Kyoto Day 2

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Emily

November 17, 2010

Kyoto Day 2:  Arashiyama

 (I skipped day 1 because I spent the majority of the day on an FDP for class and I already spent too long writing a paper about it so I had no motivation to re-write a blog about it.  I’ll get to it eventually though, because it was a fun day wandering around gorgeous gardens.)

This morning we woke up relatively early and went on a hunt for breakfast.  It wasn’t easy because most places didn’t open until 11.  I’m sure we could’ve easily found something if we wanted to eat fish and other things covered in soy sauce for breakfast but I just couldn’t do that.  We ended up at the Kyoto train station because that was pretty much an entire city all by itself, with shopping, pharmacies, food and anything else you can think of.  We found a sign that pointed to more restaurants upstairs.  There were 11 stories and we didn’t find anything that was open until floor 9.  It was a waffle place.  I had the best waffle I’ve ever had in my life…with fresh fruit and what was supposed to be yogurt but what I think was actually ice cream…oops!  It rivaled croissant French toast…didn’t quite beat it, but it was close.

After we were stuffed from breakfast, we got on a train to Arashiyama.  The tourist office told us that’s where we should go to see the changing of the seasons event.  It was only a 15 minute train ride and we got off and just started walking.  We attempted to ask directions but were terribly unsuccessful, so we decided to just follow the crowd.  We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to sleep in Kyoto because all the hotels were booked for this event.  Every single person in Japan was in this little town to see the beautiful fall foliage.  So, following the crowd was a safe bet.  We walked through a little residential neighbor hood until the houses turned into stores and strange-smelling restaurants. 

 We quickly discovered why everyone was here.  Mount Arashiyama forms a gorgeous backdrop to the town and all the trees were the most spectacular colors.  It was almost a complete rainbow—the most beautiful fall foliage I’ve ever seen.  I want to go back during the cherry blossom season because I’m sure that would be just as beautiful.  I can’t wait to add pictures to this blog because that’s really the only way to understand how gorgeous it was.  The pictures I took on my phone don’t even do it justice…

We wandered around the streets, which was anything but relaxing because there were too many people and we practically had to be holding hands in order to not lose each other.  We searched for sushi but every restaurant was so crowded with huge lines waiting so we ended up eating street food.  It was definitely an adventure but it was such a terrible idea.  Morgan and I got these dough balls that had a little piece of octopus in it.  It looked amazing while they were making it but it tasted like feet and had the texture of…I don’t know…I can’t even think of something gross enough to explain its texture.  Kelsey got the noodle dish they were making and it looked awesome, noodles, unidentifiable meat, egg, veggies and soy sauce, but then it was topped with these nasty dried fish flakes and it ruined the whole thing.  Bad choices. Oh well, live and learn.

After our food failure and another hour of walking and admiring, we headed to the Sagano bamboo forest.  I don’t have to describe that to you because it is exactly what you think it is: a forest of bamboo.  It was massive and dense and gorgeous but lost our interest after 15 minutes because the scenery wasn’t changing at all.

After our walk through the forest we successfully made our way back to the train station and headed back to Kyoto.  We were absolutely starving by this point because lunch was such a failure so we ate at the first non-Japanese place we found.  It was “Italian.”  It was a pretty funny rendition of Italian food, but at the time, it was the best pizza I’d ever tasted.  I was just desperate for something that I could identify and something without soy sauce so it worked out perfectly.

We had another adventure riding the bus around that night, trying to find somewhere to go out to, but we were unsuccessful because it was Sunday and it was late so everything was closed.  We ended up just going back to the hotel and going to bed early-ish.

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Kobe and Harry

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Emily

November 19, 2010

 
 

Emily's stack of plates at the end of the sushi conveyor belt!

Emily's stack of plates at the end of the sushi conveyor belt!

I’m writing this post at a table on the 6th deck where my computer has nearly fallen off several times because the ship is rocking so badly. We’ve been in terrible weather since we left Japan and it’s getting a little old. Yesterday they announced that the swells were an average of 2.5 meters. That’s a whole new level of rocking and rolling. 

 

It’s been bad before but this time cups are falling off the dinner table, chairs are swiveling around of their own accord and drawers are opening and slamming shut all night. It rained the first couple days too, which just made it even worse. At least yesterday and today have been sunny; sunny enough for me to finally sit outside again!

My first day in Japan wasn’t very eventful. It was still a great day, but everyone is going to make fun of me because I spent two and a half hours of my limited time in Japan in a movie theater. Guess what? I don’t care! It was so worth it.

