Holy crap. Hong Kong, how I adore thee. No, really, I want to marry Hong Kong. Getting there was a bitch, but all the customs lines and confusion seem trite in hindsight. After going through customs, Raj and I found the subway that took us from Shenzhen to HK. We didn't really know which stop we wanted to get off at, but figured that the closer we got to the ocean, the better. Kowloon is beyond the New Territory of HK and is the closest district to HK Island. All signs were in English because of the British occupation for 99yrs, so it was pretty easy to know which stop was which. The HK subways are exactly like the London underground and are just as clean. It was almost 11pm and I really just wanted to sleep, but Raj and I didn't know which hostel we were going to (the ship wasnt in hong kong yet and wouldn't get there till the next morning) since we got split up from another group of kids that took an earlier flight to Shenzhen. We knew there was a hostel on Nathan Rd in Kowloon, so we picked the subway stop that had the word "Kowloon" in it and got in a cab and asked him to take us to that hostel. The driver didn't speak English, so he called his cab co. and had them translate by phone where we needed to go. We get dropped off on Nathan Rd, which is the equivalent of Times Square, except it's not a square but rather a road. There are people everywhere of every nationality you can imagine bustling past us as we get out of the cab, and some Asian dude came up to me and said "Hostel?". I nodd yes and he waves for us to follow him.
Now, this seemed sketchy and if anything had gone wrong, I don't think having Raj there would have made much of a difference since I could probably lift more than him. We wait with this dude outside of an elevator with a TV screen above the door showing us what was going on inside the elevator. That should have been our first sign that this hostel was SKETCHY. All these Nigerians (what's up with them? i run into them in sketchty places a lot, it seems) were looking at us and once the doors opened, our dude shooed everyone away and cleared the elevator for us. We get off on a floor that says "Chungking House De Luxe Hotel", but it didn't look so delux to me. Our room had two small beds with dirty sheets, random beach towels, a TV that looked nice but didn't work, and umm the walls shook like mad. Raj and I didn't care at this point, took the room, and decided to venture out for a bit. We ran into Katie, Camilla, Rus, and Chris on the street, looking for a place to stay and ended up at the same hostel as us. As we were directing them to the building, a bunch of commotion broke out next to us,and before we knew it a bunch of guys had cleared the street and set up a boxing ring right in the middle of Nathan Rd. 4 guys made up the corners of the ring with streamers wrapped around them to make a square. Two guys with gigantic blow up gloves start punching at each other, stop to let cars go by, and then begin fighting again. The six of us watched this go on for another 10min before Raj decided he wanted to go shopping, so we agreed to meet Katie and Camilla at 8am the next morning and make our way to the ship together when it came into port.
Okay, keep in mind that it was past 11pm when we got to Nathan Rd, so it was almost midnight when Raj decided that we needed to go shopping. And yes, all the shops were still open. I was amazed too. I really didn't have any Hong Kong dollar to spend since my ATM card wasn't working and all my cash was on the ship, so I let Raj go crazy with the shopping until 1am before we called it a night. I passed out right away, not caring that the sheets were dirty as long as I slept fully clothed with all body parts covered. Raj, on the other hand, could not fall asleep and stayed up all night as our walls shook to the point where he thought they were going to cave in. Needless to say, when 8am rolled around we were more than happy to get outta there. We met Katie, Camilla, and some dude BJ from the ship who we randomly ran into on the street and knew where he was going. Apparently, the ship was in walking distance from where we were staying. We picked a hostel close to the ship and didn't even know it. Funny how luck works out sometimes.
Our ship was quite the site for the people of HK, and it was a lovely sight for me as well at 8am that morning. I was smelly, dirty, and out of money, so the MV Explorer was like a shining beacon of light ported next to a mall. We had to walk through a mall to get to our ship. Odd.
Anyway, after a scalding hot shower to burn off the grossness and a wallet refill, we decided to go to the market for some cheap HK shopping. I didn't really know Camilla or Katie as this point, but they were up for anything and tagged along. We did a pitstop at Starbucks (MY FIRST WESTERN FOOD IN ANY PORT!) and walked over to the shopping area from the night before. One of our friends, Anna who had met upvwith us that morning, needed a new camera and was insistent on buying on ASAP, so we stopped in a camera shop along Nathan Rd. I kept telling her to wait until we went to the market in HK where everything is 10x cheaper, but she didn't listen and paid $500 for a camera (that was probably used) that should have cost $240.
I was pretty annoyed that my morning was being slowed down by naive shoppers, so Katie, Camilla and I dragged Raj and Anna to the mecca of bargin shopping... Ladies Market. It's this street of vendors in Kowloon that sell everything. Clothes, accessories, shoes, fake gucci/fendi/prada, wigs, toys, everything. And you get to bargain! I got a pair of Vans for $9USD. Yep. And they are actually right from the factory. The electronics market runs parallel to Ladies Market, but my hands were too full to buy much more, so we went back to the ship to drop stuff off. Katie, Camilla, and I wanted to go look at the sites, so we went off on our own to the best part of HK.. the Island. We took the Star Ferry, which costs like 50cents, for a 10min ride to the island and decided we wanted to ride the world's longest escalator. We weren't too sure where it was, but the doorman at the IFC mall walked us halfway before asking Katie for her email (sooo random, apparently he likes to talk to people from the states). We found the rest of the way on our own, passing a crowd of over 100 women randomly sitting in an underpass. They were just chillin' there, but they didn't look homeless. We still have no idea why they were there, because they weren't there when we came back the next day, but they didn't bother us so we didn't bother them.
The world's longest escalator is not actually one long escalator, but rather a sucession of one escalator after another. It actually makes sense now that I think about it, because it goes up the mountain that is HK Island right through the city... and how could people get off at the level they wanted if it was just one continuous escalator. I had a blast anyway, enjoying the view of tons of different areas of HK Island, especially SoHo. It's so cute and has all kinds of shops and types of food... you pass a billion bars where happy hour starts in the middle of the day. Once we got to the top, which took half an hour, we realized there was no escalator going down. So we walked. This was actually way more fun than going up, but I would never walk up since it's actually pretty steep. Halfway down we got "tired" and stopped in one of the bars, Spotbar, for a 5pm beer to refuel for the rest of the walk down. Katie and I got Stellas, and they came in gigantic glasses as big as my face for the same price that a small glass would get you in the States. This made me very happy, almost slightly buzzed, and full of energy for the Star Ferry ride back to Kowloon. We grabbed some AMAZING sushi at Geisha House, and then went to the YMCA hotel to watch the light show that goes on every night across the city.
One of the girls on SAS lives in HK, and her dad owns the YMCA hotel. It's SO nice and has a GREAT view of HK Island. Most people watch the light show without the music because it's only available to certain ppl, but we got HOOKED UP! Rooftop view, free food, free ponchos (it started to pour, but who cares... we're in HONG KONG!), and the English music version of the show. It-was-spectacular. I was giddy it was so good. All the buildings in HK coordinate the lights on their building at 8pm to fit some music for 15min. This got the three of us off to a great evening, one that I will cherish FOREVER!
We walked toward the ship to get some better rain gear and ran into Rachel (who had just gotten back from Beijing) and Maggie. The five of us found a random bar with a bunch of people who didn't speak much English and caught up on life. Katie and I ordered Hoegaardens, which to our pleasent surprise came in glasses we could practically swim in. After the first drink, I knew Katie and Camilla were my type of people. We all stayed at the bar until midnight, but we had no idea where to go next. The bartender couldn't speak English, but DREW US A MAP of a club that was a mintue away. It was a really great map, but we still couldn't find the place. There were a bunch of guys eating some food from a street vendor, so we ran up to them and asked them where this club was. Luckily, they spoke PERFECT English and knew exactly where the club was. Unfortunately, it was closed. Fortunately, they knew another bar to go to and even though they were about to call it a night, they took us to another bar close by.
Charleston and Wilson and their friend who couldn't speak English turned out to be AWESOME! Actually, awesome doesn't even capture the awesomeness that is them. This bar was pretty small and the kareokee was so outdated that "My Heart Will Go On" was the best choice (oh, and we sang it like nobody's business), but it's all about who you're with. Wilson, who was Hong Kongian but lived in Austrailia for awhile (so his accent was reallllly off), tried to teach Rachel and I some weird drinking game but gave up when I started to teach Charleston a lovely game called Kings. Some of you may be familiar with this game, but if you have been living under a rock for the past two decades... it's the best drinking game ever and Wilson agreed. He made us write out a copy of the rules and he plans to spread this wonderous game of kings across Hong Kong.
Yes, I may have started a revolution that night.
Katie and Camilla went back to the ship earlier than us because they wanted to see the Buddha statue the next morning, but Maggie, Rachel, and I hung out with Charleston and Wilson a bit longer. Charleston is 25 and went to school in Vancouver, but just came back to Hong Kong and is living in Kowloon. He was super chill, and after Rachel passed out on the couch bench, he put us in a cab back to the ship. As we drunkenly stumbled out the door of the bar, we told Wilson and Charleston to meet us at 6am by the Star Ferry because they wanted to go to Victoria Peak with us the next morning and they both said they would be there. Even though it was 4am and that meant they were get no sleep.
Blah, okay, sooo I'm not gonna lie. I was pretty shitfaced. Sorry, Mom, I know this isn't supposed to be a drinking trip, but it was just one of those wild wild nights that had to happen in order for the amazingness of the next day to happen. When we got back onto the ship that night, Rachel and I went with Maggie to her room to find Jackie, her roomie. Somehow, this guy Tim from Colorado ended up in that room with us and we had all piled on top of Jackie to wake her out of a drunk stupor she had fallen under at another bar in Hong Kong (we had lost her earlier that evening). Tim and I thought the room was a little full, so he grabbed a blanket and we went up to the 7th deck by the pool to look at the skyline of HK at 5am. I was determined to just stay up all night until we had to go to the Star Ferry (which was literally right next to our boat) and Tim was really trying to keep me awake and sober me up since all of the crew was up on the deck with us for some strange reason. The crew is super awesome, though, and probably was wasted as well... so after an hour of struggling to stay awake, Tim walked me back to our hall and I guess I passed out on my floor. The reason I say this is because at 7am I woke up to Mandy tripping over me on her way to answer our door. Yes, she really almost ate it because our room was pitch black and she had no idea I was laying there. She opened the door, and Rachel said, "Nancy, ready to go?". I was still in last nights clothes, but I just got up and walked right out the door, still drunk.
