weird meats, funny music, side of rice

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 (4:03pm) - Pacific Ocean

okay sorry for not blobbing lately. but it's cruch time on the ship right now. i've written 2 term papers in the last two days, need to write 2 more today, and i just wrote 3 reading reports since yesterday. you may call that poor planning, i call it school. wah. this is just the first time i've been motivated to do anything. so that's what i'm doing. need to write an international organizations term paper tonight, as well as a global music term paper. so much fun. not.

lots has been going on around the ship these days. i think they want us to be doing anything but studying... which would be nice, if i didn't have so much to do. i think i might've written about the talent show we had maybe a week ago (i have no sense of time right now, so bare with me). but sometime between when we left hawaii and now, we had the GAY talent show. i know that doesn't sound politically correct, but i forgot what they actually called it... and that's pretty much what it was. i'm pretty sure i'm on the gay cruise, seeing as everybody is gay. which is fine. but when the first question i get from my mother and half the people i talked to on thanksgiving was "so, do you have a boyfriend?" well... nooo. first off cus the percentage of female to male is like 70:30... and then chances are the guys are gay anyways. such a dilemma. anyways. the gay talent show was SO much better, obviously. it was hosted by this gay guy named adam on the ship. except he's started dressing in drag... and his drag name is eve. so it was hosted by "adam & eve." clever, right? but seriously, adam is the most beautiful woman i've ever seen in my life. it's so funny. there were a bunch of amazing performers, some really great poetry and monologues. the best was this guy singing britney spears while playing the piano. i was dying. (sidenote, the other night at open-mic night at the piano bar, he sang adele "someone like you" and all the girls were crying. he has the voice of an angel... and he's a beautiful gay man. can it get any better? NO!) so i watched the gay talent show with courtney, brenna, bri, maddy, and alyssa and we all painted our nails. so fitting.

oh and today we filmed a shipwide lip-dub to the song "wavin flag" by k'naan. it's gonna be so sick! so look for that soon. it'll be my youtube debut. so excited. right now maddy and i are getting ready to do a bridge tour. which means we get to see where the captain drives the ship and everything. it's gonna be really cool. we had global studies discussions this morning for the last time. then for the rest of the day i'm just gonna do homework, then go to dinner on deck 7 with the AXO girls to celebrate the fact that we're finally in the same time zone as san diego! tonight in the union they're also doing a thing to celebrate world AIDS day... so hopefully i have time to go to that. and i also have work tonight. so much to do in such little time. we're still a ways away from getting to costa rica. hopefully i'll be able to finish my work soon because it's SO hot outside... i need to be out at the pool tanning. but priorities people! anddd as of today i'm only 2 weeks from being home! so crazy how fast the time has gone.

okay well i need to go help steer this ship or something. haha what a disaster. oh and the title of this blob comes from how i met your mother... when they're trying to figure out what to eat and ted suggests chinese... and barney says no. then ted suggests indian and barney says its the same thing. then ted is all confused and so barney goes "weird meats, funny music, side of rice... same thing." i think brew & i were going to die when we were watching that the other night. i think this is bad that i've just travelled around the world... cus as non-politically correct as i was before i left... now i feel justified in being super non-politically correct. woops. okay well i gotta go, byeee.

AMERICA... F*CK YEAH!!!!

Thursday, November 24, 2011 (8:46pm) - Hilo, Hawaii

happy thanksgiving people! this was the first thanksgiving i've ever spent away from home... and though it wasn't as bad as i thought, it still wasn't the same. we went through customs yesterday when we were docked in honolulu. it was really strange because they spoke ENGLISH and were really friendly. what a weird concept. since we did that, we got to get off the ship as soon as we docked in hilo this morning. me and maddy met up with courtney, audrey, and brenna in tymitz and all left the ship together. we also found jake and linda as we were leaving the port, so they joined us too. the 7 of us walked to ken's house of pancakes and had thanksgiving breakfast! since we had thankgiving dinner last night on the ship, we decided we were going to make breakfast our big meal of the day. i think it's gonna turn into a tradition at school cus it was really fun. i had a portugese sausage scramble, hash browns, pancakes, kona coffee, and a big glass of pog. delicious!

after breakfast, jake and linda went to the beach and the five of us walked to the local starbucks. i got to skype home and see/talk to my parents for the first time since august. i also got to skype literally every member of my family on both sides since they were all at my house for thanksgiving. started crying in public when i had to say bye to them. embarrassing, but i couldn't help it. i also got to skype melissa which was fun too. it was AWESOME seeing and talking to everybody, and just what i needed to get me through the last three weeks of this voyage.

after a few hours in starbucks, we walked across the street to safeway. it's the first time we've seen a grocery store in three months. what a novel concept. and as we were walking through the parking lot i asked everybody "hey... have you guys seen a parking lot in three months?" the consensus was that no, we hadn't. so that's just a preview of how weird we are going to be when we get home. i literally walked down every aisle in the grocery store, just because i could. i knew i wouldn't be allowed to bring frozen food on the ship, but obvs i walked down the aisles because dumb americans are the only people that have like 5 aisles of frozen food. i ended up buying a 6-pack of coke, a box of saltine crackers, a bag of tortilla chips, a thing of salsa, a gingerbread house kit, and a bag of animal cookies. like how high am i right now, right? i'm so weird. oh and we also got tabloids! yayyy celebrity gossip.

