I learned about in my human rights class and the genocide that took place in Cambodia in the 70’s, although I know very little about it. So many people have died horrible deaths just in the past century alone. There’s been so much tragedy, a lot of which I know nothing about, and in the U.S. we’re so sheltered from all of it. When I was in fifth grade I saw the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian and I don’t remember ever learning that this plane had killed hundreds of thousands of people. I don’t know, there was, and still is, a lot going through my head after visiting the museum.
So anyway, we went to this Japanese garden and were given an hour to roam. I spent it with Carrie and Erin, taking pictures of the bright red trees and their reflection in the pond. Back on the bus we began the drive home. We stopped at a truck stop for dinner and paid for our meals via a machine, pressing a button that corresponded with the meal we wished to order. Then we proceeded to the counter and handed a man the ticket. It was definitely a new process for all of us. I ate my noodles and tofu, leaving my rice balls alone because I realized tiny pieces of like baby eel or something like that laced the rice. From there I roamed the convenience store/bakery that made up the rest of the building. Vending machines lined a hall like they did every other stop we had made. Oh yeah, and before I forget, you can buy pretty much anything out of vending machines. Beer, tons of types of coffee, corn dogs, heck, even French fries…it’s amazing. And their everywhere, especially the drink ones. They rarely have any soda in them, just tea and both cold and hot coffee drinks. I walked around the building, buying random food such as banana gum and a pre-packaged icecream treat surrounded by a waffle, just to try it. Oh yeah, and gas-station stores in Japan don’t just have candy and sweets. There was octopus jerky, lots of random seafood packages, come to think of it, I don’t really know what any of it was because I can’t read Japanese. But there was a lot of food that gave me goosebumps just looking at it.
We got back to the ship around 9 pm and I retired to my room to shower and pack for the following day.


On Wednesday morning I traveled to Kyoto, via three different trains, with about twenty other SASers and a few Japanese students from Ritsumeikan University who had come to Kobe to assist in our getting to their school. We got to the university at 11:00 am and as soon as we arrived were taken to a room where we sat in assigned groups that we were in in for the rest of our stay in Kyoto. In my group there were four Japanese students: Michi, Rika, Hitomi, and Kiyono plus three other SASers: Vivian, Julie, and Adam. We sat on the floor, legs crossed, at a table low to the ground and introduced ourselves. Upon being told to by the organizer of the day, we awkwardly exchanged gifts. Rika chose my gift, complete with a Chicago baseball cap that she wore throughout our tour of Kyoto the next day. I handed each one of them a mix I had made of American music. Our group stuck together as we headed to lunch in the university’s dining center. The cafeteria-style line was full of unfamiliar food, none of which was labeled in English. So they helped as I curiously asked what each plate that looked appetizing was. While we ate, Rika took pictures of us with her pink cell phone and I took pictures of them. We were equally amused with each other. The students knew English really well and language was not a barrier at all so, in turn, we were able to have real conversation with one another, it was nice.
They took us on a tour of the campus, which was basically us walking around and admiring how beautiful the trees and set-up of the school was. Students walked to and from classes, two boys sat outside playing acoustic guitar, it was all very familiar. The big difference was in their dress. The Japanese are amazing dressers! The girls are all decked out in trendy clothes, leather boots, cute jackets…barely anyone just wears a T-shirt and jeans. And in the U.S., the boys would all be considered metrosexuals in their thought-out sexy haircuts and fashionable clothes. I was just blown away by it all because everyone dressed and looked uniquely different.
After the campus tour we headed back to our foot-high tables in the room we were in previously. Each group of about eight American and Japanese students was given three topics to discuss. Our hosts had prearranged the topics and the students had printed out sheets they had prewritten to outline the discussion. It was all so organized. Just to be involved in the day the students had to apply in the summer and write an essay explaining why they wanted to be a host for us. The second day we spent with them was planned out ahead of time by each group of Ritsumeikan students too. So anyway we discussed food culture, educational differences, and skimmed over the peace constitution topic. Michi laughed when we brought it up, explaining that he doesn’t follow politics. Because I’ve been studying Japan on the ship, it was the one thing I really wanted to talk about, but I understood his viewpoint, or lack thereof…it’s the same way in the states.
At 3:30 we went through the Peace Museum and photography exhibit that is part of the university. The museum was interesting, but very little the text was translated into English and the most I could do was look at pictures and follow the timeline of events. The photography exhibit was pretty impressive and contained pictures taken from all over the world. All the captions were written in Japanese though and I had no idea what I was actually looking at.
The 24 SASers who had regrouped for the museum visit split up again, this time into groups of eight for what the schedule we were given referred to as a “cultural experience.” One group practice calligraphy, another group was full of kids who chose to do judo. My group visited the university’s kendo club that was practicing in a large room with a wooden floor. As we were in a recreational building, in the room over students practiced judo and kids sat outside in the cold air wearing work-out clothes. Kendo is essentially a sport involving a dulled bamboo sword that each participant swings toward his opponent. Wearing armor, including a mask that resembles that of a hockey-goalie, you aim for the top of the head, stomach, wrist, and throat of the opponent, yelling out specifics words as you strike in order to get a point. It’s really pretty cool. What’s even cooler is that the eight of us, actually seven because Adam chose to go back to the ship, got to dress in the attire, practice kendo with members of the university’s club, and then compete in a match against another SASer. It was awesome. I repeatedly hit the Ritsumeikan student that I was paired up with as he stood there, letting me take free swings with my sword. He couldn’t speak English so our dialogue was limited. Vivian and I ended up battling as the rest of the SASer and Ritz students watched us. We even had a referee. Vivian I had were a good match and we each scored once against each other. Two points ends a match, but our time ran out before we reached that. After the match I took off my gloves and armor and was appalled at how bad I smelled. The robes they had dressed us in were musky and unpleasant smelling before we put them on and now we too smelled the same way. It was unsettling because I couldn’t escape the odor.
We met up with everyone else after kendo, finally dropped our bookbags off in the guest dorm-style rooms they were supplying us with for the night, and headed to a reception being held for us in one of the cafeteria’s that was normally closed for dinner. Our meal was awesome, but Rika later told me it wasn’t traditional Japanese food. It was served buffet style and everyone sat around the room at a variety of tables. Kim and I sat next to Michi who made us laugh hysterically as he told us stories about how he rode a greyhound bus from Chicago to Seattle.
When dinner ended everyone rushed outside and to a close-by karaoke bar. Curfew in the building we were staying in that night was at 10 pm and we only had two hours. Once there, everyone split into two groups and went into these rooms that had a karaoke machine and tables and chairs. For the next hour we sang as much as possible, taking turns with the Japanese students in the selection of songs. They only knew some of what we chose and we knew none of their songs aside from a Backstreet Boys song. Even though we only had an hour it was still definitely a good time.
Back at the building for the night everyone mingled in the floor lobby for quite a bit. The Rits students spent the night with us as well. Jason, an employee of Rits who was with us during our entire time at the school, sat with us and answered questions about Japan and how different aspects of it compare to the U.S. and Canada. Jason’s twenty-six, from Canada, and has been working in Japan for the last six months. He speaks fluent Japanese too. Pretty impressive. After he went to bed, I spent two hours listening to a debate between Kim and Glenn about politics and eventually retired myself.

The next morning Kiyono and Hitomi woke us up at 7:30 am, they had already been up for quite some time. We ate breakfast in the school cafeteria, which served rice, fish, miso soup, salad, French fries, and pastries for breakfast. The only eggs that were out for students to take were raw, according to Michi. Once everyone in our group was finished eating we began our tour of Kyoto.
The tour was extremely informal and consisted of the students taking us to places and telling us to “go over there” for a good picture. I didn’t mind it though. We first went to the Golden Temple, this beautiful structure built on large pond, surrounded by trees that were bright red and yellow. A path led throughout the park area and Japanese tourists filled it, clogging the traffic of people as they stopped to take pictures.
Next we went to this castle located on top of a hill. Yeah, I don’t even know what the castle is called. The view from it was amazing though. In front of the castle, down below, lie the city of Kyoto while the back half of the scenery was endless trees, many of which had changed colors with the season. Rika kept saying that she had never seen the view from the castle be so beautiful before. Between multiple bus rides and the difficulty of walking through large crowds of people, it was past noon by the time we finished visiting the two sites.
The day before I had told the students that I wanted to try sushi, at which they had exclaimed in joy, and we were short on time since Vivian had to catch the 2 pm train back to Kobe to meet someone. So Michi ran ahead of us to get in line for a table at a cheap sushi place. The rest of us walked a while, took a bus, and walked even further after that just to get to this restaurant. Later, after Michi had left to take Vivian to the train station, I found out that he had run the entire way from the castle to this restaurant downtown, without taking the bus, just to get us a table.
So anyway, this sushi place we went to was awesome. We sat in a booth as a conveyer belt full of dishes passed beside us, looping through the entire second floor of the restaurant. These plates with squid, octopus, salmon, pork, pastries, and a multitude of other type of food, kept my eyes from relaxing the entire lunch. Instead, as I ate, I just kept looking at what else I could eat next, bad for me, good for business. There was just so much to look at! And on top of that, each plate was 100 yen, less than a dollar. “What’s that? How about that?” I asked the girls over and over throughout the meal as food passed by. I did eat raw fish, and yes, I’m so proud of myself. The salmon sushi and tuna sushi I ate really wasn’t that bad, and I actually kind of enjoyed it. I’m excited to back to the states and try it there now.
As lunch ended Vivian had to leave and Michi offered to get her safely to the train station. One of the other girls had to leave to take a test and another wasn’t feeling well. Our goodbyes were actually kind of sad since we had spent so much time together in the last 24 hours. Before they left I pulled out the plastic bag full of random Chicago souvenirs I had with me. Since Japan was our last port I wanted to get rid of them. “You guys can have this stuff if you want it,” I said as I dumped out the Chicago deck of cards, American flag pens, Chicago Cubs bracelet, and other stuff. While still at the table we exchanged emails and encouraged one another to find each other on MSN messenger.
When lunch ended there were only three of us left: Julie, Rika, and I. So Rika spent the next couple hours walking in downtown Kyoto with us and showing us the Guin district of shops. Wednesday happened to be a holiday and the sidewalks were as busy as Wrigleyville right after a Cubs game lets out…that’s how I explained it to Rika who wanted to know if Chicago was as busy and crowded. We walked around for a while and then loaded onto a crowded bus headed to Kyoto Station. Once at the station we rode like seven escalators up the main hall area of the open air station to see the view. The roof of the station was full of people watching the sun set and folks sitting around outside, enjoying the weather. If only Union Station had a set up like that. Kyoto Station also had a huge Christmas tree.
Julie and I said goodbye to Rika as took the 5:30 train back to Kobe. Rika was probably my favorite of all the students I had met because she was so much like me. A junior in college, she talked about visiting a gay bar, how she doesn’t know what she wants to do after college, and was just really down-to-earth and able to answer any question I threw at her. It was sad to say goodbye to her.
When Julie and I got back to Kobe we ran into Mike (he’s an executive producer of Sea TV with me). He was on his way to get Kobe beef and wanted us to join him. To make a long story short, he finally convinced us to go with him but Julie and I ended up sitting in the stuffy, fancy restaurant for like fifteen minutes before leaving him to enjoy his meal alone. On ship time was an hour away and we still had another train ride plus a probable long line to get through security. Mike said he didn’t care and ordered a five-course meal. I never found out how late he got back. Julie was majorly stressing about getting back on time though, like Katie Wubben style, and we had to leave because she looked like she was going to have a panic attack or something.
We totally made it back before 8:00 pm and because it wasn’t even 7:30 yet I got to eat dinner too, a definite bonus.

