Japan

Japan April 11th – April 15th

April 11th Day 1 in Japan
We were told the night before that we wouldn’t be getting off the ship until noon at the earliest so I slept in. Because of the late time we were getting off the ship we had to change our travel plans all around. I decided that today I would go to Tokyo. My travel buddies were Ariel, Nicole, and Dustin. In China I bought a ticket to ride the bullet train so that I could travel anywhere in Japan I wanted. The bullet trains were located in the Shin-Kobe Station. To get there I first had to take a monorail leaving the port terminal. It cost 200 yen to ride. Keep in mind that the exchange rate is 118 yen to the dollar. The monorail took us to the Sanomiya Station. By the time I got there there was already a huge line at the JR ticket counter to exchange our rail pass receipts in for real passes. I was told by a travel agent that we could do this at the next station so we rode the subway to the Shin-Kobe Station. This cost another 200 yen. Once we arrived there we found out that the only place to get our tickets was at the station we were just at. How frustrating. We had to buy another subway ticket and go back to the other station. By this time the long line had tripled in length and we found ourselves at the end of it. Dustin and Nicole went out in search for a money exchange while Ariel and I waited in line. We waited and waited and waited. Finally my friends came back and Ariel and I wondered around for a bit. After a good 15 minutes we were finally able to find an ATM that took our cards. I even had enough time to stop and use the phone before getting back in line. Altogether I think we stood in line for at least an hour and a half. We finally got our tickets and headed back to the other station, which required buying another subway ticket for another 200 yen.
Our train to Tokyo picked us up at around 4:30. We had a three and a half hour ride ahead of us. The train was really nice inside. The chairs reclined back and there were even fold down trays we could use on the seats in front of us. There was lots of leg room too. I tried to take a nap but it was too uncomfortable. I didn’t really bring anything to do which was a bad move on my part. We stopped at a lot of towns along the way but only long enough for people to get on or off the train. The train had two kinds of bathrooms; a Western and a Japanese. The Japanese bathroom was just like any other squat toilet I had seen. A man ended up sitting down next to Ariel and he started eating a dried fish snack. It smelled really bad and I’m glad I didn’t have to sit next to him.
We got into Tokyo around 8pm. It was raining outside and I had forgotten my umbrella on the ship. We decided to walk down the streets anyways because we really had nothing else to do. We stopped into a sushi place for dinner. I decided not to eat because it was too weird and too expensive. Dustin and Nicole ended up getting a mixture of sushi. The price was way too much for what they got. Then we went back to the station to try and make reservations for a hotel room. We had heard that all the hotels in Tokyo were pretty much booked due to the blooming of the cherry blossom trees. In Ariel’s Lonely Planet book we found a cool place to stay where you can sleep in capsules in the wall. Apparently there are only two hotels like this in Tokyo that allow women to stay in them. We booked our rooms and then rode the subway to another section of town called Akuska. The hotel was supposed to be right outside the station but it took us awhile to find it because its entrance was in the rear of the building. When we stepped through the door we had to immediately remove our shoes. We put them into lockers and were given green slippers. To pay for our room we had to insert money into a vending machine. It cost us around $25 each. Ariel, Nicole, and I were put on the 8th floor because it was an all women’s floor. There was a little changing area with lockers for our stuff and a bathroom and sink room. Inside the lockers was a pajama outfit. Then we checked out where we would be sleeping. The room was pretty big and had about 20 capsules. My capsule was on the bottom. It was big enough to fit a mattress inside. It also had a small TV hanging form the ceiling as well as a radio and an alarm clock. The TV was all in Japanese but the radio played mostly English music.
Ariel and I still hadn’t eaten dinner yet so we went back out onto the rainy streets. We went to a little fast food type Japanese restaurant. The waiter was actually from Bangladesh but he spoke really good English. We were given hot green tea with our meal. It really needed some sugar so Nicole ran next door to Starbucks and grabbed us a few sugar packets. The waiter just laughed at us we he saw what we were doing. We stayed there for awhile and then went back to our capsules. We put on our pajama set and attempted to go to sleep. There wasn’t an actual door on the capsule but a thick curtain that pulled down. I could hear everything going on outside my capsule. The bed was rock hard and I didn’t sleep well at all.

April 12th Tokyo Day 2 in Japan

We woke up at 7:45 because Dustin wanted to meet us in the lobby by 8am. We got all packed up and were ready to go. We met Dustin in the lobby but he told us to come back in an hour because he wanted to sleep more. That kind of made us angry because we had wanted to go places but now we had to stay around the hotel. It was still raining outside but we found that the hotel owner had a bunch of umbrellas we could borrow. Once out in the streets we found a donut shop and had coffee and donuts for breakfast. Then we walked around some allies that were filled with little shops. It was about 9 by then so we walked back to the hotel. We sat in the lobby for over 45 minutes before Dustin came down. We were a little angry.
We walked over to the bus station and jumped on a bus heading to Ueno. Once we got there we walked through a park filled with cherry blossoms. They were beautiful and a bright pink color. Then we went to the National Museum. Outside of the museum was a bunch of racks for umbrellas. There were a bunch of slots and once you put your umbrella into one you could lock it and take the key. I found this really funny. It must rain here a lot. Inside the museum there were lots of paintings and sculptures. There was nothing too exciting. Then we saw some Samurai swords and some old tribal warrior outfits. After that we jumped on another bus and headed to another part of town to try and find a market. Instead we ended up finding ourselves on Takeshita Street. This street was full of shops and restaurants. All the shops were mostly clothes and hip hop oriented. There were people everywhere. It was very entertaining to see the fashionable Japanese teens walk by. They wear the weirdest things. The girls would wear platform shoes with long striped socks. Many of them wore lots of layers of clothing. They seemed to like Disney stuff and would also have colorful hair that was styled so it spiked up. The guys were also big on having long hair that they spiked up and dyed bright colors. I could have sat and watched them walk by all day long. We ended up spending most of the afternoon here. Dustin was no longer with us because he didn’t want to hang around shopping with us.
Then we went back to the main station and took a train to the downtown area of Tokyo. We walked a few blocks to the Sony Building. We had read that inside we could check out all their new products and play the new video games. There were about four different levels of products. We checked them all out and were disappointed to find out that the game room was under renovation and we couldn’t play any of the games. After that we just walked around the streets before heading back to the station to get on our train back to Kobe. Nicole and I stopped and ate at a little Sushi place in the terminal and it was pretty good. Then we got on our train and happily looked forward to our three and a half hour ride back. Every now and then a lady would walk down the aisles pushing a cart with food and drinks on it. We hit her up every train ride we took after that. When we arrived back in Kobe we had to take a subway to the other station and then get on the monorail to go back to the ship. We had decided that to save money we would just sleep on the ship every night instead of staying in hotels.

April 13th Day 3 in Japan
Today we decided to go to Hiroshima. The earliest train we could get wasn’t until 10:49. This train was a lot different then the ones we rode before. Inside the seats were larger and comfier. Instead of seating three to a row they only sat two. This time the ride was only an hour and a half. When we arrived we took a street car to the Peace Memorial Park. As you probably could have guessed a huge part of Hiroshima is dedicated to peace from the result of the atomic bomb. The first monument we went to was the A-bomb dome. When they dropped the bomb it detonated 600 meters above this building. It was mostly destroyed but the structure was still standing. We walked around the park and passed many memorials and statues. There were cherry blossom trees everywhere. Then we came to the children’s memorial. It had a huge statue with a crane on the top. It was built for Suduko who built 1000 paper cranes when she found out she had leukemia from the effects of the radiation. The story has it that if you make enough cranes then your wish will come true. Her classmates wanted to help and they all began making cranes for all the children who had been affected by the bombing and its aftermath. The memorial contained quite a few glass cases with thousands of miniature paper cranes inside.
Then we went inside the museum. It was a very good museum and wasn’t biased at all. It showed pictures and clips of the before and after. It also explained why the bomb was dropped and how the decision was made. There was a big model of the city both before and after the bomb. It was amazing to see all the destruction it caused. The grossest part of the museum was the radiation section. They showed many pictures of burnt victims. There were also lots of fingernail clippings from people whose fingernails had been poisoned by radiation. There was even a person’s tongue. Yuck. The part I found most interesting was all the articles and bits of pieces of clothes and lunch boxes that were left behind after the bomb. There was even a little girl’s tricycle that was charred to the crisp. The little girl was riding it when the bomb went off.
By the time we left the museum it was already 3pm and I was starving. I think we walked in the complete opposite direction of all the restaurants because we couldn’t find one to save our lives. As we were walking I saw the coolest thing. We passed a gas station but the pumps were up on the ceiling. When a car pulled up the nozzle would lower down so they could get gas. I didn’t get an up close look at it so I don’t know exactly how they chose to pay but I thought it was pretty cool. We ended up eating at a restaurant that didn’t exactly look too good but it was better then nothing. To order we put our money into a vending machine and selected what food we wanted. Without knowing it we all ordered the same thing. We got breaded pork over a bowl of rice. It would have been good except there was a raw egg poured over the whole thing. Japanese people eat raw egg with everything. Since the food was so hot the egg ended up cooking and I was able to just peel it off. After a delicious lunch we decided to go back to the station when we passed a street full of people. We decided to check it out. We shopped for awhile but everything was too expensive to buy. We found an internet café but in order to use it we had to become members. If anyone ever needs to use a computer in Japan I will gladly share my membership card with you.
Our train back to Kobe left at 7:10. This time instead of sitting in the normal section we got a private room with a table. I had brought cards and I taught Ariel and Nicole how to play rummy. We snacked on pocky the whole time. Pocky is delicious. It is like a pretzel stick with chocolate coated on it. I ended up buying quite a few boxes of coconut pocky to bring home. Anyhow, we played rummy the whole time and the ride went by pretty fast. We then did our usual routine of riding the subway and monorail to get back to the ship. By this time we had figured out ways to avoid paying for the subway. We would buy child tickets which were only half the price. To get into the subway area you only had to swipe your ticket. On the way out you would swipe your ticket again and if it was invalid then the gates would close on you and an alarm would sound. With the child tickets we were supposed to go through a special exit but no one ever noticed. By this time if there wasn’t a person manning the entrances then I wouldn’t even bother buying a ticket and just run through the closed gates. I felt like I had already given the system plenty of money and if I didn’t pay a few times they weren’t losing anything.

