ship of wonders

God, life is so so good.

Day seven on this eight day stretch. WHAT??? I just freaked out as I typed that. How is that possible?

It’s 9:15 a.m. I woke up for breakfast. But I stayed up until 4:30 a.m. talking about life with Doug, so I am about to go back to bed. Which is fine, because today is a study day, and let’s face it, I won’t start studying until at least 3.

We had our final global studies test yesterday, THANK GOD. It was hard and made me angry but all I need is a B so I’m hoping to get that.

This last week has been absolutely fantastic. My heart is aching with the fact that this coming to an end so absurdly fast.

I’ll write about Hawaii soon, and then FINALLY finish up with India, perhaps after my final tomorrow, but for now I want to write about the talent show Greg and I performed in, like, a week and a half ago.

So we did a rendition of “No Land” and called it “On Land.” It was a compilation of three songs, “Somewhere Out There” from Fieffel Goes West, “Disturbia” by Rihanna, and of course, “No Air” by Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown. Here it is!


(Somewhere Out There)

Somewhere out here, in Pacific moonlight
We’re all reminiscing, from Cadiz to pub night

Somewhere out here, we’re all saying a prayer
The ship will do a 180, some more preports we’ll all share

But even though the end is near, the voyage is almost done
from ping pong shows to communism its been a lot of fun

And when we’ve had four drinks at night, and our inhibitions low
It’s insane to think how far that we have come since Moroccoooooo

(Disturbia)

Off the ship in Morocco, things were getting started
The port was dirty as hell, it smelled like someone farted

Bought my mint tea for a buck, that’s how I do my barter
But don’t look him in the eye.. yea….

Headed south down the coast to Namibski
SAS Swakopmund party police get angry

Wild Dog-er’s trapped in bus, man that was crazy
Rented 4x4’s… just kidding!

Partied in Cape Town
Met our very own Mavis
ate some kudu
kept our eyes open for rapists
Table Mountain
No one said it was this hard
That’s what she said

Cuz in South Africa
You can drink the water
unlike in India
Where you could end up with some
Cholera
But washing in the Ganges equals
Diarrhea… diarrhea…

Made a turn toward the east, headed towards Asia
Ladyboys in tuk-tuks creep in Pattaya

Got a six dollar massage with happy ending
Was Mauritius even a port?

Floated to Vietnam
Got a suit made in some tunnels
And rode a cyclo
to Apocalypse Now
Then to Hong Kong
Took the tram to the peak
Gotta get rid of this dong… what she said!

And then in China
saw a really big wall
But couldn’t talk about it
Or you might get arrested
But not in Japan
Where free speech is accepted
Domo arigoto
Mr. Roboto…

(No Air)

Laaaaaand!

Tell me how I’m sposed to live on land… whoooaaaa
Luke Jones don’t you understand
No laaaaand

Got us out here heading towards the US
Reacclimating’s gonna be a test
Coming towards the end of SAS
I’ll miss Les, miss Les

Explorer, spring 09!
Went around the world 108 days man it blows my mind

Tell me how I’m sposed to breathe on land
Where there’s not more women than I can stand
How will I function with more men at hand
on land on land

Got us out here in the waters so deep
without waves rockin me I won’t sleep
Saying goodbyes will make me weep
On land on land

I’ll miss you…
Les McCabe….



HAHAHHAHHAHAH. We got another standing ovation. We had TWO costume changes. First we were in sweats, then we stripped, and underneath that I was wearing the full body panda suit I bought in Japan, and he was wearing traditional Muslim garb, just picture old men in Aladdin. The next change, we stripped out of that stuff into evening wear. It was great. I love Greg, he is really one of my favorite people on this ship, and we make a really good team.

Alright that has been enough energy expended for this morning. Goodnight.

I have one more day of classes, na na na na na na.

Second Half of Japan

Second half of Japan…

We took the bullet train over to Tokyo, and the ride took about two hours and 45 minutes. And these trains go 230 miles an hour, so we went quite a ways. I was exhausted and tried desperately to sleep, even wrapped my scarf around my head to make it dark, but no sleep would be had. We arrived and stepped into a grand city of lights, traffic, people everywhere, so many signs pointing us in so many different directions.

We had a place booked at the Tokyo International Hostel, but due to really bad planning on Kendra’s part, we didn’t have the address or even the phone number of the place because she didn’t look it up in her email before we left the ship. Great. And the place had a curfew at 11, and it was around 10. We were quickly running out of time and would soon be bedless in Tokyo.

We asked a few taxi drivers to take us there and none of them seemed to know where it was. We wrote it down in English as most Japanese people can read English very well, but when that didn’t work we decided to ask someone to write it down in Japanese for us. We asked three teen-looking kids, two girls and a guy. They turned out to be a blessing of the Tokyo gods. They looked up our hostel on their phone, told us the train would be quicker, looked up our train route for us, helped us buy our tickets, and sent us on our way, telling us to hurry up. Lifesavers. City of miracles.

We got off at our stop at 10:45. Tick tock tick tock. We spotted a policeman and frantically asked him where it was, and he pointed to a large highrise very near us. We quickly made our way over, got to the 18th floor, and rejoiced when we stepped through the doors of our hostel just in time. We cancelled the other two nights we had booked there, because we had thought previously there was no curfew. City of lies. Our guidebook was a liar. The internet was a liar too. So all in all I think we each paid around $45 which is not bad for a night in Tokyo at all.

We got our room keys and listened to the rules. Shower time was over and would begin again from 6:30-8:30 a.m. You had to rent towels. Lights out at 11:30. We had a room just the four of us. Hannah and I sat on the windowsill for awhile and looked out at the city lights. Then we all went upstairs to try and get something to eat. Well, the city of future has vending machines EVERYWHERE. This particular vending machine, you could order any sort of hot food, like hot dogs, fried rice, noodles, French fries. All you had to do was put in your money, wait 60 seconds, and it would pop out piping hot. And… it was yummy.

There were only foreigners staying here, many British people but people from all over the place as well. I used the internet for 15 minutes for a dollar and sat next to some particularly smelly Argentines.

I got on facebook to put my birthday spot on my status so that all of my friends could meet me at the same place. We had decided to go to the Absolut Ice Bar, a bar made completely of ice. I had been planning this for maybe three months, and everyone knew to meet there at 11. So I googled the place to find the address… and it is closed because they are moving locations and won’t open back up again till late April. Awesome. So I write in my status, don’t meet at the ice bar, it is closed, I’ll see you all in Ropungi! No one had any phone service because Japan has all of their own phone and internet services, so I hoped I would at least run into my friends out and about that night.

By midnight I was ready to pass out, so I climbed into bed and pulled my curtains closed and lay my head down on my rice pillow and tried to get comfortable on my inch-thick mattress. I didn’t sleep well again… I lay there for hours and couldn’t have gotten more than two hours of sleep. The light was coming in when I shut my eyes.

Woke up at 8 the next morning, and it was my birthday! HOORAY! I took a shower with a rented towel, and got ready for our day in Tokyo. We stopped to eat at Denny’s because that was an exciting name to see, and we all had great and relatively cheap meals. The sausage was delicious.

All that Kendra cared about on this day was meeting up with her high school friend, who lives in Tokyo, and that basically set the tone for the day. We again didn’t plan very well and didn’t know exactly what we wanted to see or how to get there. If I could do Tokyo over again…

We picked out a couple of places in the map book that looked cool and tried to make our way to them. That was a lot harder than it sounds because we’d have to go to the JR line, have someone tell us what line to get on to get to the area, and once we were in the area, we had to try to find someone that could tell us how to actually walk there, because taxis were far too expensive.

Before we even went somewhere, however, we walked around trying to find a place Kendra could use internet, because she AGAIN didn’t use the internet that was available to us in the hostel to get to her email to write her friend about a meeting time, Very frustrating and a huge time waster. So we walked around, I kept trying to get it on my phone, legitimately a million times, until I finally got it. I stopped dead in my tracks and let her write her friend an email. When that was finally done, we got on with our day.

