There's No Place Like Home

Little things about being back home catch me by surprise still. At first I had to get over the urge to not drink the tap water and to keep reminding myself that I don’t need to carry hand sanitizer everywhere. For some reason, chain restaurants and book stores are bizarre because they appear so casually and confidently THERE, like they have a right to be there, even though the rest of the world has never heard of them. Seeing friends and family is probably the best thing in the entire world, but something happens every day that makes me want to be back laughing with my SAS friends. It feels a little like having two different homes. One is the one you know and love, and the other is this new home that you can’t quite place anywhere because it traveled incessantly and the only constant was the people. I no longer have a doctor telling me about the risks of leaving my front door so today, when I was walking down the notoriously safe streets of downtown Boulder, I felt slightly threatened because I was alone. That never used to happen before we traveled to a gazillion different big cities. Everyone has their giant panties in a bunch about American politics, especially with it being in an election year. I feel like people are incessantly frightened by our political leaders, but I can’t quite tell what they’re afraid of. I feel like, even if the worst happened, our standard of living would still be far higher than what most people. Even if the standard of living does drop, people can still be happy! What a concept. People also express everything from an amazingly United States-centric point of view. How could they do otherwise if they haven’t traveled outside of it? But the weirdest thing about it is that most Americans don’t even think about the people living their daily lives in the rest of the world unless their country posses some type of threat to us. Why should we ever ask “What’s best for Americans?” when the people in Cambodia are just like the people here. It doesn’t make sense that we’re not asking “What’s best for everyone?” When Semester at Sea began, everyone kept talking about how it would be a “transformative journey” and at different points of the voyage I would keep asking myself if I had transformed yet. Honestly, I never knew the answer. I still don’t know, but I do know that before I left I was asking “What’s best for Americans?” along with everyone else and never second guessed it. I love that everyone in Boulder knows what gluten is. I love the snow and the way it melts under the Colorado sun. Certain things, like making my own dinner or doing laundry feel about twenty times harder than they did before I left. I was afraid that everyone would be sick of my “One time in Vietnam” stories, but no one has said anything yet and my friends know how to be blunt so I think I’m in the clear. Every time I see someone that hasn’t seen me since I left I get the exact same question, “How was it?” And I have no good answer to tell them. My go to response is “amazing” because it was, but that doesn’t quite cover it. It was so many things like eye opening, terrifying, boring, heartbreaking, frustrating, exhilarating, funny, fresh, exhausting, and beautiful. Everything was intensified because I was doing so much in such a short period of time. This voyage has opened me up to travel like nothing else could. I feel like I could go anywhere in the world and be confident in myself. I love how peaceful being home is, but I also miss the drive and energy of GOING SOMEWHERE that living of a ship perpetuated.  I wouldn’t give up my memories from this voyage for anything and I know it was only the start of more adventures to come. THANK YOU SEMESTER AT SEA FALL 2011!            

Holla Honduras, Goodbye Semester at Sea

When we studied Honduras in Global Studies, we basically learned that it was a country full of crime, drugs, and violence, with a struggling economy. This raised the question in all of us, “Uh, so why exactly are we going there again?” We were especially skeptical after our course had been diverted from Cuba because the US government is still afraid of communism for some reason, and then again from Guatemala because it was deemed too dangerous. Instead of going to REAL Honduras, however, we went to Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras and were forbidden to go to the mainland. After learning about the mainland, I don’t think any of us were exactly fighting to break that rule and get ourselves killed. Roatan Island is a site for eco-tourism and a great place to spend the last couple of days in port with friends. On our first day, we took a bus across the island and went on a walk through a nature reserve where we got to see giant rodents, or as Wesley and I call them, ROUS (Rodents Of Unusual Size), iguanas, birds, and a spider monkey that was probably one of the most adorable creatures I’ve ever seen. He started off all the way across the beach and, as I was taking pictures of him, he began running directly at me with his teeth bared. I stopped thinking he was so cute until I ran to the safety of hiding behind my friends. Instead of biting any of us, he jumped up on one of the showers they have at the beach and motioned for us to turn on the water. We turned the faucet and he began drinking the water out of his cupped hands. He instantly became cute again. Monkeys are so entirely humanoid that I don’t know how anyone ever found it hard to believe that we evolved from them. 

Our nature walk was followed by snorkeling. We were given extremely fashionable belly life vests because apparently American tourists can’t swim for more than an hour in buoyant salt water. They then boated us out to a ship wreck full of marine life and we arrived there right when it started raining. The rain detracted from the visibility but we were able to dive down a little to get a better view of the ship wreck. I don’t think I will ever get a hang of that pressure thing where you hold your nose and exhale in order to equalize the feeling in your ears, but none of us were good at it except the guides so all of us shook out our ears in uncomfortable missery together. We spent the rest of our time snorkeling through the reef, which, unbeknownst to me, was the second largest reef in the world only behind the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. We saw tons of coral and beautiful blue fish. It’s moments like this where I’m envious of anyone who ever lived in Atlantis because the ocean floor is such an extravagant and peaceful place. Yes, I am implying that Atlantis is real. I also enjoy making fun of how goofy everyone looks in snorkeling gear.

 

I made up for my zip line abandonment in Costa Rica and went in Honduras instead. We were driving to the zip lining site and our guide had just finished describing how he was glad it wasn’t raining because it’s usually too dangerous to go in the rain, when the skies opened up and released a total downpour. Just our luck. The tour company did not seem to have a problem with this however, and everything went on as usual. They suited us up with their harnesses and helmets and off we went through the canopy! There was something extremely freeing about torpedoing through a jungle canopy in the rain with no need to break because the zip lines were so slippery that the hand breaks wouldn’t work even if I wanted them to. Instead of breaking, the staff just jumped in front of us and caught us before we went flying into the tree at the end of the line. It didn’t hurt that all of the staff were Black-Latin men in very good shape who kept on hitting on us and giving us complements. Tori and I both decided that if we ever went through a particularly hard break-up we’d just take a vacation back down to Honduras. We also enjoyed that, on certain platforms, there were no railings to keep people from falling so they just connected our harnesses to the tree and kept shoving us together around it. We decided that horses must feel like we did when they get tied to things. Unfortunately, having to catch us didn't always do wonders for the staff. At one point, a portly older woman came cruising down and was headed directly for a tree when the man working there jumped in between her and the collision to receive a direct kick in the balls. His exact words were, “I need a vacation.” I would too if I were him. We were just on a four month vacation, I highly recommend it. We were sad to leave our last port but not so sad to leave the rain behind us as we scanned our ID cards to get on the ship for the last time and made a b-line for the United States.

