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.

Sorry Texas, Everything's Bigger in India

October 16, 2011

India is intrusive. The heat, smell, humidity, people, colors, and spices wrap you in a binding blanket until your entire body is sweating out the country itself. It is full of contradictions, energy, and hard truths. One thing can be true in one place, and the opposite will be true a couple blacks over. In a nut shell, I loved India and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Also, stay with me here, I’ve been busy so I’m sorry if this post is not exactly inspired…or grammatically correct. I will do my best to please all of you minions back at home.

Day One: I signed up for a Field Directed Practicum, so the moment customs gave us the green light I jumped onto a bus with the rest of my poetry class and we drove through Chennai to a cute little house just off the main road. This bus ride marked my first encounter with Indian men. Our tour guide, a shy 21 year old student did not guide us on our tour at all. He felt his time was better spent talking with me in the back of the bus about the Backstreet Boys and asking questions about American dating. I also experienced the lack of personal space that is normal for everyone. When 1.2 billion people live in a single country, the personal bubble morphs into more of a personal saran wrap.

We ended up in the living room of a professor from the University of Chennai and got to chat to Tulsi, a female novelist. We spent all day learning about the history of female writers in India, talking about her books and how her culture has shaped her writing, and eating delicious Indian snacks like plantain chips and chutney. Tulsi has also studied traditional Hindu dance so she gave us a demonstration and taught us all how to dance like elephants or men in love. I already had a head start on dancing like an elephant from the New Years that Vivian gave our family lessons, there is embarrassing video evidence of this somewhere. It was great being able to talk to an author and to have the opportunity of be welcomed into the country in such an intimate setting. We got discuss Hinduism and the idea of Karma as well as marriage in India and how it has changed. Marriages are often still arranged in India, and when they are arranged, a person is expected to marry within their own social class. It is believed that people aren’t as compatible outside one’s own class system because they don’t have the same family values, celebrations, and expectations. Tulsi’s grandparents married for love and, as a result, so did her parents and eventually her too.  Once someone marries outside of their own caste, their children are a mixed bread and have no strict identity within the culture. This means that they could not take part in an arranged marriage even if they wanted to. She explained that she had a very happy marriage but she also felt as if she didn’t have any place or culture where she fully belonged. I believe that it is this very feeling of isolation and a dedication to tradition that keeps the caste system in India so visible even though it’s been outlawed since the fifties.

Day Two: My alarm went off at 3am. I resisted the urge to kill everything and rolled out of bed instead. I met up with my crew (the superfine nine…okay I just made that name up, but there were nine of us and we were superfine so it works.) All of us found our groggy way out of the boat and into a cab that took us to the airport. The Chennai airport had a cookie stand, a candy bar, and holes in the ground that were called toilets. I had a nutritious almond joy for my 6am breakfast and thought to myself, “Welcome to India!”

Our two and a half hour flight took us the New Delhi. The plan was to catch a train from there to Shimla, a small mountain village right up against the Himalayas. This is where Semester at Sea’s favorite ‘F’ word came into play: Flexibility! We hadn’t purchased our train tickets ahead of time and there was no place to buy tickets in the actual station unless we wanted to ride third class. The people already waiting for third class covered the floor, sleeping on top of each other with flies swarming around their heads. Eventually, after carefully picking our way through sprawled out limbs, we found a man who said we needed to go to the tourist office to book tickets. We hopped on a rickshaw, which is a bit like a fast moving golf cart, and swerved our way through impossibly small gaps in the traffic to get to the agency. Over the course of twenty minutes, the agent helping us managed to convince all nine of us that we didn’t actually want to go the Shimla. Instead, we wanted to Agra and see the Taj Mahal and then head straight to Jaipur on our own hired minibus. Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur all form an equilateral triangle on the map and he kept on drawing lines around it and repeating “The Golden Triangle.” All of us were hypnotized. One of the most unsettling parts of traveling is never knowing if someone is trying to help you or rip you off. I don’t know if we got a better deal or had a better trip than we would have, but we had a great time so I guess it doesn’t matter much. The drive from Delhi to Agra was about five hours so we caught up on sleep for most of the ride.

