2 days at Sea

Day 1: A9
I woke up for 0930 Global Studies. I still felt really sick and exhausted so I went back to sleep for another hour and a half.

I woke up for 1100 Biology of Sharks. I even showered. This class was a total fail. I felt like death and couldn't stop coughing. The room was so hot and stuffy, it was killing my throat. I walked out to get water at one point and actually considered leaving. But I stuck it out.

I skipped lunch, which I usually have right after class. I went back to bed to rest up for Anthropology at 1400. I felt even worse and decided it wasn't worth it.

I slept til 1730 when everyone wanted to eat. Dinner was pretty lame, but I was starving. Nic also was wicked sick and had a fever all day. It broke around dinner time so she was able to come out and eat.

We went and ate again later on the 7th deck for some real food. So good.

Luckily the clocks went back an hour. Tania, Brandon, and I hung out all night and watched Fraggle Rock. So excited to go to bed. I didn't think I'd be able to fall asleep, but I managed to fall asleep by 2330 and pass out for the night. Delightful.

Day 2: B9

I managed to wake up early today to get up and go to breakfast before 0800 Marine Biology. I made it through class successfully and feel somewhat better today. Not great, but better.

After class I showered and worked on my blog and stuff. At 1030 I had a manicure, courtesy of Mom, Dad, and Scott. So thank you very much. It was much needed before Vietnam. Tania got a pedicure, too. When I got back we all went to lunch. Lunch was actually really good: noodles and spinach. They had flavor! A different flavor than the normal blah flavor!

I took a half hour nap before Global Studies. Tania and I went together. It was a really touching class. It was a panel of 4 of the teachers who had been through the Vietnam war, either fighting or protesting. It was sad and hard to listen to parts of it, but it was fascinating. It helped that I took Ben Snyder's Vietnam class 4 years ago. I had a decent background on Vietnam and the war.

After class I exchanged China pictures with Zach and Michael. I blogged some more and Tania napped. We all hung out.

Becca and I had a family dinner with our father and brothers and sisters at 1800. I really love that group. We shared our tales of Japan and China as we hadn't seen each other in about 3 weeks for dinner.

After dinner Becca and I sat with Tania and ate some more. Then we all played around on the 3rd deck before Pre-Port. We were told Pre-Port would be broadcasted on the tv in our rooms. Lies. We went up to the 6th deck piano lounge and tried to watch, but that sucked. There was almost zero sound. The Union gets too packed and uncomfortable to be worth it.

Someone then said it was now playing in the cabins and we started back down to the room. An LLC yelled at us and said it wasn't true and to find a place to watch it quickly. Again, we're not 8. We were in the process of figuring it out. We ended up sitting in the piano lounge again. Fails to 9th.

A teacher came by and told us we'd be better off in classroom 2 if we were interested. Better approach. We went and paid attention. And played Uno. It took 2 hours. Blahhhh.

I bought epic amounts of Deet to protect me from malaria. I started my malaria medicine today. Woooo. It's all about preventing the malaria.

Brandon, Tania, Becca, and I hung out in our room and watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Great movie. I recommend it. Now it's time for bed though. Need to do some final resting for Vietnam tomorrow!

We can actually see lights out our window! We're getting close!

Hong Kong, PRC

I didn't wake up the next day til 1000. The latest I've slept so far this semester. I gathered everyone and accounted for everyone we'd been missing from the night before. We all showered and got ready to head out into Hong Kong for some food.

We wandered around and no one could really make a solid decision about where to eat. I voted Spaghetti House again, but most people rejected that. Instead we ate at the restaurant above it: Shakey's Pizza, which, apparently, is a west coast pizza place. It was essentially the same as the Spaghetti House and must be owned by the same people. I had a BBQ chicken pizza. It was pretty good, but really didn't have any BBQ sauce on it.

We had a leisurely lunch of catching up on everyone's experiences from the night before. We'd collected a few random people on our walk.

After lunch we wandered around some more and headed back to the terminal/mall. We all grabbed our laptops for the free wifi. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea as we had to be back on the ship in a few hours to leave port for Vietnam. The internet barely worked. It sucked.

I gave up after a little and just went back to the ship. I finally got to talk to Dom. It was wicked late back home on the east coast since we were 11 hours ahead.

Everyone managed to get back on time except for Mason and Nolan, who now have dock time.

I was so excited to take a nap. But everyone dragged me to dinner at 1700. We napped for an hour after dinner. Then at 1900 we all had a muster drill, which is essentially a fire drill. It went on forever and everyone looked exhausted. Becca got in trouble for talking during it. She got written up and had a meeting. She has to go to meditation to learn that it's ok to be quiet. Hahahahahahah. Most ridiculously funny punishment ever.

After this we all went up to the 7th deck to watch the 2000 laser light show over the city. It was pretty cool to see as we pulled out of port to head to Vietnam. We all hung out for awhile and got some food at the bar.

Again, so excited to go to bed. I've been sick for the past 3 days at least. It's gotten worse. I had a sore throat and cough on top of being tired. I needed the sleep.

China: Beijing to Hong Kong, PRC

We had to be on the bus to leave at 0430, an ungodly hour. I was thrilled to have bought a danish the night before. They gave us a boxed breakfast, which consisted of a sandwich, an egg, a roll, and an orange. The strangest assortment of food because there's no real meal for 0430.

The bus ride took us only 20 minutes. We were there by 0515. We were at the airport before anyone else and before any of the ticket agents or customs stations were open. Joy. At 0530 they openned and we got to our gate. None of the coffee places or food places openned til 0700 when our flight boarded. Fails.

We all scrunched our stuff into the overhead compartments and under our seats. As soon as I was seated in my window seat next to Carson and Michael I passed out for 2 hours. With a half hour left I woke up just in time for landing.

Getting everyone off the plane with all their luggage and through customs took forever. Once we gathered everyone we made our way to the buses. We had a new tour guide: Bruce. He gave us a half hour guided tour through Hong Kong to our port where the MV Explorer was docked.

There were mountains and islands and forests and tall buildings and bridges. Hong Kong really had it all. It was really pretty and I liked it already.

Everyone got back to the ship at the same time and it took about 45 minutes to get back on the ship through security.

I was so excited to see Nic, Becca, and Tania. I'd texted them to let them know I'd be back around 1300. Luckily they'd had a late night the night before and were in no hurry to get up and off the ship. I showered and dumped out all my stuff and we headed out with the boys. Our family was reunited.

We changed over our money from RMB to Hong Kong Dollars. Then we wandered around the city. The ship was docked right in a really nice and upscale mall, Ocean Terminal. We walked through the streets and looked in a few stores before we decided we needed to stop for a late lunch/early dinner. We went to the Spaghetti House. Such a good choice. We split garlic bread and got a few pitchers for the 8 of us. I had delicious meat sauce with spaghetti. Such a great choice. I've missed Italian. We all shared our stories from Beijing and other parts of China.

After our meal we split up. Becca, Tania, and I went shopping for outfits for our night out in Hong Kong. I bought a cute black turtleneck ish dress at the first store we went in. Becca and Tania also bought shirts. We shopped around for awhile. Most of the stores wouldn't let us try stuff on and most places that sold dresses were one size fits all. Weird. Also, we went into a Calvin Klein store and they only sell up to size C bras. So not America.

We got tired and headed back to the terminal. We looked for shoes or boots but couldn't find anything remotely within out budget. We looked at the French Connection. I was looking at a cute shirt. The salewoman came up to me and shook her head and pulled out a shirt 2 sizes bigger. Wow. What a bitch. I'd been debating between that and a size smaller. But she wouldn't let me try it on. So I went into the dressing room. Too big. Tania grabbed me the size I'd wanted and made a point of showing her this. I then asked her for the next smallest size, but they didn't have it.

This wasn't our first experience with the saleswomen laughing at us looking at their "one-size-fits-all" dresses. They wouldn't blatantly point and laugh. I find this so rude.

We exhausted ourselves shopping and headed back to the ship for a quick nap. We napped then got pretty to meet up with our boys at 2030.

We grabbed a quick dinner at McDonalds then took the ferry to the other side where all the bars were. We got some drinks at 7 11 and hung out for awhile. We hit the bars early. We just walked up and down the street. There were so many SAS people there. Becca met some men from Ghana. They were stoked we were gonna be heading there on our trip and bought us all drinks. It was a pretty good night. Everyone was out. We got kicked out of a few bars for not buying drinks. That's new. We were in a fairly empty bar dancing and they told us we couldn't be there if we weren't gonna buy drinks. Oh well.

The night was pretty early because 2 of our friends were too drunk. We took cabs back with them. Plus we all needed the extra sleep. We were all in bed by 0200.

China: Beijing & the Great Wall

After a semi-decent amount of sleep we all manage to make it to the 0830 bus on time. We take an hour long bus to the Beijing International Kongfu School.

We all pretty much pass out on the bus, trying to recover from such small amounts of sleep. When we arrive, we are greeted by people running around with snaking dragon costumes. They lead us into a gymnasium filled with seats.

Now at this point everything's thinking that going to a Kongfu school is going to be stupid. After a few minutes of sitting around in the chilly gym, the curtains on the stage open with no introduction and boys and running across the stage doing crazy kung-fu moves, also known as Wushu. They were all about high school aged and dressed in yellow outfits. They would run and jump and spin around entertaining us. They did a few short segments. They did one where they reenacted a jungle scene of animals attacking one another. Then at the end they each were spotlighted and did special moves. One showed off his moves then broke a bowl with his finger, another broke a sword, and one broke a huge, thick stick.

After the show they took pictures with us, let us play with their weapons, taught us some moves, and let us wear the dragon costume and run around in it.

They taught us about how Wushu is a combination of brawn and brains. It is used for fighting and sport and also artisticly as dancing. Everything they did was so well choreographed and planned. It's a huge part of traditional Chinese culture.

We thanks them and said our goodbyes and got back on the bus for another hour long drive to a restaurant out in the countryside. What should have been a lovely nap for all was actually game time per order of the tour guide. She made us play the numbers game. We weren't allowed to not participate. And if you stopped paying attention and messed up you were forced in front of everyone to sing a song. I just wanted to sleep, but the poor hungover people. You could figure out who was hungover based on who lost. It sucked. Again, we felt like we were 8 years old. I think everyone wanted to kill our tour guide at this point.

We were never so glad to get to lunch and off this bus as today. We had left the city and were out in the countryside with beautiful mountains. The restaurant was inside of a huge greenhouse and was brightly lit up by the sun. The food was delicious, again. There was spicy chicken and beef and soup and the typical appetizers. I could get used to real Chinese food.

After lunch we were heading to the Great Wall. One of the highlights of my SAS trips in general. You could see the wall snaking across the mountains as we approached the section we'd be climbing. This was by far one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

We got out at the base and walked uphill through tons of little vendors set up trying to sell you anything and everything. "Pretty lady!" I heard that phrase way too many times. Some of the people even tried to take our names down to come back later and buy stuff. We avoided them as much as possible. Part way up to where we were taking the cable cars was a camel. So excited I started taking pictures. The guy started yelling at us telling us we had to pay to take a picture of his camel. We could also ride it for 20 yuan. YEAH RIGHT. But I do heart camels. All the same I snapped some sneaky camel pics.

