Singapore!

Hey everyone!

This post about Singapore is going to be pretty short and sweet. We are getting to Burma tomorrow morning, and I've been sick so I'm trying to get as much rest as possible because I have a lot of things planned for that port! I am going to stick with text and no pictures for this one, but will upload pictures from Singapore right after Burma!

We were in Singapore for just two days, but I had an absolutely incredible time, as I have in all of the other ports so far. During our mandatory pre-port session before arriving in Singapore, I learned some very interesting and surprising facts about the country.

• It is one of the cleanest and safest countries in the world. (Cleaner and safer than America)
• It is illegal to have bring chewing gum into the country. It is also illegal to litter and to jaywalk. You will be arrested if caught doing any of these things. I was never so nervous to walk in a place in my entire life.
  
• Sometimes they cane you in jail if you are arrested.
  
• If you are caught with illegal drugs, you are arrested and sentenced to death by hanging within 72 hours of when you were caught. Woah. 

We were all definitely shocked after hearing all of that, and that's not even half of the surprising things we were told. Long story short, we just had to be careful and pay attention. Some of the things that are completely normal to us, like chewing gum, are illegal there.


I spent the first day traveling in the city with a group of five other people. There were some places we had been told to go see, so we got off the ship as quick as possible. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that there was a bus that could take us from the port terminal to the metro station. We tried to walk there. It took us about 45 minutes to find it and we realized right as we got to the station that we could have taken a bus. Oh well. Lesson learned!


Singapore is a very expensive place. We noticed that right away when we were looking into buying tickets at the metro station. There were a lot of places we wanted to go, so we decided the best idea was to buy the day pass that we could use as many times as we wanted throughout the day instead of paying each time we wanted to go somewhere.


Our first stop was the Botanic gardens. It is a 150 year old garden home to a great diversity of tropical plants in many different landscapes. Some of the different areas include the Botany Centre, Ginger Garden, Stunning Sculptures, Eco Garden and Evolutionary Garden. We could have spent all day in there and not seen everything. I will definitely upload some pictures later.


Our next stop was a big food court for lunch near China Town that came highly recommended. It was the biggest food court I had ever seen and had food from all over the world including China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan and America. It was delicious!


We then made our way to China Town for a quick look around. On our way there, I was really surprised at how much I felt like I was back at home in America. Almost everyone spoke English, the signs were all in English, and there were tons of restaurants that I was used to seeing back at home.

We didn't spend a lot of time in China Town, but it was fun to look around after just having been to actual China. We took a metro to a huge discount electronics store so that one of the girls we were with could find a new lens for her camera. After that, we headed back to the ship to meet up with some people that had field labs that morning/afternoon and then went out for a late dinner.
 

Earlier in the day, we had passed a Chili's while walking around. Everyone thought that sounded amazing and that it would be great to have some familiar food after all of the new stuff we've been trying. So we ate at a Chili's in Singapore. :) The menu had a few different items and was slightly more expensive, but other than that it was the same as a Chili's back in America. We did a little more walking around after dinner before heading back to the ship for the night.


The next morning, I had the SAS field program trip to the Singapore Zoo! I was so excited for this and was definitely not disappointed. I only wish that we would have had more time than we did because I did not make it through the whole thing. It was the most incredible zoo I have ever been to. It was a pretty "open" zoo. There were not a lot of animals in actual barred cages. A lot of the monkeys were just hanging out in the trees around and above us. It was so awesome! There were over 2,500 animals there. My favorites were the pandas, white tigers and all of the monkeys! I was actually able to get my picture taken with some orangutans. I will definitely upload that picture later, so be watching for it!


After getting back to the ship, there wasn't a whole lot of time left before "on-ship" time, so I took advantage of some of the last Wifi I will probably have in a while, exchanged my leftover money and then got back on.


We had three days in-between Singapore and Burma. If you have me on Facebook, you might have noticed that I was fortunate enough to get to speak with the Arch Bishop and have my picture taken with him. That was such an incredible moment in my life and one that I will never forget! I will also upload that picture later. That took place on the day after Singapore, and I haven't been feeling too well since then. Hopefully I am better tomorrow because I have a lot of great things planned for Burma, including a tour of Rangoon the first day and then an Elephant Camp trip the four days following that.

I'm not really sure what to expect for Burma. This is the first time the ship has docked there in six years. Tourists haven't been allowed in for quite a while. We've been told that this might be one of the most interesting (in a good way) places that we will ever visit in our lives. I'm really excited!

Thanks guys! I'm sorry for how short this post was and that there aren't any pictures. I will try to make up for it later!

Vietnam!

Hey everyone!

I hope you all liked the pictures I posted from Vietnam earlier. Here is a quick summary of what I did during my 6 incredible days there with a few more pictures. :)

Day 1:
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh at 8 a.m. but didn't actually dock until noon because we spent four hours going up the Saigon river through the city. It was incredible. I didn't spend the entire time outside watching, but it was definitely a great way to come into a port. Vietnam is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen!