after the grocery store, we headed back to this drive in restaurant to get our last bit of real food. i got a tuna melt and curly fries. i really wanted a mahi-mahi sandwich, but they didn't have it. sad day. then we headed back to the ship. did absolutely NOTHING hawaiian today... just celebrated the fact that i'm in america. and i feel like i've been to hawaii enough that i didn't really need to go snorkeling and stuff today. plus, hilo sucks so it's whatever. i just lost cell phone service again... so that kinda sucks. talked to my mom for an hour and to melissa for an hour. now it's 19 days til home. if i've made it this long, 19 days should be nothing.

and in the spirit of thanksgiving... here's a little bit of what i'm thankful for. first and foremost, i'm thankful for my parents. without them, this voyage would have been impossible. they are my support system and though i don't say it enough, i would be nothing without them. i'm thankful for my sister and the rest of my family. today just showed how lucky i am to have all of them in my life. i'm thankful for my friends on the ship who made last night and today the best thanksgiving i could have away from my family, and for making the past three months unforgettable. i'm thankful for my friends at home who have kept me sane and grounded throughout this trip. i can't wait to get home to you guys. i'm thankful to be an american and have all the privileges and opportunities i do. this semester has taught me to never take anything for granted and to truly appreciate everything that i have. there's a lot more that i'm thankful for, but i don't want to bore you to death. plus, we're starting to rock and i never feel good when we leave a port. so i'm gonna go pretend to write a paper right now.

i love you all so much and i miss you! 19 days! happy thanksgiving!!

what're you thankful for?

Wednesday, November 23, 2011 (8:18pm) - Honolulu, Hawaii

so today was thanksgiving on the ship... but i think it might've been christmas. maybe because i woke up and america was outside my door. i knew we were bunkering in honolulu, but didn't know we were actually docking there. so obvs the first thing i did was turn on my phone! cell phone service for the first time in three months was crazy! talked to my family for the first time since i walked through security in san diego in august. also got to txt all my friends! such a fun game. except for the fact that we weren't allowed to get off the ship. just had to stare at america all day while sitting in class. torture! also not fair cus we left honolulu at like 3 so i didn't get to use my cell phone as much as i wanted. lost cell service in the middle of a conversation with my mom. not cool.

also might be christmas cus i found the notebook! molly had it... so she's officially my favorite person in the world right now. then tonight we had thanksgiving dinner! now all us usd kids had very high expectations for this dinner... and i was talking about it all day cus i love thanksgiving. this is my first thanksgiving away from home and it's borderline depressing me to death. so at work i was talking about how dinner tonight better be good. my boss is also my ship dad and so he told me to go find the menu. thank goodness we had the new chef for this dinner because he did SUCH a good job. baked mac & cheese, mashed potatoes & gravy, turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls, and fresh baked pumpkin pie! it was SO good. i mean, not how my parents make it... but they still did justice to it. especially since i'm currently in a food coma right now. ate with all my friends at first, then went and had family dinner. so even though i couldn't be at home with all my fam & friends, i still was with my fam & friends.

so we're sailing to hilo right now. they're having a cultural/logistical preport right now. the people who run this ship are so f*cking ridiculous. do they not realize that this is AMERICA!!?! literally, they're trying to teach us phrases of hawaiian and shit. oh surprise, this is AMERICA. they speak english idiots. i can't even deal. these people suck. and i'm kinda shocked by the amount of people that haven't been to hawaii before. sucks to suck that their first encounter with hawaii is hilo! and it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow. wah wah wah.

alright well we're having a girl's night down in courtney's room to paint our nails and hang out and not do all the homework we should be doing. whatever. we're in AMERICA! there's no homework in america. duhhh.

hokay bye peopleee. call me/text me tomorrow! cus i won't have cell phone service for another 3 weeks after this. sad day bro.

she doesn't even go here!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 (1:12pm) - Pacific Ocean

so i'm fairly certain that mean girls is my generation's 16 candles. that could be why i stayed up til 3 in the morning watching it. not my fault, i don't think. audrey put all her movies on my hard drive... so now i'm set for life really. except i really need to study and write papers, but how am i supposed to do that when now not only do i have all the seasons of friends, but a ton of good movies!? so difficult.

anyways, we moved our clocks ahead again last night so we're 2 hours behind san diego time. i think that's a total of eight 23 hour days between japan and hawaii. sucks! i meant to wake up early this morning, but it just didn't happen. at least it's been way less rocky lately. you win some, you lose some.

oh and last night was the talent show! we had the crew talent show last month, so last night was the passenger talent show. the dependent children did a really funny play at the beginning. i was surprised how talented some people on the ship are. this cute little old lifelong learner did a tap dance, my friend cassie played the banjo and sang landslide... but the best part was definitely jake played the ukulele and singing. who knew he could sing?? not me! it was really good and a lot of fun. definitely a good reprieve from all the stress going on on the ship. my teachers are beginning to understand that everybody is burning out.

right now i'm in the 5th deck dining hall watching all the dependent children doing their homework. so maybe i should take their lead and pretend to do some homework of my own. i have two more classes today. blahhh.

alright well, only 2 more days til america! things are lookin' up. byeee. 

