Kobe, Japan

The first day in Japan we were docked in Kobe. Evergreen and I didn’t get off the ship and through customs until 1 pm. We walked around the downtown and bought some donuts from a place called Nature Donuts (We think they were organic or something) they were good. Then we walked around for a while longer before heading back to the ship where we ate dinner.

Shanghai Day 2

The second day Evergreen, Jen, and I met Laura and Katherine outside the port.  We walked to a coffee shop for breakfast before walking along the riverside to the Bund.  From there we walked to a market and managed to spend the rest of our Chinese money on gifts and souvenirs.  For lunch we had Chinese dumplings and orange soda.  We took our time walking back to the ship getting milkshakes from McDonalds along the way.  Back at the ship we ate dinner and then I think we went to bed but at this point I can't really remember.  It already feels like such a long time ago. 

Shanghai Day 1

We left the hostel at around 8:15 and headed to the subway station a few blocks away.  Needing coins for the ticket machine we got breakfast at the Donut King across the street.  There were tai chi groups everywhere doing there slow controlled movements in the cold winding morning air.  It was rush hour on the subway but we managed to shove ourselves on the second subway with everyone else.  Once we made it through the subway system we walked for 15 minutes or so before we saw the ship.  When we first saw it, it looked really funny; almost like it wasn’t in water but surrounded by skyscrapers.  At the port was a long line of students waiting to get on the ship.  We got there around 9:30, plenty of time to get on and off the ship right?  Wrong, so instead I will not get on the ship but just get on the bus that my trip is leaving parked right there in my sight right?  Wrong again.  I got all the way on the bus and was ready and excited to go on my trip when a customs officer comes on and asks to see everyone’s passports.  I don’t have the stamp that you have to get when you get on the ship so they make me get off the bus.  I get to skip the line and run inside and turn in my passport to have it stamped; it will be ready in an hour or so.  Welcome to communist China!  Two other girls have the same problem that I do so it is set up for us to meet the group at lunch.  An hour later I go back and my passport is still not ready.  So I sit with a book in a chair right there and wait.  Finally after a lot of help from the tour agent and the field office we get our passport back and get to lunch.  After a fabulous lunch we went to the Shanghai museum.  I wish we had more than an hour because it was a really nice museum that I would highly recommend to any future visitors to China and it was free.  It had 4 floors and about 8 different exhibits.  Out of those I walked through the furniture, the costume, the ceramics, and a quick glance at the brass exhibit.  After the museum we went to the Jade Buddha Temple where we saw two jade Buddha’s and tried Buddhist tea.  Because of a fire we couldn’t eat at the restaurant that had been picked out originally but our tour guild was really good and managed to find a place for 25 people to eat.  After dinner we went to see an Acrobat show.  It was a long day; once back on the ship I went to bed. 

Hangzhou

We arrived in Shanghai at 11 am.  After getting some Chinese money, we bought our train tickets to Hangzhou, a town about 2 hours south of Shanghai.  We ate lunch at a Chinese fast food chain and then wandered around a super market before going to the train station and waiting.  Our train to Hangzhou left at 3:30 pm and arrived at 4:30 pm.  It was one of the new bullet trains, we reached 360 kmph.  I took a video of the cars on the road beside us that we were flying by.    In Hangzhou we found our hostel and walked around the shops on one of the market roads.  The next morning it was raining but we went out anyway.  We went to the National Silk Museum (the biggest silk museum in the world) and walked around West Lake.  We ate a late lunch at a “western” restaurant because that was the only place around that was still opened.  Evergreen got a pizza that said it would serve 3 – 4 people but it was just the right size for one person.  I got French fries, pork kebabs, and “pumpkin pies”.  The pumpkin pies were small little blobs of fried pumpkin mush stuff, I wouldn’t have called them pumpkin pies but they were good.  We caught a 6 pm train back to Shanghai were we had booked another hostel.  This one was also very nice with a fluffy blanket that made it hard to get up in the morning. 

