Chin-er

Hello from China,

yet again it has happened, I experienced a wonderful trip full of many things that I will NEVER forget. I arrived in Hong Kong on the 11th of November which was strange because there was no reminder or any acknowledgment for veterans day and then I depart from Shanghai China today on the 17th.

My first and only day in Hong Kong went so slowly, and I think that is between all the walking, the heat and the awe of the amount of people and the HUGE sky scrapers. Hong Kong is a country under China's control but they still have a lot of British (or even Western influence) influence between the spoken language, the Starbucks, the Jimmy Choos and the beautiful money. I did not spend anything in Hong Kong so I never had a chance to get some money in my hands but the $10 bills are SO cool! One of my favorite things about Hong Kong was the bamboo scaffolding... In Rush Hour, Jackie Chan has a fight scene on some bamboo scaffolding and they really do use it.. I found that amusing. I was leaving the following day so I had to stay local so my friend Jenn and I made up our own amazing race challenge which was to locate a specific part to an R/C helicopter part (for one of Jenn's family members).... kinda intimidating considering I cannot read a single character of their language and that the hobby street is over five kilometers long. Our berth in Hong Kong was legit (although I like SA much more) we pulled up to the side of a shopping mall, we walked off the gangway and we were in a fabulous mall with every store you could possibly desire. It was bitchin but Hong Kong is really expensive so it was window shopping heaven! After many hours of walking, Jenn and I decided to hop in a cab to give us a break with the heat and smog... our cab ride was about 10 minutes until we reached our destination.... we got out of the cab and Jenn realized that she left the piece of paper with the part on it in the cab (ugh) and then as we walked around we saw that all the stores were closed (double ugh) even though it was a Wednesday at noon. So here we are in the middle of hobby central finding our mission impossible. We opted to head to a air conditioned mall where we could hopefully find a actually toilet instead of a squatting hole... no luck even at the mall.... so then Burger King was calling our names.

When I first started this trip I told myself I would only eat authentic meals off the ship. I can honestly say that looking back, this was not very realistic goal, let me explain. You see, the food on the ship is so old right now I don't think I will have potatoes, cauliflower or pasta for a long time when I get back home.. its been an overload. Needless to say, when we get to port, all of us SAS kids hit up the franchises that all of you know including Mickey Dee's, KFC, Burger King, Starbucks and in Hong Kong's case 7/11 (cheap booze). Long story short, I ordered a whopper and it was damn good. Burger King also had a Western toilet so it was even better! After our whoppers, we walked back to the ship (which took an hour and a half on the same street) getting bombarded by Indian men trying to sell us their tailoring services... little do they know we have been all over and had all that stuff already done.

We got back to the ship, jotted down the part number and headed back out, this time hailing a cab. When we arrived to the hobby center for the second time that afternoon, it was hustling and bustling with so many asian men. I felt like I was is in the Comic Con of Hong Kong with all if these men so passionate about these R/C cars, boats and planes, the only difference is they didn't have the weird ass costumes on. Jenn and I were the only women and we really stuck out going into these tiny stores asking for this one obscure part to a helicopter that we have no idea what it looks like. As it turns out, we lost our amazing race and had to surrender as the helicopter model we needed was not sold in any of the stores... it was a bummer but something I will never forget. We took a cab back to the mall and then I decided it was my turn to drag Jenn all around so I took her to the Museum of Hong Kong.. lucky for us it was free admission, even better.

Although I am not the biggest fan of Asian art, I still enjoyed myself and loved the architecture of the place the best, some of the coolest door frames I have ever seen hands down. We left the museum and headed to the pier to take photos of the sky line because it was sunset. It was so pretty, although I must say tall buildings don't really do it for me, I would much rather see a mountain of something from God's hands opposed to mans. At night we saw a light show that happens every night on the buildings and that was really nifty, so many colors and some music even goes with lights.. asian Christmas lights I guess? It was strange to see some Christmas decorations but no greens of reds, all the trees on display were purple and pink with little fairies, scratch that, it was strange to see Christmas decorations in general. I have no sense of what day of the week it is or even the date unless it is the arrival of departure of our port. Looking at my calendar, Thanksgiving is in less that 10 days.. where has this year gone? I have not given Thanksgiving or Christmas that much thought except the fact that I will be with my family for one of the two.