We decided to go to Tokyo Tower first, which is a replica of the Eiffel Tower, but taller… and in Tokyo. We could see it in the distance, so we just headed in that direction. On our way there we happened onto a beautiful Buddhist temple. I stood in the courtyard and let the cherry blossoms falling off the trees blow by me. It was a beautiful sight. We washed our hands off with freezing cold water to cleanse before entering the hallowed space. The temple was mostly wooden and one of the largest I had seen so far in Japan. Outside were many Buddhist statues and other artifacts. There was one representation of Buddha that I saw most often, with him pointing with one finger on his right hand to the sky. Many flowers adorned this statue. Outside of the temple was almost like a little fair; you could buy several different types of food and souvenirs.

Inside the temple was decorated with brilliant gold, everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling, on the walls, even Buddha himself was rockin’ the gold. And, of course, the incense burned and smelled ever so sweet.

We continued onward and explored a shrine to the right of the temple, as well as a small courtyard area with hundreds of small statues of children, each one decorated with a red bonnet and necktie, and holding a pinwheel. There was something calming and even a little sad looking at them and watching the breeze flow through and each pinwheel in turn spin madly with the gust. I didn’t know what they represented, but Hannah’s blog informed me that they represent the spirit of dead or aborted children. Each statue is identical, with their hands folded as if praying and eyes closed.

I continued to wander around and stumbled on a sort of graveyard area. There was one courtyard surrounded by cherry blossoms with maybe a dozen rather large stone monuments, and I don’t necessarily know what they were for. Each one had a wooden sign near it, and many had flowers on them.

The next area I wandered into I almost certain was a graveyard, but really there is no way of knowing. There were hundreds of stone monuments, maybe four of five feet tall, with Japanese writing. They were usually smooth and glazy, and I suppose they hold urns. Many were decorated with flowers. Most had several wooden pegs propped up behind them, all with Japanese writing on them. I wish I had someone there who could tell me what I was looking at. I got one great picture of the cherry blossoms flurrying in the wind, falling all over the stones.

We walked out of that area and came along a little stream surrounded by foliage and went climbing around a little. There were so many little random beautiful spots like that in Japan.

Finally we were at the tower, which was pretty cool, just picture the Eiffel Tower painted orange and white. Outside there was this crepe shop. You could fill the crepes with ice cream, sauce, fruit, deliciousness, and I couldn’t wait to get one as soon as I was out of the tower. Also, I was on a mission to get boba tea.

We bought a ticket for about eight dollars to go up. The view was pretty awesome, but I know it would have been even better at night. I walked all the way around a couple times, checked out all the sights, and looked down at the area where the floor was clear. They had these cool video screens where you could see the view progress for 24 hours in high speed. What a beautiful city, the night view is spectacular.

After exploring, we went downstairs where they had a bunch of shops and food. I didn’t buy anything because the prices were outrageous, but I was definitely tempted. The smallest, teeniest, cheapest P.O.S. Hello Kitty keychain was eight dollars. How does anyone afford to live in Tokyo??

When we got back to the bottom, I got my very own delicious crepe filled with strawberry ice cream, strawberry sauce, and delicious banana. Yum.

I really wanted to go see the Shinto Shrine after this, but Kendra’s personal itinerary called again, and we headed to the train station to go meet her friend Mary. We caught a train to an area, met up with Mary, Mary and Kendra had their sweet reunion, then we caught a train right back to where we just came from. Annoying. Sorry for the enormous amount of bitterness in this blog, but you know what, I am bitter. Mary wasn’t that friendly, was pretty boring, wouldn’t let me use her call phone when I needed to call my friend, and she just wasn’t a good host in general. Thanks for nothing.

So we headed to the Harajuku district to see all of the Harajuku girls and their wicked style. Everything Gwen Stefani ever sang about was absolutely true. The clothes were insane. And insanely expensive. It’s basically a huge shopping district, and I had a lot of fun looking around, but I can buy expensive clothes back in the US. It was fun to explore, though. I took lots of pictures of the girls all dressed up; wigs of ever color and style, bright leggings, crazy heels, posh jackets, fake eyelashes, the works. Apparently every Sunday the “fashion gangs” come out and hang out on street corners so people can take pictures of them. I want to start a fashion gang. We would wear pajamas.

I got especially excited when I saw a girl with bubble tea! She pointed me in the direction she got it, and Hannah and Adrienne and I all got delicious boba. Birthday wish granted.

I got internet on my phone again and was so excited to see that I had a message from Chris Cooke. He went to Damien for high school and was in a band called Winds of Plague. I knew of him, he was friends with a few of my friends. He went to UCSD and became really good friends with Fran, which is where I met him and hung out with him several times. He said that we should definitely hang out and he gave me a meeting place and time to meet him. Finally, we might be able to meet up with someone fun! So Hannah, Adrienne and I left Kendra and Mary behind and headed to Shibuya to meet Chris.

We arrived a little before our meeting time and waited for a little while, until there he was with his bike! I ran up to him and hugged him, it was so cool to be hanging out with someone from home. He is studying in Tokyo for a year. He’s been there for about nine months. Next year he’s finishing up his senior year at UCSD, so I can hang out with him at home too! I thought it was so nice of him to message me, even though we have only hung out a few times. Adrienne, Hannah, Chris, and I all go to school in San Diego, so we talked about San Diego a LOT which was really nice, and I talked about Fran for about three hours straight.

He was a great host. We told him we wanted some good, cheap sushi and he immediately took us over to a place. Mary, on the other hand, had told us, when we told her we wanted sushi, that “she never at sushi in the city.” Oh.

The sushi place was pretty cool. All of the sushi was on a conveyer belt and you just picked what you wanted. You could tell the price of the dish by the plate design. Chris grabbed glasses and started filling them with tea like he owned the place, then he told us what each sushi was as it conveyed by. It was really cool listening to him speak Japanese. He had to pause sometimes when talking to us because it had been so long since he spoke English, which pretty much blew my mind. The sushi was delicious, and I tried everything, even eel. Oh and I eat jellyfish in China, I keep forgetting to write about that haha. Adrienne ate twenty dollars worth all by herself, while Hannah and I each paid about six. That’s my girl, Adrienne.

Chris took us around the area a little and showed us this one shop that was insane. The minute I walked in I saw it… a full body panda suit. I had to have it. Life just wouldn’t be the same knowing there was a panda suit somewhere in the world that wasn’t mine. So I did buy it, and it is the best purchase I have made on SAS. Second best purchase… my panda hat from China. The rest of the shop was nuts, all sorts of crazy clothes, fake nails, electronics, stuffed animals, anything you could want really.

We headed back towards the train station to meet up with Kendra and Mary, since Adrienne and Kendra had split a locker and we all needed to change clothes for the evening’s festivities. We got our stuff and got dolled up. I wore a black dress, black tights, gold heels, and little tiger ears I had purchased for a dollar to signify that I was the birthday girl.

Chris took all of us to a bar he hangs out with to chill for awhile. He doesn’t drink, but this bar is a pretty cool place and he got a couple of jobs out of the people he met there. It has a half pipe in it and is also sort of an art exhibit for tattoo artists. The current exhibit was of pictures of the kappa, a Japanese mythological monster. The kappa is kind of frog like. It has a pool on the top of its head filled with water, and if these pool is empty, it loses all of its power. When you encounter a kappa, you are supposed to bend down very low, so that the monster bows to you as well, and the water falls out of the pool. Kappas are not supposed to be violent creatures. They eat cattle mostly, though they will pick off small kids once in awhile. The drawings definitely stated otherwise, however. All of the kappa were either in a very violent or sexual setting. Interesting, though, to think about different culture’s myths and monsters.

We sat and had a couple of drinks, we were basically the only ones in there. We played Uno Stack Em, which is basically Jenga. Then the lights went dim and Happy Birthday came on, and they brought me a bowl of popcorn with candles in it and some chocolates. It was so sweet of them. I made a wish and blew them out, then we all scarfed. Next a guy did a magic trick for us, levitating a pen out of his palm. WOAH! City of magic. Everyone was really nice and we had a good time there. Adrienne told Chris about the tattoo she wanted to get, and he hooked it up with a local tattoo artist so she could get it done. They set up a time to meet the next morning. Chris was great and really helped us out.

