Lis and I with part of Shanghai Skyline in the background

 

Hong Kong at night. View from Victoria Peak!

 

knock knock "uhm excuse me could you take us to the Mc-Don-Alds-Drive-Thru, were hungry!"

Heres a REAL bullet blog which will be put more into depth later.

 

·         First day. Hung out around the town ventured around random areas with mark, mike, lis, and kelcie. Ate crazy food. Shopped.

·         Went out that night to a bar called La Rouge. Went with seriously a group of 20 of us but we broke up in like 4 cabs and all followed each other there. It was really fun and they lit the bar on fire and gave us sparklers for the Chinese new year.

·         So our 2^nd day in shanghai we met up with our new friend Leigh and one of her friends and decided to get in a cab and go to this underground market to go shopping. This is where I got all this stuff I previously posted about such as the $1 DVDs (I’m like a few hours from Vietnam and apparently you can get them cheaper there!)  So anyways that was so much fun. My first bargaining deal was pretty interesting and ended in the lady yelling at me and lis and snatching a calculator out of my hand. Nice.

·         After that we tried some food at this underground place. We got noodles which were pretty good and then some dumplings which were okay. I like Japan’s food better! Though, this food wasn’t bad or anything-not what I expected though.

·         So after that we were kinda tired and decided to leave and head back to the boat.

·         This night I went out with Lis, Kelcie, Lyndsey, Stacy, Tucker and Patrick (I realize you have no idea who these people are, this is for my memory only)

·         Anyways we got super lost finding what we were supposed to find and finally got to this club/bar and it was superr nice and we were so underdressed but we went with it. We were the only SASsholes except 2 other girls.

·         At first it was awkward but then we got used to it and LOVED it. They had a giant stage and played American music we knew every word to and we got on the stage and pretty much gave a concert for 3 hours. It was soo much fun! They loved that we are American!

·         Next day. Me and lis ventured out on our own and went shopping. In a very populated but popular area to shop. The highlight of the shopping was going to a candy market and everyone was so friendly and willing to help even though they were so busy. We also got asked for our picture 4 times in that market J

·         After we accidently walked more and ran into a place where a movie scene was being filmed. As Gini would know my knowledge of movie stars and know I wouldn’t have any idea who it was-which is true. So I snuck a picture I wasn’t allowed to be taking and turns out it was Hugh Jackman! How crazy!

·         Anyway after that went to a bridge where you can get pictures of the whole city skyline of the Bund-sooo gorgeous! Also this is where we met our stalker who proceeded to follow us almost fully back to the boat. Scary!

·         After that we took some pictures by the boat and headed back on for dinner and to get ready for the next two days of transit.

 

·         The next two days I spent in transit on the ship with about 100 other kids on our way to Hong Kong. It was just me and Lis on the ship of my close friends but having so little people on the boat brought us closer and helped us make a ton of new friends. Though it got slow and boring at times it was a good experience.

·         So our first day in Hong Kong I hung out with Lis, Mark, and Mike and we explored around and found a few touristy places. Such as the “mile” long escalator which was pretty sweet, egg pies which are delicious, and at around 4:00 we went to Victoria Peak and stayed until it got dark at night. It was gorgeous and you could see the whole skyline go from light to dark at night but at night it’s all lit up from all the skyscrapers. It was so pretty!

·         After that we took the fairy back to our ship and got ready for the night.

·         We headed to this area that has a ton of bars-its SO cool! A TON of sas kids were there and they were all portraying their SASshole reputation very well.

·         Anyways it was so fun and it’s like like 3 blocks by 3 blocks of streets and corners of bars and food and great night life! Too much fun!

·         The next day was the ONE day I have slept in since being on this voyage and I was kinda lazy and took FULL advantage of the free wifi I have outside the ship…and so did every other kid on this ship. We were docked in a mall and it was FULL of SAS kids trying to suck in every last free internet minute they could. Now that I got my lazy day in, no more are allowed on this trip- I decided.

·         There’s so much more to write but I have NO time right now. I’m going to be in Vietnam in about 6 hours and ill be in Cambodia at like 2 tomorrow so that’ll be like 10pm the day before me for you guys. Im pretty excited for both Vietnam and Cambodia!

 

Oh NO, his nose is running!

Okay I realize I’m awful at this whole updating thing, but trust me I’ve been busy!

Can you believe just 48 hours ago I was in Japan and now in just 3 short hours we will be heading down the river towards China! Not much time between these ports at all! But here’s my update…bullet style. Enjoy. ((okay I typed this so long ago so the hours are a bit off now))

 

TOKYO [the BIGGEST city in the entire world!]

·         I woke up at the crack of dawn to make it down to my 8am fdp entitled “Cultural Tokyo City Tour” Lis and Steph accompanied me. Steph made it on to the tour last minute which ended up being a great idea.