When we stopped at a rest stop, a little boy met us at the window with a cobra in a basket. He flicked it in the face until it raised its neck and spread it out to its full size threateningly. He then kept on repeating, “It won’t bite!” and motioning to it. I reached out of the window and he handed it to me. It slithered around in my hands for a bit and then I gave it back to him with a giant squeal. I hope that snake didn’t have fangs. If it did, that’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but I get to hold a cobra so yippy!

The hotel we found had character. There were cigarette ashes in the couch, unidentifiable stains on the sheets, and no shower. Instead, we got a faucet in the wall, a bucket, and a drain on the floor. I finished washing and couldn’t decide if I felt cleaner or dirtier than I had in the first place. At least it had TV and Western toilets. The boys took forever to get ready for dinner, so us five girls turned on the television and watched Indian music videos. I am obsessed with the Dezi Boys. The Dezi Boys are two ridiculously ripped guys who pelvic thrust in firefighter, pilot, and construction outfits for the entire song. Apparently India is obsessed with the Dezi Boys also because their music video was playing everywhere we went.

Dinner time! A word on Indian food: it’s delicious. For every meal we ordered different rice dishes, sauces, and nan. They always gave us too much food and it was so good that I ate it anyways. I probably gained a solid five pounds over the four days we were traveling. My favorite dishes were Dal, a type of spicy lentil soup, and Chicken Biryani which is an oily rice dish with chicken and vegetables. Yummmm. The Butter Chicken is also amazing. It’s chicken in a spicy marinara-like sauce with butter and cream. Actually, pretty much everything has butter and cream. The food comas hit soon after and we went to bed early.

Day Three: 4:30am wakeup call! I threw on whatever clothes were closest to me and made a b-line for the restaurant downstairs. About the only thing that can motivate me to wake up after my second pre-dawn morning is a free breakfast. I didn’t get quite what I expected. Eggs were not on the menu. Instead we got spicy lentil soup and really really spicy potato and vegetable patties. It’s a good thing the coffee was strong because my taste buds weren’t ready to get out of bed yet either. Full and awake from the food, we drove to the Taj Mahal and got there in time for the sunrise. To get into the monument there were four separate lines. The first was for Indian men, the second for tourist men, the third for Indian women, and the fourth for tourist women. Guess who’s line took the longest? Mine did! I kept on grumbling to myself “I’m not a second class citizen,” and then I forgot to be angry because I got to watch monkeys run across the gate wall to greet the sun. 

We’ve all seen a bazillion pictures of the Taj Mahal but it was beautiful to see in person. If you don’t know much about it, it was built in the 1600s by Emperor Shah Jahon for his wife who died during her 14^th childbirth. She died with three requests, “Don’t re-marry, watch over our children, and build something to remember me by.” She’s certainly been remembered so way to go, girl! I think that any woman who has fourteen kids deserves a giant monument…not that that should be a motivation for anyone to have fourteen kids by choice.

We moved from the Taj to Agra Palace. Instead of paying money to walk around inside the palace, we explored the ruins outside the walls. We got to walk into an old, unattended building from the 1500s. Inside were uneven stair cases and rooms that went back into the darkness. We explored a few of these but didn’t walk too far into the dark because bats were hanging on the ceiling and went into flying frenzies every time we entered one of their resting spots. Dr. Phil warned us about rabies so we ran. Dr. Phil is famous on the ship for his terrifying descriptions or parasites, fevers, and worst case scenarios. Apparently one of his lectures gave my poetry professor’s daughter nightmares. When we emerged from the building, we found a boy stripped down to his underwear at the head of the ancient water source. The water was slimy, green, and looked about three feet deep. None of this discouraged the boy from the flip he performed off the fifteen foot drop into it. I don’t think Dr. Phil would recommend jumping in that water either. He then came running up to us and asking for money so we were glad to see he survived and decided it was time to go. We hopped back on the bus and drove another six hours to Jaipur.