 

The last two days consisted of trying to shove all our souvenirs into bags that, unlike Hermione’s purse, did not magically grow in size. Everyone had flash drives and went around to friend's computers in order to steal their pictures, and no one slept because we all wanted to spend as much time with each other as possible. I managed to fit some more tanning time in as well because I knew that I’d be headed back to snowy Colorado. I was never able to stay out for too long though, because they finally drained the pool and the heat got to be too much without a way to cool off. Interestingly enough, my father and I had debated whether the pool was going to be fresh water or salt water, and it turned out to be both! It was fresh water for the first half of the voyage and salt water for the second half. Curious, very curious. The last night on the ship was one of the clearest nights we’d had the entire voyage. We went out and star gazed and attempted to do gymnastics, with attempt being the key word *cough Michael cough.* And, because I’m a sucker for cheesy things, I made my friends write messages in my journal as a yearbook substitute. We went to the commencement ceremony where they played a slide show that actually felt a little creepy because they had all sorts of pictures of us that we didn’t know they had taken. Captain Jeremy then said goodbye to Dean Jill because this was the last of her eight voyages as Dean. He gave her a bottle of expensive Champagne and a pink Semester at Sea sweatshirt. I thought that he should have just stopped with the alcohol. If she really wanted a SAS sweatshirt, she probably already had one from one of her eight prior voyages. To add insult to injury, he then put the sweatshirt on her in front of the entire ship. I’ve never seen a grown woman being dressed before. Dean Jill’s speech put the cherry on top of the ice cream. It was a seven page list of random things about Semester at Sea. Everyone in the Union was looking around at each other like, “yeah, we know, we were all here.” The highlight of the list was the extended description of different things we waited in line for, concluding in, “They should call this Semester in Line!” I personally do not think the marketing team should follow her advice; Semester in Line is not nearly as catchy as Semester at Sea. Just saying.  The next morning, we pulled into port at 7am and waved eagerly with bacon in our hands to the group of parents standing to great us with waving flags, and one particular parent in a Santa suite. Christmas? Oh yeah! December 13^th feels a lot different in the tropics than it does at home. There was then a lot of anxious waiting to get off the ship, hauling around of luggage, and a small amount of crying, mostly from my end and no one else’s. It was hard to believe that when I got off the MV Explorer, I would probably never be getting back on it.

Pura Vida en Costa Rica

“Pura vida” literally translates to “pure life” in Spanish, but in Costa Rica it’s used to mean “the good life” and can be a response to pretty much anything. If someone asks how you are, you say “pura vida,” if someone says goodbye, you say, “pura vida,” if you agree with what another person is saying, you say, “pura vida.” Well, I think you get the picture. I don’t know if the Costa Rican people are just being overly optimistic, but I know that I certainly lived the good life during my too short stay in the country so I won’t argue that the term is overused.

We were down to out last nine days of the voyage but the responsibility of classes still loomed over us. The ship only stopped in Costa Rica for two days and I had to spend one of these precious days on a trip with my drawing class to go see the world’s largest ox cart. I was determined to go sip lining the next day, so as Tori, Allison and I ventured off on our field trip, we left CJ and Hillary in charge of finding a cheap hotel for the night. The bus took us to a metal church which had been mailed to its location piece by piece, which was relatively cool I guess, but all I could think of was the Tea House in Boulder which had also been mailed overseas but happened to be much prettier. Instead of gawking awkwardly at the church (it was in the middle of a service with actual church goers inside), we made a mission down to the nearest coffee shop for some café con leche to get a taste of Costa Rica’s famous coffee. It took the baristas a lot longer to make our coffee then we thought it would so we ended up having to sprint back up to the bus. We were five minutes late and everyone was already sitting down in their seats waiting to leave. My drawing teacher just scowled at us, she already wasn’t my number one fan. Tori and I were very embarrassed, but settled down nonetheless for the bus ride, until two minutes later when the lid of Tori’s coffee popped off and her entire scalding cup spilled all over her lap and into the bus isle. Oops, strike number two. About ten minutes later, the bus stopped and the driver told everyone to get off the bus if they wanted to look at a coffee plant. We were feeling lazy and could see the plant from the window so we all remained seated and Tori and Allison shared head phones and danced while I had I silent dance party next to them. Tori then, believing we were alone on the bus, chose to sing along to the single most vulgar line that she possible could have. Her voice echoed off the silent bus walls…and I mean it was INAPROPRIATE in capital letters. She then turned around to see a sweet old man sitting directly behind her. Allison, Chase and I burst out into hysterics but I think all of us were a little mortified. Strike three for the day. 

                                                Tori, some coffee, Chase, and an Ox Cart

We then continued on our journey to see the world’s largest ox cart. To be fare, ox carts have a large traditional importance to the Costa Rican people because that’s how they used to export the coffee that fueled their economy. All of them are handmade and beautifully painted. Still, the trip was about as anti climatic as it sounds. The cooler part followed when we got to go to an ox cart factory and we watched them make a wheel, run the water powered factory machines, and observed as a woman painted a souvenir ox cart using the traditional method. By the time we returned to the ship, CJ and Hillary had found us a cheap hotel in the form of an expensive all-inclusive resort. I resigned my hopes for zip lining the next day.

Most people spend the weekend before finals studying. We spent our weekend partying. The all inclusive did not only include food and drinks, but a night club. The five of us girls and Chase basically started the dancing at the club ourselves. Tori had the stage to herself for a while and was showing us some moves that she seemed to think were good…I should add that they weren’t good. At one point there were a couple of younger kids in the club (about fourteen I think) that Allison pulled into a dance circle with us. They seemed to be having a great time before the hotel staff kicked them out. We must have looked like we were having a blast or in some way inspiring  because the place was empty when we arrived and completely packed a half hour later. Hillary kept on babbling to people who didn’t speak English and I kept on having to translate for her which was difficult because most of the people talking to me in Spanish were very drunk and difficult to understand anyways. We partied ourselves out relatively early and crashed around 1AM. Don’t worry, the next day we were up at nine and ready to continue the shenanigans. We ate breakfast, found some lounge chairs, and went for a morning swim. Tori was just speculating on my spirit animal being a badger when, to my horror, a white gift from a bird dropped directly into my mouth. Luckily, I was able to spit it out and rinse my mouth with the pool water immediately, but I don’t know if I should interpret this as a sign from the world to stay away from badgers or something. 

We made the pool with the swim up bar our home and became friends with a bunch of people who worked as staff on a cruise ship. Amongst their company was a crazy Italian man who kept on skipping around in his Speedo and confessing his undying love to every female in sight. Towards the afternoon it began to poor rain but it was so warm that we all danced in the pool under the down poor. We finally had to pull ourselves away and call a cab to take us back to the ship. Right as we pulled out of the hotel driveway, Allison freaked out and asked the cab to stop because she’d left her passport in the room. Her and Chase went upstairs to search for it while I shared a cigar with our taxi driver and chatted with him in Spanglish. I felt very suave, but only because I was sitting behind the cab driver and he couldn’t see me when I choked from the cigar smoke. I don’t think it’s a habit I’ll be picking up. Crisis averted, Allison found her passport and back to the ship it is. I had to study for two finals that night and did surprisingly well on both of them. Maybe I should market a new “de-stress” study method…or I just got lucky that I actually paid attention in my classes reviewing it wasn’t too hard.

PANAMA CANAL:   

The next day our ship passed through the Panama Canal. Everyone was outside tanning on the seventh deck in the blazing sun. Passing through the locks was very exciting. The ship would sail into the lock, stop, the gate would close behind it, and slowly but surely the water was forced into the lock and our ship was raised to the level of the Canal. I still have no idea how it’s possible that the Pacific Ocean is lower than the Atlantic Ocean. Isn’t all the water connected? The ship barbecued on the deck for us and we all had a relaxing afternoon before we got ready for our last day of finals and started to get excited for Honduras!        