I left Hong Kong early the following morning on my SAS trip that took us to beijing. I was very excited for this trip because I was staying at Tshingua University in a dorm room. After our three hour flight, we met in the 8 degree F weather to see our tour guide Cindy. Cindy had just graduated form the University and it was her job to do the whole itinerary for the 29 of us. It surpassed my India trip quite easily, I felt Like I was really a student in China. We all had our own rooms and bathrooms and hard, hard, hard beds but we were so active every day that I just conked out no problem. What I really liked about the trip was the mix of tourist attractions and things off the beaten path. For example, one day we started the morning doing Tai Chi is the freezing cold using video game like sound effects and then we went and visited the temple of Heaven. We saw so may sights and my two favorites were the National Stadium and the Great Wall. It was SO cold but two of my new friends ALex and Lizzy and a staff member frank all decided that instead of hitting up the bars, we would venture to the Bird's nest to see it lit up at night. I am really happy I did, it really is so cool and the Water cube with the nest was really neat. There was motivational music and it gave me chills, experiencing the venue over a year since the games, made me add something else to my life list and that is to go to the Olympic summer games sometime in my life.

The Great Wall was even colder but even cooler (in many ways) and I loved it. I hiked all the way up and it was so weird to be shivering but sweating. One cool fact I learned about the wall after hiking it is that, the steps were made uneven on purpose. While hiking, there would be some small steps and then a huge step that you had to put your hand down to climb over. it really messed up my cadence and I learned that is the exact purpose of the uneven steps. To prevent enemies to be able to cover a lot of distance on the wall, the steps were made uneven so it was almost impossible to run up or down. I thought that was pretty clever.

Panda Express is not chinese food, not even close. We ate like royalty on our trips and it was always family style. I put my dislikes behind me and tried every dish including the duck, pork, and other mystery meats. They use so many vegetables and I love that, I had some great green beans and bak choi (thats not how you spell it but after reading these entries you should know my spelling ability of lack there of). The rice was bomb too, sticky and perfect.. I have also mastered chopsticks, which will become handy in Japan as I plan to get legit sushi.

We had a wonderful tour guide when we went to see the Forbidden City and Tianenamen Square, her name? Blue Cathy. She always referred to herself in third person and because the wind was ripping through us she would say ' so hot, ay, ay, so hot like Miami' to trick us into thinking it was warm. Blue cathy also called herself the next Michael Phelps but she had a very difficult time saying her L's. She was a riot. Every-time I heard her speak, she reminded me of the you-tube video nail shop.. they way the girl talks in that is EXACTLY how Blue Cathy spoke.. too funny. A side-note, since China is communist, facebook, yahoo! and youtube among many others are banned... thanks Mao.

I feel like there are so many details from my China trip and it is a little overwhelming to try to write them all down at this moment so I will have to wait to share the rest in person. I have two days and then I will be in Japan where I will travel to tokyo and do some Karaoke!!!! After tokyo we have a very long stretch.. well ten days at sea and then it's to hawaii:)

I am sorry if this was boring for you, I just have so many jumbled thoughts and experiences. After finishing this I will move onto personal e-mails and then my own journal. I have a lot to catch up on. I love you all and hope you are doing well!. Happy thanksgiving if I don't get back to this before then!

much love (always)

MAD

Vietnam!!!

Good Morning Vietnam!

They played that movie on the ship and it has made my desire to have a dinner with Robin Williams all that much more. Anyway, Vietnam is kickass; I would easily consider it one of my favorites.

We arrived on the 3rd and I woke up early to watch us sail down/up? The Mekong delta, it was really neat to be cruising down this narrow river with local boats surrounding us and seeing all the roughage, as my mother would refer to it. It was a really cool thing to wake up and see, totally worth it. It took three hours to get to Ho Chi Minh City from when we entered the river. I was getting so antsy waiting for us to berth and then hear over the PA ' attention ship's company.. the ship has been cleared'. I was very excited to shop considering the dollar goes so far. One dollar = 17,500 dong.. now that is a hard conversion to do in your head but knowing that a five-minute taxi is barely a dollar is rad.

