china, day two

30 march 2009
day two - en route to beijing

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"you must be swift as a coursing river,
with all the force of a great typhoon,
with all the strength of a raging fire,
mysterious as the dark side of the moon."
-mulan

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as promised, my alarm woke me up far too early for all the fun i'd had the night before. reluctantly i got out of bed and showered. i even dried my hair! it was a great change of pace to be able to wear my hair down and to not have to worry about sweating and having to wear it pulled back.

i packed quickly, focusing on bringing warm clothes. dad wonderfully provided weather forecasts for the beijing area, so i knew it was going to be cold. there was even a chance of snow! i haven't seen any of that since january! packing everything into my backpack, i hoped i'd packed enough warm clothes - leggings, gym pants, sweat pants & all the long sleeves i brought with me. double checking that i had all of my cameras and chargers, i was ready to go!

a quick ship breakfast of french toast and orange juice, and we were ready to go. our group of 13 was assembled and we headed out to meet our guide. kelsey, mckendree, teresa, lisa, jackie, nick, becca, mandi, shannon, colleen, whitney, jackie and myself traipsed through the mall, through the neighboring hotel and awaited our bus in the parking garage nearby. eventually, after learning that our original bus had broken down, a new bus came to pick us up.

the ride to the airport was quiet and i'm not entirely sure how long the ride was; i fell asleep almost instantly. so has become the routine any time a sas kid gets on a bus or train-- we are all instantly asleep! its like driving a baby around in the car; we all talk for a couple of minutes but it doesn't take long for the ipods to come out and our eyes begin to close.

prior to falling asleep i took in the city around me. hong kong was such a tease! i had a great day in the city but would love to spend more time there. according to may and darren, it was rather easy to assimilate and there was plenty of english. i'd love to go back! word had it that mainland china was much different from hong kong, and i was unsure of what to expect.

we arrived at the airport at 1030, and were instantly overwhelmed with the size of the airport. after struggling to keep our group of 13 together (which should have been easy, compared to the other 150 person group that would soon arrive behind us), we checked into our flights. the tour company arranged it so that we did not need to have tickets but that our passports would suffice.

a little more waiting and we made our way to the gate. the entire airport was huge-- most certainly the largest airport i've ever seen, with 80 gates!-- but it was incredibly calm. being an international flight, i expected it to be a stressful trip through security. i did not feel rushed, anxious or stressed as i usually do when waiting to go through security. the lines moved quickly and we were soon waiting for the train to take us to our gate.

after finding gate #6, we were determined to find starbucks. or simply coffee. we left our gate and ventured to the main floor, which was a sprawling mall type setup. there was a significant number of sas kids, all in line at burger king or clustered around computers. weaving through the crowds of people, we failed to locate the familiar green logo of starbucks. about to give up and grab some no-name coffee (heaven forbid, as if starbucks was the end-all, be-all), we found the starbucks. that made for quite the assembly of happy campers.

making it back down to our gate, we had little time to spare before it was time to board. when our flight was called there was a total of about 25-20 semester at sea kids on our plane. we loaded into a large bus and drove out to the airplane, as opposed to boarding via one of those tunnels. we were dropped off right at our plane and boarded via the stairs. luckily teresa and i checked in together, so i knew i'd be sitting with her. she wanted the window, so i had the middle seat. there was a man next to us, though he slept the entire time.

our flight was nearly 4 hours, but included lunch and complimentary drinks. there was also an in-flight movie, though i could not tell you what it was about. teresa and i spent the majority of our time listening to my ipod (the beatles, of course) and chatting away. there were a couple of sas kids in front of us and we helped them with their crossword puzzle. all that practice at the european shoppe, they were impressed with my knowledge of crazy clues.

the flight went smoothly, with not too much turbulence. i got a little nap in, and soon we were landing. the air outside simply looked colder as we touched down in beijing-- no more tropical weather for us! walking through the tunnel to the airport made it clear that jackets and scarves would be necessary if we were to stay comfortable in beijing.

after clearing customs and retrieving our bags, we were greeted by our guide, vincent. we never quite locked down his age, but he looked young. proficient in english and so willing to help, vincent was absolutely vital to our survival in beijing. he was incredibly patient with our tardiness and waited while we all got coffee or visited the 'happy house' (bathroom).

i got a delicious latte at starbucks and spent a few moments talking with a professor about our program. the man was from webster college in st. louis missouri and he was the director of their masters programs abroad. i love talking about semester at sea, so it was fun to talk about our program without a language barrier.

we soon left the airport and headed to our hotel. we had a great purple bus, with enough room for all of our belongings and seats to ourselves. the bus, along with our driver, would be ours for the duration of our stay.

