So we arrived in Yokohama this morning, and man, I am not ready for another port yet. Luckily I don’t have any real plans today and so I’m taking it easy until I get off the ship and then I’m still going to take it easy. Tomorrow, I am traveling to Kobe with my friend, Gabriel, who is from California but lived in Kobe until he was 13. I am going to stay with him at his family friends’ house until the ship gets to Kobe in a few days. Then I have a FDP home-stay with university students for my public speaking class. I am so exhausted; I have no idea how I plan on being a charming guest. Since India, I feel like I haven’t had any time to stop and catch my breath of all this traveling. In the past three weeks, we’ve done four different countries and had about 8 days of classes. I’m dying. I’m not complaining…this is just craziness. I can’t wrap my head around all of this and more and more keeps coming. So then, the natural inclination would be to think, “Well, we have a nine day stretch between Japan and Hawaii, that will be a good time to think it out.” Yeah right. Those nine days will be nine straight days of class with no break and the Global Studies final exam and my final speech and my portfolio will be due. I am always the student who at the end of the semester just needs to shut down for about a day to slow my mind down enough to start to get to work on things, and that feeling of needing to shut down got into my head yesterday and since it was impeccably bad timing, I am feeling more frazzled than I ever have. I hope that once I get off the ship, my mind will be in “Japan only” mode, and I’ll be happier. Then when we get back on the ship I can just get to work. I won’t be too good at that though because we’ll also be starting to say goodbye to everyone. Holy moley. I gotta get out of this funk.
How about this immigration? In Japan, foreigners (that’s us) have to go through a face-to-face inspection with an immigration officer, get fingerprints done, and a picture of your face taken. None of this can be done on the ship. We all have to get off the ship, go through a really long line to get this done, and no one is allowed to get back onto the ship until everyone has gotten through immigration. So, I haven’t started to stand in the line yet. I figured my time would be better spent relaxing in my room, and when the last few people are called to go through immigration, I’ll sneak out with them. They called faculty, staff, and families first (if they wanted to get off the ship), then all the seas (they divide the floors by sea names – I’m in the Andaman Sea – we won Sea Olympics), and then they will call the rest of the faculty, staff, and families. So, my sea was one of the first called but I didn’t go with them because I would have had to stay off the ship forever until everyone passed through immigration. I’m just going to go out right before the second round of faculty and staff. Also, a funny tidbit about immigration in China- they didn’t believe my passport picture was me because I’m not wearing glasses in my picture. I was wearing glasses in real life because we were headed to a plane and I never wear my contacts while flying incase something happens. She wasn’t going to let me through until I raised my eyebrows in a “are you serious” sort of face and took my glasses off. It worked. If that is all you have to do to get through Chinese immigration, I pretty sure anyone can get in with anyone else’s passport.
Me oh my, I don’t know what to do with myself. I have no idea what I want to do in Japan. I need to get myself to a temple and meditate out of the funk. I also need to find fabric. Interesting mix. If you have any suggestions for Japan, leave a comment today and hopefully I’ll get it before I leave for Kobe tomorrow afternoon.
Be well everyone.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Passenger Terminal Immigration: Yokohama, Japan
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Mauritius - delicious meal
Check out our fingers. In Mauritius and India, I got really really good at eating with my hands. There actually is a method, and it's awesome. Eating rice without anything is the only way to do it. Forks, spoons, chopsticks...nothing is as good as the fingers. Plus, Indians believe that there are enzymes on your skin that aid in digestion. Take that, Western manners!
I'm an artist!
This is me and my new job. I am going to quit school and become a tree stump carver. This is my mentor. Don't worry, Mom and Dad, this is a rather affluent job.
Moon, this is for you.
On the beach in Mauritius dipping my toes into the Indian Ocean and munching on some fruit. This one happens to be coconut - hard to crack, but sweet on the inside.
Cooking Class in South Africa
This is me mixing the dough for the dosa at the cooking class in SA. Look at the beautiful woman who was our teacher. This was a really great day, and I loved finally being able to cook again.
