Jeff's Spendictacular Semester @ Sea Extravaganza

Very Confusing

2009-01-17T15:13:00.008-05:00

Groggy, with a sore throat, a bit of a headache, dead tired, and with the onset of a runny nose, I went up to Global in the morning. I was dressed in sweatpants with a jacket over my t-shirt. I would never go to class at Penn State dressed like that, but it’s what you do when you live and go to school on a ship. Everybody looks like they’re wearing their pajamas to class. Regardless of how we were dressed, I would say that Global was almost helpful. It was almost helpful because it was about Japan, instead of the port we just left, which is a problem that’s plagued Global for a few ports every now and then. The information about Japan was next to useless but some of it stuck in my head.

There was an interesting piece of news that emerged today. Apparently some professors (and I don’t have any of them) have an attitude of superiority over, at the very least, some of the students. And essentially they treat the students as if they were “rich white kids that like to get drunk.” But let’s be clear, there are “rich white kids that like to get drunk” and then there’s the other ~95% of students. To address the issue, a letter was drafted challenging the claim and put in the Deans’ mailboxes. So at the end of global, Dean Mike came out and gave the effect that he’s really taking the letter to heart that we as a shipboard community need to come together better and make sure that we know we’re all in it together. It may have been legitimate. It may have been an act. It may have been a bit of both. But this letter was much of the talk on the ship. I didn’t really care.

At this point in the voyage, there’s a couple chances left to have pictures and items signed by Desmond Tutu. He’s only done one other date and that was somewhere back near day eight. That’s the day I took advantage of when there was no line. Everybody said ‘oh, I’ll just go on one of the next days he does it.’ Well from day eight back in the Caribbean to today in the East China Sea, he hasn’t done another day of “appearances.” That’s why there’s a line that extends halfway down the ship.

I kept walking by the line and shaking my head at both the length of it, and the speed that it was moving. People had friends hold their spot on line, went to class, and still made it back on line with a great deal of time to spare. So much so that when Desi called it a day because he was tired, there were still a lot of people on line. Supposedly this was supposed to be the last day of autographs and pictures, but they gave chits (which are apparently slips of paper, although I’d never heard the word before) that stated their position on line for the next “appearance.” Again, I’m just thrilled that I got on line in the Caribbean when there were only about five or six people ahead of me.

I had a plan to start studying for my art history quiz today, and I did do that later in the morning. Then I went to lunch but went back to the room to make sure that I got in as much studying as I could. Studying, for your reference, is a relative term on this ship. There’s something about being on an ocean-faring vessel that just makes studying that much trickier. Then I went to class and a very typical Semester at Sea thing happened – and nobody was unhappy about it. The quiz had to be moved because it was clear neither Dr. O’Brian nor the students were really prepared for it. Now it’s after Japan because that’s the next time class will meet.

After art history, I was back to folding more origami flowers for the Ambassador’s Ball. It’s drawing ever closer and the goal of 750 flowers is so out of reach that I’m blind to the fact that we won’t come close. I’m still going to go strong with it though because I’m bound to think of something to do with them by the time of the Ball.

The closer we get to Japan, the more I realize that Japan will be very different from any other port that we’ve visited. For one, it’s the most western port we’ll visit (which at first sounds odd because it’s location is in the Far East), as it’s the only country that can’t at least be partially classified as a developing country. It’s developed, and as I learned this afternoon, at least one-step ahead of even the United States.

Before we are allowed to enter the country, we have to have our temperature taken. Japan will not let you in if you are possibly ill with something that might be considered something highly communicable. It’s a portion of their anti-bird flu effort. It’s quite impressive that a country can institute and enforce this, so I do have to give them some credit for that. I’m mildly concerned because I’m not feeling very well and clearly have something in me. It’s still a couple days until we’re in port, though.

What was arranged was that we were called up the faculty room by sea and had to stand in line to get our temperature taken with one of those ear thermometers. Then we had to walk to the other side of the room and tell someone what the temperature was. But somehow, it did not turn out that simple for me.

So I go up to the faculty room when the Red Sea is called and get in line. They’ve got the same silly lines on the floor so we know which line we go in for our last name. If you don’t know at this point, I don’t know what to tell you. I get to the front of the line, and because the reading is for Japan the numbers are metric, so my temperature is 37.5 degrees Celsius. Between the fifteen feet where my temperature was taken and where I have to give it, I could not remember if my temperature was 35.7 or 35.7. And they kept telling us over and over again not to forget our temperature because it would slow us down. And I would keep saying to myself ‘Yeah, sure, come on, let’s get the line moving here.’ There were one or two people in front of me at the table, and in the short time that I was on line, I did some quick logic and while I know only a bit about the Celsius scale, I listened to the temperature in front of me from the seemingly healthy person (which was in the 38s) and figured that the 35.7 option was too low, so I gave the 37.5. Or at least that’s how I think I remembered I did it.

