Day 30: 2/8 Only One Day in Hong Kong

                Today I had a field lab for my Global Lens course called Health Promotion and Behavior.  I wasn’t totally sure if we were still going to have this field lab since the woman teaching it was the wife of the professor who passed away, and she had left to go back to the States to have a funeral service.  Some other staff members helped cover the chaperone position though, so at 9 in the morning we all met in the Union.  From there, we walked through the town to Kowloon Park which was a sizable park in the middle of the city.  It was kind of cool that this spot which was filled with all of these natural elements was in the middle of all of the skyscrapers of Hong Kong.  On a side note, the city of Hong Kong is basically built upwards rather than outwards, so the skyscrapers in Hong Kong are extremely tall.  I feel like their skyscrapers put all of the skyscrapers in the United States to shame.  Kowloon Park was pretty cool though.  It was pretty big and had all these different parts to it.  There was this one part that had a covered area wrapping around this pond, another part had a maze built out of bushes, another part had all sorts of sculptures, another part had a fountain, another part had a swimming pool, and another part had an aviary.  We were allowed time to just wander around the park and observe the healthy behaviors being practiced.  There were a bunch of people doing Tai Chi and many of them were elderly people, but they were still kicking it!  I don’t really know too many people in that class, so I decided to just wander around by myself.  I have to admit I actually really enjoyed just being on my own because I was able to go where I wanted and spend as much or as little time as I wanted at each place and I had no one to answer to or cater to but myself.  There are times when I wish I could actually do travels on my own in port, but I had to be born a tiny girl… thanks a lot Mom and Dad! Just kidding, but in all seriousness I have come to find that I kind of like doing my own thing but I like having other people plan out the major logistics like transportation and housing and stuff.  Anyway, I wandered around for a while and then met up with the group again. 

We then walked back toward the ship but instead went onto the Star Ferry which is this ferry that has been running for a long time and goes between Kowloon Island and Hong Kong Island.  When we got to Hong Kong Island we got onto some buses and traveled to another park.  This one was called Hong Kong Park (creative huh?).  We did the same thing at this park, but this park seemed to be bigger in size than Kowloon.  In this park there was a large pond with lots of fish, there was a little waterfall that you could walk behind/under, an observation tower that you could climb up and get a cool view of the whole city, a memorial for doctors and health care workers who died during the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, an Olympic Square thing, an aviary, and a playground that was three different levels that catered to different age groups.  It was really cool to walk around this park, but there were so many stairs that I climbed up and down that I felt like I really got a good workout in.  After we explored this park we went to a dim sum restaurant that was in this huge room and was pretty much full of businessmen on their lunch break.  We got rice dishes, noodle dishes, like four different kinds of dumplings, some veggies, and plenty of tea.  I ate as much as I could at my own table without looking like a complete pig, and even though I probably ate the most at my table of about 12 people, I could have eaten so much more.  It was delicious! 

After lunch we got in the buses and were taken to Hong Kong University where we were going to listen to some professors and guest speakers talk about health in Hong Kong.  Parts of it were interesting, but I think a slight food coma was also starting to set in.  Until the last speaker, the mood in the room was just bleh.  The last speaker was this older man who had a good sense of humor and was just kind of crazy.  Maybe it was a mixture of what he was saying with his age, but it was hilarious and really seemed to pick up the mood and the engagement of the students.  After all of the speakers, we got back on the buses and drove back to the ship.  I kind of dozed off on the bus ride back, and it felt wonderful.

We got back to the ship a little earlier than on ship time (the time we’re required to be on the ship on the last day in port), and my friend Mike and I were both starving.  We decided to go to the bar on the 7^th deck and get a burger.  I had been trying to put off buying any food from the 7^th deck bar since I knew I would want to get it more often after I started, but in that moment it sounded so good that I gave into temptation.  We ate our burgers (which were just as delicious as I thought it would be) and then we went our separate ways for the night.  Later in the evening Jillian, Alexa, and I went to deck 7 aft (the back part of the ship) to watch the 8 o’clock light show that goes on every night.  From what I have heard from other people it is much better with the music that is supposed to accompany it, but we didn’t get to have that combo.  We watched as the lights on the buildings lit up the sky in deliberate patterns.  As the light show was coming to an end, our ship started to pull away from the port.  The city of Hong Kong at night was amazing to look at, and even though the pictures I have don’t quite capture all of its awesomeness it is pretty apparent how spectacular it really was to see.

Day 29: 2/7 Sad to Say Goodbye

                We got everything all packed up and ready to go for the car that was going to pick us up at 9:15.  Allie and I needed some more cash and needed something to eat, so we sped-walked to the ATM and stopped by this bakery which had all sorts of goodies.  I got a few pastries and a thing of cookies (yeah Mom and Dad I eat cookies for breakfast and there isn’t anything you can do to stop me… well I’m sure there is but oh well) and paid with one of the bills I got from the ATM.  I ended up getting 78 Yuan back in change, but I stuffed it into my pocket because we were starting to push it on time.  We got outside and started to jog a bit because we were getting close to the scheduled pick-up time.  When we got to the hostel the car hadn’t arrived yet, so we basically ran for nothing.  The car finally showed up and we packed ourselves in.  About two minutes into the ride I reached into my pocket and only grabbed air.  I checked my other pocket partly because I wasn’t sure if I just blanked on which pocket I put my money but partly because I was freaking out and didn’t know what else to do.  Somehow on our way back to the hostel my 78 Yuan had fallen out of my pocket, so some lucky person found about $12 on the street.  The car picked up two other people on the way who were from the Beijing area.  The man asked Allie where she was from and she said the United States, and then he said something to me in Chinese and I said “huh?” and he repeated it, and then I said I don’t speak Chinese.  He was taken aback and then said, “Oh sorry, I thought you were Chinese.”  I didn’t try to explain.  The rest of the ride was pretty silent; most people were asleep, and the rest of us were too tired to talk.  I’m not sure how, but the two plus hour ride that we took out to Yangshuo from the airport only took 30-45 minutes when we used another route. 

