Japan

We arrived in Japan the morning of the 11^th to a torrential downpour and biting wind. That, combined with my combination pack of illnesses, meant that the absolute last thing I wanted to do was leave the boat. Japan doesn’t look bad from the boat, after all. But I begrudgingly left my warm bed and ventured out into Kobe. It became immediately apparent that this would not be like most of our other port experiences. I’m pretty sure if the statistic was kept, Japan would hold the record for “Most Suits per Square Kilometer.” The people are well-dressed, the streets are spotless and, most shocking of all, there is nobody trying to sell you anything. What is this land that God himself created?! The first stop was an ATM, which proved to be harder than anyone expected since most Japanese ATMs don’t accept American credit cards. But true to Asian form, everyone around us was willing to help, even if they didn’t speak a word of English. After acquiring currency, my friend Nichole and I went and got a lunch of Kobe beef (you’re only in Japan once right? Sorry mom…) and let me tell you, it was absolutely, 100% worth it. The meat was so tender you could press it against the top of your mouth with your tongue to cut it. Yeah. Plus we were the only ones in the restaurant so we had our own personal waiter and chef. The only hitch in the afternoon was that we didn’t know we had to specifically ask for the check, so we were left waiting as the waiter and the chef went and had lunch. But we figured it out and he even threw in a free package of napkins for good measure.

            After lunch we toured an old sake brewery, another of Kobe’s famous consumables. I’m not a huge fan of sake (it tastes kind of like a mix of vodka and white wine…hmmm…) but it was cool to see. Plus the subway was an adventure as most of the signs were not in English. In contrast to China, very little in Japan was translated, which we were told was because most of the tourism in Japan is from people from other parts of Japan. But we made it and upon returning, set out to find an internet café. First we went to Starbucks, but since nothing in Japan is free, they didn’t have free wi-fi. So we spent the next 2 hours wandering around Kobe looking a whole lot like lost tourists. Eventually we found a “comic café” on the top floor of an arcade. Once again the cashier spoke NO English but we tried to communicate the best we could. Eventually he led us to little boxes with cushions/mattresses and pillows, along with a TV and a computer. Apparently these booths can serve as anything from places to sleep for a few hours to places to go use the internet to places to do…other things. Wish I had known that beforehand.

            The next day I took a tour to Hiroshima, which consisted of a 5 hour bus ride split by breaks and several rest stops along the way. These are not your mother’s old rest stops. One vending machine served coffee and actually had cameras inside and a TV outside so you could watch your coffee being made. The bathrooms had monitors on the doors alerting you as to which were occupied. You could choose which MUSIC you wanted your toilet to flush to. There were vending machines selling absolutely everything you could ever need (a common theme in Japan.) Once we got to Hiroshima, we started at the “A-Bomb Dome,” the iconic steel skeleton of a building that stood right under the detonation point. Continuing, we saw the Peace Memorial Park and the museum. I was curious to see how it compared to the Museum of American Atrocit-sorry, War Remenants Museum, since we were the enemy in both cases, and I have to say I was surprised. The whole bottom floor of the museum was dedicated only to facts about the event and the efforts of both sides to reach peace. No propaganda, no anti-Americanism. Just a push for peace and the end to nuclear weapons. On the top floor there was an exhibit about how nuclear weapons work as well as a heavy exhibit with survivor’s accounts of the day that brought tears to many people’s eyes. Exiting the museum leaves you directly in the middle of the park…it was one of the best museums I’ve been to. I was also amazed at how beautiful Hiroshima was. There are parks everywhere, the city is backed by mountains, a lovely river runs through the middle of it…quite a change from a city that was completely decimated. There’s only one thing the residents of Hiroshima are more adamant about than the beauty of their city, and that’s the end of nuclear war. We took the bullet train back which felt like riding on the wings of angels after the joys that were the Moroccan and Indian rail systems.

            That night 6 of us took a sleeper bus to Tokyo since the ship was traveling to the new port of Yokohama. Sleeper bus is a bit of an exaggeration though…it was more of a regular bus that happened to be traveling at night. I was lucky and happened to be the first one to book my seat and so was automatically seated behind the bulkhead, giving me substantial leg room. Others were not so lucky. However, we arrived safely at Tokyo Disneyland the next day, the happiest (and most crowded) place on Earth. The lines for rides weren’t that long though…at least not compared to the lines to get into the stores. There was a line three HOURS long just to get into Donald Duck’s Emporium. Needless to say we were very confused.