We took off from the bar and headed out to explore the rest of Shibuya district, hoping to run into friends. We stopped into one more bar and had another drink. Every time we saw SAS kids we would latch onto them for a little, until we finally found a big group and ended up going into Club Vuenos with them, $10 including two drinks. Sweet. The place was empty pretty much except for us. In fact, the whole district seemed empty. The trains stop running at midnight, so everybody either goes home or passes out at local food places till they start running again. We are just not used to that.

There was another birthday boy in the group and him and I celebrated our coming of age. Hannah and I kept going up to the bartenders and saying “TANJOBI!” or something like that, which means Happy Birthday. I kept forgetting how to say it, though, so I kept asking people, and they would all lie to me. It was pretty funny, I’m not sure why they lied. City of lies. Anyways, the bartenders were pretty awesome and kept lining up little shots for Hannah, me, and themselves. They finally got sick of us asking though and turned us away. The club apparently got really packed with locals around 2 a.m. The night after about 1 is a little fuzzy for me, but I know I had a blast.

I woke up the next morning. Where am I? All four of us girls are in the same bed, Hannah Kendra and I lying next to each other, and Adrienne at our feet. We ended up staying the night in a love hotel, which you can rent by the hour, if you know what I mean. I had lost one of my tiger ears in the night’s festivities and was pretty sad. That was nothing, though, compared to what Hannah had lost… her entire purse. It had her passport, her camera, our locker key, and both of our train passes in it. S***.

We went back to the club and knocked, but no one was there. I was supposed to meet Win that morning to go with him to the Pokemon Store, but now we had more pressing things to deal with, so I met him and let him know I wasn’t going, then Kendra took off to go meet Mary, leaving us with Mary’s phone number. Hannah was mortified and visibly very upset, who wouldn’t be? I tried to let her know that this could happen to anyone, none of us were upset with her, and we were here to help her in any way we could. She just felt so bad.

We met up with Chris and he immediately took us to a police box. They filed a police report and everybody kept assuring us that it would probably show up, things don’t get stolen in Tokyo. They were wrong.

We were hungry so we stopped at a place to eat. Chris stopped at a pretty traditional place, which I wasn’t too happy about, but it turned out to be delicious. First, you put your money in a machine and press a button for which item you want. City of future. Then you sit down and they bring it to you. My meal was like a big noodle soup, but so much more than that. The broth is like the most delectable, amazing, brothy broth you’ve ever tasted, and the noodles are amazing, and there are two slices of yummy pork, a hard boiled egg, and spices to die for. It was so. So. Good. I knew something was really wrong with Hannah because she didn’t eat, and that never happens.

Chris called the club for us. They informed him no one would be there till 3 p.m. and to check on the bag then. Unfortunately, I had a baseball game in Yokohama to get to, and I needed to leave by 2:30. We weren’t sure what to do, so we just headed with Adrienne and Chris over to the tattoo shop to get Adrienne’s tat done. The tattoo artist turned on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for her and got to work. We watched for a few minutes, then we left Adrienne to be stabbed and Chris and Hannah and I headed out as we all had places we needed to be. Chris was meeting a friend, I needed to get to Yokohama, and we had decided that Hannah would meet up with Kendra and Mary so Mary could help her contact the embassy/find her purse. We got to the train station and had a worker there break into our locker for us, as we no longer had the key. That cost us $17. After we had our things again, I didn’t want to leave Hannah and I was scared Kendra wouldn’t be a huge help. I gave Hannah 400 yen and a big hug and said, “Kendra better stand up for you, Hannah.” Too bad I would find out later that she didn’t, and I never should have left Hannah alone.

I gave Chris a big hug goodbye at the train station and thanked him for being a lifesaver, then hopped on my train to Yokohama. It was about a 35 minute ride. I watched everyone sleeping around me, and couldn’t help but notice the girl sleeping on top of me. Seriously. It was hilarious, she was actually on me. The Japanese people can sleep standing up, sitting up, any way at all really.

I got to Yokohama and set about walking to the ship. I was still in my dress and tights from last night. I finally had normal shoes now that I had cracked open our locker, but I had gum on the bottom of my tights from walking all over Tokyo barefoot while carrying my heels in my hand. Like the walk of shame times ten. The five minute walk was more like fifteen, but Semester at Sea always miscalculates time to get in and out of ports. City of lies. It was also really hot out, I was tired, and it had been a long day. The port was really weird and long, but also cool, but it took me awhile to find my way in.

When I was finally ship sweet ship, I had to immediately change to leave for the baseball game, which they told us to be there for at four even though the game started at 6:30. I figured they gave us extra time to get on buses and ride over there, but no. We walked twenty minutes to the park. ALL the field office did was get us the $22.00 tickets, and they charged us $53.00. That makes me so angry that they rip us off like that.

Braxton and I decided to spend the evening together and he coerced me into stopping int the nearest 7-11, our heaven, and buy cheap food. The food in these places is so good, and so cheap. We got our stuff and went out to the street, sat on a corner, and ate. It was great. Then he coerced me into buying these lemonade alcoholic drinks called “STRONG” that are 8% and pretty tall. He then promised me that we would go out tonight and buy me a birthday drink. Braxton is pretty much my favorite person. Hannah’s too.

After sitting out for a long time and eating and drinking and talking we finally headed into the game around 6. The ballpark was really cool and the crowd was crazy. One side was all home and one was away. All of the cheers are orchestrated by a little band with a drummer, trumpet, some other instruments, and a huuuuuge flag. Braxton and I really wanted to wave that flag. We went up and asked if we could, and they tapped their two pointer fingers to tell us no. That means no in Japanese, or if they REALLY mean no, they cross their arms in an aggressive fashion. So we asked if we could play the trumpet. No again. Braxton and I had a blast, cheering along in Japanese, even though we had no idea what we were saying, and we sat right in the Japanese group the whole time, far away from SASers.

I met so many people at this game. There were a bunch of 30-something military guys behind me and I talked with them for a long time. Then I went over to sit with Doug and some other people and this guy called out, “Hey, are you from Semester at Sea?” And I was like, “Yeah!” Then I went over and spent an hour with them. They were all twenty-four year old Navy guys. They had just gotten back from observing the North Korean satellite launch. NBD. They were really nice guys and I enjoyed asking them a bunch of questions about life in the Navy. They asked me just as many questions about SAS. I asked them if they knew any good places to go out around here, and they told me to gather my friends after the game and follow them to a bar. Perfect.

I gathered up Alicia and Nate and Doug, and tried to find Braxton but he was gone. Sad face, but pretty much I had been sitting with these guys for an hour and he thought I had left. Sorry B!

So the Yokohama BayStars were a pretty terrible team and they lost by at least 9-1. Bad. But it was still a great experience. I haven’t seen nearly enough sporting events in the countries I have been to and I regret it.

We took off with the guys to a bar. On the way there we passed by a Japanese guy in a suit, passed out on the street, vomit caked on his cheek. Disgusting. I’m telling you, they party hard in Japan. Hannah and I also saw these guy vomiting his lungs out at a subway station once. Oh and when I asked our interport lecturer if there was an open container law in Japan, he said, “Are you kidding? These people’s idea of a good time is sitting under a tree and getting drunk.” Haha.

Anyways, the bar was a chill place, the Navy guys bought all of our drinks. I spent the entire time talking to Doug, who I had the most interesting bar conversation with of my entire life. Doug asks questions like, what did you like to do as a kid, what are your grandparents like, what is your idea of heaven? He is an extremely intriguing guy and he is basically a human mindreader. We played darts and then we took off a little before midnight to catch the last train.

Ship sweet ship. I was lying in bed sleeping when Caroline stumbled in, drunk as a skunk, and that was pretty funny.