white girl problems

Sunday, November 20, 2011 (11:22pm) - Pacific Ocean

white girl problems... or sas-hole problems. either one. for those of you that have no idea what i'm talking about... google it or something. but here's my problems that aren't really problems at all... for starters, my new cabin steward julius totally blows. he only makes my bed every four days, instead of every other day like jesse did. and he sucks at making beds too. when i wake up, it looks like a tornado happened in my bed. but when jesse was here, i would be in like a cocoon. wahhh. and in the dining hall, perry and dante aren't here to take my plates away for me as soon as i'm done with them. and dante isn't here to make me coffee every morning when i'm too tired to do it myself. nobody in the dining hall knows my coffee order anymore! i know, these are pressing global issues.

in other news, we've officially made it to the other side of the map. let me explain. i bought this map of the world and have been putting a dot on it everyday to mark where we are in the world. well today, we officially made it to the other side of the map. the little things, people. i didn't realize it until just now, so i'll go up to deck 7 and celebrate tomorrow or something. also, we set our clocks ahead again tonight. so that means i'll be three hours behind san diego as of tomorrow.

that's all i got for now. i'm gonna go to bed or watch a movie or something. so sweet dreams.

groundhog's day

Saturday, November 19, 2011 (11:37pm) - Pacific Ocean

so you know how people always want to have the chance to do a day over?? well i did! even though i didn't really need to redo yesterday. like i told you all in my last blob, we crossed the international date line today (we need to rumor ranger that cus according to my calculations, i don't think we actually did). but anyways, that means it was november 19th yesterday... and november 19th today too. still not sure really how that works, but all i know is we got the day off of classes, so i'm not about to complain. we were supposed to have global studies discussions this morning, but mine was cancelled cus my teacher was sick. i had to write my global studies paper today though. and then it was taco day for lunch. had dinner with the AXOs on deck 7. then tonight was the silent and live auction for the shipboard drive. they auctioned off some pretty funny stuff, like steering the ship, breakfast in bed served by the dean, and biscuits and tea with a harry potter reading from the dean who's from england. all the money goes to the scholarship fund that helps future students be able to afford semester at sea. maybe not the most pressing issue in the world, but still an important cause seeing as 40% of SAS students receive some kind of scholarship. i really wanted to buy this painting from south africa during the silent auction, but it got too expensive. damn being a cheap son of a bitch. but probably for the best. people were getting pretty crazy... someone paid like $300 for a book signed by archbishop desmond tutu. and someone else paid like $250 to be able to honk the ship's horn. not great. but it was really fun watching everybody spend crazy amounts of money. all in all, today was a great day. just watched a few episodes of friends, showered, and now after i post this i'm gonna go to bed.

omg but before that i can't forget to tell you about last night. in my last blob i said we were in a storm. well the worst of it was last night. literally everything fell in our room last night. i was levitating off my bed cus we were rocking so much. i guess on deck 2 they bolted their port holes shut... normal. all i keep picturing is on titanic when they hit the iceberg and the boiler room starts to flood and the people have to run and get under the doors before they close. except on the ship, it would be deck 2 and like half my friends live down there. so stressful. i was pretty convinced we were gonna sink last night. i was about to sleep in my "warm clothes" because that's what the always tell us to wear during muster drills. and then i was getting all pissed off that i would lose all my souvenirs that i've bought in all these countries. yeah, souvenirs were my main concern... not the fact that i could drown and die. and then i thought, well shit i'd lose all my pictures too. but hold the phone... then i remembered i have everything on my external hard drive! good work buying that for me dad! and i figure my hard drive is small enough to hide so the crew wouldn't be mad at me about not bringing anything with me on the lifeboats. not sorry. but in any event, we obviously did not sink since i'm writing this blob. and it's been way calmer today, thank goodness.

alright well i think i'm gonna go to bed now. oh and i figured out the time change thing. because of the international date line i am now 4 hours behind san diego in time. yep! so now, no excuse for not emailing me promptly. only my friends in europe can use that excuse. so there! goodnighttt!

the perfect storm

Saturday, November 19, 2011 (8:25pm) - Pacific Ocean

currently in a pretty big storm. they warned us that crossing the pacific was going to be the rockiest part of the voyage... and they were right. it's like they've done this before or something. but seriously, the ship is really rocking. all of our stuff is falling off the walls and our desks in our room. they had to put straps on the books in the library (i don't really know how that's supposed to stop them from falling off the shelves... but A for effort). and i'm fairly certain we've turned into a submarine. only because my cabin on deck 3 is supposed to always be above the water line. however, we've spent the majority of today under it. waves have been hitting the 7th deck... sooo this is getting a little out of control. there was literally like half a person at global studies (not that this is any different... but today at least we can blame it on the weather). like, shit is getting to biblical proportions. or so says the voice.

speaking of the voice, she dropped a bomb on us today during lunch time announcements. so you know how the bitches in the US treasury won't sign our visa to go to cuba and so SAS decided to send us to guatemala instead. well turns out whoever works for SAS just now found out that guatemala is like one of the most dangerous places to go to in that part of the world, so we're not going there anymore. i don't know what took them so long to figure that out, but i'll give them the benefit of the doubt. so the voice told us that we're going to honduras instead! not really sure what i'm gonna do there... but it's whatever. i'm kinda bummed though cus i was just getting excited to go to guatemala cus i was gonna go to tikal to see the mayan ruins. but now i have to sit on a tropical island and get drunk and play at the beach all day. dammit semester at sea... why do you have to suck so much!?

in other news, we'll be crossing the international date line tonight. well, i don't know when we'll actually technically be crossing it, but we're celebrating it tonight. and by celebrating, i mean we're moving our clocks ahead again. big woop, i know. no but really, i don't understand how it works, but we have today twice. as in, today is saturday, november 19th... and so is tomorrow. i don't understand it... but once i figure it out, i'll fill you in. the only thing i do know is that we'll be BEHIND you guys in time now. still trying to figure out the specifics, but again... you'll know as soon as i know.