After dinner (and at this point, the food doesn’t even register on my radar), Katie and I finally finalized the Ball seating, with the intent to not make another change. If your name was not on the list, you were not getting in. I’ve had enough with this seating chart. Yet every time we go through the list, my ear seems to catch a name that I haven’t heard before. Go figure.

I didn’t have the energy to stay up too late, so I did not. Plus, we lost an hour of sleep, too. Those hours just do not stop going away. It is one of that last things I need right now.

Woke up at 7, very tired, the day before Japan, with what I would classify as a good, old-fashioned cold. After breakfast, I went to my history class and Global, which I don’t think that I was too awake for. Which is odd because I sit about four to five feet away from the history professor. She had to have seen that I was fighting consciousness. But if I were her, I would have let it go, too. Semester at Sea is a marathon. Especially after nights where we lose an hour.

After partially sleeping through both of my morning classes (I couldn’t even tell you what Global was about, but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t miss anything), I had to be awake to run our Ambassador’s Ball meeting in the morning. This one wasn’t about decorations so it went really well. We had to hash out the timeline of the ball. We had to know when both seatings would start and end, when dessert would begin, when the music would be playing in the piano lounge, when the dance would start in the Union, and stuff like that. It went well. It lasted a while because we had a lot to figure out and I’m easily distracted at times like this. But we were all happy with what we came up with.

After lunch I went to my cinema class. I thought we would be watching decent foreign films. I guess we’ll call whatever we saw today as cultural exposure. I might have nodded off in that class, too. And then after class, for the first time on the entire voyage, no matter what illness I was afflicted with, this was the first time I ever did bed rest. I had my Whose Line? DVDs and I laid in bed, watched those, and rested. I needed to. I really did. If we still had an extra day or two before port, I would not have needed to, but we don’t have the luxury of a day.

Before dinner I was able to get a letter or two done for the Ambassador’s Ball. Any time we have to contact someone on the staff of the ship, we have to draft a nice, well-written letter asking for something. Speaking of letters, the letter from yesterday morning about the students has had ripple effects. The rumors are flying left and right. There’s a consensus about which professors were intended to be the focus of the letter, but a handful of the professors that weren’t the problem are acting like they were. In other words, the wrong people are taking steps to make the ship better. Now, they’re just annoying people. And the targeted professors don’t seem to have done a thing. It’ now the running gag that if somebody has something to say that they’re going to write it in a letter to the Deans. I think we’re all a bit delusional to see that there are some better things to do with our time.

After dinner I had another pre-trip meeting – and it was with Arnie again! I cannot lose this guy! Out of all people, the septuagenarian ship psychologist continues to be near me. This trip however is only two of the five days that I plan to spend in Japan. This trip in particular goes to Kyoto and Nara has a few features that I would not otherwise be able to organize. Where I’ll be the other three days is another story entirely, and I’ll tell that when I get there.

As for the trip, it seems to be a pretty decent group of people, with a number of students that I can associate with for the trip. I’m looking forward to it greatly. I hope I feel better by the time the trip rolls around…

The 5 o’clock announcements (that came on closer to 6) teased the ship that tonight’s preport would be the most exciting preport ever! And then the announcements that told us to get our rear in gear over to preport said it again. The Deans don’t know that when you build something up this spectacularly, you need to be able to back it up. If you said that it was going to be the most mediocre preport ever, then we might be pleasantly surprised.

And what was it that made it (not) the most exciting preport ever? Well, it took most of preport to find out, but some of the deans, RAs, and the ship doc came out dressed like geishas. (You’ll hear more about geishas later.) The ship doc was the only one that cross-dressed though, and I do have to give him some credit for that because I did have to do a double take to see who it was. But here was their problem – they didn’t think it out beyond the costumes. (And I have no idea where those came from because we’re not in Japan yet.) They had no bit to go with the costumes. It did hold some promise upon their entrance, but the balloon deflated a bit quicker than they would have liked. Here’s how the doc looked:

It’s amazing how I still get a case of the preport jitters this late in the voyage, but it’s a new port, a new country, and it’s still exciting. I went to the other end of the ship for preport snack and hung around a little too long in the day because I did not get to bed when I wanted to. At least we didn’t lose an hour.

Kobe, Japan

I got out of bed, begrudgingly, at 7. We still weren’t in port yet, but we were in the port area – I could see land. And it was cloudy, gloomy, and rainy, so there was no sunrise to be missed. We were supposed to be getting into port about now, but who knows when it will be happening now. Since I was up already I wanted breakfast, and even when we come into port, that’s over before it begins, so I didn’t want to miss a free meal. My breakfasts have boiled down to one thing now. Either they have the chocolate filled croissants or they don’t. It’s either a good breakfast, or there are no chocolate croissants. There’s no gray area in between. No croissants this morning. *sigh* In the later weeks of the voyage in my usual solitary breakfasts before my 8 o’clock history class (because there’s only one or two other people in the dining room these days), I took to sitting towards the back and watching the fantail behind the ship with my breakfast and a cup of coffee. The coffee is never very good. No matter how much sugar or cream I put in, it just doesn’t cut it, nor does it keep me awake. I’m not sure why I do it, but it’s the thing that I do in breakfast. It was a little more crowded this morning so I didn’t tap into the coffee reserves.

