Myanmar (Burma)

Myanmar is definitely right up there with Vietnam and Japan that I definitely want to visit again within the next 5 years. Yet, for Myanmar I would either like to go in the next 6 months before a lot of the change starts to happen or at the end of 5 years to see how much this country has changed.

Brief Background on Myanmar (don't quote me because I only heard this once, but this is the gist):
Myanmar (Burma) has essentially been under military control for the last 50-60 years. Which is why its name is disputed. Burma is the country's colonial name during its rule under the British I believe. Shortly after the country got its independence from the British, it was taken over and essentially closed by its military government. The US and a lot of the west put sanctions on the country and the country also closed its self off from the world in terms of development for a long time. While under the military government, they changed the name of the country to Myanmar which means fast and strong people, but this is not recognized by most of the world because the government is an oppressive military regime. Over the past 20 years, the country has been open for investment by Asian countries, but has just recently been opened up for investment to the west. To go back about 20 years, there was an election and the NLD (democratic party) won the election. The president of the party is a women and is essentially the hope of the country. However, after the election, the military put her on house arrest and filled the government with ex-military officials. She has been on house arrest (some of this time being served in an actual prison) for the last 20 years, waiting in an nonviolent matter. Side note, we had a talk about Ghandi and King and there nonviolent methods of change and the conversation flowed into Myanmar and how the lady (how the president of the democratic party is known) is like a modern day version of those two. Anyways, there was another election recently, and the NLD won again with an 88% majority and the military is slowing releasing power. This election just happened in November and the lady should be appointed officially in March, so this whole situation is still very new and the world is waiting to see how it plays out this time. The lady has been the hope of the country for many years now and her father was know as the father of the country before he was assassinated many years ago.
Definitely a topic worth researching some more. I plan on doing so when I get back since the internet on this ship is terrible.

Anyways, I'll get to how I spent my days here. I definitely spent more time on vacation in this port than any other, but still got to talk with locals and see the real conditions. This country, along with Vietnam are places in where I saw real poverty and I know India is next where poverty will be even worse, but it really is enlightening to see these things. You hear about poverty in these 3rd world countries and you are able to brush it off because it is so far away, but when you are in it and you see the conditions and somewhat experience the conditions...it makes you look at the world in a new light.

Also, the people of Myanmar were even nicer than those in Vietnam. They were always happy and willing to help without expecting anything in return. This quality, I would guess, comes from the Bhuddist teachings in this country where a large majority of the population is Bhuddist, As we learned from the Unan the monk we had on board, the teachings of Bhudda are more centralized in man than a God per say. A perfect quote from him, which I was going to use last, but I guess it fits here; "Happiness. I am trying to find happiness inside. I try to realize the nature of peoples 'badness'. Let yourself be happy. Happiness depends on your own heart. If your heart is happy, you will be too." - Unan. I won't go into the different sects of Bhuddism, but they all basically say for monks to not have desire, to not want, to not become reliant on physical objects, but to be happy, to not let others effect your perceptions, and to help others.

If you can't tell, Myanmar, its people, and its religion fascinate me. But to my itinerary...

Day 1:
The first day, we got into port around 1300. We actually arrived at one of the country's largest industrial ports and had to have a shuttle that took us 5 minutes to get to the gate of the port, then there was another shuttle which took us between 1-2 hours to get to the city center of Yangon (Rangoon) depending on traffic. I'll talk about the traffic story in day 2, but its all pretty interesting since Myanmar just started getting a ton of cars in 2012 when international sanctions were lifted. Anyways, I had a program this night and didn't have enough time to get to the city and back before the program left so I ended up staying on the ship until 1715. I kind of regret this decision in buying the program in general and also in staying on the ship until the program because I ended up spending the majority of my time in the country at Ngwe Saung Beach which was 5 hours away from the port. So I wished I had had more time to spend in the city and also at the festival which was about 10 minutes away from our port by taxi. So I also wished that I had got off the ship as soon as I got into port and went to the festival because I heard it was very interesting between the shopping options, the man-rotated ferris wheels, and the children that constantly came up to other SASers (semester at sea students) with buckets asking for money. Unfortunately, I stayed on the ship and took a nap before my program which was a really nice dinner at a restaurant in the city. I also had a field lab the next day, so I had to be back on the ship by 0000. The dinner was at a really nice restaurant and we ate outside on like a lawn. There was also a traditional dance performance while we ate. Honestly, it was the best bread and butter I have ever had in my life, like life changing bread and butter. The rest of the meal was good too, but a lot of people were pretty full from the bread and butter because we kept asking for more. It took about an hour to get back to the ship and we got back right around 1030. That was it for my night.

Day 2:
The second day I had a field lab for my finance class. This included a trip to the World Bank office in Myanmar and also a local grain farmer/ business owner. The trip to the World Bank was very insightful because it gave light to the financial background of Myanmar during its time as a closed country and a more recent picture of the country's financial affairs. Myanmar, like I said before, had just been opened to investment from the west and we could see how opening the country's borders caused a huge inflow of automobiles, but the infrastructure such as roads are not advanced enough to handle all of these new cars. Thus, there was a lot of traffic getting to and from this field lab and getting to and from the city in general. Some of the most important take-aways from the visit to the World Bank was that there are entities like the World Bank and its subgroup, the IFC, that are putting money into the country, but it only amounts to $1.4 billion dollars worth of projects so far. And if you know anything about how much it costs to make roads, you'd know that $1.4 billion is not going to get you a ton of road. But the investment is coming in and its also coming from other Asian countries. Additionally, at the grain farmer/ business owners office, he explained how he ad two office locations and he would go to he market every day from 10am to 1pm and try to sell his grains along with the other 2000 grain producers. He also talked about how he is undercut by others and how small corporations are formed between foreign sellers and domestic sellers because foreign sellers aren't allowed to sell grain in Myanmar. Last fun fact is that only 10% of the grain produced in Myanmar is used in country, the other 90% is exported. Great stuff, I had to write a field lab report on the trip, so I'm kind of tired of writing about it. SO, on to the fun stuff. We got back to the ship from the field lab right around 1730 which was perfect because some people had 2000 and 2100 buses that they had to catch back past the city and plus an additional hour. I relaxed for a bit, and then headed out with my group of 6 as it as one person's birthday, so her bestfriend planned a trip to a beach about 5 hours away from the port. We left the ship pretty late because we thought we were gonna get a hotel in the city, then travel the 5 hours on the first bus in the morning to Ngwe Saung beach. That did not happen. Not even close. So, we left the ship late like I said and decided to get some dinner because most of us were starving. We got to the city centre on a free shuttle provided by SAS before 2200 and started to look for a place that had wifi and food. SOme of the group had gone out on Day 1, so they had a place in mind, and we went straight there after getting slightly lost. During dinner, we almost booked a hotel but then suddenly changed our minds because the bus station was one hour away from our current location and the bus was at like 700. So like what sense did it make paying for a hotel if we only needed to be there for 6 hours. Why not just find a 24 hour establishment and just hang out there?! Well this is technically where day 2 ends because it was 0000 when we left the restaurant.