anywaysss i gotta go write a paper for global studies. blah. so keep it real friends. see you in the same hemisphere soon. or whatever.

hibernation

Friday, November 18, 2011 (10:00pm) - Pacific Ocean

have you ever felt like you just want to be a bear and eat everything in sight then sleep for like 3 months? cus that's where i'm at right now. except i don't want to eat anything on the ship... just dying for all the food in san diego. and i would kill someone to be able to sleep for 3 months. or even 3 days. i'm not picky. so i'm gonna start that right now, and go to bed.

but before i do, just thought you should know we move our clocks ahead again tonight. so that's like 19 hours ahead of home now? outrageous.

okay goodnight. i'm gonna go have some little bear cub dreams now. whatever that means.

i spy with my little eye

Thursday, November 17, 2011 (9:01pm) - Pacific Ocean

guess what's outside my window right now... give up?... THE PACIFIC OCEAN!!!! omg i double dog dare you to try to find a happier girl in the world right now. hint: not possible, so don't waste your time. even though i'm so happy, it's kinda bittersweet. i coulda sworn we were just in morocco, trying not to get sold into the sex trade and gearing up for ghana. now all of a sudden we're done and only have 5 days left in port?! totally outrageous. can't wait to get home... but don't want this to be over yet. i think the saddest person on the ship is my friend jocelyne who's one of the dependent children on the ship. she's an 8th grader and keeps emailing me that she doesn't want it to be over cus she doesn't want to leave her new friends. so depressing.

anyways, got wayyy too much time on the ship here coming up. i think we have like 26 days left on the voyage and only 5 of those days are in port... with only 2 more nights in port. such a buzz kill. that's WAY too much time on this ship. and i have way too much homework to do. too many papers, to the point that i don't even know where to get started. such a strugglefest.

and this is supposed to be the rockiest part of the voyage. we moved a ton yesterday and the day before... but today wasn't too bad. but i figure, if i'm in the pacific, it's fine by me. we moved our clocks forward last night... so that's now 18 hours ahead of home. getting difficult to calculate what time it is at home. oh well.

alright well i'm gonna go watch a documentary up in the union. someone go to the beach and wave... i'll wave back. so romantic, right?

love.

i'm turning japanese

November 11-15, 2011 – Kobe and Yokohama, Japan

holy hell was japan amazing! and all you haters that kept telling me that i wasn't going to get to go to japan... jokes on you. so we got to kobe on the 11th... it took forever and a day for the ship to get cleared. had to go through face-to-face at customs and stuff. but once we finally got through, me, maddy, brooke, molly, and chris took the port liner to the big train station and got on a train to kyoto. it was super clutch that i can read and speak a little japanese, cus all the maps and machines were in japanese. we didn't really have a game plan (as always) so we stopped at the tourist info center in the kyoto train station and asked them what we should do with our one day there. she told us to buy a bus pass then take it to the golden temple. before we actually went into the temple, we decided to find some lunch. we stopped at this little whole in the wall place where they didn't speak any english. perfect. and we had these japanese pancake things that we had to cook ourselves on the skillet that was in the middle of our table. it was really fun and turned out to be delicious. then we went to the temple and it was amazing! i don't really know much about it... but i'm pretty sure it was made out of all gold. it was really beautiful. we walked around the gardens of the temple for a little bit. after that we took the bus to a different area where there were a ton of temples. we got some coffee at a gas station then walked around and saw like a bajillion temples. it was really beautiful cus some of them were lit up at night. then we got some dinner at this little fast food restaurant. i had this rice and pork bowl. then we walked through some streets, stopped in a grocery store and found this magical candy, and then found a train station to come back to kobe. that day was 11/11/11 and so at 11:11pm, our group went to a convenient store and bought 11 beers and shot gunned them and made the most epic wishes ever. then we got back to the ship around midnight.

the next day, brew & i had a field trip to hiroshima. it took us about 4 hours to there by bus. we drove through the rural areas and saw these beautiful small cities. we finally got there and it was unbelievable. our first stop was the "a-bomb building." like you know the picture everybody shows when you think of or hear of hiroshima... that's the building we saw. it was out of control. but i was expecting hiroshima to be kind of like chernoble... all ruined and nobody living there. it was a huge surprise to me to find out that the city is all built up now and alive now. but there were definitely reminders. we saw a memorial to this girl that died of leukemia 10 years after the dropping of the bomb. it was pretty tough to see cus she thought she would surprise if she made 1000 paper cranes... so her memorial is this huge statue of her holding up a paper crane. then after that we went to the peace memorial museum. now i've been to some pretty crazy museums, but the holocaust museum in dc and the war museum in vietnam had nothing on this. the hardest part was the documentary we watched that showed some of the victims right after the bomb when they were burned and everything. it was disgusting and so hard to watch. but the museum was awesome... really well organized and put together. after the museum, we took the bus to the train station and we got to take the bullet train back to the kobe to meet the ship. the bullet train reaches like 200 mph and it was awesome. except we were riding it at night so we couldn't really see anything. once we got back to the ship, we grabbed our bags and me, maddy, molly, brooke, cassie, heidi, and keara went back to the train station to go to osaka to catch an overnight bus to tokyo. not the best night's sleep... but the most efficient way to travel, both saving money and time in the city.

