Quick Update

It is Tuesday morning and we have just arrived in Guatemala.  We will be here for the next three days (two nights).  We are docked in the port-city Puerto Quetzal, which is on the Western side of the country in the Pacific Ocean.  Our 7 days at sea since Hawaii were very busy.  We had our final exam in Global Studies (which was cumulative and thus fairly difficult), as well as two study days with no class so students couple prepare for their other final exams.  The A-Day set of exams took place yesterday and after Guatemala we will have another study-day before the B-Day exams.  For whatever terrific reason, none of my three classes had a final exam.  In Public Speaking, we gave our final persuasive speech.  In Asian-American Fiction, we had a final essay and presentation about a story from Hisaye Yamamoto's collection of short stories, "Seventeen Syllables".  In my Strategic Management class, my team is compiling an "Annual Report" for our class's shoe industry online simulation that we have been competing in all semester.  By the way, our team ended up "winning" the simulation (was the most successful and promising company over the 20 simulated years). 

 

While in Guatemala, some friends and I (and pretty much all the students on the ship) are going to Antigua, the colonial Spanish capital of Central America.  It is about a 2 hour drive from our port.  There are a lot of ruins and cultural stuff to see as well as several volcanoes.  We are planning on taking a day to hike up (with a tour guide, of course) one of the active ones.  Also, we have been given safety briefings and updates for the last several days, and have been recommended not to go to Tikal (Ancient Mayan Ruins-requiring a flight) on our own or Guatemala City at all.  Antigua is supposed to be the safest city in Guatemala, so I'm not anticipating any issues.  Once we're back on the ship, its crazy to think that we'll only have a handful of days before we are in Fort Lauderdale.

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!!! (but not excited for this journey to end)

-Ari

China (part 2)

DAY 4

The next day, we woke up at 9ish, had a quick breakfast at our hostel, and then went out with the plan to see the Great Wall (about an hour outside of Beijing).  There are many tour busses that take people from right outside of Tieneman Square to several parts of the wall (there are many parts of the wall set up for tourists to visit).  Instead of waiting an hour for a bus to leave and having to spend the entire day stopping at several other places, we got a driver to take us there and back for about the same price as the “tour” would be, which worked out very well.  We were at the wall by around noon and spent several hours walking/hiking/climbing it.  We went to one of the less touristy parts of the wall (no Starbucks or KFC on it) that hasn’t been renovated as much.  It was a grueling, yet very cool experience.  The wall itself is pretty incredible.  It rises from between a few feet to several stories off the ground and stretches for as far as you can see.  At times the walls height changes drastically.  Over only a few yards, the wall can virtually drop, with countless uneven stairs (in width and in height) making our tour extremely strenuous, but still incredibly exciting.  By the end Scott’s and my legs were actually shaking when we were standing still.  After our time at the wall we had a late lunch (around 3:30ish) at a highly-reviewed restaurant famous for its Peking Duck, which is of course what we all had.  It was amazing, definitely one of the more memorable meals that I’ve had in the last four months.  It starts with the chef rolling out a cart with the duck and carving it at our table, making sure to keep all the skin.  You eat the duck with tortillas, a duck sauce, and various vegetables that you roll up together.  And the skin… wow. Incredibly crispy and delicious, like little chips.  After our terrific meal, we had a couple hours to kill before having to head back to the hostel to pick up our stuff to go to the train station, so we went to one of Beijing’s large shopping malls with the hope to see a movie.  They had lots of current American movies; unfortunately they were all dubbed into Chinese.  So we just walked around for a while, sat in space-age massage chairs for a while, and had ice cream.  Once we left the mall, instead of going straight to the hostel, we stopped at a night market on the way.  In addition to there being many vendors selling lots of small things, there was line of street food vendors and cards, probably a two blocks long, selling some of the most unknown and scary things I’ve ever seen.  I’d tell you what they are, but I don’t even know (you can try to guess from my pictures later).  While there were lots of things that looked delicious, knowing that we were about to be on a train for 13 hours, we refrained from trying anything.  Eventually, we made it back to the hostel, picked up our stuff, and left for the train station at around 8pm.  Even this late at night, the station was incredibly crowded, more people than were there a couple mornings ago.  And did I mention there was nothing in English telling us which of the dozens of “gates” was for our train, especially since there were 4 trains leaving for Shanghai in a span of 45 minutes.  Eventually we saw several other groups of SAS students also looking for the same train and were able to create a big enough group that someone who spoke Engligh came to help us.  I was incredibly impressed when we saw and got on the train.  Looking incredibly futuristic on the outside and very clean and modern on the inside, we found our way to our “cabin,” a moderately sized compartment with 2 bunk beds, each with its own controllable TV screen, light, and slippers to wear.  Each car had a nice bathroom and sinks to wash up at.  There was also a dining car (I had a decent bowl of noodles) and a lounge car.  However, pretty tired from the long day, we passed out pretty early and before we knew it they were saying things on the intercom in Chinese and we knew we were almost there when we heard the word “Shanghai” in the middle of the speech. 