The next morning I woke up around nine and went to breakfast. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back into Tokyo and try to meet up with Chris again. I gave him a call but he didn’t answer, so I just decided to wander around Yokohama with Greg and Caroline. We had a nice, stress-free few hours together. We went over to the amusement park and rode the gigantic ferris wheel, talked and looked out over the beautiful coastal city. I took pictures with a giant Pikachu. We wet over to the big mall and ate food. I sat down for another traditional meal and had basically the same noodle dish from before. Just as delicious.

Next we took a little boat ride for four dollars around the bay. There were such sweet little babies on the ride and we made faces at them the whole time. We passed by our boat and took a bunch of pictures. After the ride Caroline and Greg headed to the ship and I went on a HUNT for a solid hour for postcards and stamps. I wandered through Chinatown, which wasn’t that cool because I have actually been to China. Japan does not cater to tourists. No post cards. No stamps. No nothing. I asked about a dozen people to help guide me to a place to buy post cards. I finally found one, like a mile and a half later, and once I had them it was time to head back to the ship.

We all carded onto the ship, THEN had to disembark for ANOTHER face to face inspection. City of crazy. It felt so good to be on the ship after that, sit for hours on end, sleep for hours on end, be clean, not be stressed.

Traveling shows you people’s true colors, and Hannah certainly saw some people’s true colors. When she met up with Mary and Kendra, she told them her predicament, then, being the overly nice person she is, said, “I know you guys are sightseeing and I don’t want to get in your way or anything…” Instead of saying, no of course not, you have NOTHING, we will help you in any way we can, they nodded, and left her. I am still angry about this, a week and a half later. Kendra didn’t even give Hannah her green sheet with all of the important phone numbers and port info on it. So Hannah embarked on an epic journey, all alone, and everything eventually was okay in the end. She got lucky, met a guy who actually worked at the embassy, he set her up, and she got an emergency passport the next morning. With no help from Kendra or her friend WHO LIVES IN JAPAN AND SPEAKS THE LANGUAGE. ARRRRGGHHHHH. So mad.

Anyways… the last nine day stretch on the ship was a blast, I’ll write a little more about it later. Right now I’m gonna play card games and just relax for awhile. Hawaii was amazing, so so good… and I have fifteen days left before I am home. Unbelievable.

last sentence got left out haha...

I like skinnydipping just as much as the next person, but this was different. The whole time I was thinking of my mom and how if she were here she would be the queen of the naked bathhouse and have no shame whatsoever and that is why I love her.

Japan Part 1

Tokyo… city of lies, future, magic, transportation, and a series of unfortunate events.

Going into Japan I had many high expectations. Unfortunately, most of these would not be met.

First of all, Japan is the most ridiculously expensive place I have ever been, other than the US. Hannah, her roommate Kendra, Adrienne, and I had all decided to travel together, so we bought our bullet train passes at $300 a pop. And that was very worth the deal, as just to Hiroshima and back is $200, and though the regular trains are a lot cheaper, they take a lot longer, and so limit our already limited time. Also, they allowed us to use all Japan Rail trains in the cities, which saved us at least another 50 bucks. You are only allowed to buy the JR passes outside of the country, as they are solely for tourists, which I thought sucks a lot for the Japanese citizens.

It took us a long time to get off the ship that morning, as we all had to do face to face inspections, have our temperatures taken, be fingerprinted and photographed. Japan is not messing around.

Also, I am just going to say right away that Japan is at least twenty years ahead of us in every possible way. We are so far behind we may never catch up.

Once we had our group together we headed over to the bullet train to book a ticket to Hiroshima. This was easy enough, and we explored the train station for awhile, marveling at the beautiful sweets and many meaty, bready goodies. I was hungry and finally decided on a sort of bread dumpling, meat surrounded by sweet bread, about as big as a large muffin, along with a couple of other fried yummies. JAPANESE FOOD WAS AMAZING. Everything!!! Everywhere you looked, another cake shop, another pastry shop with breads of wonder encasing delicious meats. And it all cost so much, but it was so damn good!

We got on the bullet train and took our very comfortable seats. These trains go 230 miles an hour. NBD. Everything whizzed by outside.

We got to Hiroshima and headed to the Pace Park and museum by bus. As we walked towards the Peace Park, our eyes were immediately drawn to a three story high skeleton of a domed building that used to be. This is the one building that has been preserved and left just as it was after the dropping of the atom bomb on August 6, 1945 at 8:15 AM. It is eerie in its permanence. A moment frozen in time. Twisted steel, stairs leading up to a now nonexistent floor, bricks crumbling away, and finally your eye settles on the exoskeleton of the dome. The building used to be an important government building in Hiroshima, and now will stand forever as a reminder of the terrors of nuclear war.

We made our way through the beautiful peace park, people riding bikes, resting under cherry blossoms, sitting on benches. We entered into the museum, which was extremely well done as well as impartial. The first part detailed the history of Hiroshima, which I read through rather quickly as I knew the museum would be closing in a couple of hours and I wanted to be sure to get through everything. I read over why Hiroshima was ultimately chosen as the bombing site; because it was an important military center, though occupied mostly by citizens, and ultimately because the weather was perfect for bombing in Hiroshima on that day. A video detailed every minute of the bombing from the perspective of the actual American plane that dropped it, including the pilot’s words as he flew away from the mushroom cloud exploding behind him. Something along the lines of, “Target dropped, no enemy fire intercepted, plane returning to carrier.” Something about the straightforwardness of those words, the lack of emotion, the fact that at the instant he spoke those words, thousands of people had just been obliterated, stayed with me.

There were many models throughout the museum. Two of the most intense were the before and after models of Hiroshima in 1945, and then another model of Hiroshima today. Before, it was a beautiful city. One second after that bomb dropped, there was nothing. Nothing. I cannot grasp that something has the power to do that on this earth, and that we would actually use it as a weapon against other human beings. It was interesting as well to see the bits and pieces of architecture that remained standing, like the bridge over a body of water that was meant to be the epicenter of the bombing. And there stood the dome, looking exactly as it still does today, standing in solitude.

The last part of this room of the museum was dedicated to sharing Hiroshima’s mission to stop all nuclear weapon production, promote immediate disarmament, and never allow something like this to occur again. Every time a nuclear test is conducted by any country, the mayor of Hiroshima sends a letter of protest. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of these letters of protest were displayed on a wall. It amazed me that this was the attitude that Hiroshima chose to take. Of course I compared it to my own country, which I assume would take the path of revenge over repair any day. There was also a list of all of the countries with nuclear capabilities and who has the most. We are second only to Russia.

We always think of communist countries as dangerous, Middle Eastern countries. We don’t want them to have weapons, we put sanctions on them. But WE are the most dangerous country in the world. We are the most reckless, we are the only ones that have used the weapons, and we are the ones most likely to use them again. The United States is a frightening world power.

I finally entered the main building, which I hadn’t even known was there. This was dedicated to those that died in the bombing. I only had thirty minutes in this area, but those thirty minutes were beyond influential for me.

The first image that confronted my eyes was a wall that contained a lifesize model of three people, fires blazing behind them, skin literally melting off of their bones. What could that possibly feel like? To have your skin suddenly dripping away? The room was filled with items of the dead that their families found later on; the only remnants of their bodies. There were watches set to 8:15 AM for eternity… the exact time the bomb dropped. There were sandals, children’s charred clothing, school lunchboxes, school books. Many remnants were from the many innocent schoolchildren that died. The hardest things to see were the stories that accompanied the items… some of the items were found near the schoolyard by parents who knew their children were dead but were perhaps holding onto hope that they would find them alive, or at least be able to take their bodies home. Instead, they found these small items that hinted at the fate their children had succumb to.

Then I came across a class case containing human nails and skin. The caption read that it was donated by a young boy’s mother. He had somehow made it home after the blast, his skin hanging off of his body. He had tried to suck the puss out of his raw fingers because of his ravenous thirst. He died a few hours later, and his mother saved the skin and nails to show his father, who was at war.

There were also pictures of burn victims, their bodies looking like the outside of a marshmallow when it catches on fire. Everything was so gruesome and hard to take, but it was important to see it, important to know that this is real, this happened, almost all of the people that were injured or died were civilians, and my country is responsible. The country I take pride in did this. My country dropped the world’s first nuclear weapon… and we did it twice. What a frightening nation we are.