Before arriving I make a list of all the things I would like to accomplish in the country whether it be something small, big, touristy or the off the beaten path sort of thing. My list was rather small for Vietnam but I can say that I saw almost everything I wanted to and did everything I wanted to as well. The first day out I shopped till I dropped. It was so damn sticky out from the humidity and it felt like I was walking through spider webs, no doubt. My friends and I went to some markets and tried out our bargaining skills. We became friends with street vendors and crossed the street successfully. I thought Spain had a lot of vespas.. wrong, Vietnam does.

After shopping and spending millions of dong, we opted to grab some grub at a local food court. The nice thing about this food court is that it is in an air-conditioned mall and had free wi-fi so my itouch became my first priority to locate in my bag of goodies. I have to say, the itouch has proved to be so convenient while traveling, and I have used it as a calculator, mirror, and now a computer. I understand that an iphone would be the way to go but this works just fine for me.

My friends are not so adventurous so they visited colonel sanders while I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and talked with my hands asking a man to order me his favorite dish. After five minutes of charades and $2, I was served this mystery dish. At first I was bitching about the contents but then I thought.. well what the heck did you expect dummy.. You ordered something whose name looked like it was built with Lincoln logs.. I cannot decipher the characters at all.

Surprisingly it was tasty although I latter learned I was eating pork intestines and other various things that if written in English I would not have touched with a ten-foot pole. I did not at all regret my choice or method of ordering; it will just be something that I will always remember. The Vietnamese food is good, I think I prefer Thai, but it's still very flavorful. The use a lot of broths and bean sprouts.. my favorite part was all the cilantro!

One of my favorite memories was going to see the Cu Chi War Tunnels, which was very eye opening. My naive self kept envisioning Forrest and Bubba taking lieutenant dan's orders while trekking through the jungle. In the beginning of the tour we watched a video, which referred to Americans as ‘little devils’, and how the Vietcong awarded medals to those who killed the most Americans. This was humbling as I am the only blonde haired blue eyed American for miles. The tunnels are amazing and small. It was so damn hot but very interesting, I am very happy I went and I learned a lot. The networks of tunnels were so cool to crawl through, a little nerve racking because they were so small and you have to crouch down like a tiger. I just had the feeling some disgusting rodent would be in there... then I would have had a problem. I did see a large, very large rat while waiting for the shuttle one evening. I’m sorry to always bring these nasty things up but I just can’t seem to stomach the fact that they are all over.. where I am!

The night scene in Vietnam is legit to say the least. They had many clubs like 17 Saloon, which is homage to John Wayne, Apocalypse Now that could have been found in Mexico and Lush... I think the name speaks for itself.

Apocalypse was the main spot for all the SASers, they even put up a banner that said 'hope you happy time in dance'... that only got funnier as the night went on. Drinks are cheap to say the least, a bottle is a million dong and that can be kinda crazy at first, but once you hear some 'Livin on a prayer' on the dance floor, you are good to go.. so I hear. There was security all over the place.. over 50 officers. They made sure dancing only happened on the dance floor, no one was sitting on laps, drunkies weren't puking and that money was being spent. Even though we are told we are ambassadors for the US while in country, some people were so shitty, like eyes rolling back and stumbling all over. So many people got kicked out and some even sent home for good. Rumor has it a kid stole a pack of cigarettes, got arrested and then got sent home... the kicker is his parents came to visit him in Vietnam.

I had some late nights but I always made sure to make the most out of the following day. I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night despite my exhaustion, I would walk all around during the day and sweat out all my toxins while trying to avoid the wallet sales ladies and just kept shopping. On the last day I got a pedicure that was so nice because after walking around for these past months, my feet really needed one. The cool thing is it was only $3 dollars compared to the $15 in the salon on the ship.

Vietnam is a wonderful place and it was difficult to say goodbye, even though I am very excited for China. The time at sea in-between Vietnam and Hong Kong and Shanghai and yokohama is short- 3 days each, meaning that the first day back on the ship is a 'reading day' aka lounging day and then we have an 'A' day followed by a 'B' day and then we are in the country. This is when the voyage is going to feel like it is going even faster. In China, I will be staying at a University in Beijing and I will travel all over seeing the sights including the Great Wall! It’s supposed to be cold so that will be a change, a difficult change. Although I resemble a bottle of glue, I have really enjoyed the sunshine... it makes my days so much better!