That morning is kind of a blur, but Rachel and I did not think Wilson and Charleston were serious when they said they were going to meet us at the Star Ferry. Well, Wilson wasn't there but Charleston was there waiting for us, backpack on and ready to go. I was totally caught off guard by his presence, and all he could do was laugh at me - I'm sure I was a sight, not having looked at myself before leaving the room. We caught a ferry to the Island, and Charleston got us a cab to the tram station that took us up to the peak. The tram goes almost completely vertical up the mountain, all the way to the top. Charleston had only gone to the peak once when he was a kid, so he was just as excited to go as we were. Then, it started to monsoon like mad. We figured we would wait it out in the cafe at the top for awhile, until the rain died down. The three of us passed out on the couches in the cafe for an hour. Flat out passed out. I think I slept on Rachel's butt, which is quite comfortable and squishy.
After we all woke up, me with my developing hangover and Rachel with her groggy eyes, we realized the rain wasn't going to die down. So, we walked out of the cafe onto the trail and just grinned and beared it. The rain poured down on my head, but I barely noticed. From where we were, we could see the entire Island and Kowloon. The coolest part was that it wasn't even raining in Kowloon and you could actually see the border where the rain started.
I thought Charleston was going to go home after the peak. I didn't think he'd want to hang out with 3 strangers all day, but oh how wrong I was. We hung out with him the entire day. He showed us all around Hong Kong, took me to the electronics market where I bought a WD Passport external hard drive for half the price I would pay in the states, took us to a sketchy place with the most amazing fish balls ever (10 hong kong dollars for lunch, which is about $1.50), introduced me to rice rolls (which he's been getting from the same vendor since he was in elementary school), and went on the escalator with us (yes, I went again) where Wilson met up with us. We stopped at a bar on the way down, this time on another street, had a drink, and then headed back to Kowloon. Charleston had to stop by his dad's office, so Wilson came back with us for dinner by the ship. He's kind of a bag full of wacky, talks a million miles per hour about random stuff, but it's okay. He's alright. Charleston graced us with his presence once more, right before we had to get back on the ship. The four of us got a picture together right quick, and then it was time to go. The guys walked us to the security gate where we shared a heartbreaking goodbye that almost brought me and Rachel to tears, because we both knew it would be awhile until we had enough money to come back. But never fear, I can keep in touch with them through FACEBOOK and it'll be like we never left them.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The Real Chinatown
Nope, I didn't get lost in China or drop off the face of the earth. I’m just super behind on my emails! I’m so sorry… life’s been moving pretty fast - with only two days between ports, I’ve barely had time to do homework. What I'm going to do is post countryupdates on this blog because SaS just made it one of the free sites that they allow us to visit. You guys can leave me comments on here to "email" me.... that way I can see your messages for free. Since I didnt send out emails on China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, or India (eek i know) I am going to post them on here tonight.
Okay, last time I wrote to you I was…. In Qingdao (It’s actually pronounced like “Chin-dao”)? Yes, so the next day in Qingdao I woke up to a monsoon outside my window (I slept on the ship that night). Well, it was actually the second typhoon that was moving through China. Raj and I had booked a flight that day, and so I spent my morning panicking about whether or not I was going to get to Beijing. Also, some kid from SAS kept telling me that the airlines we were flying on had the worst safety record. On top of that, I had a field trip to the Children’s Palace that morning which was actually really cool. The Children’s Palace in Qingdao is a school AND an after school program that caters to children who are talented in areas such as ping pong, dance, singing, other musical talents, etc. On most days, there are about 1000 kids at the school… but because of the typhoon half of the students went home to safety (Can you believe that some parents made their kids stay at the school during a typhoon?!?!?). I watched some of the masters having a ping pong tournament, two dance performances, and a 9 year old year sang for us (there were only about 11 SAS students on the field trip). Our trip ended early because of the typhoon, but the bus took us to the Mushroom Towers which overlooks all of Qingdao. Most of the buildings were rebuilt when the Germans took over the area, so it doesn’t even look like China. Kind of odd. Luckily, the clouds cleared and the sun came out, so I could see for miles over the city. This also meant that our flight was GOOD TO GO! Our leader for the Children’s Palace (who is from Qingdao) told us that Shandong Airlines was perfectly safe and the airport was secure and identical to American airports, too. I rushed back to the ship, grabbed another pair of pants and shoved them into my bag, and ran out to grab a cab with Raj. A few days before we arrived in China, I had booked a private tour for Raj and myself around Beijing. When we were having trouble getting a flight, they found one for us at the last second (only $89 USD) AND booked us a hotel! So once Raj and I got to the airport, I felt like I was able to relax…it was a cause for celebration, for sure. Raj and I got a little tipsy in the airport restaurant and hopped onto airplane. Drinking before your flight is a really bad idea for one specific reason. You constantly have to whiz. Raj and I were on the two inside seats, so every time we had to pee we had to climb over this old man who slept the whole flight.
When we arrived in Beijing around 10pm, our tour guide, Kevin, was waiting for us with my name written on a sign (It made me feel so special). We had to pay him in cash, so I tried to take money out of the ATM. My card wouldn’t work, so Raj tried. His wouldn’t work. Kevin said that we could just pay him later on in the tour, because Raj assumed that it was just the airport ATMs that were acting funny. Kevin and the driver (yea, we were so pimp! Driver, Mercedes. A/C… I felt so spoiled) took us to our hotel, which was actually really nice and in the heart of Beijing. But it was late and we were exhausted slash drowsy from our airport drinking so we passed out. 8am the next morning we eat our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, but it was hard to eat because we were told by SAS not to have dairy/water/ice/fruit/veggies unless they were cooked. Additionally, the Chinese eat some really weird stuff for breakfast, so I can’t really tell you what we ended up eating because I have no idea what it was. Anxious to get some yuan (Chinese currency, also referred to as RMB) and buy a real breakfast, Raj and I went looking for another ATM around the hotel. We figured it would take a few minutes and be back in time at 9am to meet Kevin. Um, wrong. The ATM ate my card, the bank wasn’t open and there was already a line outside it, and once I got in no one spoke any English. Sooo that fiasco took an hour (I got my card back but it still wouldn’t let me withdraw cash), but Kevin was so gracious and didn’t seem to mind the wait at all. We hopped in the car and started our hour long drive to the Great Wall. The car ride flew by, though, because Kevin was so eager to practice his English with us. He’s only 23 and just graduated from university in Beijing, so he was a riot. He told us we could call him “F.O.U.” because that’s what the kids at university called him…. Standing for “Fat, Old, and Ugly”. Yea, he’s considered “old” because he was 23 when he graduated. They run things very differently there, I guess. Kevin told me they have to take 12 classes a semester but here’s the catch. He never went to class. His favorite thing to do in college was play video games late into the night and then sleep all day. I asked him if he worked hard in high school, though, and he said yes they stayed up til 2am each night doing homework. Yikes.
Anyway, before the wall we stopped at a jade factory and saw how they make all those famous jade necklaces and family heir looms and how to tell from real or fake jade. The Chinese are very superstitious and believe that jade protects them from evil and disease. We saw people selling jade at the Great Wall, but thanks to our lesson on fake jade I knew not to buy any. I was too busy enjoying the view from the wall to even worry about buying stuff. The wall was originally built to keep the Mongols out of China, so one side of the wall is China while the other side is Mongolia. Soldiers used to spend 3 years working on the wall before they were allowed to go home. I don’t know how they could LIVE on the wall, or if they had to rotate down the wall, but if you light a flame as a signal from one end of the wall, it would reach the emperor in 4hrs time. Also, the only person who has walked the entire wall was a Brit and it took him 3 years. I only walked for an hour and I was exhausted. Some parts of the wall are almost a vertical climb. Needless to say, Raj and I were starving so Kevin brought us to a restaurant on top of a pottery factory. Raj is Hindu and will not eat pork or beef, and considering that most of what the Chinese eat is pork/beef, we had to ask Kevin to just order something and surprise us because we couldn’t read the menu. We got some amazing spicy chicken and bean curd and of course… SPRING ROLLS. Coming from Japan my stomach wasn’t used to all the fried oily stuff, but when in Rome...
After refueling, we headed toward Summer Palace. Kevin explained to us that it was built because the Forbidden City had no gardens and the emperor wanted something pretty to look at. It takes about a day to get there by boat from the Forbidden City. Also, he kept all his wives here with some of the males from his staff. The drive took awhile, but we couldn't have gotten there at a better time. The sun was setting over the lake as all the dragon boats were coming in and the crowds were leaving. We walked down the longest corridor in China which looked amazing due to the excellent upkeep/repainting that they were doing in preparation for the olympics. I also learned that all the phoenix statues around China actually were for females and the dragons were meant for the males. Kevin also pointed to one of the pavillions on the mountain side overlooking the Palace and told us that one of the emperors committed suicide there, but that's a little detail they don't tell the tourists. There were all these random rocks in the garden, too. They didn't look like anything special, but apparently the emperor liked the shape of this specific rock so much, that he made his servants drag them from the riverbeds miles away into the Palace for decoration. There was also this beautiful boat docked in the lake made of entirely marble... but it was also JUST FOR DECORATION AND NOT MADE FOR ACTUAL USE. Argh. Men.
For din din, Kevin took us to get some real Peking Duck. Yeah, this is much better than Chan's Peking on Raymond in PK or the "chinese resturant" by the Buck. The waiter came over to our table with a cart and.... an entire duck. He held up the duck by what looked like a handle, but at second glance we realized it was just the head and neck bent backwards. Yep, I probably gained about 10lbs that night. I passed out as soon as we got to our hotel room.
The next morning, Kevin took us to Tiananmen Square. There was already a long line outside one of the buildings where Mao's body lay (Mao wanted his body to remain in tact after his death, so they injected some "chinese medicine" into his body and now he's chillin in a clear coffin which every Chinese citizen is supposed to see to be considered a "real Chinaman"), and it wasn't even 10am. There were soldiers everywhere. As much as I wanted to get a picture with them, I was scared shitless by the student massacre that happened in '89. Kevin told me, in a low whisper, that only a few years ago did the government admit that what happened to the students was wrong and the gov't was in the wrong. Kevin said that he didn't know how many students were killed because it was never discussed in school or in his home. The only reason he knew about it was from documentaries he was able to watch ONLINE a few years ago (China censors almost all media that comes into the country. We're not even supposed to bring any US media into China).