So, let’s start at the beginning. It took forever for the ship to get cleared because customs and security in Japan is even more intense than in China. Every single person on the ship had to go through a temperature check by walking in front of a thermal camera. That part didn’t take so long but it seemed a little silly to me. But, I’m still not going to complain about too much security because that’s never a bad thing. After we all passed the test, we were called by seas to get our passports and meet face-to-face with immigration officers. The inconvenient part was that they didn’t come onto the ship like all the other countries had done, so we had to go out into the cruise terminal to meet with them. This meant that no one could get back on the ship until all 700+ people had gone through immigration. There were six booths open and we had to get fingerprinted (which was electronic and really cool) and have our picture taken. It was intense and it took forever to get everyone cleared. But, Morgan and I were smart and we brought all of our stuff so that once we were cleared we could start exploring.

I think, by now, it goes without saying that we got off the ship with no plans and no map. We followed the crowd (something we did a lot in Japan) to the metro/rail stop that took us from the port into the center of the city. As soon as we walked out of the station, we saw the poster for Harry Potter. I really wasn’t going to see it, I swear. I was going to be mature and wait at least until Hawaii; but then the poster was right there and the theater was right there and it was playing in English and I just couldn’t resist. But, we had our priorities. We were starving because it was nearly 1:00 (if I were a true sailor I would’ve conformed by now and started saying 1300 but I just can’t) by the time we got off the ship. We wandered upstairs to where we heard there was food and found about a zillion Japanese restaurants; not surprising since we were in Japan.

We ended up going to a buffet which was disappointing, but I was with two girls who didn’t like sushi so…oh well. It was still Japanese food and I have no idea what I ate but it wasn’t bad. The best part was the chocolate fountain. Who knew fondue was Japanese?!  It was fabulous.

After lunch we split up and Morgan and I went to the theater to buy our tickets. By the time we got there, there were already four other SASers in line and another pair came in after us. We were in good company.

We had a couple hours to kill before the movie so we wandered aimlessly and ran into people who had a plan so we took their suggestion and walked to a crazy, covered strip mall. We walked up and down, tried all the food samples, tasted some local coffee that was fantastic, and then wandered around in the general direction of the movie theater.  Even though I was only in Kobe for a day, I still feel like I saw a good portion of it because we walked so much.

After the movie, we went to a conveyor belt sushi place for dinner. I had the best eel I’ve ever had in my entire life. I’m going to start drooling just thinking about it. YUM. There was some crazy stuff there, but mostly it was just plain fish; no rolls, no tempura, and sadly, no avocado. If I wasn’t convinced that I’d develop mercury poisoning from one seafood meal in Japan, and if I had no respect for the environment, I would have grabbed one of everything that passed me and probably been the happiest, fullest person ever. It was all so fresh and looked delicious. Even though I only had eel, soup and tea, it was the best meal I had in Japan.

After dinner, Morgan and I were fairly confident that we could find our way back home so we decided to walk on our own. We got extremely lost very quickly. Horrible directions from the people we were with earlier combined with a useless Japanese map led to some serious issues. The street names on the map were all Romanized, but the street names on the street signs were all in characters. Whose brilliant idea was it to give dumb tourists a map that doesn’t match the street signs?! Although, in retrospect, I suppose even if the map was written in characters, it wouldn’t have helped because we would’ve spent all night trying to match up the names.

Anyways, back to the point of that rant. Several times during the walk I nearly jumped out of my own skin, I was so anxious. Almost the entire time I was thinking that we set ourselves up for the perfect beginning to a murder mystery movie; two girls walking alone at night in a foreign country, lost and confused; and on top of everything, it was raining.

I decided I’m allowed to write about these things (kind of like getting in the car with Karl back in Ghana) because I’m here to tell the tale so there should be no worries. Besides, Japan has the lowest crime rate of all the countries we visited.

Anyways, we ended up giving up after we both admitted how scared we were so we chased down a taxi and had an extremely difficult time with the language barrier. Eventually, thankfully, we ended up back at the terminal. We had plans to go back out, be social and experience Japan’s night life, but the night turned out to be too stressful so we gave up and went to bed.

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The Forbidden City and Roast Duck

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Emily
Contemplating the Forbidden City in Beijing

Contemplating the Forbidden City in Beijing

November 13, 2010

Beijing Day 2 

Today was a long day. It started with an awesome buffet breakfast at the hotel where there were dumplings and a Chinese style buffet and omelets and an American style buffet. It was yummy. 

After breakfast, I put on about 18 layers and headed for the bus. This morning we were headed to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. David showed us all around the Forbidden City, and even though it was packed, we still ended up in areas without any other groups. It was an incredible experience, walking through those rooms in a city forbidden to the public and contained behind 30+ foot tall walls.  

It was different from walking through old palaces like Versailles. In Versailles, everything was decadent and obscene, and it was bigger than necessary, but it was just a home, not a whole city. But here, as many as 10,000 people lived in these rooms and walked in these courtyards.  