April 14th 4th day in Japan

Today our plan was to go to Kyoto. Since it was only a 30 minute bullet train ride away from Kobe we decided to sleep in a little. That didn’t work out because the crew had a lifeboat drill early in the morning and alarms kept sounding over the intercoms. It really wasn’t a nice thing to wake up to. We got up just late enough to miss breakfast on the ship so we decided we would grab a bite to eat in the station before heading to Kyoto. This would be the day I stopped paying for subway tickets and just ran through the gates really fast hoping to go unnoticed. Inside the station was a long hallway filled with restaurants. We picked one out and went in and sat down. There were two ladies serving the food and cleaning the tables. They were running around everywhere doing things a mile a minute. We got our food pretty fast. I got shrimp tempura and it was delicious!
The ride to Kyoto was really fast. We left Nicole in charge of being the “map” girl and planning out our day. We took turns doing this. (I was the map girl in Hiroshima). Nicole wanted to go to Ryoan’ji which was a temple/garden. We had to take a street car to get there which was just like a bus. It was packed with people and we all had to stand. I was eventually able to get a seat which made the ride much better. We got off the bus about 35 minutes later. We got dropped off at the entrance of a different temple. Ariel and Nicole didn’t want to pay the money to go inside so we headed in the direction of Ryoan’ji. It was freezing cold outside. Because it was warm yesterday I decided to leave my sweatshirt and hat on the ship and just wear my shell. That was a bad idea. I was forced to buy hot chocolate out of the vending machines along the road. Vending machines are all over the place but they never have snacks in them like in the US. Instead they have sodas and beer. That’s right, beer. I don’t know if there is an actual drinking age in Japan seeing that anyone could buy beer from the vending machine. The vending machines also sell cigarettes.
Anyhow, after a long walk up a hill we finally made it to Ryoan’ji. The area was beautiful. Inside were dozens of cherry blossom trees in full bloom. The cherry blossoms will start to die after we leave so we were seeing them at their peak time and they were gorgeous. We were led down a path until we came upon a large wooden building that was acting as the temple. We had to take off our shoes to enter. Inside was a large Zen rock garden. When I first saw it I though it was a joke. Here were all these people just staring at a bunch of rocks in amazement. Nicole had learned about it in her class on the ship so she was able to tell me why it was so special. It was a big rectangular area with a rock border all around. Inside the border were little pebbles raked in lines and spirals. Inside the spirals were boulders with moss on them. There is no real meaning to the garden but you are supposed to sit there and figure out what it means to you. I guess I didn’t sit there long enough because I never figured it out. It was like a shrine to rocks. We walked through the rest of the garden and then went to a bus stop to figure out where to go next.
There was only one bus stop so we figured it would take us to where we would want to go. We were headed to Geon Center to see the geishas. When the bus came it was already full and we found ourselves standing in the back. Nicole and I were able to grab seats after a few stops. The ride was fine until Ariel pointed out the man across the aisle form me was picking his nose. It was so gross. He picked his nose the whole ride. This is going to get gross but I feel like I need to share it with everyone. The guy had a bloody tissue from picking his nose so hard that he just threw down on the ground underneath his seat. He kept picking and then just wiped everything onto the seat. It was disgusting. I kept making loud comments about how gross it was hoping that he would stop but he obviously didn’t speak any English. Ariel finally got a seat in front of the guy. A little while later she fell asleep and I started throwing wads of paper at her just to bug her. The nose picker thought I wanted her attention so he patted her on the back with his boogery hand. That was pretty funny to me and Nicole. The bus ride never seemed to end. We rode that stupid bus for over an hour and a half but it eventually took us exactly where we wanted to go.
Geon Center was a long street with shops and restaurants scattered down it. We started checking it out when we saw two geishas walking down the street. They were dressed up in traditional kimonos and were even wearing the small platform flip flop shoes. They also had their faces painted white and had their hair tied up with decorations pinned in it. As they crossed the street every single person around them whipped out a camera and bombarded them. I felt bad but they must be used to it. We left Nicole with the job of getting pictures of them since she is really sneaky about taking pictures of people without them knowing it. By now it was getting to be dinner time and we ended up going in a restaurant that served Japanese style pizza. I chose not to order. We were seated at a table with two other Japanese girls. They were mannequins that were dressed up. There was at least one at every table. Why I don’t know. Hanging from the ceiling were little naked dolls and hanging on the walls were plaques with cartoon sexual pictures on them. It was a really funky place. I made no connection with why all the sexual stuff was in there but it was pretty funny. The pizzas were not the best so I hear. They looked like tacos in a soft shell. Inside was a raw egg, something green, and little chunks of goop. I don’t know how my friends managed to eat those and I am very glad I didn’t order one because I wouldn’t have been able to eat more then half a bite.
We wanted to go to a Japanese traditional show so we had to go to Geon Corner by 6:30 to get tickets. The show was expensive but it was supposed to be a mixture of things from dancing to a tea ceremony. We also thought that we would see geishas in the show. We got pretty good seats right in the front but we were on the side. The first part of the show was the tea ceremony. It was shown way over on the other side and we couldn’t see at all. That sucked. Next up was two ladies playing instruments that looked like harps lying on the ground. While the music played another lady made a flower arrangement. It was stupid. She took a pot and basically put 3 ferns and some un-bloomed flowers in it. Was I supposed to get excited about that? Next was a man dressed up in an orange outfit that was supposed to be a dancer. It was supposed to be a traditional dance but he hardly moved. A geisha finally came on the stage. She was all fancied up and I found it sorta entertaining. The one thing I did like was a little skit that three guys did. They spoke all in Japanese but there was an English storyline in the program so I knew what was going on. The next part was the worst but the most entertaining at the same time. It was a puppet show. The puppet was of a girl that was about 4 feet high. Holding her up were three guys wearing all black robes with black pointy hoods on. They resembled the KKK but were all dressed in black. One guy was at each arm and another controlled the feet. It was really funny to us that these guys were standing there making her move. Why not have strings from the ceiling or hide behind a wall? They made the puppet run across the stage and that’s when it did it for us. Ariel and I started laughing uncontrollably. We just couldn’t stop because we were laughing off each other. What made it worse was that Ariel would gasp for breath and make a really loud noise when she did so. She couldn’t stop laughing and people kept turning around and looking at us. The puppet show kept going on and on and on. Finally it ended and Ariel had tears all down her face from laughing so hard. The show was pretty terrible but at least we got that one good laugh out of it. Afterwards we walked through the rest of the Geon Corner. It was a bunch of houses for the geishas. It was like a little Geisha village.
There was nothing left for us to do in Geisha land so we hopped on a subway and went back to the main station to get on a train back to Kobe.

April 15th Last day in Japan Last day of my trip in a foreign country

The plan this morning was to go to Osaka which was only a 15 minute ride away. The reason I wanted to go there was because there was a park there that had benches to “people watch” on. All the Japanese teens are supposed to hang out there in their trendy clothes. I was looking forward to this. We also wanted to go to a baseball game and since the game started at 1pm we had to nix going to Osaka. I was a little bummed. The weather outside was really gloomy but we figured that since baseball is so big in Japan that they might have a covered stadium. We dilly dallied around for a while before getting on a subway and heading to the Skymark Stadium. It was located on the other side of Kobe and it took a long time to get there. When we arrived we had hardly taken more then five steps when we saw other SAS kids. They told us that the game had been rained out. What a bummer. We were really set on watching a game and were disappointed that it was cancelled. We didn’t want to go to Osaka anymore either because it was raining so “people watching” at the park wouldn’t have been fun. We were left with nothing to do on the last day in Japan.
We really wanted to try and find some Kobe beef to eat even though it is really expensive. I heard that Kobe beef is basically spoiled cows that are served sake and get massages all day long. I would say lucky cows but they eventually get killed and are eaten so they aren’t that lucky. We searched and searched for it but all we managed to find were posters advertising it. As we were walking around a bunch of Japanese people dressed in fancy clothes rushed by us. We decided to follow them. I didn’t mind walking in the rain because I had my cool leopard print umbrella with me. Thanks mom!
The people led us to a roped off area with a model of a temple in it. We stood along the outside of the ropes and waited for the show to begin. We had no idea what was going on but we were pretty entertained. First a bunch of guys holding bright red dragons did a dragon dance in the middle of the street. Little kids eventually “killed” the dragons. Then a huge troop of guys came through carrying a much bigger temple on wooden boards. They set it down and then sat on the street. Over to the side some old men were praying to another temple. This went on for some time. Then the men hoisted up the boards and said some chants. Then they tossed the temple into the air and caught it again. Once they almost dropped it. Then a huge group of really small children came. They were dressed in fancy costumes and carried away the littler temple. They all walked away down the street with a band procession following them in a truck. I was really glad that we happened to stumble upon the show even though I still don’t know exactly what it was for.
Then we really didn’t have anything to do so we headed back to the ship. After dropping off our stuff we went back inside the ship terminal. There was one shop in the whole thing and we all bought a bunch of beer from it. We took our beer and Nicole’s laptop and sat down in a corner to listen to music and play drinking games. We ended up recruiting a few people and sat there until dinner time. I know you might be thinking that this was a waste of my last hours spent in Japan but we really had nothing to do and it was miserable outside. We had to be back on the ship by 8pm anyways.


