I’ve been back home now for a few months. School just started again last week. I figured I would take a few minutes and reminisce about SAS and how it is to be back home. I remember arriving in San Diego and getting off the ship as if it were yesterday. Everyone was saying there last goodbyes; making plans for reunions, etc. Some (actually a lot) attended a meeting about SAS going to Burma and in July or so they decided that they are not going back to Burma, but efforts are still being made across the U.S. to bring Burma to the attention of the American People (see one of the links that I just added). Getting off the ship sea by sea wasn’t all that long of a process but it was sad to see your friends with which you had just met 3 months ago (even though it seems like you’ve known them for years) and you’ve traveled the world with them, to say bye to them is a very odd feeling. None of it really seemed real until I was in the San Diego airport. I got off the ship, said my last good-byes and headed to the San Diego airport to see if I could get an earlier flight back to Denver. I was able to get an earlier flight (I didn’t even have to pay extra $$ for my bags even though one of them weighed 80 pounds and the other one was 70 pounds, I just told them where all I had just been and they gladly waived the fees for me) so now I only had to wait around for 2 hours instead of 5 hours, which I didn’t mind at all. It gave me some time to think about what I had just done in the past 3 months. While I was sitting in the airport I was wearing my Chinese hat (with a red star on it) with my Vietnamese rice hat on top of that, since I couldn’t pack them. I got some great looks from people while I was wearing these hats, they looked at me like I was crazy and I just laughed and laughed, it was awesome. But while I was sitting around waiting for the flight, I was listening to my ipod thinking to myself. And my first clear thought since I had gotten off the ship and arrived at the airport was: “Man, everyone is so white.” Among those thoughts was whenever I’d see kids run by me, I’d instantly think of the kids in poverty that I had seen throughout the trip. Months later I still have all kinds of associations like that one. A few minutes later I turned around to look at a poster on the wall that was behind me because I had noticed that it was of a rhinoceros, my instant reaction was: “That looks like something you’d see in Africa.” Then down at the bottom of the poster it said, “Come see the rare White Rhinoceros at the San Diego Zoo, it’s like no other experience, it’ll be as if you’re in Africa.” I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that, not because it’s funny or anything but because I had just been to Africa not long ago and it just came off as funny. Once I finally got back to Denver, it was very weird seeing family and friends again. I wasn’t sure what to expect coming back but it wasn’t what I received. Everyone’s reaction was basically the same monotone reaction of, “oh, James is back, cool.” And that was about it. I guess I had been thinking of it being more extravagant but it definitely was not that; which I was pretty glad of, because I wasn’t sure what to say to people or anything like that. The first few days back in Denver were a bit odd, I didn’t unpack at all, I kept expecting to be traveling to some foreign, exotic country any minute, which obviously didn’t happen since I wasn’t on the ship anymore. I remember the drive back to my house from the airport, thoughts kept randomly popping into my head like, “it’s so easy to get around here all you have to do is get a car or get a taxi and you can go anywhere you’d like.” And it kept appearing to me how you can go to a supermarket and get all of your essential needs without any problem. And of course the biggest change for me was that everyone speaks very good English! I can talk to people again and they actually know what I’m saying!! After a few weeks I finally decided to unpack and I slowly got back into the groove of doing things again.
But after being back I knew that I just couldn’t let everything I had seen go to waste. I couldn’t forget about the people I had seen, the events I had seen take place, etc. Because of this I “adopted” a child through this program called compassion. What it is is you “adopt” a child in a foreign country and it costs $32 a month and you pay for their schooling, medical needs, food, etc. It pays for pretty much anything they need. So I adopted a 4 year old girl who lives in Rwanda. It may not seem like much, but I’m sure it makes all the difference to this one girl and her family. So I keep trying to not let myself slink back into my old ways of being oblivious to the world, I try to keep up on the world news, etc. Right now I’m trying to plan a trip somewhere (literally anywhere out of the U.S.) just so I can travel again!! Even if it is just for a week. I definitely do miss a few things about SAS and traveling in general and I’ve made a list of a few of those things which I miss:
-In the U.S. random people don’t come up to you and ask if they can have a picture taken with you (such as happened to me a lot in China, Japan, and Malaysia), it’s odd not feeling like a celebrity anymore.
-It’s odd not being in a different country every other week and exploring.
-When I got back the Colorado temperatures of the 70’s, 80’s and even the 90’s all felt cold to me, for the first month or so I had to wear a sweatshirt around a lot. People definitely thought I was crazy, but I just told them they’d be doing it too if they had just experienced the heat of the equator almost non-stop for the past few months.
-Sleeping just isn’t all that easy when you don’t have the M.V. Explorer to gently rock you to sleep (and sometimes violently wake you up in the middle of the night, haha). But it was nice to catch up on sleep, since while on SAS nights where I got 6 – 8 hours of sleep was extremely luxurious and did not happen very often, I’d say 95% of the time I got about 4 hours of sleep, and sometimes less than that, such as when in Japan!
-Travelling around with friends in foreign countries is almost non-existent now, ah I miss it.
-Now that school has started again (August) at my regular home institution, I found myself late for class for pretty much the whole first week because I had been use to being able to wake up and have my classroom be a 2 minute walk away from my room.