The entrance to the Forbidden City is in the square, so on our way over there we passed a group of Tibetan monks. I was in SHOCK because Tibet is under a lot of scrutiny right now. I don't know if you know this, but the gov't is saying that THEY have chosen who the next Dali Lama will be... but we all know that the only person who can do that is the DL himself, who isn't even allowed in China right now. I wanted a picture of them so bad, but Kevin started to shake his head "no" when I pulled out my camera. To see these monks out and about in Beijing was so odd, but to add to the strange sighting was the Rolexes and digital cameras I saw them holding.
Once we all noticed the cameras, Kevin said, "Well..Okay. Take picture quick." So I snapped a picture of them and sprinted away toward the huge portrait of Mao that hung above the entrance to the Forbidden City.
The city itself is enormus, but the background information of the city trumps actual size. First of all, though most of the buildings have been cleaned up by the "Let's Make Beijing Look Awesome for the Olympics" Team, the stone ground lays as it did when the city was first built. I walked on the same stone as the emperors of the last two dynasties of China did. Ah! Kevin told us that the only man allowed inside was the current emperor himself, and the emperor thought himself just below the importance of the gods. Heaven was thought to have a thousand rooms, or something like that - I can't remember. Anyway, since the emperor was thought to be almost as powerful as the gods but not quite, the city was built with 999.5 rooms. But after the Japanese and British armies came through and burned down/destroyed parts of Beijing, only a little over half of those rooms are still in existence (they also took all the gold ornaments and tubs in the city, scraped off all the gold, and then put it back in the city which can be seen around the city squares today). Most of the buildings have names that make use of the word "longevity" in every freakin way possible. Hall of Longevity. Temple of Longevity and blahblah. I will never look at that word the same again. One of the buildings was overtaken by Mao during his reign for his personal use. Kevin saw nothing wrong with this, in fact.... he still thinks Mao is the best leader they have had. Apparently most of China agrees with him. Hm. Okay moving on. So we walked down these steps and there is this huge carving on a gigantic slab of stone that ran along the steps. It is the largest stone carving in the world, and it took 3 years to get it to the city. It could only be transported in the winter by sliding it across the ice. SERIOUSLY! Do you ReALLY need these funky stones and crazy carvings that bad? The temples are vibrant enough! The entrance to each part of the temple has this step that you're not supposed to step on or it'll give you bad luck. I asked Kevin why, and he said "In China, we are very superstitious. One time an emperor stepped on the step and later the dynasty fell". Oh, btw, Kevin started almost every sentence with "In China...". It was so cute.
Raj and I had to catch a flight to Shenzhen at 4, so Kevin dropped us off at the airport, but not without getting our emails and cell phone numbers in case he ever got the chance to come to America. He's so eager to learn about the world that I hope he does get out of China. It was hard parting with him because I felt like he was not just our tour guide but also our friend. But hey, it just gives me a reason to go back to China!
Okay, so the flight to Shenzhen. Ohhh my. Okay, well first of all, to fly from Beijing to Hong Kong costs $400 because it's still considered an international flight. However, if you fly into Shenzhen, which is a city in China that borders Hong Kong, it costs $200 and then you take a subway train over. Of course, Raj and I took the budget option. I think most SAS kids that did Beijing independently took the $400 flight, because we were the only Westerners on the whole plane. People were very nice to us and the flight was pretty normal, except for the last 20min. The captain came on the speaker and started talking in Chinese. It looked like everyone was preparing for landing because the flight attendants were all lined up at their positions in the aisle, so Raj and I began to put our stuff away. All of a sudden, we hear everyone counting and as we look around, we notice everyone waving their hands in the air, slapping their faces, and wiggling their fingers. The flight attendants were leading all the passengers in some stretching and everyone was doing it! I cannot really describe how odd this all looked, or how I was able to sustain my laughter... even during the flight attendants' song and dance. Yeah. They sang a song and did a dance after the stretching was over. After it ended, I realized how fast we were going into our landing and looked at Raj, the laughter gone from both our faces, and said "Oh Shit". I really thought we were going to crash. But no, that's just how they land. The plane stops and we get out in the middle of the runway and people just start walking to the random buses and cars that were parked by the plane. Raj and I had NO idea what was going on, because we thought the plane would pull into the main terminal and have a little more information on how to get to Hong Kong. Luckily, one of the Chinese students who stayed on the ship for a week wrote out "Please direct me to Shenzhen Train Station" in Cantonese for me, so I showed it to one of the flight attendants. She started talking to this other lady in Chinese and then that lady started talking to another lady who then ran around to all the buses. I think Raj started to panic a little bit at that point, but they motioned us over to one of the buses and actually rode with us to the drop off zone infront of the airport and pointed us to the bus that went to the train station. That bus only costed a few bucks, and it had A/C and a strange soap operaish movie about sex/drugs/crime playing. We had no idea what stop we were, so we kind of just hung out until we saw a rail and figured that was the train station. We got off the bus and ran around for a bit looking for the entrance way until a nice Chinese girl who was a student in Hong Kong showed us where the train to Hong Kong was. We had to go through customs, which we have never done on our own since the customs agents always come onto our ship everytime we go into a country, but since we were going from China to Hong Kong on our own, we had to wait in this line to get OUT of Shenzhen and then walk down this tunnel(where they were randomly pick people and run up to them and take their temperature....if you have a temp they can't let you into China or HK. Lucky they didn't pick me because I was def. running a temp) just to wait in another line to get into HK. They look at your passport, look at your face, and then let you go. Pretty lax.
It was during this process that we ran into four other SASers who took a 25hr train from Beijing to Shenzhen.... Katie, Camilla, Rus, and Chris. Who knew that this was the begining of a beautiful friendship with Katie and Camilla, but that's a story for my next entry on HONG KONG.
Okay, last time I wrote to you I was…. In Qingdao (It’s actually pronounced like “Chin-dao”)? Yes, so the next day in Qingdao I woke up to a monsoon outside my window (I slept on the ship that night). Well, it was actually the second typhoon that was moving through China. Raj and I had booked a flight that day, and so I spent my morning panicking about whether or not I was going to get to Beijing. Also, some kid from SAS kept telling me that the airlines we were flying on had the worst safety record. On top of that, I had a field trip to the Children’s Palace that morning which was actually really cool. The Children’s Palace in Qingdao is a school AND an after school program that caters to children who are talented in areas such as ping pong, dance, singing, other musical talents, etc. On most days, there are about 1000 kids at the school… but because of the typhoon half of the students went home to safety (Can you believe that some parents made their kids stay at the school during a typhoon?!?!?). I watched some of the masters having a ping pong tournament, two dance performances, and a 9 year old year sang for us (there were only about 11 SAS students on the field trip). Our trip ended early because of the typhoon, but the bus took us to the Mushroom Towers which overlooks all of Qingdao. Most of the buildings were rebuilt when the Germans took over the area, so it doesn’t even look like China. Kind of odd. Luckily, the clouds cleared and the sun came out, so I could see for miles over the city. This also meant that our flight was GOOD TO GO! Our leader for the Children’s Palace (who is from Qingdao) told us that Shandong Airlines was perfectly safe and the airport was secure and identical to American airports, too. I rushed back to the ship, grabbed another pair of pants and shoved them into my bag, and ran out to grab a cab with Raj. A few days before we arrived in China, I had booked a private tour for Raj and myself around Beijing. When we were having trouble getting a flight, they found one for us at the last second (only $89 USD) AND booked us a hotel! So once Raj and I got to the airport, I felt like I was able to relax…it was a cause for celebration, for sure. Raj and I got a little tipsy in the airport restaurant and hopped onto airplane. Drinking before your flight is a really bad idea for one specific reason. You constantly have to whiz. Raj and I were on the two inside seats, so every time we had to pee we had to climb over this old man who slept the whole flight.
When we arrived in Beijing around 10pm, our tour guide, Kevin, was waiting for us with my name written on a sign (It made me feel so special). We had to pay him in cash, so I tried to take money out of the ATM. My card wouldn’t work, so Raj tried. His wouldn’t work. Kevin said that we could just pay him later on in the tour, because Raj assumed that it was just the airport ATMs that were acting funny. Kevin and the driver (yea, we were so pimp! Driver, Mercedes. A/C… I felt so spoiled) took us to our hotel, which was actually really nice and in the heart of Beijing. But it was late and we were exhausted slash drowsy from our airport drinking so we passed out. 8am the next morning we eat our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, but it was hard to eat because we were told by SAS not to have dairy/water/ice/fruit/veggies unless they were cooked. Additionally, the Chinese eat some really weird stuff for breakfast, so I can’t really tell you what we ended up eating because I have no idea what it was. Anxious to get some yuan (Chinese currency, also referred to as RMB) and buy a real breakfast, Raj and I went looking for another ATM around the hotel. We figured it would take a few minutes and be back in time at 9am to meet Kevin. Um, wrong. The ATM ate my card, the bank wasn’t open and there was already a line outside it, and once I got in no one spoke any English. Sooo that fiasco took an hour (I got my card back but it still wouldn’t let me withdraw cash), but Kevin was so gracious and didn’t seem to mind the wait at all. We hopped in the car and started our hour long drive to the Great Wall. The car ride flew by, though, because Kevin was so eager to practice his English with us. He’s only 23 and just graduated from university in Beijing, so he was a riot. He told us we could call him “F.O.U.” because that’s what the kids at university called him…. Standing for “Fat, Old, and Ugly”. Yea, he’s considered “old” because he was 23 when he graduated. They run things very differently there, I guess. Kevin told me they have to take 12 classes a semester but here’s the catch. He never went to class. His favorite thing to do in college was play video games late into the night and then sleep all day. I asked him if he worked hard in high school, though, and he said yes they stayed up til 2am each night doing homework. Yikes.
