uhh ummm so

I'm in Vietnam!!! oh my god it's the best place in the whole world! I can't even wait to tell all about it! I'm at our hotel right now, 6$ a night, and I accidently turned this web page into Vietnamise, so.. we'll hope I can post it, BECAUSE I LOVE IT HERE! ok i've only been here one day and today we're going out to see the tunnels and a temple and a little more rural so I'll let you know how I like that before I move here. Will write later!

China! thinking all along about Moulin

So my China trip began one very rainy day in Qingdao, our ship cleared pretty early but my trip didn’t leave until noonish, but I didn’t get off because it was a long walk to the port terminal, and as I have mentioned… I did not bring proper rain gear… and might I also mention, my mom was right yet again, always right that one, SAS trips were not quite as good as going independently, though as I will explain to you awesome none the less because they brought you to all the best restaurants and temples and mosques and the wall and the solders and museums and shops and explained everything with a lot of history and gave inside information I never would have known and yeah, it would have been better with a smaller group of friends, but would have taken weeks to organize and costed much more. And I have to say really the only down side was not being able to walk around and spend my own time at a few big sites, though if not on the tour I would have seen/experienced less than half of what I got to do, so China rocks.

Though honestly it was so polluted! I had a very hard time really being psyched about being there for awhile, I mean I was enjoying everything, but pollution was overwhelming. And smoke, smoking was allowed everywhere but airplanes it seemed. But on my trip we stayed and ate at some really nice places, others on SAS had a completely different experience, they saw the rougher side of China, I saw tourist sites in China and four star hotels in China and road around on buses from place to place and looked out my window – the biggest thing I’m taking away from this trip was the CRAZY mix of economically developed and very poor, lights and skyscrapers and SoHo Beijing, to women on the back of loaded trailers pulled by bikes on the freeway! I was also overwhelmed by the amount of people, once we were stopped at a light and slowly the amount of bikers packed in next to us – also stopped, and there were just so many! And some with women sitting on the back and some on cell phones and just packed in and crazy. AND BEIJING IS SO BIG! Man it was just gigantic, I had a hard time loving it because it was next to impossible to make sense of. I’m sure had I been there longer I’d figure it out but there for 2 nights I never had a single idea where I was, I was bused around and at night took cabs, sometimes it took like an hour to get from one place in the city to another, crazy.

--- So anyway, I should get on to talking about my trip – I just want to say that I thought about Moulin practically the whole time I was in China. Everything I saw I related back to a cartoon Disney movie. Even on the Great Wall I wasn’t like ‘ahh I’m on the Great Wall!’ I was like ‘man this would have been hard for that guy to run up to light the fire when the Huns attacked.’ And was picturing a lot of cartoon anchors attaching to the wall and all that. haha. so really it didn’t finally hit me completely until actually the last day in Xi’an. We got dropped off in the city center (Xi’an is surrounded by a city wall – though it has expanded beyond it – in the center is a bell tower that would ring when they were closing the gates and one had to come back inside… or else I guess) and as we were walking to the tower we walked down between these two roads and there were all these lanterns and people and I was like ‘whoa, it feels like we’re in…’ and I was thinking India or something (because we have all built India up as this really third world old foreign place), and my friend says “China?” and it was like… yeah. hahaha, well Xi’an is an ancient city and they have some regulations to keep things still old and stuff and there was a ton of development (a mcdonalds and a starbucks on that street) but it’s too bad I didn’t really feel like I was in China for so long but I’m glad it eventually came to me.

--- so rainy Qingdao day, and I was very happy because a friend of mine, Christina (my neighbor on the ship not Christina from Japan) was on my trip! And we became China traveling buddies, haha uh yeah. we sat down on bus B, which was fortunate because it ended up dictating our whole trip – there were like 80 some people doing the Beijing/Xi’an trip and everything was divided by bus.

Driving through this city on the way to the airport – Qingdao was not a nice city, only like 40 (or maybe 100? But I think 40) some years old it was… a trash hole. It was a small village then, now a bunch of falling down buildings with a ton of people, men without shirts on sitting in dirty open rooms with dirty air… trash everywhere, would have been hard to navigate, maybe that was only the port area though, because the airport was beautiful and nicely manicured and all that and Qingdao is the site for the sailing events of the Olympics so, I’m sure there are some nice things there.

That’s something I have to say about China as a whole, I feel like everything was in preparation for the Olympics next summer. Several major temples were under construction and there was a lot of road construction and everything, it was kind of disappointing but there were SO MANY PEOPLE, tourists and such already that I cannot imagine being in China during the Olympics and am also glad I made it to China before rather then after because thousands of people going through these places will just make them even more worn and all that. I guess I feel like things would be kind of wrecked and personally a little more special this way, haha, even though I missed out on the complete experience.

So at the airport our flight was delayed (as all 3 of them were) so we spent some time looking around at all the crazy things, like bagged fish as airplane snacks, ice cream bars for 40 cents, holes in the floor for toilets only and no toilet paper (my eddie bauer purchased supply has come in handy).. etc.

Their flight system is crazy it’s like delay delay stand around, BOARD NOW! The gate changed everyone board now at once, and we walked out on the ground, all got in a little bus, and drove what seemed under 50 yards to our plane. I like walking up steps to planes but I’m not going to lie I was and still am a little nervous flying in foreign countries. Like elevators in Japan that have no sensor to stop closing, I really just don’t know the standard of these planes, and I know they’re fine and safe and all that but every time we were in turbulence… it was scary.

So we got to Beijing a little later then expected but it was still light out for awhile and we got to look around a lot, I was especially amazed by the construction methods, setting the roads and the sidewalks they did by hand! Like I saw this guy hammering in a tile, and the freeway construction, very manual! I was impressed. Our tour guide was named Nancy, she was really nice and funny. She brought us to a Peking duck dinner at a place called Hepingmen Quanjude Restaurant. Apparently it’s this really great/famous place and when George Bush Senior was in China he ate there, (they called him Daddy Bush, haha) but it was this 7 floor restaurant (we were obviously on a fairly touristy flour, all European and American people, but there was a ton of really good food, mostly duck dishes. They continuously bring food out and put it on a lazy susan like thing and everyone shares it. Also a cook comes out and carves duck right in front of you. Also every meal with chop sticks!! It was hard for awhile and even had some hand pains! hahaha, but I think I’m pretty good and warmed up for Vietnam (which by the way is TOMORROW! And we’ve had all our preports and I have to pack and stuff and we’ll actually be off quite early, so I’m kind of distracted while writing this, sorry!)

Our hotel was called the Jianguo Qianmen Hotel, my roommate was random, a really pretty girl form CA, she ended up being really really cool and smart and nice and we got along well so that was definitely good. It was a really nice hotel, some of us, myself included were on the 8th floor – which ended up being the VIP floor, so we had nice rooms and it was excellent. A bunch of us spent the night just walking around the general area and hung out for a bit where a guy was singing and playing guitar, he was Chinese but singing quite a few American songs, he definitely should have been on an American Idol show, I’d have voted for him, but it was pretty low key so I left early to go to bed.

Every morning there was a continental Breakfast at the hotel, it was good, you could get normal stuff like toast and eggs, you could also get noodles and… just lots and lots of really weird stuff. But I ate a good breakfast and tried some stuff, to be good and strong for our venture up the Great Wall! We were in the “Ju Rong Guan section” it was really packed with tourists so was kind of overwhelming but was defiantly very cool, the hike up was difficult. To say the least, some steps were really deep and some small. You would keep thinking you were at the top and then would see another tower above you.

It was so beautiful, the whole way up. We would climb, stop and take pictures all around us, climb, pictures, climb, look around. Also on the way up were vendors and stuff, I actually bought a Great Wall shirt up there, but waited for the way down to get it. When we finally got to the top it was really cool, you could see the great wall far far away from us, and it just stretched forever and ever. I wish we had the time to go along it a bit more or see it in a different area. It was hard to feel like it stretched all across China because we were just in this one jam packed part. It was surreal being on it though, I felt like it wasn’t real kind of, like the great wall is real and it’s real in other places, but here because there are so many millions of people on it – that it must have been replaced for tourists, like there were hand rails and stuff, which obviously were necessary, but, yeah that’s just how I felt I guess. But it was really cool and I very much enjoyed the walking and it was really rewarding to get to the very top and be able to see all over and yes, breathtaking even I would say!