Day 3:
So we leave the restaurant and start walking aimlessly to find the 24 hour place that had wifi and things. By 0100 hours everyone is pretty tired of looking for this place and some people have to go to the bathroom. Apparently, while we were trying to find this place, some strange guy that we passed started following us for a couple blocks ( I didn't see this happen or think it happened because when I turned around there was no one there or he had stopped following us). But we had passed a couple of hotels and kinda gave up on this 24 hour place that we couldnt find. So, we tried to go back to one of the hotels so we could go to the bathroom and probably end up getting a room because everyone was tired and its extremely muggy in Myanmar so everyone wanted to shower. We had passed a hotel like 15 minutes prior and started to walk back towards it but found a bigger and better hotel on the way back and by then it was around 0130. The hotel had a worker walking around serving juice to people in the lobby because there was another group that was much larger than ours that was in the process of checking in to the hotel. Those who had to go to the bathroom, went and the rest of us went to the front desk to ask for the price of a room. The rooms were super expensive, like $150-$160 for the night and we only needed it for like 4.5 hours by now. So there was a divide in the group of whether to go to a different hotel to try to find a room or just stay in the nice, air conditioned, mosquito free lobby until they kicked us out and then look for another place from there. We ended up leaving immediately, much to my discontent, and started walking to find this 24 hour place/ a hotel to stay in. Turns out, we had walked past the 24 hour place...or at least where it used to be. The place was under construction. Absolutely tragic. It was 0200. We almost split up the group because people were tired an irrational but eventually ended up walking around to find another hotel. And if you can believe it, we actually had walked in a huge circle that brought us back to the ATM where we had started our journey in search for the hotel. This was just a couple blocks from the city centre where we were originally dropped off from the SAS shuttle. So we saw the hotel that we had walked past when we were getting money form the ATM earlier and tried to go in there get a room. They were out of rooms, so we left in search of a hotel with rooms available for just a few short hours before we had to go to the bus station. After stopping at 3 more hotels and being told that it was either too expensive or there were no rooms open, we tried going back to the hotel near the ATM and we asked if they could call us a cab to the bus station. Its 0300. So we wake up the guy at the front desk to ask him for a taxi and he calls a couple different places until he finally gets a person that will be there in 30min. We go to sit on the couches and some people have a problem with taking the taxi out to the bus station because its late and the bus station isnt near a city centre. So, we end up cancelling the taxi and try to wait in the lobby for a reasonable time to go to the bus station. However, the security guard of this hotel gets extremely passive aggressive and we decide to leave before anything happens. So its around 0315 ish and we're walking down one of the main street and end up deciding on going back to the city center and just waiting. So, we're outside at a bus stop, with rats crawling near us, mosquitos flying around us, and the occasional bat flying over head. During this time we see a person getting driving lessons in the bus stop area and he was struggling with the manual shift. Next, around 0400, we see 4 kids start to play soccer in the streets using shoes as their goals. Keep in mind its still very dark outside. Then more kids join and soon there is a 6 on 6 game of soccer going on. Around 0430 we decide to walk down the main street and see a pretty big hotel. After going through the metal detector, we ask the employee about the bus station that was an hour away and if he could call us a taxi to get there. The worker at this hotel says you have to buy tickets for the bus a day in advance and that there was probably no way that we would be getting on a bus that day and we would have to wait until tomorrow. We asked him if he could call the company to see if there were any seats available. He said that they didn't open until 0530, but he would call then and said that we could stay in the massive lobby until then. Full of relief we went to sit down and most of us dozed off for the 45min to an hour we had to wait. Turns out the employee was correct and there weren't any more seats on the bus but he said that our little group of 6 could get a private taxi for like $300 to the beach. At this point we decided to take the offer since we had already booked hotel rooms for this night. We ended up getting a better deal of $250 and the taxi got there at 0615. So we started the journey to Ngwe Saung beach and within minutes of leaving the hotel we were all dead asleep. Most of us woke up around 1100 to find that we were still an hour and a half away so we just starred out the windows until we got there. The roads were tiny and could not really fit two way car traffic, so one car would have to pull slightly off the road when they passed each other. And when there was a bus coming, it was either pull completely off the road or get your car destroyed. Driving customs are very different in Myanmar and they also had vehicles where the driver was on the right side of the car, but they also drove on the right side of the road which was pretty interesting. We eventually got there and enjoyed the best hotel in the area. We were a bit early for check in, but one of the rooms we got was ready and we all just went there, put on our bathing suits, and went down to the beach. After was the swimming pool and there was also a village/shopping area about a ten minute walk away from our hotel. So we went there, then came back to swim a bit more until the pool closed and got dinner. The food at this hotel was some of the best I've ever had for such low prices. After dinner we took a walk in the opposite direction on the village and thats a story for another time.