The cable car took us 6 people at a time. So it took forever for everyone to get up. The view was spectacular and so crazy. I still can't believe we went to the Great Wall. We were at the Mutianyu section of the wall. The Chinese name for the Great Wall is Wan Li Chang Cheng, or "the Long Wall of Ten Thousand Li." The first sections were built as early as the 5th century B.C. when a number of Chinese states in the north were fighting against each other and occasionally against the northern "barbarians." It wasn't until the unification of the empire under Qin Shi Huang Di in B.C. 221 that the various sections of the Wall were linked up. It is said that more than 300,000 men worked for 10 years to complete it. The wall has a pounded earth interior with stone facing walls and stone roadway along the top. It was built wide enough to allow a brace of 5 horses to gallop between the battlements and was thus used to convey soldiers, arms, and food with great speed to various parts of the northern frontier.

We took so many pictures getting up to the Wall and then on the Wall itself. We walked for about an hour and a half. Looking into what used to be Mongolia. The mountains were so glorious. We got a gorgeous day. It was probably in the 60's. And here we were dressed for 30's with sweatshirts, sweaters, fleeces, gloves, and hats. I'm so glad I didn't buy a jacket for this trip like a lot of the people on it. It was sunny with clear skies. The perfect weather for hiking along. I couldn't get over the views of the mountains and the Wall snaking along the tops of the mountains. Everything was kind of brown and dead, but I got some sweet pictures. I posted them on facebook.

The Great Wall was an almost spiritual experience, between the beauty and thinking of all the men burried in the walls and in the hills.

We got a really cool picture that I'll have to get ahold of. We all sat on the wall half hanging over the side. With one leg over the other side you could really feel the cold breeze. It was about a 30 foot drop down to the base of the wall and then the mountain itself was pretty steep.

Towards the end of our hike the girls I was with and I split a beer so we could say we drank on the Great Wall. At different points there were people selling drinks, postcards, and food. Strange. There were also little forts every few hundred yards.

When we got to a certain point along the wall, there was a toboggan course that went down from the wall, down the mountain, to the base. It was so cool. I was a little scared at first, but it was awesome. I have now not only been to and on the Great Wall, I've also tobogganned down it. So sick.

We all bought stuff at the little market before getting back on the bus to head out to dinner.

It took about an hour to get back to Beijing where we had dinner at a local restaurant. This food was spectacular. Fried tofu, spicy chicken, soup, and other great foods with some jasmine tea. Deliciousness.

After dinner we headed to the Chinese Acrobatic Show. This was such a great show. It had crazy colors and stunts and costumes. Men came out and were jumping all over the place. When they left and the women came out I was a little disappointed, but they ended up being even better than the men. They rode around on one bicycle with about 10 of them piled up and hanging off the top. The men spun around and stacked 5 up and held up the women. There were also birds flying around amidst the lights and colors. So awesome.

I can't believe what a great day that was. We headed back to the hotel to pack up. We had an early morning the next day.

A bunch of us walked to McDonalds for burgers. Then we went and bought a ton of fireworks and firecrackers for the Chinese New Year. It's legal to set them off in the streets anywhere. The cops just watch on. You can also set them off really close to buildings. We set ours off in the middle of a street by the hotel. Cars would just drive around them since it was such a common occurrence. The whole time we were in China you'd see them going off everywhere and you could hear them all night long. Some of them were so legit. They went off above the tall buildings and cracked so loudly.

Once we were out of fireworks we walked to the bakery and got some cake and pasteries for the morning. After a 7 11 run we went back to the hotel to get some sleep before our early morning flight to Hong Kong.

China: Beijing

So I went to bed at 0530 and I had to be up and ready for when the buses left at 0830. I had set all my alarms the night before and we were getting a wake up call. Needless to say I woke up at 0839 when Carson asked me what time we were leaving at. The best part is that she was up at 0700 and showered and ready, she just thought we didn't have to leave til 0900.

I managed to sleep through every single alarm and the wake up call. I got dressed in 2 minutes and we sprinted downstairs. Literally 0842 we get downstairs and see buses. They're the other group. Ours had just left. Shitttt. We knew they were going to Tian'an men Square first so we grabbed a cab there. I knew it wasn't too far since we'd walked there the night before. On our way to the square we saw our group going underground to cross the street into the square. 2 minutes later we got out of our cab. At least the cab rides are really cheap, like $2 or 14 yuan.

Next we had to meet up with our group. Tian'an men Square is the largest public square in the world, so obviously, not the easiest place to locate people. It took us about 2 minutes of scrambling through the hoards of tourists to find our group. I still can't believe we found them. They clapped. It was deserved. Normally we leave a half hour late, this was the first, and only time, they left on time the entire 6 days.

We took a ton of pictures and got the history from our tour guide, Susan. Then we walked to the north side of the square called the Tian'an men Gate, or the Rostrum. From the balcony of the Rostrum on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong, chairman of the Communist Party, proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. There's a huge portrait of Mao hanging on the south side of the gate. Behind the Rostrum lies the Forbidden City, also known as the Imperial Palace.

The architecture is crazy and the Forbidden City is huge. I'll give you the basic history on it. It was home to 24 emperors beginning with its creation by Emperor Yongle in 1420 until the last Qing emperor, Puyi, left in 1924. The entire complex consists of 8,706 rooms in which an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people lived including 3,000 enuchs, as well as maids and concubines, all within 170 acres. Behind walls more than 30 feet high and within the 160-foot moat, complex rules and rituals dictated life in the Imperial Palace.

The Forbidden City just keeps going and going. We spent about 2 hours walking through the gates deeper and deeper into the complex. The paintings on and around the buildings were beautiful and so colorful. At the end of the City we walked through a rock garden and temple out to the street.

We took the buses to the Hutong area. Here we all paired up with a friend for a trishaw ride through the area. Isaac and I got one together. It was really cool. It was esentially a man biked us around in a little carriage, complete with blanket. The Hutong area was beautiful in an old and grey sort of way. We were finally out of the big cities and into smaller, 1 and 2 story buildings. They were all slightly run down. The Hutong area was built during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. It's basically a narrow network of lanes created by quadrangular houses. The whole area itself is closed off with wooden gates.

They took us for a 15 minute trishaw ride far into the Hutong area. They split us up into groups of 15 to go to local families for lunch. We went to Madame Fung's house. She had cleaned out her bedroom and set up tables for us all covered in food. We had some delicious sweet potatoe chips and chicken and corn and dumplings. Then after lunch finished, she taught us how to make dumplings. She pointed to mine and told me it was perfect. I should think so. I've eaten more dumplings than anyone else in China. Dumplings are a big part of celebrating the Chinese New Year. That explains why we've had so many since we arrived in China. Deliciousness. She answered our questions about the food and her house. We thanked her and went on our way.

We played around in the streets for a little while with a few of the local kids before we took our trishaws back to the buses. We scoped out the bathrooms. That was not happening. Bathrooms in China are disgusting. Japan had the cleanest, more high tech bathrooms I've ever seen in my 21 years of existance. China...not so much. And we haven't even hit India yet. Joy.

The ride back on the trishaw was just as enjoyable. We saw more of the area. We hopped back on our buses and headed for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Village.

I hope you all remember these obscene structures: the Birds Nest and the Bubble Aquatics center. We took pictures outside and then were able to explore the inside of the Birds Nest. For whatever reason, they only scheduled us to spend 15 minutes inside. Not enough time at all.

That structure is huge and has some crazy angles and pieces. Unfortunately I didn't bring my phone with me so I can't post pictures from it til May. We walked down the aisles to the first rows to look up and see the inside. The entire center was set up with sledding and ice skating and little kid activities. We didn't have tickets or the time for that. Otherwise we all would have been in there. It was really amazing.

We rushed back to find the rest of our group before we missed our bus. We could only admire the Bubble Aquatics center from afar.

We were rushing out to go to a Silk Factory....

A few people were remarking about how more time should have been spent in the Olympic Village because it was so much cooler and we'd all watched the 2008 Summer Olympics. One of the teachers on the trip heard this and flipped out at them saying she didn't plan it, blah blah blah. Astounded they tried to explain this conversation wasn't directed to her. Sometimes they really act as though we're ungrateful 8 year olds. We're all pretty capable 20 year olds actually. Thank you very much.

So we headed to the Silk Market, where we learned about how silk is made. It was interesting to see the different parts of the silk-making process from the silk worms to the threading to the finished products. I could have skipped this, and I don't think I was alone. It was a Silk Market, the end result was to sell us their silk products. They had silk everything, but it was wicked expensive and by this point everyone was exhausted. Only a few of the 98 people bought anything. They weren't willing to barter with us and we had limited cash. Fails on their part.

We were told if we got out of there quickly they'd take us to the Pearl Market before dinner. I've never seen people clear out quicker. The Pearl Market was one of the many markets in Beijing, it's more of a mall. It has 3 floors of fake designer everything: jeans, North Face, bags, luggage, etc. These aren't like the flea markets at home, everything looks almost exactly like the designer it mimics, including the name. I heard this is actually illegal and can be a problem going through customs, but I don't know how true that is. You barter everything down to what you want and pay fairly inexpensive prices. Caitlin and I went for the bags and tshirts and pearls. China's also known for its pearls. We got a bunch of stuff really cheap. We only had a half hour there before we had to get back to the hotel for the buses and dinner.

The buses left us there and told us to find our own way back. Nice. Especially considering all by 2 people on our bus got out at the Pearl Market. We started running back, then decided it was too far of a run. We got a cab. Again, really cheap. We threw everything in our rooms and got on the buses for dinner.

Dinner was at the Tangyuan Restaurant. We were having a Beijing duck dinner. I'm not a big fan of eating Daffy Duck and typically wouldn't order it, but it was phenomenal. I highly recommend duck. We had all sorts of appetizers: pork fat, noodles, vegetables and then even more food with the duck. It was all served family style, so you really get a good variety of foods. I've come to like this better than getting one meal and one taste. We had some really sweet red wine with dinner, apparently similar to the rice wine. I didn't like it as much.

After dinner we all headed back to the hotel to shower and head out for the night. Amy, Lauren, and I had some wine before we went out. We met up with Carson, Michael, and a few others. We went to Bar Street again and went to Skyline. At Skyline we ran into a bunch of other SAS people who had been traveling around Beijing. I saw Pat and a few other people I knew.

The girls headed down the road to a small, local bar, not overrun by SASers. It was all international students studying and traveling through China. Really cool. And cheap drinks. We got a few shots and toasted to Beijing and SAS and all those good things before heading back to meet up with everyone at Skyline.

We had another beer at Skyline. A bunch of people were heading out to Club Mix. We decided we'd chill for a little while at Skyline and head back fairly early. We didn't need to be out late again. Amy and I split a cab back. Our cab got hella lost in the abyss of Beijing and couldn't manage to find our hotel. He didn't speak any English. He pulled over and made some calls and all I could think of was that we were getting sold into some foreign market and I'm planning how to find my way out of it. A minute later he motions to see the room key again. Nods and continues. We get within a block that we recognize and see Carson and Michael running towards us. We get him to stop and just pay the double cab fare fro
m what it should have been. Trying to negotiate the equivalent of an $8 cab instead of a $4 cab just wasn't worth the effort.

We all get back to the hotel and say our goodnights and manage to be in bed by 0200. Thank God.