After we went to another traditional Chinese lunch at Dayi Friendship Restaurant, it was a cool place to go because they had all these genuine crafts and jewelry, certified by… I don’t know the government I think? haha but yeah, again with the lazy susan thing and really good Chinese food and we were kind of pressed for time and I have discovered I am not good at bargaining or good at saying no at all, but yeah I bought a vase there, it was really cool because before eating they showed us how they made these really pretty vases with intricate designs all by hand and in all these steps, so cool the level of craftsmanship in all these things, like these people are artists! But here they are working in a restaurant for tourists, not looking very much like artists or being paid like artists, but so beautiful! I took a lot of pictures.

Next we took a tour of the summer palace. It was great because being on the bus we got a lot of information on the way and learned a lot of stuff we wouldn’t have otherwise. The palace was cool, it’s where one of the emperors wifes or daughters or concubines or something lived, and she was really beautiful and musical and smart and thin even though she was served meals with 136 courses – though I guess she only ate a very small amount of each, according to ol’ Nancy. But yeah it was a very beautiful palace, on a large man made lake, carved out to look like a peach… which I think means long life, and people were boating on it and I wish we had had time to boat but we didn’t! we did however run into some fell SASers and that was nice. It was hard to really appreciate the palace because we had to stay as a group and there were a ton of people there.

We had the option that night of going to an acrobatic show which I did and am so glad, it was really cool, and there were a ton of Chinese people there watching, our few SASers were the only non natives. There were contortionists, and rope climbers/swingers, flip doers, this ballet act done on top of this guys back, ah I just though it was so so cool. We ate popcorn while we watched too.

That night we had free, a bunch of us ended up at an all you can eat pizza and Chinese food place. hahaha. It was definitely not pizza as you would expect, but crazy weird pizza, and all the food was crazy weird, but it was only about $5 and was definitely interesting. After dinner we went to an area we heard was fun at night. There were some strange places but we eventually went into one called a disco bar and it was really funny because two Chinese people were dancing on a stage, the man very scantily clad! Haha but mostly it was fun because we saw a lot of other SASers, then we ventured elsewhere to a place called Blu and there… there…. I RAN INTO MY FRIENDS!!! Ah it was so awesome. I have decided that the best thing in the world is to run into your friends in foreign countries. Because it’s like how could this happen, what are the chances! So we screamed and hugged a bunch and it was wonderful and we also danced a lot, so all and all – very good night!

Every morning we had to be on the bus by 8am – with a 6:30 wake up call!! ahhh. So right away we headed to the Temple of Heaven. And it was cool because it was in the middle of a park, and I guess in China a lot of people are retired, so they spend a lot of time doing exercises in the park! Which was so cool to see, a whole group doing dances with ribbons and practicing with swords and doing tai chi, very cool! the temple was big and round and very pretty and up these really cool carved steps, and the coolest thing was this very old cool thing in the middle of a city, you could see big buildings all around it in the distance. The building was cool but the coolest part was the park.

Next was our very much awaited tour of Tiananmen Square, well awaited for me. and this was what sucked the most about the tour, we hardly got to spend any time there! We were in and then out again, I didn’t really look around much, didn’t get to walk around by myself, wait in line to see Mao, nothing! So I was disappointed about that, but we had a schedule to keep I guess and headed over to the Forbidden city. We had 2 hours in there, with a cool audio tour, but a lot of it was under construction…

Ah! I have so much to talk about but it’s almost midnight, I haven’t packed, my roomate’s asleep and we’re porting really early tomorrow and we’re (me Jackie Lauren) are getting picked up right off the boat by a friend of hers living in Vietnam! So I’m just going to out line and hopefully fill it in later.

One of the coolest parts of the Forbidden City was this giant rock formation with a pagoda at the top, and once a year the emperor and all his concubines would hike up there. The rock formation was a collection of rocks they just piled on top of each other and also carved some animals in there.
We had lunch at a place called the Afanti restaurant, it looked like a lot of fun at night – I guess you’re supposed to dance on the tables at night, but during the day it was good food but kind of… unsettling, we had so much warning about getting sick on the food and this was the one place – until the end – that I felt sick after.

Our flight to Xi’an was very much delayed, but we were served a meal on the plane!! Which is so strange, but it was surprisingly good! It was bad because we were served so much food on this trip! Even though we arrived late they still took us to dinner because it was our ‘one chance’ or whatever to experience the famous Xi’an Hot Pot, and they kept the restaurant open for us and all that, it was really cool, everyone gets their own pot of boiling water (very packed into each other and dangerous!) and you cook your own noodles and vegetables and meat and stuff, tasty!

After we checked into our hotel and my roommate and I had a long good conversation and then went to bed! It was very important to be well rested for the Terra Cotta Warriors!! We stayed at the Jianguo Xian Hotel

Breakfast at hotel – this insane boy had the same shirt on as me ( a great wall shirt) so I was kind of pissed. Also there were some personalities on the trip definitely driving me crazy, like this really unintelligent girl that followed me and my friend around. Haha soooo the first place we went was the Big Wild Goose Pagoda – it was really cool, 7 levels, the picture of me with the Buddhas! Haha there was the big pagoda and all these little statues and very natural and cool, I lit candle there for my family, it was so peaceful! There was music coming from somewhere and gardens and birds in cages. Very cool, I got sad and missed everyone! But I liked being there.
Next we went to the Shaanxi Provincial Museum – which I went through with the tour leader… the new tour leader’s name in Xi’an was Shirley, it was a good idea to go with her because I learned a lot, it was a cool place and I just kept thinking how if I had done China indy I would have never made it there. So cool.

Next we went to a silk factory, learned some silk history, saw some girls at work, saw a silk fashion show… haha it was pretty funny, then of course had the opportunity to buy silk – but only in comforter and clothing already made, I couldn’t buy my mom silk to make stuff with! Here is where I had the best noodle I have ever had in my life. The places was called the Qinjintang Restaurant and it was inside the silk place… home of the hand tossed noodle or something like that? Anyway, this noodle (and I only got one) was the best noodle I have ever had, I don’t even know! Don’t even know how to explain it! I think it tasted like a donut or something, but that could be really off, it was just so good I could have died and been very happy. Haha. Seriously.

Then we went to the Terra Cotta Warriors Museum! And I was so pumped up and we had so much lead up to it that I thought it was going to be anticlimactic, BUT IT WASN’T! AHH it was so so so cool. We got to spend like 2.5 hours there. So crazy thinking they are everywhere so many, under you probably, cooler then the wall maybe, every single soldier is different, different heights, weights, faces, clothes, EVERYTHIng!!! Ahhh so so so cool.

Ah I need more outlying because I’m falling asleep.

After that we went right to the “Spectacular Tang Dynasty show and dinner” it was cool but really touristy, there was ribbon dancing, some cool musical stuff, this guy that did a crazy whistling thing with his mouth. It was cool, the dinner was all these courses one after the other, I sat at a table four girls, we laughed a lot and had a good conversation and it was a good night

That night I sat around for a bit, then did karaoke with some SASers and one random Chinese girl in this basement area of our hotel that I swear to god also could have been a brothel, in the basement of our hotel, it was nuts, I’ll explain more later.

Our tour was kind of lame because it was lead by the librarians… haha they were really sticklers on everything and not very good at leading or directing people. Also I have never been surrounded by so many brats! There were a lot of really rich kids, some so much so that they bought their own plane ticket to Hong Kong early despite already having paid big bucks for one just a few days our hours later! But to each their own I guess.

The last day we could spend the morning for ourselves (sleeping/shopping… whatever) or with the tour, so I of course went with the tour and am really glad that I did! After breakfast, I had an omelet! Yummm we went to a place called the Forest of Stone Tablets Museum, it had some really cool stone statues and thousands and thousands of tablets with writing on it, I think it said morals and stuff, obviously I could read none of it… butttt. It was cool, and peaceful, and one side had all these carvings on top of stone posts (see picture), after posing for this picture I found they were horse posts… but very elaborate cool horse posts! So, it’s a good picture if I do say so.

Next we went to a Calligraphy lesson ! which was awesome, we learned how to make a bunch of Chinese characters and wrote a few sentences, the teacher was really cute and spoke no English, I enjoyed myself and yeah.
We had lunch at a top floor hotel restaurant – I think it revolved but was… not turned on or something, but there was so much pollution and construction going on the view wasn’t too awesome anyway, but it was an okay meal, in Xi’an we found that almost everything had or had the option of having these little tiny shrimps in it! Ahh not my favorite. Well maybe they weren’t shrimps, they were these very small white animals with black eyes. Gross.
That day we
Tour to bell tower and peoples square
Tour muslim quarters and the Great Mosque
Shoped a little – I got an unsweetened iced tea from starbucks…
Airport to Hong Kong

Bah, I’m upset I’m so lame! I’ll try and fill it in asap. This sucks because I’m sure to forget…. :( and I feel like this entry is not very good. : ( I didn’t even talk about the people in my group or anything.. mmmm oh well!