We were touring for a while, and it is certainly a big place, but 170 acres isn’t much space for 10,000 people. It was really incredible and really challenging but fun trying to picture life back then.  

After about an hour here, my hands were ready to fall off. I tried to write a caption for the picture I uploaded of the city on my phone and failed miserably because my fingers stopped working. We ended at the South entrance, which is where most people come in, because it has probably the best photo opportunities.  

I took way too many pictures, but what was funny was the number of people taking pictures of our group. While I was taking pictures of this amazing architecture, people were taking pictures of me. I actually felt like a celebrity. It was kind of creepy and a little annoying, but if you ignored that, it was also kind of flattering. I am in pictures with at least 20 strangers; groups of other tourists, ridiculous teenage boys, and people who just jumped in the background of our group photos.  

Upon exiting the Forbidden City, we walked across the street to Tiananmen Square. I don’t know what I was expecting…but I wasn’t very impressed. It was just a huge open square. It was definitely still cool to be walking around there though.  

After our cold, busy morning, we all piled onto the bus and headed off to lunch. It’s been a while since I was in China so all of my meals have kind of combined in my head and I don’t know what was what. But, that’s okay because I had pretty much the same meal for lunch and dinner every day. All of the meals were served on a lazy Susan and the waiters just kept bringing more and more and more food out. There was a lot of pork, lots of beef and usually just one chicken dish. It was nice having sweet and sour chicken in China though…  

After lunch we went to the Guan’ai Migrant School in Shunyi, on the outskirts of Beijing. The school was created and run by Shi Qinghua and has been a home for over 100 underprivileged children. Our itinerary from SAS didn’t mention anything about visiting this school so it was a really nice surprise. Usually the SAS trips only include all the touristy places, but this was unique. There are children at this school from ages six to 17. Shi Qinghua is still the headmaster, but now he has ten professional teachers, and many college volunteers working for him. We toured the campus and met all of the children but none of them spoke English so it wasn’t easy to communicate. Although, when you’re painting, playing games, and laughing with these kids, that language barrier seems to disappear.  

The school was inspiring and so sad at the same time. It was amazing to know that these children finally have a home and a future, but the campus was kind of a sad place. The whole thing was unpaved, there were holes in the ground for toilets, the food was stored in the kitchen on the ground and the classrooms were dark and cold. But we got to see their rooms, hear some kids play piano and play jump rope and basketball with them. We also got to paint a mural with them and we saw a bunch of old murals on other walls so it was really cool to know that our painting is going to be there for years!  

After the school, we went straight to dinner at the Roast Duck Restaurant. It was an experience. The first half of the meal was exactly like lunch, but then the chef came out with his duck and started carving it for us. It was a very official ceremony; we all watched and nobody was served until he had finished carving. Our waitress showed us how to make the pancakes and I was brave and actually ate one. Now I can officially say that I am not a fan of duck. All the other parts of the duck were in various dishes on the table, but I wasn’t brave enough to try those…sorry.   

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Travel Day: Hong Kong to Beijing

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Emily
 

If This is the Forbidden City, Then This Must be Beijing

If This is the Forbidden City, Then This Must be Beijing

November 12, 2010

At first, I was prepared to be really disappointed with the schedule of the Beijing trip because it looked like we’d be traveling the whole day on Friday, only have two real days in Beijing and spend all of Monday traveling again. Thankfully, I was wrong. This was one of the best SAS trips I’ve been on. We had a great tour guide and a great schedule that included all of the necessary tourist attractions but also included some really unique trips.

On Thursday, we hopped on a bus and headed to the airport in Hong Kong. The flight to Beijing was around two and a half hours and we got a pretty decent meal, sweet and sour chicken and rice, of course. We waited in line for at least an hour to go through customs in the Beijing airport and we all walked through a thermal scan to make sure no one had a fever. We met our tour guide, David, and he brought us to our bus. There were so many of us that we were divided into two buses and I like to think that my bus had the better guide.

We were running a little behind schedule so instead of checking into the hotel first, we went straight to the Hutong area for dinner at a local house. We had a tour of the area on pedicabs. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. There were 55 of us and only two people per pedicab so there was this endless line of little three-wheeled bikes snaking through these narrow streets in these residential neighborhoods. We were freezing, and the wind of my face hurt my poor nose, but it was so much fun. The pedicabs brought us to our homes (we were split between three houses) where we had an amazing homemade meal and delicious tea. Our host didn’t speak any English but our guide translated our questions for us. Her house was 300 years old and it has been in her family for around 150 years. Her husband is an artist and many of his pictures were framed on the wall, including the one that won a national award. I ended up spending too much money on one of his paintings, but it was too beautiful not to buy. He painted traditional Chinese scenes of cherry blossoms and mountains, and he also made original unique paintings of cranes that were amazing.