I went up to the deck and took a picture of myself coming into port. You can tell that there’s not much going on behind me as that was the most scenic vista around. I can also tell, by looking at my face, that I’ve had better mornings. I really don’t feel well. But as I’ve learned on Semester at Sea, I have to suppress my illnesses when I’m in port because I don’t want to miss out on anything because of a cold. I don’t see myself as having much of a choice. But as you can see in the picture below, I’m clearly tired.

Needless to say, I went back to bed. There was nothing going on, and there was sleep to be had. As is usual on a port day, the announcements do a very good job preventing sleep as much as possible. But I did get some rest and felt a bit better when the announcement came on that I would not be able to sleep through. In addition to having our temperatures taken, as if that was not enough, the Japanese want us to pass a thermoscan. What’s a thermoscan you ask? Well, a thermoscan is a device that tells the Japanese immigration officials if you are too ill to enter into their country. That was al I knew about it at the time. I didn’t know if it was a booth that I had to stand in, or whatever it might have been. It was cloaked in mystery.

When I went up to Deck 6, the line was already well out of the Union. I followed it all the way into the dining hall on the other end of the ship. That’s a line stretching most of the length of the ship, and I couldn’t tell how fast it was moving. Sensing an opportunity to increase my chances of appearing less ill, I stood outside in the cool air to lower the temperature on the surface of my skin. My logic was that a person with a fever would have a higher body temperature and a less likely chance to be let into the country. I’m still thinking that I have a cold, but it may be early to tell. So I was going to do everything I could.

Then I get in line and finds that it’s moving rather quick. It only takes a few minutes to reach the Union. We have to sign in at a table, and then we’re told to walk toward the thermoscan. This is when I see the thermoscan – it’s an infrared camera. That’s it. Awful fancy name for something not so fancy. In my final efforts to avoid tripping an alarm that there’s probably no way to trip, I devised a plan. They let us walk toward the camera, but not one at a time. I walked behind the guy in front of me and blocked the camera’s view. At the end he turned, and I hoped that the second that I would be viewable wouldn’t be enough to get a good look. As soon as I walked out of view of the camera, I went into a super-quick walk straight out of the Union, hoping that if there was an issue they wouldn’t be able to figure out which one I was. There are a number of holes in my logic (including the fact that I had a cold, not a fever), but let’s not forget that I was not well at the time and the intelligence may not have been firing correctly.

After the thermoscan, there was nothing else happening again, so I went back to bed. I just want to make sure you understand the magnitude of my cold. This is the worst one I’ve had all trip – and that’s saying a lot. So lay off!

I decided to remain in bed for the required diplomatic briefing, as we haven’t had one since South Africa, I think. They can’t be that important. Especially since the diplomatic briefing in Salvador scared half the ship into not wanting to set foot in the country. I’ll take my chances. What was nice was that during diplo (as we call it) there were no announcements. After diplo was another story. Lots and lots of announcements.

At this point it’s a little after 10 in the morning. Usually we’re already off the ship by this point, but immigration was, what I’ll call, thorough. So we’re all getting a little antsy seeing Japan and not being able to get off the ship yet. I couldn’t take the announcements anymore and decided to get up for good for the day. After the diplo there was to be a performance by a Japanese drum group. It’s those kind of drums that are about two or three feet across. I’m not sure why there was this performance, but I was up for it. I found my group that I usually sit with in the Union and asked how diplo was. They said that I didn’t miss anything.

I was really hoping that the drum performance would be like taking a cold shower and really wake me up. If you have ever seen a Taiko drum performance, you know what I’m talking about when I say that I could feel my eardrums vibrate in my head while not being able to hear myself think. The volume in the Union was extraordinary, and they were very good. I’m very glad that I went to the drum performance and not the diplo briefing. Something else to mention is that as much as it’s a drum performance, the drummers themselves like to get in on it and yell while drumming. It all adds to the experience.

After the drum performance, we still weren’t done with the day’s activities yet. And we still weren’t able to leave the ship yet. I think they knew that it would take this long and never told us just how long it would take. They were very vague with their description that it may take a few hours into the morning to get the ship cleared, but this was longer than I expected.

Anyway, the next activity was the group photo. The group photo needs to include everyone on board. That’s professors, staff, and students. That’s over 800 people in one photo. The only place that could happen is the back decks. They said a professional photographer (again with the vagueness) would be taking the picture from land. The goal I had was to be able to find myself in the photo. I had one thing going for me in that I was wearing my bright red hoodie you saw in the picture above. At the very least, the color of me should make me easier to find.