Neptune Day
Between Ghana and South Africa, we crossed the Equator. Maritime Tradition is to hold a ceremony to honor the sea god, Neptune by getting fish guts poured on your heads and kissing a dead fish. I did both and so am no longer considered a "pollywog." When this was an actual US NAVY ceremony, the newbies were seriously hazed; our version was the college "hazing is illegal" version.
Bus Stop in Ghana
On our way back to the ship from the rainforest in Ghana, our bus broke down. Luckily, our time was filled with school children who were walking home. Alyse and I were making silly faces with these kids from the bus window until we decided we'd go meet them. We took a silly faces picture to show the kids. They just loved seeing themselves on camera.
Kakum National Park - Ghana
This is a sweet tree we found in the rainforest in Ghana. I love the roots!
Check, Check, Check it out...
I figured out how to send pictures to my blog!
This, then, is a picture of me during a muster station drill that I promised you all. Check out the orange. :)
From the Window to the [Great] Wall
As per Erin’s request, I am going to start with my blog post from China, and I will work my way back to India. I’m sorry to all of you who are missing reading my blog. Things have been nuts lately. I am having a hard time getting my schoolwork done and e-mailing and blogging is just so much more writing. My apologies.
I am sitting on the ship in Shanghai right now because I am still exhausted from my trip to Beijing, but we’ll get to that. The ship was supposed to leave Shanghai tonight for Yokohama, Japan, but “due to inclement weather, we will be departing tomorrow at 1400 hours.” This is interesting for a few reasons. The first is that the weather outside is nothing but rain and a small amount of fog. The second being that this ship has endured way crazier weather than that before, including a typhoon that broke all the windows on the bridge. The third is that President Obama is in Shanghai today and tomorrow to work on Asian-American relations. Could it be? I don’t want to get my hopes up, but this ship has seen Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and other really important people as guest speakers before… and this weather situation is just too fishy. Anyway, because of that I’m not sure if I want to leave the ship or not. I, for sure, do not want to miss it if Obama gives the MV Explorer a small visit. HOLY MOLEY. But, I’m not getting my hopes up…
We arrived in Hong Kong on the 11th (Wednesday) in the morning. We docked at the cruise ship terminal which is connected to a mall. Right. When we left the ship, before being outside, we had to walk through a horrible maze of ugly capitalism. That is how I felt about Hong Kong in general though. I didn’t really enjoy my time in Hong Kong because it was just way too busy, ostentatious, and flashy. Luckily, I spent my day with a wonderful lady named Grace and we had the same sentiments about Hong Kong. We went to the art museum which was cool (my favorite part was sculpture of a Buddha stealing a peach) and we had a great dinner that was sort of ironic. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant even though we were in Vietnam just two days before that. Pho is that good. I went to bed fairly early that night because our flight to Beijing was at 11 am out of ShenZhen so we were leaving the ship at 0530 the next morning.
Our trip to Beijing was one of the best times of my entire life. The stories are crazy and great. I traveled with my friends Rebecca (who I met in Halifax in the airport and went to the hostel with), Alyse (who I met on the Morocco trip during the crazy rainstorm) and Cav (who is from Florida and a witty, hilarious character) and we met Lucas (Erin’s boyfriend) in Beijing where he has been studying since June. The hardest part of the whole trip was getting ourselves from the port in Hong Kong to the airport in ShenZhen, but while I was trying to work out the route the day before, I ran into the Chinese history professor, Dr. Godfrey, in the hallway and out of whim I asked him to explain the best route since he has lived in China before. He was explaining it to me and asked when our flight was at and as it turned out, we were on the same flight. So he invited us to just tag along with his group, so long as we were not late meeting in the morning. When I thanked