Truthfully I am traveled out. I never thought this would happen but I have been traveling so much that I feel like I need a break. I think including school work into the traveling is what made me so traveled out. I am really glad to be coming home even though I don’t want my trip to end. It is hard that the only thing I have to look forward to at the moment is being on the ship for the next two weeks. That is a long time to be stuck on the ship.
The night we left Japan was the worst weather we have been through yet. All night long the ship banged back and forth. A few times I could feel that whole ship slam into the waves. Our drawers flew open all night and everything in our room rattled. In the morning it was still really bad. They ended up canceling morning classes because the weather was too rough for people to move around. Plus when you have to sit in the front of the ship while in class you start to feel really sea sick. I am very glad I don’t get sea sick although the ship was so rocky that I would almost feel nauseous just sitting up. It calmed down by the late afternoon but it is now three days later and I have still not seen the sun again.
Wow, that last paragraph made me sound a little miserable. Well I am not at all and I have had an unbelievable time on this voyage. I would do it again in a heartbeat and I have made some really great friends who I am really going to miss once this is all over.

China April 2nd-8th

Hong Kong April 2nd

This morning we got off the ship at 10 am. I actually got to sleep in a little because there wasn’t a diplomatic briefing nor did I have to wait in line to exchange money. Since I haven’t mentioned what a diplomatic briefing is I will tell you. Important people from the countries, usually Americans, come on the ship and give a little speech about the countries history, what’s going on, and what we should do. Usually they are really boring so I was glad when it was cancelled.
The gangway off the ship was very different then any other time. We were given a walkway sort of like in ET that led right into a mall. The mall was huge and once we entered into it it took us quite some time to figure out how to get out. We ported in the island of Kowloon. It was right across from the main Hong Kong Island so we had to take a ferry to get there. The ferry was called the Star Ferry and it was only about a 10 minute ride. It cost us about 30 cents to ride it. Looking at Hong Kong from out on the water was amazing. It is nothing but skyscrapers. The skyscrapers all had something in common. More then half of them were all electronic companies. There were huge signs on the outside of the buildings. I saw Samsung, Panasonic, Epson, Cannon, Sony, Kodak, and many more just facing the waterfront. It made me realize that if I wanted to I could buy probably any electronic gadget I wanted for a cheaper price then in the US. I didn’t though because although they were cheaper they were still really expensive. Besides electronics there were hundreds of designer buildings. In the radius of one block there was a Louis Vuiton store, a Gucci store, a Tiffany’s and so on. They were everywhere but I never went in because I was happy with the fake knock offs in the markets.
I started my adventures in Hong Kong with just Ariel and Nicole. We had no idea what we wanted to do there. We decided that we would try and find a place to use the internet first. It is really hard to go from using the internet every day back home to only using it a few times a week here. I didn’t realize how dependant I was on it. We never found a place to use the internet so we started looking around for semi English speaking people to give us directions. Everybody gave us terrible directions and we found ourselves lost in the same section of Hong Kong for a few hours. I thought it was very appropriate when I bought an “I am lost in Hong Kong” tee-shirt. Finally we ended up at the city hall were we were able to use the computers. After that we ate lunch at a place called the Coral Café. It was packed with people and because everything was in Chinese I ordered from a picture and ended up getting duck on a plate of rice. I had not yet ordered any kind of bird on my trip so far because I was attempting to stay away from bird flu. I didn’t realize until I got my food that duck could also carry bird flu. I was a pansy and just ate my rice.
Outside on the streets there were lots and lots of crosswalks. There must be a lot of blind people in Hong Kong because every crosswalk was built for blind people. There was a big speaker on the pole with the walk/don’t walk sign. When you couldn’t walk it would make a beeping noise that sounded worse then an alarm clock. Then, when it was safe to walk it would make a long beeping noise. It was pretty annoying because they were everywhere and it was impossible to escape the noise.
We decided that we would try and go to Ocean Adventure Park. It seemed better then trying to go to Disneyland. We ran into a guy named Bob who was by himself and he decided to come with us. We found the bus station and tried to find a bus to take us there. We would have had to switch buses along the way and we decided that it would be easier to just take a taxi. The ride was fairly long because the park was on the opposite side of the island. To get in we had to pay about $20. It was worth it though. We walked around the first half of the park which contained the panda exhibit and some kid learning centers. The panda exhibit had two large pandas in it. We had to walk up a really long windy path just to get there. Along the path were TV screens showing one of the pandas. It was lying on its side on a log and it looked dead. It was funny that they were broadcasting it when it didn’t even look alive. Inside the exhibit the panda was indeed just chillin sideways on the log. There was another panda cage and we walked over there to see him instead. It was right up at the front of the cage eating bamboo. It just sat there and didn’t seem to care that we were there. It looked so cuddly and soft and it was hard to think of it as a bear. I could have watched it for a long time but Bob was getting antsy so we had to leave. Stupid Bob.
No one wanted to check out the learning exhibits so we decided to go to the other half of the park. The park was built on a mountain and the other half was on the other side of the mountain. We had to take a cable car to get there. The cable car was a little bubble that fit about 5 people. We rode in the car for about 15 minutes. It was like a tram. There was an amazing view but it was a scary ride. At one point we were dangling way up high over a cliff with the China Sea below us. It was a little scary once we thought about what would happen if our bubble broke off the cable. Once we got to the other side all Bob wanted to do was go on the rides. Stupid Bob. Ariel and I said that would be fine as long as we stopped in the exhibits along the way. The first place was the aquarium. We got to walk through a little section that had the fish swimming above us. There were sharks, swordfish, manta rays, and a fish with a saw looking nose. It was really cool but we were on a moving escalator and we had to keep running back to the beginning because we would move too fast. Then a huge group of Asian tourists came through so we could no longer stay in there. We walked to a huge aquarium that was filled with all kinds of sea life. There were giant turtles and even bigger manta rays. There were tropical fish as well as gigantic fish. We got to view the aquarium from three different levels; the top, the middle, and from down below. Along the side walls were little tanks with very interesting creatures in them. There were seahorses that were covered in plants and they looked just like a plant. It was kind of like a stick bug but a plant fish. It was so cool. I could have stayed in the aquarium all day but stupid Bob wanted to go on the rides. Along the way to the rides we passed a huge arena with a dolphin and seal show going on. It was packed full so we didn’t stay very long because we couldn’t really see anything.
The first ride was the roller coaster. The only roller coaster I have ever been on was way back in the day at the Space Needle. It was hardly a roller coaster though and I was really little. This was going to be my first time on a real roller coaster. It even went upside down! We waited in line for a while. We got some good people watching time in. There was a guy and his girlfriend across from us and the guy had nails that were about a half inch long. It was gross. We got on the roller coaster and I was definitely nervous. It was a short ride but because it was my first time I will admit that I was scared. The ride had a few turns and it went upside down three times. It even rode over the South China Sea. It was fun but the end of the ride was really jerky. The next ride we went on was a log water ride. I called the front seat of the log. The line was really long and the Chinese people kept trying to cut us. Finally it was our turn. The ride was really lame and at one point we went over a little bump and a pile of water got poured onto my lap. I didn’t want my bag to get all wet so I put it behind my back between me and Nicole. At the end of the ride there was a big drop that was supposed to soak everyone in the log. It was almost a vertical drop and it was scary being in the front. We got splashed hard core. I was soaked and so was my bag. We all exited the log and as we were walking away I noticed that my hands were dyed blue and green. My bag, which I had bought in Myanmar, got so wet that all the dye came off onto my hands as well as the back of my white shirt. So for the rest of the day I walked around with blue hands. The other ride was closed and there really wasn’t anything else to do. We walked for a long time on a path that eventually led nowhere. That’s when we realized that there were escalators to take you around the park. We rode the series of about 4 escalators back up to the cable car. There were large bunches of Asian tourists riding down and they would blatantly stare at us. One guy even took pictures of us when we were right next to him. At least when we do that we try not to make it too obvious. I also noticed that there really weren’t too many kids here but rather lots and lots of adults. I thought that was rather strange. By the time we made it back to the cable car the park was closing and we had to take the car to the other side. Instead of taking a taxi back to the ferry area we jumped on a shuttle bus because we figured it would be cheaper. It was actually around the same price and it dropped us off far away from where we wanted to go.
Bob was supposed to meet his friends at 7 and since we wanted to ditch him we practically ran back to the ferry terminal. Once we got there he decided he wanted to stay with us so that sucked. We decided that we would walk around and look in the little market areas before getting dinner. We were looking for a flag but never found one and every time we asked they would think we were saying fan and show us fans. We finally gave up on that and ate dinner. Then we took the ferry back to the ship to drop off our stuff and get ready to go out. Nicole had made plans to hang out with one of the waiters, which is actually not allowed. The crew is not allowed to hang out with us at all which is kind of stupid but understandable. He told us to get on a ferry and he would jump on a little while later. Well he never came and we ended up going to some random island and not knowing what to do. It was funny though because about 20 other crew members were also going to that island. We attempted to follow them but it didn’t work out. Instead we browsed around in a seven 11. We sat around for a while and then just decided to go back to Kowloon. I used the phone outside and then decided I would go back to the ship and pack for my trip to Beijing.

