Day 1: Woke up early for breakfast and the diplomatic briefing. Got our passports and headed out to the Star Ferry, which takes people from Kowloon (Hong Kong mainland) to Hong Kong Island. We went searching for another ferry depot so we could find out how much it would cost to go to Macau, which is another ‘region’ of China but like Hong Kong, it’s considered separate from China so we wanted to go get another stamp on our passport. However, we found out it was $40 US roundtrip so we gave up on that idea and decided to eat lunch at a Chinese fast food chain; not the best food but it was cheap so it’s all good. Then Rhina, D and I decided to go try and find a market or something to do by following the street signs. We ended up at a café (after asking 3 people for directions) so we could use the internet, then we walked through a small market and bought a few trinkets. After that we ended up walking for 2 hours in search of something called the Western Market; well after walking uphill and in circles and asking about 5 different people directions, we finally found it. The biggest disappointment of the day; it was really just a small 2-story mall. lol BUT the adventure of looking for it was fun so we didn’t really mind. Went back to the ship for dinner and took a power nap until 8pm when Hong Kong Island’s laser light show started; the show is done every night at 8pm and corresponds to music. It’s in the Guinness World Record book for being the largest permanent light show. It’s really sweet because the lights are on the front of the skyscrapers and buildings; it looks like a giant rave! After that we took off to the famous Temple Street night market to do some shopping. Found some cool stuff and then we decided to get a snack; we ended up at McDonalds because everyone was craving some good ol’ all-American junk food. Went back to the ship, watched a movie and went to bed.
Day 2: Woke up early for breakfast and got on the bus to go to Lantau Island for an SaS trip. We stopped along the way to take pictures of the world’s longest dual-suspension bridge (or something like that) and at a beach. Then we stopped at a traditional fishing village, whose houses are built on stilts. There we saw a small temple and I met an older man named Wilfred who used to be a merchant who traveled to the U.S; my friends Elle, Emma and I made friends with him and chatted him up a while. He was a funny old man who was a bit senile and going deaf but he was great to talk to; we took a picture with him and promised we’d send him postcards and a copy of the picture. Next we went up to a statue of the world’s largest sitting bronze Buddha and then walked down the 256 steps to the Buddhist monastery where we had a delicious vegetarian lunch. After lunch we walked around a little and explored the temple and then the Ngong Ping cultural village (which is just another name for a street of gift shops) before taking a cable car back down the mountain of Lantau Island to where a bus was waiting for us to take us back to the ship. Spent the rest of the day relaxing on the ship.
Interesting tid-bits:
*There are sooo many stairs on Hong Kong Island; it’s a city built into the side of mountains so it’s all uphill as soon as you get off the ferry and a lot of the side walks are stairs.
*They have a beautiful metro system; very clean and efficient.
*The street signs are sometimes wrong and lead you in the wrong direction; so do the locals.
*Hong Kong Island’s streets and walkways are way sophisticated and efficient; they have walkways that go above the roads, connecting all the important places together so you don’t have to deal with traffic; we only found that out when we tried to walk alongside traffic. lol Also, all the roads on Lantau Island are made so that during the wet season, the torrential rains don’t ruin the roads.
*Hong Kong is made up of hundreds of islands but only about 22 are inhabited; Lantau is the largest.
I would love to come back to Hong Kong; it’s a big city (app. 7 million permanent residents) but it didn’t overwhelm me; it never felt over-crowded or dirty or aggressive. Now we have 2 No-Class days until Shanghai, China; most students stayed off the ship to go to Beijing or just spend more time in Hong Kong so there’re only about 150 students left. I’m a little sad that I didn’t get to go to the Great Wall or to see the Terra Cotta warriors but I’m hoping I’ll get to come back someday; it just wasn’t meant to happen this time. Plus now I get to spend the next two days working on my scary pile of homework; it would’ve been impossible to go do anything because of it so I’m glad I’m on the ship.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
3/29 - 3/30: Hong Kong
Thursday, March 26, 2009
3/22 - 3/26 VietNam
After that we found the Ben Thanh Market that we had heard about and shopped for about an hour; it's crazy though because they literally have anything and everything you could want all in one area. I bought a bunch of cute, cheap stuff. Side note: $1 US = approximately 17, 500 dong! Lol It's crazy! Then we came back to the ship and I chose to stay in while my friends went out because I'm completely out of clean clothes (which I have to hand wash again!) and I have ridiculous amounts of homework to do.