Our main plan was to head to a tailor shop, Tuyet Orchid Silk, that was recommended by a student that did SAS last year. We wanted to get dresses and suits made, but heard that a lot of other people were going to go as well so that was our first stop! Taking a taxi there was harder than you would think. There are only a few legitimate taxi companies in Vietnam that don't have rigged meters and won't try to scam you. Luckily, we found one of the good ones!

We were the first ones there and got to work right away picking the styles and fabrics we wanted. That was the hardest part. There was so much to choose from! After we picked what we wanted, they made sure the styles would work with those fabrics and took our measurements. They spoke perfect English, which really helped with communicating. They told us it was going to take about four days to make them, so it is good that we went on the first day. I haven't taken pictures of me wearing the dresses yet, but I plan on doing that soon and will upload them when I do! Here is a picture of part of the inside of the shop!

For the rest of the first day, we spent some time doing some shopping, checking out the Tet celebrations (new years) on the streets, and finding some amazing food. For dinner, we went to a traditional Vietnamese restaurant, Maxim's Nam An. It was so good! They even had live music entertainment inside. We didn't stay out too late because we had to get up pretty early the next day and leave for our homestays! Almost everyone in our group was going on one and we were very excited.

Crossing the street in Vietnam is so scary. The main form of transportation is motorbikes instead of other vehicles like cars. Since we were there during the new years celebrations, the streets were busier than usual. Sometimes you couldn't even see the road because of how many motorbikes there were. They don't really have traffic laws. Traffic just doesn't stop. They do have red and green lights, but a lot of times people just go through the red lights. In addition, the worst part is that no one stops at crosswalks. No one. It's pointless to even have them. When you want to cross the street, you just have to go for it. You walk out into the middle of traffic and pray you don't get run over. The most important thing is to walk at a steady pace. If you do that, 99 percent of the time they will go around you. But if you stop and start because you're afraid of getting hit, then you're going to get hit. It was so scary, but luckily no one I traveled with was ever hit.

Day 2:
I woke up bright and early to meet my group for the three-day homestay on the Mekong River! I didn't know too many people on the trip, but Kaitlynn went too so it was fun to meet a lot of new people and spend time with her as well. Our group was about 36 people, including our trip leader (a professor on the voyage) and his family.

We started the day with a two and a half hour bus ride to the Mekong Delta. Along the way, our tour guide presented some facts and information about Vietnam. Here are a few of them:
    - About 91 million people live in Vietnam. Of those, 86 percent are Vietnamese. There are 54 other ethnic minorities in Vietnam including Hmong, Muong, Thai, Cambodian, Chinese, etc.
      - Vietnam is the #1 country for exporting rice worldwide. 8.2 million tons of rice are exported a year. A majority of this rice comes from the Mekong Delta area.
    - The Cao Dai religion is one of the most well known in Vietnam. Is consists of several different religions put together including Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. There are             around 3 million Cao Dai followers in Vietnam. We passed several Cao Dai pagodas on the way to the Mekong Delta.
    - The average income is around 300 USD a month. A wealthy person makes between 500-900 USD. This is a major reason why there are so many motorbikes. Most families cannot afford             cars.
    - On average, 50 people die a day in Vietnam due to traffic accidents.

After arriving at the Mekong Delta, we got in a boat that took us on a 30 minute ride down the river to a place where we learned how to make rice, rice candied patties, rice paper and coconut candies. They also had snake rice wine for us to try. Yes, snake. There were literally snakes in the big jar of wine and they wanted us to try it. They served it in tiny little cups that didn't even give you a mouthful, but it didn't look to appetizing. For some reason I went for it. It was literally the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted in my life. But hey, at least I can say I did it!

After having tea and doing a some browsing, we got back on the boat and headed to a little island where we had lunch. This is where a couple of the pictures from my previous post came from. We had elephant ear fish along with spring rolls, shrimp, soup and fruit. It was one of my favorite meals from the whole trip. After that, we explored the island a little and then the boa came out. I have no idea why in the world I raised my hand when we were asked who wanted to hold it. No idea! Luckily, another girl wanted to do it with me so I wasn't holding it by myself. It is probably one of the scariest things I have ever done, but I'm glad I was brave enough to do it! I won't upload any more pictures of that just to save data, but you can see them either on Facebook or on my previous post.

We then split up and got into canoes to go through a smaller part of the river before arriving at our homestay. It wasn't actually what you would think of as a typical "homestay." We weren't staying in houses in different families, but all of us stayed in two different buildings where the rooms were all lined up. The whole place was owned by a couple of different families and is a popular tourist attraction. I was a little disappointed about that, but it was still an amazing experience. I'm hoping the other homestays I've signed up for will actually allow me to stay with a family. I was in a room with two other girls and we each had our own bed. I've never slept in a mosquito net before, so that was actually pretty fun!