I Feel Smarter Already

I Feel Smarter Already

After dinner, our pedicabs took us back to the bus and we went to the hotel. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, which I thought was pretty funny. It seemed a little strange to be staying in a Holiday Inn on the other side of the world. It had been a long day that started early, it was way too cold to go out again and the bed was big and comfy so I went straight to sleep.

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A Day in Hong Kong

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Emily

Arrival in Hong Kong

Arrival in Hong Kong

November 11, 2010

I only had one day in Hong Kong which was kind of a bummer, but it was a good, long day.  I got off the ship with Morgan and Greg as soon as they cleared us and we (as usual) walked down the gangway with no plan, no map, and no idea of what we wanted to do.  The gangway led us directly into a huge mall. It’s very clever of these cruise ship ports to make us all walk through an obscenely expensive mall right after we’ve all gone to the ATM.  It’s also very irritating.  I’m in another country on the other side of the world.  I have no desire to shop in a mall with stores I can find in the US; although, I have never seen any of these stores in the US before.  We walked down a hallway with designer clothes for babies like Prada, Burberry, Hugo Boss and Louis Vuitton.  WHY would anyone spend that much money on a child who isn’t going to fit in the same clothes for more than a month?!   It was crazy.

But anyways, we ended up being stuck in the damn mall for about an hour.  Later, we discovered that we weren’t the only ones who were trapped in there so that made us feel a little better, but it was still extremely annoying.  We were docked on the Kowloon Peninsula so when we finally found our way out, we made our way towards the ferry. We didn’t get far before smelling, and then seeing a Starbucks.  I know it’s tacky and dumb, but Morgan and I were desperate.  I’ve never felt more like a stupid American tourist before though.  I had my venti iced coffee in one hand and my blackberry in the other, while I rode the escalator up instead of taking the stairs like all the Chinese were doing.  Oh well…I’m not normally that American so I figured once was okay. 

We bought ferry tickets and went over to the mainland where we walked across a bridge and into another mall.  AH.  This one was supposed to lead us to either a bus or a taxi to take us to the top of Victoria’s Peak.  We went the wrong way several times before giving up, going out the first exit we could find and getting in a taxi.  We meant for him to drive us just to the cable car station, but a slight
language barrier resulted in us being driven to the top of the peak.  That ended up being okay because it wasn’t too expensive and we didn’t have to wait in a line for the car. We walked through yet another mall to get to the viewing area and it was stunning.  We looked for a dim sum place for lunch but we were too starving and had no patience so we went to a sandwich place with tables outside overlooking
the water.  I didn’t feel bad about not eating an authentic meal for lunch because I had one for both dinner and lunch every day for the next 5 days…and my sandwich was great.  After that we wandered outside, took about a hundred pictures, and sat to enjoy the view.  

After we’d had our fill we wandered around in search of the funicular to take is down.  I bet you will be surprised to learn that the entrance was IN ANOTHER MALL.  Too many malls.  The funicular went extremely fast but it was fun and we had a pretty view.  We hopped in a cab and went to a market that we had heard people talking about.  It was great.  I love shopping in all of these places, and even when I don’t want to buy anything, I like wandering through the markets.  I am finally so comfortable with bargaining that it’s more fun than it used to be.  I love it now.  Vietnam was good practice for this.  In our pre-port meeting they told us we should try to get the vendors down to one fifth of their initial price, which was a challenge, but I was very successful.  After the market we slowly made our way back to the ship.  We walked through the mall to get back and found a bunch of good restaurants.  The one we chose was awesome.  We were the only white people in there and we resorted mostly to pointing at the menu to order.  We ended up having way too much food, but it was so worth it.  I wanted to throw up at the number of dishes that included shark fins, but if our standard for restaurants was to find one
that didn’t serve shark, I would still be searching.  It was everywhere and it was always obscenely overpriced considering that it doesn’t cost too much money to haul in a bunch of sharks, cut their fins off while their still living, and toss them back into the water to drown and/or bleed to death.  It makes me sick.  But, on the bright side, The Cove is coming to theaters in China very soon.  Maybe that’ll open their eyes.  I’m nervous for Japan now, though.  If it’s bad in China, it’s going to be terrible there.

So after a fantastic dinner, it was already dark out and we made our way back to the ship.  My trip to Beijing started early the next morning so I didn’t want to go out-out.  Morgan and I found Internet in the mall for about an hour which was really nice, especially since I’ve been computer-less for so long.  I got to Skype with Mom for a little bit and Matt for a little bit before too many people discovered the Internet and it got overwhelmed and stopped working.