                We got to the airport and checked in.  Bryson, who had missed two of his flights out to Guilin (one he was late for and then the other one he missed because he underestimated how long it would take to get to another gate), found out that he was scheduled for a flight earlier in the day.  He went with a worker to try to figure out if he could get on our flight.  Meanwhile, the rest of us went to the gate to wait to board the plane.  We finally got on and this time I had a window seat!  Bryson ended up getting on our flight for those of you who were curious.  I couldn’t tell you if anything exciting happened during that flight because I was out cold, so the window seat was kind of wasted on me.  We got to Guangzhou and had a three hour layover.  Allie, Braden, and I went to a restaurant to get some lunch and then we made our way to the gate.  What I don’t think any of us anticipated was that we had to go to the part of the airport where international flights were.  We had to go through immigration and customs to get to our gate which took a decent amount of time, so we lucked out by going to the gate early.  When we got on the plane I realized I had a window seat again!  I felt like I was lucking out but then realized the plane was so empty that eventually the other people in my row went to their own set of seats; nonetheless having a whole row all to myself was nice.  We got to Hong Kong and had to take a train to Kowloon which was the island our ship was docked on.  We rode the train and when we got off we found fellow SASers getting off the train as well.  We all tried to figure out how to get to the ship when we decided to just start walking.  We were walking through various construction sites and taking detours to get to what looked like the main part of town.  We continued to walk until we came across the area that the ship was supposed to be docked.  The terminal of the port was basically a shopping mall with very high end type of shops; the part of the mall we walked by to get to the ship consisted of clothing for children, but I’m guessing it was crazy expensive.  We finally got to where the terminal was (which was at the very back of the terminal mall thing) and, as I was going through ship security, Sawyer and Kyle passed by and asked if I wanted to go grab something to eat.  I quickly rushed to my room to change and then went back out to meet up with them.  We walked around the terminal a while trying to find something appealing and affordable.  Some other SASers suggested some restaurant that they went to, and at this point the three of us were trying to hush the growls coming from our stomachs and just went there.  We got some pizza (which I have found to be quite the comforting food and have found myself craving pizza more and more) and some nasty carbonated water.  After dinner we were all pretty worn out and we all had field labs the next morning, so we decided to just go to bed.

Day 28: 2/6 Biking Through the Countryside

                Today Braden, Allie, Emily, and I planned to meet up with Wendy at the restaurant that we originally met her at (which worked out nicely since we were probably going to eat breakfast there again no matter what).  Braden wasn’t feeling well, so Emily, Allie, and I headed to breakfast to meet up with Rachel (who we invited to join us on the bike tour).  A little after we got our food, Braden joined us.  As we were eating, there was this little wedding party that appeared and then we saw the groom walking to the colorfully decorated car with his bride hoisted over his shoulder.  The wedding party set off confetti cannons as they said their goodbyes to the newlyweds.  As the car pulled away, we spotted Wendy across the street. 

                We went over to her where we got the bikes we were going to rent for the day.  I haven’t really ridden a bicycle in probably like seven years, so I was kind of nervous to try it again but it really is true what they say about never forgetting how to ride a bike.  We started riding and it wasn’t too bad, but then we got to the main street.  You know how I said that the streets and driving were crazy and scary?  Well it got even worse when you’re actually riding through it yourself.  There were so many cars and motorcycles and everything was just chaotic.  There were numerous times that I felt like I was going to crash into something or I didn’t feel comfortable enough on the bike that I stepped off and walked the bike.  I felt so bad for Braden, because if you take how I felt and multiplied it by 20 that’s probably how he was feeling because he had never learned how to ride a bike.  I can’t even imagine how scary it would be if that was your first experience riding a bike, which is probably part of the reason why he called it quits after trying to get through the town.

                The rest of us continued to follow Wendy as she went down what seemed to be very random streets and paths.  We eventually ended up going on a dirt/rock path that was very bumpy and kind of like mountain biking terrain (I don’t really know what mountain biking terrain is like, but I would imagine that this was pretty close or at least a beginner version of mountain biking).  The entire time we were biking I had no clue where we were going, but it was fun to just be in the outskirts of the town where I hardly saw other people.  We even randomly stopped and Wendy went and picked us some mandarin oranges from a tree of some farm (which were amazingly delicious).  We then continued our bike tour until we got to the “highway” (I only put them in quotes because it isn’t like the highways I think of back home where they are like 3 lanes across, rather it was like highway 93 in Colorado where it was one/sometimes two lanes). 

                We then rode up toward the Goldwater Cave which is this big cave (like three levels deep) that has hot springs and a mud bath thing inside.  The cave walls were lit up with all sorts of different colored lights which made it look pretty cool and would accentuate the formation of the stalagmites and stalactites.  There was also a name for practically every inch of the caves.  It was almost like someone was looking at the caves, like they would look at clouds, and just come up with a name for some weird, abstract formation that they would see.  Many of them were very obvious like one was called broccoli because it looked like broccoli (and was lit up green) and one was called the frog prince because it looked like a giant frog kind of puckering its lips. There were times when I would not understand where the name came from; it would be like me looking at the wall and saying to myself, “I don’t see the upside down unicorn on a pogo stick.”  There was one that was called the “Rebirth Hole” which you could crawl through.  Allie, Rachel, and I decided we wanted to crawl through it and found that it was a lot tighter than we were anticipating, but it was still pretty fun to climb around in the caves.  We then continued our tour through the caves and walked by the hot springs and mud bath but didn’t get in (now I kind of wish I had brought a bathing suit to try it out). 

                We got out to the bikes and started to ride again.  As soon as my butt hit the bicycle seat I could feel that my butt was starting to get tender from the seat, so I knew that the rest of the day had the potential to be really rough.  We headed down the highway a bit until we reached a little restaurant on the side of the road.  When we dismounted our bikes and went to go sit down we saw Moon Hill which is basically a rock formation where there is a half circle missing from the middle and it makes it look like a moon… fancy that! We ate lunch at the little restaurant and then Wendy asked if we wanted to visit her home.  I, being a kind of paranoid person, was just imagining some sort of story like Taken playing out where she takes us to her house and then these men jump out from behind the door and kidnap us.  I figured that wouldn’t happen but the imagination is a powerful thing. 

We biked to her house which was this cement building.  We walked in and the first thing I see is a chicken walking around.  For those of you who know me, you can just imagine how I reacted to that thing, but I made it safely into the house.  The first room was just an open space with a refrigerator, table, TV, pictures on the wall, and a beat up couch.  Wendy gave us some more mandarin oranges that she had picked from her backyard earlier, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that there were probably 40-50 oranges in the bag she handed us, so I felt no shame in eating multiple oranges.  As we were indulging in the sweet fruit, she pulled out this funkily-shaped thing.  It looked kind of like a giant pear but at the same time I have never seen any fruit like it before.  Apparently it’s called pomadoro fruit or something like that.  Wendy used this huge machete looking knife to cut through the extremely thick skin of the fruit, and then she took the skin and wore it around as a hat which looked goofy.  After some effort we finally got to the center where the good stuff was.  The fruit didn’t have too much taste to it, but the texture was weird because it had these thick stringy parts to it.  It was weird.  As we were eating the fruit the chicken decided to walk inside the house and I swear it was staring me down.  It walked around the outskirts of the group and I made sure to stay on the opposite side of the cluster of people to avoid the demon bird.  Right when I was near the door and the bird was on the other side of the room, Wendy then decided to try to shoo the bird outside the door… right toward me.  Needless to say I had a slight freak out moment when the bird flew in my direction.