After getting settled into our rooms, we met up with the families and learned how to make some of the traditional food that they have during the Tet celebrations! I feel pretty lucky that I had the chance to experience that. We helped prepare a couple of different types of spring rolls, soup, french fries (surprisingly), fruit, and a sticky rice banana dessert. It was fun to get to eat the food for dinner that we had helped prepare. Following dinner, we were treated to traditional Vietnamese music performance! There is a lot I could say about that, but here are some pictures. :)

Day 3
We left our homestay after enjoying a great breakfast and some quality time with the family and our tour guides. From there, we headed in the direction of the hotel we would be staying at but stopped at a local, non-tourist market along the way. It was great to get to see, but I wouldn't ever need to go back to one of those markets again. The majority of it was a meat market. I don't even want to start talking about the unsanitary conditions we saw in there because you probably wouldn't ever want to eat meat again. I honestly didn't want to eat meat the rest of the time we were in Vietnam. I was pretty glad when we got on the bus to head to our hotel!

We arrived at our hotel around 10:30 a.m., but couldn't check in until 12:30. We had an hour to walk around before meeting back at the hotel for lunch at 11:30. There wasn't a whole lot to do around our hotel, but I spent most of the hour looking at some of the incredible Tet decorations that filled the streets and enjoying some relaxation time at a park. After lunch and checking in to the hotel, we headed off for a quick stop at an ancient house and then an hour ride to a stork garden. None of us were quite sure what to expect when we arrived there. We definitely were not expecting that we would have the opportunity to walk through a Vietnamese village before on the way to the garden. This was not a village that tourists normally walk through. It was incredible getting to see what their daily life is truly like, and not just want the tourism industry wants you to see. I think it was a surprise to some of them that we were there, but they were so friendly and waved to us as we walked by their homes. It's hard to explain exactly what it was like. The homes were all lined up on a little street along a river. There were little food shops, restaurants, hair salons, and other places in there randomly between some of the homes. A lot of the homes were also along a rice patty field, and we passed at a time where there were a lot of men out working. That was really great to see. It was absolutely nothing like a town or street that you would be used to seeing in America. Here are a couple of pictures! I have a ton and wish I could upload more.

We walked up a really long and narrow staircase to get to the stork garden. It wasn't really an actual garden, just a place where there are a lot of storks up high in the trees. It was pretty breathtaking to be up there. After walking back through the village we got on the bus back to our hotel where we had an hour and half to shower and change before heading to dinner. A small group of us decided to go and grab some ice cream during that time, which was a great decision! It was so good! I had coconut and rum raisin ice cream in an actual coconut.

We had on a dinner boat. Apparently previous tour guides had told SAS not to book this particular boat because people hadn't enjoyed it in the past. I'm not sure why they still decided to book it for this trip, but we all went in with an open mind anyway. Right away, I realized why there had been some complaints. There was karaoke entertainment the entire time and the music was really loud. We couldn't even hear each other talk except during the few minutes they took breaks to change singers. A couple of people actually ended up getting off of the boat because of how load it was. The food was also interesting. None of us were really sure what some of the things even were or if it was edible. There was snake, frog legs, squid, and octopus on the menu, but we couldn't tell what was what. Most of us just stuck with the rice and the bread. There were a few adventurous people, but I decided not to be one of those that time. We were all pretty glad to get off that boat and head back to the hotel for the night.

Day 4:
I woke up pretty early so that I could take advantage of some of the free wifi in the hotel before breakfast to call my mom. It was great to get to talk to her! It always is. :) After meeting up with the group for breakfast, we got on the bus and took a ride to a boat station. From there, we got on a couple of boats and went to the floating market. There is an area of the Mekong Delta that where people sell goods and produce off of their boats. If you're interested in something they're buying, you take your boat up to theirs and make your purchase. It was awesome to watch!

After the floating market, we headed back to our hotel to pack up, check out, and head to lunch. Luckily, this place had food we were very comfortable with eating! Chicken, spring rolls, soup, pho, rice, and fruit. We started the 6 hour bus ride back to the ship after we finished lunch. It wouldn't normally have taken that long, but it was nearing the end of the Tet celebration and a lot of people were traveling back to their homes. Traffic was even worse, if that is possible! We got back to the ship around 7:00 p.m. I took some time to write in my journal and then headed to bed so I could get up and meet people to go pick up our suits and dresses in the morning!


Day 5:
The 5th day we reserved for picking up our dresses and suits, doing some shopping, and visiting the War Memorial Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. We were told to come and try on our dresses at 10 a.m., but they weren't quite ready yet and wanted us to come back at 1. We spent those three hours doing some shopping at the local tourist market and finding a great place to get some traditional Vietnamese food. Vietnam is a pretty cheap place to buy things! One of my friends got a really nice North Face coat for $35. I was tempted to get one as well, but there were plenty of other things I wanted to pick up for gifts and souvenirs. I am really happy with what I was able to find! When we went to the tailor shop at 1, our things were still not ready. We started to get a little worried at this point, but they told us everything would be 100% ready by 3. We decided to go ahead and go to the Vietnam War Memorial Museum and try to make it back around 3.