I have just over a month until I return home and although that is exciting, I am finding myself blocking that thought out of my head. Let me explain. It’s not that I don’t want to see my beautiful family and share all my memories and photos but rather it is going to be so hard to get back to reality. I mean I am one this ship with my biggest worry being if I did the homework assignment. It will also be difficult to say goodbye to the awesome friends I have made, including my professors. It will be something that I can get over and will, I’m just saying that the packing day at the end of the voyage will be a little rough. Needless to say I miss my family and my familiar things. I think about home a lot and about everyone even more. I hope this finds you all well and please know my love for you!

Until China.

Cape town to India

Hello there, remember this old thing?

Please allow me to preface this with my sincerest apologizes for sucking at updating this thing. It's not that I forgot about it or didn't want to, but rather the fact that it is so difficult for me to find time to update this and feel like I did a decent update instead of a half-assed one. As I type this I am a day away from Vietnam and I am very excited. I don't have anything planned which makes me even more excited because it will end up being an adventure all the way around... but I don't want to get ahead of myself, so I'll get into that later and dive right into my past ports and fabulous experiences.

If I remember correctly and without using the remaining 29 minutes of slow free Internet for the remainder of the voyage, I left you alive from a potentially scary situation with a front- toothless man named Tony Montana and pleading for Drew to e-mail me.. am I right? Anyway I am hoping that's the case and if not please bear with me.

SO much has happened and I am going to attempt to fill you in as much as possible without boring you or using the words seriously and totally, as those tend to be my staples. So here we go, Cape Town, South Africa: Love it! This port was phenomenal, our ship was berthed right on the waterfront that resembles San Diego’s Embarcadero and we seemed to have this city at our fingertips. I had a lot of fun being in what seemed to be a civilized town with streetlights, actual roads, air conditioning and all the other important essentials. Now, I don't mean to sound like a priss but this voyage has proved to me what I like, and that is to be civilized! In my six days in Cape Town, I had almost too much fun. One of the days I went great white shark diving, another I went to the Cape of Good Hope and saw where the Indian and Pacific oceans collide. Another day I visited the smallest aquarium I have ever seen and every night I visited the nightlife.. Karaoke night being my favorite. The shark diving was quite uneventful considering my sisters experience but it was crazy to be inches away from the oceans largest predator and oh my gosh, the water.. I don't think I have ever been colder. We were given wet suits but going budget gives you what you pay for- holes. So needless to say, there were some places that were colder than others and we looked like we had already been victims of a shark attack. My friend bought an underwater camera so hopefully those pictures turned out?

On the last day a group of nine of us paid a man to drive us down to Cape Point to see the Cape of Good Hope. The view by the lighthouse has to be tied with Iguaçu as the prettiest places I have ever seen. The blues and greens were lovely and it was such a beautiful day! I traveled with a good group (before all this drama happened) and we really enjoyed seeing the Baboons on the side of the road, the wild ostriches and the Southern Right whales.. It felt like my own personal safari. Many SASers went on Safaris and I am totally fine with my choice not to, I had a wonderful time without seeing what I could see at the zoo. That may be lame to think that way but that’s what most people said it felt like.. So I'm cool. One place that I know really felt a boost in the funds from the arrival of our ship was a brewery called 'Mitchell's'. It was a really fun place right off the waterfront that had fun activities every night. They were also famous for a beer called the 'wobbly'... can you guess why? It's 11% alcohol and does just that to your ability to walk. I have decided to save my Karaoke singing for Japan… I just have to come up with a great song, maybe a rendition of ‘Don’t Stop till You get Enough’ like Chris Tucker in Rush Hour? It was sad to say goodbye to Cape Town. I had meet amazing locals and other foreigners that I learned so much from, like the effects of the apartheid (which are still very apparent), how sail boat races work( and how it takes thirty days to sail from Cape Town to Perth, Austrailia) and some great foods to try. I know I want to return to Cape Town in the future, it's awesome!