Second day in Hong Kong

The next Day Evergreen and I took an overnight train to Shanghai.  We left at 3 pm.  We ended up with the top bunks in a room with 6 beds (each bunk bed is 3 beds high).  We read and studied and then ate a dinner of sweet and sour pork and rice in the dining car.   On the train we met a guy from Canada who is studying in Hong Kong so we talked to him for a little while about Hong Kong and China and the big differences between China and North America like the fact that in China they don’t drink cold water but hot water (just plain hot water).  That night we went to bed to the cuddled in the fluffy blankets with the train rocking almost like the ship. 

First Day in Hong Kong

The night before arriving in Hong Kong my friends and I watched Mulan to get us excited.  That morning we left the ship and took the subway to the cable cars that would take us to the island Lantau where there is a giant Buddha statue 33 meters high and it is on top of a hill so we walked up the millions of steps and walked around and took lots of pictures with the giant Buddha.  We also went to the Buddhist monastery and then took a walk on the wisdom path.  At the wisdom path there were giant half tree trunks set up in the shape of a figure eight with Chinese characters on them.  There weren’t a lot of people there and with the mountains in the background and the cool breeze blowing it was very nice to just sit and relax for once.  We left Lantau at 6 pm and went to see the light show.  The light show was like Christmas at home.  By that I mean it was like one of the houses that have bunches of lights that are programmed to a song.  The only difference was that this was a whole city.  Afterwards we walked along Star Avenue where we found Jackie Chan’s handprints and a statue of Bruce Lee.  Then we went in search of dinner.  We found a nice little dinner type Chinese restaurant down in the basement of a building.  It was really good; I had some sort of pork dish and rice.  One of the waiters kept trying to help Jen hold her chopsticks correctly because she can’t eat with them very well but she has fun trying.  They finally just brought her a fork but she refused to use it for a while because she wanted to use the chop sticks.  We were going to take the subway back to the ship but we just ended up walking through the giant subway station tunnels underground. 

Last day in Vietnam

My last day in Vietnam I had a field trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels.  We left at 7 am and arrived to the tunnels at around 9.  It was a very cool experience to go through the tunnels in a doubled over crouching walk.  We were told that these tunnels had even been widened for tourists.  We all came out of the tunnels sticky and sweaty from all the people and the hotness of the tunnels.  We made it back to the ship by 12:30, just in time to have lunch.  After lunch I took the shuttle bus to the town center and sat in a park and drew for about an hour or so.  I then decided that I should use up the last of my dong (Vietnamese currency) at the market, so I started walking towards the market thinking that maybe I would stop and get some ice cream on the way.  As I walked up the street towards an ice cream shop I saw Jen and Evergreen sitting.  I was so surprised to see them.  I ate ice cream with them and we told each other about our day so far.  Then Evergreen went back to the ship and Jen went with me to the market.  I managed to use up the rest of our dong on a shirt and some material for myself when it again started to rain.  I was again the only one with a rain poncho so we decided to wait in the market for a while and see if the rain would let up.  While waiting we met up with Megan (another friend) we finally decided that it wasn’t going to let up very much more so I took everyone’s bags and put the poncho on over myself and all of them and we took off to the Rex Hotel, about 4 blocks away, where the shuttle bus would pick us up and take us to the ship.  We were soaked by the time we got to the Rex.  Even I with the poncho on was soaked from my knees down (Our bags were good and dry).  Once on the ship again we changed and had a BBQ dinner.  Vietnam was an interesting country. 