I thought the atomic bomb memorial in Hiroshima was rough, but this was actually quite a bit worse. I honestly didn't know as much as I probably should have about the Vietnam War before going into the museum, but I left knowing more than I wish I did. For me, the most difficult part was walking through the large section they had that talked about the affects of Agent Orange that was dropped all over Vietnam during the war. The birth defects that occurred in children whose parents came in contact with Agent Orange were absolutely horrifying. I didn't take any pictures while I was in there because I didn't feel like it was very appropriate. It was definitely a very eye opening experience.

We made it back to the tailor shop a few minutes after 3 and our things were finally ready! We were pretty nervous to try them on, but everything fit absolutely perfectly!!!!!! We were SO excited! And still are! We now have custom made, one-of-a-kind dresses and suits from Vietnam. I think that's pretty awesome. :) I don't have pictures of them yet but as soon as I do I will put them up.

Before heading back the ship, we made a stop at a DVD store that was highly recommended. DVDs in Vietnam are so cheap! I bought 7 different movies. Some of them aren't even out on DVD in America yet and they were only 50 cents each! I should have bought a lot more now that I think about it. I'm probably never going to find movies for that good of a price ever again! When I got back to the ship, I watched one of the newly purchased movies with a friend before heading to bed.


Day 6:
I went on a SAS trip to the Diau Giac Orphanage on our last day in Vietnam. It was one of the first trips I signed up for when they opened open and I was really looking forward to it. It was an absolutely incredible experience. There were about 120 children at the orphanage, but it's not what you would think of as a typical orphanage. None of the children are actually up for adoption. Most of them have parents, but they can't afford to take care of them so they stay at the orphanage. Unfortunately, due to many different kinds of circumstances, their parents are hardly ever able to visit them. I didn't know any of this before arriving there.

I was a little worried about being able to interact with the children since we don't speak their language, but that ended up not being a problem at all! I brought along several sheets of stickers, which ended up being the best thing I could have possibly done. They loved it! As you saw in the pictures I posted before, my face, neck, and shirt were all completely covered in stickers within 10 minutes of me taking the stickers out. It was so much fun! They also have quite a fascination with cameras. I was glad I brought along my smaller one. The children probably took about 300 of the 400 pictures I have from that visit. It was pretty entertaining to go through and look at them afterwards. They even took a few videos that I had no idea they were taking. I'm going to love having those. :)

We were at the orphanage for about 3 hours and most of the time was spent playing with the children. There were two girls that kind of latched onto me at the beginning, so I spent most of my time with them. They were the two in the picture from my previous post. Other than having fun with the stickers, they taught me how to play some clapping and other games, braided my hair, and showed me around the orphanage a little bit. I had such an incredible time and definitely did not want to leave when it was time to go.

I decided to stay on the ship when we got back around 12:30. On-ship time was 6 p.m., but I wanted to get caught up on my journal and school work and have a relaxing afternoon. We had our first ship BBQ up on the top deck that evening. It was amazing. We don't get food like that too often so everyone definitely took advantage!

We arrive in Singapore early tomorrow morning! I cannot believe I have already been gone for over a month. Time is flying by so fast! I'm sorry this blog hasn't been as detailed as it probably should be, but I'm trying hard to keep up and get the most important parts in. :) I didn't realize how hard it would be to stay caught up with everything. After we hit India we'll start having more time on the ship in-between ports, so hopefully things will start to slow down at least a little bit after that!

Thank you again for following my blog! I've heard that a lot of you are really enjoying it, so I hope that is true. I'm definitely having a lot of fun updating it and getting emails from all of you, so keep it up! I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks again!

Emily










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Vietnam Post Coming Soon!

If you've seen my Facebook at all you know that I definitely have some stories to tell about Vietnam! My six days here were absolutely incredible. It has been my favorite port so far. We're leaving later tonight and then we arrive in Singapore in two days. So much to do between now and then! It'll take some time type up a post about the six days we had here. For now, here are a few of my favorite pictures. :)

On the way to our homestay on day 2, we stopped for lunch and this is what they served first. It was Elephant Ear Fish. Itt still had eyes. Ha. It was actually really good!


If you have me as a friend on Facebook, you've already seen these next two pictures. I do not know what I was thinking when I said I wanted to hold it. I don't hate snakes, but it was still scary! I wouldn't ever do it again probably, but I am actually happy that I did!


If I had known it was going to be all over my face I would not have held it! So scary!


It literally spent five minutes going up and down my face!


This is shot of the Mekong Delta River on the way to our homestay. I have so many incredible pictures!


The floating market along the river!


On our last day, today, I went on an orphanage visit. It was amazing. Bringing along stickers turned out to be a great idea. :)


These were the sweetest girls. This might be my favorite picture from the entire time in Vietnam.


The girl on the right in the picture above braided my hair! It turned out amazing. I don't think I've ever had this cool of a braid. I still have it in right now. :)

I have about a thousand pictures from Vietnam, so these are just a few of my favorites. I still need to take pictures of the dresses I got tailored. They turned out just the way I wanted and fit me perfectly! I am so excited. I'll try and get a post typed up as soon as I can!