so we got to tokyo at like 6am. nothing was open so we just walked around a little bit and waited for starbucks to open at 7. got some coffee and relaxed for a little. then we took a train to this district in tokyo. turns out there wasn't anything there (that's what happens when you leave other people to look up travel plans). so we had to buy another train ticket to go to ueno. once we got there we found this really cool place with markets and restaurants. we found a place to eat first and i got gyoza and noodles. then we found a hotel. so expensive, but so is all of japan. we took some time to relax for a little bit. then we walked around the shops for a while, got some dinner, and some drinks for the hotel. we planned on going out that night, but we bought some crazy juice alcohol stuff and we didn't end up making it out. but it was fun, we talked for and played games for a few hours in the hotel. then passed out.

the next morning i woke up and got ready, then left the hotel by myself. i went and got myself some breakfast and coffee then did a little shopping. wayyy too expensive. then i went to the train station and figured out how to get myself to yokosuka. i had to take 3 different trains and it took me 2 hours to get there, but yokosuka is where my grandma is from. i wasn't originally planning on going there, but i figured if i'm in japan, i might as well make my way down there. i didn't take anybody with me cus nobody else would have appreciated it. and it was also the first time i've been alone since august so it was really nice to have some time to myself. i just spent the entire day walking around. i got some lunch when i first got there. then i found this really cute street that had a bunch of restaurants and cute little shops. then i found this weird mall thing that i walked around for a bit. while i was there, i found this side door that had a flight of stairs going up into this hill. so obviously i was like "yep." and so i climbed up them. there wasn't anything for a while, then all of a sudden there was this really awesome temple that came out of nowhere. nobody was around, so i sat there and just thought for a while. i was just thinking about how my grandma was from there and it was so amazing that i had the opportunity to be there. then i continued up the stairs for a while, walked through this bamboo forest thing and found the most awesome cemetery i've ever seen. after a while there, i went back to the waterfront area cus yokosuka was a little harbor town. idiot me forgot that this is where my grandma met my grandpa when he was there in the navy... so i forgot that there was a HUGE US navy base there. so i saw a bunch of navy men all over the place. i sat at a bench near the harbor and again just sat and thought and people watched for a little bit. then i went to starbucks to get some coffee and warm up. while i was sitting in starbucks, these two guys that were maybe a little younger than i am asked me for help with their english homework. it was so funny. i could speak enough japanese and they could speak enough english that it worked out. after i helped them with that, i headed back to the train station and took the train to yokohama to meet the ship. i ended up running into all my friends in the yokohama train station, so we headed back to the ship together. i wasn't really in the mood to go out that night because i had such an awesome, peaceful day... so i just stayed in with everyone cus we were all tired.

the next morning maddy & i woke up and had to go to this lecture. which totally blew. it was supposed to be about japanese perceptions of the UN. but it sucked. so after that was over, we got lunch then left the ship in search for some internet and some food. we ended up sitting in a hotel lobby for a while, stealing their internet. then we found a grocery store on our way back to the ship so we could stock up on food. then we had to go through customs and stuff and got back on the ship.

so i did 5 cities in 5 days which was kinda crazy. but it was really really amazing. i knew i'd love japan, and i was right. i just wish the dollar was stronger cus japan was SO expensive! i'll have to wait until it does get stronger before i come back. and it was perfect that i could read and speak japanese. definitely helped when all the signs were in japanese and i could be like "well, there's a hotel... there's a coffee shop." and it was nice that i could kind of speak to people. at one point, this security officer in a train station in kyoto made me translate for this random white girl so she could ask him questions. pretty awesome! and it was nice knowing about the culture beforehand. especially knowing the food cus i could tell my friends what to stay away from and stuff. i ate SO much delicious food. i just figure it's a preview to japanese new years. yay! but i can't wait to go back to japan. hopefully i'll have more time there next time... and like $4 million. a girl can dream.

well we're moving the clocks ahead tonight so i should probably go to bed. love and miss you all. but as of japan i'm only a month away from home. i think today was 27 days until ft lauderdale! craziness. see you all soon. love love love.

humpty dumpty sat on a wall...

November 3-8, 2011 - Hong Kong and Shanghai, China

...but i slept on the great one. OMG was china amazing! now i know i've said this after a couple of ports now... but this time i really mean it when i say china was my favorite country! i knew it was going to be cool... but i was not expecting it to be that awesome. so we arrived in hong kong on the 3rd. our little group decided to meet in tymitz square whenever we got our passports and the ship was cleared... so we met around 10:30 and got off the ship together. there were 7 people on my trip... alyssa, brenna, audrey, ali, laura, reid, and myself. reid was the only guy for 6 days... but he was a trooper. so we got off the ship, walked to a free shuttle at a hotel nearby that took us to the train station that would take us to the airport. we spent like a whole 20 minutes in hong kong which totally sucks... so i definitely need to go back there cus it looked amazing from what i could tell. we got to the airport without a hitch. and the hong kong airport was seriously the nicest airport i've ever been to in my life. at airports in america, you maybe buy yourself a magazine, some mcdonalds, and perhaps splurge on a pack of gum or something. not in hong kong! the shops there were chanel, hermes, tiffany's, d&b, louis, etc. like WTF!? let me just casually buy a louis while i'm waiting for my plane. that doesn't happen! we did get starbucks though because they had holiday cups! are those out at home yet?? first time i've had starbucks since i left. delicious!