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Ha Noi and Ha Long Bay, part 3

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Emily

November 6, 2010

We woke up early and had some more dinner for breakfast before heading off to see the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh.  Mango told us we had to go early because the line gets so crazy, especially now because it just reopened after being closed to the public for three months.  I had no idea how serious he was.  We got there five or ten minutes after it opened and we waited in line for a while.  The closer we got to the mausoleum, the stricter the rules became.  The guards made us walk two-by-two with our arms down at our sides. People with hands in their pockets or with arms crossed got stared down until they fixed it. It was intense.  Plus, the guards all had their huge guns with nasty looking bayonets on the top.

We marched down the red carpet that was lining his body and were in and out of the room in less than a minute.  That didn’t matter though because I was getting really creeped out.  He still had a scraggly beard but looked like a wax sculpture.  What made it even worse was that Ho Chi Minh did not want to be preserved to be some morbid museum piece; before his death, he specifically stated that he wanted to be cremated.  I understand why they want to keep him around because he is their hero, but I also think it was extremely disrespectful to completely ignore his wishes.  Oh well…

After the body viewing, we went to the One Pillar Pagoda, which is exactly what it sounds like…it’s a little pagoda built on top of a single pillar.  We stopped at a couple other pagodas on our way to the airport.  It felt really weird to be getting on an airplane and not going home.  I already flew to a new place in Vietnam so it felt like I should have been flying home.  But that’s okay because it makes the Explorer feel even more like home.  Seeing it all lit up and pretty after not being there for a while makes me so happy!

November 7, 2010

Last day in Vietnam

Since I never made it out to the tunnels, I decided that I wanted to spend at least part of the last day at the war museum.  I went with Morgan and Greg to Ve Vao Cong, the war remnants museum.  It used to be called the Museum of American Atrocities but they recently changed it.  I think its original name was much more appropriate.  We were already in bad moods and seeing pictures of the horrible things that we did during that war made me sick.

In an attempt to salvage the day, we went back to the market for some serious retail therapy.  It worked…mostly.  I have finally gotten the hang of bargaining so I really like shopping in markets like this now.  It’s fun and I always feel SO accomplished when I get the price I wanted.

We got back to the ship in the afternoon, which was good because I had some serious schoolwork to do, but we didn’t leave the port until 6:00am the next morning.  I got up early again to watch us sail back down the river and it was just as beautiful as the first time.

Vietnam is definitely on my list of places to re-visit.  It was such a great week.

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Ha Noi and Ha Long Bay, part 2

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Emily

Ha Long Bay and Water Puppets

November 5, 2010

Boat Tour of Ha Long Bay

Boat Tour of Ha Long Bay

Today, we woke up at 6:30, got ready and had some more dinner for breakfast. There were noodles, lunch meats, rice, soup, and other dinner options. Thankfully, they also had an omelet station and toast so I got a good breakfast. We checked out of the hotel and we at the Junk boat dock by 8:00. It was exciting just being on the dock because it was so busy and people were running around all over the place.

We got on Junk Boat 57 and headed for the little mountains. It was so breathtakingly beautiful. There’s no way to describe it, and sadly, there’s no way my pictures will do it justice. We all sat on the top deck just completely in awe. After snapping about a hundred pictures in the first ten minutes, I put my camera away because I was spending too much time taking pictures and not enough time seeing it with my own eyes. I still have some pretty spectacular pictures though.

Limestone karst islands in Ha Long Bay

Limestone karst islands in Ha Long Bay

We saw some floating houses with dogs patrolling the porch, which seemed a little strange and out of place but it was still really cool. There were little fishing boats all over the place. We watched a couple of them start pulling their lines up but I didn’t see any fish. After about two hours of sailing around we dropped the anchor and all jumped off the side of the boat into the bay. It was so much fun. We joked the whole time about how it was the perfect setting for a horror movie and/or Jurassic park. A couple of fishing boats passed us, but other than that, we were completely alone and it was amazing. About once every minute, someone would say, “look where we are right now!” I can’t imagine every going swimming in a more beautiful place. The water was so salty that my hair was crispy for the rest of the day, and my legs were covered in salt.

They called us back into the boat so we could start heading back to the docks. While we were sailing back we ate a freshly cooked lunch from the same restaurant we ate in the night before.

Then, we drove back to Ha Noi (the spelling seems to be half-and-half, Ha Noi to Hanoi, but I think the Vietnamese way is two words) and stopped at that same store again. I tried and failed to sleep on the bus so I listened to Mango’s stories. He told us a lot about marriage in Vietnam, and about how there are now too many women in the country and people pray for baby boys…otherwise the women are going to start having to take two husbands. I’m pretty sure that was a joke but hey, you never know.