China: Xi'an to Beijing

We've had the longest, busiest days. I'm gonna try to recount each day. This day was only 2 days ago, but it's still way hard to remember.

This was our transit day. We got up early and left by 0830 for the airport. I managed to squish everything into my one backpack. Glorious. So stuffed. This time at the airport we didn't have to wait 2 hours for our flight. The flight was uneventful. I was sitting with Carson so it was entertaining.

We weren't allowed to check bags, SAS time requirement, so everyone had to shove their bags up into the overhead. Poor flight attendants and Chinese people traveling. We over took that flight with our luggage. Some people overpacked. Not I.

When I put my pictures up on facebook you'll see that I've been wearing the same clothes for all of China and most of Japan. I don't really need anything besides jeans, a sweatshirt, and fleece.

Beijing was even colder than Xi'an. We're up even farther north now. The buses met us at the airport and we got new tour guides. Ours is Susan. She's really sweet and funny, and has decided that we're all now "intimate friends." Haha. I love the phrases that the Chinese use in English.

We got taken to lunch at a big restaurant in the city. The city's pretty good. Not as built up and modern as Shanghai, but bigger and more modern than Xi'an.

This lunch took forever. Not the service, the tour guides. They made us chill there for awhile. That's the only problem with this trip, they make us chill at some places for way too long. This was probably the only meal in China that I haven't loved. It was ok, but I wouldn't recommend it. Fried chicken, rice, fungus. It was all just blah.

We got back on the buses to go to the hotel. We were gonna check in, drop our bags off, and head out to the Pearl Market before it closed at 1700. It closed early that day because of the New Year.

Carson and I roomed together again 616. After we dropped off our stuff we found out that we couldn't go, it closed at 1600. Needless to say everyone was pretty pissed off that we'd spent 2 hours at a crappy lunch when we could have been bartering for fake designer things.

A bunch of us decided to wander around Beijing and find shopping. There are literally malls everywhere. There was one on the same block as our hotel. It was 3 stories with an ice rink in the center. Amy, Lauren, and I looked around and got ice cream from DQ. Here they have some obscure flavors. Like green tea and things like that. Obviously I stuck with chocolate. Then we went back to the hotel to figure out what was around to do.

We ran into a bunch of the guys and decided to head to the food market. They got directions from Jason, one of the other tour guides. We followed them around with their map and got epically lost. Well, not lost, we just couldn't find this place. Never let boys lead. They failed. The map was mostly in Chinese, but the sun was setting so we could figure out east and west. One of the geniuses thought that the sun rises and sets in the opposite directions in China than the US. Haha. So pleased we let them lead.

We accidentally ended up in Tiannaman Square, tomorrow's activity. It was pretty sweet at sunset though. We got directions from some Iranians who spoke English. Way more international people in Beijing than any other city so far. We walked another half hour in the wrong direction. We got directions from a hotel and had them write it in Chinese for our cab drivers since most don't know English and can't read it. That shocked me that they don't understand the English alphabet. Mainly because most signs aren't in Chinese characters.

We got 2 cabs to the Wangfujing Road. It was all lit up with big shops. It took us about 15 minutes to find the rest of the group since it's such a huge area.

Down one of the alleys was what I would consider China to be. It was small with red and gold everywhere. There were little tents set up like a carnival with food. Food included: scorpion, cockroach, cicada, starfish, seahorse, squid, octopus. All of them being on sticks. 3 of the guys tried the scorpion. They were alive on the stick and had to be deep fried and had flavoring. They said they weren't bad. They were crunchy. Delightful. I got some lamb and lettuce wrap thing. It was really good. Later on we got more candied strawberries on a stick. I've always said everything's better on a stick. This rings true in China, too. Don't listen to guides telling you not to eat these street foods. There's nothing better than these fried foods. They're the true essence of China.

This alley is jammed with tons of people squishing up against you. Struggles. The girls found a place with nice jade bracelets. The guys left and we spent about an hour bartering and they each spent about $50 USD. Not too bad. They're gorgeous. I considered getting one, but they're near impossible to put on. You have to use a plastic bag to get it to roll on. My hand was all bruised the next day from trying 2 on. Fails. I don't need that.

We got some fried chicken on a stick. It was so good. Just like McDonalds chicken McNuggets. We wandered back to the main street to see what else was around before we went out drinking. We randomly ran into Sam, Mason, JD, and Anne.

I was so excited to see them. We all went down a side street to get some food. Amy and Lauren decided to go back to the hotel to shower and change before going out. We said we'd meet up with them later.

We order so many dumplings. 36 to be exact. For the 5 of us. More jasmine tea, egg drop soup, and giant beers. After dinner we decided to go to a nearby bar at a hotel. Unfortunately it was closed.

The other trip SAS ran to Beijing was staying at the same hotel as us, the Courtyard Marriott. I bbmed Tania and she was with Nolan and Brandon, so we planned to all go out together that night.

We took a cab back to the hotel and went up to Nolan's room. They had already been drinking and were getting ready to go to Bar Street. I was SO excited to see Tania. Being away from all my friends on the ship made me realize how great they all are and how much I missed them. I was so stoked to reunite with them all.

Mason went out to get some alcohol while we all got ready. The 5 of us hung out in his room for awhile before going to Bar Street. We met up with everyone at 64 Hip Hop. Literally everyone was there. It was so much fun. Nolan had been djing earlier and so Tania made friends with the bartender and got me free drinks.

Everyone was getting ready to leave to go Club Mix. Most of them had already been in Beijing for a night and knew where to go. So we got a few cabs. They didn't know any English and we spent awhile being lost. Luckily taxis are only $5 USD at most. I tried writing Club Mix thinking maybe he just didn't understand spoken English. This was true in Japan. But he held it upside down and couldn't figure it out. Somehow he figured it out by calling and texting and we got there.

Apparently there was a 50 yuan entrance fee, but I walked right in. Tania, Brandon, etc were already there. Mason and I had a few drinks. They were manly drinks and I was not a fan.

The club was really fun. So many SAS people. The music was mainstream US pop for the most part from the past few years. We all danced and stayed there forever. We lost track of time. We got back to the hotel around 0330. I hung out with the 3 guys while they smoked and we ended up talking for awhile. I went to bed at 0530 or so. I was exhausted and so ready for bed.

China: Xi'an Day 2

We got a wake up call at 0645 and a second one at 0700. I kept hitting snooze, exhausted. Eventually I had to get up and get ready for the day. We had a jam packed schedule. We got ready and headed downstairs to the lobby a little past 0800. We were meeting to leave on the buses at 0815. So we didn't get a chance to eat breakfast. At this point I'd rather the extra 15 minutes of sleep than food.

We left prompty at 0815 to see the Xi'an City Wall and one of the gates. It was all decorated for the New Years festivities with giant hand-made flowers and sculptures. They were made of fabric and we even saw one being made on the wall.

We climbed up on top of the wall and viewed the city of Xi'an from every angle. It was a really clear day so the view was great. On top of the wall was a 2 story building that we could go up in. There were people inside trying to sell us all sorts of stuff. On the second level we could walk outside and take pictures of the city.

The wall extended in different directions and you could walk in and bike on it. You couldn't even see how far it extended. There was a courtyard in the middle with different, colorful exhibits. We got a ton of pictures and even managed a huge group picture of almost all 98 people. An impressive feat considering we were all doing our own thing.

Our next stop by the Great Mosque and Bazaar in the Muslim Quarter. There are 700,000 Muslims in China. We followed our tour guide back through the maze of walls and alley ways by tons of vendors. If you so much as looked at any item they had for sale they were all over you to sell you it.

The Mosque was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It was a series of buildings and structures with courtyards and sculptures outside. It was really cool, but we weren't allowed in any of them. There were men and boys everywhere preparing for something. They were all eating outside, packed into a square courtyard. I only saw a few girls, and the women were in the kitchens preparing the food.

We wound our way back through the vendors. They sold such random items: North Face jackets, scarves, typical tourist items.

We took the bus from the center of Xi'an about an hour of the city to a restaurant for lunch. This drive took us out to the mountains. Again, they're gorgeous and dusted in snow. The restaurant was up on the second floor and consisted of several huge halls. Similar to the restaurant the night before. We had to walk through an enormous room of vendors again.

The food was pretty good: noodles, chicken, pork, vegetables, white rice. It was pretty standard for Chinese food. Chopsticks were somewhat of a fail. I'm slowly getting better.

The way they serve food here is family style on a lazy susan. It spins around the 10 person table and you serve yourself. Everything was pre-ordered again, so we didn't have to do anything. And the drinks were included this time. But there was no water and I don't drink soda, so I was only able to drink the beer. Tea is served with everything the same way water is served in the states. The food was pretty good. I enjoyed it. People need to stop complaining, they had to have known that going around the world meant eating all the different foods. Although I'm not looking forward to Indian food. One of the girls last night went out and got McDonalds during dinner and brought it back. Quite blatantly. That's so rude and that's how we end up being know as SAS-holes. Wonderful.

We had time to explore the vendors after lunch. There was some cool stuff but I'm saving up for Beijing. I bartered with a woman and bought a little wooden frog for BatFrog, who I miss dearly. They gave us more than enough time there.

Then we took a 10 minute bus ride to the Terracotta Warrior Museum. I have been looking forward to this since I signed up for it in November. It made me remember when I first learned about the Terracotta Warriors in 6th grade for my country report on China. I really never dreamed one day I'd be in China seeing them. Apparently they're one of the 7 Wonders of the New World. Or so I've heard.

The area that the museum covers is massive. There are 3 pits where the warriors and horses are found. They were made to protect an emperor in the afterlife. There are so many of them. I'll upload the picture from my phone as soon as my phone has good enough service. The pit with hundreds of them is huge. It's in a giant building constructed around them. They've been reconstructed as many of them were in pieces. Each one has a different face and is unique. Each one is 5'10.

We took a ton of pictures of the warriors and horses. I can't wait to show them to people. It was just so cool.

After pit 1, I went to pit 2. They were selling books about it and the man who discovered the warriors back in the late 60's was autographing them. He's old, in his 80's. He didn't seem too pleased to be there signing the books.

There was another building that housed the museum and housed the 2 bronze horses. Those were also pretty sick. But in comparison to the warriors they were much smaller. I was expecting them to be huge. No such luck. Sick all the same.

We finished up at the Tea House. We all sat around and ordered traditional Chinese tea. Or so I believe. I had Lychee Black Tea. It had juice flavors. I recommend it. They showed us how they go about making the tea right in front of us. It was delicious and warmed us up greatly. We were freezing.

We all gathered and got back on our buses and headed to an orphanage an hour away. No one seemed to know anything about this.

The orphanage was run down and small, set aside in a rural area. There were about 30 kids there, ages 3 to 16. Their parents are in jail. There's usually about 90 kids there, but many were with their extended families for the New Years holiday. We got a basic tour of where they sleep and walked around the little plot of land. With 98 of us and only 30 of them it was hard to play with them. None of them spoke English either so it was difficult.

This was portrayed as "volunteering," but I we didn't do anything. Half of the kids were watching a movie and wanted little to do with us. A few of the younger boys had a snowball fight with us with the limited dirty snow on the ground. They were so cute.

They had us gather in a small auditorium and we sang the itsy bitsy spider, twinkle twinkle little star, and if you're happy and you know it. One of the women who worked there gave us a talk on the orphanage explaining who the kids are and why they were there. All the little kids ran around and had a good time. Then 2 groups of kids put on a performance for us. So cute. We took a giant group picture and said goodbye.