so we get on our plane to fly to beijing. what movie do they play? harry potter 7 part 2. in english! pretty sure we were the only white people on the plane, so we were in heaven. (spoiler alert for those who haven't seen the movie yet) except when they stopped the movie right before harry walks into the forbidden forest to die!!!! i thought we were going to mutiny and hijack the plane. so we landed in beijing and met our guide who took us to our hotel in the city. he also got us tickets to the kung fu show that night which was awesome!! those guys were doing some crazy stuff and it was really cool. after the show we took a cab to the bar district. we had dinner at one of the restaurants and ordered pizza. first meal in china was pizza. yup. then we walked around trying to find a bar. all the bars that were around there were really cute, but they all had live acoustic emo music. it was SO weird! like no club music or dj's anywhere. so this guy on the street told us there was a disco bar, so we were like "yes please!" turns out it was more emo music, they just had a disco ball at the bar. but while we were there we met two australian guys (what else is new??) so they joined our group so reid had some testosterone to hang out with. we walked around with them for a while and we somehow added a german guy to our group too. this happens in every country, but it's always fun. me and one of the australian guys (aaron) spotted a reggae bar so we tried that. no emo music there... and cheap shots! so we were there for a while. ali made friends with the guys who worked there who told her about a club. so after a few rounds of drinks we headed over to "mix" club. it was really cool! there were like 7 different rooms and somehow we always end up on stage at every country we go to. so that was a blast. we were celebrities that night. and i'm pretty sure there were like 4 black guys in all of china, but somehow they all found me. i had to pretend reid was my boyfriend to get them to leave me alone. reid was making fun of me, but whatevs. reid, audrey, and i headed back to our hotel around 3am.

the next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and left the hotel around 8:30. our first stop was to the silk market. not sure why it's called that cus there was no silk anywhere... but i bought a ton of shit. including panda hats. which did not come off our heads the entire journey. i might hate myself in 20 years when all my china pictures are of me being a douchebag in a panda hat... but it was definitely worth it at the time. after the market, we drove about 2 hours out of the city to the great wall. everybody told us that we would have that one moment on sas that we would never forget. hiking on the great wall was definitely that moment for me. i can't even put into words how amazing it was. we had to hike for about 45 minutes up stairs to get up to the wall. then we hiked about 3 miles on the wall. parts of it were falling apart. it was GORGEOUS. there was nobody around except for our group. the leaves on the trees were changing colors cus it's fall. and it wasn't as cold as i expected. i was sweating in fact. it was just beautiful. we hiked for about 15 watch towers, then we reached the dark tower where we were going to sleep for the night. so we climbed down the wall into a mongolian farmer village where we had dinner. it was our first chinese meal of our trip and it was delicious. chinese meals are served family style which was awesome. except we were SO full and they kept bringing out more dishes. after dinner we all got ready to hike back up the wall to sleep. we all put on like every article of clothing we had packed cus it was pretty cold and we were sleeping outside. so we got ready, all the girls peed in the bushes and we considered it ali's initiation into AXO. bonding. then we hiked back up the wall and back to the dark tower where we got our sleeping bags and got all settled in. obvs we were way too excited to go to bed anytime soon. so we stayed up with our guide and played some games. tony made us drink rice wine. it's 46% alcohol. and it is neither made with rice, nor is it wine. it was DISGUSTING! but it was cultural. when in china. we also took about 3 million pictures of us doing different things in our panda hats. but we just blamed it on us being "dumb americans." it's our favorite excuse for this entire voyage. it's going to be weird when we get back and can't blame our behavior on being american. eventually we did go to sleep. in the middle of the night i woke up and was like sweating. or maybe i was claustrophobic since we were in those cocoon sleeping bags. either way, i took off my panda hat, north face jacket, sweatshirt, and gloves. we found out the next morning that it was 3 degrees below freezing... and i was sweating. so mom, that's proof that i really do run hot. sleeping on the great wall was a once in lifetime experience. it rained a little during the night but that wasn't going to make us go in the little room. it was kind of a bummer cus it was cloudy all night so we couldn't see the stars. but it was still beautiful. especially waking up with the sun and being able to see the wall as far as you could see. ah. so amazing. one of the local farmers brought hot water up to us so we made instant coffee and oatmeal for breakfast on the wall. then we packed up and hiked back down to our van. sorry if you have to hear this story a billion times when i get home, cus i'm pretty sure this is going to be my go to.

so we left the wall and headed to the olympic grounds. it was so weird cus our guide tony told us that before the olympics, none of the buildings or anything were there. it was a little village that the government displaced in order to build everything for the olympics. a little messed up if you ask me. we saw where the athletes stayed and everything. then we got to walk around for about an hour. we mostly just saw the bird's nest and the swimming cube. which were SO cool. it looked really different in person than it did on tv. it was kinda eerie cus it was a little bit of a ghost town. i thought there would still be people selling olympic t-shirts and stuff, but there wasn't anyone there. but it was really cool to see. after that we got back in our van and headed back to the city for a hutong tour. hutong is a word for narrow streets in chinese. so we basically took rickshaws around these alleys. it was pretty cool seeing how average chinese people live. we got to see a local person's house. then we went to the drum tower and watched the reenactment of what it was used for. after that we got back in our vans and went back to the hotel where we dropped our stuff, got ready, then went to the acrobatics show. i thought the kung fu show was crazy. i was wrong. they did some crazy things at the acrobatics one... like fit 10 people on a single bicycle. pretty sure the whole show was made of all the rejects from the chinese olympic gymnastics team. it was pretty awesome. after the show, we walked forever to find the hard rock beijing. because what's more authentic than that?? but beijing was SO spread out. it was the first city we've been to that we couldn't walk everywhere. we got there like an hour later and there was a huge wait. reid and i stayed and shared a club sandwich at the bar, had a drink, then met up with everybody back at the hotel. the hard rock was really cool. i wanted to get a tshirt but they were $30! outrageous. back at the hotel we all got on computers, ipads, iphones... any and all wifi enabled devices for a while. then we went to the convenience store next door and got some beers. ali, reid, and alyssa ended up going out that night but the rest of us decided to stay in. it was a long day, so i just  showered and went to sleep.