            Reminder #2 that we were in Japan came later in the day, when I was informed that I was too tall to ride on one of the rides (Japan is not built for people of my stature.) I said that was fine and my friends went on while I went to find a place to sit down, at which point the ride operator, a tiny Japanese girl, came running up to me and said (as best she could) “I’m very sorry. I feel really bad. Please enjoy our other attractions. I’m also sorry I don’t speak English.” I tried to tell her that I should be the one speaking Japanese but that might have gotten lost in translation. But that just goes to show how accommodating the Japanese can be. It was alright though, I spent my time taking pictures of people taking pictures of people posing with the peace sign in front of the ride entrance. I hit 30 and began to run out of space on my camera. One highlight of the day was the Indiana Jones right, in which we went on a high-speed, danger-filled adventure while Indiana Jones yelled things at us…in Japanese. I’m sure he was saying helpful things.

            The next day we tried our hand at the 42-line Tokyo subway system which was spotlessly clean and had flatscreen monitors in each car that helpfully announced each stop in Japanese and English. We made it to Shinjuku, the “skyscraper district,” and went up to the observatory on the 42^nd floor of the TMG building (did I mention it was FREE??) After that we ventured down to Harajuku, the crazy fashion district. And let me tell you, it was pretty crazy. Japanese girls dressed head to toe in Hello Kitty, or dressed as Santa Claus, or wearing foot-high platform boots. One item in particular I would like to see in the states is a combination wool hat and attached mittens. That’s right, it looks like really long strings on the side of the hat, but they are actually mittens on the end! They’ve thought of everything. We hopped back on the subway at rush hour, hoping that we could experience the men hired to push people into the subway cars. Alas, it was not quite crowded enough and thus we had to push ourselves. We went to Shibuya, home of Shibuya crossing, the iconic intersection that undoubtedly comes up when you google Tokyo. It was a lot like Times Square in New York City but…Asian? It was also here that we met Del, who noticed my Denver t-shirt and told us that he just moved to Japan from his place on the corner of University and Evans. If there’s one thing you can count on with Semester at Sea, it’s that the world gets smaller every single day.

            The morning of our final day we went to the amusement park in Yokohama and walked around the waterfront. For some reason it felt a lot like LoDo, with some brick buildings, low rises and clean, uncrowded streets. Unsuccessful in finding sushi for lunch, we ate back at the ship. At this point my illness was really taking its toll on me and I was getting really grumpy and decided I needed to get away for a little while. I took a walk up to the hill in Yokohama where there was a beautiful park and a free zoo. The zoo wasn’t all that exciting (did I mention it was FREE??) but it did have two adorable red pandas and you couldn’t even really hear the noise from Japan’s second-largest city. Refreshed and ready for the 9-day voyage to Hawaii, I boarded the ship still feeling like shit but with a smile on my face.

China

The title of this blog actually should be “Hong Kong,” followed by a separate blog for “China,” since Hong Kong is technically a SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China…I don’t understand it either. Don’t bother googling it, it won’t help. Anyway, we pulled into Hong Kong amid the most densely-packed skyscrapers I’ve seen in quite some time. I love cities so it already started the Parent Trip out on the right foot for me. As we pulled in I saw my mom, the tallest woman in the whole group. She’ll deny it…it’s true. She boarded the boat and we did a brief tour as the sun tried to poke its head out for us. Our first activity was taking the tram up Victoria Hill for the iconic view of HK and Kowloon that comes up whenever you google Hong Kong. I could already tell this country would be a whole new breed when, upon arrival, we were greeted by a Starbucks and a Burger King instead of hawkers. After inhaling a deep breath and the accompanying smell of globalization at its finest, we traveled back down the hill and over to a fishing village, but only if in this case “fishing” means “shopping.” Seriously, it was just a market.