·         The tour took us to pretty much any famous location in Tokyo that our allotted time would allow. This included: The imperial palace, the 53^rd floor of a building (spacing the name) that overlooked all of Tokyo (well all that we could see). The city is SO gigantic that even if you look out as far as you can it’s STILL the city. You can take the train for one hour and still be in what looks like downtown Denver. It’s so insane. There was also a super cool art museum on the floor below this observation deck; my mom would have loved it for sure. Anyways we also saw shrines and temples that were gorgeous (I’m lacking the names cause I’m not in my room where the info is).

·         So after the last stop of the tour we got off the bus and on our own, me, Steph, and Lis navigated onto the public bus and met Rina at the dog statue in Tokyo where Rina again managed to find more SASshoes. We were pretty tired so we navigated our way to the hostel and rested for a little bit before we decided to head out at around 6:30.

·         As soon as we got the train to Shibuya we met up with Rina’s best guy friend who lives in Tokyo, his name is Shin. He didn’t speak much English but we somehow managed to talk to him through Rina, hand signals and the minimum English/Japanese we both knew. The weird thing is, most Japanese kids we met can’t really speak or understand English, but they can read English perfectly well, so we’d get out my phone and “text” him what we wanted to say sometimes.

·         Anyways we made our way to what is called an Izakaya (basically a restaurant). But in order to get to one of these places and get a good deal while you’re there, you converse with one of what Lis calls “streetmen”. There are like 100 of these guys outside on the streets with clipboards and you pretty much haggle a deal with them and we ended up paying all you can eat and drink at this place in 90minutes for I think it was 10 or 15 bucks each-not bad at all.

·         So we get to this place and the food was amazing and the place was so modern and clean. Like a nice Japanese restaurant you would find in downtown Denver, except I was in the biggest city in the world. We got lots of good beers and drinks and we all tried different foods such as: sticky rice balls, various cooked veggies, edamame, soups, some egg dish, and a desert that was as they said very sweet and we thought it tasted like bean paste or something. Rina says American candy is WAY sweeter than theirs, which I’ve learned is very true.

·         After the Izakaya we decided Karaoke would be a good idea since that is THE thing to do if you are my age and in Japan. It’s not like American karaoke. Youre in your own private room with whoever you came with and in that room is like a big bench/couch and a flatscreen with a book of pretty much every Japanese and American song you could ever imagine.

·         Karaoke was SO much fun! We got a deal from another “streetman” at this place to be in a room for I think an hour or two and it went by way too quick. They’ll bring you food and drinks to your room too. It’s so much fun!! We sang a little N*SYNC, destiny’s child, Eminem, and Neyo (which is apparently huge in Japan) and a few others. We have videos of the whole night that are hilarious.

·         After this Rina wanted to take us to one last food place, which is in Roppongi (famous for shopping,  so we went to this place that Bruce Lee (??) apparently goes to when he’s in Tokyo. Anyways we got some pot sticker deals and some noodles there that were delicious.

·         After this we were beat and decided to call it a night. We said bye to Shin and headed back to our hostel.

·         The next morning we woke up grabbed some breakfast at the hostel (I think we downed about 5 or 6 pieces of bread with butter and jelly, maybe we were craving American cuisine?) and then we were off to Harajyuku.

·         Yes, the “harajyuku” girls Gwen Stefani is obsessed with were everywhere on this street that’s literally called Harajyuku Street. There were SO many shops on this street that was packed with people everywhere. We saw a few SASsholes but not too many.

·         Anyways we shopped there for a while and we got a picture with the craziest dressed Harajyuku girls that I’ll send a picture to my blog of. They were so sweet and gave us candy after we took about 100 pictures with them.

·         We got pretty hungry from all that shopping and stopped into this small restaurant where we literally filled the table with I think it was like 5 plates of food per person for like 800yen (8bucks). They tried giving us a raw egg in a bowl to eat and we tried explaining to Rina that we probably shouldn’t be eating raw egg. But we ate everything else such as: pickled radishes, beef with veggies, miso soup, cabbage and fried shrimp tempura, and a bowl of rice! So much food but it was DELICIOUS. [And can I just tell you, any of the food I’ve mentioned I have eaten with chopsticks, I’m pretty sure I can eat just about anything with chopsticks now.]

·         So after our meal we decided to say farewell to Tokyo and head on down to Kyoto. We took the BULLET TRAIN! To Kyoto which was so neat! It’s like being on an airplane/the polar express, but better and cleaner and roomier.

·         I was awake for part of the ride, but we were EXHAUSTED so I took a nap for like ¾ of our hour and a half ride.