Day 4:
We started the day early with a trip to a place where we got to ride elephants that was about 30 minutes away from our hotel. Afterwards we got to feed the elephants sugar cane which was a lot of fun and we took a ton of pictures. We got back to the hotel and we were going to go do some water sports that the hotel offered but it was pretty expensive and not everyone wanted to do it. We ended up hanging around and taking naps for the next couple or hours then having lunch. But we did get the chance to ride ATVs for 1hr30min on the beach. We went all the way down the beach front, then on our way back, stopped at this sand bar called lover's island where the path was only available during low tide. It was a ton of fun and costs less than $15 for the 1hr30min, but I did here some other people who got to ride motor bikes for the whole day for just $2 for the day. Anyways, after we got back, we relaxed some more, sat by the pool and then had dinner for the birthday girl. Dinner ended super late though and we were supposed to go out, but all of us ended up passing out. Also, we were originally gonna leave on a bus around 8am on day 5, but during the day decided that we would stay until around 1pm and then take our private shuttle back to the ship. It only ended up costing like $150 total going back, but thats for day 5.

Day 5:
With all of our excess time since we were leaving at 1-2pm now and it was a 5-6 hour drive and on ship time wasnt until 10pm, we decided to make our last day pretty exciting. Or at least 2 of us did. We took an early morning boat out to an island about 45min away to go snorkeling. Originally we were gonna go scuba diving but we didnt really have the time for it because I've never been trained before so I would have had to go through the session and it took way to long. It was also cheaper for snorkeling, so we decided on that. It was quite amazing and we saw a ton of fish. At one point the current got kinda strong and smashed us into to some semi sharp rocks so we were bleeding a bit, luckily there were no sharks around. But we ended up snorkeling for about 1hr30min then decided to head back so we would have time for a quick swim, shower, and lunch. I also had time for a one hour Thai massage which was life changing even though I was kinda of sleep through most of it. The lunch was great as it had been during our whole stay and we got into the private shuttle and headed back to the ship. It did get a little stressful because the trip ended up taking 7 hours instead of 6 hours because of the terrible traffic and our driver was driving slowly, but we made it with 45minutes to spare before 10pm and we did not get dock time!

Thats pretty much it for Myanmar, I do hope to visit again soon!


























 

Black History Month Performance and Other Things

So this post will be a short one. It'll be about the Diversity and Inclusion Black History Month Performance, the Sea Olympics, and me being a super sailor which all happened in the 5 day transit from Vietnam to Myanmar about a week ago.

So, the black history month performance was amazing. We had poems, dance, slave letters, stepping and a lot more people than we expected stayed to watch the performance. It was right after our cultural pre-port for Myanmar which talked about all cultural and social issues in Myanmar. We also had a monk from Myanmar on our voyage and he was there to watch our performance. But yea, the performance started from African Royalty with one of the professors on the ship, then there was poems and slave letters, then african dance, then stepping (which i performed in), then more recent poems and then a final song.

The day before was the Sea Olympics which is like a day off class where we have a ton of activities and we're separated into our seas (which is determined by where we live on the ship and then the professors, faculty, kids all had their own sea). There was 3 on 3 basketball on the basketball court that was just built about 2 weeks ago now. Also, it wasnt real basketball because there was no out of bounds and people were like playing football and just tackling each other. Everyone who played got turf burns from diving on the ball or being thrown to the ground. But there was also tug of war, a lip sync, musical chairs, and synchronized swimming which were all scattered throughout the day started at 1300 and lip sync being our last activity at 2000. I was a sea captain, meaning I had to do some extra administrative stuff for events and get my sea energized during events. It was a ton of fun.

And finally, during our logistical pre-port I was recognized as a super sailor which is: "Recognizing our Super Sailors: Email adminoffice@semesteratsea.org with names (first AND last) of those who have gone above and beyond to make this a wonderful voyage through random acts of kindness or overall positive energy" And so there was a raffle for the super sailors for a free smoothie and I won it! So that was a lot of fun.

My next post, which will hopefully be before I get to India. It will be the post about Myanmar. The reason I say hopefully is because I had a quiz yesterday, a midterm today, and have a 4 page single spaced report due in 2 days...so when I get all that dione, I'll write my post on Myanmar.

Until Then.

 

Vietnam!!!

Sorry for the wait. Also our Vietnam portion was only 4 days instead of 5, but I still made the most out of it! Also, there were mopeds everywhere! They rule the road and we almost got into at least 20 accidents by the end of the four days. The rules of the road are closer to guidelines and at times people would just drive on the wrong side of the road. And there would be a whole family on the moped, like 4 people... crazy.
 

3 words for Vietnam:
Sticky, Pulsating, Humble

The first word obviously refers to the climate of the area. It was hot and most of the time, even during the night, it felt as if we were swimming through the air! Pulsating is for how lively Vietnam was between the city of Ho Chi Minh but also the villages surrounding the Mekong Delta that I visited. This word was probably a bit magnified because it was Tet/ Lunar New Year/ Chinese New Year. For the holiday, people have a couple weeks off of work and most businesses shut down because this time of the year is focused on the family. The first couple of days we got there, the big market was actually closed, but a make shift version of it was set up on the outside of the building where the market was. Gotta make that money. My third word, humble, refers to the people themselves. They were all very kind towards us as Americans and willing to help us with directions. This was especially illustrated by the taxis and how they refused to start the meter or leave from our initial location before knowing exactly where we wanted to go. We had to use sign language, maps, and anything else we could because most taxi drivers didn't speak much English.

Overview of my 4 days:
Day 1
We got into Vietnam around 1pm and started the immigration process and things. A few of us (15-20) decided to get a villa outside the city of Ho Chi Minh. So that was our first destination as we got off the ship after the post office. There was a short 10 minute shuttle from the ship to the post office, which had ATMs and currency exchanges and even a market. Anyways, 3 taxis and a Starbucks later, we ended up outside a hotel that was close to our Air Bnb. But the adrees given to us on teh AirBnb was just the street name, with no real specific address. So After all three groups/taxis got to the Starbucks, we tried to ask the workers about the address, the hotel staff across the street, and nobody knew anything about anything. Just that this was the street it was near. About 30 minutes later, after sending out some scouts, we found the place and it was a beautiful home. 3 floors, huge living room, fish pond with greenery all around the house, and a huge speaker. We went out to eat and to the Ben Thanh Market, but the day was pretty uneventful as we were all tired from trying to find the AirBnb and there was a huge speaker in the house....soooo we stayed in for the night. The market was pretty fun though. The actual market was closed because of Tet, but some of the sellers had posted up outside the building and were still selling as if it were a normal business day. We walked around the whole outside market which probably stretched about a mile to a mile and a half down different streets and everything. I got some pretty cool new clothes and I got to bargain again which was a ton of fun. After that we headed back to the AirBnb around 9 ish.