It’s the morning and I just exchanged 100$ US for 1,600,000 dong. Oh my god. I’ll be released into Vietnam in 40 min and I haven’t packed or washed my face! Haha uhhh gross. <3

By the way I just looked out the window for the first time and we are definitely going down a river… not an ocean! Ah I have to go see.

China pictures

some pictures to get you excited! I'll explain later... :)

Hong Kong!

Okay okay I am a whiney brat, Hong Kong was awesome, I’m going to talk about that first because it was yesterday and China is 5 giant long days to talk about, so, our boat was ported IN A MALL! A mall with like over 700 shops, it. Was. Awesome. AAWWESOOMMMEEE. Haha, so we got bused back and into the ship by about 1. and every time we enter the ship we have to be searched, all our stuff, walk through a metal detector, that whole thing so that no one’s trying to sneak on a samurai sword or alcohol or anything, so that can take a long time. my frustration for the night comes from the fact that I had been building Hong Kong up in my head all week as this wonderful place where I would see all my friends again and we would go out and have a lot of fun, but we got back so late it was just me and this girl, and we didn’t know were to go and if it was safe or whatever and it was pouring rain so yeah, internet café, but then we went back on the ship and ran into some people kind of knew and they also had gotten back late so we decided to head out with them, 2 boys and 4 girls and they were a really good and funny group, so for awhile we ran around and around in the rain trying to find an atm so we were sufficiently wet before we set off for an area we were told was fun, but this was a Sunday night at like 2:30 sooo when we got there… we saw no one really, so ran around in the rain some more and then went into this mall – all of their malls are open! Not the stores but the buildings - just open! In the middle of the night! 24 hours a day!

I’m not explaining very well how awesome Hong Kong is yet, like the port is the center of the city there’s the island of Hong Kong and we were across the port on… this area that starts with a K anddd yeah it’s surrounded by amazing beautiful lit up buildings and all that and it’s perfect, haha, but so we were ported on the K side, and that is were we were trying to find some fellow SASers, and we had a funny nice cab driver who, despite our first impressions and therefore cab discussion, did speak very good English… haha. SO, here we were in this new giant amazing mall (all of Hong Kong was a giant amazing mall and it was amazing.) when we ran into some natives, who told us the place we had to be was Hong Kong island, haha and they came along with us.

So the ferry was closed but there are underground tunnels you can take, so we did and we went to an area that some sasers had been coming home from when we were leaving. And I have to describe this right because it was wonderful, we got out of the cab and then kind of had to walk down a hill and we saw tons and tons of people –SASers and other foreigners and Hong Kongians… haha, all dancing in the street in the rain! And it was like brick street and it was kind of secluded and music was playing and everyone was dancing and singing and (a lot were kissing… haha not me though, :( though I do kind of have a crush) anyway the song on when we got there was an American classic and it was… well it was like magical that it was so cute and perfect!

Also Andre 3000 was there, but I didn’t see him for some reason, but, it’s worth mentioning because that’s pretty cool, but the place actually closed not too long after and no where else would let us in because we were too wet… haha so we… well we essentially kind of walked all around and saw the whole city and then took a taxi over to Wan Chi (I think it’s called, it’s an area of HK) and walked around there for a bit, I was happy about that because the next day I wouldn’t have gotten to see it! I had read a book this summer that took place there.

So we got back to our mall port at early o’clock so I had a breakfast of a sausage mcmuffin at this crazy basement 24hr MacDonald’s. So I know it doesn’t really sound like anything too special but I was just SO happy the whole night because I got to do something! And it like defied all the odds and I was out and in Hong Kong with cool people having a good time :) So really it was like the best night I could’ve had. Very very wonderful.

Hong Kong really was so cool so it was upsetting not to get to spend more time there, and it was rainy literally from the time the boat pulled in (so I’ve heard) until a few hours before we left. I spent a tooonnn of money though so I guess it’s good that I got out of there, though it would have been nice to spend some time at the beach, friends who went to HK early spent some time windsurfing and all that! But I spent my day well, I got up at 8 because I had the only FDP that I signed up for (Faculty Directed Program) and listened to a speaker, a business man from America who lives and works in HK talk about economics, and it was cool, interesting, only lasted a little over an hour. I learned some good stuff. Haha. I really enjoyed it though because this guy graduated with a liberal arts degree, did Teach for America for 2 years, did temp work for a few years and then got into business in some other country and then Hong Kong, so it gave me hope that even though I don’t know what I’ll be doing or what my degree will be, I can pretty much apply anything anywhere and will eventually find something good.

Also ! just before that the student life director (who knows my name – which is I think why she did this) asked me if I wanted to go to a special reception at 7 that night on the ship for this famous guy who’s done a lot for the SAS program and also is responsible for like… starting Hong Kong, seriously. Haha so I had to be back on the ship and dressed up by 7.

Meaning I had 8 hours in HK, so then I decided to take the day by myself, I didn’t really know where my friends were and shopping is kind of a one woman job, I had looked a lot at my book and had places I wanted to make sure I made it to, and I don’t know it seemed like a good and easy place to experience by myself. It was good because I might have been rude to others on so little sleep and others may very much have annoyed me… haha. The only down side to this was I didn’t take many pictures, because it would have been weird for random blonde girl to stop on the street and take a billion pictures, though I did take a few.

I set off around 10 and took the Star Ferry across the harbor to HK island. I was definitely the only white person on it, but it was very cool and very cheap. It was pouring almost all day but it’s really cool because there are billions of skyways and covered walkways and signs pointing everywhere, (ahhh Hong Kong is SO COOL!) in English first then Cantonese, which was so cool and easy, though I did manage to get lost for a fair amount of time. But yeah, by the way Americans, English, Irish, Australians, Canadians, other English speakers… So lucky! Man almost everywhere (so far) people speak our language and we are so so so lucky. And HK was filled with white people, almost all business people. So that was definitely different then all the other places we have been. Downtown at least, when I went up the peak of the mountain it was mostly Chinese and European tourists again, though all employees seemed to speak English.

But yeah, so immediately my mission was shopping. Hong Kong has no taxes on anything shopping related other than cosmetics and cars (90-150% of the cost!! !! ahhh) . So I spent a lot of time trying to find this one building that my book told me that though not a major mall, had designer stuff on clearance on floors 4,5, and 6. And I was kind of overwhelmed because I didn’t feel in place walking into some of the billions of really fancy stores, but in my search I can across a store mentioned in my book of a Chinese Designer, and decided to check it out, and was very glad that I did, because it was really cool, like a modern twist on traditional Chinese clothing. I wanted to buy my mom this really pretty sweater for $400 but settled on something I could afford, for myself (haha), an umbrella, and it’s really cute, and was highly necessary. :)

They directed me on my quest (stair case about 5ft away, hehe), here again I was very much the non-native though people spoke some English. Only being in Hong Kong under a day I didn’t pick up ANY of the language, at least in the other countries my knowledge extended to hello and thank you, but Cantonese has two thank yous and I guess that was just far too confusing for me. Anyway, After spending a great deal of time in different stores I walked away with a sweater and a tank top. : )

By this time I was hungry, and it had been in my head to sit down to a nice lunch on “the peak” Hong Kong is a beautiful city of lights at night, of cool buildings and ships by day, and just behind them huge green mountains. One can get to the top taking a tram, very cool. So following the signs, using my umbrella and the overhangs found my way there. Even though it was a rainy day the view was still phenomenal, I walked around the top a bit, then sat down for the best lunch ever (I took a picture) I went to a coffee’ish shop, got a heated foccocia (sp??) sandwich, a brownie with 4 little marshmallows on top, and some grapefruit juice. And I ate it in front of a window on top of Hong Kong. : ) It was great.

Sooo up there, there were some more shops and I made my last, biggest, though cheapest purchase. I got a long-sleeved white and silver shirt dress, gray leggings, and this gold thing that’s really cool, it’s like scarf shirt’ish with buttons on it, you can wear it like 5 different ways.. anyway very stylish. haha, but this was the only part of my day were I felt sad alone because a big group of SAS boys walked by (the only SASers I saw practically all day) when this lady was wrapping the thing around me… and they were like “it’s gorgeous! Buy it!” embarrassing. Ookkayy, I wanted to make it to this giant Buddha, but it was on a different island and those who went spent all day there, so I cut my losses and did some more walking, in the rain, with all my bags, satisfied and done with my shopping, went through the square, which was cool, had some nice art in it, I took a few pictures, and then headed back to the ferry and the boat.

