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.