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If you have already read about hong kong day 1 and 2 start here... :)

China Day 3: Train ride to Beijing

The train was about 5 times nicer and cleaner than the one I took in India. The bathrooms however, were just as disgusting. Seeing the hole in the floor that goes right down on to the tracks just disturbs me. I don’t think that I can walk along a train track ever again with out being disgusted. I also firmly believe that every guy who ever used that hole had terrible aim and missed… I was wearing long pants…‘nough said. I got stuck in the middle bunk… and watching me climb up in to it every time was a sight to see. I’m just glad that I didn’t get the top bunk since I probably would have died trying to climb up there with my backpack on. Brandon was in the other middle bunk right next to me. I slept probably about half of the time. It was SO nice. They had really nice heavy blanks that have been the closest thing to my “marshmallow” down comforter from home (which I miss a lot on the freezing cold ship). When I wasn’t sleeping, a group of us played the card game Golf. I was horrible at it, but it helped pass the time. It did fly by pretty quickly which was a relief.

China: Beijing Day 4:

We took a van to our hostel after getting off of the train. We managed to cram 16 people in it some how. We had been driving a little ways and then we starting to recognize some things… we realized that they had driven us in a big circle and that our hostel really wasn’t that far away from the train station. Hmmm… we are big idiots. I couldn’t help but laugh though. We dropped our stuff and headed out to explore for the rest of the night. Our hostel was located on this small but extremely busy street with lots of little street venders and stores. We looked around at the little shops for a while before some of us headed to Tiananmen Square. It was a few blocks away so we decided to walk there. The buildings were closed by the time we found our way. It didn’t make a whole lot of difference since a lot of things were closed due to renovation for the 2008 Olympics. We saw the famous picture of Mao and walked around the square. We were soon hungry and decided to try a Chinese restaurant for Peking duck, a Chinese specialty. I didn’t think that it was all that great since it was mostly skin and fat. Of course I didn’t feel good after I ate it, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it. Teddy, Jeff, and I got a little lost trying to find our hostel. Eventually we figured out that we were in fact on the right street, but that we had just walked right past it. I was completely wiped out so I used the Internet for a little while and then went to sleep at about 3 am.

China: Beijing Day 5:

Rise and shine! We were picked up by our tour guide, Tony, at 6:30 am. We were scheduled to visit the Temple of Heaven, The Forbidden City, The Great Wall, and The Summer Palace. The Temple of Heaven was so beautiful. It was situated in a peaceful park were groups of people could be seen practicing yoga and playing games. I would have loved to people watch, but we were on a tight schedule. The Forbidden City was crawling with tourists, mostly Chinese ones. Flags or some pretty funny looking neon hats distinguished big tour groups from one another. Once again, the major buildings were closed due to renovation, which was disappointing. The strangest thing of all though were the Chinese people who wanted my picture. The first time it happened, I was sitting on the steps waiting for my group to use the bathrooms. As I was sitting there, a Chinese man pulls out his camera and blatantly starts to just take pictures of me just sitting there. I was a little weirded out. A few minutes later, I noticed a different Chinese man watching me. When his girlfriend/wife met up with him, I could see him point to me and say something to her. She looked at me and they said some more things. She was acting shy. I knew what was going on… he wanted to take her picture with me. I didn’t say anything but instead I watched out of the corner of my eye. She came a little closer and posed. I chuckled to myself as he took her picture with me looking around. Eventually, I motioned for her to come over and get an actual picture and that’s when it began. Before I knew it, I had also taken a picture with her boyfriend/husband and then two other men who were observing the fiasco from afar. This kept occurring through out the entire day. It was weird though because no one else in my group had experienced this, not even the other blonde haired girl. I had fun with it but it made me realized how much it would suck to be a celebrity. After the Forbidden City, we headed to a tall section of the Great Wall for some hiking! I actually was not very excited, at least not at first. It wasn’t until I was on it and climbing that I got in to it. The hike itself was a major workout. The stairs, when there were some, were EXTREMELY steep. They also just had flatter sections that were so steep and smooth that I slipped several times. I was worried about falling and breaking my camera. The view from the top most point of our sections was absolutely incredible. You could see the wall continue on forever as it zigzagged and winded its way up and down the mountain ridges. I was just in awe.