We had a little time before dinner so we went back to the hotel to drop stuff off and change. At 1900 we went to the Tang Dynasty Dinner Show in Xi'an.

The hall and building that it was in was gorgeous, golds and reds everywhere. More crazy architecture. We got a table right up front in the first row. The tables were banquet style. A few women played instruments on the stage. They were dressed up in brightly colored robes with tons of heavy make up. Also they were all pale. Like really pale. And here we are priding ourselves on being tan.

They brought out 5 or 6 courses with dumplings, vegetables, chicken, soup, king prawns, rice. Crazy delicious things. We ate everything. Best meal so far. Apparently it was a westernized Catonese meal. It wasn't that westernized compared to what I know and what we've been eating. More jasmine tea and rice wine. I can't remember if I mentioned the rice wine in my last post. But rice wine is such a glorious drink. It's so sweet and served in small amounts. Apparently it's alcoholic, but I don't believe it.

After dinner they brought us some orange sorbet and fruit dish. I've learned that fruit dishes typically signify the end of the meal. Then the show started.

The show was obscenely amazing. The dancers were incredible. There was so much color and light. The bright lights added to the costumes and make up and jewelry. I loved it. Everyone was in absolute awe. I took pictures and a video or two. I hope they can do it justice. But nothing til May. Sorry.

After the dinner show everyone went back to the hotel. Mostly too tired to go out to look for the few bars that exist.

A few of us went out to get milkshakes at McDonalds before turning in for the night. We got a cab there. Somehow Carson managed to twist her ankle on the walkway over the road. We got her some ice and rested at McDonalds for awhile before getting a cab back.

We watched the Olympics in Chinese for a while before passing out. Long day. The Olympics featured events with Chinese athletes. Obviously. So it wasn't quite as interesting. We only got some skiing with an American. Lindsay Vonn. Interesting.

Long day.

China: Xi'an

My alarm went off at 0715 and I had to get up, shower, and make sure I was packed to leave for my 6 days/5 night trip to Xi'an and Beijing. I managed to fit everything into my North Face back pack. Shocking. Well, not really, I'll be wearing the same clothes most of the trip. All I have to say is sustainability. Also, we're going about 4 weeks without laundry service on the ship. What is this? Way past being out of clothes. I did some laundry in the sink a few days earlier.

I think I speak for everyone when I say we were not prepared for 3 weeks of winter and cold. I had to layer up.

Tania and I grabbed breakfast then I made sure I had everything. Mason came to the room and got me and we had to be up in the Union at 0830 to leave by 0900. There are 98 people on this trip. So many. They divided us into 3 groups alphabetically. So Sam's in my group. Mason and JD are in different groups. Too bad.

30 minutes on the bus and we were at the airport. Check-in and security were a breeze. China makes it so easy to travel. And the airport was pretty. The architecture continues to amaze me. I met up with Mason and we split some dumplings while we waited an hour for our flight. Our 2 groups, A and B, were on the same flight, and C was on a later flight.

I sat on the plane with Ann Marie and Kevin. I got the window seat and slept for most of the 2 hour flight. They fed us such strange food: a roll, rice, fish, a mini muffin, and random vegetables with tea. I love having tea with everything. I woke up at one point to look out the window and see the mountains. They were gorgeous and dusted with snow. I love seeing the mountains. Then it turned to flatter ground with small cliffs.

Xi'an is westward from Shanghai and north. It's country-esque up this way. Xi'an is a bigger city than I expected.

When we landed we met up with our tour guide. His English name is Prince Albert. Haha. You can laugh at this. They pick the funniest English names for us to call them.

We got a basic tour through the city until we got to an Art Museum. The museum was all Chinese art. Obviously. But they had ceramics, paintings by farmers, paintings on rice paper, paintings on silk, puppets, everything. Some of them were so colorful. The building itself was freezing, open to the outside with no heating. The polar opposite of Japan, where every building was super heated.

We crossed through a big set of double doors into a huge gallery. Women have to cross with their right foot first and men have to cross with their left foot first. If you don't it's bad luck. And if you hit or step on the foot high threshold, your soul remains in a purgatory-like state. There are several of these that I have seen since then.

Inside the gallery we sat at 2 long tables and were taught by our museum tour guide, Rose, how to do calligraphy and make Chinese characters on rice paper. It's more difficult than you'd think. We learned how to write forever, happiness, and I love you. Hopefully I'll be able to manage to bring them home. I'm acquiring so much stuff. And we've only been to 5 of the 13 ports. The paintings in this gallery were gorgeous. They had some awesome black, white, brown, gray horse paintings. Mom, you'd love these.

After the art museum, we headed to the hotel. We're staying at the Jianguo Hotel in Xi'an. It's right in the city. We're alphabetically assigned roommates. I'm with Carson. She's from South Carolina and goes to Clemson, and actually knows my roommate, Tania, from home.

The hotel is way too nice. We each have a queen size bed. There's a nice tv and bathroom. So different than Japan and what we did there with our 4 people in one bed. A nice change.

We grabbed a quick snack and hung out with Wade and Greg. We watched some Japanese opera on tv. Then headed across the street to the ATM.

The driving in China is horrific. No one seems to follow any legitimate rules or pays attention to the lights. No wonder that boy was killed by a drunk driver in Shanghai fall 08. Even the buses are crazy.

We met up on the buses for dinner at 1900. We went to the center of Xi'an to the Drum House. We had dinner inside of all sorts of dumplings. This is what I had been waiting for. We had all sorts of appetizers of peanuts, tofu, greens, etc. More tea. Beer. Then the dumplings started coming out. We'd get a plate of 10 to share. One for each. Chicken, pork, spicy chicken vegetable, sea food, walnut, tomatoe. Walnut and tomatoe were my favorites. Most people were not all about the dumplings and kept complaining. I thought it was all so delicious. And at the end they bring out this soup and serve it with mini dumplings in it. Whoever gets the most at the table is lucky. I ended up with 3, which was the most. Cool.

We decided not to take the bus back and explore around the city. There were little games and street vendors everywhere for the New Year. Everything was lit up. The trees were covered in white and blue lights as if it were Christmas. Also, people fly kites up on this one long string hundreds of yards long. So cool. You buy one and add it on.

I bought 2 jade rings at a little store. When you want to buy anything you barter with the person selling it. You start really low so you don't end up paying an absurd amount of money for things. I ended up paying roughly $5 for the 2 together. They're really pretty. I've never been much of a jade person but it's everywhere. So anyone who's a jade fan: go to China.

We bought candied strawberries from a vendor. They were so sweet and delicious. We wandered around the Bell Tower. From the Bell Tower the city is divided up into quarters.

Sam bought a balloon thing. I wish I knew the name of it. But you write on it and put your wishes and let it fill with air and light the bottom of it and let it fly up into the night sky. If it disappears in the sky it's supposed to be a good sign. Our blue balloon disappeared and we continued.

We only came across one bar. JD was joking about needing to just find a bar sign and we turned around and there was an "American" bar. It was almost completely empty. It was supposedly a jazz bar, but they were playing country music. We got our own secluded booth and ordered drinks. They gave us sunflower seeds and fruit as bar food. Random.

Pictures of Elvis and Michael Jackson were on the walls. A young man played the electric keyboard and sang for a little while. It sounded like J-Pop. Although I'm sure if I said that they'd be offended.


Around 2400 everyone seemed to be headed out and we paid our tabs and left. We were right by one of the city gates. It was all lit up and beautiful. We grabbed a cab back to the hotel. I got back and Carson was already there. We hung out for awhile and went to bed close to 0200.

China: Shanghai

When we went to bed around 0100 on the ship we could see lights and land. Even our journey from Japan to China we'd see big ships and cargo vessels since we weren't far from land. This was a change.

We had a Diplomatic Briefing at 0815. So Tania and I got up at 0715, showered, and had breakfast. The briefing was somewhat interesting if maybe we'd had 3 more hours of sleep. I probably would have slept during it if I wasn't sitting in the front row. Dean White even called us out for sitting in the front row saying he never sees us sitting there. Nice Dean White.

As soon as the meeting ended Tania and I went immediately back to bed to sleep some more. I fell asleep solidly for about an hour til I was woken up by the loudspeaker telling us we had to go up to Deck 7 to go through immigration if weren't planning on traveling with the ship from Shanghai to Hong Kong. We dragged ourselves up there and collected our passports and waited for the ship to be cleared.

45 minutes later it was all set and we were allowed off. Becca's day managed to get his business to send him to Shanghai, so she met up with him and is spending her whole trip with him. We got to meet him briefly.

Mason, Brandon, Nolan, Tania, Nic, and I tagged along with my adopted brother Chris and 3 girls. We headed to the Bund. It was freeeezing out. They were trying to go to a garden. We had no plans.

The city of Shanghai is gorgeous. It's got some crazy architecture, futuristic. Even more so than Japan.

We're in China for the New Year, which is pretty sweet. We got here for the 2nd or 3rd day. They celebrate for 11 days. The first night is the big one, after that the people leave the cities and head out to stay with families for a week long vacation. Everyone goes back to work after the 7th day. Unfortunately a lot of stuff ends up being closed for the New Year and there aren't as many people in the city. It's still really crowded though. But the people in Shanghai were more touristy. Still Chinese, but some had come to the city for a vacation. There were even white people around who weren't SAS! I felt like we've gotten less stares here than Japan, but I've heard some people say the opposite.

We couldn't find exactly where we were going, but we could still see the ship as we were along the river. The water was murky brown. When we were in the East China Sea it was green instead of blue. Strange.

There were street vendors everywhere selling fried food on sticks. We were told not to eat any of it because we're not used to the bacteria. I don't need to be sick in China.

With a little help we found the garden. It wasn't anything too spectacular since it's winter. But there was a bunch of bamboo in little groves. It took about 5 minutes to walk through. When we finished our walk through we all sat down at 2 tables for tea. I tried jasmine. It was delicious, probably my new favorite tea. But all the leaves and things were floating on top making it hard to drink. I felt like I was licking a tree. In a good way. We decided we wanted to wander, get food, money, and go to the Jade Temple.

We found a few Chinese markets selling all the crazy stuff for the New Year. All the red and gold/yellow decorations. It's the year of the tiger, so there's tiger stuffed animals and cartoons everywhere. It's been in the 40's and, again, all I have is a sweatshirt and fleece. Brandon, Chris, and I all bought sweet winter hats for roughly $5 USD. Best purchase of China so far (and I'm writing this 2 days later). They've got pom poms. Hopefully when I get to Hong Kong in a week I can upload some real pictures to facebook with the free wifi at the port. But I heard facebook is blocked. I'll investigate further later.

It took forever to find a place to exchange currency. ATMs here seem to work versus in Japan. It took almost an hour for 5 people to exchange money. By now it was almost 1530, and the temple closed at 1630. Half of us decided it wasn't worth trying to get there, and we separated to find food.

Upon wandering for 20 minutes we found a restaurant we all agreed on. It seemed like they opened it up for us. It was a huge restaurant, but it was early for dinner so we were the only ones there. Nolan and I shared different types of dumplings and we all ordered fried rice. Everything had meat so Nic couldn't eat anything. The dumplings were so good. This was what I was waiting for. Unfortunately the rice had octopus and Nolan and I hate seafood. We got a few drinks and hung out for awhile.