the next morning, audrey, reid, and i woke up early and climbed this hill that was next to our hotel. it was seriously the weirdest thing though. it was this man-made hill with these buildings at the top. but it was surrounded by a park and there were seriously hundreds of senior citizens dancing, doing tai chi, chanting. literally the strangest like 20 minutes of my life. audrey & i tried to figure out why they were chanting, but we couldn't figure it out. so we climbed to the top and there was the most amazing views of the entire forbidden city as well as some of the beijing skyline. we took some pictures, then headed back to the hotel to eat breakfast before we had to check out. this was sightseeing day for us. we left the hotel around 9:30 and headed to tiananmen square. it was really cool... and super strange because our guide had absolutely no knowledge of what we think of when we hear "tiananmen square." but that's communism for you. this was the first time there were a bunch of tourists anywhere. but it was weird cus it was like ALL chinese tourists... we were pretty much the only white people we saw there. so we walked around a little, then our guide was like "wanna see mao?" as in mao zedong. the founder of the people's republic of china. so we were like "uh, yeah?" so we went and stood in line, entered mao's mausoleum and legit saw mao's body. like, i saw mao. i can officially cross "see a dead body" off my bucket list. and i know mao's been dead for like 40 years. but they froze him like austin powers. pretty sure they did the same thing with lenin. shit's crazy. so after that little adventure, we walked to the forbidden city. it was cool, but not mind-blowing. it kind of all looked the same. once we finally made it to the end (that place was huge), we went and had a delicious chinese lunch. after lunch, we headed to the summer palace. it was really pretty there. we took a dragon boat ride across the lake. reid thought it was romantic. we walked around for a little bit, and we actually ran into the german guy we met on the first day. after we walked across the bridge and saw the island, we headed back and it was time to head to the train station. tony, our guide, bought us all kfc (sidenote: i've seen kfc in every single country we've been to! wayyy more global than mcdonalds or starbucks, which is really surprising to me). so after we ate, we headed to the train station to catch our overnight train to xi'an. it was sad leaving tony, our guide. he was pretty awesome. but we got on the train without a hitch. only bad thing was that reid was 6 cars away from the rest of us. but he still hung out and partied with us all night. cus we can't waste a night of partying just because we're on a sleeper train. "beer man" loved us that night cus i'm pretty sure we were the only ones buying. he kept trying to hang out in our cabin with us, but he didn't speak any english which was kind of a buzz kill. so we had a ton of beers and hung out for a while. we eventually went to bed. the trains were SO much nicer than they were in india. i could literally live on one of these trains, it was so nice. (in hindsight, it probably wasn't even that nice. but in comparison to india, it was the ritz).

our train arrived in xi'an around 7 the next morning. our guide melissa was waiting for us right on the platform. we rallied the troops then made our way to our van. first stop, terracotta warriors. i can't remember when or why i learned about the terracotta warriors. maybe ap world history sophomore year of high school? but i do know i've been obsessed with them (or the idea of them) for quite some time. holy shit. the pictures online and in books do NOT do them justice in any way, shape, or form. we're afraid of the chinese taking over the world now. i think it's totally justified... just look at what they managed to pull off like 2000 years ago. impressive shit. we saw 3 pits of warriors there, as well as these bronze statues which were cool. after the warriors, we went to the city wall. it was freezing at this point, and it was nothing in comparison to the great wall. so that was kind of a buzz kill. but we did go to the fung shui museum which was pretty cool. learned how to properly "pet a dragon" (no sexual innuendos you nasty people) for good luck. i figured i could use whatever luck they wanted to throw at me. after the wall we went to the muslim quarter. there are 6000 muslims who live in xi'an which i thought was pretty interesting. we walked through there for a while. it was pretty much just alleyways where people were selling souvenirs and knockoffs. but i spent the best single dollar of my life there. as we were walking through the markets, alyssa and i spotted a bin of dvds. not very exciting as we'd already seen pirated dvds in vietnam. but what did we find? harry potter 7 part 2. the guy wanted $30 for it... i bargained him down to $1. that's called skill. but then once i bought it i was like "wait, this for sure does not work if he's going to sell it to me for a dollar." but we got it for the train ride cus we had another overnight train that night. after walking through the markets for a while, we stopped at starbucks to get some coffee and food for the train. then it was time to head to the train station to catch another overnight train to shanghai. two overnight trains in a row. winners. this time was better though because we were all in the same car. 4 people in one cabin and 3 in the other. we didn't party as hard this time because the beer man on that train was a slacker and only came by like every hour. but fruit lady was on her game so we bought like a billion bananas. biggest buzz kill of the train ride was that everybody's computers were dead. and the outlets in both our cabins didn't work. aka we couldn't watch harry potter. reid had 20% power left on his so we attempted to watch it. SURPRISE the dvd actually worked. literally the best dollar i've ever spent. so we got to watch the ending and reid's computer died just as the credits started to roll. it was meant to be. and it was SO fitting watching harry potter while on a sleeper overnight train. it was so fun. we stayed up for a bit doing literally nothing. then we crashed.