 

DAY 5

We arrived at 7:30am, took a cab to the port, where the ship had literally just arrived.  Unfortunately, we (and an increasing group of SAS students arriving on other trains) had to wait for the ship to clear customs at around 10am before we could get on.  Once we were allowed on the ship, I rested for a couple hours and at around noon went out with a bunch of people to get rail passes for Japan.  These are passes for unlimited usage of the long-distance bullet trains in Japan for a one week period.  They are only sold outside of Japan and are meant for tourists who will be visiting the country to allow them to affordably travel throughout the country (individual train tickets can be between $50 and $150 each way).  Right outside of the building where we got the passes, we had a delicious street snack that was an egg/pancake/crepe/wrap-thing.  Once it was covered in a hot chili sauce, it was delicious.  Afterwards, we went to the enormous Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s (and probably China’s) largest shopping area, with a combination of hundreds of outdoor small craft stores mixed in with more upscale stores, all surrounded by lots of restaurants, food courts, and food stands.  We spent several hours walking around, shopping, and eating.  We eventually made it back to the ship, rested for a little, and then headed out for dinner at around 9ish.  In a fairly large group, we went to a restaurant where we met one of our friends on the ship and her older sister who is in Shanghai teaching English.  We had an amazing all-you-can-eat and drink tepanyaki dinner (for only $20).  We all sat around a large table with a hot grill in the middle where we cooked our food on ourselves.  We could have any of dozens of things, all brought to us raw on large trays, ranging from chicken, to several kinds of beefs, to various vegetables, and to scallops that came on individual oyster shells to put them on the grill over.  They even had a small sushi and sashimi selection that was pretty good. After several hours consisting of trays and trays of delicious do-it-yourself food, lots of beers, and several pitchers (yes pitchers, not the little white ceramic things) of sake, the 15 of us headed to a nearby bar/club where we’d meet up with A LOT of other SAS students.

 

DAY 6

After a relatively late night, I woke up at 11ish and went out with Jonathan and the Table Mountain crew.  Since we were leaving for Japan that day and had to be back on the ship by 6pm, our lone goal for the day was to go to a famous dumpling restaurant/stand, the one that Anthony Bourdain went to when he was in Shanghai.  We learned that Shanghai is known for their dumplings and that this place is supposed to be the best.  After getting dropped off at the dumpling place (which ended up being in the middle of the huge shopping street we went to the day before), we were met with an enormous line, with no less than 100 people (all locals) in it, all waiting for these dumplings.  The restaurant has a take-out window and a inside dining room. So after our jaws-dropped from seeing the line, we checked out the inside, just to be told that the wait would be at least an hour and that you have to wait there the whole time.  So instead we decided to walk around for a bit and try again in an hour hoping that the line would die down.  While we were walking, we noticed an abundance of Chinese police and security and a large wave of people moving towards us with lots of people taking pictures of someone or something in the middle.  The herd passed us, and there was a large security detail around someone in the middle, who we unfortunately never had the chance to make out.  Soon after, we learned that it was Musharaff, Pakistan’s President.  Later on while walking around, we saw his wife, with a much small security detail, shopping.  Eventually we decided to head back to the dumpling place, where the line had quieted down a little, but was still pretty long.  We waited in line for about 25 minutes with lots of people looking at us before making it to the window which reminded me a lot of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld.  You order at one side; they only have one kind of dumpling and you can get a reused ticket for either a small or a large, and them very systematically, you hand them the ticket and pay for your dumplings as they are handed to you.  We all silently ate our dumplings sitting on some steps by the restaurant, as we saw everyone else doing.  You eat them with vinegar, which goes surprisingly well.  They were absolutely delicious, besides being molten hot.  Afterwards, we continued to walk around the area for a little; (we wanted to go to the top of Shanghai’s largest building, which we’ve heard has amazing views, but it was and had been extremely overcast the entire day), so we headed back to the ship.  By 8pm, much of the ship was outside by the pool taking pictures of Shanghai’s skyline as we were pulling away. 

