Final Days

The day after we left Guatemala I had my last finals. I said goodbye to all my professors and got their emails. After classes were over SAS turned into Spring Break 2009. I mean, we didn’t have classes or anywhere to be. All we had to do was eat, sleep and hang around the pool.

After the last finals day was when we transited the Panama Canal. We had a professor narrate what we going through and seeing as we did the 9 hour haul through the canal. We went through three locks saw a lot of other boats. I thought it was really cool seeing the personal sailboats passing by, they were traveling so far! We are the last voyage to completely circumnavigate the globe, the one next semester is starting in San Diego and ending in Florida, once we found out it was $150,000 to go through the canal it all made sense why.

It was SO hot in Panama and there was no sign of a breeze from any direction. We chilled around the pool all day and I thought I was in a frying pan. We were all trying to soak up the sun and last bits of Semester at Sea. There was a ping pong tournament going on and at one point I got up to get some water, I was walking with my bag and I guess I navigated a bit too close to the ping pong table, the ball went into my bag hahaha WHOOPS! The guys are REALLY serious about ping pong, or any intramural sport, so they were not happy with me. They had to start over, I thought it was hilarious.

That night was the Ambassador’s Ball. All the girls get snazzy, the guys wear their Vietnamese suits and we all have a 5 course dinner followed by a night of dancing! The meal was SO good; I had coconut shrimp, French onion soup, Caesar salad and a steak. We were allowed two glasses of wine at dinner but the staff that was serving my table loves me so I got poured a wee bit more, yes! After dinner we all went to a room to have a little “pre-game party.” My friend snuck two bottles of vodka on the ship by pouring them into ziplock bags and stuffing them in her bra. She went from A cup to DD, but hey it worked! We had music playing and once again everything was bitter sweet. After our little party we went up to the dance floor. It was so CROWDED and the ship was rocking like crazy. It was one of the funniest things I have ever experienced, we were all sardines on the dance floor and when a wave would come we would all, as a group, fall completely in one direction and then sway back the other. Feet were bleeding and elbows were thrown, every time I fell on someone I would say, “Sorry, sorry! It wasn’t me it was the wave!” There is always a point in the night when things wind down and people start pairing off as “couples for the night” and disappear. That’s usually when it gets awkward for me, so I just went to bed. The Ball was fun and a good way to begin to say goodbye to everyone.

The next day was packing day. It didn’t take me too long to pack but I had 4 huge suitcases, more than anyone I had seen. I 100% over packed but oh well, I had everything I needed. Once I was done packing I went up to the pool. We all stayed at the pool, grabbed dinner and watched the sunset. I couldn’t believe it had been 4 months already. One more day on the ship…

The last day was called “Re-Entry/Reflecting/Convocation.” At 10am we had a graduation ceremony for seniors and an official alumni celebration. We were welcomed into the Alumni association for Semester at Sea, which includes a 5 day voyage to Cabo san Lucas in January. I emailed my Mom about it saying I wanted to go and she wrote back, “I know you are.” I think it’s good that my parents have accepted that I “ask” for permission but really it is a rhetorical question, the answer is already known. We went back to our rooms when the ceremony was finished and when my sea, the Yellow Sea, was called we had to bring our luggage down to deck 2 in preparation for the next day. After that it was another day at the pool. It was the last day on the ship and it was all we could talk about. How did all of this happen so quickly? I can’t even begin to digest all I have seen.

Everyone had their cameras out for the whole day, taking all the pictures they could in 24hours. We all planned to stay up the entire night to watch the sunrise and see the lights of Florida approaching. I lasted until about 4am, went to sleep for two hours and then got up to meet those who made it through the whole night. We were on the seventh deck and I saw the sunrise, and then I saw the lights. I was excited but sad. I couldn’t wait to see my dad but I didn’t want to leave my friends. There’s something different about friendships when you go through something like this together. We always say how SAS is like a secret society because anyone can go abroad to a country but ONLY SAS can come on the ship and ONLY we know what goes on.

The lights of Florida got closer and closer. My phone picked up AT&T service from shore and that’s when I knew it was really over. We were all piled on the decks to see the parents as we rolled in. I called my mom as we went through the jetties of Ft. Lauderdale Port Everglades harbor. The girl who won the raffle for blowing the horn as we pulled into port made it sound. Literally, she must have pulled it a thousand times; I thought my ears were going to blow off. My dad said that after two horn blows it means you’re in danger, well anyone who was listening would have thought we capsized or were about to go under.

We turned the corner into port and we saw the parents standing waiting for their little Magellans. There was my dad, front center at the gate like I knew he would be. Really, what time did you get there? 6am? Have to get their early. I told my friends to watch him because I know his love for boats; he wouldn’t look for me on the deck until he watched the ship dock. And that’s exactly what he did; if it was his boat and I throw the lines out to early I would get the standard “Don’t throw the lines out yet! Don’t let the guy pull us in from the dock! I’ll do it and then you throw them!” Well no one was going to pull this ship on manually so we didn’t have to worry about that.

Finally he saw me and he lifted his hand out of his pocket, gave me an under the chin wave. I pointed him out to my friends and he gave them a salute. I also told them I feel like our friendships went to the next level because my friends rarely meet my dad so that means we were extra close.

P.S. we were woken up this morning to another ridiculous America song, I just can’t remember what it was because I was sleepless and delusional.

We had a little while before we could leave the ship. When customs was cleared a fellow student came over the loud speaker to say an amazing speech, at the end he said, “DING! You are now free to roam about the country,” wow it was over. My friends and I sat around on the 7th deck outside. They called everyone off by their seas, we were the fifth sea to be called so we all said goodbye to those who left before us.

It was cool that all my closest friends were in my sea so we got to walk off together. Most of my closest friends were guys and it was only me and them left, no tears were shed we were all just sitting together. Finally Luke came on the speaker and said, “Yellow Sea you can now disembark.” We immediately looked at each other and started crying, yes… guys were crying. We all hugged and said our goodbyes, which were some really nice things. We went down to our rooms, grabbed our backpacks then went to the gangway. I got a picture of my last swipe out and we were all just really quiet together. The bag claiming process was intense but we all met up again before customs. We walked through customs and we were outside, on land, in America. It was like a little waiting area in front of the parents once you walked outside so they could see who came out and tell if it was their child or not. I met some of my friend’s parents as I looked for mine. We all did one final hug goodbye and I saw my Dad come through the crowd to hug me. I made it, without a scratch on me. I was so happy to see him and now I was in “home” mode. I just wanted to get back.

Semester at Sea was the most amazing thing I have ever done. Less than 1% of the world’s population circumnavigates the world. I saw poverty up close and experienced current events first hand. In 108 days I saw 12 countries, traveled 34,319 miles, changed my clock 26 times, lost an entire day through the date line and circled the entire world. I recommend this program to any other that is offered, I love being a SAS Alumni. I have made friends I will keep for a lifetime. None of us said goodbye, we just said “See you soon.” Thank you Mom and Dad for the most incredible experience yet. I can’t fathom how I am going to begin to put this on my resume.

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

The theme for our voyage was “Ubuntu.” A person is a person through other persons, no one can be human in isolation.