Day 2: Woke up early for breakfast. Took a bus to the Da Thien School for Handicapped Children; we heard a little about the school and then spent an hour or so playing with the children. It was hard because the kids only know Vietnamese so we couldn't talk to them at all or anything. We just ended up playing games and coloring and stuff. Then the people at the school provided us with an amazing lunch (which wasn't included in the original itinerary) and then we left. It was good but the past 3 service visits I've done have been a disappointment; more just that I don't actually consider it service because all we're doing is playing with children. I don't feel like I'm actually doing anything of substance. I expect them to put me to work doing something like building a playhouse or cleaning something. I guess it's just my mentality. Anyways, after that I came to the ship and slept the afternoon away, ate dinner, watched a movie and worked on my art journal.
Day 3: Woke up early for breakfast. Took a bus to a public elementary school where we were given a briefing on the school and then given free reign to walk around for 2 hours and mingle with the children. I learned a lot of valuable information for the 8 page case study I have to write for my education course. I got back around lunch time, ate and took off with D to find the post office and then the market again. I got soooo many souvenirs at the market; D and I are master bargainers! So I came back very happy; among my purchases were a Vietnamese hat for myself and seasons 1-4 of Grey's Anatomy (for less than $9 US...bootleg of course) I also got almost everyone else on my list something from the market. Yay! Then just back to the ship for some chill time on the pool deck, dinner and to my room for homework.
Day 4: Woke up early for breakfast then off on a 2 hour bus ride to the Mekong district. Along the way we stopped to see a Cao Doa (?) temple and walk through a small market before getting to the river and being transported over to an island where they grow exotic tropical fruit. We sampled some of the fruit; mango, pineapple, lychee, sweet grapefruit, and jack fruit. Then we got into these smaller boats made for traversing through the canals; except it's the dry season here so the canal was basically dried up and our boatman had to push us through the murky water for about 15 minutes. But it was really cool because it was like traveling through jungle. From there we were dropped off on another island where they make coconut candy; we got to see the whole process, sample and then buy some. We also stopped there to have a cup of kumquat tea; they just squeeze the juice of a kumquat and mix in some honey and add hot water. Both the tea and coconut candy were delicious. Last on the trip was a lunch of Vietnamese food; mostly rice noodle and seafood dishes prepared in a variety of ways. The best part was when they brought out a huge fried elephant fish perched upward on the plate and placed it in the middle of each table; no one really knew how to take it or what to do with it until one of the servers showed us how to make our own fish spring rolls. After lunch we went back across the river and had fresh coconut water on our way back to the bus. Then the 2 hour drive back to the ship.
Day 5: I only left long enough to go buy a bubble tea, a couple of t-shirts and to exchange my dong back into US$. Homework beckons. 2 days of classes and then we're in Hong Kong so I've got plenty to keep me busy
What I've learned:
*Both Vietnamese men and women go to extreme measures trying to hide their skin from the sun; they almost all wear pants and long sleeves in 90 degree heat and they all wear gloves, hats, and face coverings whenever they're in the sun for an extended amount of time.
*Communism can't be that horrible of a system because I never saw a single homeless person while in VietNam; they also have a very low crime rate.
*The cone-shaped hats they wear really do keep you cooler; I wore one during my Mekong Delta trip.
*Ho Chi Minh City used to be called Saigon; it still says it everywhere.