 

KYOTO

·         We had finally made it to Kyoto and once we got there we spotted our friends Kelcie, Lauren, Lindsay, Stacy, Graham, and Annie in the train station. They were all soaking wet and said it was pouring outside. Great.

·         So I bought an umbrella and we all ventured out in the pouring rain to attempt to find our hostel. I felt so bad for Rina who is wheeling around a suitcase and like 4 bags and trying to hold her wilting and soaking wet map while navigating her away around. We tried to give her an umbrella or carry her bags, but she wasn’t having it. We got a little lost finding the hostel, but she called the owner finally and we found it and he welcomed us in.

·         The man who manages this place is one of the nicest people I had met in Japan. His English was almost perfect and he showed us up to our room and how to work everything and he even gave us each a pair of chopsticks once we left the next day!

·         So we got up to our room and rested for a little bit and got ready for the night. We were determined to have a good night despite the rain! On our way to dinner we stopped by this shoe place and I got the sickest fold over converse for 25bucks! And Steph got a pair too!

·         Our first stop of the night was another Izakaya (we seriously need these in Colorado/America). At this Izakaya it was also very modern and clean and so pretty! I’m pretty sure Rina ordered us an entire cow because that’s exactly how much beef came to our table. It’s kinda like Benny Hanna where the foods cooked in front of you but here you cook the food yourself and it’s a smaller circle grill. Anyways were just loading this beef and veggies on here and eating it like crazy! We also had rice and some other kind of meat dish/bowl that was delicious and TONS of ice cream and beer and we did indeed try sake-I’m not the biggest fan, but it was okay.

·         ALSO as we are all just eating this stuff like crazy I eat this piece of beef (or I thought) that was kinda circle shaped and I asked Rina what it was after I ate it cause it tasted different, yeah it was COW TONGUE! Ahhhhh!!

·         There were also these Japanese high school boys next to us, I think 4 of them. We started to attempt to talk to them and started the texting trick again to get them to understand us and they were hilarious. Apparently we were too nice and they waited outside for us for like 45minutes and once we came out Rina pretty much told us to ditch them and leave haha. All I know is a runny nose will never mean the same to me ever again! (some strange meaning in Japan)

·         So after our 90minutes were up we walked around for a while and somehow ended up seeing some SASsholes and talked to them for a while. They were with their friend who is from America but she teaches in Japan and they were all going to a bar so we decided to join. At the bar it wasn’t that many people but we had SO much fun.

·          We got to take a sake bomb in Japan which is pretty much the coolest thing ever besides eating real Japanese sushi!

·         We woke up the next morning, exhausted again. (I have no idea how Rina always has so much energy). I had the best waffle covered in chocolate at the train station- we also need these in America. We got on the train and headed to what I thought was the most beautiful shrine I had seen yet. It is called the Fushimi Shrine (googie it-seriously!)

·         It was kinda overcast and wet out but not raining and they say this is the best time to go to a shrime/temple.  They are so beautiful when the weather is like this. This shrine is all orange with black Japanese symbols everywhere and the contrast of that with the low clouds and lush green trees and shrubbery is so gorgeous. I have like a million pictures of this place that I can’t wait to show everyone!

·         We stopped for some lunch which was so good as usual. We had noodles which was like ramen kinda which tofu in it and then a rice bowl with tempura shrimp with this sauce on top that would be comparable to the east by south west roll at east by in Durango (I guess only you’d know that Em J )

·         After we ventured around this area we decided to check out the San Ju Sangen-do Temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanj%C5%ABsangen-d%C5%8D) . It wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as the shrine but it was so neat. You can’t wear shoes (as is most traditional Japanese places) so we wore these ridiculous looking slippers.

·         At this temple it has 1000 armed statues and though if you look at them they all look the same, if you look closely each and every single one has a different face. Its so insane how much work and detail must have gone into that. There are also special warriors(?) who are placed at the front and the detail and meaning into them is crazy-they gouge real crystals through the eyes of the sculptures to make their eyes look life like-and it works!

·         In the middle of these is a GIANT Buddha which is I think the largest bronze Buddah in Japan (that could be wrong but it was the largest Buddha in some category). No pictures were allowed so just memoires for this place.

·          Next we went to another temple that over looked all of Kyoto-it was SO amazing, It’s called Kiyomiza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera) (I sent a pic a while ago of me, Lis and Steph at this temple and a view of the city).

·         After this temple we took a train to Osaka to meet up with RIna’s boyfriend. We met at a café where we talked with him for about 2 hours..and again we used the “texting” to talk to him. We have no idea what his name is cause its super Japanese, but he was super cute and very nice.