Anyway, before the wall we stopped at a jade factory and saw how they make all those famous jade necklaces and family heir looms and how to tell from real or fake jade. The Chinese are very superstitious and believe that jade protects them from evil and disease. We saw people selling jade at the Great Wall, but thanks to our lesson on fake jade I knew not to buy any. I was too busy enjoying the view from the wall to even worry about buying stuff. The wall was originally built to keep the Mongols out of China, so one side of the wall is China while the other side is Mongolia. Soldiers used to spend 3 years working on the wall before they were allowed to go home. I don’t know how they could LIVE on the wall, or if they had to rotate down the wall, but if you light a flame as a signal from one end of the wall, it would reach the emperor in 4hrs time. Also, the only person who has walked the entire wall was a Brit and it took him 3 years. I only walked for an hour and I was exhausted. Some parts of the wall are almost a vertical climb. Needless to say, Raj and I were starving so Kevin brought us to a restaurant on top of a pottery factory. Raj is Hindu and will not eat pork or beef, and considering that most of what the Chinese eat is pork/beef, we had to ask Kevin to just order something and surprise us because we couldn’t read the menu. We got some amazing spicy chicken and bean curd and of course… SPRING ROLLS. Coming from Japan my stomach wasn’t used to all the fried oily stuff, but when in Rome...
After refueling, we headed toward Summer Palace. Kevin explained to us that it was built because the Forbidden City had no gardens and the emperor wanted something pretty to look at. It takes about a day to get there by boat from the Forbidden City. Also, he kept all his wives here with some of the males from his staff. The drive took awhile, but we couldn't have gotten there at a better time. The sun was setting over the lake as all the dragon boats were coming in and the crowds were leaving. We walked down the longest corridor in China which looked amazing due to the excellent upkeep/repainting that they were doing in preparation for the olympics. I also learned that all the phoenix statues around China actually were for females and the dragons were meant for the males. Kevin also pointed to one of the pavillions on the mountain side overlooking the Palace and told us that one of the emperors committed suicide there, but that's a little detail they don't tell the tourists. There were all these random rocks in the garden, too. They didn't look like anything special, but apparently the emperor liked the shape of this specific rock so much, that he made his servants drag them from the riverbeds miles away into the Palace for decoration. There was also this beautiful boat docked in the lake made of entirely marble... but it was also JUST FOR DECORATION AND NOT MADE FOR ACTUAL USE. Argh. Men.
For din din, Kevin took us to get some real Peking Duck. Yeah, this is much better than Chan's Peking on Raymond in PK or the "chinese resturant" by the Buck. The waiter came over to our table with a cart and.... an entire duck. He held up the duck by what looked like a handle, but at second glance we realized it was just the head and neck bent backwards. Yep, I probably gained about 10lbs that night. I passed out as soon as we got to our hotel room.
The next morning, Kevin took us to Tiananmen Square. There was already a long line outside one of the buildings where Mao's body lay (Mao wanted his body to remain in tact after his death, so they injected some "chinese medicine" into his body and now he's chillin in a clear coffin which every Chinese citizen is supposed to see to be considered a "real Chinaman"), and it wasn't even 10am. There were soldiers everywhere. As much as I wanted to get a picture with them, I was scared shitless by the student massacre that happened in '89. Kevin told me, in a low whisper, that only a few years ago did the government admit that what happened to the students was wrong and the gov't was in the wrong. Kevin said that he didn't know how many students were killed because it was never discussed in school or in his home. The only reason he knew about it was from documentaries he was able to watch ONLINE a few years ago (China censors almost all media that comes into the country. We're not even supposed to bring any US media into China).
The entrance to the Forbidden City is in the square, so on our way over there we passed a group of Tibetan monks. I was in SHOCK because Tibet is under a lot of scrutiny right now. I don't know if you know this, but the gov't is saying that THEY have chosen who the next Dali Lama will be... but we all know that the only person who can do that is the DL himself, who isn't even allowed in China right now. I wanted a picture of them so bad, but Kevin started to shake his head "no" when I pulled out my camera. To see these monks out and about in Beijing was so odd, but to add to the strange sighting was the Rolexes and digital cameras I saw them holding.
Once we all noticed the cameras, Kevin said, "Well..Okay. Take picture quick." So I snapped a picture of them and sprinted away toward the huge portrait of Mao that hung above the entrance to the Forbidden City.
The city itself is enormus, but the background information of the city trumps actual size. First of all, though most of the buildings have been cleaned up by the "Let's Make Beijing Look Awesome for the Olympics" Team, the stone ground lays as it did when the city was first built. I walked on the same stone as the emperors of the last two dynasties of China did. Ah! Kevin told us that the only man allowed inside was the current emperor himself, and the emperor thought himself just below the importance of the gods. Heaven was thought to have a thousand rooms, or something like that - I can't remember. Anyway, since the emperor was thought to be almost as powerful as the gods but not quite, the city was built with 999.5 rooms. But after the Japanese and British armies came through and burned down/destroyed parts of Beijing, only a little over half of those rooms are still in existence (they also took all the gold ornaments and tubs in the city, scraped off all the gold, and then put it back in the city which can be seen around the city squares today). Most of the buildings have names that make use of the word "longevity" in every freakin way possible. Hall of Longevity. Temple of Longevity and blahblah. I will never look at that word the same again. One of the buildings was overtaken by Mao during his reign for his personal use. Kevin saw nothing wrong with this, in fact.... he still thinks Mao is the best leader they have had. Apparently most of China agrees with him. Hm. Okay moving on. So we walked down these steps and there is this huge carving on a gigantic slab of stone that ran along the steps. It is the largest stone carving in the world, and it took 3 years to get it to the city. It could only be transported in the winter by sliding it across the ice. SERIOUSLY! Do you ReALLY need these funky stones and crazy carvings that bad? The temples are vibrant enough! The entrance to each part of the temple has this step that you're not supposed to step on or it'll give you bad luck. I asked Kevin why, and he said "In China, we are very superstitious. One time an emperor stepped on the step and later the dynasty fell". Oh, btw, Kevin started almost every sentence with "In China...". It was so cute.
Raj and I had to catch a flight to Shenzhen at 4, so Kevin dropped us off at the airport, but not without getting our emails and cell phone numbers in case he ever got the chance to come to America. He's so eager to learn about the world that I hope he does get out of China. It was hard parting with him because I felt like he was not just our tour guide but also our friend. But hey, it just gives me a reason to go back to China!
Okay, so the flight to Shenzhen. Ohhh my. Okay, well first of all, to fly from Beijing to Hong Kong costs $400 because it's still considered an international flight. However, if you fly into Shenzhen, which is a city in China that borders Hong Kong, it costs $200 and then you take a subway train over. Of course, Raj and I took the budget option. I think most SAS kids that did Beijing independently took the $400 flight, because we were the only Westerners on the whole plane. People were very nice to us and the flight was pretty normal, except for the last 20min. The captain came on the speaker and started talking in Chinese. It looked like everyone was preparing for landing because the flight attendants were all lined up at their positions in the aisle, so Raj and I began to put our stuff away. All of a sudden, we hear everyone counting and as we look around, we notice everyone waving their hands in the air, slapping their faces, and wiggling their fingers. The flight attendants were leading all the passengers in some stretching and everyone was doing it! I cannot really describe how odd this all looked, or how I was able to sustain my laughter... even during the flight attendants' song and dance. Yeah. They sang a song and did a dance after the stretching was over. After it ended, I realized how fast we were going into our landing and looked at Raj, the laughter gone from both our faces, and said "Oh Shit". I really thought we were going to crash. But no, that's just how they land. The plane stops and we get out in the middle of the runway and people just start walking to the random buses and cars that were parked by the plane. Raj and I had NO idea what was going on, because we thought the plane would pull into the main terminal and have a little more information on how to get to Hong Kong. Luckily, one of the Chinese students who stayed on the ship for a week wrote out "Please direct me to Shenzhen Train Station" in Cantonese for me, so I showed it to one of the flight attendants. She started talking to this other lady in Chinese and then that lady started talking to another lady who then ran around to all the buses. I think Raj started to panic a little bit at that point, but they motioned us over to one of the buses and actually rode with us to the drop off zone infront of the airport and pointed us to the bus that went to the train station. That bus only costed a few bucks, and it had A/C and a strange soap operaish movie about sex/drugs/crime playing. We had no idea what stop we were, so we kind of just hung out until we saw a rail and figured that was the train station. We got off the bus and ran around for a bit looking for the entrance way until a nice Chinese girl who was a student in Hong Kong showed us where the train to Hong Kong was. We had to go through customs, which we have never done on our own since the customs agents always come onto our ship everytime we go into a country, but since we were going from China to Hong Kong on our own, we had to wait in this line to get OUT of Shenzhen and then walk down this tunnel(where they were randomly pick people and run up to them and take their temperature....if you have a temp they can't let you into China or HK. Lucky they didn't pick me because I was def. running a temp) just to wait in another line to get into HK. They look at your passport, look at your face, and then let you go. Pretty lax.
It was during this process that we ran into four other SASers who took a 25hr train from Beijing to Shenzhen.... Katie, Camilla, Rus, and Chris. Who knew that this was the begining of a beautiful friendship with Katie and Camilla, but that's a story for my next entry on HONG KONG.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
FYI, I'm moving to JAPAN
The last time I wrote to you, it was my first night in Japan at 4am in a hostel. So much has happened since then.
Well, I woke up the next morning at 6:00 and got the whole motley crew up for what would become the best day/night in Japan. We all stayed in a big room with 8 beds, but we fit 9 people in. Needless to say, it took awhile to get going, but eventually we checked out of Sukura Hostel in Asakusa and made our way to the sumo wrestling stadium to buy tickets before they sold out. We get out of the subway and immediately know that we're in the right place - tons of sumo wrestlers are just walking around the city in their "warm up robes". One even pushed past me to get to his train... I was honored haha. So the way that sumo wrestling works is it is an all day event starting in the morning and it goes till 18:00, but all of the highest ranked wrestlers do not go until after 16:00 and we really only wanted to see the best matches. This actually worked out well for us because Blake, one of the guys I've been traveling with, lost his passport and rail pass and had to go back to the hostel to look for it with David (sorry i'm throwing so many random names out). The girls and I wanted to go into the southern parts of Tokyo, so we split from the fellas and headed into the heart of Tokyo for the Imperial Palace.