So after showering I met up with my friends and we got dinner at the CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN!! inside the mall. It was like heaven. Haha I got salad and pizza and ice cream! ahhhh. But I think this may have made me very sick, as I am currently quite sick… have been all day, but it’s manageable and I’m hopping goes away before Vietnam! (I’m hoping it isn’t food poisoning from China but the fact I hadn’t had dairy for 5 days before CPK, haha in case you care that much about my health… harhar) But we had all been on different trips so it was great to chat about what we did/learned in China and our crazy stories and stuff ( I bet you can’t wait for mine can you… ?? hehehe).

I went back to this ship after dinner and went to the reception thing, it was cool but I wasn’t in the mood to drink (this was the only time I think our ship has ever/will ever have free drinks for me, otherwise a little cup of cheap wine is $3.50 ! and these were fancy and in glasses, haha oh well I took advantage of a free diet coke), and felt kind of underdressed and stupid (I was so full and also kind of drained), I talked to some of the other students there and finally met and had a good conversation about working in foreign affairs with our Global Studies professor Mac, I think I may try to double major in Communications and International … whatever that international degree is and (along with my little business minor) graduate in what like 8 years?? Haha. But, being an American ambassador like my hero would be amazing. Oh I also have to learn a language… like stat. hahaha. I use such strange words these days.

So because I was feeling kind of out of it I didn’t really want to jump in and meet the guy so the thing was cool but I was not a sparkling personality or anything. Haha, at 8 I made sure to be outside on the deck because Hong Kong has a light show every single night, music plays and the lights on all the buildings dance along. It’s really cool, haha I mean it’s not like a firework show, but it was definitely cool, also it had finally stopped raining! So it was wonderful.

After, as we had to be on the ship, we watched a few Friends episodes until 11, when we were disembarking, so went outside to watch, we walked around a bit but eventually sat down on the back of the ship and stayed as the ship pulled away from the city, it was really unbelievable. We didn’t get enough time, I’d of liked to go to the night market – a big deal, and do a few other things, but it was great there, despite the weather.

Today I was pretty much a waste of life, slept through my morning work out time, zoned in all of my classes, was sick after everything I ate almost the whole day, and lost my id card like 4 times, haha couldn’t get into my room so took a 2hour nap in my friends’ room while they both left to work out and then both showered.

Ok but then I pepped up for our Vietnam Preport – the 2 days before a port (so like every day we’re on the ship now) we have a cultural pre-port and then the night just before a logistical preport were we get like health info and times and stuff, oh also before every port we have interport students, so these two girls from Japan were on for the week before Japan, this guy from China and HK the 2 days before, and now this guy from Vietnam, and they do a presentation for us too, and they are always really interesting and cute and nice and helpful and professional and funny, and their English is worked so hard on, and yeah, it’s really cool getting to know kids from around the world.

After our pre-port (we also listened to a panel on the Vietnam War – though I typed some of this through a lot of it – I’m thinking it takes me a lot longer to type then it takes you who read to read… so I hope you like it, it’s responsible for my serious lack of homework doing, but whatever I’m a busy world traveler, who has time to read Spinoza and study physics?? Not me, plus American Psycho (I bough in China will type about tomorrow) is getting really good… haha yeah I’m reading American Psycho while traveling to China and Vietnam, I can’t put it down.) anyway, I went to a Sea TV meeting, I’m going to be the news anchor for our show between Vietnam and Thailand, any news gong on I should be sure to include? I’m really out of the loop and will only have wiki news to rely on, celeb gossip is also welcome! Email me. ebasten@gmail.com

MISS YOU! will post this in the morning (I am getting up for 6:15 kickboxing, I must! Plus we’re retarding the clocks tonight so it’ll be like 7) and I’m going to watch an episode.. or 4 of Friends season 10 and fall very much sound asleep! Whew, China took a lot out of me.

Uploading pictures is crazy

bah this takes me so long. will have to do for now, they're wasting me away! sorry they're so random.

Japan - The Amazing Race

(This is so long!)

So as we were traveling through Japan it really felt like the amazing race, because you often ran into other SASers and we started to call them, and it was like who could do Japan the hardest, see the most, the fastest, the cheapest, it was really funny. We would run to just make trains and run up stairs and yeah, it was awesome.

So we docked in Yokohama and it was pouring, it took 4 hours to get through customs it was really intense, a Japanese delegation came onto the ship, took up 3 rooms and were typing all of our passports into these machines and cross checking them and all this stuff, and we were all thermal scanned (or heat scanned or something?) to makes sure our body temperatures were normal and that no one had a cough or sore throat or else you would be quarantined and not allowed in!

The amazing race started right away as it was a rush to get your passports and get off the ship, but once we had them we all had to stand in a long line for more customs. When finially out we spent some time walking around the city taking our time trying to find the proper place to exchange our vouchers for our much needed JR Japan Rail Pass – that allowed us to travel everywhere on the rail. Instantly my favorite part of Japan were these vending machines on the road that were EVERYWHERE. Haha we even once saw 2 in the middle of the woods! Like no road up to them, behind a fence and in the woods, vending machines! They were drinks but some candies, everything from canned koolaid, to waters, to little cute pop bottles, to canned cocktails and beer, for 120Yen or about 1$.

It took us a long time to find the right train station, we got lunch – pizza in a cone! Haha the cone was crust and inside was cheese and tomatoe and meat and stuff, pretty funny, as we snarfed it we realized we were the only people eating on the street, also everytime we used a vending machine we rarely saw locals doing it and never saw a Japanese person drinking (water or pop or alcohol or anything) on the street, though we were assured by some that it was ok for us to do it.

When we found the right place to get our cards it was filled with SASers, and just kept getting more and more packed, we all sat on the floor and traded around trying Japanese candy. After getting our pass we (we being me Jackie, Christina and Tim) booked it out of there Amazing Race style, we very much felt we were winning over all the loser SASers still stuck there, haha, but yeah and we got on a short train to Tokyo!

Tokyo was amazing, it was like being in Disney land kind of, stuff everywhere lights changing and ads and people and stuff everywhere and TV screens and noises, noises everywhere! Coming out of cars saying stuff (that we obviously didn’t understand) and from buildings and… it was nuts. We got lost trying to find our way to the district we wanted to stay in but eventually found a hotel – “the Prince Hotel” near Tokyo Tower – which looked like the Eiffel tour but was taller, this proved to be very helpful with navigating out way back to the hotel late at night/early in the morning :)

I was pumped with our hotel as I expected it to be miniscule and really expensive but it was probably about 35$ a night divided between the 4 of us and really big, we spent some time taking in the view from our hotel and getting ready to go out. We went out that night in the Roponggi District we were walking around trying to find a restaurant and finally felt so hungry we were just like – lets eat here, where a woman was standing with this guy who was holding up a big sign with pictures of weird looking food, so after a 5 minute conversation of neither of us understanding either of us, they started to lead us down the street! Like we were a parade! Because the guy was waving the sign a lot, and the woman was behind and we just kept walking and walking and we were like we want to go to a nice place this is going to be a little crappy hole in the wall and we cross streets and when we finally arrive it’s really really AWESOME. We have to duck to get in the door and everyone at the restaurant is welcoming us (the parade leader had a head set) and bowing and we walk up this big staircase where we have to take off our shoes and store them in a little cubby and then the floor of the restarant is a glass walkway on top of this pretty sand artish/zen gardenish bottom and we sit on the floor in our own private area kind of and our waiter was really funny and animated and trying to speak English and help us with the menu and we ordered a bunch of traditional food and tried it all and it was really fancy and weird, I still couldn’t even tell you what we ate but it was good and then miraculously inexpensive! It was almost the best experience of the whole trip and a great way to start it off.

Another best thing about Japan is that you don’t have to tip! Haha in restaurants and in cabs- also almost everyone speaks some English and most are very friendly and helpful so we were not completely lost. I also was pleasantly surprised as we were told that Japan was very expensive, and while it was, we were able to find some good deals and stuff.