Day 2
Of course I had a Field program this day and had to be back on the ship by 730 in the morning. A couple other people had programs at the same time too, so we all left the villa together around 5am and got to the ship before 530am. This was the best field program I have had yet! It was called the Mekong Delta Overnight and included a 2 hour bus ride to the ferry that took us 10minutes away to the Mekong Delta Lodge. This was followed by some time to drop our stuff off, pool time, lunch, and things. Next, was my personal favorite, which was a 10km bike ride through the villages, and then more time to relax and cooking dinner that night. So, the 2 hour bus ride wasn't too bad because our tour operator was great. His name was Ho and by the end of our short 36 hours together he had invited us to contact him the next time we were in Vietnam and to also stay connected through email. On a side note, it is really amazing the relationships that can be formed in such short periods of times with locals and tour guides and many many people. As I talked about earlier, this was extremely easy to do in Vietnam because the people were just so friendly and happy. Anyways, the Mekong Delta Lodge was beautiful and lunch was excellent. We had about a hour and a half between arriving and lunch, so most of us got in the pool because it was super hot and humid outside. After lunch, we had more free time to relax around the lodge and I scheduled a 35 minute foot massage for after our bike ride for just $6. It's amazing how cheap everything in Vietnam is and in case any one is wondering about the exchange rate, its about 22000 Vietnamese Dong to 1 dollar. The bike ride was amazing. We rode through villages and everyone in the villages was so happy/surprised to see us and everyone said hi as we passed. On a side note, some of these roads in the villages were 4-5 feet wide and were meant for two way traffic. A couple mopeds sped by us and one person in our group almost ended up in the river as we were biking. There were people blasting music for the holiday that sounded more than like techno than anything else. I also had my speaker to play music as we biked through the areas without music. We stopped in one of the villages for light refreshments including some mangos and some other fruits that I hadn't seen before. We also saw a traditional performance including dancing and singing from the local villagers. After, we went started the trek back to the lodge which didnt take too long. We had to take a couple ferrys across the Mekong Delta which was really cool because the ferrys were especially for two-wheeled vehicles. Anyways, we got back to the lodge early and most of us went to the pool for the second time that day. We were actually able to get our massages moved to right near the pool instead of our rooms and they led right into dinner. Dinner was another great part of this field program because we got to make the wantons and deep-fried spring rolls we ate. Vietnam, like China, also has the million course meals that seem to never end and the chef cooked extra dishes that we hadn't prepared in our session. After we finished preparing the wantons and spring rolls to be fried, a couple of us got to help stir one of the dishes and apparently when I stirred I "added the soul to the food" haha as one of the Vietnamese cooks said. After dinner some people went back to the pool and stayed up talking near the bar, but I was exhausted and fell asleep. It was like between 8 or 9pm and I didn't wake up until around 9 am.

Day 3
Welp, breakfast was at like 7 or 8am, so I missed that. I ended up just showering and getting ready for our leave at 10am. We hopped back on the boat/ferry that originally took us to the lodge and then got back on our tour bus. I forgot to mention, but our tour guide, Ho, brought his nephew on the tour and he answered a lot of our questions about Vietnam too. Anyways, we ended up walking through another village and seeing one of the rice/caramel factories. We were explained the process of how everything worked and everything is recycled and has a purpose. We also saw some snake vodka stuff and which was like fermented rice with a snake in it for some reason. Speaking of snakes, apparently its common for people in Vietnam to own Pythons because they are pretty low maintenance and only eat once a month. So I ended up holding a 7ft python at one point in the day and afterwards we went to the gift shop where I got some of the cool snacks that they had just showed us how they made. After this we saw a church and then took another ferry/boat back to our bus that took us back to the ship. We stopped along the way at one of the biggest rest stops on the way to the Mekong Delta for a great lunch. We got ice cream and everything before we continued out journey to the ship. Most of us fell asleep like the rest of our bus rides. Once we got back to the ship, I packed up some more things and headed back to our villa because it was a friend's birthday and we ended up going out that night after ordered from a bbq restaurant in the area. The reason for this restaurant choice was because the people at our preport for Vietnam said to be cautious of the food because its not all cleaned properly or properly stored. Yet, some how some of us still ended up with Traveler's diarrhea by the time we were back on the ship. Tragic.

Day 4
Another semi-early morning, but I couldn't leave the AirBnb until the maid got there so I could give her the keys. After that I dropped off some stuff at the ship and headed back into town near the post office and Ben Thanh Market. We started by going to the War Museum which the Vietnamese call the "American War" The museum was beyond moving and really teaches you that there are really at least two sides to every story. Even with all the horrific acts committed during the war, the Vietnamese people were still so kind to us as Americans which I found astounding. After the museum I headed to Ben Thanh Market to get the full experience since it was kind of closed when I went on the first day. I actually ended up seeing one of the girls I bought some pants from on the first day and she remembered me and invited me out to get drinks with her and her friends that night. But of course I had to decline because we had to be on the ship by 10pm, absolutely tragic. Anyways, the market was a lot of fun when it was actually open and afterwards I got some food and a massage before heading back to the ship. 

That's pretty much it for Vietnam. That was a few days ago though and a lot has happened on the ship since leaving Vietnam. That'll be in my next post probably in like 24-36 hours from now because there was the Diversity and Inclusion Black History Month Performance, Sea Olympics, and I'm a super sailor!

Quote of Vietnam:
"To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test you limits, that is the courage to succeed"



 

China and Hong Kong

My 3 words for China/Hong Kong:

Beautiful, Congested, Smog

The views from the Great Wall were gorgeous, the cities were congested and covered with a layer of smog which you can see in most of my pictures.

Sooooo, because of a comment on my last blog post from someone about drinking too much, I have to decided to not include those stories in these posts anymore lol. It is a filler between the end of the day and our next morning which we spend socializing, but watevs. The story goes on.