We left Wendy’s house with full bellies and fresh legs.  We rode toward this place called Butterfly Caves which is notorious for a giant butterfly sculpture thing on the side of the cave.  We went through the caves until we got to this stretch that was lined with numerous bells of all different sizes.  As people walked through they would hit the bells with a mallet.  After the path of bells there was this suspended bridge that we had to cross.  On the other side there was a path of stairs we could take to get to a scenic spot.  At this point I was extremely hot and tired, but I slowly made it up all of the stairs to the top which provided a pretty awesome view of the surrounding area.  We took some pictures and then made our way down toward this performance area.  In this area some of the locals that were part of a minority Dong group would put on shows of their traditional dances and singing.  The outfits of the performers were very extravagant.  The women would have these huge crown-like head pieces and necklace things that would be completely silver, and the dresses that were worn were vibrantly colored.  There were many dancers and singers, but my favorite performance was this young man who walked out carrying a little branch with a few leaves on it.  He got to the center of the stage where he plucked a single leaf off the branch and strategically placed it in his hands.  He brought his hands to his mouth and started to play the leaf like an instrument matching the pitches of the background music and playing the melody with perfect precision.  It was quite impressive how he could hit all of the notes with a stinkin’ leaf.  At the very end we were allowed to get on the stage with all of the dancers and do a dance.  The dance reminded me of the Jewish dance where you hold hands with your neighbors and walk in a circle.  It was pretty fun.  After that we got back on our bikes to head back to town.

We got back to the hostel and met up with Braden to get some dinner.  We wandered around the town and chose a random restaurant to eat at.  I decided to try some sort of duck dish since I figured it would probably be decent, but when I got it every chunk of duck had more bones than meat.  It was very difficult to eat any of the dish, so I was slightly disappointed.  Braden said that I got “river shrimped,” so I guess we have a new term for getting gypped with food.

Day 27: 2/5 Floating on Air...Well, Technically Water

                I woke up this morning and went straight up to the roof to look at Yangshuo in proper lighting, and let me tell you it was beyond any words I could say.  The entire area was probably the most beautiful place I have ever been.  Through the hostel, we booked a 1:30 bamboo boat tour, so in the mean time we just planned to walk around town and explore.  We first went to this little restaurant/café that had an awesome breakfast menu.  I got the “Special Breakfast” (I think that’s what it was called) which included a fried egg, steak, French fries, a banana pancake, coffee, and orange juice.  The French fries weren’t the best but they were much better than river shrimp! The banana pancake was delicious! It was basically a crepe with bananas in it, but it tasted so good.  And I am not an OJ fan, but the orange juice was fresh squeezed and extremely tasty.  I was so happy to have something substantial in my belly.  During breakfast we were approached by this Chinese woman, Wendy, who spoke English well and asked if we would like to take a bicycle tour with her the next day.  We all decided that it would be fun and set up a time to meet up with her the next day.  We then walked around town wasting some time, looking around, and trying not to die crossing the hectic streets.  After enough time had passed we headed back to the hostel where we would leave to go to the bamboo raft rides. 

We were picked up by this van which had about four rows of seating behind the driver.  We picked up many other groups of people and happened to pick up a life-long learner, Rachel, from SAS.  The van drove for about an hour or so, much of which was on a small dirt road which had several large dips and bumps.  On top of the not-so-great road, we had a pretty crazy driver.  I’m not sure if it is just the culture, but many of the drivers here seem to regard the lines in the road as mere suggestions rather than something to follow.  I think our driver spent just as much time in the center of the road or on the other side of the road passing others as he did on the side of the road he was supposed to be on.  Also, honking here is something used about every ten seconds by one driver, so add all the other drivers and you have a pretty constant tune of honks.  The honking here is used to inform other drivers that you are there, or you are passing them, or whatever it may be, rather than what I’m used to where we use our horns to tell someone to pay attention because the light is green or to tell them how big of a jerk they are and where they can stick it.  After my life had flashed before my eyes more times than I would have liked, we finally made it to where the boats were.  These boats each held four people and were (to my disappointment) motorized.  I was imagining and hoping for a boat that was paddled by a person with a stick similar to the gondolas in Italy, but there was no such luck.  As we were herded onto the boats by a Chinese man who sounded like he wasn’t very happy, we were handed life vests and were motioned at to put them on.  We then set off to the river.  My boat was unfortunately attached to another boat, so I wasn’t able to see some parts of the mountains that we passed but it was still amazing.  The boats traveled at a decent pace, but everywhere you looked there were these astounding mountain formations that seemed to just jut out of the ground.  I was in complete awe for the entire boat ride.  I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the fact that I was in China in this beautiful, majestic place.  It blew my mind.  I think I took a ton of pictures because I wanted to capture the beauty of the region, but no matter how much I try to describe it or try to capture a picture to depict it there is no way to do it justice.  It is one of those places that you have to see to be able to understand what I’m talking about.  Don’t get me wrong…the pictures help, but seeing these things in person is 1000 times better than any picture.  During the boat tour, we stopped at two “scenic” spots where they would take your picture and you could buy a copy.  We took pictures in both spots but with our own cameras.  After those stops we headed back to where we started.  At this point, if you looked toward a certain direction it was the exact scene that is pictured on the back of the 20 Yuan bill!  Cool huh?

After another heart-stopping van ride, we arrived back on familiar ground.  We went back to the hostel for some good down time.  We sat around the hostel’s common area drinking a big bottle of beer that cost 6 Yuan (approximately $1) and talking to the other travelers staying in the hostel.  It was really cool just talking to these people and hearing about their travels and what had brought them to the No Kidd Inn; some were backpackers travelling all over the world, others were in China teaching English to children, and others were just there on vacation.  After a while, a SAS student, Bryson, came into the hostel who knew Braden and Emily.  The five of us then went out to try to find some dinner (preferably not river shrimp).  We ended up at this restaurant right off of the river.  Allie and I decided to play it safe and split a lemon chicken (which turned out to be delicious!) and some noodles which very well could have just been ramen noodles.  While we were sitting there, fireworks were going off in the distance and reflecting off the river which was pretty cool to watch.  We then ventured down this street of little market stands where people were bargaining left and right for miscellaneous items.  As we were walking, everyone seemed to get a hankering for some ice cream and I also realized that I had to pee really badly (yeah that’s probably too much information, but this leads to quite a personal accomplishment so bear with me).  We then came across a McDonalds, so I thought that I’d be able to kill two birds with one stone.  When I got into the bathroom, it was a squatty-potty which have been everywhere in both China and Japan, but I had avoided using one up until this point.  I won’t go into any more details, but it was definitely a different experience.  Anyway, we all got McFlurries and headed back to the hostel.