I had such a good time in Japan. Maybe it’s because I was with students from a completely different part of the world that I could relate with. They made my time in Japan that much more amazing. I can’t believe I was just in Japan and that in a period of four days I saw Hiroshima, sang karaoke, and ate sushi: the three things I really wanted to fit in while there. Now I’m just thinking about how, in the last like ninety days, I’ve canyoned in Venezuela, hiked in Brazil, skydived in South Africa, visited a Hindu temple in India, rode a boat down the Mekong Delta, climbed the Great Wall, man I could go on forever. I’ll get more sentimental about it all as the voyage comes even closer to an end. For now though I have a little less than two weeks to do finals, pack, say goodbyes, and sort out how I feel about everything I have seen and done.

China!!

So I’m finally getting my blog up about Beijing. The seas are significantly less rough now and tomorrow morning we port in Kobe, Japan. Last night there was a charity auction that ended up raising $25,000. Kids were bidding hundreds and hundreds of dollars, it was crazy. Other than some raffle tickets, I held onto my money. Anyway, Beijing rocked…

Our plane left on Sunday morning at 8:30 am, which means we left the ship at 6:30 am, which means our group met at 6:00 am, and which, in turn, means that I was up at 5:00 am. So yeah, my first day in Beijing was a tired one but since I got to sleep for three hours on the plane ride north it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
My group ended up having only thirty-three SASers on it, as opposed to the some of the other Beijing groups which had like ninety students. And our trip leader was Megan, a thirty-ish year-old Resident Director with a shaved head. She was really cool to have as our leader for our time in Beijing because she’s so laid-back and friendly.
So anyway, we got to Beijing around lunch time and were hit by a blast of cold air that made everyone cheer. Hong Kong had been hot and humid and Beijing was cold and dry. Man I loved it. Our guide for the entire time we were in Beijing told us to call her Jennifer, although it wasn’t her real name. If she had asked we could have easily memorized her Chinese name. I just felt bad calling her Jennifer the rest of the time she was with us. She was young, super knowledgeable about Beijing, and all and all a really good guide to have.
We went to lunch at this Chinese restaurant that served us a variety of dishes including chicken feet and then headed to the Summer Palace. Sorry, I’m feeling pretty seasick as I write this so my descriptions are lacking.
After the Summer Palace we were dropped off at the Novotel Hotel, where we would stay for the next four days. I was assigned to room with Cathryn Dargen Lumpkin from South Carolina. She goes by Dargen. On our way back downstairs to regroup with everyone for dinner, these American women asked where we were from. It turns out that one of them is the mother of Dargen’s brother’s best college friend and it was funny to watch them slowly figure it out as they talked excitedly in their southern accents.
For dinner our group met up with several other SAS groups for dinner at a restaurant that serves Peking roast duck. I wasn’t super excited about the meal and as plates of food with duck wings and pork came out I started wishing I had sat at the vegetarian table, but I held out and in the same meal ate both shrimp and duck. Go me. The duck was actually pretty good, although when I think about what I ate it sort of makes me sick.


My second day in Beijing was spent seeing Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Lama Temple. We first visited Tiananmen Square, which is amazingly huge. And then continued walking to, and through, the Forbidden City. We each were given a headset and allowed to go off on our own. So Anna, Dargen, and I explored, listening to the story behind each temple, or building, through the headsets. The Forbidden City was swarming with tourists, but I still enjoyed it. There was so much to look at! After each building you walked around behind it and saw another one about 100 yards away and it went on like this for quite some time.
We had been warned about the students who come up to you and say they are studying English and then want to show you their artwork. And indeed, we were approached. I told the twenty-year-old girl that we didn’t have time to see her artwork, but Anna said we did so followed her into the souvenir shop. The girl picked up painting after painting, telling us what it was of as though we couldn’t tell when we saw a painting of fruit or of the Great Wall. It was actually kinda funny. “I don’t think she’s going to stop,” I said under my breath to the Anna and Dargen as the girl continued picking up paintings and telling us what they were of. The paintings were really expensive and as we were leaving we saw other SASers being dragged in by “students studying English.”
We visited the Lama Temple next. It wasn’t anything too incredibly spectacular but the walkway to get to it was surrounded by yellow trees, which made my day. Aside from South Africa, Beijing was my first taste of fall weather this season so it was a big deal to me. Leaves were raked into piles and yes, I was tempted to jump into them.
After the Temple I took a cab with Dargen, Anna, and Ed to the Silk Market that Jennifer had recommended. It was the shopper’s heaven. We entered in the main floor and saw stall after stall of knock-off polos, coats, and jeans. Any article of clothing you wanted, they had it, and there was an entire other floor dedicated to clothing as well. On the bottom floor fake Pumas, Adidas, Nikes, etc, were for sale and knock-off designer purses took up the other half of the floor. There was also a floor of fabric and Chinese souvenirs and a floor full of jewelry and cosmetics. It was so overwhelming. I didn’t buy anything the first day and instead absorbed everything I was seeing. Women called me over saying “Lady, what purse you want?” They tried to get my attention, and everyone elses, time and time again as I passed by their stalls. I definitely got tired of saying “I’m just looking,” as they pointed to their merchandise asking if I liked it. I met up with my group at 5:00 and we hit up McDonald’s for dinner. I’m ashamed that I ate American fast food, but it was right across the street and I was low on Chinese currency at the time.
Ed turned out to be an impulse buyer and after eating we had to drag him away from the people running up to us and asking us to buy their merchandise. As I waited for him to buy his eight polos (he had just bought ten in the market), a man came towards me with fur draped around him. I backed away as he moved the head of one of the dead animals towards me. “I wouldn’t take that for free!” I said laughing as he continued in my direction.
The four of us took the Beijing underground Subway home but got off at the wrong stop and had no idea where we were once we walked up the stairs and were back at street level. It turns out we were only like six blocks from our hotel, but even so, none of the cab drivers had any idea where it was. We showed them the brochure for it and it was even written in Chinese, but they all shook their heads at us. We were in a big hurry since our bus to go to the acrobatic show that night left from the hotel within ten minutes so we finally just asked a guy to take us to Tiananmen Square since we sort of knew where it was from there. On the way we saw our hotel and had the man pull over. We made the bus just in time.
So yeah we then went straight to this acrobatic show which was amazing! It was an hour full of crazy balancing acts that just boggled my mind. The physics behind their performance is hard to comprehend. It was just really really cool. I watched with my mouth open in awe the entire time.