Brief as can be overview:
First day started in Shanghai where I had my field lab that was supposed to go the Coca-Cola factory but didnt because of the Chinese/lunar new year and it was also a Sunday, so it was closed. We ended up going to the Marriot instead. Also talked to some relatively local high school Chinese students about studying abroad. Later in the night included a dinner at Lost Heaven, and other things that shall remained unmentioned.

Second day included a very long trip to Beijing through buses, trains, planes, and everything between. We had a great family style dinner where the plates never stopped coming and afterwards headed to our hotel.

Third day was where the true adventure started because we had a 10km walk on the wall which turned into a 10 mile hike instead because of some things I'll mention later. After this hike in the non-touristy parts of the wall, true exhaustion set in.

Fourth day included part 2 of our great wall hike, but it was in the more touristy parts and also was wayyyyyy steeper than the previous day. Like basically straight up the mountain range. Luckily, it only lasted for half of the day and we had another fantastic dinner at one of the best duck restaurants in Beijing. According to our tour guide for the program, in Beijing, one must do 3 things, visit the wall, visit the forbidden city, and finally, visit this duck restaurant!

This leads me into my fifth day where we did in fact visit the Forbidden City which is a lot bigger than you would think. In the old ages it is where the emperor would live which had huge walls to protect the emperor, so the city its self was a good 2-3 hour walk with all the people we had. After this we took buses, trains, and planes to Hong Kong, which, I learned, is a very sensitive topic for the Chinese population. We were explicitly told not to talk about it or we could be put in jail....soo we didn't talk about it.

The sixth day I woke up super late (not because of drinking, just exhaustion)...like 11am and we had to be back on the ship by 6pm, so I hurried to get ready and got on one of the free shuttles to the city of Hong Kong and went to the Black Market for my last time in the area. I did get back to the ship on time which was good.

Bad news came that night though because we were told that we would be setting anchor right outside of Hong Kong because we were waiting for the seas between HK and Vietnam to settle down. Apparent 20ft swells kept us in the HK area an extra day, so we will be exactly 24 hours late to Vietnam and we will still be leaving on time. So that means 4 days instead of 5 for Vietnam which changes alot of the trips that were scheduled to go to Cambodia and absolutely destroyed the plans of people who planned to travel independently. Luckily, I hadn't made any plans yet, so no money was wasted here!

Day 1:
So like I said, Day 1 was at one of the Marriots in the city of Shanghai. It's lobby is on the 38th floor and it has all glass windows so people can get a 360 view of the city...when its not too smoggy outside. We got a full tour of all the types of rooms except for the executive suite because they were all booked. Also got a special tour up to the highest library in the world on the 58th floor of the hotel and got to go through a "harry potter" door that led outside in the book stacks as the hotel manager calls it. The view was amazing and I got some great photos up there of the city. This was followed by lunch and a talk with a few execs from the hotel about general Marriot stuff and their other brands. Apparently its pretty easy to get promoted once you're in the hotel business in China just because the economy is emerging quickly and their is a greater demand for hotels in the region and this of course leads to the construction of many new hotels. Speaking of emerging markets, that is the class that this field lab was for, so it was pretty cool to hear about it. After our morning at the hotel, we headed to a restaurant in the financial district of Shanghai and met with some high school students from the Shanghai region. Some of them were from different provinces near by and traveled up to 2 hours to get there and a lot of them were really shy. We talked a bit about our program because all of the students did want to study abroad at some point in their college career. Interesting contrast from US and China is their college entrance exam. So we have the SAT or ACT which we study for a few weeks or hire tutors for and things. But in China, the studying for their college entrance exam takes an entire year essentially and because there are not enough of universities to accommodate all of the students who would like to attend college, the exam is a very stressful part of the students' lives. One recently graduate high school student was telling us how he went to school from 6 or 7am and did not go home until 10pm just studying for this exam. He also did not have weekends, so this studying, which lasted for about 11 months, was done without a weekend and without breaks essentially. The reason for this is because the top businesses all hire from the top universities and the top universities only pick those with the highest schools. And of course there is a huge gap between these top universities and the rest to make things worse. Crazy stuff. Anyways after that ended, we went back to the ship and I got ready to go out to dinner at Lost Heaven which was recommended to us by a person from the embassy in China. He was on the ship for a couple days and actually came to a few classes on the ship including my finance class. But that's pretty much it for the first day.

Day 2:
Long nights. early mornings. repeat. So I signed up for the Hiking the Great Wall field program, so we had a 2 hour bus ride from the ship to airport in Shanghai. The airports in China are massive! Crazy. But we had a flight from Shanghai to Beijing, another 1.5 hour bus ride to dinner, then another 45min bus ride to our hotel. The flight was awesome, they had like games and movies and TV shows on the TV that was on the seat in front of you. They served lunch on the flight. It was quite excellent. Also, planes in China don't land at the terminal. They kinda just land in a safe zone out in the airfield and then you take a bus from the plane to the terminal which was super crowed. Like the bus was full already, then 50 more people got on it because there was only 2 buses for our flights to get back to the terminal. Let's just say we got real close on that bus ride. Fast forward to dinner, which was family style, and we had everything, its like the plates never stopped coming. There was white rice (which always came near the end), eggplant dish, mushroom and fungus dish, orange chicken strips, soup (which meant the meal was over), pork dishes, beef dishes and like 6 other dishes. Anyways, after that great meal, we headed to our no star hotel. It was beautiful. I really wish I could send pictures through this because my explanation simply won't do this hotel justice. It looked like one of the upscale hotels you might find in Vegas, but it was located within a mile of the Great Wall. You could actually see the Great Wall from our hotel with all its lights and everything, it was gorgeous.