China: Qingdao Day 6

Qindao was… well completely depressing. It was grey and there were almost no people around, at least anywhere semi-close to the ship. After our flight got in from Beijing, we took a 45 minute cab ride through the depressing city. It got more and more gray and icky the more we kept driving. When I got back to the ship, I called several peoples rooms only to find them sleeping. Sleeping? Wait, sleeping at noon while in port? Unheard of. Apparently there was nothing else to do in Qingdao, and they were right. Teddy, Anna, and I went out for a bit in search of some internet. With a little help from a local, we did find it. Not only did we find the internet, but we found all of the people. EVRYONE was there… playing computer games. I laughed so hard. We used it for a little bit once some computers freed up. We then spent the rest of the time walking around the city. It was so sad looking that it just made me want to cry. We decided that we had had enough and headed back to the ship around 5pm. That was 5 hours before on ship time. Normally I’m running to the ship because I’m cutting it close to getting dock time (the penalty for being back on the ship late). Like everyone else, I went to sleep. Good night and good bye China!

The two days before Japan

I had lots to do and little time to do it in. I had a test in religion and paper due in western civ. on the second day. The sea was a bit rocky the night before the paper was due. I had been feeling crummy since china’s brutal beating and this was just the icing on the cake. When I went down to purser’s desk to get seasickness medicine, he told me that he ran out due to a high demand. Obviously I wasn’t the only one feeling it. To make matters worse, I had no idea what I was going to write for my paper. I sat in my bed for about 2 hours trying to come up with something. I had nothing and I still felt sick. Our papers are completely open ended… we just have to write about how the west is present in the world and relate it to what we have seen in port. As easy as it sounds, I couldn’t think of anything that I could write a long enough paper on. Ugh. I went to sleep instead and wrote a terrible paper on Islam in the morning. I didn’t care. Japan, here I come!

Japan Day 1: Complete Chaos

As is the ritual before every port, we had pre-port lecture followed by watching a few episodes of house in somone’s room. I also had a “family” dinner that night so I was busy running around the ship.

The morning of arrival was complete chaos. Japan has even more strict landing codes than China did. Everyone on the ship had to get their temperature taken the night before. In the morning we also had to walk through a termodetector to make sure that none of us had a fever. I got up at 7am to a hazy gray harbor. For the first time I didn’t even bother to take any pictures. I ate breakfast with Finnly and Anna and then went back to bed since I wasn’t feeling well. I skipped the diplomatic briefing and got up at 11 to go through the thermodetector. I went back to my room and packed for Japan. After eating a small lunch on the ship, we picked up our passports and headed out.

Until pre-port, we were completely unaware that we would be getting off of the ship so late. We had to change our schedule around because of it. Luckily, we planned on wingin’ it the whole time so we had no reservations that needed to be cancelled. Originally we were going to go to Hiroshima that afternoon but that was no longer going to happen. Instead we decided to go to Kyoto instead and find a place to stay over night. Our first goal was to get our Japan Rail Passes. I lucked out. I had ordered mine the week before I left for the Bahamas. It is good for three months after the date of purchase. Mine just so happen to have been bought exactly three months ago. Luckily, it expired the next day. If it had expired I probably would have just stayed on the ship and went around Kobe by myself, which I would have been fine with if it weren’t for the $250 I would have wasted. I was relieved to say the least.

After getting the passes, we headed for Kyoto. Although I had already been to Kyoto, I was really excited to be going back. It was one of my favorite cities in Japan. THE best restaurant was located somewhere to the right of Kyoto Station… were exactly I couldn’t remember. I knew it was a little hole in the wall that all of the locals go to and although they serve one dish, there is generally a line out the door to eat there. I had been talking about going back since I knew I was going on SAS. I would be surprised if I found it though.

We went to try and view some temples before it began to get dark. We took the local bus from the train station to a temple. As soon as we had stepped off of the bus, it began to downpour. I was soaked. It gave me an excuse to finally get the clear umbrella I had been wanting since China. Everyone had been making fun of me for it but they too broke down and bought one. By the time we made it to one or two of the temples, they were already closed. It was still fun to walk around. It was incredibly peaceful even though it was located right in the city. The rain so quit so I was stuck carrying around that damn umbrella for the rest of the trip. Oh well.