On Tuesday, as the black T-shirt I bought says, “I climbed the Great Wall.” It was over a two-hour drive to get to the section of the Wall that we visited, but we were still within the city limits of Beijing. Once outside of the downtown traffic, the drive was beautiful. Trees lined the final stretch to the Wall, their bare shadows covering the road.
Once we got to the foot of the mountain of the Great Wall section that we were seeing, everyone did the bathroom thing. I assumed that because we were at a major tourist attraction that the bathrooms would be at least decent, but they were disgusting. The darkly lit room was shaped in a set square with all the stall doors open, showing the “squatters” we would have to use rather than the standard western seated toilet. The squatter toilet was found nearly everywhere we went in China actually, even in airport bathrooms. Thank goodness that most bathrooms had a handicapped stall with what we considered to be a “real toilet.” Anyway, the bathroom reeked of urine so badly that I had to hold my breath. A Chinese woman using a squatter left the door wide open so as we rushed to get out of the bathroom while taking turns so that we could hold each others belongings, we also had to look at this woman, who apparently had no qualms about letting everyone who came into the restroom see her pee. I mean, the bathroom experience wasn’t that bad. After traveling to seven other countries I’ve seen some pretty bad ones. This is just one of the many examples.
We had the option of climbing the up to the Great Wall or riding the chairlift. Originally I was all for the chairlift but the landscape was so beautiful so Anna and I decided to hike it up. The hike ended up being stairs pretty much the entire way. For the first half of it a 70-year-old man, who was on our SAS trip, was in front of me and the fact that he was doing so well made me determined not to take a break. After about a half an hour of hiking we reached the Wall.
For the next two hours Anna and I walked around, climbing up and down stairs, taking way too many pictures, and admiring the amazing view. The Wall is surrounded by mountains and the trees around it still had some fall color on them, although most were bare. The sun was out and although I had been cold, I ended up taking off my coat and sweatshirt at one point because it was beating down on us so strongly.
The area of the Wall that we went to was less touristy then some of the other main sections. It was nice because, in turn, it was quiet and peaceful. Before going to the Great Wall I was excited but it wasn’t one of my priorities in life and I wasn’t overly interested in seeing it, but man, am I glad I went. It could have been the awesome fall weather or the amazing view surrounding the historical site, but I just loved being there. I felt so at peace.
To get back down to the buses we had three options: either hike down, take the chairlift, or slide down this metal toboggan slide. I, of course, had to do the slide. It winded around the trees, going back and forth for what seemed like forever. Teenage boys who were supposed to be watching sections of our descent and telling us to slow down, leaned against the trees, sleeping.
Once back down to the real world we were all bombarded by vendors selling Great Wall T-shirts, NorthFace coats, postcards, and everything else you could possibly imagine. I never ended up buying any postcards in China because the vendors intimidated me so badly that I didn’t want to say to one of them, “Yes, I want postcards,” because I knew if I did a group of them would surround me with other things they were selling such as the huge brown fluffy hats with the communist star and the Chairman Mao watches, which many students returned to the ship with.
We did the two hour ride back to Beijing and Jennifer, our guide, had our driver drop us off at the Silk Market. Anna didn’t have much money to spend so she followed me around as I took forever to decide on a black purse, the first I’ve ever owned, and a pair of sneakers. We explored the jewelry floor together, but didn’t have as much time as I would have liked before it was time for us to run downstairs and meet Dargen. The three of us ate Subway for dinner because it was cheap, familiar, and nearby. As we ate I decided that I wanted to find a plain black NorthFace coat and Dargen decided she wanted more pirated DVD’s. So back into the market we went. I found my coat, but was totally being overcharged for it. I was super-stubborn though and refused to pay more than like $25 American dollars for it since everyone else had been getting coats for that much. The young Chinese girl finally gave in, telling me that because I was getting it for so cheap that I had to go buy her and her two friends ice cream. She knew if was a far-fetched request and looked as though she was going to laugh as she said it. I didn’t end up getting it for them.
I was really glad to have a coat when we left the market because it was 7:30 pm by then and freezing out. We walked towards the subway station that would take us directly to the hotel and were sidetracked by a Baskin Robbins. After eating icecream despite how cold we were, we tried getting a cab because the subway station was nowhere in site. Once again, no one knew where our hotel was and none of the drivers spoke English. We eventually gave up and continued walking. We did find the train station and made it back to our hotel rather smoothly from there.
Dargen went off to call home and I lay in our room flipping through the Chinese television stations, wishing I could understand why the live audience in some shows was laughing so hard and just in general, what the heck was going on.



On the last day, Dargen and I, packed everything we bought in Beijing into our one allotted book bag plus purse, for the plane ride home. Dargen bought a lot more than I did and it was much more of a challenge for her, but all the same, I had trouble. I was afraid my fake NorthFace bag would break as I squeezed everything into it, and the purse I carried overflowed with my belongings.
After breakfast at the hotel our bus headed to the Temple of Heaven for our last stop in Beijing. We walked through the first gates and entered onto a wide walkway that led to the temple. Along the cement, a large group of Chinese women practiced tai chi, a few yards away a group of adults played hackey sack with badminton type object. As we continued our walk we saw couples taking dancing lessons, music blared out of a boombox as the men twirled their wives. The whole stretch was alive with retired Chinese men and women taking part in a variety of activities. I loved it.
Further down we went through another gate and walked up nine stairs to a circular platform that apparently the emperor stood at the center of because there are great acoustics from this one spot and he could address large crowds from it. A bit away from that was a temple, outside of it large rocks were implanted in the rest of the cement in a straight line away from the building. Apparently if you stand on the first rock and clap you can hear one echo, from the second rock you can hear two, from the third you can hear three, and so on. I tried it but was unable to hear this so-called echo, probably because there were Chinese men around me clapping randomly, trying to hear their echo as well.
After our visit to the Temple of Heaven we headed to the airport for our 12:55 flight. Inside Beijing Airport we met up with nearly a hundred other SASers who were also on our flight. We sat around on the ground, waiting for our boarding passes, and soon learned that our flight was delayed by three hours. Later, another flight with SAS kids was even further delayed. Some said it because Bush is coming to China and there are threats on the airlines, others said it was delayed because the control tower was down. Either way, I had to sit in a crazy crowded terminal for three hours. There were at least two hundred SASers in the terminal, lying on the ground and taking up most of the seats, their bags sprawled out around them. I ran into Carrie, Kathryn, and Janelle as they too were finishing up their Beijing trips.
When our flight finally began boarding students shoved through the narrow passageway to the bus outside that was waiting to drive us to our plane. I tried my best to be polite until the girl, Morgan, bet me that she would beat me through the mob, so of course I had to win. After four days in Beijing though, I learned that being polite really isn’t an issue in China. I don’t know if it’s because we’re foreigners or what, but the Chinese sure didn’t give much thought to pushing us out of the way while in their country. On the airplane, some Chinese men tried passing people in the aisles, something you don’t do. When I was in the cafeteria line in the airport, a man just budged in front of me like I wasn’t even there. In fact, many times in the airport, Chinese people just budged in front of us, ignoring our presence. As I waited with the mob of people on flight CA109 to board, this woman next to me was pushing through and in turn, caught on my book bag and dragging me with her. There was no space for her but she kept moving. Back on the ship Carrie was saying that she’s never felt as shoved around before as she did in China.
So anyway, we eventually got on the plane and it left by 3:30. At the Hong Kong airport, my group quickly got together so that we could be the first SAS group out of the airport and, in turn, be the first group back on the ship, meaning the line would be shorter for us. Getting back on the ship with tons of bags that need to be inspected, takes forever, especially on the last night in port so the fact that we were first back and that I was at the front of the line was awesome. Kathryn was on the same flight as me but I showered and unpacked before she got through security and back on the ship. I guess one flight with SAS kids was majorly delayed and they didn’t get back to the ship till around 11:00 pm, two hours past the on-ship time.

So yeah, China was awesome. In fact, it now ranks as one of my favorite countries, but it may be because I was absolutely in love with the weather there. For once I wasn’t sweating constantly (they say SAS stands for “sweat all semester”) and I got to bundle myself up and smell the cold air that makes me think of home. My mood was completely affected by the pleasant late-fall weather. Regardless though, I had a great time and am so happy I made the decision to pay a bunch to travel up to Beijing, it was totally worth it. So yeah, eight ports down, one to go (if you don’t count Hawaii). I can’t believe how fast this voyage is going.

Seasick...

No Beijing update today, but I am back on the ship. Rough seas are making me seasick for the first time ever, and I just slept for five of the eight hours of my day. I have homework to get done so hopefully this doesn’t keep up. I’m not alone though. Barely anyone came to global studies this morning and the ship is quieter is general because so many people are sleeping since they're being affected by these damn waves!

Off to shoot stuff for Sea TV. I’ll try to get my blog done in the next day or so. Much love.

Hong Kong!!

My first and only day in Hong Kong was decent. I say decent because the city felt so much like America that there was little culture shock of any sort. I mean, here I’m super excited to get into China and I enter this area with Starbucks and McDonald’s everywhere and a shopping mall that makes me think of what cool shirts I want to own.
We got up again for sunrise. And for the first time during this voyage, nearly everyone else did too. Dean John told us last night that he would be disappointed if we didn’t get up to see our entrance into Hong Kong because it is one of the top five ports to sail into, or something like that. So lots of kids were up, flashing their cameras at the scattered islands covered in skyscrapers.
Hong Kong boggles me. We docked on one island full of huge buildings, essentially, a city in itself. But then a seven-minute fairy ride away is another city, the main city I believe. And it’s like that throughout the island region. There are all these cities separated by water and mountains, and as far as I know, they are all considered Hong Kong. Maybe I’m wrong. As we entered into the port city, skyscrapers appeared to the right through the haze, then to the left of our ship, and finally after awhile, up ahead, straight in front of us we saw even more buildings. They were all over. Huge signs on the tops of buildings read Sanyo, Phillips, Sharp, and other large corporations.
The ship wasn’t cleared until 11:00 so after the sunrise and breakfast I took a two hour nap, as did Kathryn. Immediately after exiting the ship we were dropped off into this enormous mall. The gangway actually led to an entrance of the mall and in order to get anywhere we had to walk through it each time. So yeah, this mall was as American as you can imagine. A Patagonia and Birkenstock store were the first businesses we saw as we entered. Toys R Us, KFC, Pizza Hut, it was all there. Of course, there were sporting good chains I haven’t heard of and a variety of other stores that are Chinese, but they all sold familiar looking clothing. Chinese girls filled the mall with their trendy brightly colored clothing and jet black hair in cute hairstyles, making me wish I had hair like theirs. I later had a chance to roam the mall for a bit and I found myself wanting Puma gear and all these other material belongings that I haven’t really longed for lately.
Anna, Kathryn, Emily, Janelle, Keith, and I searched out a restaurant for lunch and eventually settled on one that ended up being overpriced, but I’m over it. We each ordered our own dish and then laughed at the fact that we were the only ones in the restaurant who weren’t sharing multiple plates and instead were hogging our own. I’ve gotten pretty good at eating with chopsticks, by the way. It started in Burma by choice, and then in Vietnam it was inevitable as they rarely ever gave us forks, and so now that I’m in China I feel comfortable eating a meal with nothing other than chopsticks, although doing the noodle thing is quite messy.
After lunch Anna, Kathryn, Emily and I spent forever trying to figure out the Hong Kong bus system before realizing we were on the wrong island for the bus we needed. So we hopped on the Star Ferry and took the short ride over to Hong Kong Island. Our ship had dropped us off at Kowloon, which as I look at the map right now, is actually a small peninsula off the mainland. Once in the main city we took another fifteen minutes trying to figure out the buses and how we were going to come up with exact change.
Eventually we figured it all out and loaded into one of the many double-decker public buses in Hong Kong. The buses in the city are super nice with TV’s airing Chinese commercials and previews for movies. But the view during our ride to Stanley Market, our destination for the day, was more worth looking at than the entertaining foreign television. To get to the other side of the island, roads lead around the city and because the city is so crowded with buildings, the roads are on the sides of the mountains that break the island in half. So we were basically driving above the city, on the side the mountains. Below us was the ocean, beaches, and of course, many, many buildings.
After a half hour we arrived at the market. Everything seemed to cost a lot there, but then again, I just came from Vietnam where it’s like a giant dollar store. And because my next four days will be spent in Beijing, I was super cheap, wanting to save my money for that. We roamed the market for a few hours, trying on cheap name-brand clothing, buying four dollar Von Dutch hats, and looking at things that none of us wanted to spend our money on. We eventually had to head back because we had told Erin and Janelle we would meet them on the ship at 6:00. After the rush-hour bus ride back to the ferry, and the ferry back to the ship, it was just 6:00.
There ended up being ten girls for our Hong Kong dinner that night. I’m not the biggest fan of huge groups, but it was all good. We walked towards the main drag of Kowloon where fluorescent lights written in Chinese symbols made the entire street glow. We settled for a cheap Chinese restaurant a few blocks in.
Sorry, I’m really tired and sort of rushing through this. Anyway, there was this laser light show at 8 pm and we stood along the water, watching the buildings on Hong Kong Island light up and shoot green lasers in the sky. It was cool, but I mean, I’m been to a Phish show before, and that is cool lighting. Erin, Anna, and I walked around the mall after the lasers ended and retired back to the ship to pack and shower once the stores started closing at 9:30.