            Our next stop was a harbor, where we took a traditional Chinese boat around all the fishing boats, house boats and multi-million dollar yachts. We passed a particularly interesting building with a hole built through the middle of it. Our tour guide informed us that…well, I’m not quite sure what she said. But it was something about how the residents want to keep the dragon happy. Or the dragon would hit the building if it didn’t have a hole. I’m not sure. I still don’t know if this dragon is metaphorical or not but that’s ok. Our evening concluded with a booze cruise around HK Harbor (what my mom described as a “Nighttime cruise.”) After that we stuck around for the laser light show that happens every night. It’s even choreographed to music. How cool does that sound!? It wasn’t. But we did stumble on what looked like China’s American Idol. We got dinner at “Peking Garden,” home of the famous 11-course meal. I stuck to deep-fried chicken (can I get a hallelujah!) and beer. Maybe that wasn’t enough because when it came time to get the check, we became invisible. Seriously, I’m 6’7” and we were in China. I know he saw us. So 30 minutes later we paid our bill and went on our merry way.

            We flew to Beijing the next day where our first activity was hiking on some little stone fence. Yawn. No seriously, it was SO cool. No pictures can ever realistically portray just how huge this thing is. Plus my mom got her first experience bartering…well I bartered and she mostly watched, but it’s true that it is really intimidating. The next one was about half me and half her, and by the end she got two purses all by herself! They grow up so fast… I’m also going to take this opportunity to share with you the first of two AWESOME English translations…it was on a customized car and the back window read:

“To every way For showing your dignity We have tuned up all parts of the car in a supreme ways. U who respect the value of LUXURY are the genuine VIPs. “Your Free Style”, We’re trying to make your dignity more LUXURIOUS.”

            We also visited the Temple of Heaven, where we got to do Tai Chi, as well as toured the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, which was probably my favorite part (and NOT just because I have to write a paper about it.) We also had the opportunity to see a Chinese acrobatics show which absolutely BLEW. MY. MIND. Ask me to show you the videos some time. Another highlight was the Oriental Pearl Market, which did have pearls but really should have been called the Oriental Knockoff and Cheap Electronics Market. It was here that I bartered for a pair of Beats by Dre headphones for $30 (retail in the US ~$300). Here’s the catch…it was with a pregnant lady. She was actually really nice and we exchanged some banter before settling on a price but I still can’t help but feel like there’s a special level of hell reserved for people who barter with pregnant women. We also saw the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest from the Beijing Olympics before we left for Xi’an.

            After flying to Xi’an we saw the Terra Cotta Warriors, an impressive display of an emperor having a huge ego (a common theme in China.) We also walked on the Xi’an wall, which survives from the time when every city in China had a protective wall around it. We thought we were going to continue our adventure to Shanghai but the pilot (or maybe the plane) had other plans. My mom’s description pretty much sums it up…we began to thunder down the runway when all of a sudden the pilot threw the flaps up and hit the brakes before swerving off the runway. After awhile in the airport we were shuttled to our hotelshack. The toilets didn’t really work, the beds were rock solid, and the TV couldn’t be resuscitated. This is also where we encountered the second AWESOME translation on a laundry card:

 “Guest of Respect, Hou do you do! If you need to do laundry to pleases to pack the clothes in to do laundry bag and put on the baggage cabinet. This does laundry bag to belong to guest house repeated usage, if you purchase conduct and actions memorial, please with 8100 or 8140 guest room service counter contact.”

 I’m not sure what the relationship is between laundry and memorials but I’m not sure I want to find out.

I skipped breakfast the next morning and we went back to the Xi'an airport for our flight to Shanghai, take two. I was really disappointed I missed all that Shanghai had to offer, but we still got the best views in the city on our exit (one of the benefits of being on a ship.) My mother returned home safely though with a nice souvenir that she transferred to me. I’m just now recovering from my battle with pneumonia and bronchitis but I wasn’t about to let that affect my plans for Japan. Speaking of Japan…

Vietnam

Well boys and girls, it’s official. I’ve put it off long enough. I’ve run out of excuses. No longer can I blame it on only having 2 days between ports or having too much to do. Even my mother has posted on my blog more recently than I have. So, without further ado, here it is.