Let's Get Pacific

            We’ve all heard of sailors getting stuck out at sea, sustaining themselves on rum and the leather from their shoes, and occasionally turning to cannibalism. Well, that didn’t happen on Semester at Sea, but the crossing of the Pacific Ocean was still a very long eighteen days. In 2005, a giant tsunami wave hit the MV Explorer and knocked out the windows in the dining hall. We’d all seen the youtube videos of students from sliding back and forth across the Union so, needless to say, we were all a little apprehensive about going through those same waters. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51_XcpMX2gk&feature=related Our voyage got lucky. No one got bombarded with furniture, Mary and I just spent several sleepless nights tossing and turning, making yipping noises when the boat almost tossed us out of our beds, and sighing loudly every time something fell off of our walls or tables. There were a couple mornings where I rolled out of bed and gagged over the toilet before I was able to pull myself together and make myself go to Global Studies. Ah yes, Global Studies. Seeing as how we had school every day at sea, the Pacific was all about studying, and Global Studies had officially become the world’s most painful class. It was early in the morning, the Union was always freezing, and we weren’t learning about the new and exciting places we were going because we’d pretty much already been everywhere. On the bright side, I didn’t have to write papers for that class. I don’t really know where I ever found the motivation to finish my History papers because the computer lab was always full of chatting students and Life Long Learners yelling at the internet for not working and friends walking by…so basically, the process felt physically painful, but I ended up getting an A in the class so the misery is better in retrospect.

Four days into our Pacific crossing, we had a “study day” which was actually designated for filming a video called a Lip Dub. Lip Dubs are videos taken in one single shot of people lip sinking and dancing to a song. I once saw one involving an entire city where the camera went up in a helicopter. Ours wasn’t quite as high budget, but the video runs through the entire ship. Everyone got together with their seas (the same groups we competed with in the Sea Olympics) and put together some type of choreography. We did a couple practice run-throughs and then Adam, the camera man, actually filmed us three different times and chose the take that looked the best. Luckily, the tape that looked the best was the third try, which also happened to be the take that the kid with the South African apartheid flag was not in. I don’t think the promotion of apartheid is really what Semester at Sea is trying to advertise. The Bering Sea was designated the outside deck six filming slot so Alison and I put together a little yoga choreography. What we didn’t know when we choreographed it was that it was going to be ridiculously windy. Balancing was a wee bit challenging, and if you watch the video closely you can actually see Allison almost fall over when she steps out into warrior pose. Several people’s miniature flags got blown out into the great blue ocean as well. Neptune must have had a very international lunch. Basically, the filming was a lot of fun and I will be content to never listen to K’naan’s ten minute song ever again. Seriously, I heard that song at least seven times just that day and that’s not including all the practice sessions we had the week leading up to it. Here’s the video, I’m four minutes in wearing green pants!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pA_I2GrwpQ

After four more days of waves and studying, we voyagers received a wonderful gift, LAND HO! This Thanksgiving I was thankful to be in Hilo Hawaii. We only had a brief eight hour stay there but we made the most of it. We did our best to uphold the true American tradition of eating way way too much food and gorged ourselves on crab omelets in the morning and returned in the afternoon for giant dishes of pulled pork. It wasn’t exactly mashed potatoes and turkey but I really wasn’t complaining. After we fulfilled our food priority, Allison, CJ, Tori, Hillary and I made our fist stop Walmart because it’s one of the few placed that’s actually open on Thanksgiving Day. We bought leis and snacks and Allison and I found turkey hats that kicked and gobbled so naturally we ran around the store making fools of ourselves. We then paraded next door to the Starbucks to Skype and call our friends and families. Having call phone service and free wifi are privileges that we Americans take for granted way too much, so I was thankful for those as well. After playing catch up, we hopped in a cab and went to the beach. Our cab driver’s name was Junior and the fact that he spoke English made it much easier to befriend him. He ended up giving us a free tour of the Island before dropping us off. CJ then promptly got caught in a phone conversation with one of her sorority sisters and completely missed swimming with the turtles. Before we left her we overheard some of the conversation, and I quote, “Tell Stacy she’s a hoe for me!” Do I even need to add that the rest of us mercilessly made fun of her for saying that for the rest of the voyage? What she missed was Hillary and Tori adorning coconut bras that they’d bought at Walmart, which was probably one of the best purchases ever made there, and a lot of underwater pictures. The coolest part, of course, was the turtles. They were swimming right next to the beach and one in particular kept on swimming up to us and brushing us with his fin. We named him Junior after our cab driver. Tori was obsessed with him and kept of saying that he was her spirit animal and doting on how much he looked like a dinosaur. I must say, having a giant turtle chase you through the water is actually much more terrifying than you might think. By the time we were done swimming, we were able to coax CJ off the phone and begin a very competitive game of Yahtzee. Allison and I both rock at board games so naturally we both tied for first and called Junior to take us to giant meal number two while gloating. Junior was very touched that we had given him a name-sake and seemed very surprised that anyone would actually wear a coconut bra. Thanksgiving dinner was great right up to the point where Tori got homesick because she couldn’t get a hold of her boyfriend and started weeping loudly and inconsolably at the table. Our walk back to the boat was a relatively long distance in the pouring rain with a crying friend, but she eventually got over it and customs let me take my lei on the boat with me so I thought the day was a success.    

    

We were thrown back to our small cabins and left at the mercy of the sea for another nine days. This period of time was broken up by several board games, movie nights, the leering knowledge of finals, and a ball. The ball was Bollywood themed and anyone with a sari from India made walking through the halls much more colorful and exciting than usual. I had dragged a fancy dress from home all the way around the world and had yet to use it so it was nice to get a chance to dress up. Don’t worry, I made an effort to go in theme, I had a sparkly bindi on my forehead that matched my dress perfectly. The food that night was fantastic. They served us shrimp in a mint yogurt followed by a lentil soup with the grand finale of stake and mashed potatoes. Knowing that the ship’s chef was capable of such incredible food made eating the normal ship meals afterwards a little heart breaking. I will admit that my grumble-meter increased to the orange high alert status. The desert buffet outdid the dinner exponentially. There were at least thirty different desserts decorated with delicate chocolate flowers and all of it was surrounded by a beautiful display of carved fruit. We all desperately needed to dance after our meal just to help settle out full stomachs. The dancing was on the seventh deck under streamers and tinkle lights. The best way I can describe it is as a very fun middle dance. No one danced with each other, but everyone bobbed their heads and fist pumped and a solid three dancing circles formed around a few kids who could dance really really well while the rest of us watched. My favorite part of the night was actually right after the dance. All of my friends stayed out on the seventh deck with the wind cooling us off and fooling around taking pictures and dancing under the stars. 

This is when the end of our voyage started feeling way too near, but it was still another four days to Costa Rica which wasn’t near enough. Boredom at sea inspired things like banana peel dances and songs about boobs. You wouldn’t understand unless you’d been there yourself, but that’s probably a good thing.           

Japanimated!

Japan: the country of sumo wrestling, school girl skirts, anime, Samurai, high speed trains, and big business. It may be another big city but there’s none of the cold, every-man-for-himself vibe that New York gives off. The streets are impeccably clean and everyone is willing to help a lost tourist weather they speak the same language or not. The people are focused on community and every person appears to be a perfect citizen. I saw a three year old girl with pig tails get on the train by herself on her way home from school. She was confidently clutching her little pink backpack…that’s how safe it is! Though it may have been the country to compete with in the eighties, it’s been in a recession for the last twenty years or so. The youth start applying for jobs two years before they graduate college and the employment rate is only at sixty percent. A new trend called the “parasitic singles” has emerged. Personally, I think the term is a little harsh, but it refers to all the thirty year olds without jobs who live off their parents, dress immaculately, and go out partying with their friends every night. More and more women are entering the work force and deciding to either have no children or to wait until they are settled in their careers. This means the population is rapidly aging and Japan will soon need to find better ways to provide for their elderly with such a small work force. The US, and most of the western world, is experiencing this same trend. Luckily for us, our immigration rates are high enough that the population of the United States is remaining consistent despite lower birth rates. Anyone against Mexican immigration right now may be thanking them in a couple decades when their work is paying off our social security. Japan has always been a country with strong isolationist tendencies so they don’t have the same ability to rely on immigration the way we do. I also saw several girls with fluffy brown dogs in sweaters, they’re not really important to anything other than the fact that I thought they were really cute.