After we left the museum, I needed a good thirty minutes to decompress. It was very disturbing, to say the least.

We explored the rest of the Peace Park, including the Children’s Memorial. People leave hundreds and thousands of colorful origami paper cranes at this sight, in memory of Sadako, a Japanese girl who got leukemia at age 12 from exposure to radiation from the atom bomb, though she lived outside of the area of the blasts. She spent her time in the hospital making paper cranes, as there is a Japanese myth that if you make 1000 paper cranes, you can make one wish and it will come true. Her wish was to live. She only managed to make 644 before she died.

There was a Japanese old man there who introduced himself to me as Sunflower. He had a magnificent camera and was taking pictures that looked like professional portraits. He took a couple of us.

The sun set over the cherry blossoms and paper cranes, and I looked around me at all of the people lounging around in the park, riding bicycles, drinking wine, eating food, laughing. This was once a place of devastation. People died on this very spot. Whatever buildings used to stand here were blown away in an instant. And yet… the people prevailed.

Japan really presented me with the idea of solidarity, and pride in your country.

Before catching the bullet train back to Kobe, we stopped in a mall to explore and eat some food. The fashions are crazy, just like every picture you’ve ever seen. And with an expensive price tag to match. Hey, I can buy clothes for that much in the US, I’m not gonna buy them here. There was this one necklace with lensless purple Ray-bans hanging off it like bling that I really really wanted though.

We went downstairs and explored the supermarket, which was crazy, trying to find some normal snacks. I ended up buying jelly balls, delicious, and lots of pocky and koala bears. Yum.

Then we sat down at a place to eat and had okinamiyaki, or a Japanese pancake for slang. But it’s not a pancake. It’s a plate full of DELICIOUS, including egg, chicken, calamari, sauce, onion, cheese, just everything delicious. Like a big fat Japanese omelet. So so good. Okinamiyaki is my favorite word to say now.

That night Hannah and Adrienne and I got dolled up and headed to a bar everyone was going to because, like many smart bars do, they set up a deal for SAS kids. It was $15 to get in with an open bar. The place was small, and there were two locals in it and about 75 SASers. GOOD night, let me tell you. Open bar + SAS kids = Belligerence.

The next morning was one of the funniest mornings I have had the entire voyage. We were all still drunk, except for Kendra. Needless to say, it was hilarious. Kendra was our mom. We called her mommy. We would have been lost without her. It took until noon for the booze to seep out of our systems. We were late for our train to Kyoto, so we booked another one and got some more food. Always food.

The train ride was rather quick and I watched everything fly by outside.

We got there and hit our first obstacle… we had no idea where to go. Our trusty guidebook was pretty damn useless when it came down to it, and it really hampered our time in Japan. We finally picked that we would head to the botanical gardens. We took a bus there, and then wasted a lot of time finding a suitable place to grab food for a good half hour.

Finally we went into the gardens, and they were really beautiful. All of the Japanese people are out and about to celebrate cherry blossom season. They all come, sit underneath the trees, and eat and get drunk. What a grand festival. There were so many beautiful babies… I took lots of creeper pics of them. Many people were sleeping under the shade. The weather was downright HOT on this day and I sweat a good amount. Winter?

After the gardens we headed over to the Golden Temple by bus. This was beautiful as well, a temple of pure gold sitting on a lake. We tossed our spare yen into this bucket to try to gain luck. Kendra almost made it.

After we explored the area we headed to a public bath house for a very… unique Japanese experience. I am very proud of all of us for going through with it, because it took a lot of guts and overcoming awkwardness to strip down to our skivvies and enter a bath house with a bunch of naked Japanese women. And the towels they gave us, which we had to rent, were slightly bigger than face washcloths. Awesome.

We got into the locker room and Hannah was FREAKING out. So was I really, but slowly we all took off our clothes, laughing and giggling the whole way. The Japanese women either thought we were amusing or obnoxious. They handed us these buckets, motioning something and speaking in Japanese. We took them, but who knows what they said.

We at least knew some etiquette for bath time. You are supposed to wash your entire body before. We sat down on these stools in front of individual shower and awkwardly figured out how to work the showerheads, then rinsed off. Just picture it… the four of us, naked, crouched on stools, washing off, laughing our heads off, while Japanese women look on.

Finally we were ready to go in the actual bath. We stepped into one area and a woman immediately began to try and tell us something. Unfortunately, once again, we don’t speak Japanese. She keeps motioning towards the wall, so Adrienne puts her hand up to it, then tells me to. I do, and get a nice little electric shock. Ouch! So I still have no idea why there were electric bubbles coming out of the wall, but I think perhaps the woman was telling us, watch out for this, this area is for your feet only. But who knows really. She could have been trying to make us touch it just for kicks. Who knows.

So we chilled in the scalding hot spa for awhile, then when we couldn’t take it anymore, we got out and sat in the outside area. The water here was warm but not hot, and the ceiling was open to the outside air. It felt great. We all sat on ledges with our feet in the water… talking… naked. For like thirty minutes.

It was crazy and not something I would do every weekend or something, but it was a cultural and freeing experience. We all got dressed and headed back to catch our evening train to Tokyo.


TO BE CONTINUED.......

And the ship goes on...

April 14, 2009

Okay, before I write my Japan blog I wanted to write about a couple of things that I forgot to write about that keep nagging at me.

First, that first night in Thailand when we all went out, I left out a really really cool part of that night. We saw some SASers at this sweet African-themed restaurant so we went in and sat down with them and got some delicious Thai food. God I can’t wait to have Thai food again. Anyways, there was this great band playing American rock favorites. As soon as I had a couple of drinks in me I went right up there and sang with them, a bunch of Eagles and CCR songs. It was great, they were really nice and great musicians, and I have forgotten how much I really love to sing.

Another really hilarious and embarrassing event for me occurred in Vietnam. We were walking down the streets in Ho Chi Minh City looking for a fun place to go at night. We had asked several people, but nobody really spoke great English, and we were tipsy and impatient. So I walked up to an Asian girl and said, “Excuse me, do you speak English?” Which I NEVER do, I always just start talking as to avoid the very situation I was about to get into. She looks at me and says, “Um… I’m on SAS.” Oh god. My heart dropped and I instantly started apologizing, saying, “Oh my god, I am so sorry, that is the most racist thing I have ever done in my life.”
HAHHAHHAHAH. It was so bad but so so so funny to look back on. That girl probably hates me.

Anyways, this is my fifth day on the ship on our nine day stretch and I’ve actually been having a lot of fun. I am finally starting to love life on this ship just as it is coming to an end. Funny how that always happens.

Last night was the charity auction that I was asked to MC. There were two other MCs as well, Steven Trombetta, who was in charge of the shipwide Assassins game and is a pretty nice guy, and Johnathan Katz, our resident Jewish stand up comedian who I have a legitimate silly crush on and get nervous around. We had a lot of fun doing it and it went really well. There were some great items, as well as funny items. I won having our shipboard disciplinarian Joe read all of my friends and I a bedtime story. Pretty sweet, huh? I also auctioned off a day at Raging Waters with me, which my friend Adrienne bid on and won haha. I tried to bid on a weeklong condo in Waikiki for my parents, but it got a little out of the price range I was shooting for. By a little, I mean it went for $1200. We raised about $8000 for the shipboard drive, which goes towards the fairy godmother fund as well as getting more stuff on the ship for the voyage, like new exercise equipment, AV equipment, all the stuff that makes living here fun.

The talent show is on the 16th and Greg and I worked furiously last night and today to finish up our act. We did another song parody summing up the voyage so far and saying goodbye to our many fans. Haha. Everyone is pretty excited for it. We spliced together three songs, and there is a costume change… let’s just say the full body panda suit I bought in Japan will be making an appearance…

Also, we didn’t have class today, so I slept till one and I am still in my pajamas. And tonight is fancy dinner for my birthday! We are getting all dressed up and taking prom pics beforehand haha.