It’s a very easy photo to take. You send everyone to the back of the ship and tell them to smile when it’s time to take the picture. The problem was that one of the RDs had found himself a megaphone and, worse, he decided to use it. Whereas a person in their right mind would have used it to tell the students what the picture would include, so they know they’ll be in it, the RD decided to yell at people for no reason and told people to stand three to four deep in the crowd so that there was no way they could be seen. Initially, it was only supposed to be two decks, and if anyone were on any of the other decks, you would think he was going to have them keelhauled. Then we all couldn’t fit on two decks, so the other two opened up. He really was a pill.

Then we started taking pictures. I thrust my arms out in an uncomfortable position to make sure my red arms would at least appear in the picture. We took a few pictures and then it was over. It took considerably longer than it ever should have – no thanks to the megaphone.

Because my planned trip was on days two and three, I would have days one, four, and five to travel independently, something that I haven’t done a large amount of in the voyage. Japan just makes it easier to make it happen. And when I say independently, I don’t mean along. Independent trips on Semester at Sea just mean trips that are not organized by the ship. My friend LeeAnne and I had schedules that matched up on our free days, so we decided to partner up and see what we could do.

We had been told over and over again that if we were doing overnight independent trips that we would need to bring our passports with us. During lunch, the ship was cleared to let us off, but the passports were not ready yet. LeeAnne and I decided that we were going to be coming back to the ship tonight anyway, so there was no reason to keep waiting for our passports. Instead we grabbed our backpacks for the day trip and finally departed the ship.

Upon departing the ship I was confused. In nearly every other port, once you get off the ship you’re somewhere. There’s either a busy street in front of you, or just something. We had a building to navigate. From here, we were looking to get to the bullet train in Kobe. We weren’t exactly sure how to get there, but we knew we needed to take some kind of rail transport to get there. The line that we were looking for now was the Port Liner. It was called the Port Liner because it was the line that ran through the port. Duh.

The problem was that we couldn’t find the station for it. Compounding the confusion was that there were a few other students wandering around looking for the same thing. We went through the building and out the other side. Nothing there but a small parking lot. And no signs anywhere. It was very odd and confusing. And only just the beginning of that feeling.

Next we tried the escalators because there was nothing else to try anymore. Up on the second level we could find the station. But it was almost like you had to know it was there to find it. But finding the Port Liner stop wasn’t necessarily the hard part. Now we had to buy tickets. There were automated machines that I had no idea how to work. We wanted to go towards the bullet train, and that was about all we knew. If I had been feeling better, not the President of the Ball, wide awake, and not taking classes, I would have taken the time to research the ins and outs of travel in Japan. I didn’t and I am flying nearly blindly.

Thankfully, another one of the students who somehow knew what they were doing told us the right buttons to hit, when to pay and how to get our tickets. That was a bit of a lifesaver. The Japanese language isn’t exactly what I’d call easy to decipher. It’s not like Italian where I can apply a bit of my Spanish to help out. But the fun didn’t stop there.

I’m used to using a Metrocard in New York City, where it had a bard code that swipes through a reader. Here, there was a spot to place the ticket, and it sucked it right up. I panicked for a second because I didn’t get the ticket back and had no idea what happened to it. It reappeared at the other end of the console, and apparently I was supposed to grab it as I was going through the gates. It was very confusing.

So we take the escalator up to the top of the building where the Port Liner runs. It’s important to note that this is neither the subway nor a train. I’m not exactly sure what that leaves, but it sure felt like a subway, except that we were stories above street level. Does that make it an elevated tramway?

The stop we were at was P03, also known as the Port Terminal. How do they come up with these names? Assuming we were moving in the right direction, the next stop was the Boeki Center (P02), followed by Sannomiya Station (P01), the end of the line.

Unfortunately, this is not the bullet train station. We’ve got to take another train to get there. As we wandered around Sannomiya, the main railway terminal of Kobe, hoping to be struck with some kind of enlightenment about how to get tickets for this train now, we saw more Semester at Sea people doing something very similar. The mini-goal right now was that we were trying to get to the bullet train, and we learned that we would have to take the subway to get there. That means buying more tickets. We found the place to buy tickets at the automated station. Although this one worked nearly completely differently than the last one we looked at. It was still confusing trying to buy tickets, and we were lucky enough to be helped out again. Now we just had to find the train.

The track, as we would find it, was located on the second basement level. Not the third because that goes somewhere else. The Kobe Municipal Subway (Seishin-Yamate Line) would take us from Sannomiya (which was now switched to be called S03) to the bullet train station, more commonly known as Shin-Kobe (S03). It was called Shin-Kobe because the bullet train is actually called the Shinkansen, and they just shortened that and hyphenated Kobe on the end of it. I’ll try to call it the Shinkansen from here on.