-It’s odd not seeing teachers (and their families) walking around and having lunch with them or casual conversations not really related to class.
-TACO DAY – it explains itself, it was awesome.
-BARBEQUE DAY- see the explanation for Taco Day.
-Talking about the experiences you just had in that country with other friends.
-Watching the sun rise as you pull into the port a new, unknown country.
-Playing hide and seek on the M.V. Explorer.
-Playing a 6 hour game of risk.
I could probably come up with a list of things that spans for pages and pages but I don’t really have time to do that right now. But I know that SAS has initially impacted my life and it will continue to do so for as long as I live. Those experiences that I had will never escape me (I don’t want them too anyways!). I will definitely be traveling more and it has only prompted me more than ever to become a pilot so I can see more of the world. If I ever want to relive any of the experience I had all I have to do is just simply, close my eyes. I know I’ll get along fine as long as I can do that and remember this quote:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Ambassadors Ball, Hawaii, and Beyond!!
We just left Hawaii a few days ago and now we’re headed to San Diego. Hawaii wasn’t really anything special, it was….Hawaii. We arrived in the early morning, everyone was off the ship by 8 or 9 a.m. and everyone headed to the beaches. We docked in Honolulu which is on the island of Oahu. There’s not a whole lot to do in Hawaii except lay on the beach and go shopping, neither of which I was very inclined to do. I ended up hiking Diamond Head with Aaron, which is a very short hike. But at the top there’s a really good view of the whole island, you can see how blue the water is! That took us a whole 40 minutes (we thought it would take at least a little longer but it didn’t). We headed back to Waikiki and Aaron headed to the beach and I just walked around Waikiki for a bit. It was quite weird being back in the U.S., all the signs were in English, everyone speaks really good English and we didn’t have any trouble getting around.
I just finished my last final about an hour ago (as of writing this) and I passed all of my classes. It was quite hectic on the ship the first few days after Hawaii with everyone studying and getting ready for finals. But now it’s quite a relaxed mood and it’s weird that we’ll be forced to leave the ship in San Diego a few days from now, it still hasn’t set in all that much and it probably won’t until we’re actually off of the ship in San Diego. The past three months have gone by a whole lot faster than I ever expected them to. It feels like we haven’t been on the ship that long and things are just getting started. But at the same time it feels like it was 3 years ago when I was at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, and every port since then seems like it was so long ago. Everyone I’ve met on the ship, I don’t know them all that well, I don’t even know most peoples last name and I’m still having trouble with some first names but it really seems like I’ve known all of them for at least five years. We’ve gone through a lot together. It’ll be a bit weird just leaving all of them once we get to San Diego, we’ll all be going our separate ways, but we’ll probably all keep in touch. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really do not want to leave the ship. I’d much rather stay on it and go around to more ports. But this adventure is quickly coming to an end, which must mean that a new one will be beginning soon! I know I’ll miss the ship, it’s become my home, I’ve caught myself in most of the ports saying, “I’m going to go home now” meaning that I’m going back to the ship. Just being out in the middle of the ocean on the ship is AWESOME! Being surrounded by nothing but water surely puts a few things into perspective for you. Plus I could sit out on one of the decks for hours and just watch the waves, flying fish, birds, the clouds move by, and the occasional dolphin, and I would never get bored. That’s what I’m doing right now as I’m writing this! And at night you can sit out on 7th deck and see ssssooo many stars, the only comparison to it is standing on top of a mountain looking up at the stars. I’ve become accustomed to the rocking of the ship, I’m able to move with the waves now and run into a minimal amount of walls while walking through the halls. And the rocking is very soothing at night when you’re trying to fall asleep in your room that’s pitch black because there aren’t any windows and you can’t even tell if your eyes are opened or closed! OOOHHH the things I’ll miss. Plus with the games of hide-and-seek at 2 a.m. sssooo much fun!!
This trip has been awesome, I’ve met tons of people, visited a good amount of countries and I’ve been going around the world at 20 mph for the last 3 months while on a ship and while going to school. I must say before I went on this I was very skeptical of being in this type of closed environment with people and especially with teachers. But living with the teachers has been a very cool experience. You get to see more of a personal side of them, you get to see that they are more than teachers. I’ve eaten meals with some of my teachers and their families and with the deans and such. I’ll play some board games with one of my teachers kids every once in a while, which is very fun. And playing with Baby Ryder is a blast! It’s fun hearing the teachers personal stories of how they’ve gotten where they are and all of that, the stories of the countries that they’ve been to. I’ve always known that I love traveling but this trip has only reinforced that and it has built up my confidence of being able to navigate countries without being able to speak the language and also getting along with the locals, I know I’ll be doing tons more traveling to a lot more countries in the future!
Basically the gist of all of this is, this voyage is coming to an end all too fast, we’ve been going around the world at 20 m.p.h. for the past 100 days, we’ve seen amazing things and done tons of things, some of which I never thought I’d do!
Here’s a list of some things that I’ve done over the past 100 days, it certainly won’t be a complete list, but it’s just a peak at a greater list that’s in my mind. It may not make a whole lot of sense to the people who are reading this, but hey, it makes sense to me!!