Three weeks…

nine days at sea

Japan and long lost India blog coming soon.

It feels so good to be on this ship with my friends just vegging and sleeping for awhile. Nine days is a long time but honestly we all need them to recover. And study for many tests and finals coming up. FUN!!!! Bleh. Oh well this is really the first real schoolwork I’ve had to do, I can’t complain.

Happy Easter! Lucky for us, we get to have Easter TWICE. Right now I am almost an entire day ahead of you guys at home in Cali, 18 hours. Tonight at midnight, however, we are switching the clocks BACK a whole 24 hours, so we will be having April 12… again. Crazy huh?

I will be home in 25 days. It is absolutely unbelievable.

Goodbye, Japan

Domo arigoto, Mr. Roboto.

China 1

April 5, 2009

First of all… three days till my 21st birthday!!! WOOOOOO!!! I can’t believe I am going to be 21… I keep thinking about my birthday last year… and my birthday before that, and how different each one has been and how far away 21 seemed, and now a year has flashed by before my eyes and I will celebrating in JAPAN! We are going to the Absolut Ice Bar in Tokyo, and everyone is meeting us there.

I wish North Korea would stop sending missiles and stuff, because it is really cramping our style.

Now for China. Communism is crazy and China was crazy but I loved it and had an amazing experience there. It was my second favorite country, behind Thailand of course. But… I do expect Japan to top that list. We will see.

Pulling into Hong Kong was astounding. The skyline is like nothing I have ever seen before. No city in America can even compare to this, and they call Hong Kong “Little Shanghai,” which means Shanghai is even BIGGER. It was just crazy because by now I have been to a lot of big cities all around the world and all over Europe and all over the US, and nothing I have ever seen comes remotely close. Everything was brilliantly lit up, even in the morning light. Business signs brightly glimmered from almost every building, Panasonic, AIG, etc, all blinking and changing colors. Every, single, building was a gigantic skyscraper, as far as the eye could see. And… it was chilly out! China was our first cold country since Morocco, and I wasn’t even that mad about it. Other than the fact I had no clothes to wear in winter weather, and it was gonna be pretty cold. Win let me borrow his big sweater with lining on the bodice and I took a sweater to wear under it, and I ended up being fine, even too warm sometimes.

Unfortunately for me, I wouldn’t even get to hang out in Hong Kong. My group immediately got on a bus and headed to the airport for out flight to Beijing. It was sad, made even sadder when later everyone talked about how Hong Kong was one of their favorite cities yet. Oh well, that just means I have somewhere to go back to in China!

The drive through Hong Kong was beautiful, and then I was in another spaceship airport. Seriously, US airports are nowhere near as cool or architecturally advanced as almost every other airport I have been to. I am no longer impressed. The Hong Kong and Beijing airports were like huge, futuristic malls. I didn’t bring along my Hong Kong money because I didn’t realize, hey, you might want to buy something in the airport, so Lexi bought me a muffin and frappuchino, and she got back the SWEETEST 10 note bill ever! I was obsessed with it, so much so that she eventually gave it to me. It is purple and has all these sweet colorful designs on it that remind me of rainbows and ribbondancing. What a great friend Lexi is.

There were about 50 people on this trip, a pretty solid number, and we had a good group of people. I spent most of time with Lexi and Win and we had so much fun together.

Arrived in Beijing in evening time. Again, I am amazed by the size of the city, the size and shapes and lights of the buildings. Every single building in Beijing is like a magnificent piece of art. Everything is lit up, all of the buildings are illuminated advertisements, everything is rainbow right, shimmering, glimmering, moving, changing, catching the eye, drawing you towards it.

Our guide’s name is Jonathan and he speaks English pretty fluently. His jokes are a little long and hard to follow, but he tried anyways. Lexi and I settle into our room and then head out to dinner at a restaurant.

Dinner was interesting to say the least. Everyone had warned us that Chinese food would be terrible but I wanted to give it a chance anyways. The first thing I tried was absolutely terrible, and the second thing on the table I just couldn’t bring myself to try. I’m glad I didn’t because later I found out it was chicken feet encased in jello. Delicious! This meal was horrendous, but most of the meals I had after this, especially at the dumpling buffet, were pretty darn good.

A bunch of us head to a street with a ton of karaoke bars, all lined up one after the other. We settle into one and order some drinks. Soon Win, Kelly, and I are up on stage singing “A Whole New World,” which now holds special significance for us now. We were terrible, but amazing at the same time. We headed to another little bar and ordered the DJ to play “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga, the song I have now listened to on repeat nonstop since Thailand. It is pretty much the only song I listen to, actually. All of these bars were pretty dead since it was a weeknight, but we didn’t care, we got on that dancefloor and boogied.

Next morning, early wake up to travel to the Great Wall!!! The ride there was filled with sleeping, and I opened my eyes and all I could see were hills and mountains and a conspicuously long wall. A great wall even.

We began our trek up the wall. Lexi, Win and I were together pretty much the entire time. We took a lot of breaks to take pictures and laugh and breather, and we ended up making it to the very top in about an hour and twenty minutes, which meant we had forty minutes for our descent, which was honestly tougher than the climb up. We all had jelloid legs all the way down.

About halfway up the wall, an amazing thing happened. It started to snow! We all threw our hands up in the air and yelled with glee, “Snow, snow, snow!” All of the Chinese people laughed at us. We asked them how to say snow in Chinese and they answered something like, “Show-wah.” So we spent the rest of the time saying, “Showah showah showah.” It was great. It snowed again off and on for the rest of the time we were there.

When we got back down to the bottom Win and I saw a chain with hundreds of locks on it that we hadn’t seen before. Apparently all of the locks are put there by couples that have traveled to the Great Wall together, and when their love is locked on the wall forever, they throw away the key. Win and I purchased our own lock and had our names engraved on it, then we locked it on the wall and threw away the key! So our lock will remain on the Great Wall forever, a token of our Chinese love. We kept our love locked down, our love locked down, we got our love locked down, our love locked down.

After another nap, we continued our sightseeing at the Summer Palace. Google it. It was gorgeous and right on a huge lake. On our way out I made the best purchase I have made on the entire journey… a panda hat. It is amazing and I am going to wear it all over Japan and beyond.

Our last stop of the day was a distant stop to take pictures of the Bird’s Nest and the Watercube! It was so cool to see these buildings with my own eyes, after spending so many hours staring at the TV screen imagining what it would be like to be at the Olympics, to see these athletes compete, to stand where they stood. Win and Lexi and I decided we would head back to the area later to go up to the buildings and touch them and see them all lit up and have a moment of Olympic triumph.

Lexi and Win and I departed for a grand adventure on the Chinese subway system. It was only 2 yuan a ride, which is a fraction of a dollar. 7 yuan = 1 USD. The subway was so cool, there were so many fun things to take pictures of, including this huge image of the world all lit up. I found LA and threw up the sign for a picture. The subway was very easy to navigate and I always marvel at how universal English is and how hard most countries try to accommodate the language, while Americans don’t try at all to accommodate anyone at all.

If I had to describe Chinese people in one word, that word would be “aggressive.” And the women are worse. Nobody in China is scared to push you around a little if you are in their way, or in our case, if you are on the subway and they want to get in/out. The language is also very harsh and sounds like yelling 98% of the time. This one Chinese woman on the subway had a ton of stuff with her and got ready to exit the car, but the huge wave of people entering the car were not having it. The next thing we know, she is doubled over on the floor being pushed by everyone. We helped her up, but needless to say she did not get off on that stop. We geared ourselves up for the battle to get off at our right stop and pushed our way out with no problem, but that is probably because we are so tall compared to everyone else. In Tokyo they actually have hired personnel known as “pushers” to push you into the subway. Sweet.

We went to the Pearl Market first, and I spent a lot of money on very cool and very cheap gifts for all of my loved ones at home. I got my baby cousins some gifts I am very excited about, I can’t wait to show them! I probably bought the most souvenirs so far in China, and I expect to buy even more in Japan haha. Everything is just so colorful and cool… and cheap! Not that all of China was cheap… everything was very expensive and Japan is way worse.