Thanks for reading,
Bon voyage
Jaclyn

Monterrico, Guatemala City - Guatemala

I have to say that before getting off the MVeX I imagined the worst place on Earth. I had been to Costa Rica which is not far so I couldn’t imagine how it got that bad that fast. About 12 of my friends and I rented a beach house in Monterrico... It was the cutest little bungalow right on the beach and it was only $100 a night… divided by 12, insane! Monterrico has black sand beaches from volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes were erupting AS we were there, I knew some SASers who roasted marshmallows over lava, really!!

Day 1

We left the ship after it cleared customs around 1030am and found a cab. This was quite the headache because they were trying to charge us about $140 for one way; that is absolutely insane, it was 20 miles away. I told them that the price they gave was more expensive than NYC and we bargained it down to about $10 a person. We had two drivers in the front, one was 22 one was 19, and they took us to Monterrico. My friend Gabby who was with me speaks fluent Spanish so we were doing pretty well so far.

Side note: Guatemala is known for highway carjackings and robberies. About 2 weeks earlier 11 Michigan students had their bus hijacked and were taken to a remote field, robbed at gun point and then left. I was pretty nervous to be on the highway but it was daylight and well, I had to get there!

On the way to the house the driver pulled over in an abandoned area and they both got out of the car. I looked at Gabby with a FREAKED out face, I know she speaks Spanish but I guess I thought she read Spanish minds also, and she looks at me and says, “This is the part where we get robbed.”

They stood behind the trunk for a bit, where all our stuff was, then gets back in the car and says, “JUST KIDDING!!” Okay, I’m laughing, sort of… ha…ha…
We got to the house and a couple of the others were already there. It was gorgeous, it slept 12 people, had a pool and 3 hammocks on the roof. It was clean and there was a Guatemalan woman there who said she would cook every meal for us for only $10 a day total! Beach house and personal chef? I think so!

We unloaded our stuff and asked the cab driver for one of his CD’s so that we can really divulge ourselves in the culture. We got a Daddy Yankee CD, hahahahaa really surrounding ourself with the culture. We all hung around the pool, went in the ocean and just relaxed for the day. This was our last port so we all wanted to have a really good relaxed time.

Later that night I had to get back to the ship because I was leaving early in the morning on a SAS trip to Guatemala City. Our cab friends came to get Caitlin and I and we got back to the MVeX.

Day 2

Today we head out to Guatemala City. We were going to check out a non-profit organization called “Camino Seguro” or Safe Passage. What the company does is it rescues one child from a family, which is usually around 8 people, and puts them through school from first grade to 12th, no matter how old they are. The reason they do this is because the entire family works in the Guatemala City central dump. If one child is put through school they can get a good enough job to support an entire family with one person.

They parked the bus we were in at the cemetery and we had armed guards surrounding us. We were at the cemetery because it had a great view of the dump, since we couldn’t and shouldn’t go in. We got off and walked towards this cliff, the second I got to the edge I was overwhelmed. I saw vulcher’s swooping low over hundreds of men and women digging through a dump that seemed like the size of Texas. There was so much trash and so many trucks coming into the dump nonstop at an alarming rate. The guide that was with us told us that the people dig day in and day out for glass, plastics and cardboard to sell to recycle companies for money. Around 200 pounds of cardboard can be sold for $5 U.S. He also said that most people die of lung related illnesses and diseases to that degree from the fumes and toxicity of the dump.

The people are destitute and can never escape the life of the dump unless they have a child who can support them, which is where Camino Seguro comes in. Some of the things that they are digging through are hospital waste, hotel waste, dead animals from the zoo (they found and elephant tail once) and dead bodies from the cemetery. As we were standing there the guide pointed out a toxic waste truck that was pulling in. The truck literally backed up right where people were digging, then the men driving opened up about 10 barrels and dumped this hot blue toxic hazardous liquid right where men and women were, I can only imagine what the substance was. I was watching all of this in silence, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, no words can describe the magnitude of it.

The man from Camino Seguro told us that besides the toxicity of the entire dump the people’s biggest threat were dogs and vulchers. He has seen these men and women be attacked by both.
We watched the surroundings for about 30 minutes and then went back to the bus. The next stop was the school in which they take them to.

The school was absolutely beautiful. It was in the middle of the slums and seemed to be almost a sanctuary. The University of Washington had come down several times to donate things such as gardens and supplies and the playground they had even made me jealous! The kids were cute, I am not good with kids, and all the people who worked there seemed really into the cause. The woman who started it was an American woman from Maine who went to Guatemala, saw the dump and immediately sold all her possessions to start the organization immediately, she later died in a car crash but her vision has grown tenfold since.

We went up to the top floor classroom and looked out at the surroundings from the balcony. I saw houses that were barely standing and they were all clumped together. It reminded me of the townships of South Africa. Houses were made out of anything and everything they could find. It was one of the most impoverished places I had seen. There were so many homes in such a small area it seemed as though they were squeezing hundreds of people into a garage. I saw a wall of one house made out of the tarp of a Twister game, seriously. There were bags and bags of soda cans on top of some of the houses and the guide said they collected them and are waiting for the price of cans to go up so they can sell them for some money.

The last stop was with the mothers of the children. They were all so happy and greatful for the Camino Seguro program. They told us they created little businesses for themselves by making jewelry from items in the dump, I bought a bracelet from them and I love it!

After and exhausting and emotional day I went back to the MVeX, called my cab man and got back to the beach house. While I was waiting for the cab to get there a storm rolled in and took about .5 seconds to start torrential down pouring and the wind was blowing at about 300 mph. I wrapped a shirt around my head and sat in a corner until my man got there.

Back at the house it was a lot of what was happening before… partying, hanging out, lots of laughs, good conversation, celebrations of friendship and just overall good times.

Day 3

We all woke up and got our bathing suits on. We had to be back at the MVeX around 6pm so we had breakfast made by the cook and just relaxed. The waves in the ocean were SO big and after about 10 minutes I had to get out because I was exhausted from staying afloat. We swam in the pool for most of the day and had some of the biggest laughs yet. It was a bitter sweet day because we were happy to be together but sad it was the last port and to be leaving soon.
We got a can cab and squeezed about 20 people into it.

We got back to the MVeX in one piece and went up to the 7th deck. SAS was giving us a BBQ! After I ate I noticed they were undoing the lines from the docks and our pilot boat was guiding us out. I went to the stern of the ship and watched us leave the last SAS port. I’m not going to lie, I got a little emotional but I still had quite a few days left. As I saw the lights get further and further away I went down to my cabin for a good night’s sleep.

Honolulu, Waikiki - Hawaii

AMERICA!!!!!!!

 

We got into Honolulu around 8am and had to do a face to face immigration. The assistant academic dean woke us up at 7:30am over the loudspeaker blasting “Living in America.” I woke up laughing; when it was done I looked at Caitlin and said, “I am not even mad.”  We all looked like zombies coming out of our rooms to smile for the immigrations men while holding our passports up.

 

Day 1

 

When I walked down the gangway and got to the bottom step I did a flying leap off, USA soil!

 

My friends and I walked out of the port and the first thing I noticed was that everyone who was from Hawaii was being greeted by their moms and dads. I was so jealous! I want my mom and dad; mine are way cooler than yours anyway!