The country is goofy, energetic, and friendly…and my first day in Kobe was an absolute disaster. I will describe it briefly in order to avoid rant status. The day consisted of getting in trouble in an internet café (it was part internet café, part sketchy comic book store) with the Japanese police because one of the girls who tagged along with us left without paying. Her excuse was that she explained to the guy behind the counter that she hadn’t used any internet, but seeing as how that man did not speak any English, her point was moot. She didn’t have any cash on her so we had to pay for her, and because of the ordeal with the police it cost about five times more than it originally would have to just pay for the internet. We then tried to get back to the ship to meet up with our group going to Hiroshima. The same girl insisted that she knew the rout we were supposed to take (despite my suggestion that we get a map or ask) and we ended up getting on a train that went 45 minutes in the wrong direction. We then spent the next two hours backtracking and trying to find the train station to hopefully catch it before it left even though the SAS people had our tickets. We made it to the train station five minutes after it was gone. I had been paying for the train tickets for both of us (again, she had no money) and we both needed lunch so I played the role of sugar daddy and bought that too. We were eventually within a fifteen minute walking distance from the ship but she had decided to wear high heeled boots and her feet hurt too badly to walk so we had to get on YET ANOTHER TRAIN, and I paid another six bucks for a five minute ride. She hasn’t paid any of us back yet. Luckily, my bad experiences in Japan ended there, and by the end of the day I pretty much knew the transportation system like the back of my hand.

That night, ready to forget our frustrating day, we went out to sushi. The restaurant was in a sketchy dark ally but the inside was well lit and had beautiful wooden floors. We had to take our shoes off and put them in lockers at the front of the restaurant. The lockers had some tricky wooden lock and I was the first one to figure out how they worked, chalk one up to the English major! We then got our own room where we sat cross legged at a long table with beads that covered the doorway where the waiters came in. I think I ate enough sushi for about three people. Tori and I also have a tradition that we take a walrus picture with our chopsticks every time we eat sushi. There are definitely some winners in my picture collection. It might also interest you all that, because everyone is expected to wander around barefoot, they have little rubber slippers in the bathroom to put your feet into. Crocks should really look into expanding their advertising to the Japanese bathroom shoe market. After dinner, we went out to the main downtown area of Kobe where apparently the characters come out of their daylight hiding. We saw a seven foot tall transvestite (her shoes added a bit to her height) who couldn’t keep her skirt from falling down and then couldn’t keep herself from falling down either. She toppled over right in front of us on the sidewalk and about seven small Japanese men came pouring out of the building next to us to help her up. We also made friends with two men in suits who brought us all to their favorite bar and bought everyone drinks. They didn’t speak very much English, but luckily two of the guys in our group knew some Japanese so we managed to converse in a chaotic sort of way. All I really understood them saying was “Oh my god” which they kept repeating while holding their hands to their faces in shock. I also believe that one of them proposed marriage to Hillary but it was a little unclear. Dancing, luckily, is universal. When we left our friends and started heading home, a crazy Japanese girl charged us and stuck her tongue down Hillary’s throat. Hillary pushed her away and she came charging for me but I was prepared enough to duck. She then flashed all of us before her two male friends came running up and grabbed her and pulled her away. Like I said, we met some characters.

The next day I DIDN’T miss my trip and made it on the train to Kyoto where I spent the day wandering through Zen gardens with my art class. Rock gardens get a lot of prestige but when you look at them, well, you realize that they’re just made up of a bunch of rocks. Of course rock gardening was invented by Zen monks because the drudging process of raking pebbles was supposed to help them fall into meditation. When I got over the fact that I was staring at rocks for twenty minutes, I had to admit that there is a simple kind of beauty to them. Zen gardens take organic beauty that is usually only found in nature and manipulates it and maintains it through intensive man-induced labor. While wandering through one garden I felt like I was in the middle of an overgrown forest in California before I saw a woman crouching on hands and knees with a tiny nail clipper cutting out, individually, every microscopic piece of dead moss. I also encountered several massive spider webs with angry looking green spiders lounging in them. Spider webs have a kind of beauty too but I prefer to admire them from a distance.

After a relaxing day a pretty things, I met up with Michael and we hopped on a high speed train to Tokyo. Collin and Jared had been too lazy to plan their own train ride so they tagged along with us, but they didn’t get me lost or make me buy them anything so their company was appreciated. What would have been a twelve hour bus ride to Tokyo became a short two and a half hour ride with reclining seats, which means that high speed trains are like, really fast! I would also like to make a note that Michael had never seen the Matrix and for some reason this morally offended me so I spent an extensive part of the train ride describing the plot and action sequences. I don’t think I was able to do justice to Keanu Reeves, that man has skill that could never be duplicated *cough cough*.  When we got to Tokyo, we were supposed to meet up with Allison and CJ but none of our phones would work and I might have run up a bit of a roaming charge (sorry Dad!)  We decided to let it go and checked into a hostel with Jared and Collin. The boys and girls had to be in separate rooms so I was stuck all on my own in a room with ten bunks. It wouldn’t have been as creepy if I hadn’t seen the horror movie Hostel like three times. Then again, Japan is the least creepy country on the planet. I saw several young women walking alone down dark and isolated allies with strollers after midnight. We also were supposed to wear our shoes on the stairs but not in the rooms so I kept on having to shoe and de-shoe as I made my way between the ground level, my room, and the boy’s room. I’m telling you, I would never own any shoes with laces if I lived there. We then went out to a club called Muse where the people were much more normal than those we met in Kobe; it was more general dancing and frivolity instead. It’s true what they say about Semester at Sea kids, they’re everywhere! My friend Chase had a cousin living in Tokyo and she brought him to the same club so we had a mini ship reunion. When they say that everything in Japan is expensive, well it’s true, everything in Japan is expensive. Our cab ride to the club was about five miles and cost us fifty dollars…but at least we were splitting it four ways.

By morning, Michael was able to call CJ using Skype so we made a place and time to meet (just like they used to do back in the olden days) and checked out of the hostel. After a couple more train rides we were right in downtown Tokyo and reunited with our smiling friends. They had had a frustrating day the day before (a lot like my first day) so we took it easy, wandered around an outdoor market, and checked into a hotel where we all watched sumo wrestling while I filled out my application for working at Yellow Stone this summer. Our hotel room had robes and there may or may not also have been a time where we all dressed up in robes and tied the waist bands around our heads and jumped around on the beds like ninjas.  