When we got back, I decided that I should probably take a shower and be a little hygienic.  The bathroom in our room at the hostel was basically a room with a toilet, a sink, a shower head attached to the wall, and a drain on the floor, so if you wanted to take a shower the entire bathroom would turn into your shower.  It was kind of nice not having a confined space that was covered by a curtain to shower in, but the entire bathroom was wet and flooded after my shower. 

The group then decided to check out the night life of Yangshuo, so we went to the busy street of the town and found many different “clubs” bumpin’ music and packed with people (and smoke).  We went into this one place after paying a set price; I wasn’t sure if that was for a certain amount of beer or more like a cover charge to get in.  When we got in, we noticed that there was this little stage in the middle of the room with a lit floor and a pole on one side.  We sat in this booth and were drinking beer when the “MC” (the guy that was dancing around on the stage with a mic in hand) motioned for us (the only non-locals) to go dance on the stage with him.  All of us were compliant with his request and made our way through the people around the stage.  We started dancing a little bit when the people around the stage (most likely intoxicated) were taking pictures like teenage girls seeing Justin Bieber and then were getting pictures with Braden and Bryson.  The locals were having a great time watching and dancing with all of us, and it was really fun for us as well. 

Day 26: 2/4 Guilin is Calling My Name

                Yesterday I had received two sticky notes on my door, one from each person who I would be traveling with to Guilin.  Apparently I didn’t read both of them too carefully because in the morning I went to the Garden Lounge (the 6^th deck dining hall) to meet the group at 8, because I knew that’s what one sticky note said and I assumed the other one said the same thing… wrong-o.  I ate some breakfast and waited for the group to show up; 15 minutes passed before I saw Braden (who wrote the sticky note I followed).  It wasn’t for another 10 or so minutes that we realized that Emily (the other person in our group) said to meet in Tymitz Square at 8… apparently she wasn’t very happy there was a miscommunication.  While we were now waiting for her in Tymitz Square, we came across a sign that read, “In loving memory of Wade Lancaster…”  Wade Lancaster was a professor who taught on the ship.  I had heard the night before that he had a heart attack on the bus after a field program, but I had no clue that he had passed away.  We found out he had passed the night before from a stroke.  This news struck me like a slap in the face.  I didn’t know him personally, but his wife teaches one of my classes.  He was there every class walking around with the attendance sheet for everyone to sign in during class.  I knew that deaths have happened on Semester at Sea and it was a possibility, but, no matter what, you don’t expect it to happen.  The fact that I had encountered him and seen him every other day, and now he was gone, made my mind race with thoughts and emotions of life and death.

Back to our adventure, to add to Emily being mad that we were “running late,” I had to go to an ATM because I didn't have any cash on me to help pay for a taxi. I stopped at the ATM across the street, but neither machine would accept my card. Emily was getting really irritated that we hadn't left yet (note: it was about 8:30-9 am and our flight was at 12:20). We got in a taxi and arrived at the airport at about 9:30, so we were 3 HOURS early for our flight. I know it's better to be safe than sorry, but seriously?  The airport felt super empty which for some reason kind of made me feel uneasy, but because it was so empty we went through security and everything very quickly which was nice. We then got some lunch and Emily wanted to find a battery for some water filter thing she had. She asked if we would be sitting in the restaurant for a little longer while she went to look for a battery.  We said that was fine and just sat there talking for 15 minutes… 30 minutes… an hour… no sign of her.  We waited a little longer because we figured she’d be coming back to where we were, but she just went to the terminal at some point and didn’t inform us.  This is a good start to a five day trip, huh?  However, as we were waiting and Braden went to search for Emily, he ran into this girl, Allie, who was traveling to Guilin without a group, so she joined our group. 

We finally started to board our plane just before noon.  As we flew on our 2.5 hour flight, we were served beverages (water and a drink of our choice) as well as a meal.  I can’t remember the last time I had a meal during a flight, and even though it wasn’t the greatest meal it was still nice to have.  As we started to land, I could see hints of the hills of the gorgeous Guilin out the window.  After we landed, I found out that we would actually be staying in a nearby town to Guilin called Yangshuo.  As we were trying to figure out all of the things we wanted to do while in the area we were also trying to figure out how we were going to get to Yangshuo.  We ended up hopping on a bus that took us to the actual city of Guilin, and then we planned to change buses to go to Yangshuo.  As the bus drove through the city, we realized how crazy and chaotic the roads seemed.  There were so many motor bikes, bicycles, vehicles, and people crossing this huge intersection with, what seemed to me, very little organization.  We got to the bus station and were trying to figure out what bus we needed to get on when these two young Chinese girls (probably middle school or early high school age), who were completely gaga over Braden, started to help us find our way to the correct bus.  We got on this bus that cost us 18 Yuan (about 3 dollars) to get to Yangshuo; we later found out this wasn’t a legit bus from the actual bus system but rather a bus that was more independently run and would make more stops… kind of sketch if you ask me.  On the bright side, as we drove into town we were gradually surrounded by the amazing hills/mountains that make the area famous.  It was breathtakingly beautiful out there and, during the drive, the sun was setting giving the wondrous mountains a beautiful backdrop.  In that moment I knew I had made the right decision to skip on the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and the Terracotta soldiers and come to this area.

When we finally made it to Yangshuo, we ran into another road block.  We didn’t know exactly where the hostel we planned to stay in was located.  We walked up and down the street that we knew it was on without a clue of where it could be.  We asked many different people who would point us in the direction we just came, and then we would walk a little bit back the way we came and would ask someone else who would point us back the other way.  It took us a good 30 minutes to actually find the place, which made sense because it was kind of tucked away in a back street.  The hostel was called the No Kidd Inn and was this cute, colorful five story hostel with a roof top “bar” (which actually had a great view of the area surrounding the hostel which included beautiful hills and a river, but the bar wasn’t much of a bar) and very friendly staff.  The best parts of the hostel though were the fact that it only cost about $7 a night to stay there and that there was this little puppy that lived there who was one of the cutest little things! We got the keys to our rooms and dropped our stuff off before going out to get something to fill our empty stomachs.  We walked around a bit but then got to the point where we were so hungry that we just wanted to get food, so we ate at the next restaurant we came across.  We perused over the menu a bit before deciding what to get (mostly based on the pictures they offered since very little was in English).  One of the things we got was fried shrimp which didn’t look terrible in the picture, but when they brought out the dish we were less than pleased with the outcome.  They were these little one inch long shrimps that were caught in the nearby river; they were then lightly battered and deep fried whole, eyes, antenna things, shell and all.  When put in the mouth your tongue was greeted by either a taste of cardboard or poop… appetizing huh?  Not much of that dish really got consumed.  We then stopped by a little convenience store to get some snacks since our dinner wasn’t very filling.  We went back to the hostel, and Allie (who I was sharing a room with) and I spent a good amount of time just talking about random things.  It was a nice ending to an interesting day.

