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.