For dinner we found a restaurant called The Lock Up. It’s themed like an underground prison. We had to walk through a pitch black hallway filled with loud clanging noises just to get to the front door. When we entered, girls in police uniforms handcuffed us and took us our table which was in a closed cell. The drinks all came with cool themes. Michael got his drink in test tubes with different flavored liquors that he had to mix himself. CJ’s drink had pop rock in it and crackled all dinner long and Allison’s drink was smoking the entire time. Midway through dinner, there was a fake “jail break” when the lights went out and men in costumes ran around to all the tables and rattled and broke in to the cage doors. For some reason, fear and food make an awesome combination. Why do they not make more themed restaurants? When we had been sufficiently scared to death, we left with the mission to find a club. We ended up meeting a club owner named Austin Powers who convinced us to go to Club Casablanca…which was entirely empty except for two other Semester at Sea kids. We booked it out of there and decided we couldn’t be left to our own devices. By lucky coincidence, we ran into our waitress from The Lock Up on the sidewalk. Her and three of her friends were on their way to go sing karaoke. They were what American pop culture would call “emo” with tons of piercings and funny haircuts and they asked us if we wanted to join them! The eight of us got our own room and spent the night dancing on our seats and singing Lady Gaga and theme songs from anime cartoons like Dragon Ball Z. I wouldn’t have been able to plan a better last night in Tokyo if I’d tried.

We had a bit of a mishap on the train from Tokyo to Yokohama the next day. We’d bought tickets to the normal train but ended up getting on some more expensive luxury car. The lady who came to check our tickets was extremely friendly (unlike most people on trains when you don’t have the right tickets) and drew us a map of how to transfer to the correct train from the next stop. The public transportation system in Japan was incredible, but I was ready to not get on any more trains for a while after we left. Yokohama was a smaller city than Tokyo or Kobe and felt like a lot like a beach front town in the United States only it was cleaner way cleaner.

On the last day I went to a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony followed by Zen meditation led by a monk. The tea ceremony consisted of bowing twenty gazillion times, making sure your bowl was turned in the correct direction, and sipping all of the strong, bitter matcha down in the right intervals. The monks perform the tea ceremony before they meditate in order to rejuvenate and caffeinate. It got the job done but I personally prefer a nice big mug in my living room. My preference had a lot to do with the fact that I can’t kneel the way the Japanese do for such an extended period of time. The meditation could only be described as hilarious. I’ve meditated before, but never quite like this. The monk walked around the room with a giant still that he smacked people on the back with if they looked like they were falling asleep or loosing concentration. Apparently the slap is supposed to signify the transfer of the Buddha’s knowledge to the student, but all I saw it transferring was some welts. I also found it a little counterproductive because it’s difficult to relax and concentrate when the person next to you is getting mildly beaten. On the plus side, they gave us free origami figures of women in kimonos as parting gifts; I think the trade was well worth it. And then: THE PACIFIC.

The Great Call of China

I will start by saying that one day in Hong Kong is not nearly enough time to be there. I spent my first day walking around with CJ and Michael and trying to get oriented, only the city is so big that we just kept on walking down small allies and getting distracted by shiny things like jewelry and the lanterns people hang up to attract unsuspecting tourists like ourselves. After two hours of wandering we decided on two things: one was that we were very lost and two, that it was definitely time for lunch. Luckily, in a city as massive as Hong Kong, it doesn’t matter where you are because you’re never too far from a good restaurant. We ended up picking a small but busy place because busy usually means delicious. The hostess quickly shuffled us in asking, “Three?” We nodded and she found us three very nice seats…straight across from three already eating Hong Kong locals who spoke very little English. They were perfectly comfortable with this arrangement but the three of us awkwardly tried to decide what we wanted to order while avoiding eye contact with the people sitting across from us and trying to talk to each other in a straight line without being too loud or disruptive. Welcome to the most populated country on the planet! I would also like to add that actual Chinese food was a bit more exotic than American Chinese food. There were a lot of pictures of dried fish heads and assorted funguses as well as boiled eggs that somehow get cooked black and red. I decided to avoid all such things and ordered pork ribs instead. They arrived cut into tiny pieces but still attached to the bone and soaked in some type of stew. Picking up the slippery pieces of meat was hard enough, but then trying to bite off the meat from the bone without losing hold with my chop sticks was impossible. Chunks of meat and bone kept on slipping out of my hand and falling into the stew, splashing it everywhere. All of this was watched calmly by the locals at our table. I wonder if they are going to think of Westerners as uncoordinated people with sauce all over their faces from now on.

When I had washed my face and paid the bill, we took out the map and decided to go the place with the coolest picture. The picture we chose was captioned Ocean Park. We didn’t know what it was but it looked colorful and therefor became our destination. This was an awesome luck of the draw because Ocean Park happens to be a tourist attraction that’s part Sea World and part theme park. We got to visit a giant aquarium, see a panda, and go on roller coasters! The lines were hilarious because no one followed the same rules that we do in the US. The rules were that there were no rules. Everyone shoved everyone and cut in line and snuck under ropes and threw elbows as much as possible. There were several European tourists in front of us who all had the same idea of person space as we did so CJ, Michael and I all locked arms so that people couldn’t cut in front of us. We had a nice amount of room in front of us, but the masses shoved against us from behind. We all felt like we were dirty dancing with the little girls behind us because they were plastered against our backs. Actually watching the lines move in front of us was like watching sardines wiggle in a can. Eventually, everyone got their turn on the rides and I rode a dragon! Okay, it was a roller coaster named The Dragon, but I think it counts.

That night, Michael got a hold of his friend who is studying abroad in Hong Kong and the three of us met up with three students from Hong Kong and they took us out on the town.  We went to a street called Low Kawi Fong where all the local students bring their metaphorical party hats. The entire street was lined with bars and clubs and when people got tired of being inside the bars they just took the partying out on the streets. Guy, one of the friends we made, kept on grabbing us and dragging us around to different bars because we only had one night there and he wanted us to see as much of the city’s night life as possible. I could definitely get used to going out in Hong Kong because apparently every night is ladies night…and because they had an ice bar where we all got to hang around in a giant room made of ice, wear fur coats, and act like Russians. I thought the classiest joint was what Guy called Club 7-11. This was the 7-11 where all the cheap college kids would go to buy beer and drink it on the stoop before going back to the other bars to dance for free. We left around 4am to the sound of everyone continuing to party hard. From what our Hong Kong friends told us, I gathered that this happens every night, all night long. As Mobasshir wants me to say because he is currently reading over my shoulder, we went all night long in Hong Kong and everyone got along…Yeah, don’t judge. I imagine being a student in a city like this could get a bit tricky, way too many distractions. Oh wait, I’m a student on a moving ship! I think I win the distractions contest.  I was very sad to say goodbye to Hong Kong the next day but, then again, I was waving hello to Beijing!

We had a long day of traveling and I ended up eating dinner in the hotel. I slept in a triple which meant I got stuck on the most uncomfortable fold out couch known to mankind. The mattress was rock solid, only an inch thick, and it swooped down in random places. After several hours of tossing and turning I decided the floor was my best bet, but the night was still relatively sleepless. We woke up at dawn for breakfast and journeyed off to see the Temple of Heaven. The temple was beautiful and it is interesting to learn about the deliberate and intentional meaning of everything in Chinese architecture. For example, yin and yang have numbers. Yang’s numbers are 1,3,5,and 9, nine being the highest and therefor the closest to the divine which is why the Temple of Heaven has nine steps. My favorite part of the temple, however, was the park around it. Young people have to pay an entrance fee, but it’s a free park for senior citizens. Old Chinese men and women were everywhere playing hacky sack, bad mitten, cards, and some type of game on a checkered board with round pieces. There were also people playing music and dancing and going for runs and anyone was welcomed to join in at any time. I have never seen so many elderly people being active in one place; the sense of community was thriving and everyone was smiling. When I am old, I want to spend my time in a park just like this one.