him he told me not to worry about it because “if my kid was on this trip, I would hope someone would do this for him.” So, Momma and Pops, thank professor Godfrey. We had to take a train out of Hong Kong, go through the “exit” immigration, and then get on another train into Mainland China then to the “entrance” immigration. After that, we had to take a bus to the airport, which we found in a totally random, deserted parking lot where no sign was in English. So, without Professor Godfrey, I’m not sure we would have made it. We did though, and after checking in at the counter, we took a little break, ate some granola and waited for our plane to board. It was about 27 degrees in Hong Kong that morning, but when we boarded our plane, we were delayed for an hour because of bad weather in Beijing. In Beijing, when we landed, there was snow all over the place and the high temperature for the day was supposed to be -3 degrees (all of these degrees are in Centigrade, dear readers). So, upon landing, we immediately donned our warmest clothing, which made me SO happy. I LOVE the cold weather, and should probably never move out of cold weather. That being said, Alyse is from Colorado and I am from New York, but Cav is from Florida/Virginia and Rebecca is from Texas/SoCal, and so this weather was definitely the coldest they’d ever seen. We didn’t have any checked bags, so as soon as we got out of the terminal, we went to the money exchange (Hong Kong money is not the same as Chinese money) and while we were waiting for each other, this kid came up behind us and said “Kalista?!” It was Lucas! This was the first time I met Lucas, except for in video chats with Erin, and so it was a little weird to be meeting my sister’s boyfriend without my sister, but we all introduced ourselves and started clicking pretty quick. Lucas showed us out of the airport by the airport express train into the city and then we went to our hostel. We checked in and put our bags away, then we sat down in the sweet common area of the hostel and consulted a map and made a list of what we wanted to see and do while in Beijing. The hostel we stayed in, The Peking International Youth Hostel, has won “Top Ten Youth Hostels of the World” for the past five or so years, and that should give you an idea of just how incredible it was. Remember how in Halifax I was worried that I was getting spoiled? Then the hostel in Seville was also incredible? Well, the hostel in Beijing certainly takes the cake. This place was bomb. The common area had great tables and chairs made out of heavy dark wood, and there were also a bunch of wicked comfortable couches. There was free internet and computers we could use, they served a selection of American and Chinese food, and there was a bar. We decided that instead of staying in a dorm room, we would pay the extra money and get two private rooms so that we could just throw our stuff down and not have to worry about it and those rooms were incredible. We each had a huge, heavy down comforter on our beds, western toilets (with toilet paper!), and showers and towels. I know that you might be thinking that doesn’t sound luxurious, but when you see the pictures, you might think otherwise. Anyway, our hostel was the best. After consulting the map and making a prioritized list of tourist places to visit, we went out to an excellent Peking dinner. We had a bunch of different stuff, most notably was steamed brocolli with garlic and ginger, spicy shrimp, and Peking duck. Oh yeah. We also had a good amount of Chinese beer, and this crazy grain alcohol called “Baijo.” We had a ton of fun in the restaurant because the staff got a kick out of talking with us and Lucas (he’s fluent in Mandarin) and watching us try to eat things the correct way. They also took some Baijo shots with us and were very proud of us when we could say, “One, Two, Three, Down your Glass” in Mandarin. We also spent some time at the table helping Lucas study for his Mandarin test the next day which was fun, and at the end of the night when we were leaving, we were invited to sit down at the owner of the restaurant’s table and chat with him for a while. We got his card, and went on our merry way down the block and back to our cozy warm hostel where we made a snowman on the picnic tables in the courtyard and talked to Erin on Lucas’ cell phone. Successful first day in Beijing, I’d say.