So we take the subway over one stop to Shin-Kobe. I know what you’re thinking – if it was just one stop why didn’t you walk it? Well, if I knew where the station was I would have done that. I have no idea where I am. These trains have spun me around so much that I don’t even know which way the ship is. I’m assuming it’s somewhere downhill.

I don’t know how long I’ve made it seem like it took us to get to the Shin-Kobe station, but it wasn’t an overtly long amount of time. We did not spend a lot of time standing around with our mouths agape with a doofy look on our faces. We made semi-decent time.

Now we had to buy tickets on the Shin-Kobe to our destination of the day: Hiroshima. This time however, there was no automated kiosk – instead we had to wait on line at the ticket counter. There are both pros and cons to having to do this. First, we don’t have to figure out how to work the kiosk. But the major problem, as we learned when we got to the counter, was the language barrier. This day was getting more interesting by the second, and it was only somewhere around one in the afternoon.

We get up to the counter and the woman spoke some English. I did not know at the time how much of a rarity that would be at the time. We tell her that we want round-trip tickets to Hiroshima. She gets to work on that. We see on the schedule screen behind us that there’s a train departing for Hiroshima shortly. Then she asks for our credit cards. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. I’ve never waited so long for two credit cards to process. It was almost like when she went in the back to do the transaction she just left for the day. We were starting to get concerned that we weren’t going to make the next train, which would have been terribly inconvenient.

After forever and a day, and enough time for the line to grow considerably behind us (including some students with their passports, which means we missed that by not long), she came back with our tickets and receipts for us. These tickets could not have been more confusing. Especially mine – she forgot to print mine in English. I didn’t know which way was up on it. At least we had our tickets.

We went up to the track and waited for the train to come. The day was not stressful per se, but let’s say I was happy to have made it to the Shinkansen track. At least, I think we were at the right track. There were people on the other side of the tracks, too. I was hoping that we were on the right side. The signage wasn’t exactly clear. I was looking for other Semester at Sea people to ask, but we didn’t see anyone. There was one girl we thought was, but we couldn’t figure out if she actually was or not. She only looked vaguely familiar, so we didn’t bother. Not long later, a train came. We got on it.

Well, getting on the Shinkansen isn’t exactly as simple as ‘we got on it.’ Our tickets gave us our assigned seats. We had to find those seats. Let’s not forget that my ticket was in Japanese. The train was mostly empty, but we think we found them. Nobody told us to get up and move anyway.

The Shinkansen operates at about 300 km/hr. That’s quite fast. The speed it moves at, the turns have to be banked, quite heavily sometimes. And there’s not much change in elevation either. If there’s a mountain or hill in the way, we’re going through it. And my ears were popping nearly the entire time. I’m still trying to figure out the science behind it, but I’m thinking it has to do with the difference in pressure between the inside and outside due to the speed we’re traveling at. It’s physics, so I’m not entirely sure on any of my logic. But the only thing I’m sure about is that my ears popped the entire hour there.

Hiroshima is located on the western portion of Japan. Hiroshima was also the first city that the atomic bomb was dropped on in 1945. (Don’t worry – it’s safe to be there now.) We exited the train station and went out to hail a cab. While a cab is not the most cost-effective way to travel, we (again) had no idea where we were going, so we figured if we wanted to get anywhere this would be how.

We hail a cab in no time once we find our way outside of the station, which was not as difficult as I thought it would be, and tell the driver that we want to go to the Peace Park. He nods as if he knows what we’re talking about and starts to drive off. I don’t think Japan is a ‘save-face’ country, so if they don’t know where they’re going, I don’t think they go. But we’ll test that idea right now.

About five minutes later, we arrive at what we hope is the Peace Park. He pulled over to the side and stopped – that’s usually a sign. We paid 1000 yen for the ride (there’s roughly 120 yen to the dollar, so you can do the math on that one). On exiting the cab, I sure hoped we were at the peace park, because I didn’t want to know where we were otherwise.

One of, if not the prominent structure at the Peace Park is the Atomic Bomb Dome, or A-Dome as it’s more commonly called. This is the building that was directly underneath the bomb when it detonated. Remarkably, portions of the shell of the structure survived the blast, but nearly every other building in the vicinity was annihilated. When we started planning this trip in Japan over a month ago, I didn’t really feel like I wanted to go to Hiroshima. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but in my mind I only associate it with the bomb, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see first-hand what happened there. There was some atrocious stuff around from the war in Vietnam, and I was hesitant to see what the scars of war left in Hiroshima. I am very glad I came, but I’ll get into some more detail later.