Hong Kong and China (part 1)

Hong Kong/China

March 29-April 3

 

DAY 1

We docked in Hong Kong on Monday March 29 at around 7am.  After a brief immigration process (just picking up our passports in person) and a relatively short diplomatic briefing, we were off the ship at around 10am.  Our docking situation reminded me a lot of ours in South Africa, except this time, we were literally docked at a huge, very nice, upscale shopping mall (something that I’d soon find Hong Kong has an abundance of). A gangway, very much like a jetway for airplanes, connected us to the middle of the mall, immediately surrounding us with name-brand stores, restaurants, and one of the several food courts in the mall.  After waiting for friends to get off and spending a few minutes online at one of the complimentary computers at a coffee shop, me and my friend Jonathan (and lots of other SAS students) made a long journey to the Stanley Market, a large waterfront indoor/outdoor market, with lots of restaurants, on the other side of the island.  We began by taking the 10 minute Star Ferry from the small island our ship was docked (still part of Hong Kong) to Hong Kong’s “mainland”.  Conveniently, the Star Ferry docks connected to another huge mall that we had to walk through to get out.  After a full half hour of trying to figure our way around/out of the second mall, we ended up at the Four Seasons hotel that was connected to it, and the concierge was kind enough to provide us with a detailed and personalized sheet telling us how to take the bus system to Stanley, as well as provide us with the name of a great Dim Sum restaurant there and call to make sure that they could seat us.  Maybe they thought we were staying there???  After about a 40 minute bus ride, we arrived at the market, absolutely starving.  We then had an amazing dim sum meal at the restaurant we had been recommended.  We had several kinds of dumplings, a noodle thing, and something else that was delicious, not quite sure what it was.  Our meal was also our first instance showing that Hong Kong wouldn’t be as cheap as the countries we had recently visited (India, Thailand, and Vietnam).  After eating, we walked around the waterfront and market for a while and eventually took the bus back to “downtown” Hong Kong and then took the ferry back to the ship.  After getting back to the ship at around 6pm, we had dinner on the ship and then at 8pm the decks of the ship were filled with people watching the nightly laser-light show on downtown Hong Kong.  Yes, a nightly laser-light show. What does that mean???  It’s hard to describe, but every night at 8pm the many buildings making up Hong Kong’s immense skyline partake in an immense laser light show for about 15 minutes.  Each building “participates” in some way.  Some have huge colorful lights, some windows flash on and off in cool patterns, and several have extremely powerful green lasers that shine.  It was pretty cool to see an entire skyline “put on a show”.  Afterwards, a bunch of the Chicago people and I went to a California Pizza Kitchen conveniently in the ship’s mall for some appetizers and drinks.  Afterwards, we took the ferry to the “mainland” and went out on what I can easily say was the craziest street I have ever seen.  To preface, I should mention that the Rugby World Championships were being played in Hong Kong that week, so there were lots of fans from all over the world there to support their teams.  Usually, SAS students “take over” a street, but this was taken over by crazy rugby fans.  I can honestly say that, hands down, the all of the Halloween celebrations I’ve seen in Madison did not even compare to this.

 

DAY 2

On our second day, I woke up at around 11-ish, walked around the mall and the neighboring streets for a little, and then had lunch in a COMPLETELY local food court type thing.  Looking for a “local” lunch experience, I found an underground food court somewhere, filled only with locals (don’t be mistaken; it was a nice place, with lots of business-men and women on their lunch breaks), with not a word of English printed anywhere, and said this is the perfect place for lunch.  I ordered by pointing at a picture of a plate of food on the menu above the counter, hoping that it was the chicken and rice that it looked like.  I turned out to be correct, and it was actually a pretty good meal, although kind of awkward being literally the only American in the place.  Afterwards, I made my way back to the ship, did some emailing, and packed for our trip to Beijing.  Me and my friend Scott (who spent the morning on a SAS trip for a class) would be going to Beijing in a couple hours.  We were flying out of the city Shenzhen, not Hong Kong, which is part of China’s mainland and to get there had to take a shuttle there, go through immigration to exit Hong Kong and enter China, and then get a cab to the Shenzhen Airport.  The process took several hours, but we arrived with more than enough time to make the flight and even have a pretty awful airport Chinese food meal.  Our flight was three hours long and we were each fortunate enough to have several seats to ourselves, as the plane was not that crowded.  It was very interesting seeing how the airline industry in other countries is in so much better shape than ours, and how so many of the things that have been done away with in recent years are still present.  Everyone got hot towels, several drinks, and a surprisingly good duck/rice/vegetable meal.  We landed in Beijing at around 10pm, with no plans for where to stay for the night.  Not too worried, me and Scott, and two SAS girls that were on the plane with us found a very highly rated hostel in the heart of Beijing that we could stay at for the couple nights.  After a frustrating while trying to get a cab to understand where we were trying to go, and being helped by a very nice traffic officer (who also spoke no English) we were on the way to the hostel.  This was our first true experience of seeing how pretty much no one speaks English in China, which was a very weird concept for us since everywhere else we have been we could manage to get by communicating with at least a little bit of English.  We got to the hostel at around 11:30pm, checked out the room (which we were very impressed with (2 bunk beds)) and passed out.