Beijing April 3rd – 6th

April 3rd 2nd day in China

My trip was supposed to leave the ship at 8:30am but nobody bothered telling me and Ariel that it didn’t actually leave until 9:45. We had gotten up early for nothing. When we finally signed in for our trip we were given souvenirs. They were little 8 balls with semester at sea on them. We thought they were pretty cheesy but cool anyways. I took them back to our room so we wouldn’t have to carry them around the whole time. When I came back Ariel told me to grab another one because it turns out they were supposed to be gifts for the Chinese students we were going to meet. Oops!
Once we got to the airport we still had a while before our flight left. We looked everywhere for a Hong Kong flag but not a single shop had one. There were lots of fancy stores inside the airport. I guess designer shops can make a lot of money here. Our flight was about 2 ½ hours long and I was lucky enough to get a window seat. I had been getting stuck with the middle seat on my last 2 flights. The girl next to me switched seats so that Ariel and I could sit together. The plane was pretty big. I hadn’t been on one this size since I flew to Hawaii 6 years ago. Lunch on the plane really wasn’t that bad. We got pork and a roll and a salad that I gave to Ariel. Then after lunch was cleaned up we were served chocolate Hagan Daz ice cream cups! It was delicious. The vegetarians didn’t get any because in China vegetarians don’t eat ice-cream. Sucks for them because it was delicious. Looking out my window I was surprised at how much rural area there was so close to the big city. Most of it just looked like dust. Then all the skyscrapers appeared and I knew we had made it to Beijing.
The bathroom in the airport was of course different then in the US. They provided toilet paper but you had to get it first before going into the stall. The airport was the only place I went that provided the toilet paper. Also, there was a choice of a squat toilet, which are the ones like a hole in the ground, or a sit toilet like in the US. And that’s my China bathroom shpeel.
My trip was a University based trip and we were headed to Peking University to check into our guest house. The university was huge with about 46,000 students. There were a lot of American students there too. Our guest house was pretty basic and not the best. None of the staff spoke English and there were Raid traps in our rooms for bugs. Ariel was my roommate and our rooms were separated from the main front desk building.
As we were waiting to check into our rooms we had to stand outside in the cold. Our trip leader was one of the resident directors on board and his girlfriend was the other leader. They both had shaved heads that they dyed a gross yellow blonde color. They looked identical. He was wearing neon orange track pants. While we were standing there waiting for our keys Ariel made a comment that his pants looked plastic. I busted out laughing which in turn made her laugh and pretty soon we were laughing so hard we were crying. Jason and his girlfriend kept asking us what was so funny which only made us laugh harder. Luckily we got our key and could run away from them.
We walked a little ways over to a dining hall to eat dinner. We sat at big round tables which sat 10 people each. In the middle of the table was a large lazy susan maybe 3 feet wide. We were given chopsticks and teacups and a small teacup sized plate. Waiters brought out dish after dish of food until there was absolutely no more room to put anything. It was really difficult to get food because everyone kept spinning the dam lazy susan. Some of the dishes were really strange. At one meal we were served jello looking strips that we decided were collagen. There was a lot of tofu and always a big bowl of rice. Pork and chicken were usually served and I gave in to the bird flu because if I didn’t eat the chicken I would have gone hungry. Lots of the foods were really greasy, even the vegetables. Even though the food never looked that appetizing I always ended up getting really full. Dessert was always some kind of fruit and to drink we were always served Coke or Sprite. It was difficult to eat with the little itty bitty plates because they really didn’t fit much food. And if you didn’t like something you had to leave it on your plate which just took up a lot of space because I didn’t like a lot of things. Chinese food is much different then Chinese food in the US. In fact after eating in China I don’t even think you can call Chinese food in the US Chinese food. It isn’t even close to anything we ate.
After our first meal we walked to the Exchange Center on campus to meet PKU students. We were put into a conference room and some students came in and sat in the back. One student sat next to me and Ariel. She looked kind of dorky and she was in fact dorky. We thought her name was Charlie but it turns out her name was Cookie. All the students have Chinese names but they give themselves American names. They either make up their names or have their friends make up one up for them. Cookie gave us a little tour of campus but it was really dark outside so we really couldn’t see much. We walked through the trees along side a lake. She took us to one of the campus entrances that was apparently famous for some reason. Then she took us to look around the student store. The door to go in was the strips of plastic stuff you would see in the butcher area of a grocery store. They had these all over campus and I guess the reason is that it keeps out the cold. I don’t know why they don’t just shut the actual doors and then they wouldn’t have that problem. Anyhow, inside the store they sold food, jewelry, electronics, clothes, shoes, movies, and random stuff. We were looking through the movies and Ariel dropped the first season collection of the Godfather on me. The corner of the box hit me right in the temple and boy did that hurt. There was a bakery inside and Cookie told us that after 9pm you can buy two cakes and get one for free. Since there were three of us we all decided to get a piece of cake. We asked Cookie which one she liked and she pointed it out. Ariel and I kept looking and then we turned around to see that Cookie was asking for three pieces of the one she liked to be wrapped up. We figured that she just picked out the pieces for us. She went up to pay and I ran up and insisted paying for them. That’s when I realized that she wasn’t sharing but instead she was getting all three pieces for herself. No wonder her name is Cookie. I felt really embarrassed when I realized what was going on. Both the cakes Ariel and I ended up getting were gross. We then said goodbye to Cookie and went back to our room. We both tried to take showers and it was pretty difficult. The shower head wasn’t attached to the wall at a very good spot and the water sprayed out in a horizontal line. If we were any shorter we would have been squirted right in the face.


April 5th Day 3 in China

We didn’t get a wake up call like we were supposed to but luckily got up just in time to go eat breakfast. We had to walk over to the dining hall and it was freezing outside. Breakfast was quite strange. There was a bunch of random things and nothing looked too good including the scrambled eggs which were more of a greenish brown color. I had some fried breads and pineapple and that pretty much consisted of my breakfast. Then we all clambered on the bus. One girl on our trip was sick and we had to take her to the campus health center. We sat on the bus for around 40 minutes while they took care of her. Then we headed to the Jade factory. On every SAS trip they always take us to some expensive factory and this time it was the Jade factory. We were given an hour and a half here to look around. We got a quick tour which lasted a whole 5 minutes. Everything in the store was beyond belief expensive and within 20 minutes we were done looking around. There were a few rich girls who stayed in the store shopping. I think all of us sat on the bus for about 45 minutes while a few girls bought stuff. What a waste of time. Then we went to the Ming tombs. We didn’t actually go to the tombs though because I guess other trips thought it was too boring. Instead we walked through a pathway with stone statues on either side. The statues were built around the 1400’s. There were some mythological animals, camels, elephants, horses, lions, and some stone people. To have some fun I decided that at each different animal I would make up funny poses and take a picture. It was pretty fun but it would have been funner if I could have crawled on the animals but seeing that they were really old I decided that wouldn’t be a great idea. After that we went to a restaurant to have lunch. It was the exact same as dinner last night with a few different dishes. Then we went to the Great Wall!
The section of wall that we went to wasn’t what I thought it would be. Instead of being a long stretch of wall it formed one giant circle. Apparently there are four different passes of wall like this. The circle was split into a semicircle with a bridge over the highway splitting the middle. We were given 2 ½ hours to climb the wall. Since the wall is located in the mountains we had to do a lot of uphill stair climbing and I mean a lot. I didn’t even know that so many stairs existed on the wall. The stairs were a range of sizes anywhere from two feet high to only half a foot high. Some of the stairs were really worn down from people walking on them. There was a railing on both sides but it was pretty pointless. The railing hardly ever came up past our knees so holding onto it was almost impossible. Along the hike up were about 8 towers. Each tower gave us a place to rest and catch our breaths. I was really disappointed to see that there was a store on the wall selling novelty crap. It kinda ruined the whole “I’m on the Great Wall in the middle of nowhere experience.” The saying goes that if you can make it up to the top then you are a hero. Many people quit at the first tower. I will admit it was a hard climb but it’s the Great Wall for crying out loud. The hike up was freezing cold. The weather was in the fifties or sixties but the wind chill made it miserable. For the trip all I packed was a thin long sleeved shirt and my fleece vest. It definitely didn’t keep me warm enough. The hike up took about an hour. Once we made it to the top it really wasn’t anything too special. The view wasn’t pretty because everything looked dead. The hills were all brown but had ridges across them.
Going down was actually harder then going up. The stairs were really really steep. About 1/3 of the way down my legs and knees started to shake whenever I stopped. Ariel came up with all sorts of ways to climb down easier. She tried sliding down the railing but it was too close to the stairs. Walking down backwards was the easiest way. Right as we were really close to the end was the steepest part. It was almost vertical. At the bottom of that I actually got to walk on a flat part. I had almost given up hope that flat parts even existed. By the time we reached the bottom of the semicircle we only had an hour left to explore. That wasn’t enough time to hike up the other side so we decided to look around instead. There were a bunch of statues of warriors off to one corner so we decided to take some funny pictures. The statues were broken and I took a hand as a souvenir and Ariel took a thumb. I forgot to actually take a piece of the wall. Oops. There were stores lined up and we decided to check them out. I got really happy when I saw a Great Wall sweatshirt. I was freezing cold and I wanted it really bad. The lady wouldn’t take the price that Ariel and I were offering and we walked away sad. We got to the end of the stores when I realized that we were only offering to pay $3 for a hooded sweatshirt. We laughed and then went back and ended up buying them for $6.50. I wore it the whole rest of the trip.
We went back to Peking University for dinner and a “party.” Our party was with the Chinese students and it was pretty childish. We played games like limbo and we actually did the hokey pokey. All the Chinese students were dorky and Cookie wouldn’t even participate. When we were supposed to get partners all the SAS kids would group up when really we were supposed to involve the Chinese students. Ariel and I tried rounding them all up and getting them to participate but most of them decided to just sit and watch. When it came time to give our gifts away I gave mine to a Chinese guy. Before he even looked at it he jumped up and ran away. I thought it was a little strange but he came back a few minutes later with a PKU t-shirt for me. After the fun party we went back to our rooms and called it a night.