We decided to start walking back towards the station. We were walking along the street when I noticed a sign that said “guest house.” I decided that we should stop and check it out since it was starting to get dark and we still had no place to sleep. Of course it was really nice and cheap, but they were full. However, they did give us information on other hostels in the area so we booked rooms with another one. Finding the place was a challenge as I figured it would be from experience. Eventually, after asking several locals, we found it hidden away in a side street. It wasn’t that bad either. It served its purpose as a place to unload our bags and sleep at night. It was also close to the station, which was key since we had an early bullet train ride to Hiroshima in the morning. We unloaded our stuff and headed towards the station to try and find my restaurant.

Now it has been about a year and a half since I was last in Kyoto and we all know my memory isn’t that greatest. It would be impressive if I actually found it. I knew that it was on a small side street to the left of Kyoto Station’s main entrance. We came across a street that looked familiar and it had a short stretch of buildings that held some promise. One of them did seem like it might be it, but I remembered the inside looking differently. We decided to keep walking and see what else we saw. After A little bit, we decided to go back at try it out. It served the dish I remembered, and a line outside of the door quickly formed after our arrival. We all had the same thing, udon soup, and it was delicious. It was just as I remembered it. I am still not sure if it was the same place or not, but I guess it doesn’t matter. The food was amazing! Luckily, all of my friends enjoyed it just as much as I did. Success! We walked around a little bit more and I found my favorite green tea ice cream bar. So SO good! We relaxed in a little coffee shop and internet café before going back to the hostel. That night I couldn’t sleep for the life of my. My brain was going a million miles a minute and it would not stop. I pretty much analyzed my entire life: past, present, and future. Ugh. I got an hour of sleep before getting up. All I have to say is thank god for all of those hot coffee vending machines located every block. I would have died that day if it weren’t for them.

Day 2: Hiroshima- Good so far…

It was another beautiful day. It felt like spring outside. Peace Memorial Park was absolutely stunning. We saw the A-bomb dome as it was the day after the bombing. I’ll give just a little history. On August 6th 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It detonated about 600 meters above the city center (now the A-bomb dome). The city was destroyed in an instant. The bomb exerted extremely high pressers of several hundred thousand atmospheres and it exceeded more than a million degrees Celsius at its hypocenter. It burned, and crushed almost all buildings and people inside of them within a 2-kilometer radius. The people of Hiroshima are now hoping and pushing for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
I found their overall attitude towards the bombing so incredible. There was no hostility or anger. They only wished for peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons. The museum took a good 2 hours to get through. Although it wasn’t nearly as graphic as the Vietnam War Museum, it was still extremely powerful. We saw many pictures and artifacts, which included victim’s skin, hair, and fingers. I just about lost it at one point since I was already feeling ill.

Afterwards we went to see if there was a baseball game in the afternoon. There wasn’t. We went to one of the huge department stores where we ate lunch before catching our train to Tokyo. Mary Alice and I had bought a bottle of wine for the train ride. We drank it out of Mcdonald’s paper cups. Classy, I know. It was a fairly long train ride. I didn’t sleep a whole lot. When we arrived in Tokyo we decided to call one of the hostels that I had a brochure on. They had space so we headed towards that district. It ended up being in the middle of nowhere, although it was really nice. Major tensions were picking up in the group… which didn’t help either. It was a boring night. We ate dinner from the seven eleven since we couldn’t find an open restaurant. I went on the internet for a little bit and tried updating some things. We had to pay for the showers so I had to quick one. As I was rushing, trying to get the shampoo out of my hair, I realized that I haven’t had any time to just relax and enjoy anything. It’s always go, go, go. You don’t want to miss anything. I went to sleep at around 2 am.

Day 3: Tokyo- pretty much a disaster, except for a few good parts.