*You can get almost anything you want or need in a market; food, clothes, accessories, etc.
*Everyone drives a motorcycle or moped and they ALL wear helmets.
*Traffic is nuts; but if you close your eyes and just walk at a constant rate you won't get hit. I tried it and survived. It's almost like playing life-size Frogger.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
3/15 - 3/19 Thailand
Day 1: We woke up for breakfast and then just spent the rest of the morning just hanging out because we had been told that getting out of the port cost a lot of money and that there wasn’t much to do; plus Rhina and I had an SaS trip in the afternoon. So we worked on homework and stuff, ate lunch and then met up for our trip to the Elephant Village. So cute and so much fun! They told us about the elephant reserve and then we got to ride them!
When we got back we ate dinner and met up with some friends to get a shuttle to Pattaya where D was waiting for us at a guesthouse. We got there, dropped off our stuff, and went to find food at the mall. We walked around Pattaya looking for a ‘hopping’ but cheap bar or club but ended up just walking most of the night until someone we were with snapped about all the walking and lack of drunkenness. Dumbs. So Shelly and I left and spent an hour and a half at the computer place across the street from our room because it was only 40 baht for an hour. Yay! The rest of the crew eventually showed up and we all crashed.
Day 2: Slept in until 9:30 or so. Went out looking for brunch and then headed to the beach for the day. The water was bath warm and the sun was beautifully hot. After spending the day laying on the beach and playing in the water, we went back to change and pack up, went out to dinner and then Rhina, D and I went back to the ship to hang out and watch a movie.
Day 3: We woke up early, had breakfast and loaded the bus to go to the Pattaya orphanage with SaS. We stayed there for about 3 hours; just long enough for me to fall in love with one of the little boys that fell asleep in my arms. If I could’ve adopted every child there, I would have. Afterwards, we were dropped off at the Pattaya mall where we ate lunch and then went off in search of the train station. We finally got a truck taxi (a truck with seats built into the back) to take us for a decent price. Got there and had to wait an hour before the train came but it was only 31 Baht to Bangkok instead of the ridiculous prices that the taxis and shuttles were charging. However, it was the longest most uncomfortable train ride ever; 4.5 hours with not even padded seats.
Anyways we got there and had a taxi bring us to the road where a lot of our friends were supposed to be staying and found a guesthouse for a decent price. Dropped our stuff off and went to get dinner. Khoa Son road was the craziest place to be that night; it was St. Paddy’s and apparently we’d found the travelers area where a lot of backpackers go to. We ate pad thai from a street vendor and it was amazing. I found vendors who were selling patches, 3 for $1 US so I got 6 of the countries I’m going to or have been already. Then we had a green beer with some other SaS people we ran into. We walked around until we decided to go to an Irish pub on the street and had a few drinks, all Irish themed; black & tan, an Irish car bomb, an Irish flag, and an Irish Momo. Then had some more food and looked for a club; danced for a bit and decided to call it a night.
Day 4: We woke up late and took a tuk-tuk to the Grand Palace where we didn’t go in because I didn’t want to pay to see a bunch of statues and monuments PLUS have to pay someone an exorbitant price to rent a shirt so I could go in. So instead we walked around towards one of the Buddha temples nearby. Of course, we picked the hottest day yet to walk around. So after seeing the Buddha we were already tired of Bangkok so we decided that we’d go back to the ship; we were all also running out of money. So we took a tuk-tuk back to the guesthouse, checked out and walked down Khoa Son road again to eat a cheap lunch and get a few souvenirs. We walked to the tourist info desk nearby to find out where the bus station was and then had a tuk-tuk driver take us the half hour to the station for 300 baht. Got there 10 minutes before the next bus was leaving to go to Pattaya so we bought our tickets (for 95 baht), went to the bathroom and got on the air-conditioned bus and settled in for the 2 hour ride back to the ship. We got to the mall outside of the port, walked around and bought some snacks while Rhina got a massage then jumped in a taxi truck to take us into the port. We stayed on the ship the next day because we were all out of money and didn’t want to deal with the hassle of trying to get a ride out of port.