April 6th Day 4 in China

I skipped breakfast this morning and ate my box of cheerios I brought from the ship. Our first destination was Tian’anmen Square. It was a huge open square with important buildings on all sides. We were given two hours to wander around. It was really cold out again. First Ariel and I went to the People’s Hall. We had to go across the street and check our bags. Then we had to wait outside in a line with about 100 Asian people. A huge chunk of people were let in at once so we didn’t have to wait long. Inside the building was Mao’s body. It was in a casket but we could see his face and outline of his body. He was really short. We all shuffled through in a line to get a peak at Mao. Then we were led right back outside. It started to rain and then hail. That’s right, it hailed. I have been used to weather in the 90’s so hail was quite a surprise. We were given bright blue ponchos and we decided to sport them. We looked like idiot tourists but at least we weren’t getting wet. Then we went inside the Museum. First we looked through an artifact exhibit. It was pretty boring. Then we went inside the wax museum. It contained maybe 50 different wax people. Most of them were Chinese but there were a few white people. There was a sports section that had Pele, Michael Jordan, Yao (the tall Chinese b-ball player), and David Beckham. We had a good time posing for pictures in front of them. Yao was huge. They made him gigantic especially compared to Michael Jordan. There was a scientist and star section as well. Marilyn Munroe was terrible. It didn’t look like her at all and her skin was all yellow. They had Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Pablo Picasso. The last wax person really surprised me. It was Bill Gates.
We ran out of time to visit the rest of the museum and had to go meet our group at the large flagpole. Then we walked over to a restaurant to eat lunch. After lunch we went into the Forbidden City. Instead of having a tour guide walk around with us we were each given an audio translator. It was an electronic map of the city with headphones. Each time you reached a certain part a voice would come on and tell you about where you were. It really didn’t work too well because it had too much information and I didn’t want to walk that slow. I ended up just turning it off and walking around without it. Most of the city was under renovation and there really wasn’t too much to look at. Each temple looked the exact same as the one before it. The trim below the roofs were all painted bright blue with colorful designs on them. It was still freezing out so I bought a cup of tea at a vender shop. The tea badly needed sugar. We got to the exit of the city with plenty of time left over so we decided to jump in a cab and go to the Silk Street market. We found two guys that also wanted to do this so we all split a cab. It took a while to get a taxi. The ones on the street wouldn’t stop and the ones parked in front of us didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with us. Finally we got one and headed to the market. It took around 20 minutes to get there because of all the traffic. We only got to shop for a half an hour before we had to leave again. The market was huge and I really wanted to buy stuff but I didn’t have time.
By the time we got a cab we were pushing the time that we were supposed to meet our group. The ride back was much faster, maybe only 5 minutes. We got there just in time to see our group enter into the park. We walked through the park really fast. I guess we were supposed to hike up something but because it was so cold we nixed that idea. From here we met up with our bus again and went to dinner. Tonight the specialty was Peking roast duck. The roast duck is a very special meal in China. We were served lots of other food as well but the duck was the main dish. It was served on two plates, one contained the head cut into two slices so you could see both sides of its face. It was also served with thin dough tortillas, a sauce, cucumbers, and onions. We dipped the duck into the sauce and then wrapped it up in the tortilla with the cucumber and onions. I left out the onions. It was pretty good but the sauce could have been better. Then we went to the Chaoyang Theatre to watch a Chinese acrobatic show.
I was very excited to watch the show and I pushed my way to the front to get the best seat I could. I was pretty close to the front and on the aisle so nobody’s head was in my way. The performance was amazing. It opened up with a bunch of people tumbling and making pyramids. Then there was a bongo board performance. A man stood on a bongo board with two girls wrapped around him while resting a platform on his forehead. On this platform was another man who was also on a bongo board. He would place cups at the end of his board and then flip the board so they would land on his head. He got up to around 8 cups and then finished with a spoon. He was pretty high off the ground and the whole time the guy below him was balancing. It was amazing!
The next routine was a girl who balanced a candle holder looking thing with 6 cups on it on her head. She stood on top of a long pole that was balanced on a guy’s head. The guy then held two ladders at his side and proceeded to climb up them. Then he let go of one of the ladders and was balancing on just one ladder while the girl was about 10 feet above him still balancing the cups. It was so cool! There was also a guy who walked across the tight rope. He did crazy stuff as well. He was thrown a unicycle and I was going to be impressed if he just rode it on the rope but instead he did a hand stand on it and rode it around with his hands! He also was given a ladder which he balanced on the rope and climbed up. I don’t get how they do these things. My favorite was a bunch of guys who would leap through hoops. The would do back flips through rotating hoops and even leaped through hoops at least 10 feet up in the air. The finale was a bunch of girls riding on bicycles. They rode around and around in circles doing tricks. At one point 10 girls made a pyramid on one bicycle. The things they did seemed so impossible. I loved it and was glad I video taped it so I can watch it over and over and over again.
We went back to our hotel after a long day of touring around. Ariel and I wanted to use the internet so we trekked over to the library. Once there we found out we couldn’t go in without passes and the offices that give out passes were already closed. An English speaking Chinese girl was coming out of the library as we were trying to figure out how to get in and she told us of another place we could try. She walked us over to a little internet café but it was packed with people. Outside was a building that had lots of big thermoses set outside its door. Hot water is not available in the rooms but the students can bring thermoses here and get water to haul back to their rooms. We thanked the girl for trying to help us and then walked back to our room without getting anything accomplished.

April 7th Last Day in Beijing

We got our 7am wake up call but didn’t drag ourselves out of our rock hard beds until around 8. We had packed our stuff up the night before and were all ready to check out. While we were waiting to leave we found out that our guest house had a few computers with internet. We were stupid not to have looked there first last night. Around 9:30 we hauled our crap on the bus and headed to the Summer Palace. It was very near the University and only took a little while to get there. It was placed around a lake but besides that it looked a lot like the Forbidden City. It was made of a bunch of different courtyards but all the paint jobs were identical to the Forbidden City. We looked around here for awhile and then signed out of our group. Ariel and I wanted to go back to the market because we didn’t spend much time there before. We walked out onto the street to find a cab but everyone we asked tried to make us pay double the amount. We ended up jumping into a cab without asking the price and just showed the driver a piece of paper with the name of the market on it. We were driving for around 45 minutes before we finally got there. The whole time we were contemplating whether we were even headed in the right direction or not. We ended up paying a good price.
The market was 5 stories tall and had all sorts of things from paintings to electronics to clothes and shoes. My big purchases were a Mountain Hardware coat and a sweet North Face backpack. They were knock offs but still pretty nice. We shopped around for a few hours before leaving to meet up with our group outside the Temple of Heaven. The market was really near there and we timed it so that we showed up before the time we were supposed to. We waited outside the Temple’s gate for around 20 minutes before realizing that our group wasn’t coming. We needed tickets to get inside and we didn’t know what to do. We had told our trip leader that we were going to meet them there and we didn’t understand where they were. Luckily we had a sheet of paper with the guides phone numbers on it. We borrowed a cell phone from a local who didn’t speak any English. We got a hold of one of our guides and she agreed to meet us at the gate. Apparently our leader thought we were going to meet up with them after the Temple. Also they got there around 20 minutes early so that’s why we couldn’t find them anywhere. We still had plenty of time to look around even though we were waiting outside for so long. I forgot to mention that today was actually warm out. In fact I was even walking around in just a t-shirt. The sky even looked blue under the gray haze of pollution.
The temple of Heaven contained some interesting things. The first was an echo hall. At the center of a circle platform there was a smooth spot to stand. If you stand here your voice is supposed to loudly project. I tried it out but I think it was loud because I was yelling. The echo wall encircled the whole thing. There was a semicircle carved out of the cement on the ground that carried your voice along the wall. I am not sure if it really worked because you really couldn’t get far enough away from the person you were taking to to tell if you could hear their echo or just their voice. We walked through a pretty forest area and then sat down on a bench to wait for our departure time. My legs were pretty sore from climbing the wall and it felt good to relax. Also I was carrying around my huge new backpack along with all the other stuff I had bought.
Once the bus came we loaded up and headed to the airport. There was a mix up with our tickets and we had to sit around the ticket counter for what seemed like forever. I got a window seat again close to the front of the plane. I tried to board right away because I knew there was going to be trouble fitting all our carry ons on the plane. People bought a lot of stuff. I was seated in the exit row and wasn’t able to even put a bag under my seat but I got on soon enough to fit my bags in the overhead compartment. The flight was only an hour and went by pretty fast. We were served a snack which consisted of bread, bread, and more bread. Seriously. We were given a roll, a piece of pound cake, and bread cookies/crackers. What a great meal.
There were a few SAS trips on our flight and it was going to be a race back to the ship to see who could get on first. Nobody wanted to wait in line to have our bags checked. We were ahead of a few buses and going steady when our bus came to a complete stop in the middle of the road. The bus either hit a car or the car hit the bus. The car’s driver side mirror was ripped off and there was a huge white smudge mark along the bus. As we sat there the other busses passed us. Then our driver jumped into a taxi and left. We were just sitting there. About 10 minutes later we started to move again. I guess the driver had returned and nobody noticed. When we got back to the ship there was a huge line. We had to stand there for about 35 minutes carrying all of our crap. Since it was almost 10 pm we had missed dinner and the crew had box lunches ready for us. I went to my room to drop off my stuff and check out my dinner. It looked really unappetizing. Then I got a phone call and was told they were serving pizza in the dining hall. I ran upstairs and had to wait in yet another long line. The pizzas had only 6 pieces and it would be all gone by the time 3 people got their food. I waited there for awhile but eventually got some pizza. It was good. I was ready for some American food after eating all the Chinese food.