Sort of a boring blog entry. Sorry! I’ll be in Bejing the next four days though, so I’ll make up for it eventually. I can’t believe I just spent the last day in Hong Kong, it’s so crazy to me. It’s definitely a beautiful city.

These 5 am wake-ups are not working for me. I’m off for the airport.

Vietnam!!!

So Vietnam was awesome, but I say that after every country, right? But it was, and it, so far is probably one of my top three countries that we’ve visited. There are only two ports left: Hong Kong and Japan. By Saturday we’ll be in Hong Kong and by Sunday I’ll be in Beijing, doing the Great Wall thing and exploring the city.

But for now I have to get this blog written because I only have two days between these two ports and a lot to get done as far as homework goes.

So yeah, I already wrote about my first day and how I spent it hanging out in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon. On day two I was up at 4 am and by 6:30 I was on a Vietnamese Airlines air headed to Hanoi. There ended up being only ten other students on my trip, plus three adults. It was great. Too often there are masses of students on the bigger trips so to have such a small group was really nice. Our trip leader was JP, also known as “the voice” because she makes the daily noon reports to our ship over the loudspeaker.
Although there were quite a few SASers on our flight from a variety of trips, I sat next to a Vietnamese man. We were served this soup that had noodles and pieces of hard boiled egg in it for breakfast and this fruit that I had had the night before and didn’t know was it was. After asking, the man beside me told me it’s called a “green dragon” which confuses me still because nothing on the fruit, not even the skin of it was green. Instead it was white with tiny black seeds throughout it. Anyway, he told me to put salt on the fruit because it’s better that way, and I did, and he was wrong. I was amused as I watched him dump his salt packet all over his fruit. Apparently the Vietnamese use salt on their strawberries as well…crazy.
Okay, so we got to Hanoi and loaded onto one of the huge tour buses, which was way too big for our group. A definite plus. Our drive out of the airport area was full of never-ending rice paddy fields dotted with huge billboards. Motorbikes filled the highway. It was not surprising to me when we were told that there are one and a half million motorbikes in Hanoi and only three million people. I mean, a supermarket we passed had a parking lot completely full of motorbikes and not a single car was in sight.
Everyone rode them. A family with two children aboard went past our bus. Vietnamese women in cute outfits and high heels sped by with masks covering their faces.
Traveling along, dozens of boys dressed in all black clothing gathered in a field for kung fu, they’re motorbikes around them. As we entered the more populated areas of the Hanoi suburbs tall narrow buildings were everywhere. It’s super expensive to own land in Vietnam and the price per square meter is out of control so everywhere you go you see these skinny buildings three or four stories high. Each floor is rented by someone else. Twan, our guide, gave us a layout for the trip and talked about how Vietnam is known as the “green country” but I, as well as everyone else, fell asleep soon after that.
Our bus headed towards the Mai Chau mountain village, located northwest of Hanoi. It took us five hours to get there but only because our bus driver drove painfully slow through the mountain pass. We made a stop along the way at a village market. I walked around for a while but ended up gathering around the other SASers to watched Twan smoke tobacco out of what was basically a bamboo bong. A young man sat beside him, carving designs into the still-green bamboo of the pipes for sale. I had to buy one…it was only a dollar! (which seemed to be my reasoning for buying a lot of stuff in Vietnam)
While at the market Rachel, a really big girl, got her first of many comments about her weight from the Vietnamese. Some Vietnamese women and girls gathered around her trying to put their arms around her waist and then giggling that they couldn’t. Everywhere we went, particularly in the mountain village where tourists are not as common, the Vietnamese pointed or made loud comments that none of us Americans could understand. Seriously, it happened so much. I can’t even imagine how hard it is to have people comment on your weight everywhere you go. The issue with people pointing out her weight while in Mai Chau was so obvious that none of the SASers could ignore it. She told us it used to bother her more (people point and laugh more than usual in most of the countries we have been to) but she started realizing that a lot of the time they are simply stating a fact, that she is rather large, and not necessarily saying that it is a horrible thing. Although in Vietnam that is the vibe I got from most of the onlookers. Either way though, people in these Asian countries we have visited are tiny. They don’t have people that are six feet or taller like in America and barely anyone weighs over like 160 lbs I would say. So our presence in these countries is a big one in more than one way.
After our short 20-minute stay at the market we reboarded our bus and began our journey through the mountain pass. The mountains in Vietnam are amazingly beautiful and different. They didn’t even look like mountains in many cases. They were more like huge towering rocks with jagged edges on the top that stuck straight out of the ground, with barely any gradual incline. Some of these limestone rocks or mountains were by themselves in a field. The mountains surrounding the village we stayed at were a little more familiar looking but still, the peaks of them were rounded and close together, and sort of looked like waves in water. Actually, there weren’t really peaks, because there were so many of these round-tops to the mountains that instead it was like there were a million little hills on each mountain.
We stopped to eat for lunch at this cute little restaurant along the highway and ate our meal sitting crossed legged on cushions. Nearly every dish we were served had seafood in it. Ech, even the word “seafood” upsets my stomach. Needless to say, I didn’t eat much, but the rice, oh yeah, that white rice was amazing. The trend in Vietnam ended up being seafood at every meal and in turn, Vietnam was one of my least favorite countries as far as cuisine goes. I know I should be adventurous and just try the prawns and all the other random sea creatures, but to me, the idea of eating a prawn, with its little black beady eyes visible, is equivalent to eating a bug. JP and Woody, two of the adults on the trip, aren’t huge fans of seafood either and they too were picky with what they ate, so I didn’t feel quite as bad about not eating everything I was served. By the last day I had learned to say I was a vegetarian when they did a head count at the beginning of my Mekong Delta trip. So while everyone else was looking at still intact fish being ripped apart and placed on their plate, I had an awesome meal of noodles and vegetables. I just wish I would have played the vegetarian card earlier.
I fell asleep again as soon as I was back on the bus and an hour later woke up to such a beautiful view. We were above the mountain town we were heading too, and looking down on the valley scattered with rice paddy fields and homes. Forty-five minutes later we were at the Mai Chau village, driving down bumpy narrow roads with our huge bus.
The village we stayed in was full of long houses made out of wood and bamboo, with bamboo flooring. The homes were two stories high with the first story being open and used for storage and selling fabric and other things. Our home for the night was owned by a family that slept on the first floor and the second floor, which was one large room, was where we stayed. A skinny chicken with only a few feathers ran around the house during our stay there. Upon arriving we had a few of hours to kill before dinner and nothing was scheduled so I roamed off on my own, down the dirt road through the neighborhood. Nearly every home was selling fabric and fabric wall hangings. Since the road to the village was built a year ago, more and more tourists have made their way to the area. We saw several Europeans in the village while we were there. So yeah, in turn, there was quite a bit to buy, although it was all the same stuff.
I hadn’t walked far when I saw a parade of people, mainly kids, coming down the street towards me. An elephant trudged along in the middle of all of it. The elephant and crowd of kids cheering as they followed on bikes passed me. I never found out why an elephant was in the village, but based upon the excitement of the residents it was a big deal for them.
Dinner was another seafood meal, but I managed. That night, after dinner, some local teenage girls and guys performed for us. The “cultural performance” was pretty cool, but as most of the shows that people put on for us in the countries we visit are, it was a little too long. They sang and danced for us and eventually pulled us up from our seat on the bamboo floor to join them in jumping over these wooden sticks that were being moved back and forth in a rhythm. The jumping over sticks went on for a while and after sitting down I was pulled right up again to join everyone else in walking around in a circle and singing. The performers sang in Vietnamese so we didn’t sing along but at one point in the song they sang, “Vietnam! Ho Chi Minh!” over and over. The tune is still in my head. For the rest of that SAS trip I hummed and sang the tune whenever we visited a Vietnamese historical site, just to annoy Aparna and Aileen who hated having the song in their heads.
After the show we went outside while our beds were set up in the long house. We slept on cushioned mats and were given one small blanket each, which was all we needed since it was hot and humid in the long house despite the open windows and fans up above. Mosquito nets were draped over each of our beds and they worked pretty well as I didn’t get bitten once all night.