 

We were all staying at my friend Amelia’s “beach house,” a 7 bedroom mansion on the water, not to be confused with her “real house” 3 blocks down. There were about 12 of us and we all piled into her mom and dads cars, after her mom gave us Hawaiian flowers for our hair, and headed out.

 

On the way we passed Waikiki beach and a Cheesecake Factory, mama mia I’m home.

 

Her house was absolutely insane. We all unloaded our stuff and relaxed by the pool. We didn’t have any where to be and not a care in the world. Her mom gave us chips and salsa and other fabulous American things. This seems like not a big deal but you have no idea the joy it brought us, you would have thought we hadn’t eaten in weeks.

 

A couple of us went to Waikiki beach. I am more of a beach person. When I was there I got in contact with an old Northport friend, Chris Zorbo! He met me at the beach and we went to grab some lunch. We walked into this outdoor bar and I saw something I haven’t seen in 3 months, Blue Moon on tap, this day just kept getting better and better!!

 

Good conversation followed and we caught up on life. He has been living in Hawaii for 6 years and I could see why, the island was beautiful. After grubbing we went back to the beach where our stuff was and all my friends got back from surfing. I was supposed to surf that day but I was nervous so I decided to kick start the tan first.

 

Chris squeezed 7 people into an old school VW golf and took everyone to a great Hawaiian BBQ joint and then brought us back to Amelia’s.

 

It was Amelia’s 21^st birthday so her Mom was making a big dinner. There were so many delicious things to be eaten and I made it my mission to get it done. I can’t wait for my Mommy to make me food… hmmm…

 

After we ate, more SASers started showing up for the party. The weather was gorgeous and the house was all open to the outside. It turned out to be a great night of drinking, friends and poolside fun. Oh, her birthday cake was cheesecake so you know who was smiling! :)

 

Day 2

 

We woke up and Amelia brought us to a bagel place. Seriously, I have been craving an American bagel since 1976.

 

I got “the works bagel.” Eggs, cheese, sprouts, avocado and spinach on a scooped out toasted everything bagel. On top of that, fresh squeezed orange juice. I could have eaten 56 of them but I was going to the beach and I didn’t want to look like a bagel.

 

Back at Waikiki beach I rented a surfboard with a couple of the buds. I paddled out and my arms almost blew off my body, did I sign up for this? There were 80 year old men out there with 6 foot look beards who thought they owned the ocean. Every time I would start to paddle to catch a wave I would see them already up and coming right at me. Kamikaze pilots of 2009, lets leave Pearl Harbor in the past. I would scream and just fall off my board to hide and wait for the next one.

 

FINALLY, I caught a wave. I can officially say I stood up on a surfboard in Hawaii, cool! I paddled in after that because my arms were chaffing from rubbing against the board. I laid in the sun for many many hours, got some sushi, laid out some more and then went back to the ship.

 

No big things happened in Hawaii, just a lot of American food and down time. Almost everyone I know went skydiving in Hawaii, I don’t know why but I have ZERO interest in ever doing that. I have on life on this planet, why would I throw it out of a plane? The people who did go went on “4/20” (April 20^th) and they had “I got higher than you on 4/20, 14,000 feet!” written on their bodies. Baahaha

 

We are off to Guatemala now! We have a lot of days on the ship and a lot of finals.

 

There are serious government warnings for Americans in Guatemala and so SAS put an 11pm curfew on us. I read the warnings and basically it has one of the highest violence rates, the roads are filled with carjackers, it said to bring cash just encase you need to bribe the police, don’t travel at night, don’t take pictures of children, don’t breath, don’t go to Guatemala City, don’t hike volcanoes (there known for their volcanos) and don’t independently travel, great, going to be a really good time. We WERE going to Costa Rica which would have been amazing. I went abroad their last summer for 3 weeks and it was one of the most beautiful countries I have ever seen.

 

I am not sure what I am doing their yet but I am getting Teflon, packing heat and practicing my roundhouse kick to the face.

 

Mahalo

Jaclyn

Charity Auction and Talent Show

Charity Auction

 

The ship help a charity auction to help raise money for scholarships and things of that nature for SAS, is that charity?

 

They sold all sorts of things and students got to bid, auction style, using their shipboard accounts aka their parent’s money. Don’t worry… I didn’t buy anything.

 

Some items:

4 Boxes of Girl Scout Cookies - $55

Map of the route of the ship signed by the captain - $270

A chance to blow the ships horn - $250

Raise the American flag pulling into Florida - $200

Chinese Stamps (what??) - $42

Plate of quesadillas - $50

Book signed by Desmond Tutu - $290

 

And on it went…

 

Talent Show

 

The next night was the talent show! Wee!

 

You had to try out and I made it doing a contemporary solo. I was waiting all voyage for this. I practiced a couple times in the Union late at night and the man who would clean the room would watch. If he saw me during the day he would say, “Are you going to dance tonight? I want to see you fly!” Yes, I will be flying tonight.

 

The ship was rocking SO BAD the night of the show so I knew it was not going to be an easy feat. All my friends came to watch and went on 4^th. I am my own worst critic so I was not really happy when I came off, I was getting tossed around. The best part about dance is that if you don’t do it, you don’t know what’s going on. I had good praise from everyone so I guess I fooled them into thinking it was something good. Ha!

Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo and Yokohoma - Japan

No Plan Japan

 

The funny thing about Japan was that buzz around the ship before we got off. Everyone was asking the same question, “What are you doing in Japan?” And everyone’s answer was the same, I have no idea! Every one of us is becoming poor college students and being that Japan is so expensive we were all wondering how we were going to do it. Like China, the ship goes to two ports in Japan and you had the option of staying on the ship between or going inland, I chose to go inland this time.

 

I was exhausted the morning of Japan and the people I was traveling with had 3 hours dock time because they were 8 minutes late getting on the ship in Shanghai so I decided to sleep in a bit. I slept through all the morning announcements and woke up to learn we had an even weirder customs process than China. We had to wake up and go to the Faculty lounge, we were then told to walk through the room and there was a camera videoing us as we walked, oh, and we had to hold our passport while doing it. So you pick your passport up at one end, walk across and hand it back in at the other. The man who was taping was wearing a serious Japanese military uniform and I was kind of confused by the whole thing. Next we had to walk off the ship, all 700 of us and go into the port customs building to clear. This took forever and it was too early. I didn’t realize how long it would take so I didn’t brush my teeth. My breath was KICKING and I am sure everyone around me knew that as well.

 

Once I woke up I realized that Japanese phone carriers don’t support blackberries, no phone for a week.

 

Also, there were 2 Japanese students who traveled on the ship with us from China to Japan. I asked them what “Domo irrigato Mr. Roboto,” and they looked at me like I had 5 heads. BUT, irrigato means “Thank you” and domo irrigato means “Thank you very much.” Quite the useful saying I figured out.

 

Once you got up to the customs man they took your fingerprints, photo and then asked you questions. This was my question:

 

“Are you carrying any cigarettes?”

 

“No.”

 

“Thank you, go ahead.”

 

WHAT? Good thing they didn’t look in my bag and find my hand grenades, but all that matters is that I was cigarette free. Completely confused I went back to the boat and got ready for the day.