·         After that we took another train (or maybe it was the subway?) down to Kobe where Rina is from and her mom picked us up in what was like a mini cooper but it was a mazda (they have crazy cars there). Anyways she took us to a traditional Japanese dinner. At the table they have 2 girlls where you cook your own food in a “hot pot”. The table is down very low and you sit on a pillow which is on mats and your feet go under the table which is like underground (hard to explain).

·         The dinner was delicious. We tasted warm sake which tasted like warm Smirnoff, not a fan. But the beer was good and we were served about 1000 pieces of beef again and sashimi and tempura too.

·         After dinner we headed to another Izakaya. This one was a little less formal and seemed more like a hole in the wall place but it was still fun and the food was good. Rinas mom was SO kind and paid for ALL our stuff and got us sooo much food.

·         At the Izakaya we got lots of different drinks to try and pretty much anything you could fry. Fried hotdog, veggies, egg, mocha, and devils tongue. We each tried a little of everything and we ate this mysterious this Rina said in Japanese and she translated it on her phone and it came up as DEVILS TONGUE uhhhhh…

·         Turns out its some sort of sick jelly that they fry-no more devils tongue for me!

·         Also Rina’s sister met up with us at the Izakaya and she is hilarious. Very friendly and she knew more American music than any other Japanese person I had met there!

·         After this we were SOOOOOOO tired so Rina’s mom took us to Rina’s grandfather’s house. His house has an elevator in it! Its so gorgeous and though we didn’t get to meet him we could just tell he was so kind!

·         He laid out a bunch of towels for us and toothbrushes and made up beds for us with 20 poofy blankets along his floor which is made up of mats. Traditionally wed sleep just on a thin mat but he knew we are American and did that special just for us.

·         Rina’s mom went to the store real quick and came back with like 1000 snacks for all of us and got 3 of everything (one for me, one for Lis, one for Steph).

·         After we toured the house and talked a little, we fell right asleep.

·         In the morning we had to get ready quick to make it back to the boat for an FDP me and steph had.

·         Rina’s brother stopped by in the morning so we could meet him, he’s 9 and SO cute. We are the first westerners he’s ever met! He didn’t speak any English except Hello but it was good to meet him still.

 

Once again that was LONGG.

SO that sums up Japan in a nutshell.

I had an FDP of a traditional Japanese ceremony the last day

 I will write about it in another blog. Soon enough.

 

 

I literally wake up here every single day and am so thankful im able to be doing this.

Im so fortunate and even though I miss home, I never want to get off the boat and come home haha

Im think I'm in a very long dream and I dont ever want to wake up!

"How much you want? NO joke price!"

this is completely irrelevant, but it amused me and im pretty stoked on it so, heres a 2 second post on the coolest discovery today.

 

so im in shanghai, china and we went to this market that had knock off stuff and pirated movies up to our eyeballs.

 

i decided to get 5 movies that are pirated just to check it out and see if they were legit.

 

i got:

Avatar

Julie and Julia

Up

Precious

The Ugly Truth

 

and YES they ARE indeed legit and work just like a normal movie would

 

i paid ONE us dollar each! and i got them before anyone (well most anyone) in the US!

 

how cool is that?!

 

now that i know theyre legit im going to buy like 10 more tomorrow!

 

 

i also got a cute dress, a present for my mom (its a surprise and im not spilling the details on my blog, sorry mom), this cat thing that fist pumps its paw (it could fully be on Jersey Shore) but really the paw moving means "bringing in the money" and a lot of Asian stores have them in there kinda like a good luck deal. pretty sweet!

 

oh and i got the most ginormous backpack that youd use for serious backpacking that in the us would cost probably like 100-150 bucks for 30bucks cause its a knock off, but its super legit! though..the lady says its waterproof so lis talked to her and said yeah alright poor some water on it so this lady gets her water bottle and poors it onto the backpack and it soaks the area she poored it on hahaha but whatever 30 bucks for a nice bag to travel with ((sorry mom and dad this will be easier to use than that bag you gave me))

 

 

i PROMISE my Japan blog will be finished soon! im busy busy busy and running on pretty much no sleep but i can sleep in may or while im dead. i want to take in every moment i can here so i can look back on this amazing experience and know i lived it to its fullest. its not just everyday someone gets to do something like im doing. im so thankful im able to be doing this. im very very fortunate and so appreciative!

 

 

-- Also, the skyline in Shanghai is BEAUTIFUL-especially at night! --

 

Rina- our Japanese interport student, firiend and "tour guide"

 

Japan is very very popular and the food, very tasty!

Enough with the pictures and on to the juicy stuff…

 

Japan was AMAZING. I knew I was going to like it, but I didn’t know I was going to like it this much! And the food is soo good! One of the things I was most looking forward to was sushi in Japan-what an experience!