What I’ve learned:
*You can still travel on a tight budget; while everyone else paid up to $45 for a one-way shuttle to Bangkok, my friends and I took the train for 31 baht (<$1 US!) and a 95 baht bus back. In case you didn’t calculate, that’s $4 US in comparison to $90. lol Suckers! We were also able to do our entire 4 days for about $130. Love it.
*I have 2 great friends/ travel buddies and including others into our group just creates problems
*Thai people really do love their king; you can’t drive for 5 minutes and not see a picture of him
*English is not an important language here which made it difficult to communicate at times
*An elephant only has 4 teeth and their fur is really bristly
*People get their Irish on during St. Patrick’s Day even in Thailand!
*Pad thai and spring rolls from street vendors are cheap and delicious; 45 baht = app. $1.40 US…I think we had it for 3 meals. lol
*I didn’t think I’d ever see as many old, over-weight men in speedos as I did while in Pattaya, especially not with skanky Thai females that all look like they’re 14.
*Not all Thais are conservative; I saw more half-naked (and fully naked) women in one night than I ever have in the US; and some of my friends went to something in Bangkok called a ping pong show where they stick random things up where they don’t belong and shoot them out using muscles most of us don’t know how to use. Crazy.
*It doesn’t matter what country we’re in, those that provide transportation try to rip us off; they think we’re all a bunch of spoiled, rich Americans.
*The internet is so much more enjoyable when it’s not $30 per hour.
It’s 2 days later and we’re almost in VietNam; I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I just left India and Thailand and I’m almost in VietNam. One of my classmates has done this before and she said that you get back home and it all feels like a dream. I believe it because even this far it just feels like I imagined all the places I’ve been or things I’ve seen. I have to go slave away at the demonic pile of art homework I have but I’ll write again as soon as I can. Loves & kisses!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
3/4 - 3/7 India
India was amazing and I’ve decided rather than do a play-by-play blog, from here on out I’m just going to write a short version with more of my impressions, the things I’ve learned and some of the highlights because I did and saw so much that trying to write everything would take forever.
So the faculty and staff try their best before every port to scare us; they give us worst case scenarios and our pre-port lectures are usually based on what not to do and further emphasis on the negative. So of course, each student leaves the ship expecting the absolute worst but my 5 days in Chennai really weren’t bad. Apparently, because of what I did and where I was, I had a skewed experience compared to a lot of people but I still learned a lot.
So here’s the shortened version of what I did:
Day 1: My friends and I took off for
Day 2: I woke up late and had breakfast and finished getting ready for my homestay. We met in the
Day 3: Woke up early and had homemade breakfast (of Ramen-like noodles) and were dropped off at the bus; again we were late but no one said anything. We drove for about an hour and a half, picking up students that were staying further out of the city. The Rotarians had a full day for us; we went to a few monuments and an ancient temple called Mamallamaporam and then we spent a few hours relaxing at one of the Rotarian’s weekend house in the country before going to Crocodile Bank. It was 7:30 before we got back; we went back to the house to change and then Priyanka and her mom took us out to dinner. We came back, watched a movie and went to bed.
Day 4: We slept in a little and had the first non-spicy food I’d eaten in 4 days. We lazied around a little and packed our stuff up. Priyanka took us to get stamps and some snacks for the ship. Then we came back and picked up her mom and went to meet one of the other families at the Cricket Club where we had lunch. After lunch we went to the City Center shopping plaza, walked around a bit, had ice cream and then we eventually got back to the ship after a little bit of trouble with transportation. After that my friends and I just hung out and did some homework; I had to get up early the next morning.