 

DAY 3

We woke up the next morning at around 10am and went to Beijing’s central train station to buy our overnight train tickets to Shanghai for the next night.  I can’t even begin to describe the 2 hour process that it took us to get the tickets.  The train station was the size of an airport, and along the outside were dozens and dozens of ticket windows, each with at least 30 people in line.  And did I mention that there was not a word of English on any sign anywhere and that each line was for something different.  Or that for about an hour of trying to find help, no one, actually no one, spoke any English.  Eventually we decided to wait in one of the lines and had prepared a piece of paper with “Shanghai” in Chinese and the date we wanted to go.  After waiting in line for about a half hour, we got to the front only to see that the woman behind the counter spoke no English, couldn’t help us, and just moved on to the person behind us in line.  That was when an incredibly nice, young Chinese student, who had probably taken a basic English class saw us and tried to help us.  After asking several train station security guards, he was able to direct us to the “foreigner/tourist” ticket window, which was around several buildings and down a long corridor.  We thanked him and were finally able to buy our tickets.  Afterwards, we had a quick lunch nearby at what seemed to be a chain-like Chinese restaurant.  After lunch, we took the subway to Tieneman Square where we walked around for a while before going to the Forbidden City.  The Forbidden City was enormous, and seemed to be huge pavilion and building, one after another, before leading to a gigantic garden area.  We spent several hours there before going to see all of the Olympic stuff.  We got to see the Water Cube, which is immense (and blue), a lot bigger than it ever seemed on TV, as well its neighboring National Stadium (The Bird’s Nest), which we were fortunate to arrive just before the stopped selling tickets for tours.  We took a tour of the stadium, getting to walk freely on the field and sit in the stands while they looped highlights from last summer’s games on the many screens.  After the Olympic sites, we took the subway (unfortunately during rush hour) back.  This was the most insane train/subway experience ever.  I have never seen so many people cram into a train.  The train would arrive, already seemingly filled, with people sitting and standing, just to see another 50 people squeeze their way in.  After having to transfer three different times, we made it back to the station by our hostel.  On our walk back, we stopped at a delicious smelling, hole-in-the-wall dumpling place for a quick bite.  As we’d become accustomed to, the “menu” (list of 5 or 6 things on the wall) was all in Chinese with now numbers/prices, or at least not written in normal numeral characters.  There were 3 make-shift tables, the other two filled with locals.  It was pretty funny; after sitting down we knew the old man and woman running the place spoke no English and they knew that we spoke no Chinese.  We “ordered” simply by pointing at what the people at the other table were eating.  We ended up having four “trays” of 6-8 dumplings; all different kinds and all delicious.  When we were ready to pay, we had no idea how much our meal cost and they had no idea how to tell us.  So, the old woman took the amount we owe out of the register to show us how much to pay.  We were kind of unsure what she meant since she only held up 16 yuan, which is a little less than $2.  But we paid, and went back to the hostel.  After resting for a little and using their cheap internet stations, we went for a late dinner at a nearby restaurant where I had a decent chicken dish.   Next, we went back to the hostel, talked and played cards with a bunch of other SAS students staying there before going to bed.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

I’ll have the rest up in a few days, along with Japan’s post.  We get to Hawaii tomorrow morning; or for that matter in a few hours.  My phone WILL work, so please give me a call, regardless of what time it is for me.

 

Hope everything’s great at home and Happy Anniversary Nonny and Papa!!!