Rina (an inter-port student, can’t remember if I explained about her or not) was our “tour guide” all through Japan and, let me tell you, I walked more than I ever have in my life, muscles I never knew I had were aching, and sleep wasn’t a term we were much familiar with, but it was all WELL worth it!

 

[[sidenote]] ( ß  b/c I do indeed love them) We were told by 5 separate people at the end of our trip that we looked beat, tired, exhausted etc. how delightful, I’m sure we looked pleasing to the eye.

 

 

YOKOHAMA (second biggest city in Japan)

This is where the boat docked and just as my dad warned me, as he loves to do, it was very industrial and rural at the port we pulled into. Though the Building we docked at was gorgeous. Very modern and fairly new I think. But like 10min from the port it’s gorgeous!

We arrived at the port/docked at 9:30, which was originally supposed to be 8:00 but due to weather from the 2 days before this, we were arriving late into Yokohama. Note on that: the waves were GIANT. We were eating dinner on deck 5 (the dining hall is in the back of the boat) and it has huge windows that face the back of the boat so we clearly saw the apparently 16 foot waves (which at this point I wouldn’t doubt were bigger). We have 7 decks total and these waves were spraying up onto deck 5! It was so rocky and unfortunately for my stomach all students had to take our Global Studies exam that night at 7. I had to take the test in the Union, which is at the front of the boat where the rocking is the worst. So, needless to say on about question 45 of 50 I pretty much bubbled in whatever sounded decent and scrambled to turn in my test and book it to my room as I was feeling very sea sick. HOPEFULLY that’s the last of it, but who knows.

So, after we all got though customs and immigration, me, Lis, Kelcie, and Steph all headed into Yokohama. We headed to the post office first because that’s basically one of two places we are able to use American debit cards to receive money. This was the very first place I realized I was in a completely different culture. Usually the people at the post office are rushed and most of the time rude. Here the people are extremely polite (and this isn’t just at the post office, its EVERYWHERE). When you walk up to the counter you are bowed to and they wear gloves (for health reasons) and do the best they can to meet your needs. As our GS teacher said, I’ve never met an entire population who is so willing to give 100% into everything they do including their jobs and they always do it so politely and willing. It’s incredible to witness.

After the post office, which by the way was engulfed by SASsholes (as we call ourselves), we headed to what my mom recommended to me. Good ol’ 7-11. It gets great reviews by anyone who goes there for their sushi. It’s so funny to walk in there and see the food they have-slurpies were nowhere in sight. Though, they have an array of sushi, noodles, those crazy boxed lunches, and other different snacks that you’d never find in America. Anyways I got my sushi and it definitely wasn’t anything I’d rave about, but it was good-very salty- and who really cares, it was REAL Japanese sushi and I was consuming it in JAPAN!

After we got our food we explored and found a “mall” we went to. It was around the street Bashamichi, famous in Yokohama I think (google it-ironic as I’m heading to China). It’s not like an American mall it’s all outdoor and it’s a street lined with stores that mainly sell touristy stuff but there’s also 7-11 ish stores and other things as well. We explored there until around the time we were supposed to meet up with Rina at this gigantic farris wheel I was forced to later get onto.

Before we met Rina we shopped around a more American like mall called World Portis Center (I think?) it had shops like we do but nothing I’ve ever heard of except big names like Nike. The clothes they had were very cute and for the most part not the expensive sticker shock I was told to expect, in fact nothing was.

We finally met Rina who was already at the Ferris wheel with other SAS kids. So we bought our tickets and got on the Ferris wheel. As we were reaching the top, the sun was setting so we got our cameras out and got some great shots. Then, something unbelievable and rare happened. We spotted Mt. Fuji between 2 sky scrapers as the sun was setting behind it. Mt. Fuji is pretty rarely seen clearly at all and especially because we were in Japan when the weather wasn’t exactly the warmest. So to have seen that, was absolutely amazing! (Hopefully you can make it out in the picture I posted; I have no idea what size they are on my blog).

After the Ferris wheel, we were starving and Rina took us to what turned out to be actual downtown Yokohama-very pretty! This is where we then partook in the infamous conveyer belt sushi. I took lots of pictures and a video. The different sushi is put on different colored plates which represent different pricings of the sushi. They are put on the conveyer belt and sent around to whoever wants it. I had tuna, crab, eel, octopus, salmon, and mackerel, among others! It was DELICIOUS! I also tried real miso soup which tasted just like the kind back home but more fresh.

After dinner we headed to the train station area. By the train station there was a mall just like an American mall for the most part except the bottom floor. In every department store/mall the bottom floor or what would be like the basement in most American malls there is a “fresh food market” which would be comparable to the biggest Whole Foods in Colorado. It’s amazing how everything is displayed and what variety of foods they have and you can sample almost any of it. I tried dried blueberries, seaweed, and sticky rice which was covered in this sweet sauce-very..interesting. We also found out cantaloupe is quite pricy there, it was 4,500.00 yen which is like 45ish USD. For ONE cantaloupe, what?!

