Hawaii/ Ambassadors Ball

So we were only in Hawaii for a day, but it was still a lot of fun. I was just on the search for some American food, mainly Chipotle, but didn’t have any luck. That was kinda sad, but I did get some Subway, Starbucks, and some Mexican food (not as great as Santanas in San Diego but it did the job…haha). All day, I pretty much just walked around and hung out at the Beach in Waikiki. Oh and Ryan, Garrett and I also chilled with the homeless all day long. It was a little random but fun to hear all their stories and how they got to where they are today. One lady was talking to me about her ex-husband and how she was on her honeymoon in Hawaii with her husband and he found another woman on the island, and that other woman took her plane ticket with him back to the states. It was a pretty sad story, but she was optimistic about the future and kept saying how God has her here in paradise for a reason, whatever that may be. They all had some stories, and one guy was showing Ryan his nun chucks…haha…that was a little weird. Other than that, it was a fun time to just swim in the crystal blue ocean. Too bad it was such a short pit stop, because I wish we were there longer.

After Hawaii it is now hitting the books on the ship for our finals, but before that we had the Ambassadors Ball. It was fun to dress up, have a nice dinner with everyone on the ship and dance the night away. It was pretty fun, but now we have awhile until Costa Rica, and I have a lot of finals and papers due soon. I’ll write back soon and I hope that you are all doing great!

Japan

Japan was such an adventure filled with beautiful scenery, amazing Japanese architecture (old and new) and such wonderful people.

After a long customs process to get our temperature checked, meet individually with a customs officer and receive our passport, I was finally off the ship in Kobe, Japan. Ryan and I set out to just explore most of Kobe the first day. We pretty much just walked and explored the big metropolitan city. I was on the search for an international atm which I never found. It was actually really really frustrating. After not finding an atm we went out to find some Kobe steak. It was so good especially since we got to watch the Japanese chef’s cook it over coals right in front of us. That night I headed to bed early because I had to get up at 5am the next morning.

The second day I woke up early early to catch a semester at sea trip to Hiroshima. It was such a long long bus ride but more than worth it once we got there. Our first stop was the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park where the explosion of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 occurred. We walked over the “T” shaped bridge that the B29 bomber’s target was. The bridge was subjected to an estimated blast pressure of seven tons per square meter-15 times greater than normal. Due to the pressure, the bridge snapped back and forth with the slab floor being up in the air. We saw ground zero of the explosion and the a-dome, which is the one building preserved from the explosion for the memorial today. When the building was hit, everyone in the building died instantly. However, some of the walls were still left standing because the blast came from almost directly above. We then went to the Hiroshima museum where I saw melted roof tiles, black rain dried to a wall, charred children’s clothing, a replica of the bomb itself and more. The a-bomb replica was surprisingly small…much smaller than I had anticipated. It’s just crazy to think that a bomb could do that much damage to an entire city in a matter of seconds. The museum was extremely intense but a good thing to see, and the peace memorial was a beautiful memorial to the 200,000 people killed during the explosion.

After the emotional memorial, we went to a historic Japanese garden known as Shukkei-En Garden. It was just a beautiful Japanese garden filled with Cherry Blossom trees, small wooden bridges, stepping stones across the still water and much more. Then we were off back to Kobe on another 5 hour bus ride, stopping for dinner on the way.

The third day I woke up really early again to head to the bullet train station bound for Tokyo. But first, I had to find an atm. Ryan and I wandered all over the downtown of Kobe at 5:30 in the morning trying to find a 24 hour atm. The whole downtown was deserted, but we eventually found one that accepted my card. After being so delighted and thanking God for that, we hopped on the 7:00am bullet train to Tokyo. It took us about 3 hours to get there. Once we got to Tokyo it was raining and pretty cold but that didn’t stop us from sightseeing. The first thing we did was go to the Tsukiji fish market. It was a Sunday so there weren’t too many fish marketers out, but we did get some great sushi there! After eating an assortment of yummy sushi we then went to the sony building. We just walked through it, and saw all the techy new gadgets, and the new high definition tv’s. I took this picture of this flat screened TV dad that I think you should get…but it was pretty pricey…haha. After the sony building we headed to Harajuku & Aoyama street which is the “trendy” street filled with bleach headed, crazy dressed teens roaming the streets. It’s too bad it was rainy though because we didn’t see too much of that. After grabbing a starbucks and meeting a fellow white guy living in Tokyo to research cave paintings…yea a little weird…we then went to the Imperial Palace, which is where the Tokugawa Shogunate ruled Japan. The palace is closed all but two days of the year so we weren’t there when it was open, but we walked around and took a few pictures. After the palace we headed to the National Tokyo Museum where we saw old historical Japanese art, kimonos, pottery and the best of all which was the Samurai armor, swords and military equipment. That stuff was pretty cool. The rest of the day, whatever was left of it, we explored some more of Tokyo, stopping at an ice restaurant/ bar in Roppongi where Samantha Brown on the travel channel has been! It was crazy…everything was made out of ice, including the glasses! It was so awesome. Before you went in they gave you these massive jackets because when you entered it was minus 5 degrees celsius. The walls, the tables, the seats….everything was ice. We only stayed there for about an hour because it was so so cold. After that we then took a night train to Kyoto.