Now, the JR line is amazing. If you are a foreigner, you can get a rail pass for the week and use any JR line for free. It just so happens that there is a JR line (Yamaote Line) that travels all around Tokyo, so while others had to stand in line to get a ticket each time they wanted to go to a different part of Tokyo, we just breezed by with our special VIP passes. The train took us right outside the Imperial Palace, but there's one thing they don't tell you in all of the tourist books. You have to walk across this gigantic lot, and you only catch glimpses of a tower, then they tell you to walk more... and you can only see a tiny corner of the Imperial Palace. They actually only let people inside the Palace 2x a year, and that day was not our day. In need for a little pick me up, we took the JR to Shibuya... basically the best part of Tokyo and where are the locals hang out. We walked on all the side streets to look for a good place to eat, but all the menus where in Japanese with a very bad picture of what the dish was. In the end, we chose a place that looked the most authentic and where they didn't speak any English. They made us take our shoes off, which we did NOT want to do because our feet were rank, but we sat at a traditional table and blindly chose our food. My meal was amazing... I found out later that it was actually squid, but I'm okay with that. I'm trying to become more cultured.
We met the guys at sumo wrestling and watched a zillion rounds of big fat men with bulging butt muscles, each round lasting 10 minutes.. but not in the way you would think. The wrestlers took about 9 minutes to stretch, and then the actual wrestling match took about 5 secs, minus one match that went for almost a whole minute (unheard of!!). I got some pretty good footage, but at the expense of my camera battery. It died during the final match, and I didn't have a charger with me, so there are 2 days where I have no pics from Japan (boo!). Anyway, we had to leave by 18:00 because we were meeting our two friends in Asakusa at the capsule hotel after their climb up Mt. Fuji (One of them, Drew, actually made it to the top!! He said he could only stay to see the sunrise before he sprinted back down because it was so cold). The capsule hotel was pretty awkward. I don't know if I'll ever do it again, but I'm glad I got to experience it. The "room" is modeled after the cockpit of a jet - it's a tiny box with TV/internet/radio/light, and they are all stacked on top of one another. Men and women are not allowed on the same floor, though. Our floor actually had a sign that said, "Women Only, Keep Out Man". The women's showers weren't separated and old ladies were just chillin by the showers naked and pouring buckets of water on themselves from this hot bath (which had to be over 100 Fahrenheit). The girls, all 6 of us, just weren't comfortable exposing ourselves to the world, so we showered in bathing suits. The old ladies laughed at us the whole time.... we're so American.
All 11 of us head into Shibuya, a 30 min cab ride from our hotel, and separate into 2 groups for dinner - those who were wimps/wanted American food and the ones who wanted to eat some raw fish. I was in the ladder group. Jackie, Rachel, David, and I found a sushi conveyor belt place where the staff didn't speak any English but were more than happy to show us how to order our food. Stuff goes by on the belt, and you also have a picture menu so you can see what each thing is. I had no idea what anything was, so I just started grabbing stuff. I think I had some sake with Hawi Maki, Raw Flatfish, Eel, and something that closely resembled shrimp but tasted so much better. My bill.... about 700 yen.... a little under $7 US. Yea. CHEAP! I like how they think over there. Our wimpy friends, however, paid over $100 US for their mediocre "pizza" if you could even call it that. FYI... always eat Japanese food in Japan.
Japanese food got us in the mood for some authentic Japanese night life, which led us to the Shibuya branch of Gas Panic. This place had Happy Hour ALL NIGHT, 400Y. And you HAD to have a drink in your hand, or else you got kicked out. However, the trick is to buy one drink and sip it realllly slowly to make it last longer/spend less money (Don't worry, Mom... I know I'm on a budget). Ironically, though it was a local spot, they only played American R&B and old school rap. We got a little OPP, a little hey, a little ohhh, and let me tell you.... these Japanese teens know how to break it down. I swear I thought I was out at a club in the heart of the Bronx (one kid actually had a Yankees cap on!). We were all having a blast, being the only Americans in this club and being taken in by people who we could barely communicate with. At one point, we met this American guy named Jeff from Long Beach, CA who was living in Japan for a year and he offered to show us around the rest of Tokyo. This guy seemed so gangster and none of us really wanted to hang out with him, but he spoke fluent Japanese and was willing to show us around Tokyo so we went with him. We get into Roppongi, another district in Tokyo, and the insanity starts. The Nigerians run this area as well as the Yakuza. One Nigerian came up to me and asked if I was Japanese, and then tried to get me to follow him. Jeff jumped in and started yelling at him in Japanese and the Nigerian went away. I asked Jeff what had just happened, and he told me that the guy was trying to recruit me into a prostitution ring. Yea. We found this club that WASN'T run by either of those groups with tons of business people dancing to 80s music, and this bubbly gay guy in a beanie hat tries to dance with Blake. Now, Blake's a Mormon, but he doesn't mind being around all this craziness. The whole group just starts dancing around this guy, and Jeff and I start talking. Turns out, he's not the ghetto fab bad ass that I thought he was, but an intellect. I felt like for the first time someone had the same thoughts about religion and philosophy as I did. Sometimes you meet someone who you can connect with on a special level, but this was so much more than that. I honestly can't even describe it. Too bad I'll never see him again. Ah, well, he can be "the one that got away". After taking to another dance club, he found two cabs for the whole group of us at 4am and told the driver in Japanese where to take us, and that was that.
The next morning, we were all supposed to go to Hiroshima on a 7:06 train, but the boys didn't meet us in the lobby at 6:30 and the hotel manager wouldn't let us go on the men's floor to wake them up and we couldn't miss the train so we had to leave without them (I love how it was the GIRLS waiting for the GUYS to be ready). We had to SPRINT to Tokyo Station, and we made the train by a minute. It's a 4 hour train ride to Hiroshima, even on the Shinkansen. Even though I had only slept 4 hours in the past two days, I didn't sleep a wink during the entire train ride because the scenery outside was so cool. We passed what i would call Real Japan. I wish I could have stopped at each station, but Hiroshima was really important for me. A guy from SAS was sitting all alone, and we asked him what happened to the rest of his friends and he said that they didn't want to see Hiroshima so he left them. Can you believe that?! They didn't want to see Hiroshima! Well, we took Tim under our wing and he tagged along with us for the rest of the day/night. The dome, one of the only buildings left from the a-bomb, was the first thing we saw. Then we headed to the peace museum where they had a really great exhibit on the entire incident... and only for 50Y. The first part of the exhibit was all about what lead the Japanese to Pearl Harbor, and then all the secret meetings the Americans planned for the a-bombs. Did you know that the meeting where they actually decided they were going to use atomic bombs on Japan took place in Hyde Park, NY? AND the first testing of the a-bomb was on July 16th... my birthday. Friggin' government, they've tainted my special day. I also learned that they were originally going to bomb Kyoto, but decided on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After seeing Kyoto, I can't imagine how the US even thought they had the right to touch that city.
Anyway, so then they showed before and after pictures of Hiroshima. After the bomb was dropped in the sky above the city, everything was instantly destroyed. An entire school building of children died in less than a second, and the entire hospital gone with only traces of brick left behind. There was a step of a bank where the stone had turned white from exposure to the bomb, and a black outline of a man who was sitting on the steps when the bomb was dropped. A wax statue of a family wandering through the mess, their skin falling off of their body. There is an eternal flame lit outside the museum which they will not extinguish until every nuclear weapon is destroyed. It's eternal because every country is too power hungry to follow through with this. The United States alone has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the EARTH. I wonder what they think of Americans in Hiroshima. Do they hate us? Pearl Harbor was bad, but that was an attack on the military. The a-bomb was an attack on civilians, just like 9/11. Are we really that much different than Al-Qaeda?
Later that night we were supposed to head to Kyoto and stay overnight, but all the hostels were booked so Jackie, Rachel, Tim, and myself snuck 4 people into one hotel room, pushed the beds together and paid $15 each. Pretty sweet. We ate dinner by the river at this random cafe where you grill your own food. It was so messy but fun and YUMMMY!!!!! We walked around town and accidently ended up in the Red Light district. Eek. But the funny thing was you couldn't pick out the prostitutes from the regular women, because they all dressed in beautiful silk dresses. Accidently went into the wrong building, decided to call it a night, and passed out although I only got 2 hrs of sleep because i was so excited for Kyoto the next day.
7:00 we walk to the JR station, say goodbye to Tim, and take the Shinkansen to Kyoto (which has a station called Miyake Station!!!). I had to pee so bad once we got into the station, so we ran into the bathroom and as I'm peeing I realize that there is no toilet paper. There isn't even an empty alcove where the toilet paper should be. There just isn't anything to wipe yourself with. Jackie and Rachel call to me from their stalls and we all are just sitting there wondering what the heck we're supposed to do. Drip dry we did, and as we exited the bathroom we noticed some women were buying toilet paper out of a machine which we had thought was holding tampons. Lesson Learned. Always Bring Toilet Paper.
There are tons of shrines in Kyoto. The buses are pretty efficient, but there are crazy amounts of people in Kyoto every day that we decided to only go to a few shrines. The three of us trek up the side of a mountain to the Kimizuya (sp?) Shrine and we passed cities of graves and traditional Japanese houses. The shrines at the end were pretty cool, but nothing special. The walk DOWN the mountain was much better. Instead of walking down the tourist path, we walked down a residential road to see what real Japanese houses looked like. All of a sudden, we hear a gunshot from one of the side streets and run to see what happened. A school yard opens up before us with a bunch of school kids competing in some type of triathalon thing. There are kids in white hats and kids in red hats. They were in four lines, with the people in the front lying on a mat covering their ears. We realize they were covering their ears because of the gunshot, which when fired meant that the people in front hopped up and started running toward this balance beam. Then they met their partner and tied their legs together for the second part of the race... 3 legged race. It was interesting to see what Japanese recreation was like, and afterwards I decided that my field research project for the semester is going to be recreation for elementary and disabled children in Japan/China/Vietnam/ and India.
After seeing a bunch of shrines that looked exactly the same, Jackie suggested that we travel to the other side of the city to see the Golden Pavillion. It took an hour to get there, but it was totally worth it. The shrine is completely gold, accompanied by a tea house and temple. We drank some tea with gold flecks in it and got blessed with some smelly water, and then caught a Shinkansen to Kobe, where the ship was. Japan is incredibly humid and hot, so the first thing I did was shower. Then a bunch of us went out in Kobe, but only Jackie and I were smart enough not get blacked out within the first hour of arriving at this club, we actually didn't have more than 2 drinks the entire night. The entire SAS ship was loud and obnoxiously drunk, so Jackie and I left and went to this Japanese bar up the street and learned how to write in Japanese. This guy and the bartender didn't speak English, but could read somewhat, so we sat there for 2 hrs just communicating through pen and paper. I learned that Japanese symbols represent SOUNDS, not letters. So my name would be written in 2 symbols because it is 2 syllables. I now know the symbol for temple, street, and station!