This is also where we found mochi. Mochi is their ice-cream dessert. It’s an ice cream ball and its covered in this stuff that has the texture of fondant like on wedding cakes but it’s more like taffy once you bite into is though it’s made from sticky rice but it looks nothing like rice, it’s very smooth like fondant. Anyways, it was quite good! It comes in different flavors I got vanilla and Kelcie got Strawberry and Steph just got Hagendaz Green Tea ice cream- not a big fan.

After the underground super market, I guess is the way to put it, we walked around on the street. We ran into what we had been talking about almost all day “octopus balls” (Takotaki) ((google it!)) which are balls of dough cooked with octopus and maybe veggies or a few other things. The way these are cooked is crazy, I have it all on camera! I’ve also seen it on travel channel a few times so to see it in person and try it was incredible. They were very good! Though, they guy selling them was from Turkey-so that was different.

After our delicious snack, we walked more and Rina showed us something we ended up LOVING! It’s called a Manga Café. It’s like 4 or 5 stories and on the first floor we paid and it also has a HUGE library of comic books and anime and that stuff. The second floor had what would look like cubicles in a work place. But each cubical has a booth and a TV and computer and ps2. There’s also a floor of food and snacks and ice cream and drinks. There were 1 or 2 other floors I didn’t see but I’m sure they were neat. So the whole point is you pay to come read or get on the internet and its dirt cheap, you can even pay to spend the night there. They have bathrooms and a small shower too (not in each booth but one that anyone can use).  It’s like 1,500yen to spend the night (15USD) and we paid 200yen (if you haven’t caught on to the conversion rate yet, you’re too slow for me) for an hour. So obviously we used our precious time to consume as much American soda, ice cream, and facebook browsing as possible.

After this we went to a Don Quixote (yes, they named the fun filled store after a man who fights windmills). And, yes, Rina did ask what Don Quixote is after we started laughing when she told us that’s what it is called. And once we told her what it is in America she looked very confused and didn’t really have any response-I don’t think she really understood, and frankly I don’t blame her, cause I don’t see any similarity either.  So what is this place… it’s, I believe, 6 floors of stuff. Any item you could ever think of buying is in this place. It’s PACKED full of stuff. It’s like walmart but better, more of a variety of stuff, and instead of one big floor they have 6 medium size floors. It’s insane!  

After the sensory overload, as I kept calling it, we decided to get to bed cause we had an early day ahead of us the following day.

Wow this post is long and it’s only Yokohama.

The next post might have to be presented bullet style.

Sorry it’s so long!

 

I still have to talk about Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe! Bare with me, I’m busy but I’m trying to fit it all in because I’ll be in Shanghai, China not tomorrow but the next day (2/16, most likely the 15^th for you).

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! (I’ll be devouring the ice cream cake Kelcie’s dad got her/us for Valentine’s tonight after dinner!)

 

 

PS The blog title is an inside joke. Rina-or any Japanese person- uses the words very, popular, and tasty frequently. So wed always say it to her and shed tell us what we would say all the time too :)

 

         Rina suki and tamodachi (I like Rina and she's my friend)

Yokohama with 2 Japanese girls-they wanted our picture too

 

Honolulu (out of order pics sorry!) and yes, we did use those giant boards

 

Sunset over Mt Fugi-very rare to see!

 

Temple Over-Looking Kyoto

 

Bring on the SUSHI!!!

Okay. This is going to be shorter than my other posts because I'm really busy because I'm EIGHT hours away from arriving in Japan!! It hasn't hit me yet but I'm sure it will as soon as I walk up to breakfast tomorrow and make my way into Yokohama, Japan!

No major plans for the day just exploring and stuff. We have to go through immigrations and customs. For this the Japanese require a temperature check through a thermo something or nother, and an electronic finger print. If you don't do either of these you wont be let off the boat- of if you have a temperature!

Anyways after Yokohama tomorrow I'm going to a SAS arranged tour of Tokyo, which is like a half hour away. After the tour I'm getting off the bus with Lis, while still in Tokyo, and attempting to meet Steph at what is apparently the busiest cross walk in the entire world. So that'll be interesting.

We are traveling with Rina. She is an interpret student we've had on the ship since Hawaii. Shell be getting off in our second Japan port, Kobe, where she lives and that's where her SAS voyage will end. But we all became good friends with her so we are going to travel with her all through Japan. We got very lucky because she speaks pretty good English and obviously can speak Japanese, so the language barrier wont really be an issue!

So were meeting her at the crosswalk where were meeting steph.