April 8th First day in Quingdao / Last day in China

I got up in time to eat breakfast and then slowly got ready to leave the ship. The only real thing I had to do today was buy a Japan rail pass. We left the ship around 10. It was really cold outside again. The walk from the ship to the entry gate was a good 15 minutes away. It was cold and not fun. Once we got to the gate we jumped into a cab and headed to the Crown Plaza to buy rail passes. Once we got there Ariel realized she forgot her credit card and had to go all the way back to the ship to get it. The rail passes were really expensive but a must if we wanted to travel in Japan. While we were waiting for Ariel to come back we went next door and looked around the mall. First we walked through a huge grocery store. All the shops in the mall were really expensive and I got sick of being in there pretty fast. We went back to the hotel and met Ariel. Then we went out to lunch. We ate at a Korean restaurant. Then we went to use the internet. You might be wondering why I want to use the internet so much. It is because I have to do research for my classes on the ship. It sucks. The internet place we found was a gamer heaven for the Chinese. Each computer had a leather chair and some even had basket chairs hanging down from the ceiling. We were put in our own room downstairs. We got a couch to sit on and there was a beaded curtain to close the room off. Although I didn’t want to think about it the room we were in seemed like it was for lonely guys to go jack off to computer porn in. After using the internet we decided to go to a market close to the ship. We got in a cab and showed the driver where we wanted to go on a map. He agreed and then said something about a TV station. We thought he was describing the building in front of us. Ariel, Nicole, and I fell asleep in the back seat and woke up to realize we were driving up a windy wooded path. Ryan was in the front and we didn’t get why he hadn’t woke us up when he realized we were obviously going to the wrong place. The driver had taken us to a large tower, the TV tower. We corrected him and a little while later got dropped off on the corner in front of a mall. It wasn’t where we wanted to go at all but we got out anyways. We found ourselves in yet another grocery store. We decided to walk down the street and brave the wind. At one point the wind was so strong that we couldn’t physically move forward. We also kept getting chunks of dust in our eyes. The stores were all crappy on the streets. We passed two or three shops selling sea shells and stuff made out of sea shells. They stunk and we had to run by them. We also passed a restaurant with tanks of sea creatures outside. They even had a plate with a full sting ray on it. We walked around some more until we ran out of stores to look around in. We had to get back to the ship by 6pm to turn in our passports. We found another cab and went back to the ship.
I unpacked all my stuff and then relaxed by watching a movie. I was exhausted from the past 8 days of traveling and “sight thinking.” Before I went to bed I had to secure all the stuff in my room because the seas were supposed to be really rough.


My thoughts on China:
I enjoyed going to the Great Wall and watching the acrobatic show. Those were my China highlights. Other then that I don’t think I liked China. The pollution was terrible and I don’t understand how China expects to bring hundreds of athletes there for the Olympics. They won’t be able to breath! There wasn’t anything too great about China. The people weren’t very friendly. China was definitely my least favorite country.

VIETNAM

Good Morning Vietnam!
March 26th First Day in Vietnam

We pulled into Ho Chi Minh City and got off the ship around 10:30. We were ported right downtown so we didn’t have to travel for miles to get to the city. We did have to take a 5 minutes shuttle bus ride into town though so that the taxi drivers wouldn’t congregate around the port area. The shuttle dropped us off outside the Rex Hotel. The city was full of tall hotels like the Sheraton for example. After getting dropped off we just headed forward down the street. Right away we had to risk our lives at attempting to cross the streets. Vietnam has traffic laws but nobody really follows them. The vehicles are mostly all motorcycles with a few cars, bikes, and cyclos here and there. The intersections are wide and there are only stop lights at some of them. To walk across you have to simply step out into the traffic. The plan is that the motorcyclists will simply go around you. As you walk you can not stall but have to glide across no matter if it seems that you will be hit or not. For the most part crossing the street was fine but I had some scary moments. Once I found myself crossing diagonally through the bikes and I was definitely a little nervous.
We found our way to the Ben Than Market and dove in to see what we could possibly buy. The market was in a huge building and the only light was that which came down through windows in the ceiling. Since it wasn’t a very sunny day it was very dark inside. The shop owners had little lanterns that they set by their goods but it was still really hard to see. It was a heater in there. Within about 30 seconds I bought a cheap fan because the heat was unbearable. The market was full of shoes and clothes. Every time one of us would approach one of these shops the people would look at us and say “too big’ and shoe us away. Everything was so small. Anything I did buy ended up being at least an Extra Large.
Our original plan for the day was to take the fabric that we bought in India to a tailor shop to be made into dresses. We turned our fabric into the ship laundry guys three days before and had still not gotten it back. The laundry we had was from before India. That is a lot of stinky clothes that we had to store in our rooms. Anyhow, we couldn’t go to a tailor shop without fabric so we roamed around the streets and then went to the Rex Hotel for massages. My massage was pretty weak and I was disappointed that the girl didn’t walk on my back. I thought they all did that. The nice thing was that there was a shower in the room so I got to take a shower afterwards. We then took a taxi over to the Renaissance River Hotel to meet up with Morgan and her parents. (SAS had a parent trip to Vietnam and about 50 parents came to meet their kids.) I guess I am not special enough for my parents to come see me. Just Kidding!
Morgan’s parents and her older brother came to visit her in Vietnam with her. Her father fought in the Vietnam War and this was his first time returning to Vietnam. Morgan introduced all of us to her parents but forgot to tell us their names. Ariel asked what her mom’s name was and she replied, “you can call me Mrs. Wright.” That was not a reply we were expecting and we actually all felt really awkward afterwards. I haven’t been asked to call anybody by their last name in a long time especially someone else’s parents. Oh well I guess it’s just what they do. Morgan’s dad wasn’t feeling too good so he stayed behind with her brother while we went out to dinner. We went to a really fancy restaurant. For a starter I ordered a pineapple seafood salad. I was served a full pineapple that was cut so the upper half came off. It was carved out in the inside so the salad could have a bowl. It definitely looked way better then it tasted. For dinner I ordered coconut beef. I was served a full coconut carved out with beef soup inside. There was a ring of gooey stuff around the outside that the waiter lit on fire. It made a fire ring around the coconut to warm up the soup inside. Mrs. Wright ended up paying for our whole meal which was very generous of her. After dessert of banana flambé we headed back to the hotel. There were a few other SAS kids there with their parents so we all went up to the casino to hang out for a little while. I wasted $3 on foreign gambling. Oh well. Next to the casino was a bar. There were about 10 of us sitting down on a couch when a parade of about 20 Vietnamese girls came walking through. They were all wearing skin tight short dresses and appeared to be on the prowl for men. A few of them were already sitting down at the bar next to older foreign men. They were definitely hookers. They walked to the other end of the bar and then headed down a flight of stairs. Ariel and I decided to follow them down the stairs. Two flights down was another bar and all the girls were sanding in a big semi circle around the bar. It was really weird. We went back upstairs because we weren’t allowed in. Then about 5 minutes later all the girls came parading through again. After seeing the way prostitution was done in Myanmar I really wasn’t expecting anything like this. Since I had experienced it in Myanmar I was really curious about the Vietnam way. I was really tempted to ask a few of them some questions but I couldn’t figure out how to phrase them right so I gave up. As we were leaving the bar we passed an old guy paying one of the girls for the “good time.” The bar was on the second floor of the hotel and we had to talk an elevator to get to the first floor. This elevator was unlike any I have ever seen. It was about 20 feet long and had about 4 couches in it along with neon lights and posters. At first I didn’t even realize I was in an elevator.
By this time it was getting late so we headed back to the ship via a taxi. As we pulled up at the gate I noticed a man standing in the middle of the traffic spread eagle yelling at the motorcyclists. I recognized him right away as my cabin steward. (He cleans my room every day and he is always in my hallway.) He is from the Philippines and doesn’t speak English very well so he never really talks to us much. Well I yelled his name and he came stumbling over and greeted us. It was hilarious to see him drunk. He not only talked in full sentences to us but he also gave us high fives and took a picture of us on his cell phone. What a funny guy.

March 27th Day 2 in Vietnam
My friends and I had planned a trip yesterday to go to the Mekong Delta, a more rural area of Vietnam. There were 7 of us and we got picked up outside the ship at 8 am. The drive to the Mekong Delta area took around 2 hours. The ride went by pretty fast though because there was so much to look at out the windows.
Things I found interesting out the window:
Girls on motorcycles wearing doctor masks and prom gloves. The masks are for two reasons. The first is because of all the pollution. The reason they wear the mask and the gloves is to protect their skin and keep it white. Girls with whiter skin have an easier job finding a husband. The masks aren’t just the ordinary masks either. They have patterns and designs and some cover over half of their faces. It is funny to me that in our culture we are always trying to get tan but here being white is attractive. At one of the spas I noticed they had a whitening treatment kind of like how we go fake and baking. I wonder how that works.

The power lines. I have never seen such a mess of power lines in my life. It must be impossible to repair them if something goes wrong. The fact that there are about 100 wires hanging together isn’t the most shocking part. It is that there are jumbles and knots of wires hanging down around the poles. I have a picture of this that I can’t wait to show to people.

3. Traffic patterns. Like I said earlier nobody really follows the traffic rules. Some of
the intersections resemble the ones in Missoula where there are about 6 different directions of traffic coming together at one spot. I was amazed by how patient the drivers were. They wait their turn even when there is no light and they all seem to know exactly what they are doing. Apparently 1000 people die a month from the road accidents but I never saw anything. (A SAS bus did come upon a guy getting in a motorcycle accident and splatting his head open on the ground though. And one of the kitchen staff got hit while crossing the street but I never saw anything to this extent).