I’ve filled up my hard drive with 35 GB of pictures (my hard drive is officially full) which comes down to over 8000 pictures and it might even be over 10,000 pictures! Rode and elephant, rode a bullet train, walked around aimlessly and got lost doing it, met a Nobel peace prize winning Archbishop and lived with him for 100 days, shot an AK-47, saw a Japanese soccer and baseball game, kayaked in a bioluminescent bay, visited 10 countries, circumnavigated the globe going 20 mph on the M.V. Explorer, saw monkeys, ostriches, zebras, elephants, pandas, and all kinds of crazy animals. Sat on the decks of the ship for hours on end starring out into the endless ocean, passed 4 classes I didn’t think I was going to pass, learned more in the past 3 months by visiting these countries then I have throughout all of high school and college combined, met a wide variety of people (both on the ship and in ports), and there’s tons more stuff racing through my head but I don’t have nearly enough time to write all of them down.
I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how this trip has changed them and all kinds of stuff like that and I’ve been wondering, how has this trip changed me?? I’m not really sure yet how it has, but just from being in Hawaii I can tell that I’m looking at all kinds of things completely differently than I was before this trip. But I’ll definitely still have the same personality and all that stuff but who knows, maybe other things about me have changed.
Now all I’m wondering is who all has been reading this blog??? So everyone who has actually been reading it should post a comment (complete with your name) on this post so I can see about how many people and who all has been reading it!
The pictures are of the ambassadors ball, where we had a really fancy dinner and then dancing and such and everyone wore their suits/dresses that they got in Vietnam! It was kinda like prom, but….better? There’s a Chocolate Taj Mahal, made out of chocolate, and a chocolate eagle and a castle, and fruit flowers (flowers carved out of fruit), a butter dragon (a dragon made out of butter)(all of these creations are part of the ambassadors ball), and also some pictures from Hawaii. There’s also a picture of Baby Ryder and I, he’s probably the smartest and cutest baby ever (he’s 10 months old and he can say, “Ryder, bye, bottle, hat” and he can wave, clap and blow kisses to you).
I just finished my last final about an hour ago (as of writing this) and I passed all of my classes. It was quite hectic on the ship the first few days after Hawaii with everyone studying and getting ready for finals. But now it’s quite a relaxed mood and it’s weird that we’ll be forced to leave the ship in San Diego a few days from now, it still hasn’t set in all that much and it probably won’t until we’re actually off of the ship in San Diego. The past three months have gone by a whole lot faster than I ever expected them to. It feels like we haven’t been on the ship that long and things are just getting started. But at the same time it feels like it was 3 years ago when I was at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, and every port since then seems like it was so long ago. Everyone I’ve met on the ship, I don’t know them all that well, I don’t even know most peoples last name and I’m still having trouble with some first names but it really seems like I’ve known all of them for at least five years. We’ve gone through a lot together. It’ll be a bit weird just leaving all of them once we get to San Diego, we’ll all be going our separate ways, but we’ll probably all keep in touch. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really do not want to leave the ship. I’d much rather stay on it and go around to more ports. But this adventure is quickly coming to an end, which must mean that a new one will be beginning soon! I know I’ll miss the ship, it’s become my home, I’ve caught myself in most of the ports saying, “I’m going to go home now” meaning that I’m going back to the ship. Just being out in the middle of the ocean on the ship is AWESOME! Being surrounded by nothing but water surely puts a few things into perspective for you. Plus I could sit out on one of the decks for hours and just watch the waves, flying fish, birds, the clouds move by, and the occasional dolphin, and I would never get bored. That’s what I’m doing right now as I’m writing this! And at night you can sit out on 7th deck and see ssssooo many stars, the only comparison to it is standing on top of a mountain looking up at the stars. I’ve become accustomed to the rocking of the ship, I’m able to move with the waves now and run into a minimal amount of walls while walking through the halls. And the rocking is very soothing at night when you’re trying to fall asleep in your room that’s pitch black because there aren’t any windows and you can’t even tell if your eyes are opened or closed! OOOHHH the things I’ll miss. Plus with the games of hide-and-seek at 2 a.m. sssooo much fun!!
This trip has been awesome, I’ve met tons of people, visited a good amount of countries and I’ve been going around the world at 20 mph for the last 3 months while on a ship and while going to school. I must say before I went on this I was very skeptical of being in this type of closed environment with people and especially with teachers. But living with the teachers has been a very cool experience. You get to see more of a personal side of them, you get to see that they are more than teachers. I’ve eaten meals with some of my teachers and their families and with the deans and such. I’ll play some board games with one of my teachers kids every once in a while, which is very fun. And playing with Baby Ryder is a blast! It’s fun hearing the teachers personal stories of how they’ve gotten where they are and all of that, the stories of the countries that they’ve been to. I’ve always known that I love traveling but this trip has only reinforced that and it has built up my confidence of being able to navigate countries without being able to speak the language and also getting along with the locals, I know I’ll be doing tons more traveling to a lot more countries in the future!
Basically the gist of all of this is, this voyage is coming to an end all too fast, we’ve been going around the world at 20 m.p.h. for the past 100 days, we’ve seen amazing things and done tons of things, some of which I never thought I’d do!