I had no idea where we were, luckily the boys paid attention. We were right by the river and walked back to the ship at 1830. We decided we'd all shower, change, and chill before going out at 2000.

We ran into Jeff in the hallway and he told us to check out Cloud 9, it's way up in this building on the 86th (I think) floor. He said it was definitely worth checking out and it wouldn't be overrun with SAS people. With no real plan this sounded cool. Nolan bailed to get a hotel with some other people for the night. So the 5 of us got a cab. It was a longer ride than I would have guessed, but the tunnel running under the river was closed in that direction.

We somehow managed to find our way up the 3 or 4 elevators. They asked Tania if she was 20. Haha. First time anyone's even been asked since Hawaii. They sat us away from the window, but the view looked spectacular. We ordered a round of drinks. They were all pretty good, but weak.

We saw a group leaving a table by the window and asked if we could move. They said sure. The view was craaaaazy awesome. You could even see the ship from the window. I think I posted a picture on facebook. It was so romantic and obviously made me even more thrilled to be 5th wheeling. Only kind of. Not really. We hung out and ordered another round. This place was way classy and expensive. A few other SAS people cycled through. Holly and Jason came and gave us the name of a bar/club to meet at that was supposed to be good. Baby Face. We got the address and headed out.

It was a quick cab ride to the area that the bar was supposedly in. The cab driver didn't seem to know much though. He dropped us off. We asked someone where it was and told us it was closed. Or maybe it hadn't openned yet. I don't know. Either way we couldn't go. It might have been closed for the New Year. So we decided to get another drink and get some McDonalds.

McDonalds in China DOES NOT ACCEPT CREDIT CARD. Seriously. I did find cash on me. I got a cheeseburger and fries. They were sooo good. I don't know if they're better here or if it was just because I hadn't had McDonalds/a good fast food burger in awhile. Either way: McDonalds=spectacularity at its finest.

We were pretty exhausted and Mason and I had to get up early the next day to leave for Xi'an so we caught a cab back to the ship. We were back by 0100. Pretty early. I was so stoked to go to bed. After I finished packing...

2 Days at Sea: Valentine's Day

2 days between Japan and China. Freezing, windy, rainy, the waves picked up again. Valentine's Day was Sunday. Happy late Valentine's Day! So happy birthday Tiff! And Eddykins! I missed your birthday the other day. No service on the leg from Japan to China.

We had classes the day after we left port. I had 3. They were such a struggle. I was so exhausted from Japan and needed to rest up for China. I think only half the people were in my classes. Global Studies was interesting until I got too tired to pay attention. Biology of Sharks was fine as we talked about the Osaka Aquarium for 45 minutes. Anthropology was not a real class, we just discussed Japan. Post class I napped til dinner.

That night we had our "Sea Social" where our half of the floor, our sea, had a little party in the Glazer Lounge aka the Faculty Lounge. It was ok, kind of lame. There were chips and salsa, but I didn't manage to get there in time. I only went because my LLC (aka RA) planned it and I like her. We stayed for a little before going to get food.

We turned the clocks back one more hour. Thank God. But I stil had an 0800 class the next day. I was so exhausted. Pat and I decided to go to 0930 Global Studies instead of 1400 so we could spend the rest of the day napping. Nothing big happened all day. We had a Pre-Port meeting at 2000 that lasted 2 hours. Waaaay too long. After it we all watched Mulan in Mason's room. Poor boys had to watch it with all of us and deal with the singing. We didn't even get to bed early. But the next day we'd be in China.

Japan: Fukui

The night before we'd decided to go to Kyoto on our last day to see a castle and maybe some shrines. We needed to get up early to make it to Kyoto as it was past Osaka, so about an hour of traveling via subway.

We got up at 0715, got ready, had breakfast and left the ship by 0815. It was our last day so we needed to head back for about 1600 to ensure we were on the ship by 1800. We take the Port Line to Sannomiya and change trains there to get the Special Rapid Service to Kyoto. 50 minutes later we're in the Kyoto Station. Now we need to find the Taikiedo Line to get to Nijo in Kyoto. We ask the information woman, who speaks no English, but we show her our map. She points us to her right where we saw people lining up. We'd also seen a JR Taikiedo sign so we figured that must be the one. So we all get in the line of people waiting. We decide we're not gonna get a ticket because we hadn't turned our other one in yet. We'll just walk through if we have to. We'd spent 1050 yen on that ticket. Way expensive.

A train pulls in and it looks very similar to the Bullet Train, we're now a little confused. But Nijo is a good distance from the Kyoto Station so this must be it. And it says JR. We ask a few people "Taikiedo?" They nod. We question this decision but get on anyways.

A bunch of the cars say reserved, like the Bullet Train. It's nice seats and a drink service, too. Unlike the subway. We walk to the car that says non reserved and sit down. Nic and I sit together and flip our Japan guidebook open to the Kyoto map and ask the woman selling drinks if this goes to Nijo. She looks at the map and can't seem to figure it out and hands it back. No one speaks English.

The trains keeps going. About 10 minutes pass and we're no longer in city/urban areas. The landscape has turned to mountains, flat lands, and little houses in the distance. I notice an older woman across the row and get her attention. I point to my watch and try to ask when we get in to the next stop. She looks confused but motions for me to sit in the empty seat next to her. She points to her own watch to show 1030. I point to the train and try to explain next stop. She motions to write. So I dig through my bag for my journal. She writes down Fukui. I point to my watch. She writes 1030. I point to Fukui and then my watch. Now she understands. She writes 1130. Shit. I thank her and inform Nic.

We realize we've made a huge mistake in trains. I go back and tell Sam, Becca, and Tania. Everyone freaks out. We don't have tickets for this and they'll soon be checking tickets. Sam moves up and sits behind us with a Japanese man. He starts talking to her with his little Japanese. She gathers that it's a 5000 yen ticket to Fukui. We give him our guidebook to show up where it is on the map because we can't find it. He laughs. It's not on the map. We're headed for the west coast of Japan. Oh no. We have maybe enough money for a one way ticket to Fukui and we need to make it back to Kobe. Which is then 3 hours away. And we have to be back by 1600.

Nic decides she needs to smoke and Tania goes with her. It's a non-smoking train. But they run into men who work on the train. They manage to explain the situation to them that we're lost and on the completely wrong train with not much cash. They return and take all of us to wait by the door. We're no longer allowed to sit as we have no ticket. And we've still got a half an hour to Fukui.

We try to figure out from them how we can get back and if we can get back. My concern is that it's a Saturday and we're taking a train to the middle of nowhere. How many of these run back to Kyoto, Osaka, or Kobe? I'm thinking of the Amtrak back home. We manage to tell them we need to be in Kobe by 1600. They laugh then look concerned. Not what we wanted to see. They can't seem to give us any information about getting off. The only English they seem to be good at is "Pay?" We say no, we have little cash. They also knew: "Credit card?" And point to all of us. We slowly nod. It's going to be 9300 yen! No way do we have that kind of money. But we need to get back. They tell us to stay where we are and someone is meeting us when we get off the train to sort this out. I've summarized what took 20 minutes of broken English, Japanese, signaling, and writing.

Now on the plus side, the scenery here is obscene. The mountains are huge and snow covered. They're beautiful. The grounds covered in snow too. I took some pictures that I'll upload to facebook as soon as I have service again.

We get off to be greeted by a young man who speaks pretty good English and an older man with no English who both work for the JR. The young man tells us there's a train leaving for Osaka at 1142 and we can take that back and transfer from there to get to Kobe. He laughs at us and our stupidity and explains where we are. He's really nice. He tells us to get off at the Osaka stop and stay in car 5 of the train and not move from there. From Osaka someone will meet us and tell us where to go. It will get in at about 1330. Now we've calmed down realizing we'll be able to get back in time. We explain we have to get back to our ship and that we're in college and from America. The older man understands this when Nic says she's from New York and gets excited and says "Baseball! Yankees!" There are even Yankees fans in Fukui. Can't escape them.

The train comes and we thank them. This ride takes 2 hours, but gives us a chance to relax. We were so freaked out on the last train. We'd barely talked to each other and were so concerned about getting back. Had this not been the last time with limited time we wouldn't have freaked out, but laughed it off and maybe explored Fukui. Time crunch made that impossible. Everyone napped or read or did something.

We got to Shin-Osaka. We weren't sure if they meant Osaka or Shin-Osaka, but either way we knew we could get back from either one. We'd been through both before. Plus we figure if they're waiting for us in Osaka we'll have to pay a ton of money for the tickets, so we get out here. As soon as we step out one of the train workers runs out and tells us this isn't our stop and that we need to get back in, ours is the next stop. We get back in. 10 minutes later we're in Osaka. Now we're greeted by another young man. He gives us printed directions in English to take the Local to Kobe. The end direction says to meet someone when we get off in Kobe. Someone will be waiting for us. Again. They've all been signaling ahead to tell each station about us and to meet us there.

We're put onto train 5 again. We thank this man and say goodbye. A man working by this train directing people in makes sure we get into 5. They're watching us. We manage to get 5 seats right near each other and disucss. We now realize that they're not just looking out for us concerned about us getting back, they want their money. We're also now on the trains we know. This whole time we've been saying we need to get to Kobe, but we didn't mean the Kobe Station. We meant the Port in Kobe. The Sannomiya stop is 2 before Kobe. If we can get off their undetected we won't have to pay up 18000 yen (close to $200). But they're watching us out the sides. And it's easy to spot 5 American girls together. They think we're completely stupid and have no idea where we are.

We decide to try our luck getting off at Sannomiya. That's where we need to take the Port Line from anyways. We decide if we're going to do this we need to move from car train 5, split up into smaller groups, change our appearance a little, and get off with the crowd. Sam goes one way, Becca and I move to car 4, Nic and Tania move to 3. I take off my bright blue scarf and Nic takes off her bright blue jacket.

A few stops later we're in Sannomiya. We get off and luckily there's a big enough crowd. We look confident and scan the crowd for each other. We've made it. We get downstairs and try to use the card we bought in the morning. It won't work. We bought it in Sannomiya. We go to the machine to adjust the fare. It won't work. It just eats Nic's card. There's no way out. There's too many workers there watching the turnstyles to jump them. And there's 5 of us. We have no choice but to go to the window. We show them our tickets and try to explain we came from Osaka and forgot to buy tickets. They don't seem to believe this. Any story we tell they know we somehow cheated the system somewhere.

They're really confused how we've done this and tell us we owe 8000 yen each. WHAAAAAT. Again we don't have this money. We ask if there's a lost ticket fee we can pay, we'd be willing to pay 1050 yen again, but definitely not 8000. They tell us to step aside and get out of the way. We're now trapped in the JR system with no idea how to get out. After a minute a young woman comes out and speaks English. We look sad and explain that we don't have tickets, etc. She motions for us to walk through and leave. FOR FREE. Let me reiterate this. WE WALKED OUT OF THERE WITH PAYING A CENT. They lost about $1000 USD on the 5 of us. We wonder how long it took them to realize we were gone and they got ripped off. We're now wanted by the JR train police.