a short drive through the city and we were at the hotel, along with the 150+ other semester at sea students who were using the same tour company. all checked in, we quickly changed and headed out to dinner. we begged vincent to join us, and he led us through the streets to a local restaurant. the walk was chilly! i felt like i was back on the campus of unh, walking to holloway for dinner.

thank goodness for vincent, is all i can say. had he not been at the restaurant, i'm sure we would have ended up with octopus or something. with becca's input, a picture menu and vincent's translations, we ordered nearly 10 dishes. chinese is often eaten family style and served on large lazy susans, to ease the passing of dishes.

some of the dishes, to the best of my memory, were: fried rice, white rice, plain noodles, spicy chicken with peanuts, roasted duck (with the head..), scallion pancakes, tofu soup, eggplant, shrimp, and lots more. all i can tell you is that the food was amazing. and nothing like the chinese food we have at home. the principles are the same, but the preparation is different. i often order lo mein at home and could not find it on any of the menus in beijing. similarly, chicken with broccoli was prepared differently-- more broccoli, less chicken. this seemed to be the theme for most of the meat dishes: heavy on the veggies, light on the meat. which was perfectly fine for me!

i'm sure we were at dinner for nearly 2 hours, just sitting and enjoying each others company. i'm sure we were quite loud in comparison to most of the other guests, so it was fortunate that we had our own private dining room on the second floor. we had a great time with vincent, who was probably confused by most of our humor. he assured us that he was having a great time, and that his tours are generally older people, so he was glad to have people more his age. i suppose that we often forget how unusual it is for students our age to be touring  the countries we've seen. most people on the guided tours are retirees, so a bunch of college students are a rarity.

all in all, our dinner came out to a whopping 7 usd a person, which included wine (which was awful and tasted like grape juice..) and beer. for 14 people, that would never happen anywhere in the states!

eventually we made our way back to the hotel, which i was more than happy to do. we'd had a long day of traveling and a long day of sightseeing ahead of us. i wasn't interested in going out to bars or anything, so i headed back to the hotel. shannon, my roommate and a fellow unh student, and i tried to find an english program on our tv and nearly gave up; until we found the jack nicholson & diane keaton movie, 'somethings gotta give.' it was so odd to watch television in english!

i was soon fast asleep on my rather hard bed. they looked so deceiving! the fluffy white duvet and pillows made it seem as though we'd be sleeping on feather beds. this was not the case, but i was nearly too tired to care.

our wake up calls were set at 730, and we needed to be on the bus by 830 for a full day of sightseeing.

i have always believed..

...we are all more alike than we are different.
-bill nye (the science guy)

05 april 2009
0030 (1230am)

(april 04 2009)
a quiet, sleepy day on the mv explorer. so is now the routine after our asian ports, everyone is exhausted and sleeping whenever possible.

i attended class from 0800-1200 and enjoyed a chilly lunch outside. global studies was interesting today, perhaps because the lectures were about world war 2 and subjects i've previously studied.

i felt as if i was in sophomore history class, learning about mao & the boxer rebellion of china in the early part of the 20th century. we also heard about the battle at midway, when the americans defeated the japanese to gain the strategic island of midway. the lecture was technical, lots of details about carrier ships and destroyers which went over my head. i was impressed, though, with how easy the time line was to follow, as battles are sometimes hard to explain.

after my lunch, i retreated to the room. and i was quite lazy! i typed a portion of a paper for class and have been working on my china blog. it's getting there!

dinner was spent with some of the girls from china, who i hope to spend more time with in the coming weeks. they are fun!

i also copied all of kelsey's photos onto my computer-- she always takes photos when we go out at night, so i needed copies! its so much fun to look through all the photos i've taken (or acquired) since the onset of this trip. it feels like so much time has passed! we all look so different now compared to our terrified faces at the beginning of the voyage.

the majority of my evening was spent watching bride wars with mckendree, kelsey and rennika. after being apart from ren during china, it was like a piece of our little group was missing. we are a little family, its strange when someone is missing. the movie was so funny, though the ending was utterly predictable. yay for bootleg dvds -- no problems yet with any of the ones i got in vietnam.

i am working on plans for japan, hopefully making a day trip to hiroshima with ren. i'm not sure how to go about it but i feel like i need to see it. perhaps a trip on a high speed train?

we lose an hour of sleep tonight, so i'm now THIRTEEN hours ahead of the east coast. this is getting complicated! i wonder what my computer will do when we cross the international date line and have two april 12ths. we'll just have to wait and see!