Here’s a list of some things that I’ve done over the past 100 days, it certainly won’t be a complete list, but it’s just a peak at a greater list that’s in my mind. It may not make a whole lot of sense to the people who are reading this, but hey, it makes sense to me!!
I’ve filled up my hard drive with 35 GB of pictures (my hard drive is officially full) which comes down to over 8000 pictures and it might even be over 10,000 pictures! Rode and elephant, rode a bullet train, walked around aimlessly and got lost doing it, met a Nobel peace prize winning Archbishop and lived with him for 100 days, shot an AK-47, saw a Japanese soccer and baseball game, kayaked in a bioluminescent bay, visited 10 countries, circumnavigated the globe going 20 mph on the M.V. Explorer, saw monkeys, ostriches, zebras, elephants, pandas, and all kinds of crazy animals. Sat on the decks of the ship for hours on end starring out into the endless ocean, passed 4 classes I didn’t think I was going to pass, learned more in the past 3 months by visiting these countries then I have throughout all of high school and college combined, met a wide variety of people (both on the ship and in ports), and there’s tons more stuff racing through my head but I don’t have nearly enough time to write all of them down.
I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how this trip has changed them and all kinds of stuff like that and I’ve been wondering, how has this trip changed me?? I’m not really sure yet how it has, but just from being in Hawaii I can tell that I’m looking at all kinds of things completely differently than I was before this trip. But I’ll definitely still have the same personality and all that stuff but who knows, maybe other things about me have changed.
Now all I’m wondering is who all has been reading this blog??? So everyone who has actually been reading it should post a comment (complete with your name) on this post so I can see about how many people and who all has been reading it!
The pictures are of the ambassadors ball, where we had a really fancy dinner and then dancing and such and everyone wore their suits/dresses that they got in Vietnam! It was kinda like prom, but….better? There’s a Chocolate Taj Mahal, made out of chocolate, and a chocolate eagle and a castle, and fruit flowers (flowers carved out of fruit), a butter dragon (a dragon made out of butter)(all of these creations are part of the ambassadors ball), and also some pictures from Hawaii. There’s also a picture of Baby Ryder and I, he’s probably the smartest and cutest baby ever (he’s 10 months old and he can say, “Ryder, bye, bottle, hat” and he can wave, clap and blow kisses to you).
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
JAPAN
JAPAN!!! WOW, what a miracle their public transportation system is!! Their public transportation is without a doubt the most impressive system I’ve ever seen and it’s also about a billion times better than any public transportation system I’ve seen in the U.S. You can get anywhere and everywhere you want to go without any problems and basically whenever you want.
I went around Japan with Rick (you should know who he is by now). We had both picked up rail passes in Vietnam so we could ride the trains and most of the subways in Japan for free (after buying the $230 rail pass of course). Which was without a doubt one of my best buys for Japan. Seeing as a one way ticket from Kobe to Tokyo is $140, and we did a lot more traveling than that!! We went to Tokyo for two days, Kyoto for two days, and then I hung out in Kobe the last day while Rick went to Nara. We took a bullet train (THAT’S RIGHT, A BULLET TRAIN, it really is as cool as it looks and sounds) from Kobe to Tokyo, which took about 3 hours. We left Kobe pretty much not knowing what we were going to do in Tokyo or Kyoto and we had no idea where we were going to sleep, but that’s ok, we’ve become accustomed to that by now. In Tokyo we went to the building where lost in translation was filmed, the imperial gardens, the Sony building, the Godzilla statue, a karaoke bar, a manga cafe, some sushi restaurants, a few temples, random Americans and businessmen, rode the subways like there’s no tomorrow, saw a Japanese baseball game (tons better than American baseball) and we walked around tons. I know there are a few things I’m leaving out but I don’t remember what they are right now and I don’t have much time to write this (maybe Ricks blog will have the missing holes of my blog?). I should throw in there that we stayed in a karaoke room the first night and a manga café the second night (an internet café). We met up with some other SAS people at one point and we did some of that stuff with them but some of it we didn’t do with them.
Kyoto, after Tokyo we bullet-trained (my new word that I made up) down to Kyoto. We knew that Kyoto has tons of temples so we set out to find them. We ended up running into some other SAS’ers and we ended up going around Kyoto with them which turned out to not be that glamorous (too long of a story for this). But Kyoto is cool. We saw tons of different temples, we saw some Geishas and Peter Macintosh (you Japan lonely planet book holders know who he is, hahaha), and stayed in another manga café. Then the next day Rick and I went back to Kobe because we found out on our first day in Japan that there was a soccer game in Kobe on this day. Right about now you’re probably expecting some story as to how there ended up not being a game and such, but you’re wrong. WE FINALLY SAW A FUTBOL GAME!!!!!!!!! It was a really good game too. It was the J League Division One, Kobe Vissel Vs. F.C. Tokyo (Japans International Team). We made it to the stadium (after taking a taxi because we couldn’t find it) and we bought tickets and saw the game. The game was in one of the stadiums where the 2002 World Cup Soccer was held!! It was a good day. On a quick side note, on the taxis in Japan, the back doors open and close for you. The next day I hung out around Kobe, I ate some Kobe beef. It was the best beef I’ve ever had. It cost me $50 but it was well worth it. It reminds me of chocolate. You don’t really need to chew it all that much, it just melts in your mouth. Then after that I got sucked into some arcade games cause they’re everywhere. That’s all I have for now. It should also be noted that in the first 3 nights in Japan I got a total of 12 hours of sleep for all 3 nights. Then on the fourth night I got 6 hours of sleep, those were some good 6 hours. So I need to go catch up on sleep! One more thing worth noting though is that the toilets in Japan are probably the coolest gadgets ever, ssooo many buttons!!