People with missing limbs. In lots of the countries I traveled to I saw people on the streets with missing legs and disabled body parts but Vietnam was by far the worst. What I wanted to know was if most of the amputations had been from the war and land mines. I never asked anybody though because that probably isn’t something they would want to talk about. A lot of the disabled and mutated I am also assuming is from Agent Orange. Agent Orange can last up through 7 generations of people and many are suffering from its effects. I never saw any women with missing body parts though, only older men.

5. Motorcycle ramps leading into every store. Since motorcycles are everywhere all
the shop owners have ramps that allow the people to park their bikes inside.


We got dropped off in a town I can’t remember the name of and walked over to our boat. Along the way we bought the Vietnamese triangle shaped hats. They were embroidered and had colorful ribbons to tie under your neck. On the hat the word Saigon was written and underneath that was something in Vietnamese. Turns out it said tourist so I felt really stupid wearing a hat around that said “Saigon Tourist” on it. By the way Saigon was the old name for Ho Chi Minh City but everyone still uses it. In fact I never heard anybody once say Ho Chi Minh City the whole time I was there. It was just known as Saigon.
We climbed into our boat and took off for Unicorn Island. This island has many orchards and we got to walk through and then taste all the fruit. The only one I liked was the pineapple but I still tried them all. The pineapple wasn’t eaten plain but dipped into a mixture of salt and chili powder. I preferred it plain. There was also a fruit I can’t remember the name of but I thought it was called sarsaparilla which and it was a yellowish orange color and really mushy. The dragon fruit was my least favorite but it looked really cool. It had a pink rind and the fruit itself was white with tiny little black seeds all over. I also ate a few little bananas after brushing the ants off of them. Yummy! While we were eating two musicians and a few singers came over to perform for us. You will never guess what song they sang. They sang “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” in Vietnamese. I laughed at that one. I can’t believe they have even heard of that song before. One of the musicians was playing a very strange instrument. It looked like a big pipe on the end but was played like a violin. I tried to play it but all that came out was a bunch of high pitched squeaks that weren’t too pleasing to the ears.
We got up and walked over to another area to taste something else. We were served honey tea and banana whiskey. We were all poured shots of the whiskey. It was disgusting! I got a kick out of everyones faces though and I actually recorded it so you can all see our funny reactions. The honey tea was delicious. We got a big glob of honey in the bottom of a cup with hot water poured over it. Then we added squeezed lime and pollen. The pollen melted into the mixture. It was delicious and really sweet. I was told the pollen is for calories but I don’t know its other purposes were. As we were tasting our drinks we noticed that there was a big snake cage behind us. Inside was a 6 foot long python. I got to hold it. It was really heavy and as I was trying to take a picture its tail crawled partway up my shorts. I didn’t hold it for too long because although I am not afraid of snakes (obviously) I kind of get nervous when their heads move around and come near me.
We left the island and got to row down a narrow river in little canoes. I have always wanted to do this. I felt like a real Vietnamese wearing my pointy hat and rowing down the river. I didn’t actually get to row though but there were two old ladies in the front and back doing the rowing. We hung out for awhile in these little canoes before transferring to a bigger motor boat to take us to another area. We were on our way to taste coconut candy. We got dropped off and walked up a little path before getting to a hut where three women were making candy form coconuts. Somehow they take the milk and coconut and mush it up and pour it into a big pot. Then they add lots and lots of sugar and let it boil. They end up with something like really thin cookie dough. They chop up the pieces and wrap them in rice paper to be sold. We got to taste test and they were delicious. We then headed over to a little outside restaurant to have lunch. Our lunch was quite the show. We were served two big elephant ear fish propped up with their whole bodies intact and decorated. With the fish they wrapped up egg noodles and lettuce in rice paper. We were also served pork strips, spring rolls, onion rings, and some kind of crunchy rice bread. It was really good. This was the end of our trip and we headed back to our bus. On the way back I noticed there was a DVD player in the bus. The driver put on some Vietnamese music videos for us. They were pretty funny. Then he changed it up and put Top Gun on. I wish he wouldn’t have done this because I stopped looking out the window to watch the movie. It made the ride go fast though. Before we were dropped off we stopped at a handicapped lacer ware factory. We were shown how they make things out of lacer and the process was very tedious. We were taken to the showroom but nobody bought anything because the prices were way jacked up. The stuff was probably worth that amount from all the hard work but when they sell the same thing at the market for about 1/16 the price why would you buy it for more money? We headed back to the ship, organized our stuff, and then headed for town.
My digital camera was still broken from Mauritius and I desperately wanted to get it fixed. I had seen a bunch of camera shops on the streets so I figured somebody must be able to fix it. I got denied at about 4 different shops before finding one that would try and fix it. They told me to come back in an hour. An hour later I returned and found that they hadn’t even touched it yet. I was a little frustrated and they told me to leave it overnight and come back tomorrow at 11. I was a little hesitant but decided to leave it because I figured if they ripped me off I would just steal a brand new camera from them and run. I decided to look around in their store and ended up making a great purchase. I bought all 10 seasons of “Friends” for the price of just one season back in the US. And yes they all work. I was stoked about that.
For dinner we went to a little café and ordered some real good American food. I know I should be eating Vietnamese food but the food on the ship really isn’t that great and sometimes I get cravings for the food back home. The café had a wide selection of desserts so I was really disappointed when I happened to pick out the grossest one there. After dinner we went back home for some rest. That’s right, the ship is now being called my home.

March 28th Day 3 in Vietnam

Since it was already the third day in Vietnam we desperately needed to get our fabric to a tailor shop. I was really frustrated when our laundry was still not given back to us. I wasn’t angry about wearing the exact same pair of shorts and socks for the third day in a row or that I had to buy tee-shirts off the street to have fresh shirts (I was stupid enough to wash all my skirts and shorts and tee-shirts leaving me with nothing to wear in the heat) I was angry that our fabric was still not returned. I asked our steward why we hadn’t gotten it back yet and he said that because of the bad water in Vietnam they stopped doing laundry and we wouldn’t be getting it back until after Vietnam. I explained our fabric situation and he said there was nothing he could do. I sent him down to the laundry room twice to look for it. He told us there were about 400 bags stacked in piles and there would be no way to find it. I begged him to let us go look for it but he said he already asked and it wasn’t allowed. I wasn’t going to give up and went to the Purser’s desk to see if I could talk to the supervisor myself. It wasn’t that we needed it washed, we just needed it back. Well right as the supervisor got on the phone Joseph came up to me and told me he had found it. I was so grateful. And get this, it had already been washed and had just been sitting down there that whole time.
Now that we had our fabric we headed towards a tailor shop. We found a cheap one with good quality stuff inside. We all got measured and described what we wanted and were told to return on Thursday. It was close to 11 so I headed over to the camera place to pick up my camera. I was excited to see what they had done. Turns out they never touched it. I will admit I got a little angry. They told me I needed to come back at 4. I said no and kept asking them why they weren’t fixing it when it should take 10 minutes at the most to fix. They told me they didn’t have the piece and were looking all over for it. I complained some more and then after making them promise me it would get fixed I agreed to coming back at 4. I was supposed to meet my friends on the other side of the street but I couldn’t find them. I wondered around by myself for awhile. A Vietnamese man came up to me and started preaching to me in Vietnamese. He asked where I was from and then started preaching to me in English. Then he started going off about New York city and rambled on about all the places you can visit there. The locals around me were laughing. I couldn’t get away from the guy and he was all up in my face. Finally he shook my hand and said goodbye. Shortly after that I found my friends and we went shopping some more. After eating lunch we went to visit the Reunification Hall / Old Palace.
We walked around the palace for over an hour peering into all the rooms. Every room we saw was for sitting whether it was for a meeting or just to relax. The furniture and the paintings were very unique and pretty but other then that the place wasn’t very spectacular. The coolest part was going down in the basement. There were lots of rooms filled with maps marking out war strategies. We also got to see the kitchen. Everything in the kitchen was ginormous size. The mixer was even taller then me. At the end of the tour we were led into a little room to watch a film about the war. It was way too long and I ended up getting really restless. By this time it was past four and I needed to go get my camera. I was actually surprised that it was done. I have to admit that they did the shittiest job ever but the camera works so I can’t really complain. They made a new piece for me that doesn’t exactly fit. I told them that I wasn’t willing to pay the $10 and they ended up giving it to me for free. Now it doesn’t matter that it is shitty since I didn’t have to pay for it.
We took the shuttle bus back to the ship to drop off our days purchases and then headed back out for dinner. Our tour guide at the Palace told us that tonight there was going to be a National Youth Concert that is celebrated every five years. There was a huge stage set up blocking off one of the streets. There were people everywhere and huge blue strobe lights flashing in the sky. We tried to walk up closer to the stage but the security guards wouldn’t let us in. We were really confused because we were told it was for the public and anyone could come. We were also told there would be music and dancing. There was a huge screen above us projecting the stage. On the screen were people dressed up in nice suits talking. I started to realize that this wasn’t a youth celebration at all. We couldn’t find anyone who spoke English to explain to us what was going on and why we weren’t allowed in. Finally we found a girl our age who tried to explain to us that it was a government function having something to do with their independence. After hearing this I felt like I really didn’t belong and wanted to leave. My friends were still too curious and they continued to ask people about it. They found an old lady who told us the reason we weren’t allowed was because we don’t understand and we are not involved in their government. This made perfect sense and made me want to leave even more.
We walked down the street not knowing what to do now that our night of dancing and music didn’t exist. We went to a java place and got coffees and dessert. Again my dessert was terrible. I decided I wouldn’t even bother ordering dessert from then on out while in Vietnam. On the way back to the ship we passed a few SAS girls who informed us of another market that we didn’t even know existed. I am so glad I found somewhere else to spend money…not.