 

Day 1 – Kobe, Osaka

 

The ship was right near the train station which was convenient so we all bought our rail tickets and made our way to the center of Kobe, where the ship was docked. It was a city but nothing too overwhelming. The guys I was with heard about a Jack Daniel’s Bar in Kobe so that was our mission. I Googled it, nonexistent… next. We were hungry so we tried to find some sushi, believe it or not it was impossible to find. We found a restaurant that could hold all 12 of us and we sat down. We asked the man for a menu and he pointed to a sign that said something in Japanese and we said, “OK! Twelve of those and 12 beers.” We had no idea what we ordered and what they brought out was not what I was expecting. Out came 45,643 egg puffs with some mush inside and an octopus tentacle, gross. I took the tentacle out and ate the egg puff which wasn’t that bad but that was not going to be my lunch. We all ate a couple, paid and left. Next stop… food.

 

We tried another place and the waiter knew a bit of English, he knew enough to get me some edamame so I was excited. After a food tour of local restaurants in Kobe we hit up McDonalds and got on the subway bound for Osaka.

 

Osaka was another pretty big city and we had huge backpacks on so we wanted to find our hostel first. NO ONE spoke English or knew what I was talking about. We finally found someone to take us; this was the beginning of me learning how hospitable Japanese people are. The taxi driver, which by the way starts out at $7 just getting in, took us to the area, parked his car and walked us to the hostel. The place was really nice, there were 6 of us and it was like a mini apartment. When I opened the door the first thing I saw was 6 pairs of sandals you were supposed to wear when inside the room, so cute. We put our stuff down and head out in search of dinner.

 

We stopped at 7-11 first, which in Japan is called “7 & iHoldings,” whatever that means, because it’s the only place to take money out with U.S. banks. We found a little restaurant that had menus with pictures, score! They also said they were having a drink special, get ready for this. For $15 you get all you can drink for 90 minutes, where do they come up with this stuff? Ok, start the clock!

 

After dinner we went back to change for the night. I was SUPER excited because I bought an awesome dress at a little boutique during the day; it was so Gossip Girl I could barely hold in my excitement. There were a lot of people staying in the same hostel and I have this habit of always saying “come to my place before!” A room made for 6 was now holding about 25. Everyone and their mom were going to “Club Pure,” going to purely be a SASsafrass party. The cabs didn’t really know where we were trying to go but I said irrigato a few times and they dropped us off as close as they could. We must have looked pretty lost because this African American man on a bike came up to us to help. He spoke perfect English and I asked him where he was from, he said New Orleans. I told him my dad lived in Kenner, Louisiana at one point and he said he knew it. We reminisced about Rally Burger and the insanity of Bourbon St. as he led the way to Club Pure. At one point he pulled out a flier for the club that he opened in Japan, Bubba’s. Of course it would be called Bubba’s, we were not going there.

 

Upon arrival at pure we found out that if you get in before midnight you don’t have to pay for a cover. Have you heard of those stories when crowds push and people get trampled, it was about to happen. There were so many of us and the guys were all pushing forward for fun, dumb girls were saying “Oh my god! Stop pushing, you’re hurting me!” I had my hands straight up above my head just riding the wave, it was honestly really funny. We all got safely inside and I went up to the bar and bought the first round, or tried. I looked really cool saying “three Captain and Cokes please.” The man poured them, told me it was around $18 and I handed him the Visa. “We don’t take credit cards.” I could swear the DJ screeched the record and time stopped for a second, say that one more time sir!? I didn’t have much cash on me so my generous buying the first round maneuver turned into me just taking one for the team and ordering it, but not paying.

 

While I was standing there someone came up to me and pointed to the end of the bar, free tequila, okay! I danced the night away and saw some of my favorite SASers, it was a really good night, I think I went home somewhere around 4:30am.

 

Day 2 – Kyoto, Tokyo

 

We all woke up starving. We packed our backpacks and headed out for the train station. We found lunch on the way at this cool futuristic Japanese restaurant. Basically,  you walk up to a vending machine, put in money and click the buttons for food you want. I clicked shrimp, edamame, white rice and miso soup. You then walk over to a table and the waitress brings it out to you, no interaction, no language barrier or confusion, just lunch.

 

We got to the train and bought our subway pass for Kyoto. We were told you have to go to Kyoto because its an older part of Japan with more Japanese culture and most importantly, cherry blossom trees. Once we got to Kyoto we had no idea where to go and had about 3 hours. We asked a man who was driving a van buy drawing what would look like a temple and cherry blossom tree, he knew exactly what we were saying. We asked if he could take us, he was not a taxi, and he said okay! Literally, 15 of us crammed into this little van that had no back seats just the driver and passenger and went to a Japanese temple.

 

I don’t really care for those sorts of things so as everyone wandered around the park I sat on a bench and read “Gold Coast,” by Nelson DeMille. It was a gorgeous day outside with perfect weather I could have sat there forever.

 

After some time in the park we had to get back to the train station to get to Tokyo.

 

The slow train to Tokyo takes 9 hours, but the super cool super new and advanced Bullet Train takes 2 hours. The tickets were around $130 but it was totally worth it. This train went SO FAST. We all got on and just as I was about to fall asleep I notice an interesting magazine in the holder on the back of the chair in front of me. I took it out to investigate, Japanese porn, of course. I literally laughed myself to sleep, I slept the entire way and we arrived in Tokyo just in time for dinner.

 

We had no idea where we were going to stay so we had to figure that out first. We were going to the Shibuya district of Tokyo, p.s. Tokyo is the largest city in the world. Tokyo was also the cleanest city I have ever seen but whenever I had garbage I could not for the life of me find garbage pales anywhere. We really wanted to stay in a “Capsule” hotel. Japan is known for these efficient hotels, it’s like sleeping in a space ship. You literally sleep in a capsule. We found one and then find out they don’t allow girls, cool.

 

Next plan, get a nice hotel room and cram as many people in it as possible to save money because Tokyo is SO expensive. We found this 5 star hotel who tried to sell us a room for $400 a night. We told them we were poor students and they gave it to us for $200. There were 6 people to a room and when we opened the door we saw 4 double beds, SCORE! It was only about $30 a night which is absolutely unheard of in Japan.

 

After unloading all our stuff we set out for dinner. I really wanted to find a rotating sushi bar because there is one in Towson and it is my absolute favorite place to eat. After some aimless roaming we found one and it was $1 a plate! I went to TOWN, the sushi was absolutely amazing, I think I might have eaten 7 plates.

 

After dinner we got the night started. We found a karaoke bar and the man told us it was $7 for the room for an hour and everyone gets a free beer with that. All 12 of us were stuffed into this room and I have honestly never had so many laughs or laughed so hard in my life. I requested Eminem “Kill You” and rapped the entire thing without looking at the screen; people were definitely impressed and maybe a little scared. I did the same for System of a Down “Chop Suey!” and Sum 41 “Fat Lip.” Of course there was some Michael Jackson thrown in the mix and everyone seemed to agree that my voice may be absolutely terrible but I am SO good at karaoke.