We went back to the club we were at, which by 2am was only locals. All the SAS kids got so drunk that they headed back to the ship by midnight. Silly kids, everyone knows that Japanese night life doesn't start till 2am. I made friends with these two Japanese gay guys who had the most amazing fashion sense ever and loved the 70's/80's music... so I taught them how to vogue. This old man joined in and taught us some crazy dance move which I think cracked a disk or two in my back, but hey.. no pain no gain! I learned a lot about this new generation of teens in Japan.... things are really changing. Japanese students are stereotyped as nerds or neurotic hard workers... but they're just as care free as I am. I asked one of them how many hours they spent studying each week, and she just laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
The next day we went to Sorokuen Gardens in Kobe, which was pretty awesome and almost like my own little wonderland. There were all these paths you could take, so we went through the garden several times just so I could try each one. We took the slowest train back to the ship because we just didn't want to leave Japan... but here I am in China and I wish I was back in Japan. It only took two days to get to Qingdao from Kobe, which left me almost no time to plan a trip to Beijing. I just booked a flight to Beijing tomorrow evening with my friend Raj, but after today I do not plan on walking around Qingdao until our flight. This place is scary. It is what China does not want you to see. Run down. Dirty. People trying to take advantage of tourists. Awful public transportation. Normally we stop in Shanghai, but I think they wanted us to see Qingdao for a reason. Culture shock like you wouldn't believe. One girl was crying for an hour this afternoon because it was so hard for her. I would love to be in Shanghai, but the typhoon is heading through there right now and there is no way to get in or out of the city... although I heard they are trying to evacuate the city right now (Jake, I hope you are OKAY... MEET ME IN HONG KONG). Beijing tomorrow for 3 days, then Hong Kong. Then 2 days at sea, then VIETNAM. Pretty crazy. Can you believe they are fitting a semester's worth of classes into this voyage?
Well, I woke up the next morning at 6:00 and got the whole motley crew up for what would become the best day/night in Japan. We all stayed in a big room with 8 beds, but we fit 9 people in. Needless to say, it took awhile to get going, but eventually we checked out of Sukura Hostel in Asakusa and made our way to the sumo wrestling stadium to buy tickets before they sold out. We get out of the subway and immediately know that we're in the right place - tons of sumo wrestlers are just walking around the city in their "warm up robes". One even pushed past me to get to his train... I was honored haha. So the way that sumo wrestling works is it is an all day event starting in the morning and it goes till 18:00, but all of the highest ranked wrestlers do not go until after 16:00 and we really only wanted to see the best matches. This actually worked out well for us because Blake, one of the guys I've been traveling with, lost his passport and rail pass and had to go back to the hostel to look for it with David (sorry i'm throwing so many random names out). The girls and I wanted to go into the southern parts of Tokyo, so we split from the fellas and headed into the heart of Tokyo for the Imperial Palace.
Now, the JR line is amazing. If you are a foreigner, you can get a rail pass for the week and use any JR line for free. It just so happens that there is a JR line (Yamaote Line) that travels all around Tokyo, so while others had to stand in line to get a ticket each time they wanted to go to a different part of Tokyo, we just breezed by with our special VIP passes. The train took us right outside the Imperial Palace, but there's one thing they don't tell you in all of the tourist books. You have to walk across this gigantic lot, and you only catch glimpses of a tower, then they tell you to walk more... and you can only see a tiny corner of the Imperial Palace. They actually only let people inside the Palace 2x a year, and that day was not our day. In need for a little pick me up, we took the JR to Shibuya... basically the best part of Tokyo and where are the locals hang out. We walked on all the side streets to look for a good place to eat, but all the menus where in Japanese with a very bad picture of what the dish was. In the end, we chose a place that looked the most authentic and where they didn't speak any English. They made us take our shoes off, which we did NOT want to do because our feet were rank, but we sat at a traditional table and blindly chose our food. My meal was amazing... I found out later that it was actually squid, but I'm okay with that. I'm trying to become more cultured.
We met the guys at sumo wrestling and watched a zillion rounds of big fat men with bulging butt muscles, each round lasting 10 minutes.. but not in the way you would think. The wrestlers took about 9 minutes to stretch, and then the actual wrestling match took about 5 secs, minus one match that went for almost a whole minute (unheard of!!). I got some pretty good footage, but at the expense of my camera battery. It died during the final match, and I didn't have a charger with me, so there are 2 days where I have no pics from Japan (boo!). Anyway, we had to leave by 18:00 because we were meeting our two friends in Asakusa at the capsule hotel after their climb up Mt. Fuji (One of them, Drew, actually made it to the top!! He said he could only stay to see the sunrise before he sprinted back down because it was so cold). The capsule hotel was pretty awkward. I don't know if I'll ever do it again, but I'm glad I got to experience it. The "room" is modeled after the cockpit of a jet - it's a tiny box with TV/internet/radio/light, and they are all stacked on top of one another. Men and women are not allowed on the same floor, though. Our floor actually had a sign that said, "Women Only, Keep Out Man". The women's showers weren't separated and old ladies were just chillin by the showers naked and pouring buckets of water on themselves from this hot bath (which had to be over 100 Fahrenheit). The girls, all 6 of us, just weren't comfortable exposing ourselves to the world, so we showered in bathing suits. The old ladies laughed at us the whole time.... we're so American.
All 11 of us head into Shibuya, a 30 min cab ride from our hotel, and separate into 2 groups for dinner - those who were wimps/wanted American food and the ones who wanted to eat some raw fish. I was in the ladder group. Jackie, Rachel, David, and I found a sushi conveyor belt place where the staff didn't speak any English but were more than happy to show us how to order our food. Stuff goes by on the belt, and you also have a picture menu so you can see what each thing is. I had no idea what anything was, so I just started grabbing stuff. I think I had some sake with Hawi Maki, Raw Flatfish, Eel, and something that closely resembled shrimp but tasted so much better. My bill.... about 700 yen.... a little under $7 US. Yea. CHEAP! I like how they think over there. Our wimpy friends, however, paid over $100 US for their mediocre "pizza" if you could even call it that. FYI... always eat Japanese food in Japan.
Japanese food got us in the mood for some authentic Japanese night life, which led us to the Shibuya branch of Gas Panic. This place had Happy Hour ALL NIGHT, 400Y. And you HAD to have a drink in your hand, or else you got kicked out. However, the trick is to buy one drink and sip it realllly slowly to make it last longer/spend less money (Don't worry, Mom... I know I'm on a budget). Ironically, though it was a local spot, they only played American R&B and old school rap. We got a little OPP, a little hey, a little ohhh, and let me tell you.... these Japanese teens know how to break it down. I swear I thought I was out at a club in the heart of the Bronx (one kid actually had a Yankees cap on!). We were all having a blast, being the only Americans in this club and being taken in by people who we could barely communicate with. At one point, we met this American guy named Jeff from Long Beach, CA who was living in Japan for a year and he offered to show us around the rest of Tokyo. This guy seemed so gangster and none of us really wanted to hang out with him, but he spoke fluent Japanese and was willing to show us around Tokyo so we went with him. We get into Roppongi, another district in Tokyo, and the insanity starts. The Nigerians run this area as well as the Yakuza. One Nigerian came up to me and asked if I was Japanese, and then tried to get me to follow him. Jeff jumped in and started yelling at him in Japanese and the Nigerian went away. I asked Jeff what had just happened, and he told me that the guy was trying to recruit me into a prostitution ring. Yea. We found this club that WASN'T run by either of those groups with tons of business people dancing to 80s music, and this bubbly gay guy in a beanie hat tries to dance with Blake. Now, Blake's a Mormon, but he doesn't mind being around all this craziness. The whole group just starts dancing around this guy, and Jeff and I start talking. Turns out, he's not the ghetto fab bad ass that I thought he was, but an intellect. I felt like for the first time someone had the same thoughts about religion and philosophy as I did. Sometimes you meet someone who you can connect with on a special level, but this was so much more than that. I honestly can't even describe it. Too bad I'll never see him again. Ah, well, he can be "the one that got away". After taking to another dance club, he found two cabs for the whole group of us at 4am and told the driver in Japanese where to take us, and that was that.
The next morning, we were all supposed to go to Hiroshima on a 7:06 train, but the boys didn't meet us in the lobby at 6:30 and the hotel manager wouldn't let us go on the men's floor to wake them up and we couldn't miss the train so we had to leave without them (I love how it was the GIRLS waiting for the GUYS to be ready). We had to SPRINT to Tokyo Station, and we made the train by a minute. It's a 4 hour train ride to Hiroshima, even on the Shinkansen. Even though I had only slept 4 hours in the past two days, I didn't sleep a wink during the entire train ride because the scenery outside was so cool. We passed what i would call Real Japan. I wish I could have stopped at each station, but Hiroshima was really important for me. A guy from SAS was sitting all alone, and we asked him what happened to the rest of his friends and he said that they didn't want to see Hiroshima so he left them. Can you believe that?! They didn't want to see Hiroshima! Well, we took Tim under our wing and he tagged along with us for the rest of the day/night. The dome, one of the only buildings left from the a-bomb, was the first thing we saw. Then we headed to the peace museum where they had a really great exhibit on the entire incident... and only for 50Y. The first part of the exhibit was all about what lead the Japanese to Pearl Harbor, and then all the secret meetings the Americans planned for the a-bombs. Did you know that the meeting where they actually decided they were going to use atomic bombs on Japan took place in Hyde Park, NY? AND the first testing of the a-bomb was on July 16th... my birthday. Friggin' government, they've tainted my special day. I also learned that they were originally going to bomb Kyoto, but decided on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After seeing Kyoto, I can't imagine how the US even thought they had the right to touch that city.