We ate lunch and from there it was a short three hour bus ride to the Great Wall of China! The drive was beautiful because the road wound up and down mountains through the fall colors of the changing trees. The best part? It was cold! It had been five months since I’d been in cold weather and I have officially decided that seasons are a good thing. We kept on catching glimpses of the wall whenever we wove around corners and then finally...arrival. We got off the bus and switched gears from Sitting On My Ass For Hours to Let’s Go Hiking! We walked up lots and lots of stairs before we actually got to the wall at all, but I was just happy to smell the autumn leaves and enjoy wearing a hat without sweating too much.   

The Great Wall itself wasn’t as tall as I thought it would be, but it wound on forever and had the peaceful ora of something that’s been around for a long, long time. We hiked for several hours up lots of steps and down lots of things that used to be steps but are now crumbled bits of rubble. We managed to pick up two elderly Chinese women who would grab our arms to make sure we kept our balance and then stop every so often to try to sell us T-shirts and chopsticks. By hour two, the women ducked out and I don’t blame them, apparently they make their living by hiking alongside tourists every day. I’m a fast hiker so it wasn’t long before I’d passed most of the group and I got to watch the sun set over the Great Wall and the surrounding mountains in complete quiet. I can honestly say that was probably the coolest sunset I’ve ever seen. When I got to the end of our hike where we were eating dinner, our guide got very excited and congratulated me on being the first girl to finish. He almost made me feel like I should have bought a cheesy “I climbed the Great Wall” T-shirt as a prize to celebrate girl power. Eventually, the whole group congregated back together, many wearing new panda hats now, and we headed down to dinner at a little house right off the path from the Wall. Dinner was delicious and anyone who wanted to got to try traditional Japanese Fire Water. I personally don’t recommend it. It’s made from rice and tastes a lot like vodka and sake begot each other and had an evil demon baby. Still, when in China, do as the dragons do.

This is when the night became extremely, uh, eventful. The tour company we were with was called Global Citizens Travel and they have been infamous for hosting trips that end in general havoc. In India, the man who bought the tickets for the train then sold them back for a refund and ran off with the money. The students had to bribe the train conductors to let them stay on overnight because all of their tickets were fake. In Morocco, The bus accidentally went on a seven hour detour… and then there was China. Apparently we were supposed to have a permit to camp on the Wall itself, but they hadn’t gotten a permit so they bribed the officials to let us sleep there. None of us knew this. We all set up our tents and played card games. One of the kids had brought up portable speakers and we had a dance party and everyone was having a great wall time until we saw people sprinting down from the higher towers shouting “Get off the Wall, the police are here!” None of us knew what exactly was going on but we grabbed our tents (still assembled) and sleeping bags and ran down over the rocks through the dark for a mile as fast as we could. At the bottom of the Wall we all set up a refugee camp in a random parking lot and sat around shivering and asking each other what was going on. A lot of people had left their sleeping bags up on the Wall so everyone was short of tents and blankets and I stopped enjoying the cold as much as I had been before. It was about 4am before the missing students we were looking for returned. Apparently, two guys had started a fire in one of the towers and the police had been patrolling the wall because we weren’t supposed to be there. As a result, they showed up and took the six students who were around the fire into questioning and yelled at them in Chinese for two hours. Once we knew everyone was safe back at our makeshift camp we all tried to get some sleep, but we didn’t get much because we were sleeping on concrete and breakfast was at 6am.

At six, we rolled out of our bags and starting taking tents down. Apparently the kids who started the fire had to go up to the Wall and clean up their area as well as fetch all of the tents and belongings that had been left up there when everyone had abandoned ship. Groggy and cold, we went to a breakfast of dry cereal…none of which I could eat (damn you gluten!) so I had three cups of hot chocolate for breakfast instead. We then waited around in the tiny room we had eaten in for four hours without heat as the police tried to decide how to punish the pyromaniacs. Looking around the room was pretty comical because everyone was passed out asleep sitting up with panda hats askew and mouths open. Luckily, the kids returned with their wallets $700 lighter each and we were able to go on our merry way without anyone spending time in a communist jail. We all tried to recover from the night’s confusion on the three hour bus ride back to Beijing and woke up from our bus naps ready to go sightseeing. The morals of this story: do not book a trip with Global Citizens Travel and don’t light fires on one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Our first stop of the day was Tiananmen Square. It was the size of 60 soccer fields and full of large TV screens in the center of the square projecting videos of pretty scenery. Our guide did not say anything about the protesters who were killed there, but instead told us a story about how he had seen a man put up a flier once and he was tackled, handcuffed, and dragged into a police car within thirty seconds. The officials then swarmed the courtyard yelling “Nobody read the pamphlet” and tore it down. I think that story was his way of telling us that he wasn’t allowed to say anything negative about the government or the deaths that had happened there.

Next, we passed under the largest portrait of Chairman Mao that I hope I ever have to see. He had a giant mole in the center of his chin, and I recommend that we start a new piercing fad. Girls can get their upper lips pierced to look like Marilyn Monroe and boys can get their chins pierced to look like Mao! I can’t believe no one has thought of this already.

On the other side of Mao’s face was a gate leading to the Forbidden City. It’s called the Forbidden City because it was a city closed off to everyone except the Emperor, his officials, and his thirteen hundred Geishas. I’m not sure how he had any time to run the country. All of the buildings were colorful and ornate and, just like the Temple of Heaven, absolutely everything had a meaning. My favorite room was the room the Emperor walked to that was half way between his sleeping house and the assembly hall. This room was reserved for him to change from his normal robes to his official robes and drink tea…and it was massive! I find it hard to understand why anyone needs a giant changing and tea room, but an emperors gotta do what an emperors gotta do. After thoroughly exploring the Forbidden City, we shuffled our way to dinner where they served us, and served us, and served us more food. The table I sat at had me (allergic to gluten), two vegetarians, two kids allergic to shellfish, and a kid allergic to peanuts which means that only one person at our table was able to eat everything there. Our waitress was literally stacking plates on top of other plates because out giant table couldn’t fit everything. I wonder if our tour guide ordered an entire country’s worth of food in order to apologize for the night before. Eventually the meal ended and we went down to the train station to catch an overnight train to Shanghai where we were meeting up with the ship.

I’ve never been on an overnight train before, and after horror stories from India I was a little nervous, but overnight trains in China are the VIP way to travel. There were four bunks to a room and each had clean sheets, a small reading light and a personal TV that you could plug headphones into. Our tickets weren’t fake, but our tour group WAS two tickets short so we then had to call our guide from Beijing and have him talk to the train ticket man because he didn’t speak any English and all of us had already paid our money to Global Citizens. The second I was assured that all of us were going to be allowed to stay on the train until morning I passed out and wasn’t aware of anything until we pulled into Shanghai at 9am.

I only had a day and a half in Shanghai and my time there was pretty mellow and consisted mostly of eating lots of yummy food and shopping like crazy for cheap knock offs. I am in love with my new “Ugg” boots, as well as my “D & G” purse. The vendors always try to tell you that you’re breaking their hearts, so my strategy is to bust out that line first when I hear the price they’re offering. Throwing in a “you’re so beautiful,” doesn’t hurt either. Hong Kong and Beijing were both huge cities, so Shanghai had a more personal feel to it. Besides the weird cultural tradition of hocking up giant loogies and pushing in lines, the Chinese people really are friendly and fun and I could easily see living in China at some point in the future…though I don’t know how they’d react to my Mao piercing. Squatter toilets are also a horrible invention.