Day 5: I spent my entire morning at a school for a service visit except I didn’t actually end up doing anything of service; we spent the entire time playing with kids and being entertained. The kids were all so cute and completely excited to be at school. The girls that danced for us were amazing; you wouldn’t think that little kids can move their bodies the way that some of them did. So after a few hours of talking to students and teachers, we went back to the ship for lunch. I spent the rest of the day napping and getting ready for school again.
Here’s a list of the things I’ve learned/ saw while in
*Getting anywhere here takes at least a half hour and no one really cares if you’re late.
*Cricket is a HUGE sport here.
*Colleges here have curfews; the girls I met had a 6pm curfew at all times.
*I visited a monument that defies the laws of physics – it’s a rounded rock that stands on a tip on the side of a hill and will not move no matter how many elephants try to move it. I also saw an ancient temple dug into a single rock formation and a temple that was once under water.
*Indian people are incredibly nice and hospitable.
*Yes it’s disgustingly dirty here because of pollution but you get used to it.
*Everything you eat is spicy, even breakfast. But it’s delicious.
*I’ll never again complain about traffic in the
*Everyone eats with their right hand, no utensils needed.
*Most people in Chennai are vegetarian and I don’t think I’ve ever had such good vegetarian food. And they eat all the time.
*Indians love Americans, especially school age kids! They all wave and smile and try to talk to you in English and ask you to take pictures of them.
*There are bright colors everywhere; they even have a festival called Holi where they splash people with colors.
*Chennai is huge!
*It’s disgustingly hot and humid here; I think it hit 100 degrees one day.
*Everything is incredibly cheap; it costs less than 3 US dollars for a full meal.
I’m sure there’s more but today is the day before we get to
Sunday, March 1, 2009
2/27 Mauritius & Sea Olympic Madness
We got here around 8am. Rhina and I had a hard time getting up because we stayed up late watching movies with some of our friends. Listened to our very talkative diplomats for our briefing then off we went. They let the SaS trips off first but we were still about a half hour late leaving. We all got on –there were 2 full coach buses and 3 mini buses –and took off for the opposite coast. Mauritius is beautiful; there’re mountains all around and green as far as the eye can see, most of which is sugar cane and palm trees. During the drive, our group leader went over the general itinerary and went over one very specific rule that apparently most students were unaware of –we had to abide by SaS drinking policy and were only allowed 2 drinks the entire day. Well naturally the rest of the one hour ride consisted of people bitching about that and how they were just going to leave and blah blah blah. It was ridiculous to listen to these people whine about how they were going to give up their $130 day trip just so they could spend more money to go get wasted. Well I think most people realized what a dumb idea that would be and stayed on the bus for the rest of the ride.
We got to the initial landing, all looked out to where l’Ile de Deux Cocos was and I think everyone at once said “wow”; it was breath-taking. The water is completely clear and differing shades of blue-green as you look out. The island that we were going to was small and you could see the surf breaking on either sides of it; on the island itself you could just make out a mid-size house and a bunch of tent-like structures. So we all boarded a bunch of boats that had windows on the bottom and they took us to the island. Once we dropped off our bags in one of the bungalows –and applied sunscreen –we made for the water. Perfect. The water was around 80*F and where we were was a lagoon so there was very little current.
We played in the water for a while and then decided to go for a walk to the other side of the island; the entire walk took about a half hour but we stopped and played on the igneous rocks that rim the outer side of the island so it’s really much smaller than that. We got back and were going to go snorkeling but they told us that lunch would be happening in about 20 minutes so we decided to wait; while we waited I got to lay out in a big hammock that was hanging between two big palm trees. So amazing.
Then came lunch. So good. They had fresh vegetables for salad and a bunch of cold salads, rice, pasta and barbequed shrimp kabobs, prawns, lamb chops, and chicken. Plus we were allowed 2 drinks with lunch; let me tell you that the rum they make on this island is amazing. It’s clear rum that they flavor with real fruit; so the coconut rum has chunks of real coconut floating around in the bottle, apples in the apple-spice, etc. I ordered coconut rum with Coke and a coconut ‘punch’which was delicious. Desert was an entire buffet of fresh fruit and caramelized bananas. I tried fresh passion fruit which was a really strange texture but good taste.