--

i received some wonderful mail in hong kong and shanghai, from nancy & leicester and home. thank you both for the mail! it's so nice to come back to the room and have a little something waiting for me. i was glad to finally see photos of the new cars and to hear about the happenings at home. i know nancy & leicester are on vacation now, so i hope you two enjoy your time at the beach! hi to marcia, bill, don & matthew! thank you so much for all the love! i appreciate it more than i can say.

china, day one

CHINA
"the earth is what we all have in common."  -wendell berry

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where to start? for inspiration, i'm watching mulan. or maybe i'm watching it because i haven't been able to get the songs out of my head for the duration of my stay in china. or perhaps it's because i was just on the great wall? regardless, i'm enjoying it!

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29 march 2009
day one - hong kong

as day broke on the seas, the familiar rattling of the ship woke me up. i've become accustomed to the shaking as the ship 'hits the brakes.' i can feel when we're pulling into port and always enjoy a bleary-eyed peek out the window at the country we're about to explore. it's a thrilling feeling and no one seems to mind feeling like we're stuck inside of a rattle.

our arrival into hong kong was exciting, though we weren't sure what we'd be doing with the one day that we had in the city. the ship was docked in a mall. yes, in a mall.

the gangway led into the harbor mall, which was filled with expensive western labels. i'm sure we could have found anything in there, though it was easy to get lost. making our way out of the mall, we were able to view the hong kong skyline, along with our beautiful ship.

aside from loving our ship for its purpose, carrying us around the world, i love our ship because it is beautiful. we stand out; the blue, white and orange colors are vivid, often making our neighboring ships look pathetic. perhaps it is because our incredible crew takes such wonderful care of it. at each port the crew touches up paint, varnishes stairs, cleans windows. its simply the prettiest ship out there & we all take such pride in the mv explorer.

technically the ship was moored on kowloon island, meaning that we needed to take a ferry, a bridge or tunnel to the main island.

in search of an atm, as is the usual when we first disembark, we stopped to take photos of our aforementioned pretty ship. the locals were doing the same, which was odd to see. we found a long line at the atm and decided to take the star ferry over to the main island, where lines would be shorter.

the star ferry was fun, and only cost about 25 cents. a little ferry boat, packed with locals, we got quite the stares. the ferry let out into another mall area, and we found the atm we'd been looking for. we then found our way onto the local bus, heading towards stanley market.

the bus ride, which cost 7.90 kong kong dollars (1 usd), was pretty much a grand tour of the city. being an island, and a hilly one at that, the ride to the market was like a roller coaster ride.

from hilltop sky rises that pierced the sky, to lush green fields and beautiful coastlines; our whirlwind drive around hong kong was a great time. i've never been to san francisco, but i imagine that the hills of hong kong are similar. the double-decker bus sped around tight corners, knocking into tree branches. from the top deck we had a great view and a wonderful taste of the city. i had no idea what to expect and hong kong was a great treat.

after riding the bus around nearly the entire island, we arrived at stanley market. a definite tourist stop, the streets were crowded with all forms of travelers. from aussies to brits, there was a significant amount of english spoken in the narrow alleys.

in search of fake goods at low prices, we ducked into small shops but were soon overwhelmed. opting to eat lunch before jumping headfirst into the stalls, we found a great dim sum restaurant. teresa, bill and i enjoyed a great lunch of noodles, dumplings and fried rice.

after lunch began our adventure into the depths of the market. from fake jackets, bags and t-shirts, there was a little bit of everything packed into those streets. there were shops filled with pearls, it was hard not to buy up the entire stall of earrings, necklaces and bracelets.

i was mesmerized by the handmade stamps and chinese calligraphy, i wanted to buy them all. there were stalls littering the streets, filled with stone stamps waiting to be etched with characters.

after walking through the streets and feeling positively overwhelmed, i was ready to leave. i didn't buy anything but enjoyed the experience. we also saw a football player, i think. i know that the boys we were with were quite excited. i think his name was eddie george, and all i know was that he was big and tall and wearing a nike sweatsuit. clearly i'm not a sports girl.

we explored the stanley area, stumbling across an arts presentation and a grocery store. it was fun to walk the aisles and to explore the different products; most of which i could not decipher.

sitting outside, enjoying the people watching and some starbucks it was great fun to hang out with the girls.

another loopy bus ride later and we were back at the main mall. i was tempted to shop, but knew i couldn't afford the high priced mall. we also rode the ferry back to the ship, getting a great view of our ship, lit up in all it's glory.

semester at sea is re-vamping its program and has created a cooperative with chinese universities to include chinese students on future voyages. as a result, chinese educators and university of virginia professors were on hand to announce the new sino-u.s. relations. it was a pretty big deal and the entire ship was asked to be on their best behavior.

making it back to the ship, intent on showering, i ate a quick snack with teresa and snapped a few photos of the amazing hong kong skyline. so many lights! unlike any i've ever seen, the lights were colorful and all the buildings had giant screens and projectors for the nightly light show.