Anyway, so then they showed before and after pictures of Hiroshima. After the bomb was dropped in the sky above the city, everything was instantly destroyed. An entire school building of children died in less than a second, and the entire hospital gone with only traces of brick left behind. There was a step of a bank where the stone had turned white from exposure to the bomb, and a black outline of a man who was sitting on the steps when the bomb was dropped. A wax statue of a family wandering through the mess, their skin falling off of their body. There is an eternal flame lit outside the museum which they will not extinguish until every nuclear weapon is destroyed. It's eternal because every country is too power hungry to follow through with this. The United States alone has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the EARTH. I wonder what they think of Americans in Hiroshima. Do they hate us? Pearl Harbor was bad, but that was an attack on the military. The a-bomb was an attack on civilians, just like 9/11. Are we really that much different than Al-Qaeda?
Later that night we were supposed to head to Kyoto and stay overnight, but all the hostels were booked so Jackie, Rachel, Tim, and myself snuck 4 people into one hotel room, pushed the beds together and paid $15 each. Pretty sweet. We ate dinner by the river at this random cafe where you grill your own food. It was so messy but fun and YUMMMY!!!!! We walked around town and accidently ended up in the Red Light district. Eek. But the funny thing was you couldn't pick out the prostitutes from the regular women, because they all dressed in beautiful silk dresses. Accidently went into the wrong building, decided to call it a night, and passed out although I only got 2 hrs of sleep because i was so excited for Kyoto the next day.
7:00 we walk to the JR station, say goodbye to Tim, and take the Shinkansen to Kyoto (which has a station called Miyake Station!!!). I had to pee so bad once we got into the station, so we ran into the bathroom and as I'm peeing I realize that there is no toilet paper. There isn't even an empty alcove where the toilet paper should be. There just isn't anything to wipe yourself with. Jackie and Rachel call to me from their stalls and we all are just sitting there wondering what the heck we're supposed to do. Drip dry we did, and as we exited the bathroom we noticed some women were buying toilet paper out of a machine which we had thought was holding tampons. Lesson Learned. Always Bring Toilet Paper.
There are tons of shrines in Kyoto. The buses are pretty efficient, but there are crazy amounts of people in Kyoto every day that we decided to only go to a few shrines. The three of us trek up the side of a mountain to the Kimizuya (sp?) Shrine and we passed cities of graves and traditional Japanese houses. The shrines at the end were pretty cool, but nothing special. The walk DOWN the mountain was much better. Instead of walking down the tourist path, we walked down a residential road to see what real Japanese houses looked like. All of a sudden, we hear a gunshot from one of the side streets and run to see what happened. A school yard opens up before us with a bunch of school kids competing in some type of triathalon thing. There are kids in white hats and kids in red hats. They were in four lines, with the people in the front lying on a mat covering their ears. We realize they were covering their ears because of the gunshot, which when fired meant that the people in front hopped up and started running toward this balance beam. Then they met their partner and tied their legs together for the second part of the race... 3 legged race. It was interesting to see what Japanese recreation was like, and afterwards I decided that my field research project for the semester is going to be recreation for elementary and disabled children in Japan/China/Vietnam/ and India.
After seeing a bunch of shrines that looked exactly the same, Jackie suggested that we travel to the other side of the city to see the Golden Pavillion. It took an hour to get there, but it was totally worth it. The shrine is completely gold, accompanied by a tea house and temple. We drank some tea with gold flecks in it and got blessed with some smelly water, and then caught a Shinkansen to Kobe, where the ship was. Japan is incredibly humid and hot, so the first thing I did was shower. Then a bunch of us went out in Kobe, but only Jackie and I were smart enough not get blacked out within the first hour of arriving at this club, we actually didn't have more than 2 drinks the entire night. The entire SAS ship was loud and obnoxiously drunk, so Jackie and I left and went to this Japanese bar up the street and learned how to write in Japanese. This guy and the bartender didn't speak English, but could read somewhat, so we sat there for 2 hrs just communicating through pen and paper. I learned that Japanese symbols represent SOUNDS, not letters. So my name would be written in 2 symbols because it is 2 syllables. I now know the symbol for temple, street, and station!
We went back to the club we were at, which by 2am was only locals. All the SAS kids got so drunk that they headed back to the ship by midnight. Silly kids, everyone knows that Japanese night life doesn't start till 2am. I made friends with these two Japanese gay guys who had the most amazing fashion sense ever and loved the 70's/80's music... so I taught them how to vogue. This old man joined in and taught us some crazy dance move which I think cracked a disk or two in my back, but hey.. no pain no gain! I learned a lot about this new generation of teens in Japan.... things are really changing. Japanese students are stereotyped as nerds or neurotic hard workers... but they're just as care free as I am. I asked one of them how many hours they spent studying each week, and she just laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
The next day we went to Sorokuen Gardens in Kobe, which was pretty awesome and almost like my own little wonderland. There were all these paths you could take, so we went through the garden several times just so I could try each one. We took the slowest train back to the ship because we just didn't want to leave Japan... but here I am in China and I wish I was back in Japan. It only took two days to get to Qingdao from Kobe, which left me almost no time to plan a trip to Beijing. I just booked a flight to Beijing tomorrow evening with my friend Raj, but after today I do not plan on walking around Qingdao until our flight. This place is scary. It is what China does not want you to see. Run down. Dirty. People trying to take advantage of tourists. Awful public transportation. Normally we stop in Shanghai, but I think they wanted us to see Qingdao for a reason. Culture shock like you wouldn't believe. One girl was crying for an hour this afternoon because it was so hard for her. I would love to be in Shanghai, but the typhoon is heading through there right now and there is no way to get in or out of the city... although I heard they are trying to evacuate the city right now (Jake, I hope you are OKAY... MEET ME IN HONG KONG). Beijing tomorrow for 3 days, then Hong Kong. Then 2 days at sea, then VIETNAM. Pretty crazy. Can you believe they are fitting a semester's worth of classes into this voyage?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Aloha, Konichiwa
HELLO EVERYONE!
I am writing this email from a hostel at 2am (Sept 13th) in Asakura, Tokyo in... JAPAN!! (if things are spelled wrong or have incorrect punctuation forgive me because the keyboard keeps switching to Japanese every few minutes). We got into port this morning, but it took almost 6 hrs to get into port. But first, before I even begin to talk aboutJapan... HAwAII UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, so last time we really talked, I was anxious to get off the ship. Well, I made some new friends with several guys who were interested in doing independent travel. So when we finally arrived in Honolulu, we decided to go hiking at Manoa Falls. We got into port and took a cab into the suburbs of Oahu and basically climbed through a jungle. I was so ready to see George of the Jungle jump out of the branches at any moment. One of the guys (Brian) actually climbed up a vine halfway up this one tree - don:t worry! i have a video of it. The leaves looked so fake that I couldnt believe they were real. It only got better as we climbed higher.
Finally, after 2 hrs of hiking, we reached a waterfall that looked like it was straight out of an herbal essences commercial. rachel and i eventually ventured through the FREEEEZING water (which had some warning sign about rat syphillis... oh yay) to stand under the falls. One of the guys with us is a pro photographer so he took tons of pics and they turned out so well! We walked back down to the bottom of the falls and decided to walk to the Manoa Market which was supposedly 15min from the falls, but we ended up getting lost in the suburbs of Hawaii. We had to walk through some school yard, several back yards, and a pool to finally reach a place where we could get a taxi to pick us up. We ate some sushi for lunch, then headed to Waikiki Beach.
This is basically a toursit beach, but still equally as breath taking. The water was slightly refreshing, but rather warm. The water depth stayed at 4ft deep for about 100 yds out, but then Rachel cut her foot on some rocks and had to get stitches later. My friend Danny and I took a surf board out and enjoyed the mild surf for an hour or so. Don:t worry, Mom - my back is still in shape. After the beach, we had to find a wal-mart to get the essentials... you know.... candy/gum/noodle floaties/major amounts of aloe. There was a 9pm curfew for the boat dock, so we got there around 7 but didn:t actually get ON the boat till 4 min to 9. If you:re late getting on the boat, you get punished with "dock time", so people started rioting on the dock. I almost got smushed by 300 drunk college kids chanting "WE WANT DOCK TIME" as a rebellion against SAS administrative for holding up the line. Needless to say, it was quick the experience.
So then it was off to Japan. 9 days across the roughest sea of the voyage, and 9 straight days of classes. I started to get cabin fever around the 4th day, already hating my psychology teacher for being a stereotypical psych professor (never getting to the point, never contributing anything to the lectures but rather relying on her students to make up for her inadequacies). I went to pub night once to break up the monotony, but they charge $3.50 for a *shot* of wine... basically 4 shots makes a standard glass of wine in the US. Thats the last time I ever partake in pub night on the ship. So mandy, my roomie, started missing her boyfriend and Rach was getting homesick. I think it:s times like these that make people bond together, because I made a whole another group of friends (who I am traveling with today). We began to plan our Japan trip, while trying to tough it out as the voyage became increasingly rough. Sept 10th I could barely walk because the ship was rocking so bad. I had a class i nthe front of the boat (which feel;s its the worst) where i could barely keep from barfing into mynotebook. I did get VERY sea sick later that night, and of course it was the night before the big Global Studies test that everyone on the ship has to take.
Anyway - on to Japan. I somehow became the leader of our group, booking hostels and hotels and managing time. EEK, scary to have 11 people looking to you for answers in a country where YOU REALLY ARE ON YOUR OWN! So we get into port around 7am and my group planned to be on land by 11am so we could head to our hostel, but we don:t get off the ship till 2pm because customs look a lifetime and a half. Because it took so long, the free shuttle that was to take us to Yokohama station to exchange our rail passes were canceled, so all 700 of us had to find our way by foott to the train station. When we finally got to the station, they tell us that we can:t exchange our rail passes there and we have to do it at tokyo station. So we pay fora ticket to Tokyo, abou 500 Y, and then take a 40 min train ride into the city. We all get off at the station and it hits us. We are NOT IN AMERICA ANY MORE! EVERYone is Japanese and looking at us like we have eyeballs growing out of four eyebrows. The signs are all in Japanese and we can:t find the right booth. So a bunch of SAS students started following my group, who i left to the wrong booth 2x before finallly getting it right, and then we broke away from the group to head to Asakusa in Tokyo (Tokyo is broken up into several different prefectures... or like Manhattan and the boroughs). So we take 2 JR trains and FINALLY find the subway we are sup@posed to take (all the meanwhile, we are totally enjoying getting lost because it just adds to the excitement) and everyone just walks through to the subway platform without paying. I try to tell them that our JR passes do not cover subways, but no one wants to listen. We ride the subway to Asakusa no prob, but then when we tried to get OUT of the station, we didn't have a ticket to swipe through the gate with. Aaron and the other girls somehow sprinted through the gates while no one was looking, but Rachel, Blake, and several others got stuck behind the gate.