Next we went to the Hard Rock Beijing to have some MUCH needed American food and meet up with some other SASers. The meal was 20 bucks, but it was worth every penny to bite into those nachos and that salad and that burger. Mmmm I miss American food so much sometimes. I texted Katie and let her know I was thinking of her. ☺

Finally we made our way to the Olympic sites. We got off one stop too far and so ended up walking about a mile back to the area, and when we finally got there… nothing was lit up. It was so sad, but even that disappointment couldn’t damper our spirits, as we were actually standing on hallowed Olympic ground. I tried to imagine the area filled with millions of people, athletes, fans, people from all over the world, Michael Phelps. The Bird’s Nest was huge and very impressive, but I wondered if people would think it was ugly in twenty years just like we think buildings from the 70’s are ugly. The Watercube was so cool, the outside just looks like a bunch of huge inflated bubbles. We took as many pictures as our hearts desired, and then it was already almost midnight, and we headed back to the hotel and into bed.

The next morning we were able to sleep in a little bit, then we headed to Tiananmen Square.

Some interesting facts about the level of censorship in China today… Greg wikipediaed Tiananmen Square while we were at sea, then again while we were in China, and the pages were completely and absolutely different. The Chinese page said no one had died, 700 people were injured, it was just a big accident. Obviously that is nowhere near the truth. Also on the day the incident occurred, the Red Cross issued a notice stating that thousands of people had died at the hands of the military. Within an hour this post was taken down and replaced with one where no one had died and people were only injured. As we approached the site, Jonathan our guide told us the subject was taboo and he couldn’t talk about it. My friend’s tour guide, however, told them that it had been an accident, no one had died, some people had been injured but it wasn’t a huge deal. The people in that bus were shocked that this Chinese person had no knowledge about what had actually occurred here at the hands of his own military. Brainwashed. The Communist element of the country was unavoidable, but I knew going in that was the way the country was, and so didn’t push taboo topics. Some of my friends did, however, and came out of the country with very interesting experiences and feelings of hopelessness and disbelief, as well as relief at their own freedom. But who knows how much our own government lies to us, really?

Anyways, the square is the biggest in the world, and it was huge indeed. The statues representing proud communists and symbols of their ideals were very interesting to me and I tried to capture some pictures without anybody arresting me.

We all got in line to go see the still-preserved body of Mao. This was definitely the creepiest part of the day. The line was huge and we all shuffled along. In front of the mausoleum lay hundreds of white flowers put there by people paying their respects to their dead leader. Inside, even more flowers, and finally… the perfectly preserved body of Mao Zedong. Laying there in a glass coffin. Bathed in yellow light. People bowing and paying respects. Creeeeeeepyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

We got out of there and explored the square. You would never think a gigantic massacre occurred there. That’s the thing about China… if you are a tourist, you will never know any downfalls of the country because everywhere you go is squeaky clean and catered directly to you, there are even “tourist orphanages” and “tourist retirement homes” that are strictly regulated, so that you see the good and great of China and communism alike, and never the dark side. And I did only see the good side. They do a great job.

I bought a Beijing 2008 Olympic hat for a dollar and popped that on my head as we entered the Forbidden City. Google it. On the entrance to the city hangs a huge picture of good ol’ Mao. I took a picture of a little Chinese boy waving the Chinese flag. I took a lot of pictures of Chinese children and adults alike, and I also took many pictures with them.

Never before have I been such a celebrity. The blondes got the worst of it, they were asked for pictures every two seconds, but Win and I were accosted as well because we are both so tall. We actually secretly loved it though, and I asked a lot of people to take pictures with me as well. My favorite people in the FC were the students in all matching track suits, a different color for each grade. Hilarious. I talked with them, or tried to anyways, and they loved us and took a bunch of pictures with us, always flashing the V for victory sign of course. The only ones we didn’t like were the ones that creepily took pictures of us right in front of our faces without asking us, and that happened a lot. I loved the children, though, they replaced Vietnamese kids as my favorite and I bet Japanese kids will in turn replace them haha. Chinese babies don’t wear diapers… they have holes in the bottoms of their clothes so their cute baby butts hang out in the cold winter air and they pop a squat wherever they would like. Charming. Wouldn’t that mean a lot more laundry/buying new clothes for the parents though? I didn’t quite understand it.

So we walked through plaza after plaza after building after building in the FC then head to another pretty yummy lunch. Oh this may be a good time to interject that the Lazy Susan is in full force in China and was utilized in every single restaurant I went to. Us individualistic Americans found it hard to cope with, however, as we all wanted our own food, our own portion, and we wanted it now.

Another interjection, the English translations on signs is HILARIOUS, one of my favorite things about China actually. My favorite one of all was posted above a hand drier in the bathroom that read, “This handryer has bad.” Has bad what? Does it also have good? If so, does it have more good than bad? Let’s hope so. My second favorite was one posted at the Great Wall that read, “Heart cerebral disease sufferer, ascend the Great Wall to please watch for.” HAHAHAHHAHAHHA.

China 2

Next we stopped at the Temple of Heaven. This was my favorite place of the day. It was like a big park with a ton of people of all ages hanging out and having a great time. The first thing we see as soon as we walk in is a random dance party going on. Chinese music played as dozens of people danced in pairs or all by themselves, everybody just out there shaking it in their own style. It was GREAT! Win and I got out there immediately and danced with everybody for a good ten minutes. It seriously made me so happy, I just loved watching these people all congregating like this. That is something you just don’t see in the States. Apparently spontaneous dance parties like these are very common in China, especially in the mornings and evenings. People gather in groups to do tai chi or other exercises. We saw a lot of people participating in this same ritual all over China, some with swords, fans, umbrellas, or with no props at all, just out there grooving.

Next we got to this long outdoor corridor where hundreds of people were hanging out, mostly elderly or parents with children. There was a different card or board game going on everywhere you looked. I watched as person after person slapped down a card on the table. There were also many musical groups. People set up music stands, turned on a tape player, and dozen people would stand and sing along. Musicians were also present. Groups of adults could be seen playing the Chinese version of hackey sack, which replaces the sack with a group of feathers weighted at the bottom. It’s a pretty fun toy and I bought one to send to my Vicarious Voyagers. And of course we saw more people dancing, freely and to routines. I love them.

The Temple of Heaven was beautiful as well, and after having a very satisfying day, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Xi’an. I slept the whole way, and when I woke up, we were there and they were reminding us to get out our passports. Lexi and I looked at each other in a panic… we had both left our passports locked up in our hotel safe, and neither one of us had remembered until that very moment. We were of course very disappointed in ourselves. I was embarrassed and upset that I had done something so irresponsible, especially after making it this far into the voyage without having done so. We informed Jonathan and our trip leaders, the Schoenners. Ooooh the Schoenners. Male Schoenner is our official global studies teacher, meaning pretty much the entire student body hates him and his terribly disorganized class. Female Schoenner is his wife and his the most grating and irritating voice on the planet, just like the scratching of a chalk board, and she always seems to be the one in charge of doing things like passing out passports and yelling directions. Ugh I am cringing thinking about it. Anyways Lexi went up to Mrs. Schoenner and told her we had forgotten them. Her reaction was, “Oh no, I should have reminded you guys this morning I completely forgot!” But Lexi said, no, it was our responsibility, we will deal with it. Fortunately for us, the hotel was able to get our passports out of the safe and someone was immediately on their way to the airport to bring them to us. Before we knew this, however, Lexi and I were sitting quietly while everyone else was checking in. Mrs. Schoenner walked over to us, bent down, and said, “You know we are going to have to report this as an incident to the ship. I don’t know what they are going to do with it, but we are going to report it.” EXCUSE ME? I immediately answered her with respect but in anger that this had nothing to do with anyone else, we weren’t affecting the group at all, it was our own responsibility, but Lexi tapped my leg as if to tell my to calm down, so I shut my mouth. Mrs. Schoenner goes on to say, “I reminded everyone on the bus today that they should have it and everyone heard me.” WHAT? You just told Lexi you forgot to do that! She flat out lied to our faces, and we have no idea why. Lexi’s big blue eyes started pooling with tears as Mrs. Schoenner walked away. I hugged her and said don’t worry about it, but she is just one of those people that reacts badly to people yelling at her, she wasn’t actually upset. But thanks so much for making us feel worse when we are already obviously stressed and upset. They treated everyone like kids the entire damn trip, taking names if you were more than five minutes late and threatening dock time. I hate them both. Mrs. Schoenner apologized to us the next day, which I appreciated, but doesn’t change what she did.