I’ll probably throw in some pictures of Japan too, so enjoy!
I went around Japan with Rick (you should know who he is by now). We had both picked up rail passes in Vietnam so we could ride the trains and most of the subways in Japan for free (after buying the $230 rail pass of course). Which was without a doubt one of my best buys for Japan. Seeing as a one way ticket from Kobe to Tokyo is $140, and we did a lot more traveling than that!! We went to Tokyo for two days, Kyoto for two days, and then I hung out in Kobe the last day while Rick went to Nara. We took a bullet train (THAT’S RIGHT, A BULLET TRAIN, it really is as cool as it looks and sounds) from Kobe to Tokyo, which took about 3 hours. We left Kobe pretty much not knowing what we were going to do in Tokyo or Kyoto and we had no idea where we were going to sleep, but that’s ok, we’ve become accustomed to that by now. In Tokyo we went to the building where lost in translation was filmed, the imperial gardens, the Sony building, the Godzilla statue, a karaoke bar, a manga cafe, some sushi restaurants, a few temples, random Americans and businessmen, rode the subways like there’s no tomorrow, saw a Japanese baseball game (tons better than American baseball) and we walked around tons. I know there are a few things I’m leaving out but I don’t remember what they are right now and I don’t have much time to write this (maybe Ricks blog will have the missing holes of my blog?). I should throw in there that we stayed in a karaoke room the first night and a manga café the second night (an internet café). We met up with some other SAS people at one point and we did some of that stuff with them but some of it we didn’t do with them.
Kyoto, after Tokyo we bullet-trained (my new word that I made up) down to Kyoto. We knew that Kyoto has tons of temples so we set out to find them. We ended up running into some other SAS’ers and we ended up going around Kyoto with them which turned out to not be that glamorous (too long of a story for this). But Kyoto is cool. We saw tons of different temples, we saw some Geishas and Peter Macintosh (you Japan lonely planet book holders know who he is, hahaha), and stayed in another manga café. Then the next day Rick and I went back to Kobe because we found out on our first day in Japan that there was a soccer game in Kobe on this day. Right about now you’re probably expecting some story as to how there ended up not being a game and such, but you’re wrong. WE FINALLY SAW A FUTBOL GAME!!!!!!!!! It was a really good game too. It was the J League Division One, Kobe Vissel Vs. F.C. Tokyo (Japans International Team). We made it to the stadium (after taking a taxi because we couldn’t find it) and we bought tickets and saw the game. The game was in one of the stadiums where the 2002 World Cup Soccer was held!! It was a good day. On a quick side note, on the taxis in Japan, the back doors open and close for you. The next day I hung out around Kobe, I ate some Kobe beef. It was the best beef I’ve ever had. It cost me $50 but it was well worth it. It reminds me of chocolate. You don’t really need to chew it all that much, it just melts in your mouth. Then after that I got sucked into some arcade games cause they’re everywhere. That’s all I have for now. It should also be noted that in the first 3 nights in Japan I got a total of 12 hours of sleep for all 3 nights. Then on the fourth night I got 6 hours of sleep, those were some good 6 hours. So I need to go catch up on sleep! One more thing worth noting though is that the toilets in Japan are probably the coolest gadgets ever, ssooo many buttons!!
I’ll probably throw in some pictures of Japan too, so enjoy!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Hong Kong and China
Sssooo I haven’t had any time to write anything about China and Hong Kong and I don’t think I’m going to seeing as we arrive in Japan tomorrow and then after Japan we have finals and what-not. There’s so much to say about China and not enough time for me to write about it. If you have any specific questions about anything to do with China or anything just send me an e-mail (jlissy1987@gmail.com). So instead of words I’m just posting pictures of China and Hong Kong.
Two pictures were taken in Hong Kong, one is of the skyline at night during the lightshow that they do. The other is of the hurricane force storm that hit Hong Kong right after the light show and it basically left the outside decks in ruins, it was quite cool. Overturned chairs galore!!
For China there’s a picture of the Tsinghua Campus (pond type pic) which is where I did my University stay at. Then there’s the great wall, the 2008 olympic stadium (bad pic. from the bus), then there’s a giant panda (they’re not even close to being giant, I was hoping for some 50 ft. tall pandas.) There are soldiers marching through Tian-an-men (spelling??) square. Then the kid with a flag standing next to a soldier is in the square too. Then me outside of the forbidden city with my serious face on with Chairman Mao’s picture next to me. There’s a hilarious sign outside of the forbidden city (oh how the signs muse me so). There’s a picture of the Temple of Heaven. There are 12 people on a bike at an acrobatic show. A picture of the summer palace (the biggest piece of land I’ve ever seen) and of course me with Minnie Mouse!