Groundhog Day and Passover on the Ship

4/13/09

 

As usual, sorry it’s taken so long to get this up. I hope everyone is having and has had a good Passover.  I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures from a few days ago.  Since then, we’ve left Japan (which was amazing (and expensive)) and are on a 9 day journey to Hawaii.  We’ve been very busy on the ship; yesterday we had our second Global Studies exam, which everyone spent a while preparing for since getting on the ship in Japan.  We had fairly rough seas for the first couple days, which made the test even more difficult for a lot of people. (I’ve fortunately remained fine without any seasickness problems thus far).  If I didn’t explain the test taking process last time, let me briefly try to now.  Since there’s no classroom that can hold the over 700 students, they assign people to every room and public space on the ship to take the exam at the same time.  This time I sat in one of the dining halls at a table with four other people, which is one of the “better” places to be.  Other, less lucky, people had to sit in the union (big theater-like room) and take the test on dining trays. (Pretty difficult where the rocking is the worst in the front of the ship).  But overall, I think that this test went much better than the first one; I’ll see how I did in a few days. 

 

Moreover, I’m sure a lot of you are interested to hear about what we’ve been doing for Passover while on the ship.  Let me start by saying that on our last night in Japan, about 25 people from the ship, including one of our professors and his wife and 13 year old son, went to a Seder held by the Tokyo JCC at the American Embassy’s Residential Complex.  The Seder was a very cool and unique experience.  The SAS people ended up being about half of the Seder, with the rest being a combination of Americans living in Japan as well as several Jewish Japanese couples, who was very cool to meet and talk to.  The Seder was led by the JCC’s new young woman rabbi, who had recently moved to Japan with her husband and two young kids from Minnesota.  It was also very cool to learn that she went to UW Madison and even lived in the Towers dorm.  The food at the Seder ended up being just okay, but many of their unique and creative traditions made up for it.  For example, each table had a form of each plague that they got to “unleash” on the other tables.  We had lice and threw raisins across the room.  The table with boils put little red circle stickers over peoples’ faces, and there was even an angel of death that came around and “killed” all of the first borns.  Overall, the Seder, while very different from any other Seder I’m used to (with no one beating people with onions), it was a terrific experience that I’ll definitely remember for a long time.

The next night, once everyone was back on the ship and after we had left Yokohama, we had another Seder on the ship that about 75 people came to (students as well as faculty, including a bunch of non-Jews). It was led by the Jewish professor, who I talked about earlier (who I’ve gotten to know and really like).  We used an extremely modern Hagaddah that was very funny in how pro/equal-everything it was.  I kept a copy of it to bring to our next Seder.  Continuing, I should say how absolutely amazed and impressed I, as well as pretty much everyone else, is about how well the ship has done to cater to those keeping kosher for Passover.  After not having a single piece of matzah for us prior to arriving in Japan, the crew has come extremely far.  For the entire week, they have devoted one of the two buffet lines in the deck 6 dining hall to those celebrating Passover. (Someone even put up funny signs around it explaining “Why this buffet is different from all others?”)  For every meal this week, we’ve had a sufficient supply of matzah with cream cheese, hard boiled eggs (both of which prior to now had not made an appearance on the voyage), some kind of matzah ball soup thing, and then the usual potato and chicken/fish thing, which has always been different (and better) from what was on the regular side of the buffet. For example, we’ve had latkes twice now which were very good and crispy. Also, for dessert we’ve had homemade meringues or macaroons alternating at every meal, which have been surprisingly delicious for being cooked by a Philippino chef (I assume a student gave him a recipe from his/her mom or grandmother).  I have also done research and learned that there is absolutely no reason that Sephardic Jews cannot eat corn syrup or related products on Passover.  (Google it).  I’m going to end my Passover tomorrow at lunch and then tomorrow night me and a bunch of people are looking forward to going to one of the “fancy/specialty” dinners that the ship does (like on cruises how you can pay for “special” food, except on the Explorer, the food turns into a regular cruise dinner).

 

Additionally, you might have seen how the title of this post includes “Groundhog Day”.  This is because a couple nights ago, on the night April 12, we went to bed, only to wake up to another April 12.  This is because we crossed the International Date Line; So instead of losing another hour (like we’ve done probably 18 times now), we added an entire day.  Unfortunately it was a normal class day just like any other.  What is really cool, is that there were a few people that got to have 2 birthdays in a row, something I don’t think very many people can say they’ve had. 

 

Last night we had a charity auction sponsored by the Students of Service group on the ship. They had a combination of raffles, silent auctions, and a live auction, giving away lots of donated prizes and things.  Some of the raffles were simple, but very cool, like being the first and last person off the ship in Fort Lauderdale, a map of the voyage signed by the captain, sitting at the Captain’s Table with friends at the Ambassador’s Ball, and various popcorn and pizza parties for friends.  However, some of the live and silent auctions were much more significant.  A lot of faculty donated time at condos and stuff like that. For example, a week at a condo in Molokai, Hawaii, several days in a house at Yellowstone, a day on someone’s yacht, and dinner and a show in New York were just some of the things that were auctioned off.  I think by the end of the night, they raised almost $8000.  I tried for the raffles, but unfortunately wasn’t so lucky.