after my shower and getting all dressed up, with heels!, mckendree, teresa, caitlin and i headed out to grab a cab. we were meeting up with kelsey and ren, who had been out for the day with rennika's cousin. the plan was to get mexican food, and i was so excited. as we were exiting the mall we came across the french national rugby team, who were in town for the rugby sevens tournament. again, i'm not up on sports but i do know that there were scores of attractive rugby players all over hong kong.

a few attempts to get a cab failed, as most drivers do not know english and we didn't have directions written in cantonese. soon we found a driver to take us and we were on our way to the soho area of the city, on the main island. i saw a few glimpses of the light show from the window, and it was spectacular. i couldn't hear the music, but apparently the show goes on every night at 8. seems like something that would be reserved for holidays like new years or something.

dinner at ay carumba was fantastic. when we arrived rennika wasn't feeling well (too much fun at the rugby game, perhaps?) and spent most of the evening sleeping in her chair. regardless, we had a great time. darren and may are from the states but may was moved to hong kong for her job with nike. they were happy to have visitors and a night out without their two young kids. margaritas all around and amazing nachos for everyone. it was such a treat, i was so happy to have guacamole! funny how food from home can be so comforting!

when we finished eating, ren decided to head home with may, as she'd planned to stay with them for the duration of our time in china. the girls - kelsey, mckendree, teresa and i, headed out with darren. our guide for the night, he took us to a crazy street with people everywhere. hong kong is definitely western, with american brands everywhere. we walked through the hilltop streets and made our way to an ice bar. on the way we passed a series of covered escalators. darren explained that many commuters live in the area at the top of the hill and work at the bottom, so in the morning the escalators go down, for the commute to work. and then, in the evening, they are switched to go up the hill, allowing the commuters to get back home. it was so clever! except of course for the fact that we were heading down, in heels, and the escalators were heading up.

at the ice bar we all put on crazy fur jackets, like one would see in russia. we were literally in a freezer, and it wasn't very big. a round of drinks and silly photos in front of the ice sculptures and we were ready to be warm again. we met a few aussie boys when were freezing our fingers off and a few older men from south africa. it was awesome to be able to say, 'i've been there!" not wanting to spend our one night in hong kong in a freezer with old men, we ventured back out to the street. people were everywhere, wearing their rugby jerseys and crazy costumes. it was like halloween! darren assured us that the area we were in was always that crazy, but it was hard to believe. it seemed like we happened to be there on the perfect night of rugby-related madness.

we spent the remainder of our evening out in the streets, dancing to american pop music, people watching and running into fellow semester at sea students. crazy how we all seem to end up in the same places.

we took a cab ride back to the ship and shared it with a semester at sea boy named greg, who was more than happy to escort us back to the ship and to escape the madness. overtired and desperately ready to kick off the heels, i fell asleep quickly. what a perfect night in hong kong!

i set an alarm for early, i had to shower and pack before my trip to beijing!

oceans

"you cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore"



thank you to val (& her dove chocolate) for the quote above; how perfect for my trip!

in the blink of an eye; six days in china have flown by!

cheesy rhyme, but so true!

as one might imagine, six non-stop days in china was exhausting. i had an incredible time and can hardly believe where i've been. i suppose that goes for all of my stops, though the great wall is a big deal. a wonderful group of people, delicious food and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. i slept on the great wall of china! how crazy is that?!

i am now unpacked, showered and barely keeping my eyes open. i am typing away at my china entry, i want to finish it soon! i know i'm getting backed up, but hopefully i don't have too much school work in the next two days to keep me from completing china. (and maybe i'll get to the end of india and vietnam!)

japan in two days and i'm working on plans. a day trip or overnight in tokyo is in the works, and a karaoke bar is absolutely necessary. some photos of harajuku fashions for bec and some sushi (er, california rolls) are also on the list. i would love to get to hiroshima and the peace park but not sure how to go about that.

i'm off to sleep, but i hope all is well at home. i have been so out of the loop, all these back to back countries have been making emailing difficult!




and now to bed, with the mulan soundtrack stuck in my head :P

off to the wall!

i'm about to leave on my four day trip to beijing and shanghai and i'm incredibly excited.

I AM GOING TO THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!

how amazing is that? i am struggling to find the words to describe my emotions. i am overwhelmed with gratitude for all that i have been given, for all i've seen and for all i've yet to do. i can hardly believe i have made it this far, its been an incredible dream. so a huge thanks to all who have helped me to take advantage of this opportunity and for supporting me throughout this journey. there are so many who are unable to go on semester at sea, let alone to the great wall of china.

so from the bottom of my heart, as i am running out the door for breakfast, THANK YOU. a million times over.




thank you, thank you, thank you.