Two pictures were taken in Hong Kong, one is of the skyline at night during the lightshow that they do. The other is of the hurricane force storm that hit Hong Kong right after the light show and it basically left the outside decks in ruins, it was quite cool. Overturned chairs galore!!
For China there’s a picture of the Tsinghua Campus (pond type pic) which is where I did my University stay at. Then there’s the great wall, the 2008 olympic stadium (bad pic. from the bus), then there’s a giant panda (they’re not even close to being giant, I was hoping for some 50 ft. tall pandas.) There are soldiers marching through Tian-an-men (spelling??) square. Then the kid with a flag standing next to a soldier is in the square too. Then me outside of the forbidden city with my serious face on with Chairman Mao’s picture next to me. There’s a hilarious sign outside of the forbidden city (oh how the signs muse me so). There’s a picture of the Temple of Heaven. There are 12 people on a bike at an acrobatic show. A picture of the summer palace (the biggest piece of land I’ve ever seen) and of course me with Minnie Mouse!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Vietnam
I RODE AN ELEPHANT AND SHOT AN AK-47!! That’s the gist of what I did in Vietnam.
The first day in Vietnam I went around Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to a bunch of shops and bought stuff for really cheap and found a place to get some suits made and got measured for those. The second day I went out to a Cao Dai temple and to the Cu Chi tunnels, that took up the whole day. The tunnels were really cool, there’s a firing range at them where you can shoot AK-47’s, carbines, shotguns, and some fully automatic guns. So while you at the actual tunnels you here these guns going off in the background which makes the whole place come to life, plus it started raining after a little bit which just added to the realism of it all. Then at the firing range I had to shoot an AK-47, cause that’s probably the only chance I’ll ever get to shoot one of those so I bought 10 bullets to shoot. But I’ve never shot a real gun before so the first gun I ever shot was an AK-47.
On one of the days after the tunnels Ben, Rick and I caught an hour flight to Yok Don National Park so we could ride Elephants!!! We got on the plane and arrived there and hired a cab for the day to drive us to the park and back to the airport to catch our flight back to Ho Chi Minh. We got to the park without a hitch and we rode an elephant for an hour, which was amazingly awesome!
After the elephants the next day I went to the Mekong Delta. For a $7 trip they gave us tons of food, it was pretty cool.
I also visited the War Remnants museum that was……….good to see. A good way to describe it is as an anti-american museum. There are a lot of pictures and documents that aren’t so easy to look at, but it’s definitely a different viewpoint on the war than what is taught in schools in the U.S.
That’s about all there is to say about Vietnam. This isn’t a very in depth look into Vietnam which is mainly because I’m extremely tired and I have tons of work to do for school but also because I know have pretty much every tv show I’ve ever wanted on DVD cause you can get them in Vietnam for really cheap.
But there is one more thing to say about Vietnam and that is that the food in Vietnam is amazing!! As is the food in pretty much all the ports we’ve been to. I couldn’t get enough of the Vietnamese food, it’s some good stuff.
For pictures: Rick, Ben and I on an elephant, a Cao Dai Temple service, our elephant pretty much under water, a picture of the Mekong Delta and me by an A-37 plane at the war remnants museum.
The first day in Vietnam I went around Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to a bunch of shops and bought stuff for really cheap and found a place to get some suits made and got measured for those. The second day I went out to a Cao Dai temple and to the Cu Chi tunnels, that took up the whole day. The tunnels were really cool, there’s a firing range at them where you can shoot AK-47’s, carbines, shotguns, and some fully automatic guns. So while you at the actual tunnels you here these guns going off in the background which makes the whole place come to life, plus it started raining after a little bit which just added to the realism of it all. Then at the firing range I had to shoot an AK-47, cause that’s probably the only chance I’ll ever get to shoot one of those so I bought 10 bullets to shoot. But I’ve never shot a real gun before so the first gun I ever shot was an AK-47.
On one of the days after the tunnels Ben, Rick and I caught an hour flight to Yok Don National Park so we could ride Elephants!!! We got on the plane and arrived there and hired a cab for the day to drive us to the park and back to the airport to catch our flight back to Ho Chi Minh. We got to the park without a hitch and we rode an elephant for an hour, which was amazingly awesome!
After the elephants the next day I went to the Mekong Delta. For a $7 trip they gave us tons of food, it was pretty cool.
I also visited the War Remnants museum that was……….good to see. A good way to describe it is as an anti-american museum. There are a lot of pictures and documents that aren’t so easy to look at, but it’s definitely a different viewpoint on the war than what is taught in schools in the U.S.
That’s about all there is to say about Vietnam. This isn’t a very in depth look into Vietnam which is mainly because I’m extremely tired and I have tons of work to do for school but also because I know have pretty much every tv show I’ve ever wanted on DVD cause you can get them in Vietnam for really cheap.
But there is one more thing to say about Vietnam and that is that the food in Vietnam is amazing!! As is the food in pretty much all the ports we’ve been to. I couldn’t get enough of the Vietnamese food, it’s some good stuff.