 

The workers gave us another hour because one was no where near enough and they were feeding us beers like it was going out of style. When the two hours was up we went down to pay our bill thinking it would be like $20 a person. The total was around $400, we started freaking out on them because they basically scammed us. We all decided we were going to throw in $10 and leave (about $150) because that is MORE than enough for karaoke. We threw the money down and walked out, one of my friends stayed behind (we didn’t realize it at the time) and the cops came in and tried to arrest him. He charged around $250 on his credit card and they let him go. We all paid him back, so in the end, karaoke won.

 

So I am sitting here thinking really hard about what happened after karaoke and I cannot for the life of me remember. So anyway, around 3am the Manchester United game was playing so we went to this sports bar called “Rooney’s.” I was dead, I lasted about 45 minutes and then went back to the hotel. The next morning I wake up and find out that 2 of my guy friends passed out on the bar, beer in hand, and slept at Rooney’s. Now there is a joke that will live on forever, “Hey! Where you staying tonight!?,” “Oh, this place up the road called Rooney’s. You know it?” hahaha

 

Day 3 – Tokyo

 

I woke up today and was not feeling it. We packed up all our bags and went to breakfast.  We went back to the rotating sushi bar for round two; afterwards I decided the only way I was going to make it into the night was if I took a serious power nap. The only thing was we didn’t have a room anymore; we were going to try to sleep somewhere a little cheaper, stupid idea. After an hour of looking all we could find was “Love Hotels” that you rented by the hour and the mattresses had liners on them, GROSS.

 

We head back to the original hotel and asked to stay another night, they gave us a room and we went to unpack again. My day consisted of a 4 hour nap.

 

At night we showered and made our way to the Tokyo Dome for a baseball game. The game was awesome; definitely something I wanted to see in Tokyo. The game was going on forever so we left a little early to go back to the room and change for the night.

 

Everyone was REALLY indecisive on this particular night so we had no idea what we wanted to do. We saw some SASers on the street and decided to go where they were going, a club. We told the bouncers we were poor college students so they didn’t make us pay the cover but when we walked in the door they said in order to get in you have to pay $10 and that got you 2 drinks, aka a cover.

 

The place was cool but the DJ was playing hardcore rap music that you couldn’t dance to. I had some good conversations but was getting bored quickly. My friend was really drunk so I decided to take her for a nice Margarita pizza at Rooney’s, the go to place. At Rooney’s she rambled to me about the most ridiculous things it was hysterical and fed her and took her home. I was on the computer sending an email to Alberto when all of the sudden something slimy fell on my feet, the drunk dropped her ice cream on me, the end of day 3.

 

Day 4 – Yokohoma

 

The phone rang in our room (the girl’s room) at around 7am. I could hear Lily talking on the phone and I head “Hey this is Robert, is Jaclyn there.” I went into panic mode; I thought it was my dad! I was thinking how on earth did he find me and holy $%^# what’s wrong? It turned out to be my friend Robert who we were traveling with and he asked if I could be packed in 30 min, meet him in the lobby and go back to the ship with him. I thought something was really wrong so I said of course, packed in about 2 min and went downstairs. When he got to the lobby I was kind of nervous and asked him what was wrong, he said “nothing.” Basically, he hadn’t slept night and was still going from the night before. Completely exhausted and out of money all he wanted to do was get back to the ship, thank you for the heart attack. So I told him I would take him, side note, I am the only person out of the group who can navigate trains and subways so they just follow every move I make and he figured if anyone could get him home, I could. We go to the train station and take the train to “Yokohoma.” I was hoping that we walk out of the station there and see the ship, I thought wrong.

 

We walked out of the station and I could not see any water. All we wanted was a Subway sandwich and our beds on the ship. We asked some locals if they knew where Subway was and they pointed to where we were, in the subway. So I made a hand gesture like I was eating a sandwich and they looked at me like I had 12 heads, why is this girl eating the subway station?

 

We ended up walking around for 2 miserable hours in the hot sun with backpacks on. I can’t even describe to you the feeling when I saw the beautiful MVeX docked in front of me. I dropped my stuff in my room at 11am and slept until 5pm.

 

At dinner we met with other people who were on the ship and decided to do some bowling. We took a cab to the bowling lanes and grabbed some vino to accompany a couple games. The bowling shoes in Japan were AWESOME. They were patent leather and black and white. When was the last time the U.S. updated their bowling shoes, never. I was against 2 of my guy friends and it turns out apparently I can bowl, because I won! I got a couple strikes to, I am ready to take my game back to the states. Thank you Ronald McDonald bowling league at Larkfield Lanes!

 

I was so exhausted from Japan in general that after bowling I crashed hard in my bed.

 

Day 5 – Yokohoma

 

No big plans for the day, just a little exploration of the city.

 

We walked around, did some shopping. I found the most AMAZING pair of Nike Dunks high-tops but since Japanese people are so small the largest size they had was an 8, when I told him my size the man said, “oh, very big!” Thanks man. So it was probably for the best because then I would have impulsively bought them. I did get a really cute dress on sale and this was also one size fits all, everything is ok except it’s a little tight on my massive butterfly stroke swim team for years back, but I make it work.

 

After wandering we found and internet café and did some necessary online maneuvers. After, we went back to the ship. Sianara Japan!

 

I really loved Japan. It falls at number two on my list behind South Africa. Plus, I love sushi!

 

 

We have 9 days in between Japan and Hawaii; we also cross the International Date Line on April 12^th and therefore turn our clocks back a full 24 hours. We had two Easters and went from 15 hours ahead to 9 hours behind.

 

During the week I tried out for the talent show and made. I am doing a solo tomorrow night in front of the ship and I could not be more excited!

 

I cannot believe I am going to be back on U.S. soil in 4 days, insane.

 

This was a huge week of school work but I am almost through it, I get to see my family soon!

 

Miss everyone,

Love

Jaclyn

Hong Kong, Shanghai - China

 

China!

 

First: Something cool about Vietnam. Semester at Sea is the biggest group of Americans to go to Vietnam post Vietnam War. Cool!

 

I didn’t know what to expect from China but all I knew was that the ports were crazy looking! We got in to Hong Kong and it was at that moment I realized Hong Kong was an island, who knew? We were attached to a shopping mall which was pretty cool/dangerous and we didn’t have a lot of time. What happens in China is that the MVeX docks in Hong Kong for 2 days, leaves at 8pm the second day and travels 2 days north to Shanghai where it docks for another two days. Students had the choice to get on the ship for the in between time or travel in country and meet up with the ship in Shanghai, I stayed on the ship.

 

Also, in our pre-port lecture the dean told us that China monitors emails, phones and other public communication systems so we should watch what we say, God Bless the USA.

 

Day 1 – Hong Kong

 

Before we got off we had to be “quarantined” and had a face to face customs situation. The crazy socialists of China required every single person on the ship to have their temperature taken, I really wanted to know WHAT would happen if we did have a fever? No dimsum? Only two dumplings? Well, I didn’t have a fever, I don’t think. The lady called out my temperature in Celsius and I looked at her and said, “So, Am I alive?” She said yes, I am seriously considering having a sit down talk with America about why they really ruined our lives by not teaching us the metric system. “It’s 30 degrees out,” so I prepare for snow, walk outside and internally combust.