Once we meet well spend the day and night in Tokyo. The next morning well spend part of the day in Tokyo and then take a train (yes the Bullet train!) to Kyoto where we will spend the night. Then we will spend the next day in Kyoto for a while and take the 20minute train ride to Kobe where we will spend time at and spend the night at Rinas Grandparents house. I cant wait to be able to do a legit Japanese home stay!

After the home stay we are going to head back to the ship which we will meet in Kobe and then depart from Kobe the 13th of February which will most likely still be the 12th back home.

 

Then..TWO days till China!!!

 

We have so much planned in Japan and once I get back I will have so much to write. I'm still trying to figure out pictures so hopefully they'll start working. Ill be taking lots of pictures and videos in Japan. I cant wait.

 

 

sorry this is so short and not very detailed. I have so much to do in such little time!

 

"Our Job Here is to Learn"

After a good night sleep on the ship, we arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii the next morning around 6 I believe. When I awoke we had already pulled into the dock and I headed to breakfast around 8ish because I had an FDP trip to the Polynesian Center at 10:30. After I had breakfast with my friends I headed down to the gangway and met my group to go to the center. It is clear across the island and took us about 25minutes to get there. Once we were there it was definitely different than I had expected.

It was something you could kind of compare to Epcot where there were separate areas for different sections of the world and sort of an amusement park feel. I was pretty interesting to stop and see each section. We toured around for a while on our own until lunch time. We were served a pretty good buffet style lunch which was once again accompanied by poi-which I decided to pass on. After lunch we watched a bunch of performances similar to the ones we had seen at the luau but these had drums and a few other different aspects to them. The men playing the drums were in typical Polynesian dress- it was pretty cool. Definiely not what I would typically think of when I think of Hawaii.

At around 3 (I think) me and a group of people decided that we had enough of the Cultural center and we signed ourselves out and decided to take a cab back to Waikiki beach where me and another kid were meeting our friends. He was kind enough to pay the entire cab ride back to the beach (which wasn’t cheap)!

After I got to the beach I met up with my friends and we had all decided we wanted to try surfing. I’ve never been before and I had such a good time. We rented a board for $10.00 for one hour. Me, Lis, her roommate Kerry, Steph, and Kelsie all paddled out to the waves after a brief instruction from the owner of the shop and a quick photo session (proof that we really did attempt). As we got out to the waves, I caught probably 4 or 5 waves and attempted to get up, but failed pretty bad. One of the waves I got I wiped out pretty bad and got a cut or two on my foot from the rocks on the bottom of the ocean. Minus the few cuts and the bruises I got on my hips from paddling out on the board, I had SUCH a good time. I want to try to surf again until I actually get the hang of it. Definitely something I would want to try to pursue.

After surfing we were pretty tired and decided to take the public bus back to the ship. Unfortunately we got on the wrong bus and had to stay on the one we got on for about an hour when it should have only taken us about 20minutes. Oh well. We did get help from a local man on the bus. That’s something I had noticed about Hawaii, everyone is so nice and friendly and willing to help. So, we got back to the ship and got ready for the night.

After we were ready we met Steph’s friend down at the dock area who goes to HPU and he picked us up and took us to the downtown area. We walked around and met Steph’s other friend who goes to HPU at a street corner. Weird thing is, my friend goes to University of Hawaii and while we were waiting for Steph’s second friend I saw Alex, my friend, walking across the street. Talk about small world (and it gets even smaller). So after we met Steph’s friend, we headed up to the friend we mets other friend’s apartment.

We all met each other down in the lobby where I found out the 2 people who live in the apartment are from Durango and know a ton of the kids I know back in Durango and the girl even said she’s neighbors with a kid I know back in Durango. SUCH a small world! SO anyway we hung out at that apartment for awhile then walked downtown and met up with my friend Alex and hung out in his dorm for a while and after that we headed down to the bars. Not everyone is 21 so just me, Lauren, Alex, and his friend Drake went. After we were there a while we decided to walk on the beach. We got to the beach and saw Steph, Lis, and Steph’s friend Trav (small world again). So we all met up and hung out for a little on the beach. After a while me and Lauren and Kelsie decided we wanted to leave so we went to catch a cab and saw 2 other SASers and shared the cab with them (cheaper cab fair). And that was the end of that night.

I woke up on day 2 of Honolulu to my room phone and Kelsie on the other end telling me it was 8:20 and time to get breakfast. (Breakfast ends at 8:30 so we pretty much cut it as close as possible to get something to eat in the morning because we aren’t exactly morning people). Anyways before we went to eat I asked her if we could stop by the purser’s desk just to double check what time my FDP was that day. Turns out, it was at 8:45am and you’re supposed to be down at the dock area 15 minutes before the trip leaves. So I booked it to my room changed real quick, grabbed what I needed for the day and headed down to the buses. I found my bus but forgot the ticket I needed in order to get onto the bus for the specific FDP I was on. My teacher, Dr. Schwartz, who is a practicing psychologist and he’s Jewish (so obviously he’s cool) told me anyone who is willing to give up the beach to go to the Hawaii State Hospital (a mental hospital) is welcome on the trip. Good thing!

