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

Laem Chabang, Pattaya and Bangkok, Thailand

Oh Thailand, where to begin.

I guess… I’ll begin at the beginning… derrrr

Before taking my first steps off the boat I got so many emails from friends who have been to Thailand telling me that I will have the most amazing time. I was so pumped for it, I had a great travel group set up and I knew it was going to be one of the top countries on the roster.

Day 1

I laid out on the ship the first day for a couple hours, yea I know, how cultural of me. I had a SAS trip to a Tiger Zoo at around 1 pm. I walk down the gangway and there was a street vendor at the bottom selling beer, I like this place. I got a nice cold road bevy and got on the bus. The ride wasn’t too long and when we pulled in to the parking lot it was screaming “TOURIST TRAP!” I always fall for these SAS schemes. We get off and it is SO HOT. The forecast was 98 degrees and so humid it was practically raining. I thought New Orleans was bad, we weren’t even below sea level and I was on my hot and humid deathbed. The first thing I saw at the zoo was an elephant, a huge one, standing in the middle of a crowd and it was lifting people up with its trunk. It was hot; I wasn’t waiting so I did the “get over excited to get peoples attention” thing. I jumped up and down with my hands in the air and the guy pointed to me, YES. Excuse me pardon me… Yea, I am going in front of you, your heart just wasn’t in it. So you wrap your arms around its trunk and he scoops you up into the air, it was so cool. I think if I had a bucket list for my life that would be something I could cross off. A couple minutes and 5 buckets of sweat later we went inside an arena for the tiger show. The tigers looked miserable. This was totally a mom and pop “zoo” and I realized I paid for this ticket and essentially supported the maltreatment of animals. They did standard tiger performance things and after we were told to walk to the next show, the crocodile show, what? I never envisioned crocs to be entertaining.

We all piled into a different stadium and there were about 10 clearly highly sedated crocs laying on a stage. This was getting too weird. Two “performers” came out and did some sort of crocodile dance, even weirder, and then the “show?” began. The people opened the crocs mouths, pulled their tongues out, stuck there heads in between the jaws, pulled them by their tails, rode them like a surfboard and did many other offensive crocodile maneuvers. At one point a crocodile got a little mad and snapped at the male performer, it pulled his pants down, I had a good laugh at that one.

Next stop, elephant show, this was the worst. Basically the elephant tamers had sticks with spikes on the end that they jammed in the elephant’s heads to get them to respond to the task. I put my camera down, I didn’t even want pictures of this.

The next thing we did was feed a baby tiger; this was cool! The tiger was so adorable, it was lying in my lap and I just wanted to take it home with me. Side note: on the way into the zoo some random people with cameras were snapping pictures of us and I knew they were going to ask us for money for them at the end of the day so I made the most ridiculous face. After going through a couple of these countries where they try to get as much money out of me as possible, I was on to them.

On the way out we passed a bunch of plates sitting on the ground, I look closer, they put our pictures on plates. WHAT? Why would I want a picture of me on a plate? And my face was as ridiculous as I thought, no sale. Here mom, here’s a plate of my face, no.

The next stop was a place called Mini Siam. I didn’t know this was part of the day tour but apparently it was. Mini Siam: Tourist Trap of the Century. It was a little park filled with miniature replicas of all the historical buildings of the world. Pyramids of Giza, Pantheon, Eiffel Tower etc, I didn’t even go in, I went to McDonalds and got fries. Why do they do this? There was a go-kart place there also and I was totally about to do it until I realized it was LEGIT racecar go-karts. They went 80mph, I could just see my Dads face if he was there, it would have been that one eyebrow raised, “What are you smoking?” look. And not the standard Bob Bouchard “no” aka you’ll get it but after I get to say no, a real “no” are you crazy Jaclyn? Haha! Twenty-two years later, I have you all figured out Dad.