Day 25: 2/3 Visiting Half of My Roots

                This morning I woke up and looked out my window to see land not far from the ship.  We weren’t quite docked yet, but rather we were navigating through a river to where our ship would be docked in Shanghai.  Jillian and I, again, went up to try to see the sunrise, but it was so gloomy out that there really wasn’t a sunrise to see.  When we finally docked, I noticed that my room had a fantastic view of the Pearl Tower across the river from our ship, which made me excited even though I would only be there for that one night.  Jillian had a field lab today, so I planned to venture into town with Sawyer, Kyle, and Alexa.  Before we could go anywhere though Kyle, Sawyer, and Alexa needed to exchange some cash.  As we walked to a nearby bank I realized that I was still wearing my moccasins instead of actual shoes… whoops!  I was planning on just dealing with the mistake since it would take a while for everyone to get off the ship (since we couldn’t get back on the ship until everyone got off and the ship was “cleared”), but we found out that in order for them to exchange money they had to go through an extensive amount of paperwork.  I saw my window of opportunity!  As they were waiting in line I was waiting to be able to get back on the ship to change my shoes.  After about 20 minutes or so I was able to board the ship.  I raced (well more like sped-walked) to my room, changed into my Merrells, and raced back to the gangway (where we get on and off the ship while it is docked).  There really was no need to practice my speed-walking abilities (even though I’ll probably be training for the Olympics pretty soon since I’m that good) because they were still waiting to get their money exchanged.  It probably took an hour or so for them to exchange their money.  Once they did we headed towards town.  We walked a pretty good distance to get into town and then walked down a street where some shops were.  We were looking for some underground shopping to be able to get a good, cheap deal and be able to haggle with people for items.  There was no such luck as we walked down this street.  We found a mall and decided to get something to eat. 

After we were refueled we decided to walk to another part of town.  On our way we wandered into a little souvenir shop and there it was.  An escalator, going down under the building, dwelled in the back of this random store.  We went down the moving staircase to find a bunch of vendors dealing and bargaining with customers.  We found one!  We spent the next hour or so walking around haggling and buying little things that we wanted or got for gifts for those back home.  Even though I’m not very good at haggling, I have to admit it was kind of fun.  There was this sort of rush that went along with bargaining; it almost turned into a sort of game.  We left the underground area with a sense of energy and joy at getting some good deals.  We then continued to the area we planned to go to when we got distracted by the underground market.

We went to what we thought was supposed to be “Old Town,” but I’m not 100% sure that’s where we actually ended up.  We stumbled upon this area with tons of vendors similar to the ones at the previous underground market.  If we were impressed by the market we came across earlier, our minds were blown when we came to this place.  There was a building about seven stories tall filled with vendors, and on the streets there were more filling every nook and cranny of the area.  It was pretty amazing how many people were trying to sell things.  It was fun at times, but at the same time it got kind of scary when the people would push so hard for you to buy something from them and to have people all up in your grill trying to show you what they have for you to buy.  I felt very overwhelmed in this area.  There was one moment when a man was trying to sell Kyle a North Face jacket, but in order to get to his “store” we had to go through this little alley and go into this little room that had jackets and sunglasses and other “brand name” items.  I know it sounds sketchy. I thought the exact same thing when we were going there, but I guess it is kind of the norm to do that if you want those kinds of items.  It still seems sketch to me though.  We left the chaotic market area and headed to get some dinner.  We ended up at a Canadian restaurant/bar… yes Canadian.  I don’t know why there is a Canadian restaurant in China when I have never heard of Canadian food.  We walked back toward the ship and got to see a gorgeous view of the city at night.  We got back to the ship and I was going to go out to some bars with Shelley and some of her friends.  We started to walk back into town, but didn’t really end up going anywhere.  We walked and walked and walked some more until we made a funny-shaped loop.  At that point Shelley and I decided that we’d just go back to the ship and go to bed because we both had to pack for our trips the next day and get some sleep.  We got back and I took off my shoes to find some lovely blisters that had formed on the bottom of my pinky toes… seriously, who gets blisters there?  I grabbed some of my lovely Band-Aids that Keenan so kindly gave me for Christmas and wrapped my injured toes before going to bed.

Day 24: 2/2 Being a Good Student

                Since I’m on the ship in the middle of the ocean on my way to so many different and amazing countries the last thing I want to do is school work, but today I finally buckled down a bit to catch up on school work.  My motivation for doing school work is practically nonexistent now, so to muster up the will to do this was extremely difficult but most definitely necessary.  I spent the day going to class and then doing work in between classes.  Are you proud mom?  I bet you are!  Later that night we had pre-port which I realize I didn’t talk about in any of my previous blog entries.  Pre-port is a mandatory session they have the night before we arrive in every port.  The pre-port includes information like what kind of currency the country uses, where to get money, what to watch out for and be cautious of, what is safe to eat/drink, and other information they think we should know before we get into the country.  This one also included statistics from Japan like how many people were drugged, pickpocketed, subjected to credit card fraud, or injured.  Unfortunately, I forget the numbers, but it is surprisingly more than I thought it would be.  Most of the things that happened occurred because people were being stupid and careless with how they carried themselves, so there’s no need for you all back home to worry excessively about my safety.  