Lucas didn’t stay at our hostel with us the first night because he had class on Friday morning, so while he was at school, we went to the Forbidden City. Since it was only a block away from our hostel, we didn’t have to deal with cabs or anything and we just walked there. The Forbidden City was incredible. The place is huge; it is about one kilometer from the South Gate to the North Gate and that is only in a straight line. There are temples and buildings all over the place in the Forbidden City. I think of all the buildings and temples inside the Forbidden City, our favorite was the Imperial Gardens. I’m not even sure how to describe these places, but I promise you, once I get my pictures loaded up onto my computer, I will post them here. I learned how to make the pictures small enough! After the Forbidden City, we had lunch, then plans with Lucas to meet back at the hostel and then go to the Temple of Heaven, and so that is what we did right after we cozied ourselves into the couches with hot chocolate and cookies. Our hostel was almost like a ski lodge, and since it was snowy and cold, we went with that idea and had lots and lots of hot chocolate and ginger tea. Lucas met us and we headed over to the Temple of Heaven, which was also awesome. To get to the temple, you walk through a park, and we ran into this lady selling a game sort of like badminton. Cav played for a while with the lady while the rest of us played this hacky-sac like game. I also got to hold Cav’s fancy camera and take pictures like the Paparazzi. I’m a good Paparazzi too – look at the pictures (when I get them). The Temple of Heaven was just as intricate and beautiful as all the temples and buildings inside the Forbidden City, and I’m not sure what I can say about them to do them justice. It will have to be a picture thing. After the Temple of Heaven, we took a LONG cab ride across the city to a theater where we bought tickets to a Chinese Acrobatics show. We headed to dinner before the show where we had Sichuan Mongolian Hot Pot. This was a crazy meal. Hot Pot is sort of like fondue, where you cook raw meat in a pot of hot liquid, but it’s not cheese. It’s this flavored broth that is crazy spicy with little devil peppercorns. If you accidentally bite one of them, your whole mouth goes completely numb and it’s scary. I actually thought that I might be having an allergic reaction to something and would need some Benedryl immediately. Luckily, it would go away pretty quickly, but it was easily the scariest/craziest thing I’ve ever eaten. That being said, it was delicious! We had lots of different beef and we dipped it in different sauces (peanut, or one that tasted like pho) and had lettuce to eat it with. We also had dumplings, which I just love. After dinner, we hightailed it back to the theater for a wicked cool acrobatics show. I have no idea how to describe to you what I saw, so I’ll just recap the craziest things. At one point, there were 11 people all riding one bike. We saw contortionists who just looked like they were defying gravity at every second. There were men who did crazy backflips and jumped through hoops higher than they could stand, and Diablo (which is that game with two sticks you hold with a rope between them, and you spin something that looks like a bobbin from hand to hand), except that this Diablo was INSANE. I think Cav got a few pictures of the performance and so I’ll try to get them to you soon. It was wild. We got to meet a few of Lucas’ friends in his program at the show too and that was neat. After the show, we headed back to the hostel, had a drink, Skyped Erin (which was AMAZING – it was the first time I saw her since August), and went to bed early because we arranged a driver to pick us up at 6am to go to the Great Wall of China.
Lucas stayed with us at the hostel, but since he has been to the Great Wall about seven times, he decided to chill at the hostel until we got back. Our driver picked us up right at our hostel at 6 am, and if I haven’t made it clear yet just how cold it was in Beijing, let me tell you what I wore to the Great Wall. I wore poly pro long underwear tops and bottoms, wool/cotton blend pants, a wool sweater, a fleece sweater, my rain coat, poly pro socks, wool socks, trail runner shoes, and a wool hat with both hoods from my jackets on. In the sun, I was toasty in that outfit, but otherwise, it was still quite chilly. So, our driver took us to a portion of the Great Wall called Mutienyu, which is probably a really touristy area, but since it is winter and we got there so early in the morning, we HAD THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA TO OURSELVES! It was awesome. We took a chair lift up to the wall, hiked about a mile in each direction, took tons and tons of great pictures, sang the songs from Mulan, pretended we were a band and took album cover pictures, said “Holy crap we’re on the Great Wall of China” about a thousand times, and had a snowball fight. It was absolutely incredible, and one of those moments where I just have to stop, look around, and recognize how “So Damn Lucky” I am. I mean that I am amazingly fortunate to be able to do what I’m doing, and sometimes it takes my breath away. I put “So Damn Lucky” in quotations because it is a Dave Matthews song that you all should listen to. I remember when I was a little kid and I was learning about the Great Wall of China and how Dad was excited about learning about it too. I don’t know if he was just being excited because I was excited about it, but I was thinking about you, Dad, while I was on the wall, and wishing you could have be seeing what I was seeing. I took a lot of pictures for you. We took a toboggan down the Great Wall (like the Alpine Slide and Jiminy Peak), which was a rush, and then we got some more hot chocolate and met Mr. Pay, our driver. On the way back to the hostel, Mr. Pay stopped the van in this tiny little town and got himself a bag of street food snacks which actually turned out to be for us! It was a wonderfully sweet gesture, and he looked so happy when we all liked the treat. In China, pastries are often filled with a red bean paste, and some people really don’t like it. But I think the sweet, salty combo is really great. When we got back to the hostel, Lucas was eating breakfast, so we ordered our lunch and then went to the famous Silk Market of Beijing. Also while we were eating lunch, we met a girl from Germany named Nina who was traveling alone, so we asked her if she wanted to tag along with us. She did, so we all went to the market and set a meeting time. I wandered around with Lucas and got my fabric. This time, since I was in China, I made sure to get silk, and I got raw silk because I actually liked the look of it better than the super shiny dragon stuff. I got five meters in four different colors that make one heck of a bedroom color scheme. I can’t wait to decorate some place that is mine in the next few years with all of this fabric I’ve picked up. I also have no idea how I plan on getting all this stuff home. No idea. Anyway, after the market, we went back to the hostel and chilled out, showered, got dressed, and had dinner before going to a concert. The rest of my Beijing story starting now is INSANE, ridiculous, hilarious, out of character, lucky, and a less than once in a lifetime experience. It will probably be lost on the older members of my audience, but just go with it. I will try and explain it as best as I can.