After that little excursion I wanted to request that wasted hour of my life back, but we got on the bus and headed to the “Largest Jewelry Store in the World,” seriously, just take me home. I didn’t get off the bus, and convinced the driver, with everyone else agreeing, to skip over that store and drive back to the MVeX (my new name for the ship).

Once back at the ship I changed really quickly for the night and headed out to Pattaya, a little city of Thailand. We hit to a few different places and I saw some interesting things. The sex industry of Thailand is EXTREME, I will leave it at that, if you would like specifics shoot me an email and I will scar your life forever as mine has been.

Day 2, 3 and 4

Today was the day, Bangkok! We all packed our backpacks and caught a 2-hour cab ride to THE city. We had no idea where we were sleeping or what we were going to do but we had high hopes. We got to the city and I knew I would love it immediately. It was honestly one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen. We got out of the cab (2 hours - $15. Oh ya) and wandered. We went to the Silom area and found Hotel Nirai. It was $70 a night and with 6 people in a room that comes out to be $11 a night, score! After we dropped our bags we headed out for some street food dinner. We sat down at this local place on the road and I had the most delicious seafood pad thai. The best thing about street food is that it’s great for $1. We also had spring rolls and fried rice, I ate SO MUCH. We had a lot of leftovers so I got it in a to go box and gave it to a homeless man on street, sweet! Back at the hotel we got ready for the night and we were off!

Bangkok nightlife, a lot like Pattaya, there’s no escaping it. Fast forward to the end of the night. We realized there were about 200 SAS kids staying in the same hotel so we all decided to go swimming. The pool was so chlorinated I thought my eyes were going to burn out of my head. After a million laughs and an hour later we all ran back inside. The door to our room was up a couple steps that got wet and slippery. We all waited at the top of the stairs and all of the sudden we heard the loudest crash EVER. My friend Jack went through the glass door.  At first it didn’t seem like a big deal, we were all just freaking out because the hotel door was broken. You get the death penalty in Thailand for drugs, what do you get for glass doors? We all started packing our bags (don’t ask why, seemed smart at the time) in a panic and all of the sudden Jack comes out of the bathroom and goes “uhh guys?” He was COVERED in blood. I told him to get in the bathtub, I looked at him and realized he had deep cuts on his forearms, hands, head and a HUGE gash in his knee, I could see his knee cap. I went into Pre-Med mode and knew that I had to block the bleeding from above the cuts so I tried to tie off his brachial and femoral arteries, haha how cool does that sound? I tried the best I could but we only had towels and they were so thick it wasn’t tying tight enough. I sat on the toilet seat and put his hand on the side of the tub. For pressure I put my right foot on his hand, my left on his knee and squeezed his brachial artery with my hands. I held that position for about 5 minutes. I asked him to show me his teeth; he had all those so that was good. He was in good spirits and really calm. I had the SAS numbers in my phone so we called them and they said to just keep them updated. I switched “stop the bleeding” duties with another friend and the second I walked away and really realized what had happened I was covered in blood and freaking out (on the inside). It took about 35 minutes for the ambulance to come and by that point it looked like we slaughtered a cow in the bathroom. They took Jack to the hospital and we cleaned everything up. It was an intense hour.

The next morning we heard from him and he had to get hand surgery on both hands. He had three partially severed tendons and tons of stitches. We went to the hospital early in the morning; I brought him a “Mens Weekly,” a lollypop and a green balloon because it was St. Patty’s Day! The hospital was really nice and modern. When Jack came out of surgery he seemed fine and we were all trying to make light of the situation. He had to stay in the hospital for three days but he was okay, that’s all that mattered.

What was weird was that ever since he was taken to the hospital no one from the hotel had come to our room or said anything about it. The door was fixed by the next morning and there were no questions asked. They never came to clean on any of the three days and just seemed to ignore us. I think they were as scare of us as we were of them. Crazy Americans love suing! The second day we called the front desk for toilet paper and they brought it, with flowers. The next day they came to get the bloody towels and give us clean ones (we called and asked) and they brought an even bigger basket of flowers! It was the strangest thing, oh well.