To reach Ho Chi Minh City (some of you fossils might remember it as Saigon) we had to travel about 3 hours up a river, strategically planned to occur at high tide or else we could have gotten stuck. I’m pretty sure the pilot was either really angry or just an adrenaline junkie because we did the equivalent of an e-brake parallel park right behind an oil tanker. I’m not kidding, this dude didn’t ease off the throttle at all. We missed the ship by about 10 feet which, in boating terms, is slightly more than the width of a hair. Upon arrival we were greeted by a group of Vietnamese women in traditional garb with a sign that said “Semester at Sea Welcome to Vietnam.” After touring the city for a bit, John and I decided to visit the War Remnants Museum (formerly the Museum of American Atrocities…that should give you an idea of the two-sided nature of the information…) To get there, we hopped on the back of two motorcycles and paid the guys a buck each for a nice open-air jaunt through the city streets…and some of the sidewalks too.

            The museum was…heavy. Parts were cool (several restored tanks, howitzers, gunships and fighter jets), parts were shocking (the exhibit on Agent Orange, which was staffed by volunteers with disabilities from the chemical), and parts were angering. At the same time, though, it was hard not to feel like the enemy. There were a lot of Europeans there (this would become a theme) and it was hard to think that they weren’t looking down on us just a little bit, as we both stood in front of a picture of an American soldier carrying the torso of a Vietnamese fighter and nothing else.

            We needed a pick-me-up after the museum, which in this case meant a trip around the city crossing every street we could find. Now let me explain…crossing the street in Vietnam is not like crossing the street anywhere else in the world. First of all, it is referred to as the “Motorcycle Capital of the World.” Also, there are few to no crosswalks. So the strategy is this: start walking at a slow but sustained pace. Most of them will go around you. Yes, most. There’s this fun little thing called the Saigon Kiss that happens when the muffler of a bike burns you on the way past. Anyway, John and I turned this into a game (for the sake of my mom and my girlfriend, this is why I waited awhile to write this post) and found the busiest intersections we possibly could and took videos. Ah, fun the Vietnamese way.

            My flight for Cambodia left the next day and before long we were on our way to dinner, which included a traditional Cambodian dance show. If you’ve ever been to Hawaii, it was similar to those luaus that many hotels do, with buffet-style food and a “cultural” show. That was the point when I realized just how many Europeans travel to SE Asia. Maybe they’re on to something? The next morning we toured Angkor Wat at sunrise, along with the rest of Cambodia. Honestly it was not quite as spectacular as the Taj Mahal at sunrise, but the colors of the sky were far superior. It was also difficult getting a picture without a thousand people in it, but that’s when being 6’7” comes in handy. After Angkor Wat, we traveled to several different temples in the area, including one often referred to as the “Tomb Raider Temple” for the huge trees whose roots have weaved in and out of the walls and towers. One thing we found interesting was how much freedom visitors were given…security was nowhere to be found. We were free to climb and touch anything we damn well pleased. No way would that happen in the states. This was also the place where we dubbed Cambodia “The Land of the…Dollar?” in reference to EVERYTHING costing $1. Beads, shirts, books…$1. Another interesting tidbit…American dollars are the unofficial currency of Cambodia. The official currency is the Rial, but Cambodian ATMs dispense USDs. The customs officials require USDs to obtain a Visa. And, of course, hawkers on the street prefer …well, USD's. But expect to get your change back in Rial. Wait, what?

            In the afternoon we went back to Angkor Wat for the official tour, and we arrived to a torrential downpour. No matter, you only get one chance to visit the most spectacular temple in the world, so we marched on. It actually drove many away, so it was less crowded than the morning sesh. The rain had also cooled the stifling heat, despite adding to the already-oppressive humidity. The temple was beautiful, and the views from the top tower were breath-taking. One of the highlights was a room that didn’t echo for a shout, a hand-clap or a foot-stomp, but reverberated like a drum when the chest was hit. This was because the ancient cultures in Cambodia believed that hitting the chest released negative emotions…don’t ask me how they built it. It’s definitely something that must be heard to be believed.