 

We got off the ship and took this little ferry over to the main Hong Kong (HK) Island. China has really funny signs everywhere. The U.S. has your standard “pedestrian crossing” symbol sign and here I saw a sign that looked like the ones for no smoking, the red circle with a cross through it but instead of a cigarette there was a trumpet, guys seriously… leave your trumpets at home. Caitlin and I are hungry, no surprise, so we want to try some local cuisine. We find this Chinese restaurant and they tell us it’s on the 2nd floor. There was a really big language barrier; barely anyone spoke English so you could catch sight of me doing the most ridiculous sign language. We walk up a flight of stairs and the sign says “Floor 3,” huh? So we keep going and the next one was “Floor 4,” is this a trick? We decided the elevator might be the best way and getting in it we see the buttons showing floor 2 on the 5^th floor, makes perfect sense to me.

 

We order a couple things to try and be cultural, gross. Seriously, there is only one thing that I have done in absolutely every country, eaten McDonalds. After our dim-puke-sum and dump-vomit-lings we headed out for a wonderful day of shopping. I believe I bought a cool pair of pants from H&M and then we wandered for a bit more. We head back to the boat and on the way I purchased my new camera, hooray, my life is getting back in order.

 

The Rugby 7’s was in Hong Kong so all the SASers were going to the same place at night. Apparently, the Rugby 7’s is a huge deal and a huge party so it was pretty cool that we were here for it. I ate dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, a nice Chinese cuisine, and got ready for the night.

 

We show up at Yingbow Ching Cowdun Street (something like that) and it was PACKED. My first thoughts were that someone sent out a message to every fat hairy man to wear a ridiculously small costume and scar every woman’s eyes for life. People were flooding the streets and to be honest, there was not one Chinese person there, really soaking up the culture. It was about 90% SAS and 10% drunk old men. What I didn’t know is that the Rugby teams, the real deal ones, go to the party. I met the Australian, Canadian, Kenyan and Samoan rugby teams. When I met the Samoan one I asked where they were from and they said “Samoa,” my response: The only Samoa I know is a Girl Scout cookie, nice Jaclyn. I googled it when I get home, apparently there’s Girl Scout cookies off the coast of Australia, way to go ladies… globalization at its finest!

 

Had a good night at Rugby 7’s and since they can’t speak English SAS hands out these little sheets of paper with Chinese characters on it that say, “Please take me back to the MV Explorer.” Haha! I don’t know why but I find that so funny. So every time you get in a cab you just extend your arm out into his face, no words are exchanged, and off you go.

 

I got back around 3am which meant it was 3pm in the states! I took my computer to the free wifi zone and got down with Skype. I called my wife, Dana, about 24323 times and finally she picked up with a really concerned, “Hello?” After I said hello she goes, “OMG! I didn’t pick up because it was a weird number and I thought it was Blockbuster calling for the movie I have had out forever!” HAHAHA has anyone ever gotten that mysterious “000-000-0000” phone call? Don’t pick up, it’s B-Buster and they’re on to you. I got to talk to lots of friends and then I went and crashed.

 

Day 2 – Hong Kong

 

I have a friend, Anders, who is absolutely in love with knock off markets. We went to a huge open air market that he had been to a day earlier. We pay for the ferry to HK Island and then get in a cab. The cab was pretty long and expensive and I realized we were going under a tunnel. Anders didn’t know where he went the day before so essentially we ferry boated to HKI, then took a cab back and went to a market about 10 feet from the boat, awesome.

 

The market had SO much stuff, white flags were shooting out of my wallet…I was wearing tinted glasses that day so they appeared brown, what do brown flags mean? Shop! We did some serious damage then

 

Short day, back to the ship, ate California Pizza Kitchen again and we left port around 8pm.

 

Day 3 – At Sea

 

In Hong Kong the family of the man who founded Semester at Sea boarded the ship and we had to impress them because they were making a pledge to give the program 1.75 million dollars over a 10 year period. We found out that we would be getting 5-course meals on both nights, SCORE! Who needs the Great Wall when you have fine dining? There were only about 70 of us on the ship and there were no classes, I felt like I could have run around every deck screaming at the top of my lungs. I got a lot of school work done then got dressed up for our evening of class.

 

I had a table with great people and they served us fruit salad, soup, salad, fish, and dessert. We also found out that there would be free wine with dinner and Les McCabe (head honcho on board) would be footing the bill, this could be a rumor but it’s still pretty cool. I got my server over and asked him what the limits were on this fantastic deal and he said there weren’t any, I asked for a little special attention at table 7. A fantastic dinner and 6 glasses of wine later we were finished. A few of us were talking about what we should do that night because we were on the ship and we decided, dance party in the union!

 

A friend of mine went up to Les, as he was sitting with the family of the founders, and asked if we could use the sound system and have a dance party, he looked at me and gave me a thumbs up, WOO!

 

We dance partied until midnight then I went to bed.

 

Day 4 – At Sea

 

Not much going on today, the weather was too cold to lie out, my tan was fading and it was stressing me. They played great movies on the TV loop and I got to see Role Models, which was hysterical, and Seven Pounds.

 

After a day of leisure I got ready for classy evening take two. I had Salmon, salad, soup, dessert and something in a peanut sauce, it was amazing.

 

Shanghai and my Blackberry in the morning!

 

Day 5 – Shanghai

 

I had to do some FDP’s on the first day. What is an FDP? Well, every class I take 20% of the grade is “field work.” They want to incorporate the classroom with the journey. You have to do 3 per class and write papers on them, I am a bio major, I haven’t written this many papers since high school!  Pretty soon they’re going to ask me to do DBQ’s. Hey Dana, remember in high school when you were taking the History Regent’s Exam and in your Document Based Essay you forgot and didn’t site ONE document, hahahaha so glad you made it to college. Loyola has gotten a gem.

 

The first FDP was a Kindergarten Visit. Kids scare me so at breakfast I was asking my friends for some tactics to use to make sure they like me. We took a bus ride through the city, which is the largest in China, and were brought to the school. All the kids were waiting at the gate screaming for us, heart attack. They all grabbed our hands and walked us inside.

We sat down and they told us they were going to put on a show for us. The show was a dance routine that was high energy and lasted about 20 minutes; I would have needed an inhaler. These kids were crazy but so smart. They memorized such a long routine with dance moves, formations, partner work and other things that I still have trouble with and they were 5 years old. This is why China’s 14 year old gymnasts are ready for the Olympics before they reach the regulated 16 year old mark, who needs rules when you have boot camp Kindergarten.

 

After the routine a little boy came over to play with me, I asked him his name and he said “Davie #1.” Why are you Davie #1? “Because there’s 5 Davies,” Oh, Hi I am Jaclyn #1. The entire time I was trying to speak to Davie he was bouncing up and down, I was getting sea sick. I drew a picture for him, of him, and it consisted of a stick figure with a head and hair. He laughed at me. I then asked him to take a picture with it and I said “Say cheese!” They could barely speak English, what he said back to me was, “Cheese? WHAT ARE YOU FRENCH?” hahahahaha I could not handle this kid. We didn’t have long with them and when I was saying goodbye, in between 3 foot jumps that he had been doing for the past hour he said, “BYE BYE YOU FORIEGNER!” Bye Davie.