The hotel in Jaipur was considerably nicer than the one we had in Agra. We had a shower and clean sheets and everything! We had dinner on the rooftop and got to watch a traditional cobra dance performed by a talented little boy. He made me stand up and try to dance with him…I usually consider myself a decent dancer but this boy’s head couldn’t have been attached to his neck like a normal person’s. Apparently holding a cobra didn’t qualify me to dance like one. I woke up three times in the middle of the night at our hotel. The first time, the water in our shower started running on its own. Apparently the hotel had just turned on the hot water and the faucet had been on already. The other two wakeups were due to power outages that I noticed because our fan would suddenly stop turning and the room would get instantly sticky and unbearable. I can understand how some places get the reputation for being haunted. To add even more character to this hotel, there was a giant mural of a woman dancing with flowers and an overgrown mustache outside our room. Curious, very curious.

Day Four: We got to sleep in until 7:30am! I had enough time to eat breakfast and check the room for ghosts before we made our way to the Amber Palace. Jaipur is a beautiful place. All of the buildings are pink and it is surrounded by small mountains that cover the horizon in every direction. Winding up the mountains was a delicate pink wall full of guard towers and a sense of ancient grandeur. These were the very walls that protected the Amber Palace in the 1500s. We were kindly spared the 13 kilometer hike up to the palace, and who were are rescuers? Elephants of course! These huge elephants had seats strapped to their back that were big enough to be mattresses. Two people sat on each elephant but we could have easily fit another two people with us. I never noticed how big the creatures actually were until I looked down at the rolling ground and decided adamantly not to fall. As we rode up the wall we got to watch all the animals make their way back down in their colorful outfits and face paint. In Hinduism, the god Ganesh is shaped like an elephant and is known as the breaker of barriers. It was pretty clear to me how they came up with this analogy. Each god also has a little vehicle that they travel on. Ganesh’s ride of choice is a mouse; I found this slightly less practical. Gods will be gods I guess.

We got off Jumpu (Our elephant) and found ourselves in the middle of the palace courtyard. It was lively, like everything in India, and swarming with tourists and vendors. Our tour guide walked us through the place where the emperor held court, the palace spa, and the rooms for the emperor’s twelve wives. My favorite room in the palace was the mirror room. Tiny mirrors were incorporated into the designs in the walls and served as heating devices for winter nights. They would catch the light from the lamps and reflect heat into the room. They also served as mood lighting for the emperor when he was entertaining his wives. The servants would set up a mattress surrounded by thick curtains and then wave lamps on the outside of the curtains in order to create the allusion of sparkling stars above them.

We ate lunch at a sketchy roadside restaurant crawling with ants. It was busy with locals though, so we took this as a good sign. The food was delicious as expected, we just made sure to take our Pepto. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in the middle of the pink city. I’m getting to be a pro at bargaining, don’t you mess with me shop keepers! Shopping in India is fun because everything is colorful and sparkling and even the poorest women are always dressed gorgeously. The men, for some reason, all wear Western clothes and look shabby and dirty compared to the scarves and saris of the women. A lot of the students went to the Ganges River and came back with heart wrenching stories of beggars with horrible deformities. Apparently beggars will cut off their own fingers or arms so that people feel worse for them and give them more money. There are also children who serve under masters (Slumdog Millionaire style) and are deformed by the older people who capture them and force them to beg. The country has programs and temples that provide food for the very poor, but unfortunately begging is ingrained into the culture because people often get more money than they would otherwise. The street kids can make more money in a day than the average cab driver, but because they have no way to save it without being robbed, they spend it right away on things like videogames and drugs. Jaipur is not as much of a tourist attraction so we were lucky enough to not have to face too much of this. Instead, we all felt like celebrities because everyone kept on sneaking pictures of us on their cellphones. One man pulled Joe (the tallest guy in our group) to a stool and had him pose for a picture while sitting on his lap. Joe was unhappy with us when we started congratulating him on his new boyfriend.  I personally thought they looked very cute together.        

When we were back at our hotel for the night we went to go investigate a giant party across the street from us. It was so big and elaborate that we figured it was a wedding, but as we snuck a peak, the people standing at the door beckoned us inside. It turned out to be a little girl’s birthday party. Everyone was decked out in their party clothes and full of smiles for us. We got to dance with several of the local kids and they gave us homemade Indian Ice cream. I thought it would be vanilla flavored because it was white but it was actually rich and creamy and sweetened lightly. There was no flavoring at all except that of the cream and sugar it was made from. A group of women in bight saris with dangling bindies pulled me over and asked me to dance for them. I did a couple of hip swings before all of them burst out laughing together. I asked them to dance with me but they all shook their heads no. I’m sure they were all just jealous of my sweet moves. Grandpa once told me that I danced well for a white girl and I’m taking that complement to the grave!

