APR 15

So, I’m realizing that what I wrote for Penang wasn’t very complete. And those three field trips, they weren’t nearly as bad as I made them sound. The first one was to a little village where I learned about rubber trees (for the second time), then went to a typical village house for lunch. It wasn’t a very busy morning, but slightly educational none the less. The second SAS trip was to learn about the healing art of Qi Gong. Qi, pronounced “chi”, is the same concept used in feng shui and other East Asian arts basically translating into “energy flow”. A master of this particular art described to us – and later demonstrated – how, when there is a free, open, and complete energy flow throughout the entire body, it is impossible for disease to settle in any body part. The third trip was to an active tin mine. Why did I go to a tin mine? Well, while this may seem like a fun field trip to some, I STILL have absolutely no interest in mines, but I needed to do this for a geology field report (a paper worth 10% of that course). It is interesting to know there are very few areas in the world that have tin, and even fewer mines still operating today. Really, that’s all there is worth telling you. And that was my expansion on Malaysia.

Vietnam is the country I just got back from, and as mentioned Mom and Dad met with me to enjoy the port experience. After meeting them on the ship, we went out for some lunch and did a bit of shopping for dress makers that afternoon. We went out for supper, returned to Mom and Dad’s hotel for some dessert, and then I went back to the ship for some sleep. The next morning came way too early…somewhere around 4:20am. Oh, yes, another SAS field trip and their infamous mid-night flights. We arrived in Hanoi early enough to do a prison tour, the tour of a temple of literature, and go for lunch. We then drove for 3.5 hours to Halong Bay, ate supper, and went to bed just beside the coast. The next morning was a boat tour of the bay, which is filled with over 2000 islands, and a walking tour inside a hollow rock. Really, this rock was really cool: because it is made of limestone, it is very susceptible to erosion and the whole inside is filled with huge caverns and caves. Very cool. That afternoon was left open for the drive back to Hanoi. Once back, we went to a water puppet show – an ancient art created out of boredom during the rainy season – and then to supper. Our last morning we went on a city tour to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum (a general or something from one of the recent wars, whom Saigon was renamed after), and an army and history museum that highlighted the Vietnamese-US and Vietnamese-French wars. The last day for this port was spent going out to the Mekong Delta where we learned about coconut candy making and the area in general. The Mekong Delta River is a principle waterway for traffic between the different cities in Vietnam, such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. And than is Vietnam in a nutshell!

Wow, it’s hard to believe I’m already half-way between last port and next…I only have 1.5 days of class left! Talk to you after my adventures in China.

Lindsay


APR 24

Here I am, sitting in the Union for my very last diplomatic briefing. That’s kind of sad to think about – only one more ‘foreign’ port! We just docked this morning after the Japanese presented us with fireboats along the water and a brass band out on the wharf.

But I’ve skipped China! Now, this was a fun port. We first docked into Hong Kong (which is technically NOT part of China, for those who didn’t know). I was only in the city for a day and a half, but still managed to spend too much money, did a lot of walking, discovered different areas of the city, took the Star Ferry a couple of times to the mainland, and was amazed at the intricate underground pathways. Oh, I also learned I could walk quite a distance using these pathways and other interlinked buildings (mainly malls) when it randomly started to pour the one night I had there.

The second afternoon Ivan and I packed all of our things and headed on our way by train to Shenzhen, China to catch our flight to Beijing. But oh wait…plans can almost NEVER go that smoothly! After the seamless train ride to Shenzhen, we went through customs and then took a cab ride to the airport. We were in the taxi for the expected 10 minutes. And another 10. And then another. Oh, wait…it was an hour drive! Turns out we were given inaccurate information and the OLD airport was only 10 minutes from the train station, while the NEW airport was an hour away. Oops. So, that along with the unexpectedly long lines to get through customs (just so happened we traveled during a high traffic time), we missed our flight by over an hour. To add to the difficulties, my credit card didn’t want to work and we were stuck with NO cash! “Where was Ivan’s card?” you ask. Well, one of our friends had lost her card the night before and wasn’t able to go to Beijing any more because of her lack of cash, so we gave her his card. Of course, just after doing a good deed for someone else, the one card we had left stopped working. Oh, and did I mention there was a huge language barrier here (for the first time)…you know, just to add to the situation. The only good thing after all of this was how wonderfully the airline handled our missed flight situation.

We FINALLY got to Beijing by noon the next afternoon and to the hostel around 2:30. We hadn’t yet experienced the famed Peking Duck, so we went out to try some. My recommendation: try it once, and only once; I learned my lesson the first time that duck is a very fatty bird. The rest of the time we spent near our hostel. Turns out where we were staying was right in the middle of a bunch of other hostels (and everywhere we went were other SAS students) and with stores to barter in down the whole block. It was also in a very popular part of the city just a couple blocks away from Tinamen Square and the Forbidden City.

Our last day there we visited the Great Wall. We went with our hostel to a ‘secret’ location that hadn’t been restored at all. That was actually pretty cool. There were areas where the staircase was actually more of a dirt path with stones lying around, and foliage growing between those rocks. Other areas were much more intact with two full walls along the path, but still the plants and shrubs were able to grow between the cracks proving the age and history of the area we were in. The part of the wall we visited was built 2,500 years ago during the Qing Dynasty. After walking for a short while, we climbed back down the hill and ate lunch at a local villager’s house. That was actually one of the best meals we had while in China.

The flight back home was uneventful – we woke up at 4am to catch a flight that was filled with independent SAS travelers. Once back on the ship we had one last day in Qingdao before it left port. Sad to say I didn’t experience that city at all…I was exhausted from traveling! I pretty much slept that whole day. And off we were, on our way to Japan.