            On our final day in Cambodia we visited the Cambodian Landmine Museum, which was started by one man who has singlehandedly unearthed 50,000 mines. It is now run by an American Vietnam War vet and has also turned into an orphanage for children who have lost parents to landmines. In the States we have no reason to think about landmines, but there are still hundreds of thousands in Cambodia and Vietnam. Children still get blown up almost daily walking to school through the jungle. It’s hard to believe that the government, any government, would allow this to happen. But I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore… That afternoon we toured a floating village on Tonley Sap lake, which required a 2-hour bus ride through flooded dirt roads to get to. But it was worth it, as we motored through a floating basketball court, a floating club complete with thumping music, and even an alligator farm. All the while little boys in boats with their fathers would pull up alongside ours with boxes of canned beverages to sell before hopping back onto their boat. One child even hopped on and started giving back massages. He made $2 which doesn’t sound like a lot until you realize that the average income for an adult in Cambodia is $50/month. After arriving back on shore we were greeted by people trying to sell us dinner plates with our faces on them. Some were persuaded into buying only to realize they were just stickers placed on the plates. And they cost $3. Suckers.

            Back in ‘Nam we decided to ascend to the 49^th floor of the tallest tower, the Bitexco Financial Tower, for sprawling views of the city.  We were the only ones up there (it had just opened for the morning) so we each got our own Vietnamese tour guide who told us all about the new tunnel and the market in what can only be described as a step below broken English. But they reflected the hospitality that we had become used to in Vietnam. Never in my life have I visited a country where every single person I meet is as nice as they were in Vietnam. Even in the market I accidently hit a stack of tea cups with my backpack and out of nowhere came three Vietnamese men to catch all the cups I couldn’t get before helping me stack them all back up again. I feel like in America, they would have stared at me and said “sucks to be you, kid.” But maybe I’m a cynic.

            That afternoon we went to the Saigon Zoo, simultaneously one of the shittiest and greatest zoos I’ve ever visited in my life. The cages were bare, the smell was awful, and the animals could not stop doing awesome things! I fed an elephant a stalk of sugar cane, watched lions have sex, saw the fattest bear to have ever lived and got a water bottle thrown at me by an agitated chimpanzee. By far the best 60 cents I’ve spent in quite some time. Even though the ship left the next morning (the tides again), we had to be on-board that night but I wished we could have stayed in Vietnam even longer. I was incredibly surprised how much I enjoyed it. I think many of my negative feelings stemmed from how everything we know relates to the War, but it really is a beautiful country full of beautiful people. I would recommend it to absolutely anybody.

Greetings from exotic......Castle Rock, Colorado!

Alright, alright. I know you are all disappointed. You saw that Trevor had updated his blog, you've been waiting for weeks, and it turns out to be from his mom! Hope I don't disappoint you with MY recollections of China. Trevor is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and will be updating his entries for Vietnam, China and Japan soon. In the meantime he has graciously given me permission to hack his blog.

I arrived in Hong Kong a couple of days before the official start of the "Semester at Sea Parents Trip", and puttered around the city on my own. I took a subway and was literally the only non-Asian in sight, which shocked me in such an international city. The subway was so easy to use, cheap, and all the signs in HK are in Chinese and English. I wandered through a few markets, but couldn't bring myself to barter with them. Met with the other parents (about 50) the next morning and we took a tour to see the world's largest outdoor Buddha, and a fishing village on stilts. The highlight of the day was a delicious 11 course dinner at a fine HK restaurant. If I'd only known that this food was NOT typical of what was to come, I would have stuffed it in my cheeks for later in the trip, like a hamster. On the third day the MV Explorer, Trevor's 1,000 passenger cruise ship, pulled in to dock.  Tears were flowing freely as we were all trying to pick our world travelers out of the line-up along the railing, . Of course, I didn't have any trouble picking out Trevor. He took me on a brief tour of  his home-away-from-home, and it's quite an impressive ship. We all toured HK Island and saw the stunning views of HK and Kowloon. Our evening ended with a nighttime tour of HK harbor on a traditional Chinese junk - the lights are like no other city I've ever seen! HK is a much more intimate city than I expected for a population of 7 million. It's quite clean and easy to navigate. I never felt unsafe. I think the only downsides were the smells (fishy mostly) and the crowds (always shoulder to shoulder), which was actually true throughout China.