Our timing was smack dab in the middle of festival season which meant lots of decorative floats, animals, and fireworks! The birthday party died down and we got our own after party started by lighting off fireworks in the park across from our hotel. There were about 20 people in the park, adults and kids alike (who knows what people do in parks at 11pm) and everyone gathered around to watch our show. The men loved it every time one of us girls went up to light a fuse. I might have squealed a bit and run away unnecessarily fast but my advice to them still remains “Never make fun of the person in control of the firepower.” Some of the kids around us looked to be five or six and we had to fight to keep them from getting a hold of the rockets. Maybe I’m a straight-laced American but I couldn’t justify giving a five year old something he could blow himself up with. Our hotel manager wanted a piece of the fun too so we saved a couple of the rockets and took them to the hotel roof where he got to light them off with us. Most of our crew went to bed after we came dangerously close to setting a tree on fire, but Joe and I made friends with a crazy English bloke and two German girls and stayed up chatting much later than we should have. The motto of many of us SASers is “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Dr. Phil’s motto is, “If you don’t sleep, you’ll die a lot sooner.” I try to find the happy middle ground.

Day Five: Our last day was mostly a travel day. It takes a long time to get anywhere in India. The drive back to the airport was about seven hours long and we had the pleasure of witnessing a car accident. The system they have for dealing with an accident involves…oh wait, what system? It probably took three times longer to get around the cars than was necessary because no one was actually in their cars. I felt like I was looking at an instant black party, only everyone was angry and yelling. Our driver kept on getting out of the car, walking around, talking to everyone else who was also walking around, and then getting back in, honking the horn a couple times, and leaving again. We eventually got around the accident by crossing the grass median, swerving through very slow moving oncoming traffic, and crossing back over the median where the road was clear. Just as we were getting away (after sitting in the traffic for an hour and a half) people had started to gather rocks and line them around the road in order to re-direct traffic. Setting up the Third World version of a parking cone was a community effort.

For some reason, lays potato chips were EVERYWHERE. We ate a lot of chips on our drive because we had nothing better to do than sing obnoxiously and eat. Instead of the traditional flavors, we tried Tomato Basil (ketchup flavor), Onion (we couldn’t find Sour Cream and Onion), and Spicy Treat. Spicy Treat was not as much a treat as a vomit inducer. Imagine a potato chip with pepper, mint, licorice, paprika, and about ten other unidentified flavors mixed in. Now imagine eating that chip. Enough said. I would also like to point out that I made everyone sing to moose song with me and they actually enjoyed it. In the airport I ordered nachos. They didn’t sound gourmet but they sounded like they’d be safely gluten free. What I got was Doritos on a plate. I may have grumbled a little.

Overall, we spent 16 hours traveling and got back to the ship tired and cranky. The security was so tight that we had to stop at three different check points and wait in three different lines before we were allowed into the port. I don’t understand how making a checkmark next to my name on a sheet of paper is saving the country from terrorism but I do know I was ready to punch the lady with the little metal detector wand in the face. A couple deep breathing exercises later, I found myself back on the ship and in the shower for a long, long time.  I spent most of the last day recovering and sneezing brown boogers. NAMASTE India! The Great Spirit within me acknowledges the Great Spirit within you.         

  