The next morning we were in Kyoto, which is known as the historical Japan. After grabbing some breakfast from Mc-dees we went to the Kiyomizu-Dera Temple. It was built in 798 and is one of the most famous landmarks in Kyoto today. It isn’t just one temple but a multiple of large shrines all perched on the lush green hillside. It was so incredibly gorgeous! As we were exploring, prayer cards were hanging from the trees, men were ringing the bell, and the Japanese were drinking the holy water coming from the waterfall. After exploring the Temple, we went around the Gion Area. As we were walking down to the Gion Area we saw a few geisha’s on our way and took a couple pics. I think Ryan was a little scared of them. The Gion Area is lined with Japanese restaurants, and teahouses from the 17th century, many of which are exclusively for geisha entertainment. It was a beautiful, old street and a nice change from the high rises in Hiroshima, Kobe and Tokyo. I just liked it because it looked much like old Japan. We grabbed some lunch, which was a little different, then headed back on the train to Kobe. Once we got back to Kobe we got some sushi and headed back to the ship, but had a little trouble getting there. Everything is in Japanese and we asked a few people to help us out but we ended up getting on the wrong monorail train and kept going for about 30 min in the wrong direction. We were freaking out as we only had about 40 minutes to get back to the ship. This really nice Japanese business man went out of his way to help us out. He got on the right train with us, hopped in the taxi with us, paid for the taxi, and ran with us to the ship. We finally got back…on time. We were so happy and I will never forget that man. I still can’t believe that he went out of his way to help us out because he could see how worried we were by our faces. He was probably heading home from a long days’ work but decided to help a couple of lost American college students.

Japan was such a fun, exciting, exhausting country. I loved every minute of it, and now I am so sad that this is our last big port. We only have two ports left, and we are only in Hawaii for a few hours. We have 8 days on the ship until Hawaii and already the waters are a little rough. We also have two days of April 15^th. It’s really strange and I still don’t know why but today is April 15^th and tomorrow is the 15^th. Kinda Crazy. Anyways, I love you all so much, and I’ll be posting again…Love you!

Hong Kong/ China

We arrived in Hong Kong on the 3^rd of April at 0800, and wow what a BIG city. The skyline was massive and it was nice to have a change in cooler weather. Well…once we ported, I was off to see some of the famous pandas in China; Ying Yang and Le Le. Ying Yang and Le Le were the newly born pandas as of 3 years ago. They were adorable and I got some really cute pictures and videos of them eating their bamboo.

The next morning I had to get up super early for my SAS Beijing trip. Our whole group left the ship around 5:45am and headed to the airport for Beijing. Once we arrived in Beijing we headed straight to the Summer Palace. It includes, bridges, walkways, gardens, and elaborate Qing styled buildings all bordering the Kunming Lake, which was constructed in 1749 along with the rest of the palace. This palace is where the emperors of the Qing Dynasty lived during the summer; hence the name, “The Summer Palace”. It was beautiful exploring some of it, since we couldn’t possibly see all of the 717 acres. It also includes the longest hallway in the world, known as the “Hall of Happiness and Longevity”. That night we had Peking Duck at a local restaurant. Beijing is known for their duck and it was pretty good. We also had a few strange dishes before eating the duck which were very interesting. One dish was duck feet….and it tasted pretty rubbery and boney. It was pretty gross.

The second day of the trip was our visit to the Great Wall. I got up, had breakfast at the hotel and headed on an hour long bus ride with the rest of the students to the Wall. Ryan and I hiked up quite a few steps and finally got to the wall sweating. Once we were on the wall, we ate our boxed lunch and stared out to Mongolia on our left and China on our right. We just couldn’t possibly believe that we were on the great wall. It’s was just so crazy to think that. We walked on the wall for a few hours, made a couple phone calls, and took tons of pictures. Wow, I still can’t believe that I was on the great wall! After the great wall we headed back to the hotel, cleaned up and had some free time to do whatever we wished. I just explored the city, did some shopping, and got some tasty hot pot food. We didn’t know what we were ordering at first since everything on the menu was in Chinese, but it ended up being fantastic food!