I was hit with a dilemma at the A-Dome. Throughout my voyage, I have taken a picture of myself in front of places. I think the A-Dome is something to take a picture in front of. But what expression do I have on my face? I’m at a site that remembers the murder of innocent people. But I’m at the park that was built as a symbol and show of peace to the world. There’s two facets. There’s the tragedy and the hope. Here’s what I came up with:

What there is of that building today is what was left after the bomb detonated then. It absolutely takes your breath away to think that everything that I could see – no matter how far into the distance – was absolutely destroyed. About sixty years ago, right where I’m standing, where I’ve traveled through, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. There were no people, there were no buildings, there was no transportation, finance, industry – there was nothing. To think that in that time this city has recovered and become what it is today is absolutely amazing. It truly makes you feel something inside and makes you think.

What’s become nice today is that the gloomy day that started coming into port isn’t here in Hiroshima. It is an absolutely beautiful spring day. There’s not a cloud in the sky, I’m comfortable in a t-shirt and a hoodie (even though I’m really used to t-shirts in nearly every other country), and it’s just nice out.

The Peace Park is in an odd shape and isn’t that big. There’s a museum on one end and we were planning to do that last. The rest of the park had a number of what I’ll call ‘spots’ to visit. One of them was the Peace Bell. It was a gift from the Greek embassy, as a fun fact. Here I am ringing the Peace Bell:

There are a number of other small spots that we went by, but there was one in particular that really struck a chord with me. The Children’s Peace Monument is dedicated to the children that died during the bombing. The monument has a statue of a girl atop, and is based on the story of a girl dying from radiation poisoning. She believed that if she could fold 1000 paper cranes that she would be cured. She died before she could fold enough cranes. As a tribute, children fold 1000 cranes and leave them at the monument. The kids on the ship have been doing that all voyage and hit their goal of 1000 not long ago. They’re going to drop them off later in the week.

As we walked by now, we had to stop because there was a group of Japanese school children all gathered around the monument singing. I had to stop and watch and listen. It was – without a doubt – the most peaceful thing I have ever seen in my entire life. It was absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. It really, really made you feel good inside in ways that I still can’t describe. Here’s what the scene looked like:

At the other end of the park is the museum. A bit hesitant about going into the museum, but probably would have regretted not going. There are two sections to the museum. One part has an area dedicated to showing Hiroshima before and asking for not using nuclear weapons so we can all live in peace. And the other part shows what happened because of the bomb. There are pieces of stuff all over that just boggles your mind. There’s rock that looks unlike any rock I’ve ever seen. There are clocks that are all stopped at the same time. There’s a model that shows that when the bomb detonated it had the same energy as a small, red star. It was just more sensory overload, and such a departure from the stuff that I’m used to seeing over the past months.

After we left the museum, we figured it might be time to start looking for some place to eat. We could have tried to explore the city more, but we hit the major part and I also had absolutely no idea what else there was in the city, so that was part of the decision as well. There was a building across the street from the museum that had a few levels on it and we had thought that we saw there was a restaurant or someplace to eat somewhere inside of it.

Our trouble was finding it, then getting in. We nearly walked the whole way around the place, and didn’t see anything. So we went in, down to the lower level, and still didn’t see anything. Decent amount of people moving about in this odd building that I think was the Hiroshima Conference Center, but I could be mistaken on that.

Anyway, we never found a place to eat, so we walked back by the museum, and then further into what looked like the city part of town. Our goal here, and it was our sole goal, was to find a place to eat. As I’ve said before, there’s almost a stigma against eating in a place that does not specialize in local food. Here’s the problem: I don’t know enough about the local food (again with the lack of research) to be able to first tell what really is local stuff, and then which of the local stuff I should be having. If you’re going to have the local stuff, it’s all going to be in Japanese, so you’ve really got to know what you’re doing. I do have to say that in most preports there is a short segment about foods that we should definitely try, but they go through five to ten dishes in about two or three minutes. That’s not long enough to take notes on if I wanted to. There’s no way I’m going to remember that stuff – there’s no way anybody is going to remember that stuff.

Needless to say, we were looking for anyplace that looked passable. A few things to notice about the photo above. First, I’ve got a map. This was our way of making sure that we were, in fact, getting somewhere. I don’t remember where the map came from, but it did prove to be helpful. Also, the signs in the background are not remotely in English. That makes finding a place to eat a little trickier. It all adds to the experience and the challenge. And as you could tell, it doesn’t look like there’s a restaurant around, but there’s a chance that we’re in the neighborhood of one.

We had actually found one that was more of a café than a place to grab dinner, so we decided to bypass it hoping to find a meal. Little did we know that nearly every eating establishment we would pass in the next few minutes would be a café. Who knew that Hiroshima had so many cafés, and a lack of restaurants? I didn’t, because I didn’t do any research.

We kept passing more and more cafés and becoming slightly (albeit foolishly) concerned that we weren’t going to find some place to eat. Only slightly though. Eventually we stumbled upon what looked like a covered marketplace-type kind of thing that I later learned was called Hondori. It’s basically a shopping arcade that had places to eat in it.