 

I know I still have to put up my China and Japan posts, and hope to do so before we get to Hawaii.  I’m going to be fairly busy over the next couple days with our third and final paper in my Asian American Fiction class about The Joy Luck Club and a paper for my Strategic Management class.  I hope everyone is doing well at home and is not having any trouble finishing up with Passover.

 

MORE PICTURES!!! (Mauritius-China)

We're in Yokohama, Japan right now, about to get on the ship to go to Hawaii and I found an internet cafe by the port, so here are a bunch of pictures from Mauritius through China....

Me and my friend Josh on our catamaran in Mauritius

Me and some new friends at the Dalit (untouchable) work project in India

more friends...

Our group in Thailand at our incredibly nice dinner on top of a building, overlooking all of Bangkok



Me and my friend Jamie riding an elephant in Thailand

On the Mekong Delta in Vietnam

Getting fitted for our suits (You'll have to wait to see me in the completed ones)

At the Cu-Chi Tunnels in Vietnam

The Hong Kong skyline (the tall building is from The Dark Knight)

The Water Cube in Beijing

Me and my friend Scott in the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium

The Great Wall...

Posts about China and Japan to come in the next few days...

Vietnam!!!

(Sorry it took so long to get up, we just got back on the ship from Hong Kong and China (which was amazing) and I didn’t have much time to write during our two days between Vietnam and Hong Kong)…

 

Vietnam

Sunday March 22 to Thursday March 26

DAY 1

We docked in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam early on Sunday March 22.  I woke up as we were pulling in at around 8am.  When I opened our window I was surprised to see at least 100 parents on the dock alongside the ship waving and holding up signs.  This is because Vietnam was the country for the SAS “parent trip”.  My roommate Chris’ parents were among the crowd.  At around 9am, after the parents had come on the ship and had a quick reception, we had a diplomatic briefing with two guys from the US Consulate who in addition to the usual safety and logistical stuff, talked a lot about today’s relationship between the US and Vietnam.  I was surprised to hear how close we are diplomatically and how high up Vietnam is on the list of Asian foreign aid recipients.  In the couple days between Thailand and Vietnam all of our Global Studies classes and pre-ports were devoted to Vietnam, with a lot of focus on the Vietnam War.  The ship’s TV network looped the big Vietnam movies; like Apocalypse Now and The Deerhunter. 

After the briefing and quickly meeting Chris’ parents, who are two very nice people, me and a few guys got off the ship at around 10am with one goal for the day, to get suits.  (Pretty much everyone on the ship was soon at one of the two major tailor streets to get fitted for suits and dresses.)  One cool thing that was very different about our docking situation in Vietnam is that despite being docked pretty much in the middle of the city, they had a shuttle running to the Rex Hotel (a very nice hotel where journalists stayed and reported from during the war) running every half hour to prevent taxi and motor bike drivers from lining up outside the port.  This made transportation very convenient while we were in Ho Chi Minh City.  So, after taking the shuttle to the Rex, which is pretty much in the center of the city (which is much more built up than I expected) we walked a couple blocks to the street lined with small tailor shops.  After checking out a few and comparing quality and prices, we choose one run by a very nice and friendly Vietnamese woman, who reminded me a lot of Eunice, our dry-cleaner/tailor at home.  The four of us spent close to two hours picking out fabrics, colors, and designs and then getting fitted.  I got two suits, one black and one dark grey-ish, and two shirts, for a total of $200.  Not bad.  After our fitting experience, we had lunch at a nice nearby restaurant.  I had what ended up being a great noodle/beef dish (which was fortunate because the menu and staff knew very little English, so none of us were too sure what we were ordering. Afterwards, we walked around for a bit, learning how to cross the street without getting hit.  In Vietnam, everyone rides motorbikes/scooters, traffic is always crowded, and stoplights, signs, and any sense of regulation/logic is either not observed or non-existent. At any point a light turns red, no less than 100 bikes will pile up at the intersection before it turns green. I’d never seen so many bikes so close together.  So, in order to cross the street, you pretty much have to find a small opening in the traffic and just start walking across, keeping a constant pace and looking forward.  You can’t hesitate and must feel or at least appear confident.  When done properly, the traffic and bikes will be able to judge your path and plan theirs accordingly to avoid you.  It started off as an extremely scary experience, but by the time we left, we were pros at it, crossing huge intersections will complete confidence. Throughout the day we took a bunch of cabs places, where we learned for the first time how much the Vietnamese love US dollars.  We paid for every cab ride we took (and would take for the rest of the time in Vietnam) with a SINGLE US dollar, regardless of how many thousands of Vietnamese Dong were on the meter.  Eventually, we made it to the War Remnants Museum (formerly called the Museum of American War Crimes).  The museum, primarily just walls and walls of pictures from the war, was extremely intense and really put into perspective a lot of the things that we had discussed on the ship during the previous couple days.  Despite being obviously biased, the museum truly showed many of the horrors of the war and a lot of the bad stuff the US did.  After the museum, we went back to the ship, where me and my friends Karrie and Lindsay worked on planning an overnight homestay trip in the Mekong Delta for the following day.  After calling a couple touring companies, we had to go to one to pay/finalize everything.  After struggling to find a cab, we got on the backs of two motorbikes (don’t worry, we wore helmets) and were driven to the office.  It was a very cool (and at times scary) experience actually being in the insane motor bike traffic, weaving in-between cars and other bikes.  After figuring everything out for the next day, I went to a crowded Jazz club where the ship’s A/V guy, Bob (an amazing guitarist with his own guitar camp in Wisconsin, who at one point played with Van Morrison) was playing.  Probably 30 SAS students and close to a dozen teachers from the ship were there too.  After hearing Bob play with the club’s owner, an amazing saxophone player (who at one point played two saxophones at once) for a while, they invited four SAS guys (students who play/jam on the ship with Bob pretty much every night on the ship) to play for a little.  They ended up playing for over half an hour jamming with Bob, the saxophonist, and the rest of the club’s band.  It was a really cool experience to see lots of Vietnamese people enjoying listening to fellow SAS students and everyone had a lot of fun.