Every night in Bangkok was essentially the same, minus projectile bodies through glass doors; it was a lot of fun. They had Irish pubs so I got to drink green beer on St. Patrick’s Day and during the day we took boat roads along the river and saw the Grand Palace. On the last night we saw a live Muay Thai fight. We were about 2 rows back from the ring and it was pretty intense. Muay Thai is basically violent kickboxing, it was violent, but really cool to watch.

The Grand Palace was a must see. For those of you who know me, I sweat a lot! It was about 100 degrees and you have to wear long pants and cover up when you visit.  The two were not a good mixture, I was trying not to be miserable but I was crying on the inside. I was sopping wet and it was absolutely disgusting. We did a full tour in the fastest time ever; we may have broken the sound barrier. The Grand Palace is the home of prominent political figures and the world famous emerald Buddha. The detail that was put into this massive mansion was really breathtaking. There was so much gold and so many colors, the pictures I have are really great.

Every night the locals set up a huge market, this was a danger zone for Jaclyn Bouchard. Imagine Canal St. times infinity. I didn’t do too much damage, but there was definite potential for that to happen. There is a big population of cross dressers and “she-mans” in Thailand. At one point I bought this sick Le Sportsac bag from this “woman” and she told me I could get it for about $10 if I gave her my earrings. “She” said “I love your earrings, they are beautiful for a woman and I am a beautiful woman.” She also modeled the bag for me; I think it might look better on her.

After an exhausting week in Bangkok we had to make our way back to the ship. I went to the free breakfast by myself the last morning but ended up sitting down with other SASers. I told them what had happened and how I tried to tie off his arteries but the towels were too thick. One of the girls I was talking to, who will remain nameless, honestly said this to me. “Well, you know, next time you should get a stick and put it in the towel and twist it, it makes it tighter.” Wow, okay, I’ll remember that for “next time,” are you serious? I love people who just like to hear themselves talk. After that I went to check out and they handed me this little green sheet of paper, “Door Brokend 3000 Baht,” haha! Brokend, I love it. I told them I would be right back and when I went to the room to tell everyone we had to pay for the door I subtly said “So we have to pay around $85 for the door, which is nothing…And I’m thinking since you went through the door that mayyyybbbbbbbeeee JACK you should use your credit card.” He started laughing and agreed he would give his. Once we were all paid for we got a cab back to the ship.

A 2-hour drive in a Toyota Rav4, there were 5 of us and 23423 bags. I was squeezed in the back with all the bags. I told them I felt like I was in a cocoon and by the time we get back to Laem Chabang, the port, I will have gone through metamorphosis and become a butterfly.

There was a huge line to get back on the ship because it was near dock time. You should have seen how many eyes were staring at Jack. Within 5 minutes he was asked what had happened a million times, he was already getting fed up. After a few people I started telling people he was in a Muay Thai fight, they actually believed me. Speaking of people who love to hear themselves talk, some guy asked Jack “So, how was your insurance? How much did it cost?” Jack’s response, “You serious dude?”

Safely home on the MVEx after an adventurous stay in Thailand.

I am really really excited for Vietnam because I get to see all the things Nelson DeMille talked about in his novel Up Country. I am also a history buff so this is going to be a low key country filled with museums, culture and first hand discovery of what the Vietnam War really was. We picked up some Vietnamese people in Thailand so they could give us some lectures in Global Studies before we get to their country, the first day the man was telling us stories of the war and he was crying. I have a feeling the whole thing is still really alive there and it’s going to be a really eye opening experience.

Well, only 5 countries left and I am still alive and kicking!

Happy Birthday to my sister Kissy, you’re 25 and really old.