Day 3:
We started very very early in the morning. We had to eat breakfast, be packed for the day, and on the bus by 830 for our hike of the Great Wall. It was freezing cold that morning, but as soon as we started climbing the endless stairs to get to the low point of the wall, everyone was sweating. Not the best combination with the sweating and it being below freezing but its all a part of the adventure. We actually ended up walking on a part of the wall that if often not viewed by tourist because its a bit older, more unsteady and things, but its was a ton of fun. The views from the mountain range were breath taking, just like the stairs we had just climbed so there was a severe lack of oxygen. Anyways, we got to the half-way point where we had lunch and guess what lunch was?! You guessed it! McDonalds. It was the only thing close enough to the mountain that could be carried up before getting cold...so that's what we had. Also had the hot milk tea, coffee, hot water, coke, and sprite. Everyone was freezing by this point as we had just hiked approx. 5 miles in the mountains. And I don't know how else to stress this, but if you have ever seen a mountain range, it goes up a few hundred feet, then down a few hundred feet, back and forth. So we were all exhausted as well. And you would think that going down would be easy, but this was the part of the wall that hadn't been kept up as well and not seen as many refurbishing projects if you will. So going down was just a hard as going up because the stairs were uneven and one missed step meant you were taking the fast way down a mountain. Also we walked across quite a few 4-5wide parts of the wall soooo, pretty close to falling off the whole time, but I still had a great time. Anyways, after lunch, we had to go down the mountain because we had gotten really close to a military zone the wall and its really just never smart to trespass on military territory, soooo we went down. Through the forest, dirt, snow. It was a pretty rough walk down. People fell quite a few times. Luckily, I remembered that I had my speakers and they seemed to cheer everyone up because everyone was pretty tired at that point. I thought we had finished to be honest, because after we stopped for lunch I was about ready to sleep. But we had only finished half, so we were walking through the valley for about an hour before heading back to the top of the mountain, past 5 more towers, and finally finished for the day. Golly, that was the best night of sleep I have ever had. But, before that happened, we went back to the hotel and most of us went to this little water village amusement park type thing right next to our hotel.It was somewhat like a water village, but not quite, still beautiful at night though.

Day 4:
Another day, another hike. We had to be out of the hotel by 8 and completely packed up because this was our last night at that hotel. So we hiked one of the more touristy sections and man-o-man was it steep. It seemed like we were climbing vertically and some points and the same when trying to get back down. The stairs didn't help at all either because they were more uneven than the first day and a bit more crumbly as well. But the views on top were more than worth the stairs. It felt like we were literally on top of the world in some of the towers. The 36t0 views, the beauty, and it was fantastic that it was sunny because apparently the views are not that nice because of the smog. That hike was much shorter than the day before and we had the music going the whole time. It was like a 25 minute walk down stairs and rock to get down from the mountain this day, but it was all so beautiful that we were kind of sad that the hike was so short. We took the buses into the city of Beijing and went to that famous duck place. On our way, we went through a police check with guards holding M-16s. On a side note, because this just reminded me, the second day in the Shanghai airport, we saw airport security/police with M-16s riding on the little golf cart things. M-16s everywhere. But I digress. The duck restaurant was amazing and they cut the duck right in front of us. Duck is actually pretty good, but jellyfish are terrible. Jellyfish was one of the other dishes we were served at some point and I was being adventurous and trying everything and I found out that fungus/mushrooms and jellyfish really are not for me. At some point in this day we also went to the black market where I bought any and everything. Apparently I am really good at bargaining because I got most of the things for a tenth of the original price. Other people were paying at least half the price or even full price. Crazy Stuff. This night, we stayed at a Holiday Inn in the city of Beijing and it was the hotel that two other field programs were staying at so there were about 200 SAS students in that hotel. I'll just leave that there.

Day 5:
Of course another early morning leading us to the Forbidden City. Had to be out of the hotel and on the bus by 730. We had like an hour bus ride to the Forbidden City and I slept the entire way. Got up and walked through the Forbidden City for a couple hours. Saw a lot and heard a lot about the emperors many concubines haha. Apparently one emperor had over 3,000 and another emperor was stabbed by one of his. Most of the emperors were extremely paranoid because they always thought someone was trying to kill them, and they were right, but sounds like a crazy life to live. We took a group photo outside of the Forbidden City and that was great. We were all pretty worn out from the two days of hiking and the city seemed like it was endless. There were also 2 basketball courts inside the city which was pretty cool to see and there were guards everywhere. We left there and headed to another fantastic family style meal which also had many dishes. After that, we headed to the airport, I got a picture with Ning, our tour guide, and we were off to Hong Kong. Our plane left about 30 minutes late, we almost left one of the students because he wanted to get pizza hut instead of getting to the terminal, where we took a bus to the plane. But he ended up making it. We arrived late in HK and then lost a student between the terminal and immigration, so we had to wait 30 minutes before we decided to start walking. He found us on our way to the bus that was going to take us to the ship. So we didn't get back to the ship until 2330ish and I ended up going back out to get some dinner with a couple of friends because I had missed dinner on the plane due to being sleep. So we left the ship around 0045 ish and didnt get back until super late.

Day 6:
By far the most uneventful day, simply because I didnt wake up until 11 and was going to leave at 12 but all the free shuttle had just left like 15 minutes before I got there. So I waited until 1300 and was going to go to the city alone, but some people hopped on the same bus I was on and I was in a group project with one of them so I just tagged along. We ended up at the Black market by about 1400 and keep in mind, we had to be back on the ship after security and immigration by 1800, so we were kind of cutting it close. The black market was fund again and I got to bargain for some aviators and a few other souvenirs. We grabbed lunch at a McDonalds and most of us got the prosperity burger. It was chicken with hash brown on top and was delicious. They need to have it back in the states. We ended up making it back to the ship with more than enough time to spare.

But we should be docked in Vietnam in around 12 hours, so that's exciting. I really want to go to the war museum and also check a couple of markets on the first day, so hopefully stuff will be open even though its Tet.

We've been practicing our performance for the Diversity and Inclusion group which is on the 16th of this month so that's exciting. Other than that, the homework is kind of starting to pile up and become a difficult with all the field lab reports and papers in general we have to write.

But that's pretty much it. Ummm I'll have phone service for the next 4-5 days and I have unlimited text messaging so hit me up I suppose. Turns out I don't have service in Burma, so I'll be off the grid except for these blog posts after Vietnam and Burma. We also have about 5 days of traveling between Vietnam and Burma, sooo thats exciting I guess. Sad to see the voyage is nearly half over and while my time in country feels like months are going by, every time I get back on the boat it reminds me that this voyage is flying by. So I'm trying to make the most out of each day, whether its on the ship or in country.