 

DAY 2

Me, Lindsay, and Karrie started the day at 8am when we were picked up at the dock to begin our journey in the Mekong Delta.  During our 2 hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City to the Mekong, we met and talked to our guide Hanh, a very nice, young Vietnamese woman.  We learned that the Mekong Delta is a very poor and very populated region in Southern Vietnam where a lot of fighting during the war took place.  Upon arriving at the Delta we boarded a small boat and spent the next several hours going around just one area of the large delta, stopping at various places.  We stopped at a rice candy workshop, where we saw them “pop” rice (like popcorn, but with rice), then pour it into caramel and other sugars, and then harden it, making what looked like (but didn’t really taste like) rice-krispy treats.  We also stopped at a place where we saw and heard a traditional Vietnamese music/song/dance where we had tea and some funky kinds of fruit.  Afterwards, we had lunch, where the three of us were served an entire fish that had been either broiled or fried.  Not being something that I would ever order myself, it was a good opportunity to try something new.  We ate it by making little “tacos” by wrapping pieces of fish, cucumber, and various other things in rice papers.  After, we took the boat to our “homestay”, which was what I would describe as a B&B in the middle of a very local village.  Our rooms were pretty much little shacks on stilts above some incredible disgusting water.  Our beds were small propped up cots and had mosquito nets around them.  After taking naps in incredibly comfortable hammocks, we spent some time biking around the town/village.  At one point we passed the school, where we saw dozens of kids playing and learning in a small, rundown building.  We tried sugar cane juice, which we saw pressed, essentially running a stalk through a roller over and over, squeezing out the juice.  Not wanting them to add any of their tap water to it, we drank it straight.  It wasn’t bad, but was incredibly sweet.  Afterwards, we biked for another half hour or so before heading back for dinner.  For dinner, we had literally the same meal we had for lunch.  Another huge fish, soup, rice, and very good spring rolls.  After dinner, we played cards for a while and talked with Hanh before going to attempting to go to bed.  When we finally went to bed, after crawling inside our tiny, mosquito net covered beds, it took a while to fall asleep in the humid heat, with sounds of boats’ motors and animals/insects making noises in the background.  But eventually, I fell asleep and am pretty sure that I didn’t get a single mosquito bite. 