And so ends my time in China! I have a whole bundle of Japan adventures right around the corner, coming soon to a blog near you. I try to keep my eager and thirsty readers happy.  Much love to everyone at home, and I’ll be back in Colorado in less than three weeks. J             

               

Malaybodinam

I have concluded that Semester at Sea is where electronics go to die. Luckily I have escaped the worst of the carnage (my friend Michael has lost two credit cards, his phone, ipod, and a computer) but I am still suffering a loss. The charger for my computer decided to go kaputs which means that I’m writing everything in the computer lab. The environment is less than inspiring and usually full of chatty Cams and Cathys, so let the blogging begin! If you see the ghost of my charger haunting the streets with Trick or Treaters tonight, tell it I say hi! 

Malaysia:

If you’re anything like me, “Kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia!” is all I could think about when I learned we were going to the mysterious and exotic country. It turns out that Zoolander is not the best source of information on foreign affairs. The Prime Minister is alive and well, I saw no male models, and child labor laws are still happily in place. In fact, for how little the United States talks about Malaysia, the country was surprisingly First World. A lot of the students took trips to Singapore through SAS (we weren’t allowed to go on our own) and the city sounded beautiful, but I stayed in Penang and it had a lot to offer. On the first day I went on a sightseeing frenzy and saw a giant Buddhist temple, an old Chinese family Clan house, the botanic gardens, and the top of Penang Hill. It’s called a hill but I would consider it a mountain. Coming from Colorado, I don’t take the word mountain lightly. The view from the top was a thick jungle breaking away into an expansive city covered in mist with the ocean in the distance.

Malaysia has an eclectic population. The majority of the people are Muslim, but they are closely followed by the Chinese. Temples of all sorts are found everywhere. The only thing you’d have a hard time finding would be a church. The food was a combination of Chinese, Thai, and Indian and it was REALLY good…with a few exceptions. I got a little adventurous and tried a favorite local desert called Ice Kachong. It consisted of shaved ice, beans, sweet corn, licorice flavored jello squares, some type of sweet syrup and a scoop of ice cream to top it off. I ended up eating the ice cream off the top and letting the rest melt slowly. I think most of you would have done the same. While my misguided desert choice melted, Allison and I sat in a food court and celebrated October Fest. The restaurants served German beer and we watched four performers put on a show. The following conversation may have occurred:

“Allison, why is there an old man on stage?”

“Kelly, he’s not old, he’s just blonde.”

“Oh yeah! I forgot about blonde people.”

Basically the performance consisted of two women in short shorts, one in a nurse’s outfit, and an Asian man in a white vest with bleached blonde hair. They serenaded us with Jimi Buffet and Justin Bieber songs and had choreographed dance routines to everything that made them look as if they were playing Dance Dance Revolution. That is the moment I decided I loved Malaysia.

We had another lip-sinking boy band group entertain us at a bar called Slippery Sonorities. As four boys in matching outfits danced to Journey, the television screens flashed DRUGS ARE BAD and DRUGS KILL every couple seconds. Before we’d gotten into Malaysia, a girl from Indonesia had told me that mushrooms (the hallucinogenic kind) grow naturally everywhere and that people can buy them extremely cheaply which means that everyone does them. I wonder how true this is with DRUGS ARE BAD signs everywhere and the threat of the death penalty over people’s heads. Yes, it’s possible to get the death penalty if you get caught with drugs. Any friends who want to travel to South East Asia should probably keep this in mind, not that any of you would ever do drugs I’m sure, but you know, just in case.

I experienced the largest shopping mall I have ever seen in my entire life in Penang. There were nine floors with rows and rows of shops, one after another. As I walked through it, I thought back to my middle school days and how this mall would have felt a bit like heaven. I could have spent days in there and not have gotten bored. There were also about twenty restaurants, a movie theater, an arcade, and a fully stocked grocery store; all of it was air conditioned! The air conditioning is more important than you can understand. All of you may be shivering in Colorado, but in Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam I found myself wanting to shower at least twice a day. I have learned that I am absolutely NOT a humidity person, whether it’s good for my nails or not. Allison, Eric and I found one of the many restaurants in the mall and sat down to a dinner where we ordered all of our food raw and got to cook it at the table. We had no idea what we were doing and there was a language barrier with the waiters so we threw stuff willynilly on the grill and in the water and all of us managed to cook our food enough not to get sick. It probably would have tasted better if we knew what we were doing though, I think the wait staff got a kick out of watching us struggle. Success! We also spent a dollar to see Real Steal with Hugh Jackman. The movie was…absolutely terrible, but we loved watching the giant fighting robots and it felt like a little taste of home.

Cambodia:

Cambodia was a country in healing. From 1975 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge took control of the country and committed mass genocide. The rulers believed that everyone should return to farming and therefor sent any citizens with education or wealth to “re-education camps” which meant prisons for torturing and killing. Our guide in Phnom Pen told us that he was stolen from his family when he was six and forced to load guns for the Khmer Rouge. He was brainwashed into thinking all Americans and Vietnamese were evil and working for government agencies like the CIA. Hearing him talk firsthand about the work he went through to accept Americans and Vietnamese as people and his desire to be reunited with his family was powerful and sad.

On our first night in Phnom Pen we got to visit an orphanage. The little kids put on a dance performance for us and then grabbed our hands to show us around the house. The little girl I was talking to only spoke a little English but for the most part she said yes and giggled after anything I asked her. The children were so happy and open and all I wanted to do was smother them in attention. Even though my girl probably only understood about ten words that I’d said to her the whole night she still gave me a giant hug when I had to leave and wouldn’t let go of my hand. I think I melted.

First thing in the morning we visited the Royal Palace. The king still lives there but he was in Vietnam when we were visiting so we didn’t get a chance to see him. The palace, temples, and courtyards were gorgeous. I used to think that the squiggly lines on rooftops were supposed to symbolize fire as a display of power, but apparently they are the tails of snakes and they are wiggling up towards heaven asking for rain. After the palace, we visited an old high school that had been converted into a prison for the Khmer Rouge. We walked through and saw all the cells where they had held people, their mug shots were hanging on the wall from when they’d first been captured. They even had some of the old torturing devices they used to use in order to get confessions out of “CIA” members. Only seven out of the thousands of people who had been held there ever survived. We then left the prison to see the killing fields. In the middle of the killing fields stood a huge monument filled with the skulls of all the dead they had found in the mass graves. Each grave held hundreds of people and the graves stretched out as far as I could see. We saw the cell they used to hold people in overnight because they couldn’t kill everyone efficiently enough. There was a tree called the Magic Tree that had a megaphone that played music loud enough to cover the sounds of the people screaming so that others living nearby wouldn’t know what was going on. So many graves haven’t been uncovered yet and, looking down at the pathway, we could see teeth or small chunks of bone that had been washed up by the rain. The most difficult thing for me to see was the tree that they had used to bash babies against in order to torture their mothers. Trying to absorb everything I saw there was difficult, and I still don’t know if I’ve processed it fully. I strongly believe that humans are inherently good, so how does anything like this ever happen? The fact that all of this happened only 30 years ago is startling. I think that when enough time has passed after something terrible, we can believe that no one today would be capable of something that awful. I wasn’t allowed to believe that here because the men responsible for these crimes are still alive. How can anyone process that?