After several hours of driving, we arrived at the Bro & Sis Hotel. Yes, that’s actually the name of the hotel, weird…I know. We had just enough time to shower and get ready for dinner. We ate at a place called Wild Rice and it was amazing. It was the same style as every other meal—small plates of many different things—but this one was much better. They gave Morgan and me our own menu that was fantastic. I felt kind of high-maintenance and annoying, but our version of the food was so good that I no longer care. The best part was the spring rolls that were stuffed with banana and prawns…delicious.

After dinner we hopped on the bus and got dropped off at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater. The show itself wasn’t easy to follow because all of the dialogue was in Vietnamese, but the music was beautiful and they gave us English versions of the titles of all the acts. They were pretty amusing titles, and extremely appropriate. The translation made them even better…”four dragons dancing on the surface of water audience” and “on a buffalo with a flute.” I was a little afraid that the puppets were going to give me terrible nightmares because they were so scary-looking, but a lot of the show was performed with animal puppets and those weren’t scary. I heard some people complaining about how lame the show was, but they were just being stupid. As long as you were open-minded, it was great. Besides, I would’ve gone to see another show just to listen to the music.

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Ha Noi and Ha Long Bay, day 1

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Emily

November 4, 2010

  

Hotel in Ha Long Bay

Hotel in Ha Long Bay

This may have been the longest day of my life.  Thankfully, Morgan was on the trip too, so when our alarms went off at 3:30am we flipped on the lights and got up right away.  It would have been so easy to just not get up so it’s a good thing there were two of us.  We got dressed and sleepwalked into the Union to meet the rest of our group.  They had fresh, warm pastries, coffee and orange juice waiting for us, so that made waking up a little more worth it.  We hopped on a bus at around 4:15 and I was all ready to sleep on the drive to the airport, but we were only in the bus for maybe 20 minutes.  Our passports had already been inspected, and we weren’t allowed to check baggage, so all we had to do was go up to the counter to get our tickets. 

The flight wasn’t bad.  It was only about 2 hours and they served “breakfast” which I conveniently slept through.  I miss western breakfasts.  Every other meal has been fun, different and usually delicious, but I don’t like eating dinner for breakfast.  They gave us a choice of noodles (I think it was soup…maybe pho) or fish dumplings.  Fish for breakfast?  I can’t even eat lox on bagels for breakfast, no thanks.

We met our tour guide, Mango, right outside of the airport.  He’s the best tour guide I’ve ever had.  At first I was annoyed that he was talking so much because all I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but he had such great stories.  He told us about the history of Vietnam, about their culture and traditions and he told us stories about his family.  When he was talking about the traffic, he said, “when you cross the street, what you should do is just sing a song and think about the future.”  I thought that was very well said.  I chose to sing my own version of “just keep swimming” from Nemo.  It didn’t make the idea of playing in traffic any less terrifying though.

We made a few stops on our way to the hotel in Ha Long Bay.  First stop was the Temple of Literature that was built in 1070.  We wandered around there for a while and then hopped back on the bus to go to Hoa Lo Prison, aka the Ha Noi Hilton.  I don’t think I’m a fan of that nickname.  I’ve never seen anything less like a Hilton.  It was a good museum and it had interesting information, but in every room there were really creepy mannequins and horror-movie music playing in the background…a little unnecessary.

After we were thoroughly depressed by the museum, and nearly fainting with hunger, we went to lunch.  It was at a place called Bang Lang and they were extremely accommodating and made Morgan and me vegetarian versions of each of the courses.  I had more seafood this weekend than I did in all of South Africa, which I didn’t think was possible.  It was a pretty good meal and we enjoyed some more fantastic coffee before getting back on the bus.  We drove for about 2 hours to a huge arts and crafts store where all of the employees were victims of Agent Orange.  They were working in the front of the store and it was heartbreaking to watch.  I don’t know if it was a good job for them, or if they were being exploited so I felt really uncomfortable.  We stayed there for about a half hour and then hopped back on the bus for the remaining two hours to Ha Long Bay. 

Emily's view in Ha Long Bay

Emily's view in Ha Long Bay

We checked into the Ha Long Hotel and had about an hour to wander through the market that was right across the street on the beach.  My bag was about twice as big coming home as it was when I left.  Ooops.  After some more unnecessary but great shopping, we got ready for dinner at Cua Vang Golden Club.  We had a good time reading the English translation of signs and menus.  Cua Vang’s business card advertised that they are “specializing in hotpot of sea crab and fresh seafood.”  Specializing in hotpot?  What on earth does that mean?  I didn’t see a hotpot anywhere on the menu.  It was a completely seafood meal and it was delicious.  Every meal we had was served to the whole table.  They would bring out five or six courses, one right after the other, and we would all share.  My only issue with the food was that the prawns came with eyes and they stared at me the whole time.  Yuck.  It was pretty entertaining to watch everyone else try to pull the skin off though.  After dinner, we crashed because it was going to be another early morning.