For pictures: Rick, Ben and I on an elephant, a Cao Dai Temple service, our elephant pretty much under water, a picture of the Mekong Delta and me by an A-37 plane at the war remnants museum.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Malaysia and Easter Sunday
There’s not a whole lot to say about Malaysia, it’s an interesting country. I pretty much just stayed on the island of Penang. It was a lot more westernized than I thought it would be. There were starbucks, mcdonalds, pizza huts everywhere plus there were 7 elevens every few blocks (but they all had the same kind of slurpees, go figure). There’s even a 7 story mall which needless to say, is huge. The best thing to do was to just walk around and explore the markets. It is a pretty diverse country though, the population is mainly Muslim but there is a good amount of Buddhists and Taoists. A lot of times there would be a Mosque on one side of the street and on the other side of the street there would be a temple. I went into a few of the Mosques which were really cool, the temples were cool to go into too, they were always filled with tons of incense. Also, five times a day all the mosques would do the call to prayer which is cool to hear and you can hear it if you’re within an earshot of one of the many mosques.
On the first day Ben (my roommate) and I went and hiked Penang hill. At the base of it there were 2 Chinese-Malaysians that were hiking halfway up so we ended up hiking halfway up with them. It was pretty cool cause we talked to them about politics (which they were particularly interested in), economics, and all kinds of things. This was a fairly intense hike, it wasn’t that hard of a hike but the climate really messes with you. It was extremely hot and extremely humid, by the time we were halfway up I had drunk all of the water out of my Nalgene and my clothes were soaked. By the time we got to the top I definitely could’ve wringed out my shirt and filled up a good sized water glass with sweat. But at the top there’s a mosque and a temple and a hotel with a restaurant.
Throughout this whole trip I’ve been trying to find a futbol game to go to and watch and so far I have not succeeded at that. In Brazil there aren’t any games during Carnival. In Cape Town there weren’t any games the week that we were there. And in Malaysia we had heard from a travel agent that there was one going on at a stadium, so we had him write down the name of the stadium and that stuff. Rick, Chad and I decided to try and go see it, so we got off the ship, found a taxi driver and told him what stadium we wanted to go to. The stadium was on the mainland and we soon found out that this taxi driver had no idea where the stadium was, he was calling tons of people on his cell phone trying to get directions to the stadium and at the toll booths along the way he’d ask them where to go. Little did we know that this was just the start of things to go wrong. It ended up taking about an hour to get to the stadium, we got there and got out of the taxi and walked up to the stadium. We thought it was kind of odd that the parking lots were completely empty, but we were about 4 hours early, so we thought maybe things would pick up later. We walked around the stadium and tried to find the ticket office but the best we could find were some security guards at the VIP entrance. They didn’t really speak English but after talking to them we found out that the first game isn’t until May 2nd. So we just stood around and tried to figure out what to do. This stadium was in the middle of nowhere and our taxi driver had left. There were only trees around, a highway that didn’t seem like it was used very often and about a kilometer past the highway was a small housing development. We finally decided to walk over to the housing development and see what was over there and maybe find a taxi since our taxi had left. We walked over there and there was pretty much nothing out there. The houses looked like they were straight out of a horror movie and the majority of them appeared to not be occupied. Plus no one spoke English so that didn’t help much. After walking around for a bit we decided to go back to the stadium and talk to the security guards and see if they can call us a taxi. We walked back over there and went up to them and there was a new security guard at the gate whom we hadn’t seen before but he spoke pretty good English, we explained our situation to him and he talked to his fellow guards for about 5 minutes or so then he looked back at us and said, “Let’s go” and he walked towards his car, we were a bit confused but we just followed him to his car. He happened to just be getting off of his shift and he decided to give us a lift! At first he told us that he’d drive us to the bus station where we could catch either a bus or a taxi. Then he told us that he’d take us to the ferry that would take us from mainland Malaysia back over to Penang (since Penang’s an island). We ran into tons of traffic going back over towards Penang that was due to the Penang bridge being closed (the 3rd largest bridge in the world). We found out the next day that it was closed because someone put a bomb on the bridge. But because of the traffic we told the guy that was driving us to just drop us off at this mall that we were passing that was right next to the bridge (we didn’t know there was a bomb on the bridge), he had already driven us about 50 minutes out of his way and we didn’t want to make him wait in traffic any longer. We hung out at the mall and then when we were ready to leave we argued with taxi drivers for a while and we finally found one that would take us to the ferry for a decent price, but once we started driving our taxi driver realized that the bridge was open again and asked us if we wanted to go all the way to Georgetown in Penang (which is where our ship was docked), he offered it for a good price so we took it. So we drove over the bridge and into Georgetown and hit traffic on the island and we were stuck listening to nothing but american love songs in our taxi for an hour. We finally decided to walk the rest of the way (we were all sick of the love songs, they literally made chad sick) and we just got out of the taxi and walked to a bar! All in all this was about a six-hour adventure that pretty much got us nowhere but it was good fun!!
The Penang National Park was pretty cool to go to. I went there with a group of people and we hiked around and saw some mokeys, ants, tons of trees and also a monitor (which looks just like a komodo dragon but it’s not). That’s pretty much all the park had to offer us aside from tons of sweat.
Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday was pretty cool. Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a morning service on the ship. Even during his services he's really funny. Plus he was wearing his purple gown which made things all the better! In addition to the service I had class on Easter Sunday and I got a haircut!! This was the first time I had class and gotten a haircut on Easter Sunday, hopefully I won't ever have class on easter sunday again.
On the first day Ben (my roommate) and I went and hiked Penang hill. At the base of it there were 2 Chinese-Malaysians that were hiking halfway up so we ended up hiking halfway up with them. It was pretty cool cause we talked to them about politics (which they were particularly interested in), economics, and all kinds of things. This was a fairly intense hike, it wasn’t that hard of a hike but the climate really messes with you. It was extremely hot and extremely humid, by the time we were halfway up I had drunk all of the water out of my Nalgene and my clothes were soaked. By the time we got to the top I definitely could’ve wringed out my shirt and filled up a good sized water glass with sweat. But at the top there’s a mosque and a temple and a hotel with a restaurant.
Throughout this whole trip I’ve been trying to find a futbol game to go to and watch and so far I have not succeeded at that. In Brazil there aren’t any games during Carnival. In Cape Town there weren’t any games the week that we were there. And in Malaysia we had heard from a travel agent that there was one going on at a stadium, so we had him write down the name of the stadium and that stuff. Rick, Chad and I decided to try and go see it, so we got off the ship, found a taxi driver and told him what stadium we wanted to go to. The stadium was on the mainland and we soon found out that this taxi driver had no idea where the stadium was, he was calling tons of people on his cell phone trying to get directions to the stadium and at the toll booths along the way he’d ask them where to go. Little did we know that this was just the start of things to go wrong. It ended up taking about an hour to get to the stadium, we got there and got out of the taxi and walked up to the stadium. We thought it was kind of odd that the parking lots were completely empty, but we were about 4 hours early, so we thought maybe things would pick up later. We walked around the stadium and tried to find the ticket office but the best we could find were some security guards at the VIP entrance. They didn’t really speak English but after talking to them we found out that the first game isn’t until May 2nd. So we just stood around and tried to figure out what to do. This stadium was in the middle of nowhere and our taxi driver had left. There were only trees around, a highway that didn’t seem like it was used very often and about a kilometer past the highway was a small housing development. We finally decided to walk over to the housing development and see what was over there and maybe find a taxi since our taxi had left. We walked over there and there was pretty much nothing out there. The houses looked like they were straight out of a horror movie and the majority of them appeared to not be occupied. Plus no one spoke English so that didn’t help much. After walking around for a bit we decided to go back to the stadium and talk to the security guards and see if they can call us a taxi. We walked back over there and went up to them and there was a new security guard at the gate whom we hadn’t seen before but he spoke pretty good English, we explained our situation to him and he talked to his fellow guards for about 5 minutes or so then he looked back at us and said, “Let’s go” and he walked towards his car, we were a bit confused but we just followed him to his car. He happened to just be getting off of his shift and he decided to give us a lift! At first he told us that he’d drive us to the bus station where we could catch either a bus or a taxi. Then he told us that he’d take us to the ferry that would take us from mainland Malaysia back over to Penang (since Penang’s an island). We ran into tons of traffic going back over towards Penang that was due to the Penang bridge being closed (the 3rd largest bridge in the world). We found out the next day that it was closed because someone put a bomb on the bridge. But because of the traffic we told the guy that was driving us to just drop us off at this mall that we were passing that was right next to the bridge (we didn’t know there was a bomb on the bridge), he had already driven us about 50 minutes out of his way and we didn’t want to make him wait in traffic any longer. We hung out at the mall and then when we were ready to leave we argued with taxi drivers for a while and we finally found one that would take us to the ferry for a decent price, but once we started driving our taxi driver realized that the bridge was open again and asked us if we wanted to go all the way to Georgetown in Penang (which is where our ship was docked), he offered it for a good price so we took it. So we drove over the bridge and into Georgetown and hit traffic on the island and we were stuck listening to nothing but american love songs in our taxi for an hour. We finally decided to walk the rest of the way (we were all sick of the love songs, they literally made chad sick) and we just got out of the taxi and walked to a bar! All in all this was about a six-hour adventure that pretty much got us nowhere but it was good fun!!
The Penang National Park was pretty cool to go to. I went there with a group of people and we hiked around and saw some mokeys, ants, tons of trees and also a monitor (which looks just like a komodo dragon but it’s not). That’s pretty much all the park had to offer us aside from tons of sweat.
Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday was pretty cool. Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a morning service on the ship. Even during his services he's really funny. Plus he was wearing his purple gown which made things all the better! In addition to the service I had class on Easter Sunday and I got a haircut!! This was the first time I had class and gotten a haircut on Easter Sunday, hopefully I won't ever have class on easter sunday again.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Pics from Malaysia
Here are some pictures from Malaysia, there are some pictures of some mosques, temples, a guy with a shotgun in the middle of the street, some monkeys, a monitor (komodo dragon family). and I forget what else so I'll let you decide what they're pictures of. ENJOY!!
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