So, in my e-mail correspondence with Lucas, he mentioned that he could get tickets to a rap concert and was wondering if we’d be interested. I didn’t mention it to Cav, Rebecca, or Alyse, and I just assumed that at least Cav and Rebecca would be interested. So I told Lucas yes, and he responded with the name of the group. The artists we were going to be seeing are called The Ying Yang Twins; I never heard of them, but I just went with it. The morning we were headed to Beijing, I mentioned it to my travel buddies and both Cav and Rebecca just about died- they were so excited. They started singing one of their songs, and it was then I realized what I had gotten myself into. The Ying Yang Twins sing that dirty rap song that goes “To the windooowwww, to the waaalllllll. All these females crawl, sweat drops down my balls, awww skeet skeet skeet mother effer, aww skeet skeet god damn...” Please excuse me; I’m just quoting my crazy life. So, anyway, this is whom we were about to see in China. Let me just say that, in real life, I would never see a rap concert (especially dirty southern rap), I would never see the Ying Yang Twins, and I certainly would never do either of these things in Beijing, China. So already this story is crazy. Just wait. Earlier that day while we were in the market, Cav ran into the Ying Yang Twins while shopping. He talked to them, got his picture taken with them, and got their manager’s card. Here’s to the start of something crazy. When we got to the club, Vick’s, where the concert was at, we gave the staff the card. They were working on getting us a table when my friends Amanda, Liz, and Lauren already had a table. When I say “a table,” I mean VIP fancy table with fruit and unlimited drinks because this place was a nightclub, NYC or LA style. Insanity. So we sit at this VIP table and start getting crazy when the Ying Yang Twins show up and sit down with us, because we were AT THEIR TABLE. And it was fine. It was crazy as hell, but it was fine. We were dancing and having a great time and I went to go dance on the dance floor (stage) with some friends until the YYT started their performance. We ended up moving tables over to a speaker on the main floor of the club where we met more of Lucas’ friends and had easier access to the stage for dancing. After a while of the YYT, our group sort of split into smaller groups for making it back to the hostel and our hostel (another reason why it was awesome) had these small pieces of paper with a map and the words “please take me to the Peking International Youth Hostel” written in Mandarin to give to taxi drivers. It was a fabulous system. I made it back to the hostel with Alyse and Nina, Lucas made it back alone sometime later, as did Rebecca, and it turns out, Cav went to the YYT’s hotel room to continue the party. Apparently, they gave him his own car and a driver to get back to the hostel so that he could be back there on time to catch the flight to Shanghai. We (Alyse and I) woke everyone up at about 530 am to start our trek back to the airport. We made it, and reached the ship at about 1230 when we all had lunch and then passed out for the next about 18 hours when I started this blog post. Beijing was awesome.
I haven’t decided if I liked Chennai or Beijing better yet. I’ll take your votes after I write about both Chennai and Ho Chi Minh City, which I promise to do in the next week. Please remember that Japan will be thrown in there and then it will be back to the grind of schoolwork (and the first time we’ll have stopped since Chennai) so I will be crazy busy then too until after Hawaii. It’s unfathomable how fast this trip went by.
Until next time, keep on keepin’ on, folks.