I was shocked that in school I had heard “Cambodia had a civil war” when what was happening was genocide. What was worse, our government was in support of the Khmer Rouge because they were also fighting the Vietnamese. I wonder how many other events have happened that have been left out of our history books, and that if we were taught about the worst things that people do then maybe everyone would make the conscious choice to love a little more.

On an optimistic note, Cambodia has been an independent nation for ten years now. They have a developing economy and, to quote our guide, “We chose to have peace over justice.” This means that the members of the Khmer Rouge are allowed to live within communities and are protected from job discrimination and hate crimes. The people of Cambodia are able to forgive the crimes committed against them and move forward, looking towards peace.

That night we flew from Phnom Pen to Siem Reap. Siem Reap is a beautiful city with the backdrop of over one hundred and sixteen temples. The most famous temple we visited was Angkor Wat, It was built in the 1500’s and is extraordinarily well preserved. After it had been abandoned by its original Hindu worshipers, Buddhist monks discovered it and used it as their own place of worship up until modern day. My favorite temple was the one that’s foundation was being overgrown by giant trees. The roots worked their way between the stones and wound around pillars and next to statues. Green moss grew on the rocks and all of it felt like a fairy tale land that had found the perfect balance between man and nature. It was also the temple where they filmed part of the movie Tomb Raiderso I’m definitely going to have to re-watch that movie now that I’ve been there. Among all the temples, we saw hundreds of smiling Buddhas and Sheevas and Vishnus. All of them were beautiful and it was a reminder that, after everything we’d seen the day before, humans are also capable of great beauty.

The attitude towards religion in Cambodia was refreshingly unique. Apparently, with each new king, the people were forced to follow the King’s religion. The religion of the country swapped back and forth between Buddhism and Hinduism so many times that the people decide to meet in the middle and form a type of quasi-religion. Everyone in the country identifies as Buddhist but they all respect and worship the Hindu gods as well as Buddhist philosophies. Considering how much violence religion has caused in every culture, it’s nice to see a type of flexibility that works for everyone.

Our long day of temple gazing didn’t tire us out enough to keep us from the night market. The night market is bustling and lively…and at night which means it’s actually bearable to be outside in. I drank seven bottles of water while we were touring the temples. Seven is without a doubt a new personal record. The market streets were lined with vendors and big tanks of fish. For just one dollar you can stick your feet in the fish tank and have them eat the dead skin off your feet while you enjoy a cold beer. I opted out of the fish tank but I did get a fifteen minute back massage, also for a dollar. I think that I got the better deal, though I hope the fish don’t take it personally, I know my toes would have been delicious. The night life and pubs were loud and lively as well, and actually full of tourists! Cambodia has been the first place we’ve visited where I haven’t felt completely out of place being white. I also didn’t feel like such an idiot tourist because, though I may carry around a camera, I do NOT wear a fanny pack. WINNING!

Vietnam:

Technically we visited Ho Chi Mihn City, but everyone who lives there still calls it Saigon. It wasn’t until after I stepped off the plane from Cambodia that my Global Studies teacher’s words really sunk in, “Vietnam is a country, not a war.” Saigon is bustling and lively. Everywhere you turn your head you can see sky scrapers and construction in between cute little French parks and coffee shops. I passed the occasional work out group sweating in the parks, but most of the activity was on the streets! Cars are to Los Angeles like Scooters are to Vietnam. People were good drivers and more likely to follow road laws than they were in India, but there was no concept of lanes. There is a scene in Mulan where the Grandmother thinks she is holding a lucky cricket so she closes her eyes and walks slowly across the street while all the traffic is forced to swerve and crash around her…that’s a bit like crossing a street in Vietnam. It doesn’t matter how many bikes are bombarding towards you, the safest thing to do is take a deep breath and walk slowly and steadily forward. The bikers will predict where you are going and swerve around you. The worst thing anyone can do is stop, a mistake I only had to make once.

The Vietnamese at the market are lively and fun to bargain with. The shops on the outside are government owned and have set prices, but on the inside everything is private business and the air reeks of fish and knock off brands. Every time a person gave me a price I would start out with an “OI CHOOOY YOOOOI” Which roughly translates into OH MY GOD. When I busted that phrase out with my American accent it sent all the shop keepers into hysterics and if I was lucky enough, they’d forget the price they’d first offered and give me a better deal.

Visiting the War Remnants Museum was another tough day. Though the local people have all seemed to put their biases in the past and welcomed Americans, the government has not done the same. The museum was mostly filled with disturbing pictures, many of them taken by American photographers, and captioned with descriptions of what the French, South Vietnamese, or Americans had done. Many people left feeling like it was some type of propaganda, but I thought it was just a different kind of truth. This museum was the version from the other side. Our version of the war was that we wanted to save Southern Vietnam from Communism; their version was that they wanted to be allowed to govern themselves independently. True, they didn’t talk much about what they had done to us but I already know that side of the story. What I left the museum with was the feeling of sadness and anger. War, no matter what side you’re on, does terrible things. Why are we still fighting in the Middle East and why does no one talk about what’s happening over there? It destroys lives and families, so forgive me if I sound like I’m in a beauty contest here but let’s all opt for world peace in this next generation, okay? Okay deal.

I don’t know if it’s the French influence, but the coffee in Saigon was the best coffee I’ve ever had. I was over caffeinated and jittery for my entire two days there because I loved it so much that I couldn’t stop drinking it. The food was good too. Most things were rice based so I had plenty of options, and every time you sit down for a meal you should expect to be there for a very long time. I’m beginning to think that, although Americans love food, we’re the only culture that feels the need to eat it in a hurry. Meals were events and if we wanted to leave we had to ask for the check because it would be rude for the waiters to suggest it was time to go.

Our last night was the night before Halloween so we got to walk around the streets and see all the locals out in their costumes. To celebrate, we went out to a bar called Apocalypse Now. We knew we had to stay until morning to see if we could smell the napalm (that’s a bad joke having to do with the movie Apocalypse Now just so you know. If you haven’t seen it, watch it, it’s awesome!) In most of the places we’ve visited, the night life has been relatively mellow and the only people who really get into dancing are the tourists. You could tell that in Malaysia the people were watching us on the dance floor and thinking, “Look at those crazy Australians making fools of themselves.” I say Australians because, even though there were a lot of Americans there too, the Australians are the loudest and rowdiest. At Apocalypse now that wasn’t the case though, everyone was there dancing together and having a blast. I danced with a guy in a full on clown suite and got very excited that he was from India but lived in Hong Kong because I’d just been to India and was headed to Hong Kong next. Traveling the world is pretty cool. I’ve also noticed that girls’ bathrooms are the same everywhere. I doesn’t matter what country you’re in, there will always be girls chatting in the bathroom and crowded around the mirrors fixing their hair and makeup. I’m sure there’s some sociological insight you could draw from that, but I’ll leave the work for someone else and just say that it makes me feel more connected with girls everywhere. Allison and I also made up this weird dance move with several girls in Mini Mouse costumes. All of them were a foot shorter than the two of us and we basically kept flailing our arms into the inside of a circle. I imagine it looked a bit like part of the hokey pokey being performed by zombies. Don’t worry; I will be happy to teach anyone who’s interested when I get home.

Hold tight, my China post will be up soon! Keep it real my homies.