Forth day in Vietnam

The fourth day in Vietnam my friend Laura and I went to the Market.  The market is a big building with some places open to the air but the whole perimeter covered.  Around the perimeter people were mostly selling clothes but there were also some souvenirs and luggage for sale too.  About one half of the middle of the market was all food, but there were also some other food stands sprinkled throughout the whole market.  The rest of the market was bags, jewelry, material, spices, and other random things.  Laura got a really pretty traditional dress.  For lunch we ate at a place called Tutie Fruity.  It was kind of like US food, but a little different.  After lunch it started to rain so we headed back to the ship where we played cards and watched Meet the Robinsons until Katherine arrived.  We headed back out and met up with Jen for a dinner of Pho then we wandered around the outside market.  After Katherine bought some things for her family we went in search of a DVD store where I proceeded to buy a lot of really cheap DVD’s.  On the way back to the ship we stopped at Yogan Fruz for some frozen yogurt. 

Day three in Vietnam

One of my friends, Jen, is part of a leadership class and the main project for this class is a group service project that they had to set up themselves. So on the third day in Vietnam they went to the Little Rose Warm Shelter, and I went with them. This shelter is for girls who had been rescued from human trafficking situations. When we got there at 12:30 they told us that they had just sent us an email saying that we shouldn’t come until 6 pm because the girls would be at school till then. The main service part of the project was buying them a printer so we decided to split up and do some sight seeing, buy the printer, eat, and then go back to the shelter. Jen, Laura, and I went to the Independence Palace. It was really nice inside with lots of fancy furniture, carpets, and decorations. When we left to go meet the rest of the group to buy the printer it started to rain. I had a poncho with me but the other two didn’t so we tried to huddle under it and walk at the same time. Soon after this a really nice random lady stopped on her motorcycle and gave us her extra poncho. We gave all our bags to Laura and put the poncho on her while Jen and I continued to share the one I had. We finally managed to hail a cab and make it to the place we said we would meet the others and went to the LG store to buy a printer. At this point Laura and one of the other girls decided to go back to the ship. We finally picked out a printer and the four girls from the class paid for it and we left. This time we put the poncho over the girl carrying the printer. We walked down the street a short ways and found a little bakery/café. I had a large soft roll with ham and cheese in it, it was really good. After eating we went back outside hail another taxi to drive us back to the shelter, the only problem was it was rush hour in the rain and all the cabs were full. We walked down the street a few blocks and crossed the street with out getting run over. At a hotel some people were getting out of a cab so we got in. We got to the shelter again at 6:30pm. We played some group games with the girls and set up the printer, which of course works to perfection (Something I learned how to do at my internship at UTMC). We then painted nails and had our nails painted by the girls and made friendship bracelets. It was a lot of fun and truly amazing to interact with girls that only know a few words in English and yet we were still able to understand each other well enough. When we finally left we hailed another cab and went and ate dinner at a Pho restaurant. Jen and I got back to the ship around 11:20pm. It was a long and muddy wet day.

The Mekong Delta

Today, our second day in Vietnam we went to the Mekong Delta.  It was about an hour and a half drive to this place and on the way we stopped  to see some giant Buddha statues that were very neat.  We took two boats (for about 40 people) to the first island called Unicorn Island.  There drank tea, watched coconut candy being made, ate fruit and took a small boat ride (4 people per boat) down to meet our bigger boats which took us to turtle island for lunch.  Lunch was a fried fish, literally the whole thing propped up in the middle of the table.  Some of the fish was wrapped in rice paper with some mint leaves and rice noodles.  I tried it, it was certainly different but I much preferred the chicken that was brought later.  There was also rice, some sort of prawn and some kind of soup.  After lunch was over we got back on the boats which took us back to the bus and the bus to Saigon (Ho Chi Min City).  We quickly dropped off our stuff at the ship and headed to the water puppet show.  The water puppets were amazing, very different from any kind of puppet show I have seen.  Tonight we ate at a restaurant where we got to cook the food ourselves (its been a while) in the middle of the table on a little grill.  We ate everything with chopsticks and didn’t drop as much as we did the night before and during lunch.  Maybe by the time we leave Asia we will be experts.  We walked around the market after eating and I of course couldn’t resist getting a traditional outfit that the women wear here.  Now I am back at the ship and am going to go to sleep, I have finally caught up on my blogging and can rest easy.