After lunch we went to play in the water until the boats came back to pick up more people for snorkeling. By this point in the day, most people were smashed because even though Brad had said that people wouldn’t be able to buy drinks, that proved to be wrong; most people had taken full advantage of the bottles of homemade rum they sold in the little bar. Needless to say it was entertaining to watch about 75 people stumble around and trip over their words and each other. Finally a boat came to take the last group snorkeling. We got to the reef and jumped in; I hadn’t been able to find flippers that fit me but I had the mask and snorkel so I didn’t care. We spent about a half hour just swimming around, looking for fish, diving for a closer look at certain corals and trying to touch the fish. It was so cool because the skippers would throw in pieces of bread and the fish would be all around you. The corals weren’t the kinds with lots of anemones and bright colors but it was still really neat to see the different little fish flitting about and see the corals themselves.
Eventually the skipper told us we had to head out and we all boarded the boat to go back to the island. We got there and Brad told us it was time to go so we changed, got our stuff and boarded the boat to go back to the main island. During the boat ride back to the mainland this one girl –who was completely gone –was almost completely in the lap of the equally drunk guy next to her; next to them there was a life-long couple who just kept pressing their lips together from laughing at some of the ridiculous things these 2 were saying. The best was when the girl referred to genealogy as geography. The bus ride back was completely out of control; there were like 4 bottles of rum just being passed around with a couple bottles of Coke for chasers. But everyone was already drunk so they just kept getting more and more rowdy; talking loudly and singing horribly and standing up in the back of the bus even though Brad kept asking them to sit. He knew trying to take the rum from them would be futile so he just told them to ‘put it away’, meaning he just didn’t want to see it. I had stupidly sat in the back of the bust but about 15 minutes into the ride I seized the opportunity to switch with someone further up. Brad was being harassed by one of the drunken girls that was trying to go to the back of the bus; whenever she would try to get up, he would grab her arm and pull her back to her seat but she thought it was a game so she would grab at him or tickle him. It was sad but hilarious. When we got to town Brad had the bus pull over to the waterfront part of the city so people who wanted to go out could without having to get a cab back. All of the drunk people plus a few of their sober friends got off; as they got off Brad reminded them that on-ship time was at 8 and at least 5 of them asked what time. So of course, being the nice people we are, the remaining people on the bus made bets on who or how many would actually get to the ship on time. The rest of us went back and got ready for Sea Olympics.
And what a show; it was probably the most out of control opening ceremony ever. At least 50% of the 700 or so students were drunk which worked in our favor because we had to be spirited and loud for our ‘seas’or hallways. The opening ceremony basically consisted of everyone rallying up and showing off their mascots, flags and cheers. Everyone was hilarious! People were screaming and stumbling and making complete idiots of themselves. I felt bad for the faculty, staff, life long learners and everyone’s kids who had to put up with a room full of drunken fools that wouldn’t shut up but I think they were just as highly entertained as those of us that were sober. I’m pretty sure the opening ceremony took about twice as long as it should have because Ben (the MC) couldn’t get people to quiet down long enough to get out more than a few words. My hall was no exception to the drunken stupor; almost everyone lost their voice before we even got to the stage for our cheer because everyone kept breaking out into pre-game chants. The rest of Olympics the following day was a series of games and competitive tournaments that I mostly slept through because it was the first time in forever that I could sleep in and I didn’t intend to compete in anything. I want to go back to Mauritius or its neighboring island, Reunion, someday and enjoy more of the sand, surf, sun and rum. Amazing. Now we’re on our way to India where I’m attending a welcome reception, going on a 3 day homestay and doing a service visit to a school. I can’t wait!