Toodles!
Jaclyn

500 Rupee Photos

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Chennai, Delhi, Agra and Jaipur - India

India

I spent 5 days in India and it was exhausting. About 80 of us went to Agra, Jaipur and Delhi. Some things we heard before disembarking the ship were that all the clothing we wear will be thrown away, it smells and it’s a life-changing place. I feel like sometimes people get a little too deep with there thoughts… I am not going to lie, when I woke up on the ship and we were in port our room did smell a little stale, I think I’ll live. Our port city was Chennai, officially registered with 9 million residents but the “real” number, street children unaccounted for, is 13 million. There are 9 million people in Atlanta, Georgia; Chennai is ¼ the size of Atlanta. There are so many people in India it’s ridiculous. There is poverty all over the world, in every country, but in India it’s in your face. There is no way to travel throughout without seeing the poorest people you will ever see. Indian still uses a caste system with the wealthy at the top and impoverished at the bottom. There is a group of people who don’t even get an official caste section, the untouchables. To be untouchable in India means you’re impure, you have been thrown out of your caste. You must marry within your caste and it is arranged. Most of India practices Hinduism, but there are many religions practiced.

Day 1

We got off the ship around 10am when customs cleared us. When I was waiting at the bus my friend Mary came out of a building saying “well that was awesome!” I asked her what she was talking about and she said she went inside to go to the bathroom and came face to face with a hole in the floor, the bathroom, awesome. We all got on the bus and headed to the Chennai airport. I was sitting in a window seat and a couple of Indian men came up to the window and asked if they could take my picture. I smiled for them thinking this was going to happen once, I later find out there is a slight obsession with westerners and they love photographs of or with them. My flight phobia was starting to kick in and I was imagining an airplane made out of cardboard. What I saw on the way to the airport was enough to scare me back to the ship. People can’t walk on the sidewalks because every 2 feet a person is lying down in a blanket sleeping, or passed out, who knows. I saw a group of children who were covered in dirt playing in a dumpster that was overflowing all over the street. I have never seen so much trash in my life; it was everywhere. Slumdog Millionaire was coming to life right in front of my eyes. We drove past miles of slums and I saw houses made out of things I would never even think could make a wall. Dogs outnumbered people if that’s possible and they did not look healthy at all. There were goats with children and cows taking over the road. The ride to the airport was about 45 minutes and I had already seen all I wanted to see.

We got to the airport, checked in and headed to our gate. There were separate lines for men and women, which was funny, and the security did not make me feel secure. All of my apprehensiveness went away when I saw the snack cart that sold Kit Kats. I don’t know what it is about foreign Kit Kats but they blow the American ones out of the water. I usually don’t eat candy that much, these make me melt, no will power. I was happy and ready to fly. I got a window seat, YES, and the flight to Delhi was 2 hours. On the plane I told everyone I had a friend in Delhi and I became a local celebrity in a matter of minutes. Caitlin (not my roommate) is a friend from Long Island; she has worked with the Clinton Foundation about a year and a half, the organization deals with AIDS/HIV. We were messaging back and forth and she said she could get us into a sick Delhi club and get some VIP service since there were so many of us, chya! Like I have said before, college kids love the thought of VIP. I had 23423423 people give me their Blackberry PIN #’s so they could keep in contact with me throughout the night.