That night was a very crazy mix of culture, the first place we went to was a salsa bar in Japan that was filled with men from Africa and people were drinking white russians! Haha it was very nuts but we of course salsa’d I with our dorkey travel partner Tim from CO but Jackie with some Japanese men and Christina with some of the men from Nigeria. HAHA, I just that that’s such a crazy mix. After that we went to a crazy mix of clubs and bars and ran into many SASers, even 2 of our friends! Danielle and Casidy, which was really really exciting, while with them we met some boys from Scotland studying abroad in Japan for a few months- we danced and had a really good time with them, we went to a McDonalds and ordered a Teriyaki burger, J and T went back to our hotel while C, D, C and myself went to a few more clubs with the Scottish studiers – who took us to this really cool Karaoke place!

Karaoke is huge in Japan, we learned all about it in our global studies class the week before, you get a group – we were 10 and you go into like a pod or room by yourself, we were in this big rock room, it was crazy and we danced on the benches and sang to some old old songs and it very awesome. Then we spent the rest of the night in a club called Gas Panic (which I thought an odd title) and when it closed and we emerged it WAS LIGHT OUT! Which I thought was absolutely insane. Christinia and I decided to walk back to our hotel by following Tokyo Tower. We got back – slept for 2 hours and then started our day!

---------------------------------------- wow that’s day 1…. And it wasn’t even a full day as we didn’t get off the ship until 12… no one will read all this but I guess that’s a good thing as I tend to ramble a lot! Haha but really it was the best first Japan experience we could have ever had. ------------------------------------------------------

We got up and went to have breakfast, we ate in a place that I do not think has known Americans, it was really cool kind of coffee shop style but they brought it out – like bourgeois big but the portions! Ahhh everywhere we went the portions were SO much SMALLER. Haha. At places like this we were the fat Americans and sometimes split an extra meal. But it was pretty much just a toast shop! We got a big slice of cheese and ham toast with a little side salad. Haha it was really excellent.

A lot of our days were taken up with navigating the trains and trying to find our way to stations, so I think I’ll try to leave that out from now on, but after breakfast we spent a good amount of time trying to find our way to the Sumo tournament that was going on, we walked forever and ever, eventually finding the place where Sumo wrestlers do their practicing, which was cool because we saw a wrestler on a little bike as well as some just walking around. But a man yelled at us across the street asking us if we were lost, then he gave us directions written in Japanese to show a cab drive how to get to the actual stadium, which was excellent and so so so nice.

So! We got there and watched Sumo for about a half hour, it was really cool, I recorded a video of it on my camera! We went into the Sumo meuseum and yeah, it was cool because they are in the middle of a big tournament so later actually we saw some of it on T.V. it wasn’t very crowded that early in the day but later at night it would have been packed. Sumo was what I expected I guess but a lot more elegant and artistic, there was a lot of bowing and singing in between and the referee outfit was really beautiful and it was very ritualistic, if that’s even a word, they would warm up the same way, but not all warmed up so some must have already had matches? It was way faster than I expected, one go each for every pair, if they accidentally fell right away, like just slipped and fell over that was it, they bowed and left, the winner always did a bow on the stage, while both bowed while leaving (we bowed a lot in Japan! A lot a lot, a sign of respect and humility and all that, I really liked bowing) but yeah there were some really hard core fans, though it was fairly silent in the room, though I doubt that’s the case and night, but I noticed the fellow SASers where the only ones taking pictures, so maybe that’s not so cool.

Every where we went we were pretty much the only white people, except out at night and when we saw SASers, it was different, we also experienced discrimination! Which was very interesting and probably good for me, we weren’t allowed in a few places because we weren’t Japanese. I guess they didn’t want annoying Americans pointing, taking pictures and being confused by things, also some cabs wouldnt pick us up but again I suppose this is a good thing as we wouldn’t have been able to understand each other and we’d of end up in very much the wrong place – which happened to us on day 3, though in Tokyo we honestly had nothing but practically ease getting around.

Anyway we left Sumo to check out the Imperial Palace, we walked around the outside of it (as you can only enter on 2 days out of the year) it was really cool, what we could see of it was beautiful, surrounded by water, very straight looking guards standing in front of the entrances, really cool doctor Sousse looking trees, it was just really cool looking area, I’ll have to post a picture for better explanation.

Next we made our way to Kabukki theater – which is traditional Japanese all male theater that is like musical, we just made it – had to run up like… probably 100,000 flights of stairs, haha a lot of very steep stairs and had to sit far away from each other, but personally I thought it was really cool, the costumes were really gorgeous and their face paint and like there was a lot of singing and musical interments and it was funny, people were laughing, of course I had no idea what was going on and after when someone told me the story line mine was so opposite of the truth that it was really funny. But it was cool.

By the end of this we were practically delirious as we hadn’t eaten all day -it was like 7 and so we plopped our selves down at a fairly American/Italian place and were accidentally annoying Americans as we couldn’t stop laughing that the woman next to us was delivered 7 Doritos as an appetizer, not 2 bucket sized baskets of chips, but 7 Doritos on a plate. Hahaha, it was a lot of that, also they brought us out entirely not what we ordered but it was good and pizza and we were happy.

We shopped around a bit but didn’t buy anything, then headed back to the hotel so we could make our reservation at the ICE BAR, there are like… 7 of them, they’re absolute vodka ice bars, bars made entirely of ice, the glasses, the chairs the tables, walls, everything. And when we got there, you only can stay for like 45 min, it was really really cool, we had made reservations with some other friends so we all met up took a bunch of pictures, talked to some other people in the bar and we had to wear these big silver and white fur coats and it was really cute and fun.

This second night in Tokyo wasn’t as eventful as the first we went to a few places saw a lot of SASers then called it a night but got ridiculously lost trying to get home, got in a cab and was taken to the wrong hotel, got ridiculously lost INSIDE the hotel, for an HOUR, because all the lights were off and there were all these little escalators and turns and locked doors, and it was crazy and really scary. Haha we eventually made it home, which is good because we had to wake up early the next day for

--- ------ ---------- ---------- --------------------- -----

We woke up early to travel to Kyoto! We first ate (a very expensive) hotel breakfast with a lot of crazy food in small portions, we had little difficulty getting on the right train but unfortunately couldn’t see Mt. Fuji from it! Kyoto was amazing but we had a lot of bad luck there! Right out of the train station we got miserably lost for the next 2 hours, we went to a temple, the Himiji (I think that’s what it was I’ll double check later) temple was near there so we took a cab to see it, when we were inside it started to absolutely down pour, so our shoes outside were soaked and as we walked we got soaked and so ran into a chain Japanese restaurant and it was absolutely crazy, though the first time we actually got a good amount of water, everywhere else you got like a shot glass size of water, ridiculous. haha.

But we couldn’t adequately communicate with anyone even though we had maps and pointed to were we wanted to go, and people kept giving us maps, and it was good because we got to walk around a lot but it was just very hard, the streets there were very small, so what we would think to be an ally side street would actually be a major road, so that was an interesting experience, we had a lot of difficulty finding a place to stay, we wanted to stay in a Ryokan (spelled completely wrong) a traditional Japanese hotel, but couldn’t find one, eventually found a business hotel though, so that was good, and we could rent bikes! But they were out, so we walked around our area a little more and – this was really cool – came upon a really wide river in the middle of the city and streets where a lot of people were kind of just relaxing and in one spot it had large stones going across it in a pattern that we saw a few people walk across and we sat there for awhile, it was really relaxing and I thought about in Bikram yoga they say that peace isn’t absolute calm, it’s being calm in the midst of chaos and that’s kind of what this was. We walked across the river and I really loved that because it’s nothing we could have found in a guide book but we were the only Americans there and it was really fabulous.

We tried to find a restaurant – couldn’t. We spend 2 hours trying to find “Gion Corner” where at 8:30 they had this rundown of Japanese art for tourists that was like a truncated tea ceremony, some flower arranging, some singing, it sounded absolutely perfect. We walked around like a 6 block area for 2 hours and finally found it at like 8:25 to realize it had started at 8, BUT I learned a lesson, as Americans we do not listen, because the first guy who gave us directions gave us absolutely perfect directions, but I guess we didn’t listen and had to ask like 8 more people, we are incredible bad listeners. And also stupid.

But it was not a total bust because we had finally found our way to Gion (haha at like 8pm at night-it took us all day)! Which is the district in Kyoto where there are a lot of really old cool awesome things. It was too bad we couldn’t see it by day but walking in we were all like wow – “this looks so authentic!” like we were in an amusement theme park or something, honestly it still doesn’t really hit me that it was all REAL, haha, it was just really like magical with all these paper lanterns and cool buildings and at night kind of spiritual and then there were streets and streets of little buildings and we SAW TWO GESHIA! Which was absolutely amazing. It’s like seeing Parish Hilton and Nicole Richie walking down the street. They were beautiful and walked quite quickly down the street and wouldn’t stop and talk or look at anyone, it was awesome, we got 1 picture, and then accidentally deleted it! Haha, but it’s inside our hearts I guess.