our train was a little late arriving to shanghai. but we met our guide/van and they took us right to the ship. i don't know why, but we had to surrender our passports when we got on the ship and we couldn't leave again until customs/immigration checked them. we had already gone through customs when we got to the beijing airport, but oh well. so we showered, got ready, then once our passports were ready ali, brenna, alyssa, audrey, reid, and i got off the ship together to go explore shanghai. we walked around the bund for a while, which is just another work for the waterfront. the most amazing views of the shanghai skyline EVER! americans fear that china is going to take over the world. um, after seeing shanghai i can officially report that they most definitely will. for sure in my lifetime. some of the gnarliest highrises ever! and the architecture was out of control. we walked along the bund for a while and saw the french quarter which looked a lot like montreal. it was really pretty. then we took the sightseeing tunnel under the river to "new shanghai." it was the craziest tunnel ride ever. it was like a little pod that we were in going through a lightshow. i've never done acid, but i'm pretty positive that's what it's like. insane. we got to the other side and walked to the pearl tower. reid wanted to go up, but it was $20 and nobody wanted to spend that much money. so we walked to this restaurant called seagull that this lifelong learner maddie recommended we go to. it was really good, but it was really strange. it was in like a banquet hall, but it was a restaurant. kind of weird. but it was a good last chinese meal. after that we took the tunnel back to the old side and walked to old town. more markets and souvenirs. but we stumbled upon this really awesome temple. it was daoist, and could be the coolest temple i've been to on this voyage. after the temple we found a mall. we went to h&m to shop. i purposely left my credit card on the ship when i left in the morning so i wouldn't spend anymore money but i'm SO pissed cus i found the jacket that i've been looking for for like 9 months. urghhh!!! after that, we took taxi's to a different mall. reid made friends with some guy at a donut shop that told us about this mall. turns out the mall was all high end designer brands. as much as i love louis vuitton, i'm not really on that level at this point. and we got split up since we had to take two taxis. so it ended up being me, audrey, and alyssa. we found the coolest apple store ever so we went and played. it was like underground and we played with the ipads and stuff for a while. then we went to the nike store, where there were NO nike shorts. total let down. then we went to starbucks one last time before we had to go back to the ship. made it back to the ship on time for the new onship time. apparently they changed on-ship time to 5pm tonight... without telling anybody. good thing we decided to come back at 4:45. sas is so annoying sometimes.

other things about china... it was pretty cold the whole time. i loved it though. it finally felt like fall. and it was a nice change of pace from these countries where it was like 100% humidity all the time. so i wore jeans, a tshirt, and rainbows the first day. pretty sure i have a cold now, but it was definitely worth it. china was an amazing country. definitely need to come back to hong kong and shanghai. i'm pleasantly surprised how much i love asia so far. maybe i never really thought of asia cus it was so fashionable to care about africa in high school. but asia is definitely where it's at. plus, i feel like i should like asia if china is going to own the world here pretty soon. oh and people were seriously paparazzi-ing us all week. and they weren't even sneaky about it. they would literally just stand there and take a picture of our group without asking. like i understood that in ghana when we were literally the first white people some locals had ever seen. but china!? tourists come here all the time. i mean, it's happened in every country so far. i just don't know why it was so out of control in china. whatevs.

anyways, brewer & i just reunited and had dinner. we sat outside even though it was raining because the skyline was so cool lit up at night. we just got our laundry together too and put it outside. we haven't had laundry since after india, so it'll be nice to get some clean clothes. now we're about to watch mamma mia! maddy's parents came to china for the parents' trip and so obvs we made them bring us mamma mia. it's going to be pure magic!

alright well... japan in 2 days! so crazy. miss you guys! hope you all are loving life just as much as i am right now. love love love.

blobbity blob blob blob

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 (11:56pm) - South China Sea

okay i don't really have anything new to tell you guys. just thought you should know that i'll be in china starting tomorrow until the 8th. got big plans and i'm really excited. so look forward to some more wonderful adventures.

in other news, how did it get to be november already!? so crazy. i only have china, japan, hawaii, costa rica, and guatamala left. like, what?? but i'm pretty ready to come home to all you guys. i miss you all too much.

oh and we moved our clocks ahead again last night so we're back to being 15 hours ahead of pacific time. i don't think i mentioned that we got to move our clocks BACK before we got to vietnam, so we gained an hour of sleep that night which was amazing. but now we're back to 15 hours. just waiting until we cross the international date line so we'll be behind you guys in time. that'll be crazy.

and lastly, the seas have been super rough ever since we left vietnam. it hasn't been this rough in a really long time, so everybody's getting seasick again. you'd think we'd be used to this by now, but i guess not. i'm not feeling so hot right now, but i have to suck it up and pack. which totally blows cus i absolutely hate packing in the first place! but i get to use my new backpack, so that'll be exciting. and it's supposed to be really cold in beijing so i'm kind of excited for that! it's been deathly hot in every single country so far, so it'll be a good change of pace, i think. but i know i'll just be complaining the whole time about how cold it is. diva this, diva that.

okay well i gotta go pack now! china, here i come!

love love love.