Neho!

I am in Kobe, Japan right now and attempting to write a blog entry about China, but the keyboard is incredibly different and difficult to use. This entry will be a short one.

After spending one day in Hong Kong, I flew with SAS to Beijing to begin my trip at Peking University, which is the Chinese version of Harvard. At the university we had the opportunity to interact and speak with the students, all of whom spoke relatively good English and were eager to meet us. Our days were spent touring; the Summer Palace, the Ming Tombs, Temple of Heaven, Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. The Great Wall was even bigger than I envisioned, especially on the way up. All of these places were wonderful to see, as I have always studied about them in school, but were swamped with tourists and all seemed to be under renovation. It`s hard to take an ancient temple seriously when there is scaffolding everywhere and workers with hammers. If this had been the first stop of the voyage, I probably would have been extremely impressed, but since it was one of the last ones, it was hard to be enthusiastic. The Ming Tombs really can`t be compared to the Taj Mahal. A very exciting thing, however, is that the 2008 olympics will take place in Beijing. There were countdown signs all over the place, and the Chinese people were obviously working very hard in preparation. The food was not what I expected and didn`t care for most of it; I really miss moo shu vegetables and chicken and broccoli cooked in lots of fattening oil. The last day in China I spent in Quindao, which is not much of a tourist friendly city. We did go to Tsingtao beer factor, which was so interesting to see and we also drank free beer. Later, Alli, Sonja and I walked around and found something that was a cross between a park, an amusement park and an action park. Needless to say we entertained ourselves there for an entire afternoon. All in all, China is an interesting country but not one that I have much desire to return to. I`m really enjoying Japan and I`ll write a Japan entry as soon as the internet is working on the ship!

Hong Kong

Lang Loi Pang Di La! “Pretty Lady, Cheaper Price Please” is pretty much the only Mandarin I was able to learn for our 1 day in Hong Kong. The morning started a bit rough when we all learned about the Virginia Tech tragedy and Archbishop Tutu lead a short but beautiful service in lieu of a formal consult briefing. Immediately after the ship was cleared, Lisa, Alli, Sonja, Kat and myself left the ship in search of a real dim sum lunch. We were told of a good restaurant in City Hall, which turns out looks just like any other City Hall in the U.S. The restaurant was very big and we saw other white faces there, which was encouraging. That meant that even though the menu was completely in Mandarin, the chances are we were not about to eat fish eyes or dog. That was my biggest concern; the undeniable chance of accidentally eating a dog. The food was very good, and waitresses kept bringing around more of it. Dessert was the most interesting, espresso jello cubes. After lunch, we realized that it was a Tuesday, and all of the city’s attractions and museums were closed. For some reason, they close on Tuesdays. Instead, we decided to go visit something called the Big Buddha, for which we would have to take a train ride (called the MTR). The train was surprisingly easy, as everything was written in English as well as Mandarin. For those of you who didn’t know, Hong Kong was until recently a British territory. We found our exit and took a sky rail to see the Buddha, which was up on a small mountain with stairs. There were tons of smaller statues, and after we hauled our way up, were very impressed with the statue. Unfortunately, the weather that day was cold, cloudy and foggy, so we weren’t able to get great pictures or even see the Buddha’s head when looking from the base. After the Buddha, we took the MTR to the legendary Ladies Market, where a busy Hong Kong street literally closed down and people selling things set their tables up. We shopped for a couple of hours and then had dinner at a restaurant that reminded me of Panera. An English-speaking Chinese-Philipino businessman helped us order, and then gave us his business cards. I’ve found that in every country I go to, men want to give us their cards. I think I’ve accumulated 7 or 8 so far. I was very confused by this at first, because it’s never in a sexual way, it’s just as if we are networking, except that we are just students and don’t have cards yet. Lisa pointed out that these business people probably just think we are kids with lots of money to be doing the program we are doing, and that in the event we ever did go to the Philippines and want to invest in a hotel, maybe we’d find that old card and give a call. After dinner, and a very busy day, we headed back to the ship to get ready for our early morning departure for Beijing.