We were a little cultured out at this point so we got Italian for dinner again and then went back to the room, planned our next day out so that this confusion wouldn’t happen again, and went to bed around 12.

--------------------- Day 4! Was a pretty very good day ----------

We got up very early so we could get some positive experience in Kyoto before having to leave for Hiroshima, we went to the Golden Pavillion, which is beautiful and all gold and we got there just as it opened so we were able to not be crowd mobbed as it is so said “one of the most photographed things in Japan” though that’s highly relative but it was really awesome, we went through the whole place fast though and took a cab to the station- which was also very positive, our cab driver had made some flash cards that he showed us as we drove by things, so it was kind of like a tour… I’m not sure how much extra he drove around but it was appreciated, we saw some temples/shrines/castles/learned about the mountain, it was great, and he wrote some simple English like school – when we drove past one, so we were having a good time with him, and then his last card said “cancer of the larynx” and then he showed us the hole in his neck! And he did their no sign which is x’ing their forearms and then mock smoked so we were kind of laughing but kind of horrified and it was insane but… we were glad to have met him and gotten the tour.
But we were wondering how the Japanese average life is so much longer then ours, as tons of them smoke. But not this guy anymore.

My guide book (Japan by Rail – VERY helpful the whole time, wrong time for Gion Corner thing though) made it clear that all trains go to Hiroshima, so of course we got on the wrong one, but not because it didn’t go there, but because it was an express super bullet train and the one train we were not allowed on with our rail pass! Ahh so we spent the whole time ducking from the conductors and standing near the bathrooms and doors pretending we were going to exit at the next stop and I for one was incredibly stressed out but we made it in one piece, fairly easily navigated our way through the bus system and got to Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

I don’t really know how to describe it there. A lot of kids had to write papers and stuff and I suppose if I did I would write about the difference between the Peal Harbor memorial – the end of that presentation is like we tracked down the Japanese ships that the planes were on and destroyed them… we got them back/justification attitude. Hiroshima was like… and everything was destroyed, we didn’t think there would be vegetation ever again, those who weren’t wiped off the earth developed cancer 10 years later and died, “A-bomb disease” they called it, the younger the quicker the onset. I would write about how unbiased it was, they didn’t blame us really… it was very: this is what happens in nuclear war, this is how many war heads there are (and we learned in class that tactical war heads – such as those used in Hiroshima are now not even in the count, they can be made as small as backpack sized. What they keep track of are bombs that the one tested made the island it was tested on completely disappear.), this is who has them and who tests them and as you can see this is why they should never be tested again. They had a big model of what the city looked like and then a big model of what it looked like after and it would have been very hard not to cry in there. I don’t think that a single person could walk away from the museum and not feel 1. sick and 2. that there should be a single nuclear weapon on this planet. I was obviously in the mindset that it had been horrible, but you don’t know until you really think about it and… in a sense see it, cause we could see it in the pictures, stories, and models and stuff, and just thinking about it now- I know that nuclear weapons are absolutely ridiculous, if I do in my lifetime get to run for office it will be on the platform or with the agenda of getting rid of ours, because the fact that we still have them, have seriously thought of using them I think it was 12 times since 1946, including last year, and tested one last year, is something to worry about.

The museum was pretty heavy, the upstairs being even more personal stories, and they had the watch that like stopped when it happened, and the shadow of the person on the steps (which they had removed from where they were and put into the museum), and the story of the little girl who thought if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would live and did but died, and ahh just everything overwhelming, so we took a break and walked around the city for awhile, which was a pretty cool city, we actually found a subway sandwiches, and ate there, it was crazy from a comparative advertisement perspective, their sandwiches were tiny and they put on 2 pickles and 3 olives and that was the picture, of these little single sliced meat sandwiches. Also there were hotdog sandwiches and fish sandwiches with raw fish and shrimp and blach, but also they had fry’s there and I tried a wrap.

But after that we walked over the T shaped bridge that was the target for the bomb and around the gardens – life did grow there again, and saw the only building that’s still standing, it was a pretty impressive looking building, it had had a copper roof that melted instantly, everyone inside it had died, but it’s structure and dome frame are still intact and it was pretty intense. There are several memorials there – the children’s peace memorial made up of cranes and billions of paper cranes, a flame that will burn until there are no more nuclear weapons, a tomb filled with all the names of the people that died, some shrines and stuff.

Hiroshima was very much out of the way but it was incredibly moving and I am very glad that I got there. – Also we ran into some SASers on a day trip there, and they all looked really clean had had their hair done and stuff and we were so sweaty (the whole time it was so so HOT in Japan) and they were just so stupid, we told them they looked clean and they said “yeah but you guys probably got like more cultured” and we were like… ‘yeah.’ and that was that. we were sweaty dirty messes but we experienced a lot.

That evening we backtracked to Kobe – where our ship was, and luckly saw two SAS boys getting on the train in Hiroshima because they knew exactly these 3 transfers we had to do and we did not, it was really great to be back on the boat for our last night and drop off our backpacks and sleep in our own beds! We showered, ate dinner on the ship, then got dressed and went out in Kobe, there a lot of SASers out including 3 of the captains – which was pretty creepy honestly but we had a pretty good time until tension that builds when you spend 4 strait days with someone you’re not perfectly compatible with kind of irrupted for me… but we went out with some other friends so I was able to vent. We also tried karaoke again, but it definitely went A LOT less smoothly because there were more of us, and it was all in Japanese, which you know, none of us knew. Haha, but then we walked home (back to the ship) and it was a really nice good walk, I walked with a boy I have a crush on for awhile. And also I vented a bit more… haha. but yeah. very good night

--------- Last Day! If you haven’t given up reading yet!! !!! !!! I actually wrote this down first… but. Yeah. --- -------- ---

The last day, so now not yesterday but the day before was awesome, we got up, had breakfast on the boat at 8, and left around 9, we (being me, Jackie, Jess, Christina and Camillo – a pretty nice but really attractive guy) walked to the maritime museum, which was this big cool architectured building that we could see from the ship, but didn’t really know how to get to, we arrived just when it opened and I hadn’t been incredibly excited about it but when we got in, which was right away, IT WAS SO AWESOME, it had all these boats that were really cool looking in it and outside of it and really detailed miniature models of boats and there was this section on boats of the future, and there was a design for this event boat that was like a sports stadium on a boat with like a water park, and it made me feel better because I was like hey, if the ice melts and we live on the sea that won’t be so bad because there will still be sports to see and watch.

And then, the other half of the museum, completely unsuspected to me, as this was the maritime museum, was the motorcycle room! And the train and jet ski room! And the airplane and dump truck room! And all these crazy interactive games and models and this big room that was like walls of TV and yeah… really it was just very cool.

So then we went and did some shopping! As we had refrained from doing so the rest of the week – here we split up as our shopping was at a different pace, and became 3 (me jess and jackie) a much better shopping number – we tried green tea ice cream (VERY gross) this became probably the only ice cream of my life I did not finish. Feeling energized we decided to try and walk to find this recommended restaurant for Kobe Beef (which was pretty much our only goal for the day apart from shopping and getting some culture) and we stumbled into this forever long street of all Japanese shops, I saw a samurai sword shop but didn’t know how I could have gotten that home to my dear brother as the ship doesn’t allow weapons.

We did stop in a hand painted plate/cup/pottery shop and it was so so so awesome, they were so nice to us and brought us out tea and were trying to speak English and I bought some stuff and they wrapped it up really nice and it was a fun time. Then we were really hungry so we got into a cap but the language barrier was such that he just kicked us right out again… which sucked… haha stuff like that happened to us kind of a lot and it was horrible and it just reiterated to me all the time what a stupid American I was and if a Japanese man got in my cab and was like take me to this place I would be like what?! Get out of my cab because we do not understand each other.