The next day, after breakfast, we went on what Twan called a “hike” through the main village area. It was a hot day and like every other day in Vietnam, Burma, and India, I could feel beads of sweat rolling down my back. We walked down the sides of the streets, dodging the occasional motor bike. Person after person pointed at Rachel, exclaiming in shock at her weight. We walked through a food market that was essentially a series of tarps covering wooden tables that had items of food for sail. Live frogs sat in a bowl, they’re legs tied together. Many of the tables had animal parts, intestines, kidneys, feet, legs, every part of the animal just lying out. I put a picture of it on my last blog. The stench of the meat trapped in the heat underneath the tarps got to me and I felt my gag reflex kick in as I walked behind the other SASers, wishing they would speed up because I couldn’t get around them. I walked past more disgusting sites such as hundreds of tiny crabs crawling around in a bowl and fish that looked past their expiration date packed in rows inside open boxes. It would have been hell for Allison.
Back outside in the mountain air, we walked through fields, our path surrounded by rice paddy being farmed. Mountains surrounded the already beautiful scenery. The walk was just incredibly beautiful, that’s the best way I can put it. We came upon some homes, and some locals came out to watch us. Three adorable puppies wrestled in the dirt. Oh and before I forget, Vietnam had the most adorable dogs and puppies I have ever scene. First off, they were everywhere, and secondly, they didn’t look mangy and rabies infested like many of the dogs did in India and Burma. These dogs were animals that Americans pay hundreds of dollars for. I know it’s a random thing to take away from Vietnam, but particularly in Mai Chau, it was out-of-hand. Everywhere I went I saw these tiny puppies and healthy, strong dogs. If SAS would let me, I would have smuggled one home for you mom.
We drove back through the mountain pass and to Hanoi after lunch. On the way the air conditioning on the bus broke and we could have easily just opened our windows and continued on our way, but instead the bus driver pulled over and spent a half hour fixing it as some students remained asleep on the bus and others bought packaged snacks from a dirty-looking food-stand right outside of our vehicle.
Getting to Hanoi was exciting because we were staying at a hotel which meant that we would be able to shower. Upon arriving at our hotel, everyone cleaned up and within an hour we regathered and headed to dinner at a nice restuarant. Dinner was seafood city again, but I managed. After dinner we went to a water puppet show at a nearby opera house. The whole concept being water puppetry is crazy to me. There were all these different acts to the show that didn’t really have anything to do with each other and basically a puppet, attached to a pole at the bottom would move around in foot deep water, the pole hidden underneath the water. These poles the puppets were attached to allowed the puppets to move in awesome ways though, and yeah, it was really cool. Next to the brightly colored stage and green water was a band that played music on all these culturally unique instruments for each act, and two women dressed in traditional clothing that sang and made random noises into their microphones. It was all in Vietnamese and really I had no idea what was going on, on top of the Twan handed us the Vietnamese programs rather than the available English programs, so I was really confused. But it was very visually entertaining all the same.
After the show we had the option of taking the bus back to the hotel or walking back ourselves and since it was only 9 pm and the city seemed pretty alive, I opted to explore the city, as did Jordan, so the two of us headed in a random direction. We walked down the busy streets, past stands of clothing that were found on literally every street we walked down. Jordan wanted to get lost in the city so we continuously walked in any direction that we thought looked interesting. However, because I refused to hop on a motorbike it limited us a bit. We did manage to find out way back to the hotel and beforehand stopped for a beer at a nearby bar. Back at the hotel, Angie, my roomie for the night, was still awake, reading one of the many books she reads within a month.


The next day we were out of the hotel by 8 am and headed for a day of sight-seeing. We visited the Temple of Literature, Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, and a pagoda, all of which was interesting but soon lost on me. I’ve seen so many temples and pagodas and historical sights in general on SAS that I’m beginning to shut down in the sense that I find each site less and less interesting. Visiting the first college in Vietnam is cool and all, but when other tourists are all over the place and then heat is ungodly, it just loses its appeal.
Luckily, we were given two hours to roam and get lunch on our own before we left the city. Aparna, Aileen, and I shopped for a bit before realizing that we didn’t need to look at the same stuff anymore, or buy anymore either, and instead we searched for an air conditioned restaurant. We didn’t walk far before we found “Papa Joe’s Coffee,” a cheap American-looking diner that served familiar food. We walked upstairs to the second floor and sat in the empty room, the only customers in the restaurant. The place soon filled up and to make a long story short, everyone got their food before us and actually, we never got our food because the waitress couldn’t understand what we were saying so she just didn’t write down Aileen’s or my order. It was all very confusing. And then we found out that it was the restaurants first day…and we were the first customers! The owner told us that we would get our food for free and as they were packaging up the sandwiches in front of us, Aparna said outloud, “Ooo, that chocolate cake looks good.” So the owner threw in three pieces of chocolate cake too…all very cool. We were late for our bus by the time we got out of the restaurant and the three of us ran through the streets of Hanoi laughing hysterically at the whole situation. A street cleaning machine went by as we were running and we ran right through the disgusting mist it left behind, making us laugh even harder.
Back on the bus, our group visited the Museum of Ethnology before heading to the airport and flying back to Ho Chi Minh City. Aparna, several other girls, and I met up outside the ship soon after we got back and headed to a tailor shop and Internet café in one. The girls all hopped on the backs of motorbikes, but once again, I refused. Luckily, the one boy who was traveling with us was also terrified of them and we took a cab together. I just could not bring myself to ride one of the many motorbikes in the city. These bikes just darted out in front of traffic and looked so unsafe. I won’t even ride a motorcycle in the states, so the idea of riding on the back of a random motorbike without a helmet terrified me and although it may have been part of the Vietnam experience, I couldn’t bring myself to ride on one. I was on the Internet for a while but the girls I was with were taking forever and I really had no reason to wait for them so I made the gamble and took a cab to the night market on my own. It was closing by the time I arrived so I walked around briskly, and bought several fake Ralph Lauren polos before taking a cab back to the ship. Outside of the ship, I bought a huge rip-off North Face hiking bag for twenty dollars. I need another back to get my stuff home in at the end of the voyage and the bag has all the features of a 400 bag, it’ll probably just fall apart much sooner, so it was totally worth the money.

On my last day in Vietnam I did the Mekong Delta trip through SAS. We rode two hours south of the city to the river where we hopped on wooden motor boats and rode around on the muddy water. We stopped at one of the nearby islands and tried some tropical fruits while a traditional Vietnamese group performed for us. Another stop we made was at a coconut candy making factory. I bought way too much coconut candy, which now I don’t even like that much. There was a huge snake that a woman carried around and let tourists where over their necks and of course, I had to do it as well. I was not scared at all, but the second I felt the snake skin against the back of my neck I felt tears come to my eyes. I wasn’t going to cry or anything, but I did start breathing heavy and I quickly told the woman she could have the snake back. I’m such a wimp.
My favorite part of the trip is when our group was split up into groups of four and we were loaded into these tiny boats. At the front of our boat a Vietnamese woman sat on her haunches, rowing us down a narrow tributary of the river. Other boats passed us, and we often collided with them as there was little space to make it down the water way. The ride lasted about ten minutes and was really peaceful. Anna and her folks were on the same trip as me that day, but in a different group. But I did get to meet them which was exciting.
Our bus was back at the ship by 5 and at 6 Carrie and I headed out for dinner. We went to this pizza place that I read about at the field office. Two other Americans, a woman in her fifties and a guy a bit older than us, were already inside when we arrived. We talked to them during most of our meal. They are both in the country doing NGO work, and the older woman is from Illinois and knew of Galena. It was really nice to talk to them and they were quite interested in the whole SAS thing since they had never heard of it and didn’t even realize that an usually high number of American students had been in the city during the last five days.
I made it onto the ship by 8, and once again, got no dock time. I have yet to.

So yeah back on the ship again! Everyone’s wearing either knock-off polos or silk robes. And as is after every port, kids are decked out in T-shirts from Vietnam. The Cambodia trips were supposedly awesome, but I’m over the fact that I didn’t get to go because I didn’t win the lottery for the trip. I really had a great time in Vietnam.

I’ve been having trouble catching up with emails so if I haven’t gotten back to anyone yet, know that. K, I now have to spend a lot of money and use many internet minutes as I register for my spring semester at Columbia College. I’m crossing my fingers that the classes I need are still open. Hope all is well!!

I'm sort of in a hurry...have to be on the ship in an hour or I get dock time...but check it out, Burma pics...

Buddhist Novication Ceremony and Shwedagon Pagoda
And then to Vietnam...they told us the Avian flu really isn't a threat to us... ...I took the picture and then began gagging and had to leave the area...You can't leave Vietnam without buying a "Good morning Vietnam" shirt...And then today, I rode around on the Mekong Delta...
Halloween on the ship...me and the roomie.
Sea Olympics: the two worst teams for the Pictionary competition
Carrie and Janelle's bday was last week...these are the girls I'm with most of the time on the ship...
K, wish I could publish more but I don't have time and I'm afraid if I push it and put more pics up the computer will freeze and it'll be all over then. Vietnam was awesome...i'll have the blog up in a couple days!! P.S. everyone's mission is to get me fallout boy tickets for the december 18 show in chicago...sold out, but there has to be way!! much love.

Vietnam!!

I just spent my first day in Vietnam!! It’s pretty late right now and I have yet to start packing for my 5 am departure to Hanoi tomorrow morning. So I’ll try to make this quick.

I really didn’t spend that much time in Ho Chi Minh City today. See we have to travel up this busy, narrow river in order to get to our docking location, and because the river is so crowded with ships and other boats we had to travel it during daylight hours. So it was 2:00 pm before we got off the ship, which meant I got to sleep in today, a definite plus. Last night I watched the first four episodes of the third season of the O.C. One of my girlfriends on the ship had her mom mail her the tape of it. Over fifty kids crowded into a classroom for four hours and sat glued to the television…we didn’t even fast forward through the commercials, we were too excited to see them, to see things we recognized. So yeah, I was pretty tired when I finally left the classroom at 1 am last night.

Since we were traveling up a scenic river this morning they held a barbeque on deck 7 for us. All they have to do to get us excited is serve us fries and burgers, something we rarely get. So for an hour or so I hung out on the back of the ship, watching ships pull loads of mud out of the river as our huge vessel squeezed through the traffic. Kathryn, Janelle, and I were anxious to get off the ship and sat around by the soon-to-be gangway for over an hour, waiting for “the voice” to announce that the ship was clear. As the ship got closer and closer to the dock, parents were visible. They stood around in pairs, wearing those straw triangle Vietnamese hats with their luggage at their sides. It was all pretty exciting. A bunch of parents are doing trips with their kids in this country through SAS. Anna folks are going to Cambodia with her and Kathryn’s are too, although Kathryn isn’t doing it through SAS. It was excited to see parents, even if they weren’t mine.