This day was nothing but a complete disaster. Everyone pretty much had a meltdown at some point in the day. I don’t even think that I want to write about it. At one point, I just wanted to go in to a laundry mat, sit down, and watch the dryer go around and around. That’s how bad it was. People were not making any decisions. People were picking fights with others. Everyone was just at the end of their ropes. However, there were two times were I had a lot of fun. The first one was at Cirque Du Soleil. Now, I had never heard of it before but everyone seemed to know and love it. My roommate and her friends just about died when I told them that I was going. I agreed to buy a ticket a couple of weeks ago without really knowing anything. They weren’t cheap by any means so I was really hoping for something amazing and oh my, it was that and so much more. I ended up with the best seat in the house: front row, center. Mary Alice was right next to me while Brandon, Shantel, and Finnly were further back. I could literally reach out and touch the dancers/singers if I wanted to. At one point, Mary Alice and I were holding each other’s hand because we were convinced that one of the gymnasts was going to miss the stage and end up in our laps as he jumped through some hoops. The show was just really incredible. They would do these elaborate acrobatic performances. They would jump through hoops, fly in the air, sing, dance, juggle… all at a level I never thought humanly possible. At one point I was sitting there thinking to myself, “Am I really watching a 10-person pyramid jump rope double Dutch style? Yes, yes I actually am.” The entire show was just unbelievable.

Afterwards, once everyone calmed down, we went back to being indecisive and irritable. We had talked about going and signing karaoke. I wasn’t so sure that I was exactly in the mood for it, but I would be up for it if everyone else was. Finnly was the only one who openly wanted to do it. We were standing outside, all dressed up in the cold. I finally decided that I was going to go to Shibuya. I’d go by myself unless anyone wanted to come and I told them that they were all more than welcome to join me. I knew Shibuya had a great nightlife and karaoke. Mary Alice said that she would come with. The rest of the group still couldn’t make up their minds. This is when I just about lost it. I told them that I was leaving in 2 minutes and that they had to decide for themselves. I wasn’t going to tell them what they wanted to do. After another 10 minutes or so, they finally decided to come with me and we would all go and do karaoke. We got to Shibuya and easily found a karaoke bar. Once inside though, everyone became indecisive again. I’m not sure if it was because of the cost or what. I could tell that Finnly really wanted to do it and that she was getting up set because no one else seemed interested enough to make up their mind. I was more than willing to pay and so was Mary Alice. After standing there for a while, we all got a room. We paid for two hours of karaoke and two hours of unlimited drinks. After going though everything, I’m just glad that it turned out to be a blast. There were no tensions. We sang and drank and the time just flew right by. After paying, we left and walked around for a while. At this point the subway had stopped running. It would start running again at 4am. The group wanted to take a taxi back to the hostel. We had a lot of trouble trying to get one. Once we did get one, the first thing Brandon told the driver was that he didn’t speak Japanese. The taxi driver immediately took off. Because there were five of us, we would need to taxis. This seemed impossible so Mary Alice and I decided to stay back and get one later or try and walk back. We ended up talking with 5 Japanese guys who were our age and wearing their business suits at 2am. It was really pretty hysterical talking with them. One of them wanted to come back to the states with me as his girlfriend. I was like hmmm… no. lol They soon ditched us because there were five of them and only two of us. We then found a 24 hour restaurant were we ordered pizza and wine. We sat there until 6am. We watched businessmen come in and pass out before their food was even served to them. They always seem to be leaving work or on their way to work. It is nuts. We made our way back to the hostel on the subway. I realized that I had lost my Japan Rail Pass. It was bad… I got yelled at for sitting in the subway station while waiting for Mary Alice. I was in no mood… I must have given the guy a look of death as I got up. We figured that my pass must have slipped out from between the subway maps that I had been carrying. Something foolish like that. Now I just had to sneak my way back to Kobe all of the way from Tokyo. Great. By the time we got back to the hostel and went to bed, it was 7:30 am and the sun had risen.