 

Back to the ship and onto another bus for FDP #2. This was one was with my favorite professor, Prof. Harmon from Northport! We were going to a community center to have an open discussion about the one child policy.

 

In China you are only aloud to have one child to try and control the population growth. This leads to many problems like infanticide, forced abortions and child abandonment. Since China is a country of hierarchy they take a lot of time caring for their elderly. When a couple has a child they want to have a boy so that they can be taken care of when they are older and the family name will live on. A lot of times a girl child will be aborted or abandoned. Almost every adopted child from China to the U.S. is a girl. On the other hand there is a problem with child kidnappings for boys. Many couples will pay a high price for a black market male child.

 

The women were very open with us but every answer was very by the book.

 

After the Q&A we went to see the community center. They had a fitness room that measured height, weight and a few other things. I volunteered to do it so I stepped on the scale and a little bar came from the ceiling and bopped me on the head. The machine started to make a game show noise and there was “calculations” on the screen. Turns out my height weight is 5 out of 5 and a thumbs up, cool, so am I going to live?

 

Back at the ship I ate dinner and got ready for the night. A couple friends and I went to a karaoke place…Asia loves karaoke. We sang songs for a while and the man who worked there gave me a tambourine, I was in heaven. It was a pretty low key night, we were all exhausted.

 

During the first day in Shanghai many high power Chinese business had dinner on the ship. The 1^st and 4^th richest men in China were on the MVeX, don’t ask me where the 2^nd and 3^rd were. Semester at Sea is creating a program that will make a University in China a sister school so they had to rub elbows with the top.

 

Day 6 – Shanghai

 

Last day in China and I still haven’t received my package with my Blackberry. I got one from Dana and DHL said the Bberry one was in China but they weren’t turning it over to the ship. My Mom contacted DHL and the lady said that I had to prove the package was mine. Well, I haven’t gotten it yet so technically it’s still China’s. I had to have the port agent call DHL and the number wasn’t working. I was starting to panic. I love democracies and this whole China government thing was not working out for me. We had about 2 hours until we left China and I had been trying to make contact with my package for hours when all of the sudden the gangway lady comes in and says, “There is a man with a package at the bottom of the gangway asking for a signature!” I screamed “That’s mine!” and ran for it. This random man was standing there holding only my package; it was the weirdest thing ever. I signed for it and was the happiest girl ever. I think I told the port agent that this was the equivalent of Christmas in April. I ripped my Blackberry out of China’s socialiast censorship loving hands. Roar!

 

After 6 days of China it was time to go. China falls somewhere at the bottom of my list for countries I have visited so far, the language barrier made things very difficult and I didn’t see anything that really excited me.

 

Japan is next and I am excited!!

 

Update you soon

Jaclyn

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Soooo I am back on the ship after 5 days in Vietnam. It’s pretty cool because now I can officially use the saying “Back in Nam…” I remember growing up Nick Parker used to love that saying. Well, if you ever get to read this I hope your just dieing of jealousy haha!

I slept on the ship the entire time and just did a lot of day trips. I was going to travel up the east coast for a couple days but I thought I had an FDP (mandatory field program for a class) in the middle of the week. Apparently I just made that up in my head because there was no such thing, how is your ADD Jaclyn?

Day 1

The first day Caitlin and I got off the ship to do a little shopping. I thought Thailand was hot, holy oven. If you told me I was sitting in an oven I honestly would have believed you. There’s really no point to makeup or showers.

We got dropped off at the Rex Hotel, which was really exciting for me because that’s the hotel Paul Brenner stays at in “Up Country,” love Nelson DeMille. I HAD to eat at the rooftop restaurant like he did in the book so I made reservations and then we hit the town.

We walked all up and down the streets and everything was pretty cheap. I got a couple of those hats that look like obtuse cones. That was a pretty serious description… there circle hats with a cone-like point, get it? I also got some gifts for my Mom, grandma and a couple others. There was an embroidery store; it was screaming, “buy your grandmother something here.”

My absolute favorite thing is eating outside, as long as its not windy otherwise I just end up eating my hair, so we stopped for a little roadside beer and relaxation. Asian people are inherently tiny people so going shopping in a clothing store is always fun. I asked the woman if she had a skirt in any size bigger than a 26 and she said that was the largest, awesome.

I really wanted to get a skirt made so we stopped at a bunch of tailors but most had really corny fabric. I was about to admit defeat when I walked into the last one; they had the most beautiful pattern. I picked it up and matched it with a dark green and designed a high-waist pencil skirt. They took my measurements, I thought they were going to have to take out 2 measuring tapes to get around my waist (because they are SO tiny) and then they told me to come back in a day for a fitting. A custom made skirt for $35, crazy! It was three women and one of them asked my age. After telling them I was 22 they said I was so young and that they were all around 28. They asked what I was doing there and when I explained the ship she asked, “You work on the ship?” and I said no I take class on it as a student. She then said, “You saved money from working to travel on it?” When I told her no, my dad paid for it, she giggled and her eyes went wide. I am guessing that doesn’t happen a lot there….

After a day of retail therapy we went back to the ship to change for dinner. We met up with about 10 other girls and went to the Rex Rooftop Restaurant. I opened the menu and almost died, salmon with mango sauce. If I were stranded on an island I would only ask that I get three meals of salmon with mango sauce, not too much to ask, right?

Dinner was really good and a little pricey but it was worth it, I planned on eating most of my meals on the ship to save money anyway. After dinner we went back to the ship again real quick to change for the night. Everyone was going to “Apocalypse Now,” this also got me really excited because Paul Brenner goes out their in the book also. One thing that I heard which made me a little mad was that if you were “white” you didn’t have to pay to go in, but if you were “local” you did, kind of messed up.

Caitlin and I took motorbike taxis to the bar and it was EVERY SAS kid ever. There were so many of us that the TV screen said, “Welcome to Apocalypse Now Semester at Sea!” They played really good music and I had so much fun. Our little taxi men were waiting for us when the night was over and we were craving some street food. They took us to a little vendor and we sat down for some delicious pho noodles. They were SO spicy and the next morning I woke up with swollen lips. If you know me well, you know my lips are very sensitive so it looked like I got botox lip injections. We ended up buying our drivers some noodles too and the man told me he was a catholic and gave me his rosary beads because he was so thankful. Back at the ship I gave him about $5 and he was giddy with excitement, great way to end the night.

Day 2

 I had a SAS day trip to the Mekong Delta today. I woke up, got my little Nam cone hat on and set out for the buses. It was about a 2-hour drive to the delta. On the way was stopped at a local market, oh my. There were pots everywhere filled with live fish swimming around and so many women sitting on the ground cutting the fish up, the smell was absolutely disgusting. I don’t know how they sat there all day, I practically ran through. Once we got to the delta we climbed onto a riverboat and drove out to an island.

At the first stop we tried some local fruit and tea then climbed onto smaller canal boats. We waded through the maze of canals, I felt like I was in Forrest Gump. It was really cool and seemed to be something really authentic to Vietnam. I got to see what the men and women who live on the island do on a daily basis.