I’m not sure exactly how we found it, but we kept walking through it hoping to find some place to eat. Down towards the end on the right hand side, we found a place to eat that we were both happy with. I’d hesitate to call it an Italian place, but rather more of a Western pasta eatery. You know you’re in a good place when the only other people in it are locals. And we were clearly the only foreigners around… It was actually a nice dinner. Again, the ship food is really becoming repetitive, so this break of pace, albeit non-local food, was very nice and welcome.

From here, we figured that we might as well start to get our way back to the ship. See if you can keep track of how many different modes of transportation and transfers that we had to make to get from Hondori in Hiroshima back to my cabin for the evening.

The taxicab ride we took to the Peace Park cost about what a taxicab ride would cost, so we were looking for some other methods of transportation to get around. Luckily, the map indicated that there were streetcars buzzing around town. I can’t say that I’ve ever ridden a streetcar before. I don’t know where I would have had the opportunity before, but it was here now and the streetcar would take us directly back to the Shinkansen train station, so it was perfect and inexpensive.

What’s important to note is that we had what I would call a good idea what we were doing here, but that’s hardly a sure thing that we’re going to get where we want to. Don’t forget that nothing is in English over here. Just like nothing is written or spoken in Japanese in the United States, it’s the same thing over there.

The streetcars are actually very cool, in my opinion. There is one trick to them though. You have to put money into a thing when you go into the streetcar, and as we saw as people were leaving, you have to enter money to exit as well. These Japanese are fascinated with not wanting you to just be able to leave with no strings attached. They really do want to get you coming and going.

As we were on the streetcar, it really did seem like an efficient way to travel. The tracks were between either side of the lanes of traffic and it’s similar to a subway without all the fuss of going underground and all.

I was enjoying myself so much that I posed for a photo in the pose that I’m always in when I ride streetcars. Also, it was very quiet on the streetcar. LeeAnne and I found ourselves to be the loudest people on the streetcar talking in a tone that was just loud enough to hear ourselves over the sounds of the streetcar.

After managing to get off the streetcar (I make it sound tough, but the train station was the last stop of the line) we went inside to see when we could catch a train back to Kobe. It was just under an hour away, so we decided to do two things: sit and relax, and then figure out the rest of our tickets for the remainder of Japan. We sat in a café and the closest thing they had to an iced latte was an iced coffee. And when I say that this iced coffee was strong – my eyes were tearing it was so strong. I did not know the Japanese like their coffee so strong. That was news to me. It seems like there’s lots that I don’t know about Japan. And I’m sure that this was only the beginning.

After enjoying our beverage with some fellow Semester at Sea travelers that looked vaguely familiar (I may have seen them on the ship) we went to the ticket counter to purchase our tickets for the third evening and last morning in Japan. We asked what the deal was with my ticket in Japanese and they tried to explain it to me, but that did not go well. I’m still not really sure what to do with the ticket. And buying tickets here went light years faster than it did in the Kobe station. It was so much faster and so much easier.

With all our tickets in hand, we went up to the track to try to find which track we should be on, and when the train would be coming. This is the first sign we found:

That wasn’t all that helpful. But we then found another sign that I hoped would be more useful and informative. Well, I’m sure it was informative:

It just wasn’t informative in any language I can figure out. We made our best guess as to the track the train would come and hoped for the best. We were pretty sure we were looking for a train going the opposite direction from which we came, and that the train should be arriving around the time that it said on our ticket. Then a train came, we went on, sat down, and went away with it.

By now it was dark, so the views out of the window weren’t exactly available, so I closed my eyes and tried to get some rest amidst the incessant ear popping. All in all, I’m very glad and happy that I went to Hiroshima, especially because that wasn’t always the plan. It was very different from what I expected it to be, but I was pleasantly surprised at the resolve and fortitude of the people there. It really is required visiting if you go to Japan.

After getting back to the Shin-Kobe station, it would have been really nice to just get right back to the ship quickly. But we had to prove our mastery of the Kobe transportation system, in reverse this time. To show my joy of riding again, I posed on the subway to the Sannomiya Station.

Remembering how we transferred earlier in the day, we went from the JR to the Port Liner and hopped aboard for the last transit back to the ship. We almost made it back without making a boo-boo. The Port Liner’s claim to fame is that it takes you to the airport via the port. That’s pretty much why anyone would use it. It’s not a huge line; there’s no way there would be an express train… Apparently the express train doesn’t stop at the port. That’s something else I learned about Japan today. We watched the ship go by in the window and hoped we wouldn’t travel too far past it. The Port Liner stopped at the next stop, and we waited for a local to take us back to the ship. The wait was only a few minutes. And from now on, I have to make sure that I check what train I get on.

Back on the ship, which was its usual extreme quietness, I went back to the room and packed for the overnight trip I was departing for in the morning. As soon as my backpack was set to go, I went straight to bed, really hoping that I would start feeling better in the morning.