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Ho Chi Minh City

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Emily

November 3, 2010

Fishing boats on the Mekong River at dawn

Fishing boats on the Mekong River at dawn

I loved Vietnam from the moment I woke up. My alarm went off at 5:30 am and I almost shut it off and went back to sleep because it was still dark out, but I didn’t. I’m glad I woke up because it was an amazing morning. I watched the sunrise, through the clouds and fog, while we were sailing up the Mekong River. It was comical to watch our massive ship making these sharp turns in a river that was barely wider than the length of the ship. Plus, we were sailing along side of teeny, tiny little wooden fishing boats that we could have easily turned into kindling.

We reached the port after a while and were cleared to get off by 9:00. I got off the ship right away with a couple of girls. We hopped on the shuttle, got dropped off at the Rex Hotel, and just started wandering. We knew we wanted to go to a market but we had no destination, no map, and no plan. It ended up being a fantastic day. We walked, and walked, and walked and then we walked some more. Not having a plan ended up being perfect because saw so much of Ho Chi Minh City.

We got directions from a pedicab driver who continued to follow us for several blocks and wait for us while stopped at the ATM, while we bought water and while we tried to lose him in stores along the way. Eventually we told him to give up, and he did. By the time he left us alone we were only a block away from the market so we found it with no trouble. It was unlike any market I’ve ever seen…and I’ve seen my fair share of crazy, hectic markets on this trip. Thankfully, it was covered because if it wasn’t, I would’ve had a heat stroke. There was too much to see and too many of us to stay in a group so we decided to meet at the entrance we came in after an hour and a half of shopping. In that time, we covered maybe a quarter of the market and it was pure luck that we found the same entrance again.

I can’t even begin to explain how crowded and crazy it was. There were shoe aisles, perfume aisles, bag aisles, little wooden carving isles, weird-smelling food aisles, clothing aisles and pretty much everything else you can think of. Although, calling them aisles is misleading because that makes it seem like it was easy to navigate which it certainly was not. I think we made our decisions on where to go based on getting as far away as possible from the weird-smelling food section. We walked to a semi-outdoor part of the market because we saw flowers and immediately started wondering why the flowers smelled like fish. Turns out we found a fresh fish aisle. These fish were so fresh that many of them were still flopping around…sad.

Steaming bowl of pho in Vietnam

Steaming bowl of pho in Vietnam

So, after some very successful Christmas shopping (be excited) we went on a search for lunch. Across from the market was a place called Pho24 where we had our authentic pho. It wasn’t the best because the chicken in ours was drier and weirder than the chicken in canned soup, but it was still a good experience. We continued to wander around the back streets until we decided it was time for another food break. We found a little cafe E9 and that’s when we discovered that Vietnamese iced coffee is the greatest drink in the world. We weren’t supposed to be drinking the water or anything with ice in it…and we probably shouldn’t have even had coffee in the first place because that’s made with water too…but we all survived. Even if we had ended up being stuck in bed for a day it would have been worth it. The coffee was as strong as espresso but not as bitter, and they sweetened it with sweetened condensed milk. That may be even worse than sugar and whole milk but I don’t care. Yum.

After our heavenly coffee break, we wandered around aimlessly some more. Eventually we started making our way back to the Rex where the shuttle would pick us up, but not before we stopped for another coffee break. We sat outside, had snacks and people watched for a while. Although, it was more like motorcycle/Vespa watching because the ratio of Vespa to pedestrian is probably 1,000,000 to 1.

The traffic was just as chaotic as they said it would be. Thankfully, they drive on the right side of the road, so at least when I looked, I looked in the right direction. But that does little to no good when attempting to cross the street. If you waited for a break in traffic to cross, you’d be stuck there for days. The driving was probably equally as crazy as in India, but being a pedestrian in Vietnam was much more terrifying. Every time I successfully made it to the other side of the street I felt extremely accomplished. The only thing I can compare it to is that scene in Mulan where the little grandmother holds the cricket, closes her eyes and walks across the street while cars go flying past her and crash into each other trying to avoid her. That’s pretty much how it worked; you walk and don’t hesitate and the vehicles will all go around you. It was terrifying every single time, but we succeeded in never getting hit.

We got back to the ship around 5:30 and I called it a night because I had to get up at 3:30 in the morning for my SAS trip.

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Two Days in Singapore!

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Emily

October 31

My first day in Singapore was the best day ever!  I say that a lot on this trip which is kind of cool.  But this was seriously an amazing day.  I woke up early and got all ready so I could go eat breakfast and watch us dock.  The port was unbelievable.  Everyone said it was going to be big, and we’d talked about in Geography of the Oceans, but I was not expecting this.  From the top of the hotel (which I will expand on later) I counted at least 300 ships waiting just outside the port, maybe more.  We entered the port at around 7:30 and weren’t docked until almost 8:30.  It’s a really nice port though.  The Star Voyager was docked next to us yesterday and it made the poor Explorer look very sad and small.