Mauritius and the Deliciously Vicious

October 6, 2011

I’d love to leave a very long entry about the rich history and culture of Mauritius, but its history (starting in the 1700s) is as relatively short to all of human history as our stay was short to the length of this voyage. I was only off the ship for a total of eight and a half hours. To be fair, it was brief, but very fun excursion. I signed up for a catamaran with several of my friends and we went for a two hour float through crystal clear blue waters. We all took turns sitting at the front of the boat on the trampoline section and letting the waves wash up over us and push us back to the center. The ocean is the world’s largest public playground (not that I’ve forgotten about my lovely mountains, they’re the most fun, the ocean is just bigger.) We eventually landed on a white sand beach where we laid out and I immediately busted out the snorkeling gear and headed for the water. The ocean was warm and clear and I swam around for a solid two hours looking at all the pretty tropical fish. The coral, unfortunately, was mostly bleached out due to the rising temperature of the water, but I still had a blast in my own watery world and I have the sunburn on the back of both my legs to prove it. After snorkeling, I headed back to the beach for tanning and rum drinks. Lunch time was a very difficult time of day for us. We caught the hangries (anger caused by hunger) and stood on the beach shore looking longingly off towards our catamaran and waiting for the little shuttle boat to come pick us up. I had to keep making my brain repeat to my stomach that I had eaten breakfast and would indeed eat again soon. When we finally got lunch I managed to eat three pieces of barbeque chicken, a hot dog, a piece of fish, and a giant salad…don’t ask me how. There is a reason none of us took swimsuit pictures in the afternoon. When we sailed all the way back to the beach, Tori found that her shoes had been stolen from the big basket we’d thrown them all in. Poor girl, she’s a bit of a bad luck magnet. She was a good sport about it though and we quickly ran over to Billabong to buy her some new flip flops. We managed to jump on the bus back to the ship just as it was pulling away. On ship, the evening was an Aloe Vera and early-to-bed night.

You might be wondering what, exactly, was so very vicious on Mauritius. The answer: absolutely nothing. It was the day of great competition and the making a champions that followed. That’s right; I’m talking about the SEA OLYMPICS! The Sea Olympics is basically a giant color war. Each section of the boat is given a sea name and a color. Our sea is the Bering Sea and, unfortunately, we are orange. It’s not the most flattering color but it did help me get my fierce face on. It also helped us in the face painting competition because we had plenty of orange paint to make clown fish with. I personally participated in the banner contest, the human knot, and synchronized swimming. Our banner had a giant narwhal (the Bering Sea mascot) and a trident made entirely of glitter. My theory in arts and crafts is that it’s not good unless it’s glittery. This banner was a work of art, and in the tradition of great art, it is always underappreciated until after the artist dies. Just give it sixty years or so and our banner will be known by all as THE GREATEST SEMESTER AT SEA BANNER OF ALL TIME. You’ll see. 

The human knot was a disaster. Every time we tried to untangle ourselves, the knot just got more convoluted. By the end we were getting pity cheers from all the other teams. I died a bit inside. What were all those years of Girl Scout camp for if I can’t solve a human knot? Let us never mention this atrocity again.

I had signed up with Mary and Lauren for synchronized swimming two days before Mauritius and we didn’t find out we were officially doing it until Mauritius. This means we didn’t have a routine by the day of the competition. Luckily, we convinced our friend Collin to join us. We woke up at 7am, got in the cold pool, and busted out a routine. Girl Scouts may not have prepared me for the human knot, but my expansive store of cheesy choreography from Broadway Show Choir and the school dance team did. We made up and rehearsed our entire dance in about 45 minutes. The actual competition wasn’t until the afternoon and I think everyone of the boat showed up to watch. We chose “California Girls” as our song and we three girls wore matching orange bandana tops and cute pigtail braids. We had Collin rock the Tupac bandanna. Our routine was flawless; I have it on tape if anyone wants to see it when I get home. I think I’ve found my new calling in water handstands. Okay, not actually, but we did have a lot of fun and placed third out of eleven teams. The team that got first place was a bunch a guys who did a dance to “Barbie Girl” and the professors got second. They had four of the male staff do “It’s Raining Men.” Both acts were tough to beat so I’m proud of our standings. I also appreciated the professors’ team name: the Prof A Sea. Hehe, classic. Other events that I didn’t participate in but watched were crab soccer, dodge ball, the reverse spelling bee, tug of war, and taboo. Over all, we placed fifth (we would have gotten fourth if it hadn’t been for the yellow sea dominating us at the reverse spelling bee in the last event.) Going back to normal classes after the Sea Olympics is a letdown, but learning and stuff is cool too I guess. We’re currently sailing full speed ahead to India! I can’t wait to tell you about more of my adventures soon. Love to all. If you find yourself missing me, watch some Bollywood, it’ll be like I’m right there with you!