Friday the 13th

Behind India, Vietnam is the second country that I was most excited to visit. My time in Vietnam was even better than I could have thought possible. Unlike many other SAS students, I stayed in Ho Chi Minh (formerly known as Saigon) instead of traveling to Cambodia. The first day, Lisa, Alli, Sonja, my roommate Sachia and I went to visit the War Museum, which is also known as the American War Crimes museum. We took a bicycle rickshaw to get to the museum, which was very crowded with tourists mainly from Europe. The museum was very direct and emotional, and of course biased against the Americans. It’s hard to blame them, however, after learning of the horrific effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese citizens. After leaving the museum, we decided to walk to the Ben Than market, which is in the center of Saigon. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Good Morning Vietnam” with Robin Williams, you have a bit of an idea of how transportation works in this country. Since that movie came out, however, every single person has bought a motorcycle/moped type thing, which they call motos. As in India, people here don’t seem to realize that when a light is red, they are supposed to stop. Everyone just keeps going. When a pedestrian wants to cross the street, they must step out into it and walk across at a normal pace, assuming the motos, trucks, cabs and bicicyles will swerve to avoid you. We were warned that the worst thing you can do is run or stop walking in the middle of the street, because the people riding the motos cannot judge how quickly you’re going and are more likely to hit you. Keep in mind that none of these people wear helmets, and sometimes fit a family of 4 on one moto. This takes some getting used to when crossing a regular street, but when you throw a traffic circle in the mix, it’s terrifying. I’ve heard stories of SAS people getting hit, but I’m not sure of any names. Luckily myself and all of my friends are fine. That night we went for dinner at a recommended Vietnamese place near the pier, which was excellent. Surprisingly, I was sick from the food all through Malaysia but completely fine here. The second day, most of the people I hang out with had an SAS trip. I spent the morning wandering around Saigon by myself and found an internet café. This has been one of the only ports where I feel comfortable as a white girl walking on my own. It is also one of the ports where the least amount of English is spoken, making life a little difficult. That afternoon I went back to the market with my friend Alli from Eastchester, and we looked for tailors to have dresses made. Wednesday, my Sachia and I decided we wanted to visit the Cu Chi tunnels, which are an expansive maze of tunnels built by the Vietcong during the French war, and completed during the American war. These tunnels included meeting rooms, a hospital and dining areas, all underground. Some of the tunnels have been expanded so that tourists can go inside. Since we didn’t want to pay $60 for a cab to take us to the tunnels, we went instead to the local bus station. No one there spoke a word of English, but we kept saying “Cu Chi tunnels? Cu Chi tunnels?” and eventually someone put us on the correct bus, which thankfully was air conditioned. Vietnam is brutally hot. We attracted a lot of attention, as our faces were the only white ones, and it didn’t seem like they got many tourists on the local buses. We rode the bus for a little over an hour, where we pulled into another bus station. The locals put us on another bus, without air conditioning, and we rode for another ½ hour through the country side. Both buses, roundtrip, cost about US$3 in total. We were dropped off at the tunnels, where we paid our entrance fee and met with a guide who spoke English. He brought us into the woods and explained the history of the tunnels, and his own family’s involvement in the war. He went with us into some of the larger tunnels, which have scary mannequins replicating what would have gone on in that particular room. These tunnels were big enough to stand up in, and were mostly for show. Our guide then asked us if we wanted to go into the longer tunnel, which is very teeny in size and about 100 meters long. Sachia and I both wanted to, but I became very nervous when the guide informed us that he would not be joining us. He said he would meet us at the end, where we came out, and that we should take a left when we came to the fork in tunnel. I asked if I could have his flashlight, and he said no. The two of us climbed into the pitch black of the tunnels and started to make our way through, crouched into a little ball. At certain points, my head was touching the ceiling and I was squatting as low as I could go. Not only was it completely dark, we realized the ruffling noise we heard above and around us was from bats. Bats. Luckily at the time I did not know that there were scorpions walking around the tunnel ground. The tunnels were not flat, either, and at certain points dropped down. Since we had no light, when the tunnel dropped, we dropped too. I had a minor panic attack and was very glad to be out. We took the same 2 buses back to Ho Chi Minh, and called it a day. On Thursday, I was incredibly sore from the tunnels but woke up bright and early for a Semester at Sea trip to the Mekong Delta. The Delta was pretty, we took several different size boats and canoes to various parts of the Delta. At each place we sampled local food including honey, fruits and coconut candy. Lunch was at a seafood restaurant where they put a huge fried fish on a stand on each table and cut it up right in front of you. I hate looking at fish and definitely don’t eat it, so I passed on lunch. I had eaten a lot of local fruit including something called Jack fruit, and bananas that were literally 3 inches each. The trip was very relaxing, which was good since I was in some major pain around my thighs and butt. That evening we went to the night market to walk around. Everyone sells the same exact thing in Vietnam; all knock-offs. Clothes, purses, backpacks, shoes, everything is fake but extremely inexpensive. The Vietnamese really like Americans, but they like American money more. Our final day in Vietnam, Friday, I had another SAS trip to an orphanage, where we would pick up some children and take them to a local water park. All of the children at this orphanage either have HIV, or were born to mothers with it. The orphanage is called Tam Binh 2, and interestingly, its sister orphanage for healthy children is called Tam Binh 1, and that is where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt adopted their most recent baby. When we arrived at the facility, it was utter chaos. The best way I can describe it is when you go into a pet store and go into the back where they keep the dogs in cages. The way the dogs start jumping around and barking. The children were behind a gate, and they all started shrieking the second they saw us. Most of the children were normal looking, but some had physical deformities. They ranged in age from about 14 months to 10 years. We stayed for 45 minutes and played and held the little ones who couldn’t accompany us to the park. After giving out stickers and playing outside, each student paired up with a child to stay with on the bus and at the park. I was with a little girl named M’lin, who said she was seven. That was about all the English she or any of the others spoke. The park was fun and all of the kids were excited to be there. We only went on a few small rides, and then saw the animals in the zoo that was attached. After, the kids saw a monkey show which bordered on animal abuse. We all had lunch at the park, us with boxed lunches from the ship, and the kids with lunch from a restaurant in the park. A tiny four year old with eating problems somehow managed to spill her entire orange soda all over me, but other than being sticky the rest of the afternoon was fine. We dropped the kids off at the orphanage and made a monetary donation from SAS. Vietnam is a great country and I am so happy with how I spent my time here. It’s hard to believe that in 3 days we’ll be in Hong Kong!