Day 4: Tokyo and back to Kobe

Mary Alice and I woke up alone and headed out to see Tokyo Tower. I knew that it was somewhere close so we decided to just try and walk there. It was another beautiful day out. It ended up being a little hike, but we had nothing else to do that day except make our way back to Kobe. We did a little window-shopping on our walk there. We stopped and got a pizza for lunch. It wasn’t the greatest pizza but it sufficed. At this point, we were both broke and needed an ATM. Ugh. I hate trying to find ATM’s that accept our debit cards. It’s always such a pain. As we were walking towards the tower, looking for a bank, we stumbled across a Subway. You have no idea how badly I have been craving a sandwich. I hadn’t had one since I left. We both got super excited even though we had eaten only a little bit ago. We went in with high hopes only to find out that they don’t accept credit cards. What? What?! Oh… they are trying to kill me! Crushed, we kept walking. We did find a bank that accepted our debit cards so we were set. Tokyo Tower was the same. I bought a lot of their special banana chocolate that I know my family loves… so lets just hope I don’t eat it all before I get home. ☺ We began to make our way back towards the main shopping area since we still had some time, or at least we thought. After dilly dolling around we suddenly realized that we had to haul some serious butt in order to catch our train. We had NO idea where to catch the train however. This would not have been a problem normally, but because I was an idiot and lost my JR pass we HAD to catch this train or else I would have to cough up a lot of cash to pay for a train ride back. At least with our previously reserved tickets, I had a chance of sneaking through. So with this new discovery, we pretty much ran though the subway station. I had a general idea of where the train might be… but general idea in the city of Tokyo is still pretty much a shot in the dark. We caught a subway and then had to switch lines. We were standing on the train, discussing where we were going when a Japanese girl turned to us and asked if we were going to Kobe. We said yeah and handed her our tickets. She looked and them and then looked and us and began talking really quickly and saying a bunch of Japanese names. Luckily, we got the gist. We were supposed to have gotten off already and switched lines again. The doors then opened, Mary Alice and I looked at each other, and then dashed out of the door… still trying to put together what she was saying. Time was ticking. We had only 20 minutes to get to our train before it would leave us. We then back tracked a stop and switched lines. Some how we made it to the station on time. Now, the only thing left was sneaky me though. The plan was to do a sneak hand off of her JR pass. She walked though… and no hand off. Oh no. I showed her my ticket and she asked for my JR pass. S-H-I-T. What am I going to do? Mary Alice said turn around. She began opening my backpack… genius! She rustled around a bit and brought out “my” pass. It got me though and we had 10 minutes to spare. Sneaking me back through the second time was a breeze… I lucked out.

Day 5: A Day of walking in Kobe

That’s basically what we did; we walked and shopped. I got a few things and managed to get my hands on some mozzarella cheese! I would have loved to spend another day in Kobe, but it was time to start heading back to the US and Hawaii. I had a long 8 days ahead of me…

4/6/2007

The happenings of crossing the Pacific Ocean:

I’ve pretty much been sleeping all day everyday. Exciting, I know. I wake up at 8, go to class, and go right back to bed at 12 with out setting an alarm. Sometimes I would wake up for dinner sometimes, usually only because the evening’s announcements would wake me up. There were two times where I woke up in the late afternoon and thought that it was morning. Ugh. My sleep schedule is so messed up. Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep at all, got really seasick that day, took some meds, and slept through my class. Oops. I also missed taco day because I was sleeping and on the ship, missing taco day is like missing Christmas. Poor Andrew (my cabin steward) tried to clean my room about 3 times a day but every time I was either sleeping or attempting to write a paper. My life was completely scattered around the room so I told him to forget about even trying to clean it. I love Andrew and I think that I might try to sneak him home with me.


We had the Ambassador’s Ball the other night. It was super crazy and a lot of fun. All of the girls wore the dresses they had designed in Vietnam and the guys wore the suites they had tailored. Like most, I ware my pajamas 24/7 when on the ship so it was a lot of fun to see everyone dressed up to the max.

As for classes, I had two finals today and I have two more after Hawaii. I’m ready for them to be over. I don’t feel like I learned a whole lot from my classes. All of my learning took place in ports.

Here are some more thoughts as I start to pack up and head back home.

Things that I will miss:
The hit or miss scrambled eggs in the morning, the complete darkness of my room, the nice rocking of the ship, House marathons with my friends, not having a cell phone, my cabin stewart Andrew, being able to get to class in one minute, the 7th deck bistro’s grilled cheese sandwiches that saved my life, getting back from an exhausting day or few days and finding letters from home on my door, always waking up in a new country, watching movies on “the loop”, using vacation as an excuse to buy things, magnetic walls, my friends, and home (aka, the ship).

Things that I will not miss:
23 hour days, the not nice rocking of the ship, the nasty chlorinated water, starfishing it, “the voice” waking me up during my nap times, Dan Christie’s voice and Global Studies class, actually all of my classes, the food, the lack of cheese, and paying god awful amounts of money for the internet.