Thanks guys!

Hong Kong!

Hey everyone! This blog post is going to be a bit shorter than usual because I am running so short on time. We get to Vietnam tomorrow morning and I feel like there is so much I have to do before then, but I definitely want to update you all! This post will be more about what I did than what I learned. I hope to be able to give more detail in some of my future posts.

Our ship was docked at Ocean Terminal, which is connected to a huge ten-story mall! We had to walk through the mall to even be able to get out into the city. It was mainly full of designer stores, so I was fortunately not tempted to spend time shopping around in there. Luckily, we got off of the ship pretty early in the morning since only about 160 people traveled on the ship between Shanghai and Hong Kong. The group I was with got off the ship right away and hopped on the Star Ferry that took us to the other side of the island. Here is a picture of us us all. :)

Melia, Summer, Mike, Me, Corrie

Melia had to get her laptop fixed while in Hong Kong, so we first found an Apple store in mall. Hong Kong was definitely the best place for her to try and get that done because most people actually speak English due to the large number of international businesses and American workers that live there. While she was trying to get her appointment made, we stopped at Starbucks and walked around the mall for awhile. Like the other mall, it was mainly filled with designer shops. However, we did find a few places to stop in and browse for a bit. It was also fun to see all of the structure and art displays around the entire mall. This particular panda display reminded me of my sister Jessica, so this picture is for her. :)

Melia found out that it was going to take several hours for her laptop to get fixed, so she told us to go ahead and do what we wanted for the rest of the day. Mike did Semester at Sea last spring and suggested going to see the giant Buddha statue on Lantau Island. Until recently, it was the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world. It is now the second largest. After asking directions from a worker in the Apple store, Corrie and I headed off to the metro station. Mike and Summer decided to go and do something different. We were told that it would be about a 30 minute ride to the stop where the Buddha is. What he failed to mention was that it took another 45 minute bus ride up the mountain to actually get to the site! I had to be back on the ship by 5 to get ready to go to the Cantonese Opera with Melia and the rest of the field program group, so I was a little nervous that we wouldn't make it back on time!

We finally made it up a little before 2 p.m. There wasn't any time to waste because in order to make it back for the opera, we calculated that we should try and get on the bus to the station by 3. We quickly walked up the steps to reach the Buddha statue, snapped some pictures, grabbed a bite to eat, bought a few souvenirs, and then were in line for the bus around 2:50! It was absolutely gorgeous up there. There was a great view of the city, and the mountains were beautiful. Here are a few pictures!

We made it back to the ship around 5:15, so I had a little time to change and get ready to meet Melia and the rest of the group before leaving for the Cantonese Opera performance at 6. The opera was in West Kowloon Bamboo Theater. I was pretty excited for the performance because I had been learning about this type of opera in my Music Cultures course. We were given an English summary before it started, but the show was still hard to follow because they were singing and speaking in Cantonese. Nevertheless, it was really enjoyable and I'm glad I went! I would get into more detail about the history and importance of Cantonese Opera in Chinese culture because it really is very interesting, but that would take quite awhile. If you would like to know more, shoot me an email! Here are a few pictures!

After the show we headed back to the ship to meet a few people and then went to the Night Market on Temple Street to try and find some great deals! I wish I had some pictures to show you, but I left my camera on the ship. The market is open every night from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m.  You can bargain, which was a lot of fun! I wasn't good at it at first, but if you're decent you can get them down to half of the original price pretty quickly. I had an amazing time! I ended up finding a few things that I needed for the trip, along with some great gifts for people back home. I won't share too many of the things on here because I want them to be surprises. A quick example of something I got is a pair of shoes for $6 that would have easily been at least $40, if not more, back in the states. I got some incredible deals. It was a great night!

On the second day, I had a field lab with my Health Promotion and Behavior class that left at 8 a.m. To quickly sum up what we did, we went to two different parks to observe Tai Chi and other health behaviors that either promote or hinder health. Then we stopped at a restaurant for lunch where we had some amazing dumplings. Following lunch, we took a bus ride to the University of Hong Kong where we listened to different speakers give short lectures over topics such as poverty, women's violence, infant mortality, adult literacy, and healthy weight loss. It was very interesting and I got a lot from the presentations. I have plenty of pictures but I won't upload them yet on here due to data limits.

Unfortunately, not everyone was very attentive during our field lab. A good majority of our class showed up, payed attention, dress appropriately, and were respectful of our presenters. However, six people didn't show up because they were out too late partying the night before. At least 15 people that came were very obviously hungover and some were still drunk because they had just gotten back to the ship about an hour before we were scheduled to leave. People were throwing up on our bus and falling asleep during the lectures. It was honestly one of the most disrespectful things I've ever witnessed. I don't understand how anyone would think behaving in that way is acceptable. The academic dean came and spoke to our class this morning. She said that if individuals don't come forward or if names are not given to her, then the entire class might suffer a consequence up to 24 hours of dock time. If the entire class is given dock time because of the actions of a few in our class, I will be very upset. I think those that are responsible should definitely be penalized, but I don't think the whole class should have to suffer. We will see what happens!