We hurried out of there, but only after Nic bought a jacket at the local store. We headed down the streets of Sannomiya near where we'd eaten a few nights ago. We went to a place with Kobe beef. I had a delicious spicy noodle bowl with beef and pork. It was so good. I have a new love of spicy foods. Also, I got some type of dumplings. And we all ordered sake. After a leisurely lunch we headed back to the Sannomiya Station to the Port Line. (Not the JR. We avoided that) We took it back with a ton of other SAS people and got off 2 stops later at the Port Terminal.

We escaped from the trains unscathed. We bought our last souvenirs in the Terminal and got in line to get back on the ship. It took a little while, but we got back on. I handed in my passport and sent out some postcards. We had some dinner, told stories, and reunited with everyone before we left port. JD couln't believe our story of that day and how we managed to mess up one of the most perfect subway systems in the world. I have to admit, the subway system was insane and literally went everywhere.

We all hung out for the rest of the night. I have never been so happy to go to bed for a solid 9 hours of sleep.

Japan: Hiroshima

My alarm went off at 0545. I was too amped and excited to be tired. Shocking. I'm almost always exhausted upon waking up. I showered and got ready. Becca and I checked out and we took the Port Line two stops from Sannomiya to the Port Terminal. As we were getting off the train we could see the MV Explorer getting directed in via tugboats. It was still pretty far out.

We made our way to the Terminal and watched the ship pull in and dock from the 3rd floor. My adopted father/LLC Midhun was up on the 7th deck taking pictures. He saw me and Becca and screamed to us, his daughters. He was up taking pictures. It was so cool to see the ship come in like that at sunrise at 0645. This will be the only time we'll get to see that. I got a bunch of good pictures, too.

We had to get back on the ship to drop off our stuff and backpacks before our trip to Hiroshima at 0800. A ton of people who traveled independently from Yokohama to Kobe were there just in time for their trips with SAS, too. I think they said 200 people sailed on the ship from Yokohama to Kobe. I'm so glad we did our own thing and explored Japan for the extra day and a half.

It took forever for the ship to get tied up and cleared for us to get back on. Everyone was waiting in line to rush back on with their over night bags. We got back on at 0740. We were near the front of the line. We rushed on, dumped out all our stuff, and repacked our bags for the day.

Tania and I rushed out and got on one of the 3 buses. We got boxed lunches and waited for Nic and Becca. The buses waited longer for everyone who had to go through security to drop off their bags. At 0815 we were on the road for the 5 hour trek to Hiroshima. We had 2 stops along the way for food and coffee. We had a tour guide: Miho. She gave us the history of Hiroshima.

We got there around 1300 and walked around the Peace Park and the frame and structure of the building, now known as the A-Bomb Dome. We walked across the Aioi Bridge that was the target of the bombing.

There were a bunch of peace memorial statues commemorating the victims and promoting peace. While we were walking through the park along one of the rivers there were a lot of cameramen and reporters, then an older woman from Kenya dressed in bright robes walked up to the building plaque with a Japanese man. We found out that she was a Nobel Peace Prize winner from about 50 years ago from Kenya and she was with the Prime Minister of Hiroshima. We made it onto the news, in the background.

We saw the paper cranes left at the different memorials. Our group left 1000. They're believed to bring peace. They're colorful and look so pretty. There were a bunch of young school children walking through. They were about 6 years old. They were so cute in their uniforms and matching hats. They waved at us and posed for pictures.

Our tour guide had us take out our cranes and hold them in a circle and then wrap them up to put into the shrine. There were all different colored paper cranes arranged to make pictures saying peace or scenes. Apparently these cranes were burned down at one point. I can't believe anyone would burn down a peace shrine.

After our cranes were placed inside, an older Japanese man happened to be walking through this area. He spoke English really well and introduced himself as a survivor of the bombing. He had been on the outskirts of the city when it happened. His younger brother and father were killed as they had both been in the city at the time and their bodies had yet to be found. He said he visited the Peace Park often. He also said that he does not hate the United States today and that he supports Obama. I had been curious about people's reactions in Hiroshima to this huge group of Americans visiting this site. But no one seemed to show displeasure at our presence. After hearing more details about the events I find it hard to believe this city doesn't despise Americans. I wasn't a huge fan of us after this experience.

We went into the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum there. We watched the movie on the bombing and the aftermath. It was so eerie and sad. It told the whole story in detail that was never portrayed in my history classes. I think everyone cried.

After the movie we went through the museum. It was so powerful. There were replicas of how the city of Hiroshima looked before the bombing and then after. There tattered clothing and broken watches, melted bottles, parts of buildings throughout the museum. There were articles about the US's decisions leading up to the bombing, information on atomic bombs, and a globe showing who possesses nuclear weapons and how many. It was creepy. There were parts that showed the effects of radiation exposure, including body parts.

I couldn't believe it. I'd read and learned the basics and knew many of these facts. But being in Hiroshima, in person, seeing all of this was completely mind blowing. And to top it off, the museum was emphasizing peace and peaceful coexistences. There were different gifts given to the museum from different countries to express their
peace.

I left there feeling different than when I went in. It was depressing. It was hard to really feel uppity after seeing what we, the United States had done to this one city and people. It affected them and their health for years. Today people still suffer from complications of the a-bomb.

It was so crazy. I'm so glad I decided to go on this trip even though it was wicked far away. The ride back wasn't too bad. Another 5 hours. We stopped twice. Once for dinner and once for snacks. We got back around 2230. We planned out what we wanted to do for the next day, our last day, and went to bed. I didn't get to bed til almost 0130. So yet another night of little sleep.

Japan: Osaka and Kobe

Day 3 of Japan:

I wrote this all out in my journal on the 5 hour bus ride back from Hiroshima. My phone was beyond dead. I'll explain.

I think my last post ended yesterday morning (in my journal I guessed it was Wednesday the 13th. I just located a calendar and figured it was Thursday the 11th. Days=irrelevant.) arounf 1100 on the Bullet Train. Almost as soon as I finished blogging we arrived at Shin-Osaka at 1130. Bullet Train=way bomb. We (we being me, Shannon, Sam, Tania, Nic, Becca, and JD) all decided it would be best to eat ASAP and figure out the day over lunch. We got some yen at the ATM/Post Office in the massive subway station. Strangely in Japan, American ATM cards only seem to work at Post Offices. Osaka has more signs in English, but literally no one knows or understands English. The complete opposite of Tokyo and Yokohama. I had read Osaka was easy to get around because of the English signs on the subways, etc. so I just assumed that meant the people knew it, too. No such luck.

Shannon picked a random restaurant on the lowest level of the station. The woman sat us down and then led us into the hallway to point out what we wanted via the fake replicas of dishes. For whatever reason, we let Shannon run this. Big mistake. Everything at this restaurant was seafood or soaked in pork sauce. I don't eat seafood, neither does Tania. Nic doesn't eat meat and Tania doesn't like pork. Nic, Tania, Becca, and I know these things about each other and check for these things at restaurants. So in conclusion: fails.

The woman pointed out "chicken" which definitely turned out to be fish. She was annoyed by our lack of Japanese and I really think she wanted to kick us out, but that would have looked really bad. We flipped through JD's book and figured out how to get to the aquarium. It looked fairly simple. Shannon and Sam tried to convince us to go to Kyoto first. I knew we'd never make it to the aquarium in time if we did that. And that was one of the things I'd been really stoked to do and actually planned. So 5:2 aquarium. I guess I'd managed to talk it up enough to my friends to get them intrigued.

The food turned out to be pretty good. Cold buckwheat noodles with a soy-onion-wasabi sauce, some tofu, pickled peppers, and fried rice with "chicken"/seafood. I'm getting much better with chopsticks. I tried JD's yellow/orange wasabi---WOW. That burned. JD had the weirdest meal. Not bad, just strange. One of the bowls was a tasteless white slime with the consistency of mucuos. It was tastey with some soy sauce. Apparently it's a known Japan delicacy. So that's kinda cool. He also had this sweet, sticky bean bowl.

We finished up and hopped on a train to West (I think) Osaka. When we got there we got 2 lockers in the station so we could leave our backpacks. They were somewhat heavy and annoying to bring around. Tania, Becca, Nic, and I shared one and the other 3 got one. This turned out to be the best decision of the day. Read on.

It was overcast and drizzly and cold. Low 40's. Good thing the heaviest clothing in my possession is a North Face fleece and jeans. Apparently our first day in Yokohama and Tokyo with sun and warmth is incredibly rare rather than the norm. We asked people about the aquarium. No one spoke English---are you seeing the theme? People in Osaka are much ruder to foreigners. But we knew it was close and that we were by the water. We came across another ferris wheel. The Japanese really love their ferris wheels. There was one by the Yokohama Terminal, too.

5 minutes later we spotted it. Massive with all sorts of penguin and dolphin metal structures that lit up at night. There was also a huge tile mosaic of cartoon ocean creatures.

A crowd was gathered in a circle around a street performer out front. He was juggling and dancing with fire while playing Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca." That's something I've noticed, in a lot of stores and bars they play American music in English. I know they have their J-Pop, but I haven't heard much if any. And whenever we see a young, well-dressed good looking guy, we joke that he could be a J-Pop star and we'd never know.

It was getting colder and windier so we decided to get in line and buy tickets to go inside. The line was so long. I think every family in all of Osaka was there because of the holiday, which I believe was "Foundation Day," or as Nic referred to as "National Landscape Day." I'd equate to being on the level with Labor Day---people are off from work, but there's no real celebration or holiday event. At least that we're aware of.

The Osaka Aquarium was sick. By far the best aquarium I've ever been to. Everything was kept up really well and the exhibits were huge---so you weren't feeling sorry for the animals. You walk through a tunnel of fish and rays and some sharks then take an escalator up to the top level, emerging into the "Japanese Rainforest" with plants, birds, otters, and some freshwater fish. Then you continue down and everything is separated by regions within the Pacific. Everything at this aquarium is from within the Pacific Ring of Fire. You see otters and penguins and Pacific whitesided dolphins. The dolphins would shoot around and propel themselves out of the water and hit a ball hanging from the ceiling. Also, a hose hung down with flowing freshwater. The dolphins kept swimming up to it and letting it hit them in the face and it looked like they were drinking from it. There was a huge Great Barrier Reef tank. It was beautiful and made me so jealous of everyone in Australia right now. You guys better be diving. It was so colorful with so many crazy fish I'd never seen before. At least in person. Check out my facebook, I uploaded some sweet pictures from my phone of it all. There were harbor seals and some giant rodents. I forget what they're called, but they're the largest rodents in the world. There were various other tanks, then you circled down to the center tank with 2 whale sharks. As you go down around it the other exhibits I mentioned are on the outside and you can see the different levels of all the tanks. You get great views of everything and see the penguins, harbor seals, and dolphins shoot by. The center tank is shaped like a giant plus sign. One side is netted off with several massive manta rays. Each window, as you go down, reveals more and more species of sharks, rays, and other fish. There were pitted stingrays, giant shovelnose rays, bowmouth guitarfish, leopard whiprays, brownbanded bamboo sharks, Japanese carpet sharks, tasselled wobbegongs, Japanese bullhead sharks, zebra sharks, blacktip reef sharks, leopard sharks, tiger sharks, banded dogfish, red stringrays, spotted eagle rays, scalloped hammerheads, and smooth hammerheads. Sorry, had to list them all out to remember for my Marine Bio and Bio of Sharks classes for papers and extra credit with my pictures.