The flight was good; they greeted us with cold towels and had amazing food, America take note. There was rice, beans, fried dough and some other mystery substances, but it was all really good if you mash it all together. There was a green bean, or so I thought, sitting on top of the rice and I took it all in one bite. My friends, this was not a green bean, I felt like I bit into the core of the earth. Volcanic explosions had filled my mouth and I was near death. I think ketchup is spicy, so yea, that is all. After 2 hours we had landed in Delhi, from the air I saw miles upon miles of shacks; I really can’t express in words the amount of poverty I had seen in half a day. The bus drivers who were taking us to our hotel greeted us with leis, Hawaii? I had mine on for about 5 minutes until I realized there were worms in the flowers. Caitlin and I took ours off and just let everyone figure out on their own that they were worm infested, muhaha. Our hotel was ballin, there was a rooftop restaurant where we all immediately bought cold beers, college. The weather was absolutely perfect and the view was amazing. Caitlin met us at our hotel and she spoke to the receptionist in Hindi. I am not kidding, the man would barely speak to me when I was asking him questions, the second Caitlin busted out Hindi and he realized we knew someone in India, he was all chummy, you missed your chance buddy. Caitlin drove her motorbike, SO COOL, but we hired a driver and car for the night. We went to dinner and the food was amazing. It was a large silver plate and the waiters come around with little dishes and glopped piles of random foods onto your massive silver platter. I didn’t have to worry about what I was eating because India is a vegetarian nation, weeee! You ate with your hands and I went to town on it. It was delicious! I wouldn’t stop taking pictures and was so happy to be aliv; I think the waiter noticed because he asked me if we wanted to see the kitchen, YES PLEASE! We went back into the kitchen and the chef made me go to the stove, hold the spatula thing, and pose for a picture. I am telling you, they love westerners. I also got a bindi drawn on my head and hit a gong, all of this for $4.

After dinner we went to a couple different bars that Caitlin recommended. One of them had a live band and I am not kidding when I say they were playing Hotel California. I dabbled with the local rum, Captain Morgan. The last bar we went to was her favorite dive bar; it was on the top level of a hotel. This man near us was on his cell phone and it was the COOLEST cell phone I had ever seen. When he put it down I asked if I could see it, it was shaped like a clam. I asked him where he got it he said the UK and it was $2,000, his girlfriend got it for him… Alberto? Hahaha The hotel owner sat down with us also and we were having really good conversation. They asked what we thought of India so far, I said we had just gotten there that night and so far it was awesome. He asked where were we going and after I told him he said our thoughts might change. I told him I knew about the poverty and that every country has it, it is just a bit more in your face in India. He agreed and said he wanted us to bring back good words of India when we leave, he paid for our bar tab, done.

I told all the SASers to go to “F-Bar,” a really cool club that we would get to eventually. When we arrived the hotel had a sign that said “Welcome Semester At Sea!” How did they know? We really take over countries. The club was awesome and I met some ridiculous fashion designer, who was wearing an extremely appalling jacket. It was 1000 Rupees to get in, $20. If you were a couple they said you could get in for 500 Rupee for both. Caitlin (roommate) and I told the man we were a couple and asked for the 500 Rupee deal, we got in for free. They don’t accept homosexuality in India and I guess that was just too much for him to take; our money was no good, but free entry is! We left the club at 4am and our driver was waiting for us outside. When we got back to our hotel the grand total for 3 people for the whole night, from 8pm – 4am was $5 each. I gave him $10 because honestly, that is just ridiculous.

Day 2

We had to be on the bus at 7am, brutal. After one hour of sleep we headed out for a tour of Delhi. We went to mosques and monuments and saw all of Delhi. I tried to buy a water bottle at one of the places but it wasn’t sealed. They take old bottles refill it and try to sell them, gross. You can’t drink the water in India, and especially out of a used bottle. It was like the canal street of water, Aquafina was Aquatina. Nice try guy.

Every time the bus would stop beggars would surround us. They were selling the most insane items. Bangle bracelets, elephants, bindis, kama sutra books and anything else you could never want. You have to ignore them because the second you make eye contact they think that you have bought the item. “Hello! Ma’am! Kama Sutra! 500 Rupee!!”..No response “Ma’am. Hello! Okay, no problem, 100 Rupee!” But…I didn’t say anything? You just bargained with yourself. There “Hello!” sounds like “Hallo!” It’s great. At one monument there was a little boy and girl that started to perform the second we got off the bus, they were filthy and so skinny; it was terrible. The little girl would do back bends while the boy would swing a rope that was attached to his hat like a helicopter. Then they would hook onto each other and roll around like a ball, they literally did it for 15 minutes. They got money from some of us, I would love to give to everyone but you are asked for money at every step you take. It’s really painful to watch and after they begged for a couple minutes a police officer chased them away with a stick. When we would get back on the bus the men selling things would crowd the stairwell with their arms reaching into the bus. They would stand there until the door physically pushed them out as we were leaving, this happened at every single stop. It got really exhausting after 5 days.