Anyway, I am very excited to arrive in Vietnam tomorrow! I would appreciate some thoughts and prayers for my safety! I've heard some pretty scary stories of things that have happened to previous voyagers in Vietnam, so I'm glad that I am signed up for SAS trips during the majority of my time there.

On the first day I have plans with a group to do some shopping and try to get suits and dresses tailored. On the second day I start a 3-day homestay at the Mekong Delta. I am really looking forward for the chance to personally experience the culture of the locals in Vietnam and I can't wait to tell you all about it. After that, I have an orphanage visit and several other things planned. I think it is going to be an incredible experience!

Thank you all! I have so much more to say about Hong Kong but so little time. If you have any questions feel free to email me or comment and I promise I will get back to you!

Movie Night!!!!!

We are having a movie night in the Union tonight and watching The Dark
Night Rises! I am so excited because this only happens like 3 times
throughout the entire voyage.

We arrive in Vietnam in about 2 days! I will be sure to update my blog
about Hong Kong before then, but I just wanted to say a quick hello to
everyone. :) I'm having an amazing time!

Shanghai!

We arrived in Shanghai, China around 8:00 a.m. on February 3rd! I got up early to eat breakfast and watch the ship pull in, just as I've done with every port we've been to so far. To get to where we were going to dock, the captain had to navigate the ship through the Huangpu River, which took us directly through the city. It was amazing to watch!

The city is incredible! Right above my head you can see the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is 468 meters high!


I was just a little excited. :)

 
After getting off the ship, my group made our way down to Yuyuan Garden. It was built over 400 years ago during the Ming Dynasty and is now one of the key relic sites in southern China. Surrounding the garden, there are many shops and highly recommended dining places. A friend who has been to Shanghai before said it was a must see, so that is where we decided to go! We decided to take the 45 minute walk instead of the Metro so we would get to see the city along the way.

We were warned during the "pre-port meeting" the night before arriving that China would be very different from Japan, especially in how the people would interact with us. We got a taste of that the moment we stepped off the ship. As soon as we started walking, a man snuck up behind us and starting squirting shoe polish on Kaitlyn's boot. He didn't ask or attempt to say anything before he did it. He just walked right on up and starting squirting away. We were all pretty surprised and quickly walked into a nearby Family Mart.

We walked along the river most of the way to Yuyuan. It was so beautiful, and it was interesting to see the contrast between the old buildings on one side of the river and the large sky scrapers on the other. As we were walking, people would stop to stare at us and many would take pictures. It almost felt like paparazzi. Some people tried to be sneaky about it and pretend they were taking a picture of something else, but then they would quickly point their camera to us as we walked by. It was pretty entertaining! Others weren't quiet about it at all and would stand directly in front of us to get a good picture. I don't think any of them were trying to be rude. They were just fascinated! Sometimes it was fun to surprise them by smiling and waving when they took pictures. :) They got pretty excited when we did that.

Many of the restrooms in China don't have toilet paper or soap, so we made sure to bring some tissue and hand sanitizer along. Traditional toilets in China aren't really toilets at all. They are basically just holes in the ground. Sometimes we were able to find a restroom that had one western style toilet, but that didn't happen to often. It was definitely a new experience!

The entrance to Yuyuan Garden was surrounded by tons and tons of shops! The ones on the street had many decorations out in preparation of the Chinese New Year, which is coming up quickly. It was a lot of fun to explore and look at. Here is an example of what it looked like! I ended up buying a little new years dragon. :)

Since we stuck out as obvious tourists, we were targeted by many of the shop owners and, unfortunately, people running scams. We were luckily warned ahead of time of some of the most common scams. I actually ended up running into every single one that was mentioned. For example, we had people come up to us and ask if we wanted to go see their tea house or take a tour of their art museum. As we had been instructed, we said no and walked away. I'm glad I knew ahead of time what to do in those situations! The night after we left Shanghai, SAS sent us this picture that was taken at a hostel in China. I hope you can read it!

I was very excited to find a music store that had almost all of the traditional Chinese instruments that I have been learning about in my Music Cultures course! When we walked in, the shop owner was playing an Erhu, which is a type of 2-string barbarian fiddle. He was really happy to see us and loved that we wanted to take pictures and videos. After playing the Erhu, we pointed to the flutes to see if he would play one of them for us. He was more than happy to and even posed for a picture before playing.

This is a "Dizi." It is a side-blown flute that has a little membrane stretched across the air hole to give it a slight buzzing sound when played.

After doing some shopping, we found our way to the garden entrance. There was so much else around it that we decided not to go in quite yet! In the center of the little district, there were bridges over water that you could walk across. In the water, there were figures that told a story. It's really hard to describe, but I took a video of the whole thing. Here is a picture so you can get an idea. It was gorgeous!

We ended up going backwards through it the first time on accident, which made people stare at us even more. But we went back through the correct way after that so we could actually understand the story.