Becca and I were so giddy to see all these sharks and tried to name every type. We were very successful and only had to check a few on the name plates. The tank is HUGE. I can't believe it had so many species in it. I have to ID a bunch of sharks and rays for Bio of Sharks, so this was pretty helpful. Becca and I shared our love for sharks while Nic rolled her eyes at this and her and Tania kept going. I think Becca and I spent almost an hour on this one tank. You get to see every level, so you get to see each level of fish. At the bottom there's a big tank with 3 or 4 turtles, pufferfish, and a few other fish. Next to it was a dark tank with spider crabs. These things are so crazy creepy and massive. They're actually like 4 feet tall. I think I'd have a heart attack if I saw one in the wild. It reminded me of the spiders from Harry Potter. (Aragog? I assume someone from NPRC is reading this and is more than knowledgable on the Harry Potter info).

The last exhibit was the jellies. All sorts; moon jellies, etc. I've seen my fair share of jellies. The New England Aquarium's got a pretty bomb jellies exhibit. So we skimmed this as we were growing short on time before we all met up. Nic got some great pictures of the jellies that I'll have to snag from her. Alright I think I've said jellies enough times now.

We met up at the gift shop at the end. We all got way too much whale shark paraphenalia. I got a whale shark tshirt with the scientific name on it. I'm actually wearing it right now. I can't wait to show Pat when he gets back from his Japan adventures. He'll enjoy it, as we sit around and try to name different species as lunch. Becca bought a white seal hat that has a little tail on the back. She's been wearing it since she bought it yesterday. She's even wearing it right now as I look across the aisle of the bus at her. Haha.

All 7 of us reconvened. It was now raining hardcore outside and it looked miserable, plus it would be dark in a matter of hours. There was an art exhibit at the Sunori Museum (I think that's somewhat close to the name of it. Or else I'm combining it with the beer Suntory) right next to the Aquarium and it had a famous manga artist's exhibit on display. It was called: Inoue Takehiko: The LAST Manga Exhibition." I recommend googling it and checking it out, it's sick. Nic really wanted to go and a few of us thought it would definitely be interesting to check out. Shannon, JD, and Sam were skeptical. So the 4 of us went to check hours and prices. 1500 yen and open til 2000. Not bad. It was only 1700. Again, I had to mediate and run back to the Aquarium and relay this information. They agreed to come over. We found out we couldn't get a ticket to get in til 1830. After much debate, the 4 of us decided to wait and check it out while the other 3 wanted to go to Kobe and get a hotel for the night close to the ship then come back to the Museum at 2000 to meet up to go to the entertainment district for dinner. Glorious. They asked to take my phone to BBM with us on Tania's to make sure we could find each other. So I handed over my phone.

The 4 of us went up to the cafe upstairs and got some pizza and drinks while we waited for 1830. There was a great view of the harbor and the ferris wheel was now lit up bright green in the dark sky.

At 1830 we got in line for the exhibit. We were the only white people there. It was all young couples who were well dressed and gorgeous. Here we were: dirty, white, Ameircans, in jeans, 4 girls. Everyone judged us so badly and would giggle at us when they looked us over. Rude. I don't think I've ever done that to foreigners, no matter how goofy I might have thought they looked. The line took forever to get in. They sent each party up individually on the elevator. One elevator. Not efficient, but it made sense one we got up for the space between groups.

The exhibit was completely black and white. And silent. We got an English guide for the drawings with Japanese characters on them. Now I don't know if all art exhibits in Japan are almost silent or if this one was special. This artist was incredible and is, apparently, really well known. The drawings were phenomenal. I always thought anime and manga was childish and stupid, but this changed my mind. It was incredible. The detail was obscene. The canvases ranged in si2 from 1' by 2' to whole walls over 30 feet high. We followed the story throughout the exhibit walking from room to room. The last 2 rooms were the best series of huge drawings with a half black rug and a half white rug and black walls. The last room had a series of drawings at a beach. The walls and rug were white and half the room was covered with sand. I wish I could have taken pictures because these were truly incredible. What better place to check out a manga exhibit than in Japan?

So. Here's where the day takes a new turn. I get a BBM during the exhibit, and read it as soon as we get out. When they left we told them to find a hotel within reason, both in location and price. We needed to be at the port for a trip with SAS and be there by 0745 at the latest. The BBM says they've booked a hotel near Kobe, one room for the 7 of us for $180 USD; kinda sucks but "we can look for something else later." Later as in post dinner and bars and an hour transit from Osaka to Kobe. It's already 2030.

Among the 4 of us we decide this is unacceptable. Oh, wait, I forget the best part. They were already in the entertainment district and asked if we wanted to meet them there. Not even remotely within out plans. Both phones were dying when we made the original plans. So we'd have to meet up with them to get the key and go back together now. Sickkkk.

We later find out that they didn't even bother going to this hotel. They just called and reserved it and it's not even close to the port. Sick. The 4 of us are completely competent and could manage on our own. We say fuck it. The phones gonna be turned off. We go back to the metro and get our bags and head in what we believe to be the direction of Kobe. At each station we need to change between we ask strangers for guidance. We get lucky and a 20 something, young guy decides to take us to Kobe. He takes us on 2 trains. We're getting close. We thank him and go to get more info. We find we need 2 more trains to be at the Port Terminal where the ship will dock the next morning in Kobe. Finding this out was no easy feat. The info desks don't know English. We ask for a nearby hotel. The woman at the second desk eventually understands and starts googling. She can't seem to find anything. It's getting late and raining harder. We have no idea where we are or where we could possibly stay. We decide the best idea is to take one more train to get us closer to the water to where we THINK the ship will be. None of the info people seemed to know this port, even though we have a sheet that says it both in English and Japanese characters. Wonderful. We realize it's almost 2000. Most hotels in Japan won't book a room or take a reservation after 2000 for whatever reason. We have no idea where to go, but decide something must be near the port. Also, we need to we can afford a room, as some are really expensive. We get tickets to head to Sanninomya. As we're waiting for the train, a young man comes up to us, looks at all of us, yells something to his friends and they all crack up. Wonderful. Now we know we need to get a hotel. We can't wander around all night for free without a boy. And we left JD with Shannon and Sam.

At Sannonomya we get off, the Port Line is here, which we'll take to get to the Port Terminal. So we think. We gte out of station and it's well lit and active. So we don't mind walking around, but we have zero clue as to where to go. We ask a delivery man by a truck if he knew of any nearby hotels. He struggled to understand us and after a few minutes pointed to the tall buildings around us. Duh. We thanked him and ran off for fear they might stop taking reservations at 2000. The first building---OPA---was not a hotel, or at least we couldn't figure out what the signs said at the elevator. Then we saw a huge building that said "Terminal Hotel." It was 1957. We can in and got in the elevator to the reception desk on the 4th floor. This hotel was actually connected to the metro and we'd walked in a circle to get there. It was 202 yen/night. The guy told us we could only have 2 people per room. Being clever, somewhat, we had Tania and Nic go downstairs while we got one room and they could sneak back in. Either the guy was really oblivious or just didn't care. We got the key to 609, put our stuff down in the one bed room and went downstairs to get them. We brought them back upstairs to drop their stuff off so we could go eat.

We ventured out into the lit streets of Kobe. We stopped at a little dessert cafe. It turned out to be much bigger than we thought with a lower level. We ordered, sandwiches, toast, dessert, and tea. It was all much better than we'd anticipated. Post dinner we made it back to the hotel and got ready for the next day. 4 of us had to share the one bed. Haha. Just like spooning bananas. It was only a queen sized bed. We were so crammed and we didn't get to sleep til late. I don't think I got more than 2 hours of sleep.

Bullet Trains and Things: The Journey to Osaka

Parents, you can start reading again. I'm writing this from the Bullet Train. We are more on track with our plans now.

My alarm went off at 0430 and I get up and shower and get dressed. As I finish our phone rings. They've (Shannon, Sam, JD) decided that they want to sleep in and catch a later train. Which was what we wanted to do to begin with. So pleased I woke up at 0430 to get ready. I go back to sleep on the couch with my wet hair wrapped up in a towel with my extra clothes as blankets.

I set my alarm for 0600. No one moved. So I went back to sleep. At 0730 the phone rang, and they asked if we wanted to go or sleep in more. I said let's go. I was ready at 0500 to go. We get dressed and pack up and head out, stopping by the convience store one last time. I snag a water. The subway is right next to the hotel. Literally right out the door of the convience store. Shannon's got basic instructions as to what to do. We ask the ticket window for basic confirmation. We get our tickets and take the train a few stops to Shin-Yokohama. We get off and buy our Bullet Train tickets. Slightly expensive. Sorry dad it's on the Miami card.

We got there just in time to catch our 0919 to Shin-Osaka. Obviously everything continues to be in Japanese. Duh, Steff. But we got onto a Reserved car and just sat down. When the ticket man came through he told us we were in the wrong car, which we figured but didn't know where to go. We walked up a few cars to the non reserved. I was thinking they were gonna be bad, but they weren't significantly different from the reserved seats. But getting seats together in the non reserved was not an option.

I sat on an aisle seat with an older man. I ate my croissant and played on my phone. I think everyone had to separate except for Becca and Nic. Tania and I bbmed back and forth for amusement.

At the first stop a ton of people got off. Including the mother with small children across the aisle. They were so cute, probably about 4 and running around. There aren't nearly as many children around, at least from what I've seen. Although this morning on the subway there was a family with a bunch of 8 to 14 year old kids and they were loud and lively. That made me feel better about speaking in public and smiling. Smiling's not very common here either.

As people gathered their stuff to go, Tania stuck her head out in the aisle and summoned me to sit in row with her. Sam moved back with us. And here we are. That keeps you all up-to-date with where I am right now and it's only a little after 1100. We're headed to the Osaka Aquarium to see the whale sharks and check out this "revolutionary" aquarium. I'm stoked. Everyone else seems to be too. I think after that we'll get food. Osaka is supposed to be the food capital of Japan. Tokyo's fashion. I forget what Yokohama is. But they're the 3 biggest cities in Japan. I'm thrilled we get to go to all 3.

After fooding we'll head to Kobe to find a hotel for the night and figure out transportation to the pier. We've got an early morning tomorrow with an SAS trip to Hiroshima. We all signed up to do it together. Although I can't remember if Shannon's going too. Anyways, we need to be there for 0745. Told you, I'm not wasting time sleeping in Japan. There's too much to do and see.

This Bulley Train is crazy. The only thing I remember hearing about it was awhile ago when one epically crashed. But it's super fast. We're traveling about 600 miles down Japan. Southwest I believe. The scenery is CRAZY. We've been passing huge snow covered mountains and then through cities and then into tunnels. I'm so glad we get to experience the Bullet Train. It's called Shinkansen (I may have spelled that slightly wrong, but I'm still learning)

The weather is overcast and cloudy/misty. And cold. Again. It's supposed to be the same in Osaka with rain tonight. I brought my rain coat, so I'm prepared.

I don't think I've written about this yet: tipping. I read this before we got here and it was explained at our Pre-Port meeting the night before we got into Yokohama. Tipping is considered rude and offensive. You're not supposed to tip anyone with the exception of English speaking tour guides. Aka Americanization. No tipping at meals, nothing. It's so weird to me, because these waitresses, concierges, and information booth men have gone above and beyond with speaking English and helping with every question. They don't even appear frustrated with our lack of Japanese or knowledge of Japan. I want to be tipping left and right. Because honestly, I'd be nowhere without these people, or epically epically lost. It's hard to get used to. We're more used to the currency now: the yen.