Day 23: 2/1 Sleepy Kid

                I never realized how draining going into port can be.  Today I slept pretty much all day besides going to class and eating some meals.  Part of the reason was due to that dang seasickness that crept up on me again, but the other part was just pure exhaustion from doing so much in the past several days.  I felt like such a lazy bum, but I have to admit getting some sleep made me feel so much better.  It wasn’t until later in the day that I actually did something other than sleep.  Shelley, Jillian, and I planned to have a nail night and just hang out.  It turned into watching Game of Thrones with two of the people Shelley traveled with in Japan, Zak and Alex.  While they were watching the show we were painting our toe nails, and for those of you who know me you know that I hardly ever just paint my fingernails.  No one besides Jillian knew this about me, so when I told Shelley I would do her nails I don’t think she knew what I was talking about.  Since I didn’t bring any of my nail stuff with me I improvised by using a Sharpie.  I drew some designs on the toes of one foot and showed her.  I’m pretty sure her jaw dropped to the floor; I don’t think she was expecting me to do anything like what I did, so she was pretty shocked.  They started another episode of GOT while I was working on writing for this blog (which has been more difficult to keep up with than I initially thought).  Shelley I think fell asleep within the first 15 or so minutes of the episode and Jillian already went to bed.  I wanted to go to sleep so badly but I didn’t want to ask the others to leave, so I kept writing through my drowsiness until the episode finally ended.  I got ready for bed and even though I slept for most of the day I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Day 22: 1/31 Beautiful Kyoto

                Today I went to Kyoto for the day with a friend.  Kyoto is home to many beautiful temples and shrines.  Although I didn’t get to see much due to the time constraint of only being there a day (since we had to be back at the ship by 6 pm), the temples that I did see were absolutely breathtaking.  I am amazed by older Asian architecture, so I was perfectly content with just looking at all of the buildings. 

                We took the train to Kyoto which was about an hour or so.  The Kyoto train station was enormous!  It was very modern looking and was about 11 or 12 levels high.  We grabbed some lunch at a restaurant that was on the 11^th floor and planned out our day.  We first went to Kiyomizu Temple (I think that is what it is called) which was located at the top of this giant hill.  I felt like it took forever to get to the top, but luckily there were little shops along the way that occupied my attention.  As the slope of the hill started to level off, I was met by the vision of a collection of vibrant, red-orange accented buildings that would make your jaw drop in awe.  It was absolutely beautiful.  There were many people doing certain practices of their religion.  Some people would take these long stemmed looking spoons made out of bamboo and fill them with water and pour the water over their hands.  Other people would be praying and then would ring this giant gong, that was high above their heads, using an extremely thick rope.  It was really interesting and cool to watch the people who would come to these temples, not because it was a touristy spot, but rather because they were there for their own personal, spiritual reasons.  After exploring the grounds a bit we decided we should probably start to head to the next temple if we wanted to see some more before we had to leave.  We started walking down a different street where every open door was filled with knick-knacks, t-shirts, food, and everything in between.  My attention was constantly being grabbed by little things here and there, things that I wanted to buy for myself or for family and friends back home.  It took a good hour or so just to get down to the bottom of the hill.

                We then jumped on the bus and went to the next temple.  I think it was called the Gion Temple.  It, just like every other temple I have seen thus far, was stunning.  This temple was surrounded by a vast amount of grounds, and unfortunately I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to explore each and every corner and crevice of the space.  We did get to walk around and just look at the gorgeous buildings and watch those who practice the religion pray in temples and shrines.  Being in the midst of all of these old buildings I completely forgot about the world of skyscrapers and metal buildings that awaited me outside of the grounds.  Being here made me think about what the world looked like back in the day when these buildings were newly built.  Were all of the buildings this gorgeous?  Why didn’t we keep this kind of architecture around in these places?  I wish I could have seen first-hand what the city of Kyoto looked like years and years ago.  After we finished walking around this temple we decided that there wasn’t enough time to go to any more temples which made me kind of sad because there were so many incredible temples in the area that I didn’t get to see.  Some people have the feeling that every temple looks so similar that once you see one you’ve pretty much seen them all; even though they do look very similar in architectural style, I feel like I could spend days looking at these buildings and not get tired of it.  We took the train back and made it on the ship with time to spare before getting dock time.  We left the port at 8:00 (like usual) and, just as we were greeted into Japan, we left with the same showcase of hospitality and kindness.  There was a small band playing songs with breaks in between where they would wave to all of us on the outside deck.  There were also a good amount of people there, some had signs telling us farewell, others were giant cutouts of hands and others used their arms to wave to us goodbye.  It was such an amazing act of kindness in my book.  There were so many people in Japan who went out of their way to help us or make us feel welcome in their country; it was a very cool thing to see that something like that exists in the world.

Day 21: 1/30 Kobe Round Two

                We woke up today full of hope and energy with the will to try to figure out how to get to the ropeway, but first we had to stop and get breakfast at good ol’ Mister Donut.  While we were finishing up, I decided to go next door to a grocery store to buy some strawberries because I heard from another student that the strawberries were magically delicious (which they were! So if you go to Japan, you should get some strawberries).  After breakfast, we took the train back into town but this time we changed trains and finally got to where we needed to be.  A huge relief set in among the whole group.  We took the gondola up the mountain to this little town square where there were a few shops but it was still very small.  The view from the top of the mountain was fantastic; we had a nice view of pretty much the entire city (with the exception of some of the hills from the mountain).  From there, we walked down a winding road.  About a quarter of the way down the mountain there was this really cool greenhouse that was filled with all sorts of flowers and plants (many arranged in valentine themed formations).  After we walked through the whole greenhouse we happened upon the most wonderful, relaxing place.  There was this random herbal footbath that was set up overlooking the city.  We stayed with our feet soaking in the footbath for as long as we possibly could before we had to leave.  We walked down to the halfway point and took the gondola the rest of the way down.

                We then headed to the port terminal where the ship was newly located after its transit between Yokohama and Kobe.  Once there, we sat in the terminal to get some much needed wifi and facetime with family and the boyfriend.  It was very nice to be able to see everyone’s faces, but sadly my facetime stopped working for some unknown reason.  After numerous attempts and fails to restore the feature, I called it quits.  Later in the night some friends and I indulged in a Japanese classic… karaoke.  Now, Japanese karaoke isn’t like the karaoke that most of you are used to where there is one person in front of the entire room singing.  With Japanese karaoke, you and your friends get a small room to yourselves where you can pick all of the songs that play and what you all want to sing along to.  This is much more my style because I don’t like singing in front of people (especially alone), so this style made me much more comfortable.  We all had a great time! I highly recommend you try karaoke if you go to Japan.

Day 20: 1/29 Exploring Kobe

                We woke up and went to a donut shop called Mister Donut that we saw in the train station the night before.  It had normal-looking donuts as well as wild-looking donuts that I have never seen before.  They were pretty much like mini works of art; to put it in one word, they were pretty.  We enjoyed some donuts and coffee for a good hour or so and then headed to Sannomiya station which is in the middle of everything in the Kobe area.  Surprisingly, we didn’t have any trouble getting there, but then again this was the stop that we got off on last night by mistake.  When we got there we started to walk around the town a little bit, and then we tried to find the underground mall.  We went down some stairs and found a web of hallways.  The one we were searching for was the one with all sorts of restaurants.  We stopped for some lunch at a pretty traditional looking restaurant.  I got fried pork with rice and an egg, and it was pretty darn delicious! And I don’t mean to toot my own horn (yes mom, I did just say “toot”), but I’m starting to get really good with chopsticks!  We then walked around some more and came across this huge area that had all sorts of little kiosks that were selling all sorts of food, desserts, knick-knacks, chocolates, etc.  The one that got me and Sawyer to buy something was this little pastry section where you went around with a tray (like the ones used in cafeterias) and tongs and you picked which pastries you wanted.  I got some strawberry thing, and it (like most things in this country) was mouthwatering goodness.