When it was announced that the ship was clear at least a hundred kids instantly rushed the exit, we did well and were off the ship within five minutes. We took a shuttle to the center of town where rickshaw and cab drivers sat around waiting for us. Some SASers were asked if they wanted a rickshaw ride and were hesitant about what they wanted. I watched in amusement and horror as rickshaw drivers started grabbing the kids by their arms, pulling them to their carts. The girls were fighting back, trying to return to their group, the drivers eventually loosened their grip.

Janelle, Kathryn, and I decided to walk. We passed tailor shops, a shopping mall, clothing stores, and handicraft stores, but were determined to make it to the Ben Thanh Market. Eventually we did. Inside this huge warehouse-type building, was stall after stall of Asian souvenirs, clothing, jewelry, handicrafts…everything. And so we roamed. Kathryn only had thirty minutes in the market before she had to take a cab to the airport for her flight to Hanoi, where she’ll meet up with her parents. Janelle and I spent another hour or so in the market, bartering down the prices of Tiger Beer T-shirts and squeezing through the tightly packed aisles. Fake Lacoste polos, Northface bags, name-brand perfume, it was all there. As most markets are, it was all very overwhelming.

One Vietnamese woman stopped me, made me sit down on a stool, and asked me how I did my eyeshadow. Apparently she really liked my eye make-up. I rarely wear much, but today I had decided to and for a couple minutes I explained how you start darker and fade up on the eyelid, or something like that. She loved my red cheeks too and kept asking if I wore blush. It was odd. I stood up and was getting ready to leave and another woman was talking to me soon enough. I was wearing a tank-top, which isn’t acceptable attire in Vietnam, but had a buttoned shrug on over it. The button must have come undone, but I was still covered. This woman took my shrug and opened it up while she was talking…I’m not sure why, but she did. Maybe she was going to rebutton it. Well anyway, she opened the shrug up, saw my bare lower neck and exclaimed, “Ooooh!” before quickly covering me up again. It was actually pretty funny, but because of her reaction I felt really uncomfortable at the time.

Janelle and I left the market by 4:30 and took a cab to the War Remnants Museum. It turned out it was only open for twenty more minutes, but they let us in for free because they knew we wouldn’t see much. Although I only had minimal time in the museum, I’m really glad we went. There were pictures of agent orange victims, pictures of American soldiers with Vietnamese heads placed in front of them. The most upsetting picture for me was this one of a group of Vietnamese people, presumably a family, standing underneath a tree holding one another with terrified looks on their faces. Two children were in adults’ arms. Underneath the picture the caption read something about how they were about to be shot and the photographer said “Wait! Let me take a picture,” and he did. As he was walking away he said he heard guns go off and in the corner of this eye, bodies falling, but he never looked back. The museum had huge tanks outside of it, and also some military helicopters and planes. I really wish we had had more time to see everything, but a loud alarm when through the museum at five, signally that it was time to leave.

We took a cab back to the ship and stood around outside of the MV Explorer for quite some time, looking at the cheap Northface bags lined up for us SASers to look at and buy. At 6:30 a group of us left the ship once again and headed out to dinner. We ate at this Vietnamese restaurant called Blue Ginger, and yes, a lot of the food did have a ginger taste to it. It was a decently good meal and we got a kick out of the fact that our bill was over a million…dong that is. Oh and many many jokes went off about the title of their currency here in Vietnam, the dong. After dinner we walked back to the ship and once again hung around outside, this time I went through the piles of bootleg DVDs. Any movie I could ever want is right outside of the ship. I bought a few movies for five dollars, including Sin City, which I’m excited to watch again. But, apparently my computer isn’t compatible to play DVDs…dad, what’s up with that? I think these DVDs we bought are legit too because other SASers have already checked them out and been pleased, and because it’s hard to rip us off since we can easily go back to them and complain. So yeah, I think it’s my computers fault and not the DVDs. Bummer.

Anyway, I need to go start packing. I’m headed to Hanoi and this Mai Chau village for three days. There are only 16 other SASers on my trip so it should be fun…I’m pretty excited. I don’t feel like I’ve really seen much of Vietnam yet, but all the same, I’m enjoying it so far.

I’ll let you know how rest of my days here are. Much love.

Burma (Myanmar)

Whoohoo! I have another update…Burma(also known as Myanamar)rocked…and yes mom and and in am okay, i'm great actually.

So Burma...

On my first day in Burma, I only had time to spend about five hours in the city of Yangon. I would have been more disappointed if it weren’t for the fact that I had five days ahead of me in the country. Tuesday was a freebee day, originally we weren’t supposed to be to Burma until Wednesday.
I got up for the sunrise again, but went back to bed before the sun came up because I wasn’t feeling well. My cough was especially bad the night before, to the point that I was near throwing up. It was awful. I didn’t end up getting to sleep till 4 am which back home wouldn’t be a problem, but here it was. Getting up at 5:45 killed me, luckily I got a couple more hours of sleep in after going back to bed.
By the time I woke up at 8:00 am for breakfast our ship had already begun its trek up the river canal that leads to the port city of Yangon. Fishing boats floated on the muddy river water as MV Explorer passed by. Small golden pagodas spotted the flat, green agricultural landscape.
The diplomatic briefing took a while and by the time it was over with at twelve we had no time to get our things together in order to take the noon shuttle to Yangon. So Anna, Janelle, Sarah and I waited around for the 2:00 shuttle instead. See, in Burma, the port city is, strangely enough, an hour drive from the actual port. For fifteen dollars most of the kids on the ship, including me, bought a shuttle bus pass which picks up from the dock every two hours. The crowd for the 2:00 shuttle was ridiculously huge and even though we arrived outside of the ship at 1:30 we didn’t get on a bus until 3:30.
When we finally got into Yangon at 4:30 we decided to explore, so we set out in a random direction. Right away two children with postcards approached us, trying to sell them to us for three dollars each. The thirteen-year-old girl was adorable and spoke English surprisingly well. Burma is known for having a horrible education system and fewer members of the younger generations know English as it is poorly taught to them, so the fact that the first child I spoke to could speak English so well impressed me.
The girls and I walked around the city for an hour or so, admiring the magnificent golden pagodas placed amidst a dilapidating city. Bald monks draped in red cloth walked among the people, as did the military. Because I have been reading this book about the government of Myanmar and I have learned so many reasons as to why the military regime is horrible, every time I saw a suited officer on the street I found myself scared, intimidated. Indeed, the presence of the military is so evident. It’s not like the streets are covered with nazi-like men, instead they look like police officers scattered throughout the city. Police officers that rarely smile. Oh and speaking of Nazis, I saw hats with swastikas lying amongst a pile of hats for sale on the street. A few days later I found out that the swastika is a backwards symbol for peace (why did I not know that??) and I saw a peace symbol on Tuesday.
But walking around the city was good for us. The Burmese, in their longyis or long skirt-like wraps of fabric, smiled back at us as we passed. Short plastic tables and chairs lye out in from of teashops and dozens of men lined the streets selling watch bands. Countless women and young children had a light cosmetic type of substance spread across their cheeks. It’s made from crushed tree bark and during my stay in Burma I saw so many people wearing it. Some children had their faces completely covered in the yellowish-white chalky substance. Supposedly it offers protection from the sun and also smells good.
An older gentlemen approached us, asking where we were from and how long we were staying. I wanted to carry on a conversation with him but found myself scared to for his sake. The government is everywhere, listening in on people’s conversations, especially when foreigners are around as they don’t want the Burmese saying anything negative about the country.
The four of us walked into a random restaurant for dinner and after looking through the menu full of pictures of chicken hands and other uncomfortably gross meat items we decided to just order drinks. The staff at the diner was extremely friendly, handing us a straw fan to cool ourselves off with since they had no air conditioning. I set my purse on the ground beside my chair and a waiter came with another chair that he placed beside mine, just for me to set me purse on.
We ended up eating dinner at this amazing Thai restaurant, called Sabai Sabai, located near the main pagoda in the city. We had tried to walk there but got lost and resorted to getting a cab because it had gotten dark out and the further we walked, the few street lights we came upon. Our cab driver stood outside of his vehicle as we tried to tell him where we wanted to go. He tried reading the address out of my Lonely Planet book but couldn’t because of the lack of light. So he hopped into his cab and drove around the corner to an area with less traffic. He pulled over the car and got out again. He and Janelle bent over in front of the headlights of the beat-up cab as they studied the text of the book. After some time he understood where we wanted to go and charged the four of us only two dollars total to get there.
So yeah, the food was amazing. I love Thai food so to eat real Thai food, or close to real Thai food since we’re not exactly in Thailand, was amazing. I had the pad thai, one of my favorite dishes back at Thai Spoon, my Chicago love. We each had a large plate of food, shared an appetizer, and had drinks for twelve dollars total. I totally plan to go back before we leave Burma on Sunday night.