They all take off for the flight and Lexi, Jonathan and I stay behind. The man arrives with our passport and we pay him, $25 each, and run to catch our flight. We make it just as they are doing last call. ONE more minute and we would have missed that flight. We were so lucky and so grateful to Jonathan and everyone that helped us out that day, and so pissed at the Schoenners. She practically glared at us when she saw us on the plane, didn’t say one word to let us know she was glad to see us there. Guess she wishes we had missed it.

We arrive in Xi’an to our hotel, the Tianyu Gloria. Another beautiful hotel in another beautiful city. Xi’an was my favorite city we visited. It was just so clean. I think a huge reason I liked China so much was because it just felt so good to be in civilization again! I mean, I have been in pretty big cities, even huge cities, this entire time, but I guess China felt the most like California crowds to me, the most like a big city, the most like development. It felt nice.

We went to dinner at a dumpling buffet place and it was DELICIOUS. I hope I can find a dumpling buffet near me at home because I can’t get enough of dumplings.

Next morning, off at 8 to begin our day and see the Terra Cotta Warriors! We stopped first at the Lesser Wild Goose Pagoda and the Museum of ancient artifacts and enjoyed some tai chi with swords and fans. I walked around exploring by myself for awhile and enjoyed the beautiful scenery covered in the morning fog.

Another bus ride, and finally we were going to see the Terra Cotta warriors. Yet another wonder of the world I can check off my list. It was a pretty awesome sight. There are four separate pits, one with all fully excavated warriors, and the rest with some partial so we could see what it is actually like to excavate them. Pretty cool. Each one is unique and we got to see four of them very close up.

We went to the inner museum which housed the largest, and most frightening, marionettes in the world. One is a gigantic Terra Cotta soldier holding the hand of a young Chinese girl. His eyes stare menacingly into your soul. We marveled at how creepy they were for quite some time and took pictures of them and with them, then the frenzy of people asking us to take pictures with them happened all over again. Win and I even strategically placed ourselves in front of a group of them once hoping to get asked haha. One guy that went by said, “You are handsome, you are beautiful.” Aw thanks.

We ended our time there at the tea house where we got a free demonstration of how traditional tea is made.

When we got back to the hotel we crossed the street to the mall to go to Dairy Queen, something different, and then to Wal-Mart! Wal-Mart is the devil, I know, but it was crazy to see what a Chinese Wal-Mart looks like. All of the people on all of the products are Asian, which is to be expected but still really strange to see. And the products themselves are totally crazy. All we wanted were some good snacks, but everything is fish and meat flavored. Do they believe in cheese in Asia??? But I did grab some koala snacks, remember those from our youth?

That night we went to a nice dinner at a local theater. After a quality but Americanized Chinese dinner, they put on a great show for us, with many different types of music and traditional dances. Again, pictures and video would serve the purpose of a thousand words here. But the scenery and costumes were immaculate and grand.

After we got back from the show we got ready to go out to Club Salsa, a club which has nothing to do with anything we traditionally think of when the word salsa is said. This night was so quality. We had a group of about ten, but practically everyone else was Chinese. It was a crazy crazy night. Everyone wanted to be our friends, and I didn’t pay for a single drink all night. I also got introduced to a new delicious drink, whiskey and iced tea. Sounds gross, but it is delicious. Even at 11 p.m. we would look around us and see Chinese people passed out all over the place. Guess they go hard there. The music was great and the dance floor was bumping. In between dancing we would go hang out with new groups of friends. Win met our favorite group of the whole night and he dragged us over there to go meet them, about eight guys and one girl. They loved us and we all danced together all night. One of them bought me a rose. Near the end of the night I met these two guys that told me they were soldiers and showed me their IDs haha. The hours flew by and Lexi and PJ and I were the last ones left. I was willing to make it an allnighter that night but when Lexi told me she was ready to go I reluctantly left. What a great night!

The next morning we got to sleep in a little, then visited another temple and headed to a school to take a calligraphy lesson from a teacher. The Chinese language is so complex and puzzling. I just can’t grasp the concepts. At our pre-port for China one of the speakers tried to explain to us about how one word in Chinese can have six different meanings. She said a sentence that sounded like, “She she she she she she she she she she she she she she,” in a bunch of different inflections, then did the English translation which went something like, “Shi-shi fed her rhinoceros on the beach.” Seriously. The calligraphy lesson went kind of like that. The characters originally represented objects, not sounds, and they technically still do today, but I don’t understand how that works. Like my name, Jillian. What images can possibly represent that, and how do they know? All I know is I watched Jonathan texting in Chinese on his phone a couple of times and I am so very glad I don’t have to do that. But I have a cool calligraphy souvenir to bring home.

We went out to lunch at the Xi’an revolving restaurant. We sat down to eat and kept waiting for it to revolve. It never did… because it only revolves at night. Oh.

Finally we went to the Bell Tower and shopped around a little bit. Win and I found this really sweet arcade and watched people play DDR for awhile.

Our final stop was at the Mausoleum for Emperor Jingdi, which was actually really cool. It was like the Terra Cotta warriors on a smaller scale, thousands of small stone people and animals and artifacts buried in there with him. And the way they were exhibited was much cooler than the Terra Cotta exhibit. The floors were glass so you could stand over them and see down into the excavation sites.

Two more great signs here: “Watch out for head,” and “Drunk and improper clothes are not permitted to visit.” I hate drunk clothes.

The toilets in China were my least favorite part. They are squat holes, and without getting into too much detail, they are very very unhygienic and I just kind of stopped going to the bathroom after awhile.

Flight from Xi’an to Shanghai, remembered my passport this time.

I am so exhausted, but looking at that fantastic Shanghai skyline I know I have to go out. Hannah calls me and we get a group together to hit up a karaoke place. Our taxi starts out following their taxi, but then suddenly we are following a taxi with three black people in it. Not them. So we get out and start walking. But we can’t find it, it is getting so late and I am so tired, so we hitch a ride back to the ship. Epic fail. But at least I got to walk around the city at night, it is fantastic, especially right along the water. The next night before we took off I sat and watched the neon lights of the boats pass by as the buildings flashed millions of different colors at me from hundreds of feet in the air.

The next morning I woke up early for a 7 a.m. departure for an FDP to Suzhou with my art teacher Fred Levine. This was the PERFECT FDP for me on this day. It was an hour and a half busride there, and I needed every second of that ride to catch up on sleep. We went to several different gardens which allowed me a lot of time for personal reflection. I also didn’t know too many people on the FDP which was also perfect because the only person I wanted to hang out with was me. We went to the University of Suzhou which was very pretty and took a boat ride down the river that some famous guy once referred to as “the Venice of the East.”

Good sign from one of the gardens: “Civilized behavior of tourists is another bright scenery.” And, “Give the grass a little love, the grass will reward you with an extension of green.”

I slept the whole way home and got back on the boat after spending six amazing days in colorful China.

Tomorrow, Japan. This is basically our last port. After this it is a month of school and basically a countdown till home. I expect to love Japan, and I am especially excited to be traveling with Hannah as it is rare that it happens and I am madly in love with her. We bought our bullet train passes and have a tentative schedule set up. Hiroshima, Kyoto, Tokyo for two days, Yokohama. But we currently have no reservations at any hostels. So we will see how that goes.

I’m not worried about it, honestly. I’ve realized that things just have a way of working themselves out.








       

Another thing I've learned on my travels around the world... everybody picks their nose, no matter what country they are from. Some just do it more publicly than others.