March 29th Day 4 in Vietnam

We got up before 8 again and headed to the War Remnants Museum. The shuttle bus wasn’t running yet so we decided we would take motorcycles. Ariel, Nicole, and I got on the back of motorcycles and rode off. At first we didn’t really know what we were supposed to hold on to but then realized we didn’t even really have to hold on. The ride was a lot of fun as we swerved in and out of the other traffic. We got there in no time. The museum was split into 7 different parts, each showing a different topic. The worst section by far was the one about Agent Orange. It showed picture after picture of people with birth defects and missing limbs. There was even a glass tank with 2 fetuses inside. It was pretty disturbing. The museum really made me realize how awful the American’s were to the Vietnamese people during the war. But then I am sure that if the museum was in America I would be thinking the exact opposite.
After the museum we walked a couple of blocks to the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was huge and had a lot of really pretty stained glass inside. As we walked in we passed a newly married bride. I think I have seen a bride in almost every country. Across from the cathedral was the Post Office. The Post Office was a very cool building. It was huge and inside it had over 35 stations of doing things. After viewing the Post Office we set off in search for the Saigon Center to do more shopping. We found it pretty easily.
We didn’t really know what to do so we just started walking down the street. We stopped at a local spot to have drinks along the side of the road. I got a Number 1 and it was really gross. It was some sort of soda that kind of tasted like Red Bull but grosser. It was really warm too so that didn’t really help much. Since we didn’t know what to do we went over to the Diamond Plaza to go bowling. We actually had to pay money for the shoes and we even had to buy socks. I had a great time but bowled terribly. Bowling next to us were a few locals and we made plans to meet them later for dinner. After they left a white man, a Vietnamese woman, and an old Vietnamese man walked up.
Seeing that the white man was American we started talking to him. He was from Alabama and was about 30 and a big dork. He told us that he had just been married to the girl next to him. She spoke absolutely no English. The old man was their translator. Pretty screwy situation if you ask me. We were all pretty amazed by this and started asking how he ended up marrying this girl who can’t even communicate with him. He told us that he knows her uncle in Alabama and through him they started writing letters. He flew down here and they got married. He said they were in love. I asked him how he felt marrying her, seeing as he was….he said fat…I said American. Then I asked if he was going to give her a better life. He said yes. He walked away and I got a chance to talk to the translator about how the girl felt about the whole thing. He told me it was simple. She married him simply to get out of this country. After five years of marriage she will divorce him and be able to stay in the US and do as she pleases. I found this very interesting.
The locals had returned and so we left the bowling ally with me not even getting a score above 100. The guy was going to take us out to dinner, then coffee, and then to the bars. For dinner we went to a local place on the street. We all got some sort of shrimp noodle soup except for Ariel because she is deathly allergic to seafood. The food wasn’t bad. Then we went over to a coffee place. Vietnam has really good strong coffee. Ariel started feeling bad because her food had been touched by the seafood and her lips started to swell up. It wasn’t anything huge as it had happened to her at about every meal we ate here. The waiters don’t seem to understand that she could die if seafood touches her plate. We went back to the ship which I am glad we did because my whole dinner came right back up. Yum…glad I got to experience eating street food!

March 30th Last Day in Vietnam

I got up at 6:45 so that I could go use the phone before going on our trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. I was slowly getting my stuff together when I decided I should check my trip sheet to see where our trip was meeting at. That’s when I realized that our trip was leaving at 7 and not 8. It was ten till seven by this time and I woke up Ariel and then phoned my friend Nicole’s room. We tried calling Annie’s room and even tried banging on the door a couple times but nobody answered. We rushed off the ship and jumped on the bus and guess who was there…Annie. She had felt un-included at bowling last night and so to get back at us she was seriously not going to wake us up. Talk about a bitchy thing to do. It was a good thing I decided to get up early otherwise we would have missed the trip and I would have been really pissed off.
It was an hour and a half bus ride to the tunnels. First we were given a little introduction talk and then walked around. We stopped at one of the entrances to the tunnels. It was a little rectangular hole covered up by a metal top with leaves all over it. The guide demonstrated how to climb down into it. It was amazing that he could fit through such a small hole. I really wanted to try but I knew I would get stuck and didn’t feel like embarrassing myself. There were air holes for the tunnels all over the place. To disguise the openings they built fake termite hills in between trees that had openings for air. Then we got to bigger entrances that I could actually fit through so we could crawl through the tunnels. There were exits every forty feet for those who were too scared. My friends ended up wimping out so I just crawled through by myself. They were tall enough for me to be able to walk hunched over. I thought they would be much smaller. I had my flashlight so I could see otherwise it would have been pitch black. At one point the tunnel got really skinny and sloped down. I had to lay on my back and inch my way through. The ground was really wet and muddy and I got really dirty. I was almost out when I saw a huge spider. The thought never even crossed my mind that there were big spiders in the tunnels. I ran by it and right out the exit. I was dripping in sweat when I got out of the tunnels. I didn’t realize how hot it was in there. I was also really pumped up and just full of adrenaline. I didn’t realize this until I looked at pictures of myself and my eyes are all bugged out and I look like I have eaten handfuls of sugar! There was one small section of tunnels left to go through. Right before I went in them Ariel found a scorpion inside. The guide came and smashed it but I will admit that I ran through that tunnel pretty darn fast. I couldn’t imagine living in the tunnels. Around 16,000 people lived in the 150 miles of underground tunnels. That’s crazy. We walked around some more and I stopped at a big pile of leaves because they were smoking. Underneath the leaves was the chimney from the kitchen. The kitchen itself was about 50 yards away and the chimney was over here to throw off the American soldiers. We also saw underground bomb shelters and a small kitchen area. I never did find out how they went to the bathroom because I would imagine that that would stink up the whole place.
The best part of going to the Cu Chi Tunnels was being able to shoot guns. I got to shoot an AK47. I had never shot a gun before and was stoked that my first time would be with an AK47. The gun didn’t have any kick back and the shells shot off to the side as I shot. The noise was really really loud. I bought five bullets but I didn’t hit the target once. It was actually cooler that I missed because then the dirt would poof up everywhere. I also could have shot an M16 but I didn’t have enough money to buy the bullets. Then we were shown examples of some of the booby traps the Viet Cong used during the war. They looked so painful. Most of them involved metal spikes that would dig into your feet or sides. We never got to see what land mines looked like which was rather disappointing because since they were a huge part of the war I figured they would be on display somewhere.
We then left the tunnels and headed to the War Cemetery. I expected to see something grand and well maintained. It wasn’t like that at all. The tombstones were all made of white cement and the ground was all cement. There wasn’t a grass tuft anywhere in sight. It wasn’t very clean either. There was a big statue in the center of a mother crying holding a soldier. It was a goldish color and really big. There were flowers in pots spread around. They had to be in pots because the ground was all cement.
The ride back to the ship was really slow. I think one of the reasons it seemed like forever was because I was so hungry because I missed breakfast. I was looking out the window when I saw the coolest thing so far. There were four men playing badmitten on the side of the street. They were using their feet though. The birdie was longer then normal. One guy would toss the birdie to his teammate who would kick it over the net. Then the other guys would kick it back over and so on. It was really cool to watch.
We got to the ship, scarfed down some food, and headed out to get fitted for our dresses. Everything turned out pretty good. After getting fitted we were told to come back in an hour to try them on again with the new adjustments. Ariel and I wanted to go get a massage while we were waiting. We had a brochure from a place close by and we were trying to find it when a French man approached us. He asked us what we were looking for and we told him. He has lived in Vietnam for 2 years and is an intern for the French consulate. We figured he was a pretty legit guy. He told us of a much better massage place where they give traditional Vietnamese massages for a third the price of the hotels. He said it was like a school where they practice acupuncture, massage, and even Tai Chi. He really talked it up so we decided to give it a try. We took a taxi to the place which turned out to be across from the War Remnants Museum. It looked a little shady and it definitely was. And that’s all I’m gonna write about that experience…
We took motorcycles back to the tailor to meet up with our friends and retry on our dresses. They still weren’t quite finished and we were told to come back a few hours later. We went out to get dinner while we were waiting. We decided that it would be fun to try Vietnam fast food. We went to a place called Lotteria which kind of resembled a McDonalds. Right away we noticed that there was a delivery bicycle parked inside. We ordered burger meals and then went upstairs to sit down. The food didn’t have much flavor but it was a cheap meal and it was pretty filling. After a good meal we headed back to the tailor to buy our dresses. Then we went to a coffee shop. We were in the café for around 45 minutes and the whole time they played the Shania Twain “That Don’t Impress Me Much” song on repeat. We headed back to the ship after this. I decided to use the phone one last time. (Sorry I didn’t call you again mom but it was 4:30 in the morning your time and I didn’t want to wake you up). I had four thousand Dong leftover and I walked down the street until I found something cheap enough to buy with it. By the way the currency is called Dong and around 15,500 Dong is equal to $1.
On the ship I threw my stuff in my cabin and then went up to the union where there was a special Vietnamese dance program organized for us. They performed around 10 different dances and all had bright colorful costumes. It was a really good show. I couldn’t believe that we were already leaving Vietnam. It just flew by. We didn’t actually pull out of port until the next morning but we all had to be on the ship tonight.

Here are some of the great sayings we used in Vietnam:
That’s a whole lot of Dong!
Cu Chi Tunnel
Happy Endings
Scooter Hookers