But then we found were we wanted to go on a map and pointed at it to our next cab, but that also was confusing, as we got dropped off down the street, but when we finally found the restaurant, it was. the best. lunch. ever, that I have ever had! Ahh it was so good we almost didn’t get in because you needed a reservation but somehow we did and it was like itchibans in MN where they cook your food for you on your table and you sit with some other people (which was good because we saw how to do it – ahhhh only CHOPSTICKS ! that was all through Japan though. except with the soup) but it was amazing. according to my friend that never stops talking- most beef we eat in America is like a 3 on the beef scale and Kobe Beef is a 7, it comes from… cows in a really horrific way I won’t recount as half my friends are vegetarians these days. But for those who aren’t, you haven’t lived until you go to Kobe and eat some Kobe beef, haha seriously and it was a really elegant place, and we got a little salad, and he cooked these vegetables and bean sprouts and tofu and this Japanese potato and there were these little sauces, and it was just… really cool culturally and tastily, I’ll post a picture from there later.

Ooookkkkayyy, so then we had to get some money because we were completely out and had no idea how to get back to our ship and had to get on the subway and so we had to take out a bunch of money (the minium is a 10,000 bill – haha it’s like 88$ though, but it looks really cool) so then of course we had to spend it and the rest of our day we did a little more shopping and then had to be back on the boat by 8. which is were I am now! Last night everyone talked all about their Japan adventures and I made some more friends and it was really great. Though one kid got left behind because he lost his passport, oh my god! I must not lose my passport in China.

Japan was amazing, especially in Tokyo when everything fell into place and it was very easy for us to get around, I was like Japan is amazing, I want to live here, but to be honest, after thinking more about it I believe I wish I could travel for like… 3 weeks there, I was very disappointed not to have been able to see mount Fuji, though I never thought I’d for sure be able to make it to Japan in my life I am now quite sure I have to make it back because I didn’t get to see Mount Fuji. : ) The problem must be that I didn’t have enough time there. I really loved the entire country, I experienced a lot, learned a ton, had a lot of fun, I did honestly really really love the entire trip through Japan.

China tomorrow!! My flight to Beijing is early afternoon! I’ll report back asap! : )

The Day Before Japan Posted the Day After

So! Tomorrow morning I will be in Japan! Yikes we just had our first global studies test and it was HARD. I mean honestly had a studied for days I probably would feel the same way (so I’m glad I didn’t… hehe) but yeah, it was all realative to other events like … ah I can’t even remember now that it’s been a few hours because apparently I’m blocking it from my memory because it was horrible

So my first test, the macro test, I got back yesterday, 150 out of 150!! I’m a genius, in short really I guess that’s all there is to say on it, except that as in typical emily fashion there was a bonus question that I got, and I got one of the questions marked wrong but really I think it ought to be right so I’m going to talk about it when I get back from Japan. Haha uh really there isn’t much for brag about as I basically took this class in 11th grade but… who’s keeping track. Plus I need a cheer up after my global studies test – we have 4 each is 25% of the grade, blah.

Japan tomorrow! We know what we’re doing I can’t wait to report it all back in 5 days! Then it’s two days in class, 6 in china and hong kong, 2 days in class, 5 in port 2 in class 5 in port, ah! It’s very exciting, and in between I have sea tv stuff, I’m going to have my own little show “fact of fiction” that I’m going to talk about rumors going on in the ship – I’m filming my first tonight, right now I’m making a little intro for myself by pasting myself into some pictures from around the world, and Brett’s going to help me like.. put it to music, I think I’m going to use the super Mario brothers theme, hahaha. I’m hoping it will be hilarious and not really stupid. Haha but there is a ton coming up and yeah, awesome, I can’t wait!

We arrived in Japan and have no internet on the ship and are waiting to disembark, it looks crazy out there! very exciting, but it’s raining.

So I’m back now! In China in 2 days! And it was awesome and I will write all about it detailedly but first will post this because it will never be read if I don’t, also I wanted to say that… oh the global studies test was really hard, our grades were posted, and I had Macro again today and we did learn about a more global view of economics then I ever have before so it will not just be a repeat easy class, in case you were thinking I had it easy, also today my philosophy teacher told me I was wrong (honestly can they do that? I should have dropped that stupid class but thought the prof was too nice, wrong decision!), but I guess it’s all fine because I don’t have to see him for like…. 7 more days. Ooookkkayy I’ll get on Japan now!

Oh but also, I can’t remember if I told you all that I was so awesome and not getting sick at all, until just before Japan everything got really rocky and now… NOW, well, lets just say that today I went and bought sea motion medicine for the first time, I am not immune, I have been feeling very very sick, but I’m not going to take any drugs for it, I got these bracelets you wear that apply a small amount of pressure to this spot on your wrist.

Also I want to say that I was sorry not to have the chance to have bought a calling card in Japan because I didn’t get to call anyone and not even my mom! Who I had told that I would, so Mom I’ll call you as soon as I can and may even buy a ship card. Because I spent way too much money in Japan and I DO NOT deserve any Christmas presents from you, ok ? I’ll just wrap up the things I have and will buy and can open those for Christmas. Ok so now I will talk about Japan because the learning that I do in the countries is what I am after all here studying abroad for and not so much the ship life and all that even though it’s a part of it. Haha uh I’m just rambling because it’s going to be so hard just a day later to recount the last 5.

Also my roommate is like deathly ill and I’m worried that I will become deathly ill especially because I have no typhoid or malaria medicine… mmm maybe all these kids are getting sick because they’re messing with so many prevention medications… and I alone will be healthy! Haha uh but I do think that I have a cold, I’ll have to seek out some orange juice. Ok, Japan: I will post tonight, hopefully with pictures.

attempt at pictures!

this picture is saying good bye to mexico, the second is an artsy photo I took at pearl harbor... I hope this is working!

the other two from the last blog are my friends! me and christina in the bridge being captains, and me, jessica, christina, and jackie in Hawaii!

deep blue sea

Today is Sunday the 9th! As yesterday was Saturday the 8th, and the day before that was Thursday the 6th… man that is just wicked awesome – I say wicked now as my friends are from the east, I also will probably come home to say r’s strangely. Oh ! also it’s been Olivia’s birthday! She’s probably really busy and having a ton of fun in Poland to read this but she is fantastic and I miss her and hope she has a great day!

Right now it’s about 7:30 and I’m sitting on the lowest deck in the very back of the boat… BACK AGAINST THE RAILING! scary, but safe so I don’t have to worry. And neither do you! I’m pretty happy though I wish I could pick up my ol’ phone and talk to my mom sometimes… haha I might buy a calling card so that I can do just that. I’m also wearing my glow in the dark shirt and that makes me happy always as well, haha. OH! So we have a dance tonight! Ahh I’m stressed, I’m going to wear my more fun dress, it’s not the whole boat only our sea’s, like the floor and side of the ship that I live on, but yeah! ah I have to go get dressed up, which is exciting, but stressful, heels on this rocking ship? I’ll let you know how it goes.

Oh also as soon as last time I said I was getting used to the boat we’ve had some rocky wave nights, the night before last we had some stuff fall of the shelves, but I’ve not been sick or anything. And the weather has been gorgeous! Ah I’m going to be the color of… haha I’m going to be tan.

So I thought I should mention, every B day – day’s on the ship rotate from A day’s and B’days, we don’t have days of the week really or ever a day off, we’re either traveling or in port, except like… I think a few times later on, but on B day’s they turn of all the light on the front of the ship for a few hours and you can lay out there and look up at the stars and it’s really really wonderful, the Pacific Ocean is a BIG Ocean. And there’s nothing around us for, well at least 8 miles, as that is our sight range to the horizon.

Oh BY THE WAY! The visa picture I was so promised would never be seen by anyone, not even me, is actually the picture SAS decided to use for everything, my id/room card, my picture on the wall, EVERYTHING. So, I hadn’t mentioned that yet and it’s kind of a big deal as I’d just worked out and was told that was fine, it’s not, that picture’s up on the wall!

Haha, so today I went on a bridge tour! The bridge is the front of the boat… where I guess all the action happens, navigation, monitoring the whole ship… that stuff, haha I don’t really know how to talk about it but it was really fun and we took a lot of really cute pictures of us in captain hats sitting in big chairs and looking out of binoculars… I really need to figure out how to post them! I’ll do it in the middle of the night some time when internet will be really fast because no one will be on it.

Oookkkayyy well I’m going to go get ready for my big dance party… all dressed up and that…. and I have to find my fellow Sea TV executive producers that I can’t be at out meeting tonight because I have a social engagement! Haha uh, yeah I’ll post some pictures as soon as possible so you don’t have to read my trash. : )

Update

Soooo, I keep having a bunch of hilarious thoughts that as I have them I think to myself – remember that and put it in your blog, but then I forget them and don’t have time to write or the lab is too busy to hook up to the internet… but the point is I know there are a million hundred things I haven’t reported on but now they’re almost not important or else I don’t remember or it’s not funny to me now because by night time I’m always totally tired by like 10pm, but yeah I guess I’ll just report and see where that goes. I’ve been having a lot of fun but have been kind of sad because I’ve been really unhealthy. Life kind of centers around meals and getting to know people, so it’s been hard for me to go work out or I’ll miss something… but every day I’ve been trying to eat better or work out. So tomorrow’s another try! By the way I meant Labor day last time, not Memorial day, just seeing if you guys are paying attention.