I had something else to type, but it has alluded me. It's also past 1am so I'm gonna head to bed because I have to be up at 8am to arrange some last minute travel plans for tomorrow.

Quotes of China:
"We must travel together like sticky rice" - Ning our tour guide because we had 46 people and some would always fall behind.

Also another great quote from Ning. He was talking about drinking after our hikes or going into Beijing on our last night and someone asked him about a Fake ID. He said, "Fake ID? Like you're playing in the movie or something? That's really cool for you. It's like you are FBI agent or something" - Ning

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving"

Random Thought:
At one point in the voyage I received a fortune telling me that I had great luck and that I should gamble. I was going to try my fortune in Macau which is located near Hong Kong, but we got there was too late on Day 5 to try to get there. I wonder how long fortunes last. Also we moved back another hour, so now we're only 12 hours ahead of the east coast.

 

Japan

Three Words for Japan:

Safe, Nice, and Clean

I'll come back to those three words in a bit, but first I'll attempt a day by day of my trip.

The first day Mani's (friend on the ship) Japanese friends that did a study abroad at her school last year, showed us around yokohama and kamakura city including temples and a big Bhuddha. That night included a karaoke bar until 6am. The next morning aka like three hours later, was a trip to Honkomagome where our groups AirBnB was located for the night. We woke up late of course because we didn't sleep until 6am, so after a few hours on trains and struggling we finally made it to the area where our AirBnb was. We were walking around literally half a block from the place for at least 20min until we gave up with directions and messaged the Air Bnb guy and he came running out in the street to find us. The space was pretty nice for the 12 of us. One big room, 8 beds, very little heat (or we just couldn't figure out how to work it), one toilet, one shower. Seems small but from what other people talked about this place was a palace for the amount of people we had. For those who don't know and I just figured out less than a week ago, Japan is the size of Cali with 4x the population or something like that. Living spaces are tiny and cramped. Anyways, because only 6 of us went to the Air Bnb to start with, we had to wait on the rest of the rest of the group because they had field labs (field trips) for their classes. We decided to go to a Starbucks in Shibuya (kinda in/near Tokyo) to view the busiest crosswalk in the world. If any of you have ever witness a commercial with what looked like a million people and cars flying by, it was most likely shot at this cross walk. About an hour after we got there we ended up having to head back because the second group was headed to the Air BnB and there was only one key, so we were gonna go back to meet them, go to dinner, then go out. We got there, they got there, there was alcohol everywhere and we started the going out process a little early. We conversed about our first days and the very long trip getting to the Air BnB in Honkogome. Eventually we made the move back to the Shibuya area for our late night excursions and ended up in a hole-in-the-wall bar. We then walked around to find another Karaoke bar which was a lot more fun the first night and a couple of us dozing off, some of us decided to head to the famous fish market. But first food! There was a McDonalds across the street which had an amazing chicken sandwhich, but right after we decided to head to the fish market. Keep in mind its just before 4am and you're supposed to be in the fish market before 4am to see the good part. We ask a cop outside the McDonalds and after some brief sign-language and bad translations, we figured out where we needed to go and got a taxi to the fish market. We didn't get there until 4:25 and it was freezing outside. We walk around aimlessly for 20 minutes through open buildings and everywhere until we get the background area of the fish markets. Little trucks speeding around corners, not really caring if they ran into our small little group of 4 or not. We almost got ran over a couple times, first by the little trucks, then a scooter. We got pretty far behind the restricted area until an officer came up to us and pulled out a sign that said "restricted area please leave"  So that was the end of that, but we walked around a bit more, outside of the restricted area, and happened upon a temple thing and finally decided it was time to get back to the Air Bnb for a few hours of sleep. We got a taxi, got back and passed out by around 6am. The group who stayed at the karaoke bar had got back 30min before us, so they were sound asleep. I, being exhausted from two days of 5 hours of sleep total, slept until like 1pm, which i deeply regret, but there were 5 of us still there at 1. So we all started to get ready and headed out to the city for some shopping. We stopped at KFC on our way out. If you're thinking we only ate at American food places...you're wrong, I just remember the names of those. We had plenty of traditional Japanese food, along with the occasional Chinese food. Anyways, the 5 of us went to the bus station, which was a long story, but in the end 8 of us grabbed our bus tickets and then went to one of the biggest malls in Shinjuku. Our same group of 4 that went to the fish market the previous night, decided that the mall wasnt for us, so we went exploring through Shinjuku which was so beautiful. We walked around for a couple of hours, before having to head back to AirBnB because we had to catch our 2230 overnight bus to Kobe. We planned to meet at 2030 at the AirBnB and our group of four (we had the key) were about 20min late. BUT we would have been on time if the train had come on time. It was 20 minutes late and apparently there was an accident on the rails. But we finally made it to the Air BnB and of course tensions were high between everyone. We had about 15 minutes to pack up every thing from the AirBnB and head back to Shinjuku to catch our bus. So everyone packed up in exactly 15minutes and we were on the move. BUT our train from Hokomagome to Shinjuku was delayed because of something and the emergency breaks were applied. By now its 2000 and we have an apparent 10-20minutes wait on this train + our 15 minute walk to the bus station from the Shinjuku train line. People are really starting to get anxious because most of us have already paid 5000 yen (~$42) for this bus and I have a field program early the next morning at the ship. Our bus happened to be the last bus that would get us to Kobe at 755 and I had to be at the ship by 810. So the train had stopped between stations. But pulled up to the next station and opened the doors and announcements on the train started happening in Japanese. We started to frantically shout out "ego" meaning english to any one on the train. 4 people jumped off the train as soon as the doors opened and decided it was best to take a taxi instead of train. One of the Japanese people told us that we would be leaving soon, so we tried to call to the other people back on the train. We didn't find out that they had made it to the train station until we all got there and saw them come up the stairs 5 minutes after we got there. Its about 2215 and we book it to the bus station. We ended up being 10 minutes early but tensions were still high between a couple of people haha. We made it, what an adventure.