So anyways I got onto the bus and headed up to the hospital. The hospital is located on the Windward (I think?) side which is the wet side. It’s almost like a rainforest. It’s very lush and green and it was raining the entire time we were over on that side. It’s not a cold rain like Colorado though. It was still fairly comfortable to be outside-pretty nice.

We got to the hospital and were greeted by a man named Doug who was a volunteer something or other. He showed us up to the cafeteria. But before we headed over there he gave us pens as souvenirs, with the side note of “don’t leave these anywhere on the grounds for the patients to get a hold of”.  This is when I realized I was truly at a mental hospital and this wasn’t a joke.

We met the head psychiatrist at the cafeteria along with the head psychologist? I’m not sure her role exactly.  He told us all about the facility and some of his craziest cases which let me tell you, are so insane.

They let us know that almost all of the patients emitted to the facility are court ordered and range anywhere from a 7-11 theft to a convicted murderer (pretty intense huh). The majority of the patients are male, though there are females, and they tended to be in the age rage of around the 40’s but those who are 18 and above are allowed and they had a patient as old as 87 and he was there until the day he died (he had memory loss and became delusional). We were also told we were not allowed to have contact with the patients for safety and confidentiality issues.

So mid cafeteria conversation the whole place which is divided into separate buildings (like the Fort Lewis campus almost) has a fire drill. So, we exit the building and are all standing with a giant group of the patients. Let me tell you, it was quite interesting. They were very well behaved for what they may have been convicted for. It was funny to watch the people guiding our group frantically trying anyway possible to get us to move away from the group of patients (or clients as they call them). So we moved on and continued with our tour. The whole thing was very informative and interesting. Also, apparently an episode of Lost, which I don’t watch, was filmed in one of their buildings.

After the main tour we were taken down to what they call the Aloha Garden. It’s a really beautiful lush area where they grow tons of fruits and veggies that are used in the patient’s food. And if they are allotted time and are okay behavior wise, the patients are allowed to work in the garden (which was featured on the TV show America’s Dirtiest Jobs, I guess). It was a really pretty area and not what you think of when you think of a mental hospital. They said a lot of the patients talk a ton while working in the garden unlike when they would be in counseling sessions-which would seem likely to me- seems effective.

Then we were given a sample of some of their home grown food-which the patients had earlier prepared for us. It was guava jelly on crackers, poi (yuck), and homemade lemonade. It was all really good minus the poi that I, again, opted out on. So after that we were walked back up to the bus and left that side of the island.

After I got back to the boat I headed to my room and changed really quick and made my way outside to wait for our free shuttle that took us to walmart. My camera broke the day before and I needed to get a new one as soon as possible. I was also feeling kind of home sick so I decided to meet up with Alex again (who lives back in the Valley too). We met up at walmart and took the bus back to his dorm so he could drop his school stuff off. I let him know I hadn’t had lunch and he took me to this place by his dorm which has this stuff ive never seen anywhere but Hawaii. It’s like yogurt ice cream but it has real fruit in it too and bits of granola and honey in it. It was so good and definitely needed.  So we got that to go and ate it on the way to the beach. We decided to just hang out at the beach for a couple hours. It was almost time for me to head back to the ship and I decided I wanted to be a typical tourist and I got a Hawaii shirt from the international market. I caught the bus back to the dock with Alex and headed back onto the boat. I made it through security and scanned my ID card onto the boat with 10minutes to spare (with the consequence of dock time if I was even a minute late).

I met up with my friends and we sat outside on the 7^th deck the watch the sunset and us pull away from Hawaii/the United States.

Now we’re off to Yokohama, Japan! 11 days at sea is gona be rough. (technically its 12 days) but we lose a day crossing the international dateline. So that means this year I won’t get a February 3^rd. Weird!

I’m finishing this blog on Feb.1^st and I’m, believe it or not, feeling pretty homesick! I love to get emails and hear how everyone is doing.. so keep in touch! jamarshall@semesteratsea.net

 

xx

 

ps. my blog title comes from my GS professor. He says people travel for different reasons. Some in the military to protect and fight or battle some for business. But on this voyage, its our job or profession to Learn. It's true. I'm on here solely to learn.

Not just about countries and their cultures, but also

to be independent

textbook/school learning

to cope fully on my own

among many other things!

-its definitely been a challenge. but theres no turning back.