We had to go through lots of security and about 12 miles of mall to get out into the city.  Morgan and I left the ship as soon as we could and we went straight to the zoo!  We decided to take the MRT and it was the nicest, fastest, smoothest metro I’ve ever been on.  That’s when we started saying it was the best day ever and it only got better from there.  It took a while to get there but once it went above ground it was such a beautiful ride.  We saw so much of the city, forests next to sky scrapers next to lakes next to crazy colorful public housing. 

We turned into 6 year olds the second we got to the zoo.  It was so much fun.  And it was even better because it was a guilt free zoo experience.  Calling it a zoo doesn’t do it justice.  It was much closer to a wild life reserve and all the animals had plenty of space to roam around.  The monkeys swing from tree to tree throughout the park and only the endangered species, and serious predators were in enclosures.  It is home to over 3,000 animals from many different regions including elephants from Asia, baboons from the great rift valley of Ethiopia, orang utans (they make it two words, I don’t know what’s right), kangaroos from the Australian outback, and SO much more.  The weather was insanely hot and humid but that didn’t even matter. 

We bought our tickets with our tram pass and headed straight for the restaurant.  It was only an eh lunch but then we got Ben and Jerry’s so that completely made up for it.  We wandered through the treetops trail where their was a dinosaur.  Okay maybe it wasn’t actually a dinosaur but it was a False Ghavial which looks just like one.  There were a couple of them and one of them was at least 4 meters long.  It looked like a crocodile but bigger and stronger and it had a really narrow snout.  In the trees there were Siamangs and we saw the mommy with her newborn baby.  It was the first baby born in over a decade! 

We spent the whole afternoon there.  I think we got there around 11 and didn’t leave until after 4:00.  I could’ve spent days there just watching the animals, it was so amazing.  We saw lions and white tigers and giraffes and zebras!  And proboscis monkeys with their ugly noses!  And baboons with their big red bums!  And rhinos and cheetahs and jaguars!  And we spent a  while talking to a capuchin monkey.  Morgan was making noises at it and it climbed on to the end of its branch and stared at us.  He kept turning his head and looking at us upside down.  We really behaved like children and were both so giddy all day and it was so much fun!

After the zoo we came back to the ship to get our stuff and get ready for the evening.  We went out to eat at some open-air market where there were a bunch of picnic tables and a dozen little stands.  It was the best meal of my life.  Morgan and I split a vegetable roti, I don’t know what it was but it was but it tasted amazing.  It was some thin layer of bread filled with mushrooms and cheese and veggies and there was some fantastic spicy sauce to dip it in.  We also got chicken satay that came with the best peanut sauce I’ve ever had.  I could have had it as soup instead of as something just to dip chicken in.  It ended with fried bananas.  BEST MEAL EVER.

After dinner, We went over to the Marina Bay Sands hotel where about half of the ship was staying.  It’s an insanely cool building with three separate towers that are all connected on the top by a surf-boarding looking top that is the pool.  It was unbelievable.  We hung out there for a little while and then went out for Halloween in Singapore!  It wasn’t really like Halloween though because I didn’t dress up or get free candy, or go to the grove, or participate in the who-can-be-the-biggest skank competition.  But I did go out to some fancy-pants club where we got in for free so that was nice.  It ended up being full of SASers who were all being trashy so we didn’t stay too long.

 

November 1

We accidentally slept kind of late, but I ended up salvaging the day.  I went with Kelly on a really romantic date to the Singapore Botanic Gardens,  63 hectares of beautiful tropical plants.  We walked around for a little over an hour, joking about how all the new couples in Singapore must go there for their first dates.  We walked, and walked, and walked and only saw a small portion of the park.  It was so relaxing, and so weird to think that all of Singapore, this crazy, industrial city, used to look like those gardens.

After exploring for a while we headed back to the ship.  In Mauritius we only stayed for one night, and on the second day there was line of at least 200 students trying to make it on board before on-ship time, so we wanted to make sure we made it.  For every 15 minutes you’re late, you get 1 hour of dock time so there’s no way I was going to wait in line.

All in all, I loved Singapore.  I could have easily spent a week there doing all of the things that I wanted to do, but I got a good taste of it.  Plus, it was extremely refreshing to be in a country where they abide by the traffic laws and don’t litter.  Until India, I hadn’t realized that fresh air was a luxury.  Now I appreciate it so much more.  It was a nice relaxing stop before our week in Vietnam!  We’re just leaving the port now (fastest I’ve ever updated this!!) and we will be in Vietnam by Wednesday!

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