So today I had lunch with the captain! I guess every day they randomly select people to eat with the man at this special fancy reserved table. It was interesting, he’s a funny british man, but now I know he’s a pretty awkward guy, been married to a few foreign women, 4 kids, ex wife just died, he got married 3 weeks ago… some honeymoon he’s on I guess – his wife isn’t on board.. but yeah it was a good time, he was nice and I asked some good questions and learned about life of a captain – I pictured a captain driving the ol’ boat, but captains don’t do that they manage all the finances, plan the most economic route, manage the whole ship, ah that’s cool. uhh they have lunch with random passengers everyday… haha that would suck.

Oh! Hey so I’m an Executive Producer of Sea TV!! it’s the only club I could get behind, the other kids are really good filmers and editors and speak in this computer jargon that’s 100 million times over my head, and we’ve had 2 meetings already and another 1 tomorrow and then they turn to me and they’re like… what do you want to do again? Haha but I guess it’s not really like that, I wouldn’t think I’m the weakest link? I’m the writer/organizer/idea/big picture person… haha uh I don’t know, but we’re hoping to have a teaser show out Monday, our first show Tuesday, and then Wednesday we’re in Japan! Oh also Friday we don’t have, like I will never live Friday the 8th 2007, it will not exist for me, that’s awesome. There are 5 of us producers, one is a horrible girl, one is a nice cool girl, two are nice and attractive boys, so that’s nice, especially since it is a very time consuming club.

Ooooohhh hey! So I yesterday I got what some could only call… really really REALLY sunburnt. I guess on my quest to look like chocolate I screwed up, buuuttt I applied aloe adequately and am planning on getting back on my mission tomorrow, I’m going to be sick tan… hahaha. seriously.

So everyone (almost everyone) is working REALLY hard on homework… ? I haven’t been. I hope I’ll be ok I think I will be, I mean school isn’t hard at school… I don’t think I’ll be blown away here… but it’s been hard for me to concentrate on readings when there are so many interesting things to learn, also I’ve already read a fiction book and am starting another one… though I really need to stop as I have my hard class tomorrow and then a test the next day.

My test is in my Global Econ class, by the way I think 3rd time must be a charm in Econ. Haha, I mean my teacher is really very funny, and a good at explainer, but in my other classes it was simple and I figured it out, but now 3rd time it all makes perfect sense. Haha.

Every night me and my friends Jackie and Christina (I need to figure out how to get some pictures on here) go up to the top deck and do this 8 minute abs video. It’s funny because people always walk by and it’s awkward and fun because it’s abs for 8 mins and easy.

Oh hey! For the first time in my life, brace yourself for this, I do not have enough T-shirts with me! I only brought like 4 and all people wear on the ship are T-shirts… haha, well I guess I’ll have to get some.. : ) there are some pretty cool SAS shirts. I think that if I make it through a few healthy days I’ll treat myself to one… also I’ve been having my hair completely natural! Haha which doesn’t matter to aannyyoonnee, but me, but hey.

So I’ve been scared because EVERYONE that I know is taking malaria pills, or typhoid medicine, and they’re like you don’t have anything?? You haven’t had a tetanus shot in 9 years??? You didn’t get Hep A???? Ahh! It’s been very stressful. I guess my mom just doesn’t love me to get me vaccinated properly. Haha it’s so hard being “grown up” supposed to do these things yourself, we have to fill out all our entry papers today and tomorrow (ourselves!), plan our own trips… I wish I had someone telling me the best way to go through Japan and everywhere I want to see… mmm this growing up business…

MMmm well, the other day I got sad because I accidentally burned through a ton of internet minutes not knowing I was signed in… and then this computer lady (who is partners with the field office lady(who always has a shirt on that has sparkles on it)!) yelled at me like I was stupid, she’s really mean. But yeah the ship is still really nice, forgot what I’ve said about it, there’s a piano lounge that people hang out in a lot, kids are always playing, it’s really good. My roommate is nice, a lot of times we go to bed laughing and laughing about something. She’s definitely nuts though, but yeah.

I’ve gotten used to this ship like… completely I think, today I saw that it was rocking back and forth a lot but I couldn’t even feel it! So that was awesome. It’s really nice being on this boat. I could go to school like this forever, though I would weigh a million pounds, and be broke, but it would be awesome. Wellll I’m going to go to bed because I’m a tired loser, but we get to retard our clocks again tonight so another hours sleep! Also it’s laundry day tomorrow! (they do our laundry for us, IT’S AWESOME!) but we have to fit it into this little tiny bag, but yeah. Will report back soon! <3

Ho No Lu Lu Hawai'i

Yesterday I spent in Hawaii! It was short but excellent. It took a really long time for the entire boat to clear customs and finally get off but when we did, I and four other girls, we went first to Pearl Harbor. Though I had already seen it- it was good to go again, it was free and at the gift shop I bought a pin, because my mom used to collect pins from places we went and put them on her backpack and I thought that was cool, so hopefully I’ll be able to find a Croatia pin…

We had to go to the Honolulu walmart because one of the girls needed to pick up a prescription and ended up spending way too much time there, but there was a jamba juice right next door so I fulfilled my craving and shouldn’t have anything to complain about. I also saw shelves and shelves of “Maui Babe”, which is Dad’s favorite tanning lotion, So I of course picked one up. Because I have a mission, by the end of this trip I am going to be the color of rich wood. It’s going to be glorious, I’m already the color of the deck. : ) But I’m actually afraid to use the Maui Babe because it kind of gets all over and laundry is limited with my one towel… not that dirty laundry has been any sort of issue in my past so I don’t really see what the deal is now.

I got really frustrated at the Walmart (because I hate them anyway), and here I was, in one when we only had 10 hours of land and of U.S. for the next 3 months, but was soon very happy because we made it to Waikiki Beach immediately ran into the ocean!! Where we took several pictures (of us in swimsuits…) swam for a bit, dried off for a bit, and after about 45 min took off again. I was really incredibly happy to be in the ocean that I had been surrounded by for the past week. It was excellent, as I love to swim.
We ended our land time by walking around a bit, looking in some high end and some touristy stores, and then, again disappointedly, settling on a not so good, as it turned out way too expensive, weird touristy thai ! place. I mean you live and learn and I had a great day but I feel like with so little time I really wanted to “do it right” or whatever, but I guess that’s a lot of pressure to put on a place and I learned that traveling with 5 girls was too many and in Japan we currently have a group of 6 that I need to find a way to break into 3 and 3, Jackie and Christina and I have been trying to think of how to break it to the other 3 that we want to split in half, any ideas?


Anyway with Hawaii we got back to the ship with 2 hours to spare, walked around a bit and then with 1hr and a half went to get in line for the ship, which ended up wayyy longer then we had anticipated and if we are not on ship on time (in this case 9:00) we get dock time, which means that in Japan we will have to be held back for a period of time before we get to get out. So things got really crazy and out of hand, but we were kind of at the place in line where right behind us is where it was turning into a mob, but where we were it was really funny and we started chanting and clapping and stuff. We got in to the ship at 11 minutes to 9, so it was stressful and long but perfect, I even yelled at a few people who were trying to budge me… haha, but it was all in fun, until just after we got in, when it got more stressful and people were pushing and stuff, we ran to the upper deck to watch those below – about 150 people. It got out of hand because there was no structure of people out there helping, and they had pretty much told us to get onto the boat by 9 – whatever we had to do- what slowed the whole thing down was that they were only letting on 6 people at a time and many were trying to sneak on alcohol – which we’re not allowed to do! Anyway I had an ok time joking with the people around me and talking to some friends… on the phone…

We spent the rest of the night laying around on the front deck and talking to others about what they did – a lot of people went skydiving! And we just stayed there until the boat had pulled away and we had satisfactorily waved good bye to Hawaii and the good ol’ USA. Haha, well now it’s 8 solid days on the ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean until we reach Japan. Life on the boat last week and today has been good, though if I write more in this entry no one will read it… haha, so I’ll save that for later this week, I have a running list going on what I have to tell you all! We get to retard our clocks another hour today! Happy Memorial Day!