The third day was a full day of sight-seeing. Our first stop was Tiananmen Square where Mao Zedong is pictured in front; the man who killed more than a million of his opponents in only his first 3 years of rule. Tiananmen Square was built in the 1950’s, and is where the large prodemocracy demonstration in 1989 occurred which resulted in the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It is interesting to note that the Chinese won’t speak about the massacre. When a student in my group asked our tour leader about the massacre and what she thought about it, she said “I can’t talk about that.” It’s interesting because you are not allowed to speak about politics or religion because of the communist rules and restrictions. When you are in China you definitely know that you are in a communist country. There are soldiers around every corner watching your every step, no one seems to smile or say hello, and Mao Zedong is all over everything; watches, t-shirts, playing cards, their currency, posters of him in restaurants….he’s everywhere. Once we saw Tiananmen square and the changing of the guard we walked into the forbidden city. The forbidden city is basically Beijing’s Versailles or Buckingham Palace where mere civilians were denied access. Emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties lived here with their hundreds of concubines and servants. The Chinese architecture was so ornate, detailed and beautiful. It was so grand and impressive. After our sight-seeing we headed to dinner and had more Chinese food…not that good. At that point I was really sick of Chinese food, I’m not gonna lie. Anyways, once dinner was over, we went to the flying acrobatic show, and wow, it was so cool! They did some crazy stuff.

The last day we had some more sightseeing around the city. Our first stop was the Temple of Heaven built around 1420, and rebuilt in 1889 after the original burned to the ground. It is a circular, wooden hall with blue tiled roofs and was constructed without a single nail. Many presidents, emperors and rulers have visited the site, including Nixon. It was beautiful and situated in a huge park where the retired elderly Chinese are playing cards, chess, hackysack, and singing karaoke. It was pretty funny to see. After seeing the famous Temple of Heaven we had a tour of the first original neighborhoods in Beijing called the hutong lanes by a trishaw which are similar to the rickshaws in India. Once we were in the neighborhoods we went to a local home which I don’t think was a real home but was kinda cool besides the part where a bird pooped on my head. Yes…it was very embarrassing but funny because in Chinese culture if a bird poops on your head, it means it’s good luck, which doesn’t make sense. But anyways, the Chinese ladies kept telling me… “oh…..you are blessed, very very blessed and very lucky. You should apply for the lottery.” It was really funny, that I really couldn’t stop laughing. After visiting the Chinese home, we went and saw a bell tower and then drove by the Olympic stadiums for this August. The Olympic stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies are amazing! After taking some quick pics and driving by, we then were off to the airport for Shanghai.

The next day I slept in and explored Shanghai, but oh my goodness, it was raining all day long and insanely cold. Other than that, Ryan and I were on the search for American food because we were so sick of Chinese food. First we found a Pizza Hut, and then I got some Starbucks. Wow, that Starbucks tasted great! You all know how much I love coffee so tasting some real American coffee was fantastic, because the coffee on the ship is not so great. So really all day we just took taxis from main street to main street in Shanghai. We went to a few fish markets, I did some shopping and we ended with one good last Chinese beef dish which wasn’t drenched in sauce, which was a nice change. Haha.

So that was China…it was definitely culturally different and I enjoyed it very much.

And now we get into Kobe, Japan in two days! I have no idea what I’m doing yet but I’ll figure something out fun to do. I love you all! And I’m so glad Mom and Dad that you answered the phone when I was at the great wall…It was great to hear from you! And thanks for the mail again…I love the picture, the note and Dad, I loved the Hemet postcard (haha…so funny!) and your sweet note. Love you!

Vietnam

So….Vietnam was incredible. I know that I have constantly been saying that the locals are so nice in each country…but really, the Vietnamese beats them all. They are seriously the nicest people I have met which is mind boggling to me, since the American/ Vietnam War only ended about 35 years ago.

Our ship sailed through the Saigon river early in the morning of the 27th of March in order to get to our port. It was just cool to stand outside and watch us sail down the same exact river that our American soldiers sailed through in 1965. As we were porting, there was still quite a bit of our own American naval equipment in the junk yards of the port. That must have been some of the equipment that we left once we finally pulled out. Once our ship finally ported, I was off to the Cu Chi Tunnels. After a two hour bus ride and a fantastic Vietnamese lunch we arrived to see the 200-kilometer network of the underground tunnels, used by the Viet Cong forces during wars with both the French and the Americans. Our tour guide first spoke to us about the war and the Viet Cong’s clever booby traps that an American/ French soldier would accidentally step upon. They showed us about 10 different deadly traps filled with large sharp spikes that would pierce the flesh of an American and/or French soldier’s feet and body. It was pretty intense.
Once we saw the traps and heard a little more about the war and more clever tactics, we went into the tunnels. Most of the tunnels were only about two feet wide and five feet high. We crawled through one tunnel which stretched as long as a football field underground. It was pitch black and there were also random drop offs in certain places. It was so cool to crawl through the tunnels that the Viet Cong used in the wars. I don’t know how anyone could live down there for all the time though…I think I would go crazy because it’s so dark and small. Oh and one of the best parts of the trip was shooting an MC60 and AK47. Yea I know Scott and Steve….you are jealous. Haha…but seriously it was so awesome, especially the MC60. I felt like Rambo…the girl version I guess?