The JR master did not speak a word of englsih and kept asking for our subway passes from the previous station - obviously we didn't have them. So aaron bought 5 subway tickets to some random place and snuck them to the other side f the gate where I was with the rest of the group. We tried to swipe through, but the tickets didn:t work. The JR master tried to talk to us and we tried to talk to him about why we didn:t have a ticket from the previous station and why couldn］twe just use the ones we had jsut bought bc it was of an equivalent amount, but in the end he didn:t understand us/we didnt understand him, so he let us go.
So from here we had an 11min walk to the hostel, which was the most suprisingly amazing walk of mylife. All of a sudden we were in the middle of this huge temple grounds and then all these shops in this market that was not meant for toursits but rather the real deal. Then out of the blue we run into our bio professorwho tags along with us and we lit some incense infront of a shrine and wafted the smoke into our faces (it:s tradition).
We finally get to the Sakura hostel at 19+00 down some alleyand FALL IN LOVE WITH IT! It is the best hostel ever! We got a dorm style room with 8 beds, but there are 4 guys and 6 girls, so we are just squeezing everyone into one room. The showers are so cool and the people are so nice. They speak english and understand everything we are going through. Internet is free, a kitchen is included, and basically we just met people from all over the world tonight. I met two guys from france, and made good friends with this guy named Owen from Austrailia. We had a long discussion of what was the proper name for minorities.... he called Japanese people Japs and Mexican people beaners... which is totally accepted in his country. We had a laugh over a few sake bombs at a resturant in the market and had some traditional tempora. OH MY GOSH! FOOD! So the portions are totally different here. Our american meals are 4x as large as theirs. I feel HUGE compared to people here, not just width wise but height wise as well. So anyway, we walked around Asakusa for a bit and almost went into this club before realizing that it:s. a strip club!!!!! We began to talk into the building then notice bullitens with naked women on them (which are actually visible from teh street..... i:m talking nudity from waist up, in the eyeshot of little kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Lesson learned. Survey the scene very carefully before entering. So instead, we went to this samauri cafe and met some Japanese 20 year olds that didn:t speak a lick of english but were very eager to try to talk to us. Rach and I headed back after an hour because we wanted to use the internet.
Tomorrow we are going to stay in another hotel in Tokyo called the Capsule Hotel. Each room is modeled after the cockpit of a jet. Its really cool!! i think that we are going to hiroshima obn the 14th, kyoto on the 15th, and kobe/baseball game on the 16th. My int]l claling card isn:t WORKINGbecause appretnly it only can make calls TO other countries FROM the US. I:ll try to email again after japan, but china is only 2 days after so it will be a tight squeeze! love love love!
I am writing this email from a hostel at 2am (Sept 13th) in Asakura, Tokyo in... JAPAN!! (if things are spelled wrong or have incorrect punctuation forgive me because the keyboard keeps switching to Japanese every few minutes). We got into port this morning, but it took almost 6 hrs to get into port. But first, before I even begin to talk aboutJapan... HAwAII UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, so last time we really talked, I was anxious to get off the ship. Well, I made some new friends with several guys who were interested in doing independent travel. So when we finally arrived in Honolulu, we decided to go hiking at Manoa Falls. We got into port and took a cab into the suburbs of Oahu and basically climbed through a jungle. I was so ready to see George of the Jungle jump out of the branches at any moment. One of the guys (Brian) actually climbed up a vine halfway up this one tree - don:t worry! i have a video of it. The leaves looked so fake that I couldnt believe they were real. It only got better as we climbed higher.
Finally, after 2 hrs of hiking, we reached a waterfall that looked like it was straight out of an herbal essences commercial. rachel and i eventually ventured through the FREEEEZING water (which had some warning sign about rat syphillis... oh yay) to stand under the falls. One of the guys with us is a pro photographer so he took tons of pics and they turned out so well! We walked back down to the bottom of the falls and decided to walk to the Manoa Market which was supposedly 15min from the falls, but we ended up getting lost in the suburbs of Hawaii. We had to walk through some school yard, several back yards, and a pool to finally reach a place where we could get a taxi to pick us up. We ate some sushi for lunch, then headed to Waikiki Beach.
This is basically a toursit beach, but still equally as breath taking. The water was slightly refreshing, but rather warm. The water depth stayed at 4ft deep for about 100 yds out, but then Rachel cut her foot on some rocks and had to get stitches later. My friend Danny and I took a surf board out and enjoyed the mild surf for an hour or so. Don:t worry, Mom - my back is still in shape. After the beach, we had to find a wal-mart to get the essentials... you know.... candy/gum/noodle floaties/major amounts of aloe. There was a 9pm curfew for the boat dock, so we got there around 7 but didn:t actually get ON the boat till 4 min to 9. If you:re late getting on the boat, you get punished with "dock time", so people started rioting on the dock. I almost got smushed by 300 drunk college kids chanting "WE WANT DOCK TIME" as a rebellion against SAS administrative for holding up the line. Needless to say, it was quick the experience.
So then it was off to Japan. 9 days across the roughest sea of the voyage, and 9 straight days of classes. I started to get cabin fever around the 4th day, already hating my psychology teacher for being a stereotypical psych professor (never getting to the point, never contributing anything to the lectures but rather relying on her students to make up for her inadequacies). I went to pub night once to break up the monotony, but they charge $3.50 for a *shot* of wine... basically 4 shots makes a standard glass of wine in the US. Thats the last time I ever partake in pub night on the ship. So mandy, my roomie, started missing her boyfriend and Rach was getting homesick. I think it:s times like these that make people bond together, because I made a whole another group of friends (who I am traveling with today). We began to plan our Japan trip, while trying to tough it out as the voyage became increasingly rough. Sept 10th I could barely walk because the ship was rocking so bad. I had a class i nthe front of the boat (which feel;s its the worst) where i could barely keep from barfing into mynotebook. I did get VERY sea sick later that night, and of course it was the night before the big Global Studies test that everyone on the ship has to take.
Anyway - on to Japan. I somehow became the leader of our group, booking hostels and hotels and managing time. EEK, scary to have 11 people looking to you for answers in a country where YOU REALLY ARE ON YOUR OWN! So we get into port around 7am and my group planned to be on land by 11am so we could head to our hostel, but we don:t get off the ship till 2pm because customs look a lifetime and a half. Because it took so long, the free shuttle that was to take us to Yokohama station to exchange our rail passes were canceled, so all 700 of us had to find our way by foott to the train station. When we finally got to the station, they tell us that we can:t exchange our rail passes there and we have to do it at tokyo station. So we pay fora ticket to Tokyo, abou 500 Y, and then take a 40 min train ride into the city. We all get off at the station and it hits us. We are NOT IN AMERICA ANY MORE! EVERYone is Japanese and looking at us like we have eyeballs growing out of four eyebrows. The signs are all in Japanese and we can:t find the right booth. So a bunch of SAS students started following my group, who i left to the wrong booth 2x before finallly getting it right, and then we broke away from the group to head to Asakusa in Tokyo (Tokyo is broken up into several different prefectures... or like Manhattan and the boroughs). So we take 2 JR trains and FINALLY find the subway we are sup@posed to take (all the meanwhile, we are totally enjoying getting lost because it just adds to the excitement) and everyone just walks through to the subway platform without paying. I try to tell them that our JR passes do not cover subways, but no one wants to listen. We ride the subway to Asakusa no prob, but then when we tried to get OUT of the station, we didn't have a ticket to swipe through the gate with. Aaron and the other girls somehow sprinted through the gates while no one was looking, but Rachel, Blake, and several others got stuck behind the gate.
The JR master did not speak a word of englsih and kept asking for our subway passes from the previous station - obviously we didn't have them. So aaron bought 5 subway tickets to some random place and snuck them to the other side f the gate where I was with the rest of the group. We tried to swipe through, but the tickets didn:t work. The JR master tried to talk to us and we tried to talk to him about why we didn:t have a ticket from the previous station and why couldn］twe just use the ones we had jsut bought bc it was of an equivalent amount, but in the end he didn:t understand us/we didnt understand him, so he let us go.
So from here we had an 11min walk to the hostel, which was the most suprisingly amazing walk of mylife. All of a sudden we were in the middle of this huge temple grounds and then all these shops in this market that was not meant for toursits but rather the real deal. Then out of the blue we run into our bio professorwho tags along with us and we lit some incense infront of a shrine and wafted the smoke into our faces (it:s tradition).
We finally get to the Sakura hostel at 19+00 down some alleyand FALL IN LOVE WITH IT! It is the best hostel ever! We got a dorm style room with 8 beds, but there are 4 guys and 6 girls, so we are just squeezing everyone into one room. The showers are so cool and the people are so nice. They speak english and understand everything we are going through. Internet is free, a kitchen is included, and basically we just met people from all over the world tonight. I met two guys from france, and made good friends with this guy named Owen from Austrailia. We had a long discussion of what was the proper name for minorities.... he called Japanese people Japs and Mexican people beaners... which is totally accepted in his country. We had a laugh over a few sake bombs at a resturant in the market and had some traditional tempora. OH MY GOSH! FOOD! So the portions are totally different here. Our american meals are 4x as large as theirs. I feel HUGE compared to people here, not just width wise but height wise as well. So anyway, we walked around Asakusa for a bit and almost went into this club before realizing that it:s. a strip club!!!!! We began to talk into the building then notice bullitens with naked women on them (which are actually visible from teh street..... i:m talking nudity from waist up, in the eyeshot of little kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Lesson learned. Survey the scene very carefully before entering. So instead, we went to this samauri cafe and met some Japanese 20 year olds that didn:t speak a lick of english but were very eager to try to talk to us. Rach and I headed back after an hour because we wanted to use the internet.
Tomorrow we are going to stay in another hotel in Tokyo called the Capsule Hotel. Each room is modeled after the cockpit of a jet. Its really cool!! i think that we are going to hiroshima obn the 14th, kyoto on the 15th, and kobe/baseball game on the 16th. My int]l claling card isn:t WORKINGbecause appretnly it only can make calls TO other countries FROM the US. I:ll try to email again after japan, but china is only 2 days after so it will be a tight squeeze! love love love!
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