                After emerging from the world under the streets of the Sannomiya area, we tried to find our way to this ropeway thing that Sawyer told us about earlier.  It is like a gondola (the one that goes up a mountain, not the one that goes in water; I first assumed the latter for some reason, but I was wrong) that takes you up to the top of Mount Rokko and gives a really cool view of the city.  We, once again, had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get up there.  We couldn’t figure out which train to take, or which bus to take, or how to communicate with the taxi driver on how to get to the ropeway.  On a side note, I learned a few phrases in Japanese like “good morning,” “good afternoon,” “good evening,” “thank you,” “excuse me,” “are you well?,” “yes, I am well,” and a few others.  Every once in a while I would say something, and I think some of the people thought I was actually Japanese because they would start talking to me extensively in Japanese.  Since I couldn’t understand a single word, I probably looked dumb standing there with a puzzled look on my face.  This happened with the taxi driver; I asked him “how much?” in Japanese, and then he said something back to me in Japanese.  When he found out I didn’t know what he was saying, he got frustrated trying to explain and wouldn’t let us in his cab.  That’s another thing, when the Japanese people were telling us “no” for whatever reason they would almost always cross their fingers or their arms into an “X” and say “no, no, no, no.”  Anyway, we were all pretty frustrated trying to get to this dang ropeway, so we decided to just go back to the hotel and regroup later for dinner.  When we got back to the station near our hotel and were walking to the hotel, Kyle randomly wanted to go down these stairs to try to walk under the street.  We walked down the stairs and down a hallway to another underground world.  The hallway opened up to an array of shops and restaurants up and down another hallway.  We walked around a little bit before we tried another staircase to surface from.  We emerged a little ways away from where we descended.  After we went back to the hotel, I wanted to explore the underground system near our hotel, so Jillian and I were on our way to the elevator to go back down when we ran into Sawyer who said that the elevator will go all the way down to the underground part.  We took the elevator all the way to the bottom, and were surprised to find where we ended up.  We weren’t far from where we went back up the stairs earlier.  The best part was we found a completely different underground system that was connected to the first one we found by the area that led to our hotel.  We walked a little bit down this new system and found a 100 Yen store (which is pretty much the equivalent of a dollar store in the USA).  We didn’t get to spend much time down in this system, but I wish we did because it looked like it extended a good distance.

                Jillian and I then met up with Kyle and Sawyer and took the underground (our new favorite thing to use) toward Harborland (I think that’s what it was called)  which would take us close to Kobe Tower.  Just like Tokyo Tower looked like a red version of the Eiffel Tower, Kobe Tower looked like a red version of the Space Needle in Seattle.  It was really pretty at night though.  There was also a museum near the tower that had this cool net-like architecture that was lit up too.  We went to the tower so we could go up to the observation deck which should have been open, but for some reason they closed it down for the night which was pretty disappointing.  We then walked over to this building called “Mosaic” which had a bunch of restaurants and shops, but the first thing we ran into there was an arcade.  It was like Dave and Busters where there are just a ton of arcade games everywhere.  There were also a bunch of things like crane-games with different themes for the items that were inside.  We also came across a room filled with photo booths which Jillian had done earlier and said that they were extremely fun but I’ll get to that in a bit.  We went to dinner and ate this thing that was like an egg that was like a crepe and was filled with rice, topped with meat and a sauce.  As weird as it looked it was actually really good! 

We then went back to the photo booth room.  The room was filled with about 15 different kinds of photo booths each with their own theme; some were girly, some were punk, some were chic, and some were slightly odd.  We picked one that had a Tokyo theme to it.  We slipped under the unusually thick and heavy curtain that was hanging across the entrance way into the booth.  The booth was quite a bit different than the booths back in the States; there was no bench to sit on, but rather there was a large area to stand with a green screen on the back wall and shelves on each side of the large screen displaying pictures and the camera waiting to capture our beauty for us to store our belongings.  Since Jillian had already done one of these earlier in the week we didn’t have to spend much time trying to figure out how to work the machine (even though it probably wouldn’t have been too difficult… I think).  The screen started to change images as it showed us a sample pose to do for the first picture.  The image was two Asian girls standing and smiling; once the camera had taken the picture of our lovely faces the image changed into the same two girls doing a new pose.  The next poses consisted of the typical peace sign pose, the two girls forming a heart (each forming a half), two girls putting their hands together in what, to me, looked like girls high-fiving while awkwardly putting our heads together and looking in the direction of our hands, a Charlie’s angels pose, and a hand cupping the face while winking.  Yeah they were interesting poses, but it was nice to have some ideas since, as many of you know, I am not very creative or decisive with my poses for pictures (rather they usually end up with me just making a freakishly weird face).  In the beginning Jillian and I were just taking pictures by ourselves because Kyle and Sawyer decided not to join, but as I suspected after a few pictures were taken, both of them ended up coming in and joining the fun. 

After all the pictures were taken, we went out of the booth to the side where there was another screen.  This screen was a touch screen used to decorate and customize your photo strip.  Each person could pick their own backgrounds and themes and then you could decorate each photo with stamps and letters and whatever you want.  It was kind of difficult figuring out how to decorate the pictures and how to undo what you did if you didn’t like it because everything was in Japanese.  The weirdest thing about these photos is that somehow our eyes got bigger and our skin looked flawless; this led to some pictures making us look extremely good looking and others making us look like we have some crazy eyes, but overall it was a blast!

After all the fun and excitement, we decided to grab a snack at the local family mart.  The family mart has become somewhat of a safe haven for us in Japan; it is just a little convenience store like a 7Eleven (without the slurpees though) where we go to get snacks and drinks.  Tonight, however, we ventured to try the Japanese drink that caters to both the adult and the kid in me… juice box sake.  I have to say it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds, but it definitely wasn’t something that I would sip on for my own enjoyment.  Even though that was a bust (as we kind of assumed it would be) I got to eat one of my favorite treats… mochi.  If you don’t know what mochi is, it is a gummy, chewy texture made out of rice, and even though it sounds weird (and I can just imagine some of the faces being made after reading that last statement), it tastes like a marshmallow.  What I had was that texture enclosing some ice cream.  I don’t know if it was just the fact that I ate mochi in Japan, but it was delicious!  It definitely made up for the nasty sake.  We spent the rest of the night just talking and eating ice cream and having a grand old time.