On Wednesday I did the City Orientation trip through SAS. Our first stop was the Shwedagon Pagoda, the main tourist attraction in Yangon. After seeing it I understand why. It’s amazingly beautiful. Standing 98 meters tall, it is believed to have been built 2500 years ago.
I don’t even know how to explain it. The huge golden stupa (the center of every pagoda) was surrounded by shrine after shrine. I mean, there were so many areas to worship and pray within the pagoda walls. It was just so massive and elaborately decorated with religious figures that I can’t describe it in a justly manner. Many people sat on their knees around the stupa, praying. I can’t wait to show pictures.
A man came up to Anna and I as we stood around admiring the pagoda and told us how that he teaches English as a profession, asking how we thought his English sounded. It was impressive, he even spoke with only a little accent. He went on about how he had learned American slang over the years by talking to tourists that he met in the city, specifically at the Shwedagon. For the next five minutes he listed the slang he knew such as, “If you made a lot of money fast, then you made a killing!” and “If someone is going crazy, then they’re going bananas!” Soon enough he started listing slang words for homosexuals such as “dike” and “fag.” Anna and I, surprised to hear anyone say those words spoken, quickly informed him that no one uses those terms as they can be found offensive and are not politically correct.
After walking around the pagoda clockwise, as is part of the Buddhist faith, we left the area, reboarded our bus, and headed to the National Museum. Run by the government, it was full of things to look at but few facts. The history covered in the museum didn’t have anything to do with the last 50 years of Burma. Everything was very vague and uninteresting. We next made a stop at this huge (70 meters long) reclining Buddha. It’s gigantic, but supposedly there is an even larger one within the country.
The rest of our tour consisted of roaming the Bogyoke Aun San Market (also known as the Scott Market), which is this huge open building full of crammed together stalls selling fabric, artwork, jewelry, puppets, clothing… just about anything you could want or need. Anna, Cathy (the Chinese woman who is an adult passenger on the ship), and I had long skirts made for us at one stall for a mere five dollars and it only took the woman several minutes to turn the fabric we chose into a wrap-style skirt. Before the city orientation was over we also went to the China Town in the city and walked the streets for a bit.
Oh and during the tour we also roamed the center of the city, which wasn’t a big deal to Anna and I since we had done that the day before. We decided to circle one of the pagodas to kill the allotted time we had. The boy and girl who had tried to sell us postcards the day before found, and recognized us. “You buy now!” the girl said to Anna. It was too funny. The day before, in an effort to get them to leave us alone, we told them that we would think about it and maybe buy some later, assuming we would never see these children again. So when the boy came up to Anna and said, “I remember you,” it was quite a surprise. Anna ended up buying 20 postcards for three dollars, I once again didn’t buy any, but only because I had already bought some the day before.


On Thursday I visited the Mary Chapman School for the Deaf in Yangon. On the way to the school, our Burmese tour guide, Myat, spoke openly about the condition of the country. He talked about how it took him years to get his degree because the universities keep shutting down for large amounts of time and how hard living under the military regime was. I was surprised at how openly he spoke to us, as most people I talked to in Yangon were very reserved when it came to discussing the Myanmar government. As he put it, the country has taken “One step forward, and two steps back.”
When we got to the school we were taken to a room where two different classes were being held. All the children wore white tops and green bottoms. A class of about eight six-year-olds showed us how they knew their ABC’s as they signed the alphabet and attempted to say it as well. Little sound was made, but one girl made many loud indecipherable howls, as she tried to talk each time she signed.
After visiting other classrooms, including a vocational room where deaf students sewed purses and pillowcases to sell, we were taken to the third and top floor of one of the buildings. We sat around for a bit before another group of deaf students entered. We were told that the students wanted to show us their massage skills, apparently they were taught as part of the vocational training so that they can make money off it later in life. Anyway, we thought that we were going to see a short demonstration on one person and Armand, a loud, tall hillbilly who lives on my floor, volunteered his body.
Gradually, more and more blankets were set on the floor and more students were urged to lay down. I held off for a while, confused as to what was going on, until all the SASers on the trip were laying face down on the wooden floor, being massaged by different deaf students. I think it was a faculty member that massaged me since all the students at the school were already busy with others. So yeah, for like the next hour we received free full-body massages. They were different then one’s in the U.S. since they didn’t really massage anything as much as they pushed on certain muscles and bent muscles in different directions.
The whole massage-thing was very confusing. Our trip was supposed to be a “service visit” and here we were being served by these deaf students. And I mean, they had insisted that they show us their skills, but it was strange to me, and the rest of the SAsers, that a full hour of our time had been spent making the children work. We only had about a half an hour left at the school by the time everyone was finished with their massages and none of that time was used to interact with students. Instead we were shown several more rooms in the school.
When the deaf school visit was over Cynthia, this girl whose name I can never remember, and I didn’t reboard the bus and instead took a cab with Armand and another girl to go buy soccer tickets for several games taking place that night. After purchasing the two dollar tickets Cynthia, No-Name, and I went off on our own in a cab and ate lunch at the Green Elephant.
So we shopped for a while after lunch, returning to the huge, compacted Scott Market. I picked up an oriental-type top that I had made for five dollars the day before. It fits well but who knows if I’ll ever where it. After spending money on two dollar t-shirts and dollar watercolor paintings, Cynthia and I parted from No-Name and headed to the outskirts of Yangon where an international soccer tournament is being held until November 2. We arrived at 4:00 pm just as the China vs. Bangladesh game was beginning. Walking into the seating area, heads turned towards the two of us. Not only are we American, but also girls, and very few other females were attending the games. An Indian man ended up sitting in front of me, sexually harassing and staring at me for most of the game. It was pretty upsetting, he finally left when I called a passing SAS boy over to sit by me. The hour-and-a-half game ended in Bangladesh’s victory.
After the 4 pm game Cynthia and I watched the opening ceremonies for the Myanmar vs. India game that followed and then found a cab back to the shuttle. We had wanted to see the second game, but the ship only had the water on from 6-9 pm that night. It was crucial that we took the 7 pm shuttle home so we could make it onboard by 8 and have time to wash away the dirt and sweat from the hot day.
Kathryn left that morning for a two-night stay in Mandalay and having my own room that night was awesome. I stayed up and worked on homework, something I rarely get to do since by midnight the lights in our room our out.


On my fourth day in Burma I visited a monastery where I got to see, and take part in, a Buddhist Novication Ceremony. When we arrived at the monastery at 2:00 pm, the monks, soon-to-be monks, and their families were waiting for us. I guess that, through the money we paid to go on the day trip, we had sponsored the ceremony, so we were very welcomed by everyone. The Novication ceremony inducts young boys into monk-hood and the Buddhist monastery, where they must remain for at least three days after the ceremony, learning the ten Buddhist precepts and begging for food in nearby villages.
Female monks draped in pink and orange cloth stood in an orderly line. Behind them were ten young boys, each sitting on a colorfully decorated wooden flat that was held up by four men. The boys wore white collared shirts, green longyis, and were adorned in pink, green, and gold glitterering hats and vest-type covers. These scared-looking children were the boys who would become monks in an hour’s time. Two men enthusiastically danced inside an elephant costume, flailing the paper machete head left and right to the beat of the drums and woodwinds. Tons of male monks, many as young as eight-years-old, stood around in their red robes, observing the ceremony and the out-of-place American students.
A procession soon began as the line of nuns, the elephant, the monks-to-be, and all the Semester at Sea kids who were carrying offerings of blankets, fans, and other gifts for the new monks, walked up the village street. The parade lasted about ten minutes as we turned around halfway down the street and marched around the monastery. The men who were carrying the seated boys, lifted and lowered the wooden planks the boys were sitting on over and over in celebration. One child was four, at the oldest, and began crying as his sequenced hat, that was far too big for his head, began falling off at the same time.
After the procession the boys were taken into a large room covered in a dark red rug. At the front end of the room a golden Buddha as well as other Buddhist shrines, stood behind a glass wall. In front of the wall sat an adult monk in black plastic glasses who ended up leading the ceremony. Beside him sat several other adult monks. The young boys knelt on the carpet in front of the monks and the ceremony began. It basically consisted of them repeating chants and then removing their clothing, so that they only wore shorts, and having their heads shaved in front of their parents, the monks, and us SASers. The head shaving was interesting as the parents held a piece of cloth underneath their sons’ heads in order to catch their black hair which would later be placed under the same type of tree where Buddha was enlightened. After having their heads shaved, the boys were dressed in deep red cloth, like the rest of the young monks who were all watching the ceremony from the windows and doors of the building.
When the ceremony ended everyone went back outside, searching through the dozens of pairs of shoes left at the doorway. The “elephant” continued its dancing as everyone gathered around it. We were asked to “American dance” around the elephant so we marched in a circle clapping; we didn’t represent too well. After that the young monks crowded around a long rope and played tug-of-war. We SASers were eventually asked to participate and we went up against some of the teenage monks. We won. After three rounds of us winning they made us compete again, this time with no guys. I thought for sure we would still win since we only had three or four guys that had been participating earlier anyway. The monks totally won, pulling with so much strength that two girls crashed to the ground as we were pulled to their side.
The SAS boys on the trip gathered in the center of the circle after tug-of-war and played a game of Chinlon, which reminded me of hacky-sack, only with a much larger object. Chinlon is a traditional sport of Burma and is played quite a bit among the population.
I lost interest in the Chinlon game and began a conversation with one of the teenage monks who was standing around. His English didn’t appear to be one of his strengths so I stuck to simple questions and answers like, “How are you?” He turned out to speak decently well and before I knew it I was being questioned by several monks who crowded around me. “How do you like Myanmar? How long are you here? How do you like the weather? What have you done so far? What do you think of the nuns?” and my favorite, “What is your religion?” I told them I was Christian, which led to the, “What is Christian?” question. Carrie, who had migrated towards me, and I took a deep breath and look at each other, trying to figure out how to explain Christianity to these boys in as brief of words as possible since they had some difficulty understanding us. I said something about praying to one God above. I laughed and felt like a Bible beater as Carrie said to the boys, “Have you ever heard of Jesus Christ?” We never ended up decently explaining our religion as our time to leave approached and we had to exit the monastery and reboard our buses.
Carrie and I, and this boy we had just met, Caleb, didn’t get on the buses that were headed back to the ship and instead took a cab to Sabai Sabai Thai Restaurant, my favorite place to eat. Ever since eating an awesome four dollar meal on Monday I had wanted to go back and Carrie felt the same way so we excitedly returned.
We made it to the Trader Hotel with time to spare and caught the 7:00 shuttle back to the ship. Just in time to take showers and what not before the water was, once again, turned off at nine.