Gooood Morningggg Vietnaaam!

We’re making our way down the river toward Ho Chi Min City as the sun is rising and I wanted to write a quick update. We were in Malaysia for 4 days earlier this week, and Lisa, Alli, Sonja and I spent most of our time in Kuala Lumpur, or KL, which is the capital. We were told that Malaysia is the least Western city we will visit. This wasn’t exactly true, as KL turned out to be a mini New York City, but cleaner and prettier. Because we were there during the rainy season, it also monsooned every afternoon. We also saw the 2 tallest buildings in the world, named the Twin Towers. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to go up. Instead we spent our time shopping in the upscale male instead. Our 3rd day in KL we took a bus back to Penang, and spent the afternoon visiting the biggest Buddha temple in the world, which was up in a hill and massive. The very last day I went to St. Joseph’s Orphanage on a service visit where I played with children for a few hours. The orphanage was clean and all of the children were sweethearts, which I’ve heard is rare. Many of the orphanages that SAS goes to are rundown and dirty, so it was nice to see one that was successful. Two days ago, the ship celebrated a late Passover, and I went to the service held in the dining room. There were about 150 people there, not a bad showing. The next morning, however, was Easter, and that attracted a lot more people including myself. I woke up at 6am for the sunrise service being held in the union, lead by the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was a very nice service, but I’ve had all the religion I can take for awhile. In Vietnam, I’m going to stick with museums. Speak with you in a few days!