After leaving Cape Town, it was onto Mauritius after spending six days at sea. In the beginning I loathed spending time at sea with a 'get me there now' type of attitude. However, now I LOVE spending days at sea because that seems to be when I really connect with people. My group of friends changed after one night in Cape Town where all this bitching surfaced and I was not about to get involved in any of that, but that has proved to be for the better. Actually things with my roommate have been much more pleasant and I find myself not avoiding my cabin as much. Anyways, Mauritius was great. I had booked a villa with ten other friends about an hour from where the boat was berthed. Unfortunately, I had to back out... but for good reason because I got Scuba certified. My three days on the island felt so productive compared to my peers who were drunk and sun burnt the whole time. I did get my fair share of one but I must admit, I am Nebraska white right now.. It’s awful. I got certified at a hotel that offers it to their guests for a reasonable price and it is a PADI course, so it was even better. I got to go on 4 ocean dives in the two days it took to complete the course. One dive was particularly scary considering I ran out of air and had to do an emergency ascend... that my friends would be the only time I have been afraid in the water! Luckily I paid attention to that part of the class and did not cause any damage to my body. Ever since my diving in Mauritius, I have been having some slight discomfort in my sinus cavity and I think that has to do with the troubles from my wisdom teeth removal this summer but it's worth it.

My buddies and I made showing at night and that was the only Mauritian culture I really came in contact with because I was under the water longer than I was out of the water. From what I saw, Mauritians party just like us and from the music played in the taxi, they LOVE the cranberries.. every taxi driver played that. There was also a Hindi holiday the day we left called Devali. It is the festival of lights and little did I know, that would cause all the shops to be closed on our last day there.. the only day I left to be dry and actually able to shop. So all I have to show for my trip besides my certification is a deck of cards with the Dodo bird on them. They are obsessed with that bird even though it's extinct, kinda funny. The day after Mauritius, we had Sea Olympics, which was really fun. My team the best team, the purple team, the Arabian Sea held up the rear of the games. We placed 9th out of nine following behind the Life Long Learners who are in their 60's.. Quite an achievement if I say so myself! To our defense, not every game was physical but also mental.. maybe that does not help my argument but just know we got first in the 'Don't Forget the Lyrics' game:)

We had a long time at sea in between Mauritius... well, six days again but it felt like months because I was rocked with all of these tests and papers. This is also known as midterms. It was an awful week with schoolwork and I did not perform as well as I would have liked but as long as I pass my two awful classes I think I will be okay. My other two classes that I really enjoy should be 'A's' but International law with my Spanglish teacher (from Spain) may be the opposite. I mean I think if I wrote my essay in Spanish I would have scored higher! Other than those classes things are going well.

I was very apprehensive for India, I didn't know if I could handle the smells that I had imagined to come from 'Slumdog'. To my surprise, I loved India! I was there for five days and for three of them I was on a SAS trip to see the Taj Mahal. Seeing the Taj is person was radical, I obviously had only ever seen it in pictures and in person blows those images out of the water! It was majestic and I can only hope my husband decides to build something like that for me in my life:) I saw it at sunrise and sunset; the colors that came out of that white building are magical.. That’s the only way I can explain it. We also saw lots of other forts that looked alike and ate some legit Indian food. It was the best SAS trip I have ever been on especially since we stayed in the NICEST hotel I have ever stayed in one night, it was such a nice change from the streets of India. There were disgusting rats at the train station and I was not a fan of that but they way people put up with that astonished me.. It made me so thankful for rattraps.

India in general made me so grateful for what I have, What I have been given and thankful for my country. One thing among many that I will take with me from the Indian people is there ability to seize the day (carpe diem). they live every day to the fullest and I did not see one unlit candle. They use everything because like I asked my tour guide Mr. Sing (who is a sic and 81) he said.. Well what’s the point in saving them? I hope that I can embrace each day with the mindset of the Indian people.. I will however wear shoes unlike many of them. I was also preparing myself to handle the raunchy B.O smells that I am accustomed to from the States. I don't know what it is but the Indian people for the most part were clean smelling opposed to their expatriates in the states.. maybe the lack of spices in the states makes the smells stand out more I'm not sure but I was pleasantly surprised.

To my dismay, I had a rough week this past week after India just like before arriving in Chennai. I had papers, presentations and tests galore. I did well on them, which is good, but school is getting so damn old. I think its fair to say that it is hindering my fun and I am sick of it! Oh well, at least I get to Vietnam tomorrow! Thinking about Vietnam makes me want to listen to CCR and watch Forrest Gump so hopefully I can accomplish that.

Well I have to get going to pre-port to learn how to cross the streets and other important things. I hope that this didn't bore you and I will try to get better at updating this. I also hope you all are doing well. I think about home often but I still have yet to feel homesick. I think going to Nebraska and the fact that this is going so quickly are really helping.

Happy November Everyone!

some random pictures for your liking from all over!