We had a late lunch at an amazing restaurant in the center of the district. We decided to treat ourselves to something nice instead of buying street food. For some reason, they sat us at a huge round table even though we only had 5 people. It was one of the only tables with the spinning circle in the center to pass food around, so maybe they wanted us to be able to experience that. I had our very nice waiter take a picture of us all! Even though he didn't speak any English, it was pretty easy to non-verbally communicate. We ordered a lot of different things and shared them, including several different types of dumplings, a chicken and cashew dish and fried rice. The dumplings were my favorite, especially the ones with crab meat. It think that might be the best thing I've had so far on this trip.

After lunch, we looked at a few more shops and the amazing pieces of art and decorations that were everywhere! It really is impossible to explain them in words. Here is another example.

We then paid the small entrance fee into the garden. It didn't really look too much like an actual garden since we were there on the off-season, but it was amazing to see all of the old structures and buildings. Most of them had signs in English beside them so we could read about what they had been used for way back in the ancient dynasties.

We had to walk back through all of the shops to get out of the garden area, so we looked at a few places we skipped on the way in. Then we started heading back to the ship because Kaitlyn, Melia, and I had to be back to catch the field program bus for the Era Acrobatic show that evening. I had really been looking forward to that and was not one bit disappointed! It was incredible! I even had 3rd row seats! I wish I would have been able to take pictures, but they didn't allow it. If you've ever seen a Cirque Du Soleil show, it's similar to that! I don't understand how the human body can move and bend in the ways they did. I loved it, and it's been of my favorite parts of the trip so far. Here's a picture of the outside of the stadium.

Kaitlyn and I went up to the 7th deck after returning to the ship and took pictures of the Shanghai skyline. It is absolutely gorgeous and easily most incredible city I've ever seen at night. All of the buildings were lit up with different colored lights. I took a panorama that is my favorite picture so far from the trip. I wish I could upload it but it's too big of a file. Here's a picture that will at least give you an idea. :)

On the second day, I spent time with a girl named Kearisten who is looking for Christians and  Christian churches in each port we visit. I was honored that she invited me to come along with her! She wanted to go to the Yuyuan Garden area, so even though I had been there the day before I was more than happy to go along with her. To sum up our experiences, we actually ended up finding a Christian church but we were not able to go inside during the time we were there. We also met several Christians that spoke English! They told us about several churches we could find in Shanghai, but they were too far away for us to be able to make it back to the ship in time. So we spent the rest of our time eating some amazing food around Yuyuan garden, buying gifts for friends and family back home, meeting new people, and taking some incredible pictures. This is my favorite picture from the day. :)

We had to be back at 4 p.m. that day if we were traveling on the ship from Shanghai to Hong Kong. We had the option of traveling overland, but I didn't sign up for any of the trips so I decided to get back on the ship! I think it was actually a really good decision. There have been no classes during these two "in-transit" days, so I've spent my time catching up on sleep, working out, getting some studying and homework done, journaling and emailing people back home. I've really enjoyed it. Out of the approximately 1000 people on the ship, only 160 got back on in Shanghai. It's been very quiet, but quite relaxing! We had a movie night last night, which was so much fun. They showed Disney's Tarzan followed by Thelma and Louise. A lot of the faculty with young children got back on the ship, so I think that's why they chose a Disney movie. I decided to relive my childhood and watch it. I had forgotten how good of a movie it is!

We arrive in Hong Kong early tomorrow morning. Hong Kong is full of shopping malls, and the ocean terminal right outside of our port actually has like a 12 story shopping mall inside of it! The group I'm going with is definitely planning on doing a little bit of shopping to pick up a few things we decided we need for the rest of the trip. One of the guys in the group, Mike,  did SAS last Spring. He's been to Hong Kong before and is going to take us to some of the "must see" places during the afternoon. Then Melia and I are going to a Cantonese Opera in the evening. On the second day, I have a field lab with my Health Promotion and Behavior class that I am really looking forward to!

After Hong Kong, we'll start to have a much longer time in most of the ports. We get to Vietnam three days after we leave Hong Kong and we spend six days there! For Semester at Sea field programs, I am signed up for a three-day homestay and an orphanage visit. I also am hoping to get a dress tailored while we are there, but we'll be there during the Tet (new years) celebrations so it's possible that most of the shops will be closed. We will see what happens!

Thank you all for following my blog. I really hope you've been enjoying reading it so far. I apologize if there are ever any typos. I type them quickly and try to edit them before I send, but I probably have been missing some things!

Also, I love comments! Please feel free to comment if you'd like to! I'd love to hear from anyone that is reading this.

Thanks! :)

Kobe and Hiroshima!

Quick update on the storms we went through on the way to Japan! When I sat with the captain for dinner during the in-transit day, he told me that we definitely have "bragging rights." On a scale from 1 to 10, the storm we went through was about an 8 and was one of the worst that he has seen. That's kind of awesome and scary at the same time.