We left for Agra after the tour, it was about a 5-hour drive and we stopped for lunch along the way. At the restaurant there was a little girl dressed as a princess and she would dance for money as her father played some sort of Indian instrument. I bought her a chocolate bar and took a picture with her. She was beautiful and it’s really hard to digest that her father had to use her as a circus act to feed them. There was also a man with a monkey outside and I asked him if I could take a picture with the monkey. The monkey climbed on top of my head and was violent. After the picture I went to give the man money, because it costs money to breath in India, and my 100 rupees wasn’t good enough. “500 rupees! You had the monkey on the head pose!” Oh, the monkey on the head pose… How could I not realize? So silly of me, here’s your 500 rupee, aka $10. Worth it.

We got to Agra pretty late in the night. A couple of us headed to the mall to get dinner, McDonalds. We got there and apparently everyone else on our trip had the same idea. Cows are sacred in India so there was no beef; the McDonalds gods have spoken. I had a #1, a “Veggie Delight Burger and fries,” I love India. I was so exhausted and in a food coma, I went back to the hotel and passed out. On the way back there was a boy making a gesture to me that he was hungry, I had a McDonald’s pizza, weird I know, in my hand so I went over to give it to him. He told me no, he only wanted Rupees. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Day 3

Taj Mahal! We had to be in the lobby by 7am and there were horse and carriages waiting for us outside. They took us to the Taj Mahal and I could not have been more excited, it’s one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world! My Taj ticket said “Non-Indian,” how do they know? I could be. After you walk inside you have to walk a bit to get through the entranceway that faces the Taj head on. When I turned the corner it didn’t seem real. It’s like a mystical building far off the in the distance and I couldn’t believe I was really there. I was convinced they had fog machines or something; it seemed fake. All of the pictures I took with me in them look like I cropped myself there, I saw it, I swear. To actually walk around the tomb, that’s what it is, you have to take your shoes off. As I was walking and taking pictures Indian men would come up and tell you a really good angle to take a picture at, and they really were great shots! The second after the flash goes off they say “money?” Of course, how could I think you were just being a nice human being, no you do not get a rupee for telling me to stand here. This is not your Taj, and it is not your camera, what am I paying you for? I sat at the Taj Mahal for hours; it was so peaceful.

After the Taj Mahal we went to a fort and royal palace. The tour guide was killing me. He literally told us where every grain of sand came from that formed the brick that made the wall. It’s hot, I care, but I don’t care that much. There were little school children on a field trip at the fort and they were adorable. They wanted to get in a million pictures with us. After the pictures one little girl turned to me and goes, “money?” You have got to be kidding me.

We got on the bus for another 5-hour drive to Jaipur. I slept most of the way, when we got there it was late but the hotel had a welcome reception for us. An adorable little boy was dressed up and dancing for us, he pulled me off my chair and we did some twirls together. Its festival season in India and the one that was occurring on that day was Holly. They take bright colored powder and throw it at each other to mark the changing of the seasons. My Citizens for Humanity jeans were not engaging in that, ah yes, the prissy Long Island girl comes out again. I watched, and everyone who did it severely regretted it when they realized it does not come off. I got a good feel for it, from behind the window.