 

DAY 3

After a rough night’s sleep, we woke up at 7am, had a quick breakfast of bread and some kind of eggs, and were back into a boat, cruising up the Mekong, about to stop at a bunch more places along the delta.  We started by visiting a brick factory, where we saw humongous ovens that “cook” bricks over long periods of time.  After, we stopped at a home and had terrific honey tea, which consisted of filling a cup half with honey and half with tea and then stirring it. Next, we took very small boats, paddled by an old Vietnamese woman wearing a large cone-shaped rice hat, down a very narrow  river, surrounded by trees and green vegetation.  Afterwards, we visited a coconut candy factory, where we learned how they boil down the coconut rind to a sugary past before adding things to it and then shaping it into small, bite-size candies.  Later, we had lunch at a very nice restaurant where Hanh was kind enough to have them change up the menu for us, so we wouldn’t have another large, whole fish again.  After our lunch, we drove back to the ship, getting on at around 4pm.  At 8ish, the suit crew had to go to back to the tailor to get our suits fitted/altered.  We were all very surprised to only try on our pants and literally half of jackets (not exactly what we were expecting).  We were all kind of worried to see how they’d turn half a jacket into a perfectly tailored suit.  But I’ll get to that later.  After the fitting, we ate dinner at Pho 24, essentially a Vietnamese fast food restaurant specializing in the national dish, pho, a large bowl of noodles in a broth that you put lots of vegetables and things in.  After we ate, we walked around for a while, checking out a night market before going back to the ship

 

DAY 4

On Wednesday, our fourth day, we were up at 7am to do a SAS trip to a Cao Dai Temple and to the Cu Chi Tunnels.  The temple was very cool and we got to see one of their four daily worship sessions.  After the temple, we had lunch at a restaurant where sitting at long tables they brought out dish after dish of Vietnamese food.  Some of the things we had were rice, soup, shrimp fritter-things, a stir fry thing, and a noodle dish.  It was all very good and everyone was completely stuffed by the end of the meal.  After about an hour drive, we arrived at the Cu Chi tunnels, what I’d describe as like a government run national park.  The tunnels were used in the war to hide and move Viet Cong soldiers.  They are extremely tiny, discreet, underground tunnels that soldiers would crawl through.  There were even tunnels directly under an American base that we didn’t even know about.  We got to crawl through an expanded section of the tunnels, which despite being expanded, we still had to crawl on our hands and knees and were unable to lift up our heads more than a few inches.  We crawled 15 meters, weaving and going up and down, in pitch black, with bats flying and flapping over our heads.  After the tunnels, on the bus ride back to Ho Chi Minh City, we heard our guide Mai’s story, an incredible account of her growing up extremely fortunate before having to flee to Canada when the war started and communism threatened her family.  After we got back to the ship, we had a quick dinner, and after my, my friend Jonathan, and a couple other guys went out, walked around the city, and had some terrific ice cream, before going to a couple places that ended up being filled with SAS students. 

 

DAY 5

On our last day, I woke up at 9:30ish and went to the Ban Thanh Market, an enormous indoor market filled with hundreds of stalls and vendors selling every kind of knock-off imaginable, DVD’s, and an entire section of crazy and awful smelling foods.  After spending a while at the market, I met up with the “suit crew” to go pick up our suits.  We got to the tailor as they were being delivered by the woman’s husband, who was carrying all of our suits with him while on his motor bike.  We tried them on one at a time and were all incredibly impressed and happy with how they turned out.  I can’t wait to have a reason to wear them.  We’re all looking forward to the Ambassador’s Ball at the end of the voyage when everyone dresses up.  After getting our suits, we went to another amazing ice cream shop that we were told to go to by some of our friends.  They specialize in crazy kinds of presentations.  I had the “ice cream sushi” which was six “rolls” consisting of vanilla ice cream on the outside with different kinds of ice cream on the inside, along with a chocolate (soy sauce) dipping sauce.  It was very good and incredibly creative. (I have lots of pictures).  Afterwards, we headed back to the ship where we had an amazing barbeque dinner by the pool.  For the third time this voyage, the ship sets up grills outside on the deck and grills hot dogs and burgers for dinner.  It’s one of the better dinners we get to have on the ship that everyone looks forward to. 

 

In the two days between Vietnam and Hong Kong we had classes and I had lots of reading to do.  Also, in Hong Kong, 40 members of the ship’s crew would be leaving the ship.  So the night before, our floor had a makeshift goodbye party for our wonderful steward Rene, who will be going back to his family in the Philippines for a few months before returning to the ship in the Fall.

We are now on the ship, having left Shanghai, on the way to Japan.  We will be arriving on the morning of Monday April 6 in Kobe, and leaving on Friday from Yokohama.  As of now, we’re not sure what we’re going to do, but we got rail passes for Japan while we were in Shanghai (an unlimited train ticket for all Japanese trains and busses only sold outside of Japan to tourists), so we are planning on visiting a bunch of cities. 

 

As usual, I hope to have the China post up soon.