Day 19: 1/28 Tokyo in a Day

                Today was one of the busiest and most hectic days I have had on the voyage thus far.  We started our day semi early in order to try to get a jump start on our sightseeing adventures in Tokyo.  Jillian and I were supposed to meet up with Shelley somehow in Tokyo, but we had absolutely no way to communicate with her so we gave up on that plan.  We met up with Kyle, Sawyer, and Alexa and ventured to the nearby train station.  The train station was insane.  There were a ton of people walking every which way, some even jogging or running, and then there was us, a group of confused, and slightly scared Americans (at least I was confused and slightly scared).  The train system is pretty simple, but when everything is written in a foreign language it becomes 100 times more complicated.  What you have to do is figure out which stop you want to get off and that stop is associated with a certain price; the farther you go from the station you are currently at, the more it costs… simple right?  Well, for some reason, it wasn’t as simple as it should have been for us all day.

                We luckily got on a train that went straight to Shibuya without even knowing it (Shibuya is a section of Tokyo).  Surprisingly, Tokyo is a lot bigger than I expected.  We went and saw Shibuya crossing which is supposedly the biggest, busiest crossing in the world with about 3.2 million people crossing every day.  When we went, it wasn’t nearly as busy as I think it usually is.  I’m not sure why that was the case, but it was still pretty busy.  After walking around a little bit we got back on the train and went towards Tokyo tower. 

After some confusion on how to get to the tower by train, we finally made it to our stop.  The tower was only a short walk from the train station, but we could see the tower so there was no need for a map.  The tower looked like a red version of the Eiffel Tower.  On the way to the tower we passed some temples and shrines that were really pretty.  I actually found the temples to be cooler looking than the tower.  We didn’t go up in the tower even though after I got back on the ship I heard it was an awesome view.  We were planning to go to the Imperial Palace, but ended up just going back to Yokohama for dinner.

We went to a conveyer belt sushi restaurant which was awesome!  The only problem was I didn’t really know what I was grabbing off the conveyer belt.  There was a menu that had most of the sushi that was going around, but by the time I figured out what the dish was it was way past where I was sitting.  Most of the stuff I pulled off was delicious like the salmon things, the tuna rolls, and whatever else I got, but there was one dish that I took that still makes me gag just thinking about it.  It was some sort of shrimp and rice roll with fish eggs on top.  I’ve had rolls similar to this before, so I thought this wouldn’t be bad.  Boy was I wrong.  I can’t even describe the taste, but as soon as it hit my tongue I wanted to spit it out and scrape my tongue of the sick, nasty taste that overwhelmed my taste buds.  After dinner, we went next door to “Hawaiian Town”… yes there was a Hawaiian town in Japan… to get these donut-like things for dessert, which were delicious if you were wondering.

We then tried to make our way to wherever the bullet train (which is better known, actually only known, as the shinkansen in Japan) picked up.  When we finally got to the station that the shinkansen went through, we had no clue where to go to get to it.  We probably looked like lost, helpless puppy dogs because we were approached by a young Japanese woman who asked if we needed help.  We told her we were trying to find the bullet train, and of course she was confused because they don’t call it by that name.  After we all got on the same page, she didn’t just tell us how to get to the station, but she took us down, up, through, and around the station to where we buy tickets for the train.  On top of that, she then stayed with us to help us buy the correct tickets and translate what the ticket guy was saying.  It was one of the kindest things I have ever seen anyone do for lost foreigners, but apparently cases like this happen more frequently than you’d expect in Japan.  The people there are incredibly kind!  We got on the shinkansen and settled in for about a three hour ride to Kobe.  The shinkansen was a pretty nice train, but the section we were in had a lot of people, which led to an interesting aroma.  It wasn’t necessarily a smell that wasn’t manageable to be around, but it definitely wasn’t a pleasant smell.  While on the train, I was extremely hungry and there was a food cart that came around but I didn’t know what anything was so I didn’t chance it.  The best part was I felt like I was on the Asian version of the Hogwarts Express; I mean it wasn’t nearly as cool as the Hogwarts train, but something about it reminded me of that.

In Yokohama and Tokyo, there were a fair number of English speakers, but that percentage decreased as we got into Kobe.  It seemed like there wasn’t nearly as much English around which didn’t help with our poor navigation with the train system.  Once we got into the Kobe area, we had to take another train to get to the hotel.  We, again, had difficulties figuring out which train to get on and what stop we were supposed to get off to get close to the hotel.  We asked many different people and received different answers from almost every person.  We got on a train, got off at the wrong stop, got on another train, and almost got off at the wrong stop again before we got to the right stop.  Then, on top of everything else, we had no clue where the hotel was and couldn’t find anyone who knew where the hotel was or could understand what we were asking.  After a good amount of struggle, we finally found it about two or three blocks away from the train station.

Kyle and Sawyer already had a reservation at this hotel, so Jillian and I thought we’d just ask if they had any open rooms that we could use.  The man at the front desk didn’t know much English, so communicating was kind of difficult.  He had an open room, so Jillian and I felt a load of relief that we didn’t have to go out and search for a place to stay.  We went up the elevator to the ninth floor.  The doors opened and we get bombarded with a gust of nasty, smoky air.  We walked to the end of the hall to our room which was just as bad.  We went back down to the front desk to ask for a non-smoking room, but unfortunately they said they were all booked.  That was one thing that I didn’t even think about since it doesn’t happen back home anymore, but smoking in public facilities is still legal in Japan.  Even restaurants allowed smoking; most had smoking “sections” but, no matter what, the smoke filled the air.  We went back to the room and started to settle in a bit.  There was a big king size bed that was much lower to the ground than I’m used to.  Then we looked inside of the bathroom door (which looked eerily like the bathroom in our rooms on the ship).  It was extremely small with a toilet that had a remote-like attachment with a bunch of buttons with pictures (some pictures I couldn’t even guess what they were depicting and others were not something I wanted to be done to me) and a shower that had the tallest tub that I’ve ever seen (it probably came up to my hip, which might not be saying too much seeing that I’m such a shorty but it was much taller than what I consider to be usual).  Then, when we went to bed, I was so exhausted and the bed looked so inviting and the pillow looked so fluffy that I just belly flopped onto the bed which ended up being a terrible idea.  The pillow was like the killer bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail; even though it looked inviting with all of its fluffiness, the inside was like a sack of rocks (I think it was actually a sack of beans, but either way it was not pleasant).  It’s a good thing I can pretty much sleep no matter what the conditions are and that I was exhausted, otherwise it would have been a rough night.