Lindsay


APR 28

Well, here I am writing to you all on my last night in Kobe. Wow, this is definitely a port I’ll have to come back to sometime when I have more money. Good for them and bad for us – Japan has a very strong dollar. Prices here are comparable to those in Canada and the US…but coming from countries where you could get a meal for $1 US, we weren’t ready for this!

Really, Japan is a gorgeous country. Okay, so admittedly I’m not the best person to talk to because all I really saw was downtown Kobe, but the city did a very good job at etching a good impression into my mind. To start, the people were very kind, hospitable, and patient (with trying to communicate through another language barrier, this was greatly appreciated). Secondly, the food was the best East Asian food we’d experienced, and there were many opportunities for all other sorts of cuisine as well (Spanish, Italian, Western…). Thirdly, there was not a morsel of garbage to be found on the streets…anywhere! And this was downtown! Oh, and should I add that I ended up carrying some garbage in my hand for 10 minutes as we walked down a road looking for a trash can? I really don’t know how they do it, but whatever it is, they do it well. When I have the time and resources, I’m definitely coming back here to experience so many more things than I was able to this time round.

Off for tonight!
Lindsay

(P.S. Sorry if there are weird characters or something in this last post...I`m using a Japanese keyboard and computer...that`s all I have to say about that.)

India and Malaysia

APR 5

I’ve officially had my first 3-day stretch at sea. Yep, that means I only had three days between ports!!! And, to top that, I have another three-day period starting tomorrow! What do I have to say about these really short periods at sea? Advantages: don’t have long enough to get sick of the ship food. Disadvantages: don’t have long enough to digest all the experiences from the last port and get excited about the port to come, and it’s really hard to get back into ‘the homework mode’ and get much stuff done.

So, to catch you up, everything about India is absolutely amazing, but if I had to choose just one thing to take back home with me, it would definitely be the food. Mom, when we get home, the first lunch is going to be a Cajun chicken salad with feta cheese and sundried tomatoes, the first supper is going to be your amazingly delicious salmon…with more dressing-free salad, and my second lunch and supper are going to be at the two Indian restaurants at home. Mmmm…naan and channa masala and eating that all with my fingers. :D Yes, the food tastes better that way – trust me.

Off the topic of food, what else did I do in this wonderful country either than eat absolutely delicious food? Well, the first day Ivan and I had our wonderful first experience with a rickshaw driver – we asked to go to the local market (after we’d had lunch, of course) and went everywhere but…we stopped at ~5 little stores where the driver gets tokens for brining us there (he gets everything and anything from t-shirts to gas to cash). By the time we’d gotten completely frustrated with him and FINALLY threatened not to pay him enough that he stopped taking us to these super-touristy and expensive places, we had to get back to the ship for the Welcome Reception. The reception for this country wasn’t the best, but could have been worse (not worth talking about). The next morning Ivan left for his Taj Mahal trip and I was so exhausted from the 7-day stretch of class plus all of my adventures before India that I simply slept in, sent e-mails, and did a bit of homework on the ship. That night I left for my homestay.

I knew this experience was going to be great as soon as I got on the sleeper train. Yes, I slept on a train in India, and it was surprisingly comfy. We were woken up at the ungodly hour of 5 in the morning to take a 45 minute ride out to a little farm. Okay, so little was definitely the wrong description for this house…the house itself – not including the land they own – covers ¾ of an acre! The family has been hosting SAS students for 18 years now, so they were pretty experienced in what they were doing, and it was obvious. They gave us just enough time each day to unwind and relax, gave us interesting tours around the area including a sugarcane processing factory and a coconut processing factory – they do some amazing stuff with these two plants! The hosts were really easy to talk to and we talked about everything possible. I spent two days and one night in Erode, then took the sleeper train back home.

My last day in India was another great day. We went shopping for gifts for people and ate some more great food. Oh, but I have some bad news: after an amazing supper at this 5-star restaurant we had called for us the only rickshaw driver in India who did not know where not only the ‘student ship’ was, but also the Chennai Port! Umm… it took us 45 minutes for a 15 minute ride…this extra half-hour is how late we were for on-ship time. For anyone who knows the system on the ship, this gave us 8 hours of dock time!!!! What’s dock time? When you have to stay on the ship for the number of hours allocated to you based on how many minutes you were late. I was late 23 minutes….I checked the student handbook and that was only supposed to be 4 hours. I definitely got the number of dock time hours changed.

Penang, Malaysia was a pretty cool place. I went on three SAS trips…parts of them were kinda a waste of time, but I didn’t really know what else to do before I got here, so they were okay. With the rest of my time I ate some more good food, some okay food, and some great food. And when I wasn’t eating I was at the mall shopping. Yes, I spent much of my time at a mall in Malaysia, but Ivan and I got some much needed groceries (I’m sorry, but the same fruit mix and buttery salted scrambled eggs for breakfast EVERY morning cannot be healthy) and a few more gifts. In total we weren’t at the mall for very long at all, just long enough to waste some time. Because one of our trips was first thing when we got to Malaysia we had to serve our dock time at the end…so I’m on the ship right now wasting time just after supper.

Well, that’s the summary of what happened. Sorry it’s not very detailed this time. Post next when I have more time. Right now I’m off to Vietnam to meet with Mom and Dad!

Lindsay

APR 7

Happy Early Easter! Passover supper tonight, and mass with Archbishop Desmond Tutu tomorrow morning – bright and early.

Lindsay.

P.S. We get to move our clocks BACK an hour tonight!!!! Yay!!!