The second day was a girl’s day…and was so much fun! My friends Lauren, Kendal and I got on the motorcycle taxis to the Ben Thang market. Let’s just say that those motorcycle taxis are crazy! I was scared for my life…but don’t worry mom I’m safe, wounded free and fine. Once we got to the market we stopped by a dress shop to get a dress made for me. The owner of the shop was so nice and brought me to the fabric sections of the market. I picked out my own fabric and told her exactly what I wanted. We got back to the shop, she measured me and told me to pick it up on Sunday. After that we were off to the spa. I ended up getting a 75 minute hot oil stone massage with Kendal for only 7 dollars! It was amazing! I have never had a massage before but loved it. It was a little awkward though because the masseuses’ kept smiling and laughing at us. They also kept pointing to my eyes, probably because they are green and not brown…but still they kept smiling and laughing. Once I got my massage, I then paid for a pedicure and manicure for only 4 dollars total, and they did a fantastic job! After the spa it was getting later and we got some pho. Pho is an authentic, classic Vietnamese dish. It is a beef stew filled with noodles, beef, and herbs. Oh my goodness…sooo good!

The third day Ryan and I hung out and went to a really good lunch. I got pho again and Ryan got a really good meat and macaroni dish. We took the motorcycles again to the War Remnants Museum. This was the most intense museum I’ve ever been to. It actually made me sick to my stomach being an American in that museum. Outside the museum was US military equipment but once you stepped inside the museum, there were 100’s of pictures of naked children running from Napalm, deformed men and women suffering from Agent Orange, Americans dragging Vietnamese men, women and children from the back of tanks and more. It was really really sad to see. We also saw the tiger cages where they kept stubborn prisoners and beat them for no apparent reason. Most likely John McCain, being a prisoner of war, was in a cell similar to the one we saw. There was also a part of the museum about the protests in America towards the war, such as the Kent University incident. It was a really intense museum…much more than any museum that I have been in. After that we just explored more of the city and grabbed something to eat.

On Sunday I was off to the Mekong Delta. This trip was one of the best SAS day trips I’ve been on so far. Before we got to the Mekong Delta we went to a Buddhist Temple. We saw a massive statue of Buddha and a service happening within the Temple. Oh and I went to the bathroom in the squatter toilet. I haven’t mentioned anything about the squatters yet but they are interesting, because there are no toilets anywhere…only holes in the ground. It’s always an experience going to the bathroom…haha. Anyways, we finally got to the Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is a canal network where inhabitants make a living from cultivating rice, fish, soybeans, maize, peanuts, tobacco and melons. It’s really hard to describe but I felt as if I was on the jungle ride at Disneyland. It was sooo beautiful. It was nice to get out of the city life of Saigon and see how the real Vietnamese inhabitants live. On the trip, we took boat rides from place to place. Our first stop was a small hut where we tried some coconut candy and watched them make it. We then took a carriage ride to our second stop. At the second stop we had about 5 different types of fruit; and were serenaded by some locals playing music and singing. We then headed on our small boat ride which held only 4 students through the narrow rivers. We were surrounded by green forest marshland. It was so peaceful, quiet and just plain beautiful. I can’t really describe how cool it was. We then ended with an authentic meal which was quite interesting but so good!

The final day was a relaxing day. I went with a few semester at sea kids to explore the town. We went back to the market, bought a few things and ate some more pho. I also got my hair cut that day in Vietnam because my hair was getting so long. It was the best hair cut I’ve ever gotten. They massage your head and basically give you a facial when they wash your hair…it was amazing. The haircut was only about 4 dollars and it looks super cute. Just a little trim but it looks great! After the haircut I picked up my dress. It turned out perfect and fits great! I really can’t believe how cute it is. I’m going to wear it to Stephen’s graduation…mom you’ll love how cute it is.
So that was Vietnam. I think it is my favorite port so far…and also thank you Mom and Dad for the letter…I love hearing from you! I love you and now I’m going to be in Hong Kong in the morning and get to see some panda’s tomorrow! I can’t wait! Love you all..