The next stop was a local coconut candy factory; this is where it got weird. SAS always takes their trips one step too far. I wanted to see the delta and ride in the boats, that is all. We sat at this candy thing for a bit, then a random boy came out with a python around his neck and asked if someone wanted to hold it for a small price, what? No, get me home. After coconut candy and python boy we piled back in the little boats and finally got some lunch. It was at a really low-key family restaurant on the island. The food was decent; I was starving so it probably tasted better than it really was. That was the last stop on our Mekong journey, back to the bus than back to the ship.

I went out with my friend Shayna that night because we found a rotating sushi bar. YUUUMMMM It was so good; I really miss my sushi. Afterwards we went to a night market where I got some cheap t-shirts. We passed a really cool jazz club on the way back so we stopped in for a little bit.

I was so beat from being in the sun all day I passed out pretty early.

Day 3

Didn’t really have much planned for today. At around noon my friend Allison and I got on our motorbike taxis and went to the “War Remnants Museum.” In Vietnam they call the war “The American War,” and basically we went in there and messed them up pretty bad. The museum was filled with American artifacts and was a visual tour of the war from start to finish. I wasn’t really fazed by what I saw because war is war. I know we are still a little confused as to why we went over there in the first place but there isn’t much you can do now.

That was until I got to the chemical warfare section. The pictures were so graphic and it was unlike anything I could have imagined. Agent Orange was sprayed all over Vietnam and it caused birth defects, and is still causing them. They had fetuses preserved in tanks that showed deformations, it was gruesome.

After the museum we went to a local café to grab a nice iced coffee. All I could think about was that I was sitting there with not a care in the world and no real place to go. Everyone had business suits on and was on their lunch break, when we were just sitting there wasting time. My life is pretty sweet.

After a day of nothingness, we went back to the MVeX to get ready for the night. I went to dinner in the dining hall and then went to m room to put myself together.

We went to this place was on the second floor of a building with a pretty good view of the city. There were a lot of us and the staff was really overwhelmed. After that we all went to “Apocalypse Now” again. It was full of SASers again, and I may or may not have had a dance floor battle.

Oh! I got my skirt that was made and was wearing it that night, I was asked 1,000 times where I got it from and I got to say “I designed it and got it made,” how cool am I?

So, this is where my night goes down hill.

After a long night Allison and I got on motorbike taxis. We were on our way back to the MVeX and all of the sudden another motorbike pulls up next to me and he reaches over and grabs my bag out of my hand. I started screaming at them and told my guy to speed up. He was going so slow, I didn’t realize until later when I could collect my thoughts that my driver was totally a part of the whole scheme. I was getting so pissed that my driver wouldn’t go fast so I reached forward and squeezed the throttle. He was not having that so he pushed me back and I starting screaming “SPEED UP NOW!!!” I might have hit his back a few times but whatever he deserved every punch. I then screamed at him to take me back to the ship immediately. In my bag was my camera, blackberry, credit card, MVeX card and my shore pass. You need the shore pass to get into the port but I was not about to stop, I was on a rampage.

The customs man came out to check and I didn’t even glance his way, I just walked right through and onto the ship. The first person I called was my Dad, then Mom then Berto. I was a hot mess. It is the worst feeling ever to be stolen from and it was not settling well in my stomach. Thank god Allison let me use her phone, I think I might have thanked her a million times.

I got myself together and went to sleep. I had to put things in perspective, I have basically been around the world now and have seen the worst conditions, I realize that me not having a blackberry for a month is not life or death, but its still brutal. My mommy overnighted me a new one and I’ll have it in a week, how’s that for perspective? No but really, I just find comfort in being able to call my family if something happens, I am on the other side of the world!

Day 4

I woke up today feeling pretty down, my chest was also peeling from sunburn so I thought the best thing to raise my spirits was to lie out on the top deck. I grabbed my book, The General’s Daughter and got some rays. I also could’t leave the ship until they got me a new customs shore pass so it wasn’t like I had any other choice. It was good downtime, I just wanted to lay by myself and sit in silence, I was subconsciously having a moment of silence for Sherry the Blackberry. Also, the bag that I had was my awesome blue clutch from my cousin Jennifer, I mean really dude; can I at least get the bag back? You know you don’t want that!

Tonight was the last night to go out. There was a cute outdoor restaurant right in port so a couple of use went their for some cocktails then we went out and essentially did the same things we did every other night. The only difference was tonight we through a little karaoke into the mix.

Asia LOVES karaoke, there are so many karaoke bars its insane. What they do is give each party a private room and for one hour you pay $7. I killed it with Mambo #5 and Spice Up Your Life. It was so funny; we need to get those in the U.S. We invited the cab drivers into the room but they didn’t want to sing! I bought my guy a little container of Pringles and he was ecstatic, I get the same feeling about sour cream and onion, don’t worry buddy.

Day 5

Today was the last day in Vietnam. A couple of us head an hour north to the Cu Chi tunnels. I burned a CD for the ride and it CLEARLY had at least on Britney Spears song on it.

The first thing you do at the tunnels is watch this Vietnamese propaganda video from the war. It was absolutely ridiculous. I know we were probably wrong for doing the things we did but this video made us laugh. I have never seen such a biased video in my life. There was a Canadian and Australian in our group and even they were like woah, that was a bit much.

Next we got to see some of the hidden tunnels. The entrance was literally about 1x.5 feet, if that even make sense, it was really small. I got to climb into it and close it off and you would have never known I was there. The tunnels were for the Vietcong to fight against the Americas, they stayed down there for days at a time with parasites and poisonous bugs. They said about 90% of the Vietcong had intestinal parasites. They had a lot of U.S. tanks that had been left and we took a couple pictures on one.

Next the guide showed us the bamboo spear traps that the Vietcong made to kill Americans. It reminded me of booby traps from Indian Jones. There were all different kinds of terrible contraptions and when he was showing us I said, “Oh my god that is terrible.” He looked at me square in the eyes and said, “not as bad as your bombs.” Woah there buddy, maybe you’re enjoying this a bit too much.

They brought us to a few more tunnels. We went into one that was about 40 meters long and we had to crawl through it. They installed lights into them and I could honestly not imagine being in there for more then the time it took to crawl directly through. It really was mind-blowing thinking that people lived in these for years. Makes my blackberry seem even less important.

At the end of the tour they take you to a shooting range where you can shoot an AK47, never. I absolutely hate guns and even the sound of them makes my heart speed up. The people I was with fired the guns and I sat in a chair near by having mini panic attacks. The noise was so loud I jumped every time.



Back at the MVeX they were having a BBQ for us starting at 6pm, I was there at 5:59pm with a plate in hand. I absolutely love their veggie burgers and when they are free its like Christmas.

Vietnam was awesome; I really liked everything about it. I didn’t go too far outside of Ho Chi Minh City and although I know the countryside is still very under developed, the city itself was more modern than I would have ever thought. I could see myself going back to Thailand and Vietnam, south east Asia is definitely a place I could see again.

Next stop China, good thing because I need a new camera and this is the camera capital of the world. I cannot believe I am already at China and it’s basically April, these were the fasted 2 ½ months ever.

Really excited for Hong Kong. The Rugby Sevens are going to be there when we get there and I hear that’s wild!

Glad I survived Vietnam, and Dad I know your probably crying on the inside from the stolen bag story. If I could do it again I probably would not abuse the driver, but I was enraged.

Only 4 more ports to go…

Talk to you all soon
Jac