I didn’t have anything planned for Saturday so Carrie and I decided to venture into the city, and using the Lonely Planet I own, figure it out as we went along. So we took the 8:00 am shuttle in Yangon and from there took a cab to a tea shop. Tea shops are all over Yangon and I presume they are all over Burma as well. In Finding George Orwell in Burma the author is in a tea shop nearly every day, observing the Burmese. So yeah, it was important to me that I visit one at some point while in the country.
Carrie and I took a cab to one called Morning Star. Dozens of tables with plastic chairs were placed in orderly lines underneath a large awning. We were motioned towards a table by a young man as we approached. As we had nearly every where we went, we stood out. There were no English menus and none of the many waiters who gathered around our table new English very well so we simply asked for tea. We had hoped to try some food too but because we had no easy way to communicate it was difficult to ask what they recommended. So instead we stared at other tables, observing what was served, and pointed to a fried bread dish that a nearby family had ordered. It was fried goodness. As we drank our tea several bus boys who were about 12-years-old stood within five feet of our table, watching us. It was amusing, the waiters just kept standing near us, despite the fact that the tea shop was quite large. When we would ask our waiter a question other waiters would crowd in to assist in understanding me. A litter of stray kittens scurried around the cement ground, playfully jumping at garbage and other moving objects. I called one over and it begged me for food, unfortunately we had already finished our bread.
After the tea shop we took a dollar taxi to the house where Bogyoke Aung San lived prior to his assassination. Aung San was the leader of Burma’s independence from the British in 1948. In 1947, while leading the Burmese towards breaking away from Britain he was assassinated. In Burma he is looked at as a hero. His daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi ran in the 1990 elections, representing the National League for Democracy. The standing government thought it had eliminated all forms of opposition and allowed the 1990 elections because they thought they would win. But they didn’t. Aung San Suu Kyi won the election by a landslide. In reaction, the military regime refused to recognize her victory and instead put her on house arrest. She has spent most of the last 15 years on house arrest with soldiers guarding her home and has been released for short periods of time only to be exiled once again.
Okay, sorry, but it’s important that you know the story. It’s a huge part of Burma. The government doesn’t let any of the newspapers write anything about her and she is rarely referred to in public because her name is basically another word for democracy, a topic shunned by the government.
So we went to the museum in his home, knowing that it would be censored and contain skewed information. When we entered we had to sign in, telling our nationality and profession, for government purposes I’m guessing. At the most, ten other people had visited the museum in the last week, and they were all Europeans. The empty museum contained pictures of Aung San and his family and some antique furniture, but little else. Aung San was honored in the museum, but more for his work towards gaining independence from Britain and not for his work towards democracy in the country. In fact, nothing was mentioned about democracy. It really was a horrible museum, they were several sentences written next to each artifact, and excerpts from some speeches he gave in the past, but that was about it. I hadn’t expected much though and went more to view the distorted interpretation of the past than anything.
I asked one of the women who was sitting at the doorway of the house, collecting money from the one to two tourists who come daily, what happened to Aung San’s other two children. She wasn’t sure and I was having trouble understanding her so she called over this elderly man who appeared out of nowhere. He walked slowly with a cane and his tan skin was covered in deep wrinkles. His voice sounded like that of a 50-year smoker. He tried his best to answer our questions. Carrie asked when Suu Kyi was born and after much thinking he answered, “1952.” Her father died in 1947 so I knew he was wrong and called him on it. Upon realizing his mistake, the old man laughed hysterically, placing his hand on my shoulder to regain balance. I don’t think we ever got a definite answer but it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Aung San’s house is located a short walk from a busy road, so after visiting the museum the two of us walked through the heat down the gravel road that was surrounded by trees and simple Burmese hut-like homes. Several locals passed us, carrying produce items they hoped to sell to the people living in the area. Our taxi driver from before was parked at the end of the road, waiting for us although we hadn’t asked him to.
We next went to a Yangon hotel that has a restaurant on the 30th floor, hoping to get a good view of the city. After checking out the lookout point we went down to the tenth floor where the spa was located. Word was that it was super cheap. For $2.25 each the two of us got a manicure. It was awesome. I have nails now so it was a first for me. Several other SAS girls were in the spa as well, receiving cheap massages and hair cuts.
Carrie and I headed to lunch at a restaurant that serves traditional Myanmar food before heading back to the Trader’s Hotel, where Carrie hopped on the 3:00 shuttle back to the ship. I didn’t want to go back yet and was alone so roaming the city wasn’t really an option either. Instead, I went back to the cheap spa and got a pedicure for a little over three dollars. Crazy how inexpensive it is, huh? After the pedicure, I had an hour to kill before the next shuttle left so I walked in the direction of Scott Market, down the busy sidewalks full of book stands and fried Burmese food. I walked around the market for a bit before heading back towards the shuttle pick-up. An Indian boy approached me and started a conversation. As I was purchasing a poster from a vendor he asked for some money to eat so I gave him the 500 kyat in change that I had just received. He continued following me, but now he was singing my praise loudly, letting everyone know his appreciation. 500 kyat is the equivalent of 50 cents, I don’t feel like I really did that good of a deed.
On the shuttle ride home, I read The New Light of Myanmar newspaper that I had just picked up from a sidewalk vendor. According to Finding George Orwell in Burma: The Myanmar Press Registration and Scrutiny Deparment (PRSD) has eleven broad rules outlining what subjects cannot be written about. Among other things, they forbid:
Anything ‘detrimental to the ideology of the state’
Anything which might be ‘harmful to security, the rule of law, peace and public order’
Any ‘incorrect ideas’ and ‘opinions which do not accord with the times’
Any descriptions which, though factually correct, are ‘unsuitable because of the time of the circumstance of their writing’

I was really excited to read the thin paper which resembles Galena High School’s yearbook The Spyglass. The headlines consisted of pro-government stories and stories about the Myanmar badminton athletes as well as some international news. On the top of the second page a side-box was headlined “People’s Desire.” Underneath it read:
Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views
Oppose those trying to jeopardize the stability of the State and progress of the nation
Oppose foreign nations interfering in internal affairs of the State
Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy

And that sums up the Myanmar government. Reading the paper and having a material example of how oppressive the government is made my day.



My last day in Burma was spent doing an SAS trip in a local village. Our buses dropped us off about thirty minutes away from the ship where we immediately paired up and hopped into pony carts. There were a line of them, patiently waiting for our arrival. Jill, a girl I had just met, and I bounced in the wooden covered cart as the large rickety wheels of the vehicle met potholes and other obstacle in the road. During the ride Jill was telling me that her tour guide said that we are often referred to as the “Hello people” obviously because we’re always saying ‘hello’.
The carts dropped us off near a local market where we were given thirty minutes to roam. The village market was much different than the huge Scott market located in downtown Yangon. I don’t really know how to describe it as it was hectic beyond belief and filled with such a variety of produce, much of which was covered in flies. There were stalls selling fresh flowers, men walking around with dead chickens (don’t worry mom, I didn’t get the avian flu), and countless Chinlon balls hanging from the tops of stands. As we walked through the crowd of locals I was hit with a horrible stench of what smelled like throw-up. I tried my best not to make a disgusted face as the strong odor that came and left, crept up into my nostrils.
I’m glad I got to see a local market, but by the time we reboarded the buses I was ready for our next destination. Beads of sweat had been dripping down my back the entire time we explored and by reboarding the air conditioned bus I was given time to dry off.
We were driven for a few minutes around the village before unloading once again. Dozens of trishaw drivers stood along side their bikes. Each SASer sat down in a small wooden seat that was connected to the bicycle. For the next five to ten minutes we rode around, being pulled by these trishaw drivers, many of whom were significantly smaller than the average American person. We reached a slight incline and each driver jumped off their bike, pushing us uphill. For most of the ride we sped down a bumpy road, and yes, I was scared. The trishaw didn’t look like the safest mode of transportation available and as the wooden seat vibrated from the scattered gravel on the road, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if a wheel broke off. Needless to say, I was very relieved when the ride was over.
The drivers dropped us off in a village neighborhood. We walked around for a bit, waving at children who ran out of their homes to stare at us and then had to reboard the trishaws and travel back to our buses. The rest of the trip consisted of us visiting a tea shop and a Catholic church. The tea shop served us Chai tea that tasted much different than what we were used to in the states. Several pastries were placed on our table, including a roll filled with red beans. I eventually forced myself to try it. A television screen played music videos of an Asian “J-Lo” singing her rendition of “Summertime Blues” in a foreign language, presumably Burmese. Everyone was noticeably dying from the heat and, in turn, we were handed straw fans to use while we waited for our call to reboard the bus.
I was back on the ship by 1:00 in the afternoon and at 2:00 I boarded the shuttle for Yangon. Once in the city I met up with my group of girlfriends and we rode taxis to Sabai Sabai. It was important to us that we eat there one more time before leaving Burma. Unfortunately, it was closed. So we settled for a different thai restaurant in the city and after eating, went back to the Trader’s Hotel where we took the packed 5:00 shuttle back to the MV Explorer.

Although everyone had to be back on board by 9:00 pm, our ship didn’t leave until the next afternoon as we needed to exit through the river canal, or whatever it was, during high tide.

I loved Burma, or Myanmar. Because the country has not been a stop for previous Semester at Sea voyages, and because the United States has enforced sanctions, few Americans visit the country. Everything felt very untouched. Of course, I spent most of my time in a busy city that many people say does not represent Burma properly. But all the same, I interacted with locals and noticed the underlying government presence everywhere. From the drink called “Pop-Soda” to the no honking signs throughout Yangon, I tried to take it all in because who knows when or if I will be back.

Next up is Vietnam on the 5th.

Oh and Halloween on the ship was definitely different. I wasn’t going to dress up. I didn’t want to dress up. But then Kathryn and Anna were in my room in their “Burmese twins” outfit, encouraging me to be a fried egg. So I slipped on a yellow and white skirt I have, put on a white top and tape an orange circle to my chest. Erin didn’t have a costume either so we ran up to her room, made her put on brown clothes and taped fat-type wavy strips to her and a post-it that said “Sizzlin’.” So yeah, we were bacon and eggs, clever, I know. But it worked.
There was a community college, which is what we call the educational night programs on the ship, about pumpkin and food carving. Kathyrn, Anna, Janelle, Erin, and I had two pumpkins between the two of us and spent the next 45 minutes trying to create an interesting-looking pumpkin. It was a good time and since there are no trick-or-treaters or fall leaves around, the smell of the pumpkin made it actually seem like Halloween for me. There was a costume competition later that night too and everyone paraded around in their unique costumes.

So yeah, everything is going great here. People have stopped emailing me! But I’m doing well so it’s all good. But I do miss updates. Hope all is well. Much love.