It will be strange to feel like you know a good deal after a few days in one country (Japan) then go to another (China) and know nothing again.

It's humbling and fascinating. I'm glad we're doing some independent traveling early on before our big trips to gain some confidence. It's a cool feeling. I like traveling with little plans. It's hard to believe this plan to Osaka is actually working out.

That's all I got for now. I'll post later about the rest of the day. Traveling far on the buses and trains gives me a good amount of time to catch up on writing without missing out on anything.

Love and miss.
From the BT somewhere in Japan.
S

On top of Mt. Fuji...(all covered in snow...)

Susan this is dedicated to you. Supposed to be sung to: "On top of spaghetti..."

Got up earrrrly yesterday morning, like 0600 early. Showered, breakfasted with Sam and Becca and got off the ship. So on 4 hours of sleep the day was way long, but I refuse to sleep. We're barely in Japan, so I want to be awake as much as possible.

We left early via bus called the Strawberry Poodle and the other was called the Banana Poodle. I kid you not. As Eddie joked, they're the Fung Wah's cousin. But alas, they appear safe and clean. There's also the Ocean Poodle and Lavender Poodle. I hope you can all appreciate the humor in this.

The bus took us 2 hours to Mt. Fuji. We took a random bus stop break at a place with Starbucks. I didn't get any. I tried the bottled hot coffee out of the vending machine. Literally all drinks come out of these vending machines and they're everywhere! The coffee comes out hot. It was chilly today and overcast. So I wanted something to warm me up.

It was breath taking when we got our first glimpse of Mt. Fuji on the bus. It's crazy to see this volcano in person. I don't think any picture or any description could do it justice. I posted a picture on my facebook. I can't figure out how to post pictures on here from my phone. If I knew I'd do it.

We went to the Visitor's Center and took tons of pictures of the volcano and ourselves with it then went inside. There were beautiful pictures of it from all times of year in all conditions and all lights. There were interactive maps and a video with English subtitles. Unfortunately every part of the exhibit was written in Japanese. I'd be happy to see Spanish at this point. I can understand/read enough to get by. Japanese is too hard. I don't think I can get this point across to you. Obviously we all stopped at the gift store and got our Mt. Fuji paraphenalia. I'm going to try and collect little flags in each of the countries.

On our way to Mt. Fuji we drove through wooded roads and there was snow on the ground. I was not prepared for snow. The girl in front of me was from Florida and had never seen snow before. I was so excited for her.

We got back on our tour bus and "climbed" up the mountain. We stopped at 3 different points to get out and take pictures as got higher and higher up. Mt. Fuji is 12,365 feet high. Good thing climbing meant driving because my feet were sore from walking about 10 miles in cowboy boots the day before. We got up to the 4th station, which is the last station you can drive to. It's at 2020 meters. We took some pictures in the freezing winds. It was
overcast and cloudy up there so the view wasn't spectacular. But we lucked out from the base. There was minimal clouds at the summit when we were still at the base. (do you call the top of a volcano a summit? I don't know) Apparently it's rare to get a clear day in January-February as it's clear only 10% of the time. The clarity only lasted about 15 minutes, so the view at the top was rough. There was a good amount of snow at the top too. Which is visible in some of my pictures from the base.

After a bunch of pictures we headed to Hakone National Park. Took us about an hour to get there. By this point it was overcast and misty/foggy. The views of this lake were beautiful as we drove through the mountains. It reminded me of the 4th Harry Potter with the water and mountains or where the lockness monster would live.

We took a boatride around it for about 10 minutes from one pier to another. It was really chilly at this point and we were all pretty cold, luckily the boat had an inside that was heated.

When we got off we headed up to the "Ropeway." When I think ropeway I think suspended walking foot bridge. A ropeway is a trolley/tram/gondola thing. You get the picture. Well, it goes up the mountains to overlook the National Park and apparently you can see Mt. Fuji on a clear day. Well that day was not today. It fits 101 people in it. We squished like sardines. All SAS people and tour guides. It was so tight. And hot. It took 7 minutes to ascend the mountain. After 3 you couldn't see anything but white cloud/mist. The top was SO windy. It hit us hard as we stepped out onto the platform. You couldn't see more than 20 feet, it was just white. Ridiculous. So we walked through the little lodge building out back where there would be spectular views at other times of year. I enjoyed the creepy, quiet mist. The wind across the grass reminded me of the Happening or some other scary movie.

There was a rocky pathway that led into the abyss of whiteness. We all followed it to a Shinto shrine. We walked through the tall red square structure and up to the shrine. Inside was religious figure of some sort. (I apologize, I don't know enough about Shintoism to identify what he was) You couldn't take pictures inside, but it was colorful and lively with a twist of zen. The floor where he sat and talked to us was raised up. He was selling good luck charms to all the eager Americans. It was slightly contradictory how they didn't let you take pictures (major tourists activity) but tried to sell you these religious items (very touristy). I've been analyzing tourism in different places a lot more closely for my Anthropology class and it's fascinating.

After a few warm minutes inside we trekked back along the path to the lodge place. The mist drenched us all and we looked like we'd just showered. We warmed up and waited for the next trolley down. Becca and I discovered an American car racing game. Clearly we had to play. Sadly I lost.

Half our group had already taken an earlier trolley, so this one wasn't nearly as full, making it much nicer. We emerged from the mist back down to the scenic lake view.

We took a quick run through the gift shop where Becca bought fake plastic Japanese weapons for her older brother. Then we took the Strawberry Poodle back to the ship for our last time on this line. A little sad. Haha.

It took about an hour and a half to get back and we were at the terminal by 1700, much earlier than anticipated. So just out of curiosity I suggested Sam, Becca, and I go to the information booth and find out about where the overnight bus to Osaka left from. Through much Japanese, broken English, phone calls, and 30 minutes we learned that you needed a reservation for this bus because the next day (Thursday) was a holiday. Siiiiiick. We tried all sorts of ideas on the 2 men at the information booth, who seemed more than happy to help us. Nothing. Now by this point I'm absolutely furious. Sam had been the one planning this and I had asked about 5 different times while at sea if we needed reservations. She wasn't even planning on asking information. We were just planning on showing up. Well, this wouldn't have infuriated me as much if my other option wasn't to stay on the ship and travel for a day and a half to to Kobe. Therefore wasting 2 nights and a full day at sea.

Furious.

We get back on the ship and have to figure out if staying on the ship from Yokohama to Kobe is even plausible because we'd filled out papers to not be sailing with SAS. Luckily it was possible.

We have to hand in our passports and locate the rest of our friends. No ones pleased. Sam and Shannon go off to explore Yokohama for another hour before on ship time at 2100. We all go to dinner.

Parents, do not read on.

Shannon and Sam come rushing/panting into the dining hall. They want to book a hotel in Yokohama for the night then take the Bullet Train out to Osaka first thing in the morning. We decide this is a valid plan. They'd already talked to the info desk and it's possible. Luckily, we'd all packed the night before. Unfortunately we needed to be off the ship by 1900 if we weren't sailing to Kobe. Nic is still in the abyss of the Japanese metro system with minimal contact via Tania's phone and bbming from it to me. She has nothing with her and we have to be off the ship in 20 minutes. We convince the desk to give us our passports back and scurry off with 10 minutes to spare. We run into Nic. Furious. She runs in and gets her stuff and we all meet at the terminal.

There is no plan. The plan they gave, barely exists. I mean BARELY. We book this hotel, no idea where it is, 2 rooms for 7 people. 2 small beds in each. We have gathered that the Bullet Train leaves either every 15 or 50 minutes. But Thursday trains are on a Sunday schedule since it's a holiday. No one can seem to explain what this means. We say ok. We'll do it anyways. We've got a map with a star where the hotel should be. The map is just geometric figures of the city, no street names, no real landmarks.

I don't offer up my card to hold the reservation. I know better. Everyone's pretty unhappy at this point as the groups somewhat split in two. Glorious. Attempting to mediate was like eating poi. I got nothing out of it except that it sucked.

We agree we need food. Even though Becca, Tania, and I had scarfed down a bunch of pasta on the ship. Shannon leads us to this underground place with several stores and little restaurants. One restaurant has about 30 Japanese business men in it. We attempt to go in, but they say they're closed. Closed? Or men only? Either way, we weren't getting in. We decide to eat at this empty restaurant run by an older couple. They speak almost no English. Shannon is able to communicate with basic Japanese. Most restaurants seem to have plastic replicas of all their dishes. So all we had to do was point. We struggle, but get through. The food comes out quickly. I got noodles in a seaweed soup with cabbage (I am referring to anything non-meat that I don't know as cabbage) and a Japanese beer. Shannon goes back to the terminal to meet up with JD---our male chaperone. They come back and we finish up our plates and drinks and head out with our geometric city map. It's mist-raining again and freezing. We are not prepared for such weather so we hop and sing for warmth. Yes, I know, ignorant rude Americans. But now we have JD so we're good.

We decide we don't want to spend the money so we walk. Yokohama's pretty lit up and populous so it's fairly safe. Especially for 7 of us, and it's only 2115. We have to make it to the hotel by 2200 to check in. We wander past the baseball stadium and a garden and some shopping/bar areas. We ask for directions at one point and 2 men point up to the Washington Hotel. We've almost made it. It's a massive, tall hotel set back from the main street. Sam, Shannon, and JD take our bags and go inside to check in since all 7 can't say we're staying in the 2 rooms. The max per room is 2. We don't have that kind of money.

15 minutes of freezing and singing they come back and we head out to find a bar. We wander up a one way road and stop at JohnJohns. An older Japanese man welcomes us in. The whole bar is covered in Bob Marley pictures and John Lenon posters, etc. There's a Bob Marley dvd playing in English with Japanese subtitles. The owner is really nice to us and just appears to be a huge stoner. The bar is tiny. There's a few men sitting at it, one is tall and skinny and looks like he'd be in the Japanese mafia. This excites me. Men cycle in and out for the next hour and we get a few drinks. Also, we get these delicous garlicky-chili-esque honeycomb looking chips. So good. Everyone's tired so we don't stay long. Plus we gotta get up early. By now the owner loves us. We each pay our tab and Sam and Jd buy shirts. We head back together.

It has gotten colder. Sam realizes in her drunken state that she didn't pay her tab thinking one of us took care of it. We send her back in and explore the convience store for these chips from the bar for the morning. No dice.

We get back and go to the convience store attached to the hotel and grab stuff for breakfast since it's gonna be an early morning. I get a coffee and crossant looking
thing. JD buys a beer. Naturally.

The front desk isn't on the first floor so they don't notice all of us Americans come in. Becca, Tania, Nic, and I share a room and Shannon, Sam, and JD take the other down the hall. There are 2 little beds and an even smaller couch. Nic and I cuddle up in one and Tania and Becca cuddle up in the other. One giant sleepover.

The room is kept at 80 degrees. Kind of hot. Every store and restaurant is kep excessively warm. Very different than home. We all manage to fall asleep. The plan is to wake up at 0430 and get the first train at 0530. Its now 0130. Joy.