The group of 80 (parents plus kids) flew to Beijing, where we navigated a section of the Great Wall, saw the Empress Cixi's Summer Palace Gardens and trooped through the Forbidden Palace and Tiananmen Square. I think my favorite experience, though, was performing Tai Chi under the guidance of a Master in the Temple of Heaven Park. The looks on the locals' faces when they stopped to watch....no, make that stare at us, were priceless. Picture it - 80 clueless Americans, arms and legs flailing about. But the atmosphere in the park was very special. There were families singing, dancing, women knitting, old men playing cards and mahjong. I feel like we saw a small slice of authentic Chinese life.

Flew from Beijing to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Very impressive in person. Hard to imagine someone crafting 8,000 of those life-sized soldiers, not to mention piecing them together from the crumbled state they were found in . Trevor had to restrain me from purchasing a life-sized replica to stand sentinel at my front door here in Castle Rock (just kidding). So, every trip has a "story", right? Well, our story began as we were hurdling down the runway for our late night flight to Shanghai, when the captain suddenly (and quite frighteningly) aborted the take-off. Apparently a light came on in the instrument panel that he didn't like the looks of. After sitting on the tarmac for a couple of hours, they cancelled the flight and sent us to a Chinese hotel. Oh my goodness, what an experience. Hard to describe, but imagine the most fleabag motel you've ever stayed at in the U.S.....times two! The breakfast buffet in the morning (after a mostly sleepless night worrying about bedbugs) was pure Chinese - cold noodles, broth, sticky sweet rice, gristly mystery meat, pickled vegetables and hot Tang (remember Tang from your childhood?). And they only had chopsticks, which despite all my efforts during the trip, I had not learned to manipulate. Anyway, it was a story.

On to Shanghai. Unfortunately because of our equipment failure in Xi'an, the students had to go straight to the ship instead of being able to explore Shanghai. We said our teary-eyed goodbyes and made our way to our hotel, from which we watched the MV Explorer pull out of its berth and head for Japan. About this time, I was feeling a tightness in my chest, along with many other parents on our bus. Spent the last day of the trip with a sightseeing trip to Zhujiajiao (also know as the Venice of the east for it's canals and bridges), shopping and enjoying a very nice farewell reception at a fine Shanghai restaurant. Woke up on departure day with a fever and full-blown cold/flu symptoms, wondering how I was going to survive the long flight home. I felt so sorry for the people around me on the plane - I was "one of those people", hacking and blowing my nose every 5 mins. Sara picked me up at the airport and suggested perhaps I had SARS (haha, very funny Sara). Went to bed and woke up much worse. Very kind neighbors took me to the hospital, just to be sure it wasn't SARS and it wasn't....it was pneumonia. Turns out Trevor has it too. So, here I am back home after 3 days in the hospital. Not exactly the ending I wanted to my fantastic adventure to China, but thankful I contracted it towards the very end of the trip.

All in all, a great trip. Trevor and I laughed a lot, especially at the English translations of most signs in China. One would think that they could hire an English-speaking person to translate their signs, but I guess they haven't thought of that yet. The food overall ranged from "hmmmmm...what do you think it is?" to "tastes like chicken" to "EEWWWW!". Don't go to China for the food....just sayin'. Having been a "budget" traveler all my life, I was in awe of the western-style hotels we stayed in. Luxurious hardly begins to describe them. I think I might have starved to death if we hadn't had breakfast buffets at all the hotels, complete with waffles, smoothies, made to order omelets, just about any food you could imagine. The shopping was fabulous, once I had Trevor (my bargaining expert) teach me how to "negotiate". You  just have to be willing to walk away and 9 times out of 10, they will come running back to you with a lower offer. I was very nervous the first time I had to play hardball for a T-shirt, but I ended up getting it for $2 (instead of $18 that they started with) and learned to appreciate the "art" of negotiating. I actually got quite good at it by Shanghai, where a couple of other moms and I were taken down a back alley to a secret room of knock-off luggage and I bought a Gucci carry-on for $25. I'm sure Trevor would have been proud. I'm also sure that he would have gotten it for $15.