Day 4

We got up early again today to do some tourist things. The first stop was a fort on top of a mountain. I bought a Turban, for Alberto, but I wore it for the day. Used gifts, how tacky... Haha! The turban was only appropriate for my elephant ride up the mountain. I love elephants; they are my most favorite animals ever. They’re so wrinkly and big; I love it. I’ll never forget the day I went to Sagamore Hill on a field trip to see Teddy Roosevelt’s house, he has a garbage can made from an elephant’s foot, not okay.

As we were on elephants, 20 feet off the ground, men are still trying to sell us their stupid trinkets.  They through turbans up on my lap and I said “no” a million times. Finally I said, “I am already wearing one, why do I need two?” The response was something like, “I give you good deal,” obviously I need 35 turbans, I through it back down to him. When we got to the top I took a picture touching the elephant’s trunk and the man who drove them, do you drive elephants? Anyway, he told me I had to pay 50 rupees for that picture, yea right. This is not your elephant or your camera so once again, you will not be getting my money just because you were alive to see me do this. We toured the fort and I got some henna on my hands then we headed back down.

We drove around Jaipur a bit more and saw palaces and mosques. We stopped at textile place that makes those crazy rugs. Oriental rugs? The ones that go under dining room tables. The store sold a million different kinds of fabrics; I bought 7 scarves and called it a day.

At the palace we saw the world’s largest silver jug and a snake charmer. We then went to a local market where I bought lots and lots of stuff. The shop owners always ask where we are from and when we say USA they say “Oh! King of the world!” In one shop I said I was from New York and the man said, “New York is very busy.” My response: Have you seen India?

We got back to the hotel and I had only one thing on my mind, Pizza Hut. We took a rickshaw to Pizza Hut and ordered an obscene amount of food. It was absolutely amazing; I hadn’t tasted pizza in forever. After devouring 3 pizzas we rolled back to the street and took a rickshaw to the hotel. The rickshaw rides are crazy, there are no driving laws and you can drive on the opposite side of the road if you want to. There are cows, cars, rickshaws, horses, scooters, camels, elephants and buses all over the road. I thought Mexico was bad…

At the hotel we watched Bollywood music videos for a bit. They are the funniest, corniest things ever. The men are always more feminine than the women and the dance moves are hysterical. And goodnight.

Day 5

Breakfast at 4:30am, bus at 5am. We headed to the Jaipur airport and on the way I found out our flight is not direct. Not only do we make a stop, we make two. What should really take 2 hours, takes 5. We went all over the country and ended back at Chennai. On the last flight from Bombay to Chennai the flight was pretty empty. There were two completely open rows. I saw a guy go take one to lay down and as he turns around to tell his friend to take the other I get up and walk towards him saying, “Oh no, that’s mine.” Caitlin turns to the friend and says, “Jaclyn has no problem telling people what she wants.” Hahaha Hey, you got to take life by the reigns. I slept the whole way, whether I lost a potential friend or not, it was worth it!

I got back to the boat completely drained. Even though I speak of all the beggars and hagglers I really do enjoy India, it has so much to see and do. The people are nice and I have never seen so much color all over the place. I could see myself coming back here. I heard people saying I.n.d.i.a stands for “I’d Never Do It Again.” It definitely is different from anything else I have ever experienced but who wants the same thing everyday?

It was an overwhelming experience; it honestly made me want to see more. I have never seen so many children in my life. Children without shoes, or even pants; I saw young girls carrying their baby brothers begging for money, and a woman holding a dead baby doing the same. Although I saw all these things I also saw so much energy. The will people had to survive, to work for maybe only 50 Rupees a day was incredible. If that energy was channeled to something positive I think India could develop into a great place.

Two pairs of sandals, 7 scarves, 1 ring, 1 shirt, 2 sets of earrings, 12 elephants and one bracelet later, I left India.

My 22nd birthday is in tomorrow, ew. Twenty-fun (21) was a great year and twenty-poo (22) will hopefully be just as good. Thailand in 3 days, I am so so so excited for Thailand.

That was a long one. Hope you enjoyed.


Take care brush your hair,
Jacleeeeeeen