As soon as we got off the ship in Kobe, we started making our way to Hiroshima. Luckily, the information booth at the port terminal had a sheet that showed us which stations we needed to stop at and what trains to take to get there. We decided to take the bullet train, which would get us there in an hour and a half instead of a 4 hour regular train ride. We asked an adorable elderly main for directions to the Shin-Kobe station. He didn't speak any English, but offered to walk us most of the way there! It was only about a 10 minute walk, but this is another example of the amazing kindness of the people in Japan. Everyone was so helpful!

We ran into an SAS alumni on the way to the station. His name was Mark and he sailed during the Fall 1988 voyage. He has been teaching at a University in Kobe for about 10 years now. This was the first alumni I've run into on the voyage and it was really great to hear his story! It just confirmed once again how incredible of an opportunity this truly is and made me wonder about what might be in store for my future.

Shin-Kobe Station


Waiting for our Bullet Train!


This is what the front of the Bullet Train looked like as it was arriving at the station. They actually look a lot like airplanes on the inside.

Our seats on the bullet train! These are my friends Alexa and Kaitlynn. Dahana took the picture. :)

Dahana sat by an older Japanese woman old the train named Hiroko Toyodome. She hardly spoke any English, but tried so hard to have a conversation with us. It was a lot fun! She knew the word "beautiful," which she said many times as she pointed to Dahana's hair. :) She also understood numbers and ages in English. We told her how old all of us were and she told us she was 52. She gave us snacks to eat on the train and we all signed a postcard that had a picture of our ship and gave it to her. The little things like that just make the whole experience better. :)

     

After arriving at Hiroshima station, we took a short tram ride to Hiroshima Memorial Park. A lot of people have asked met to describe what the experience was like. Honestly, it's very hard to explain. I'll sum it up in one word: powerful.
We first saw the Atomic Bomb Dome, then walked around Memorial Park, saw the Hall of Remembrance, and went through the museum. At one point in the hall we were the only people inside, which made the experience even more real and powerful. Watching the videos, seeing the memorials, reading stories of the victims and survivors, and seeing the clothing worn by some that perished and other items found in the rubble from the bombing was very overwhelming. The story that stuck out the most to me was of a young girl named Sudako Sasaki. A picture that tells her story is included in the following pictures of my experience in Hiroshima.

Atomic Bomb Dome




Children's Peace Memorial


Sudako's Story




Hall of Remembrance

After leaving Hiroshima we found a place to eat and then took a short walk to see the Shirakami-Sha Shrine. The professor of my Anthropology of Religion course recommend it, so we decided to check it out! I wish I knew more about the Buddhist religion so that I could have made more sense of all of the structures and symbols. I knew enough to understand some of it, but it would have been great to know more. I'm excited to learn more about it in my class.

After visiting the shrine, we did some shopping at an outdoor shopping center. We got plenty of snacks and a few great souvenirs!

We took the bullet train back to Kobe and spent the rest of our evening walking around and finding a place for dinner and dessert. :) The food in Japan in amazing! Here's an example of some of the desserts we tried.

On the second day in Kobe, I walked around the city and spent sometime in Starbucks so that I could get Wifi to use Viber and call my family. It was the first time I got to talk to all of them since starting the strip and it was great to hear all of their voices. :) I do miss them and will definitely be ready to see them all again when this incredible adventure is over.

"On-ship" time was 6 p.m. that evening, but by 3 that afternoon I was exhausted and ready to head back. I ran into my friend Wade in the port terminal, so we got back on the ship and went up to the top deck to talk about our Japan experiences, write in our journals,  and enjoy looking out over the city. I've found that it's really great to take some time like that to reflect on everything!

Here are some random things that stuck out to me in Japan:

- Every single person is so incredibly kind. They tried their best to communicate with us and help us even if they didn't speak a single word of English.
-The toilets were a lot different from America and were difficult to operate at times. I wish I would have taken a picture of one. Many had buttons for heating the toilet seats and could actually even "wash you" so that you wouldn't have to use toilet paper. I didn't experiment too much, but it was definitely different!
- Everything is so clean! There was hardly any trash anywhere. Interestingly, there are no trashcans in outdoor public places or along the sidewalks. I learned this was because a bomb went off in a trashcan several years ago. Since then, all trashcans have been removed.
- People don't really talk to each other in Subway stations or while walking along the streets. It was always very quiet and I felt as if I always had to whisper if I wanted to start a conversation with someone.

We arrive in Shanghai, China tomorrow morning! We've only had two days back on the ship. Since we have so little time in the classroom, I'm starting to get overwhelmed with homework and studying for exams and projects. I have an exam in my Music Cultures course the class period right after China, which is pretty stressful! I'm actually glad that I decided to stay on the ship during the two in-transit days between Shanghai and Hong Kong. It will be a great time to relax and catch up on school work.

I am really excited for China! The Kindergarten Visit I signed up for got cancelled, which is disappointing. But I have many other things planned including an Acrobatic Show, a Cantonese Opera, a field lab with my Health Promotion and Behavior course, and more! :)