My field lab was filled with a bullet train to Hiroshima, a trip Miyajima island, which was very moving. We had a tour guide that explained a lot to us. We ended that day with a trip to the Hiroshima museum around 1700 and then we headed to our hotel. We ended up going out again in a city near Hiroshima and it was a crazy night. I met a guy that used to play at Ohio State University but decided to play in Japan professionally and got invited back when I'm near Osaka or Tokyo. In other news, a girl almost lost her passport and everything because she left in a taxi and I rode around with her all night trying to find it at the bars we went to. Turns out, she left it in the taxi and the taxi driver turned it into the front desk of our hotel. Another long night and just 2 hours of sleep for me, but the next day we had a bullet train to Kyoto where we saw 3 big temples and got to go shopping near one of the temples. I got plenty of key chains and post cards and things, but after that we were to the ship and off to China.

I slept the whole next day besides one of my classes and most of today as well (1/30).

On a side note to it all, the first day was awesome. I want to give a huge shoutout to Mai'i(Mani's friend)! She was the best tour guide of them all for our first day and dinner was amazing. We were also on Japanese TV because there was a journalists standing outside the Big Buddha place we went to go see. So he asked if he could video us while we were walking around the area and interviewed us after as well.

Oh yea! Japan was one of the safest places! Idk if you caught it, but a cab driver returned a passport, a phone, wallet and everything. Everything in Japan was super clean. There are not that many trash cans at all, and if there are, there are recycling bins separated into paper, glass, and plastic next to it. And the people were sooo nice. Some people would take time out of their days to walk us to our destinations that were 30 minutes away.

All I can say is that I am excited to be able to a have a few new friends in Japan to show me around again when I visit! It feels like the people I met, both in country and the people I met during the journey that are a part of SAS, have been my friends for life and I can't wait to travel with them in the rest our destinations.

We're already in China which is scary because I'm not quite sure I'm ready for this journey all over again. But we'll be docking in about 8 hours and my China adventure will begin.

Honestly don't think I could have pick a better Study abroad program.

Quote of the Day:

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them our eyes open"

"YATAAAAA"
 

Meetings and Japlans!

Yesterday (1/22) was another step towards our goals!

5 of us from the diversity and inclusion group got a meeting with the deans on the ship about certain incidents, but more importantly about how we can increase the number of conversations about diversity on the ship. There was an event we had today (1/23) called stranger danger dinning to try to get people to sit with people outside of their cliques. It was pretty successful during lunch, but was back to the same at dinner. The meeting with the dean's allowed some of us to voice our concerns about the level of diversity on our ship and what exactly the deans are doing to get people in the mindset that we, as a community, should be willing to fully engage with the cultures we will experience in each country. All-in-all, I believe the meeting could have gone better because all we did was talk about the problem, but not really talk about any possible solutions. The stranger danger dinner we had was a good first step, but there is definitely more that the deans could be doing to get people used to being around different people. As one of my peers put it, "Its like when we got on the ship everyone was put into a blender and people were new and wanted to interact with each other because no one knew each other. In other words, the blender was still on. But after the first few days, its like somebody stopped pressing the button on the blender and we started to separate into our different groups of people who are like us"

In other news, from yesterday (1/22), I got some midterms back, went to sleep between classes and debriefed with the other 5 students after our meeting with the deans. We all went to the diversity and inclusion meeting together later in the night and talk about what happened in the meeting with the deans and how we were expecting to have more meetings with them that were more solution based. After that meeting ended, most of stayed around afterwards to debrief that meeting as well and some of us ended up at the snack bar on the 6th deck just talking and relaxing for most of the night.

Also been slowing learning how to play the piano again. I had one girl teach me one song that I picked up pretty quickly and this other guy taught me "piano theory" which, from what he said, seemed like playing the same 5 notes, but in different pitches. It was pretty confusing, but when I get back on the ship from Japan, someone is going to teach me how to read music again :)

Speaking of Japan, Ill be there in a couple hours. I can already see the city out in the distance and I cant wait until we get there. It's like 2am here so technically its (1/24) but...yea. The plans for Japan, of Japlans as some people have been saying, are staying in Yokohama for the first day and exploring the area. The morning of (1/25) we're going to head to Tokyo to explore the city and stay right outside the city in an AirBnb. On (1/26) we'll be exploring the city again until we take an overnight train/bus to Kobe where I'll have my field program that goes to visit the temples in Kyoto and things.

Speaking of field programs, today in our logistical pre-port for Japan, somebody got on stage and talked about an IMPACT program that was in danger of being cancelled in India. The program is called, "Kranti workshop in Mumbai" and it is a program that is empowering girls from the red-light district to become agents of social change. After hearing about this program in our logistical pre-port, I signed up for it and cancelled my other field program that went to the Taj Mahal and tings like that. I'm pretty excited to be able to be a part of this IMPACT program in a month or so!

Also we only have like 6 days of classes in the 3 weeks because we're going to be in and out of ports, so my posts will probably be very spread over these next couple of weeks, but I will try to have a breakdown of each day when I do finally post them.

Can't wait for Japan! Probably gonna end up staying up for the rest of the night since I just drank a red bull. I also have to pack for what I'm taking into country but I'll probably do that a bit later. Unfortunately the immigration process for Japan is gonna take like 3 hours apparently so there's no need to be rushing in the morning.

That's pretty much the gist of my last couple of days. It seems like I've been on this boat for an entire semester already, but I'm still worrying that the rest of the semester is going to fly by.

Quote of the day:

"Travel is the only thing you spend money on that makes you richer"
"Tokyo is about to be lit"

 

Lock Down

20 foot swells!

So all the outside decks on the ship were closed pretty much all day. I did happen to get outside around 7 though before they closed everything down. A ton of people have been seasick since last night, so the ship was pretty quiet today.

I woke up early to fill out some applications and I have to somehow organize a skype interview while I'm in Japan, but its all part of the adventure.

It was Charles' birthday today, so we all chipped in for a ice cream cake and some cookies. It was also kind of a party in the dining hall because we had speakers going and everything.

Also had my in class essay in my music class which was more about the general history of Japan than the music they used. It wasnt too bad, but because it was so wavy the ships propellers were like out of the water so the ship starting vibrating a lot.

Not much happened today other than that, but tomorrow we're going to be talking to both of the deans on the ship about diversity in their offices. That's it for today though.

Quote of the day:

"it's lit"

"Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life"