Fish Food

2008-11-03T17:32:00.016-05:00

We had a special treat this morning as we only had to wake up at 8:30. In the whole scope of Semester at Sea, that is a late morning. Still in the same hotel that we were in the night before meant that we would be having breakfast in the same horrible little attached eatery. And they still tried to provide what they called a ‘western breakfast’ and still managed to fail miserably. It’s the same way that if we tried to cater to a Chinese crowd with an eastern breakfast we would fail in a similarly spectacular way. I did find some banana bread somewhere, so I had a breakfast that consisted of banana bread and banana bread.

In the morning we were given an option. We could have the morning to ourselves to shop, go back to bed, or do as we please, or we could go to a local university for a calligraphy lesson. After the near-miss calligraphy lesson we had the day before, I was hankering for a good ol’ fashioned calligraphy lesson, so of course I was going to that. And oddly enough, only about half the trip wanted to, most of which were people from my bus – not so oddly enough.

So we take the trip somewhere in Xi’an to a university that I cannot identify. The university is completely deserted. When I say that there is nobody around, I mean that there is not a soul on campus. And we go into one of the buildings on campus, which is also completely deserted. This is a picture of the hallway that the classroom we went into is located. Keep in mind that the flash from my camera is the light that you see on the walls.

We walk down that spooky hallway waiting for an axe murderer to kill us all, but we make it into a classroom and all sit down at our own desk. The desks have a thin piece of paper sitting on top of a piece of cloth, an ink well to share with the desk astride, and a large brush. This brush has bristles much larger than anything I’ve ever used before, and I’m expected to make precise characters with this behemoth.

And as we all sat like good little students in our desks, this environment was the most familiar educational experience I’ve had all semester. Going to school on a ship is never normal. It wasn’t at the beginning of the trip, and as we’re nearing the end, it still remains abnormal.

So a teacher walks in the room, and I’m not sure that she didn’t magically appear from thin air right outside the classroom door, because I have no idea where she could have come from, and our incredibly chatty guide designates herself as the translator, as the teacher does not speak English. I had a bad feeling that we were not going to get a straight translation. The guide was going to put her own interjections in, because who else would know?

Very quickly we learn that if we want to draw a horizontal line, that’s called, rather pronounced, ‘hung,’ and a vertical line is pronounced ‘shoe.’ The teacher is then at the front of the room hunging and shoeing through the history of Chinese characters, which you can see a bit of in the photo above. The language dates back 5000 years, then about 2200 years ago, the characters had changed somewhat, then 2000 years ago they had evolved again, and somewhere between there and today, we have the characters that are in use now. They were much easier 5000 years ago. The Moon looked like a crescent of the Moon. Now you can’t make heads or tails of the character.

Once we had the truncated history of Chinese characters (and by the way, you’re only considered fluent in the language when you’re fluent with at least knowledge of 6,000 characters, and if you want to get anywhere in life, you’ve got to have a 10,000 character knowledge base), we were taught how to make some of the most basic characters. We folded our paper into twelve sections then taught how to make each of the characters. And it’s not always what the finished product looks like as much as it is how the character is made, as in what brush strokes you make to create the character. They don’t have an alphabet, so the characters themselves take on a newer and greater meaning.

I was looking around the room as we were making the characters; and while I wasn’t the best, I certainly was one of the best. You can tell how pleased I am with my efforts:

Now that’s a smile!

We all quite enjoyed the lesson and it wasn’t anywhere as painful as our Global Studies class. Very glad I did this instead of taking the morning off. The next stop in the morning was at the Museum of the Forest of Stele. You’ve got to be saying ‘No way! The Forest of the Stele!’ Yes, way. This place doesn’t have an air of importance, and doesn’t pretend to be important, but it is actually remarkably important. 1000 years old type of importance. For example, throughout the Forbidden City were placards of information about the significant spots that we were visiting, and referenced something that happened there, or quoted some Confucian principle. Then at the bottom there was a reference number. And those reference numbers refer to the stone stele that we were at now. The stone steles are essentially the ancient calligraphy, historical records, literature and philosophy, and ancient pictorial carvings. These stone tablets are what the country references. It’s somewhat similar to our Library of Congress – except different. There’s ancient carvings of Confucius next to the stuff he said, for example. Here’s an example of a portion of a stele:

I’m not sure what happened to my group here. I got separated and kept running into the same few people that I really didn’t care to be spending much time around. It felt a bit like we were spending more time than was necessary here. It’s e decently big place, but it’s a bit repetitive, if you know what I mean. (Read: boring)

A group of us found a guy making a rubbing of one of the stele. The stele are black because of all the years of people putting ink on them and rubbing rice paper against it. I guess when the ancient texts are stone; you can do that and not worry about damaging them. Or having them in some kind of protective, roped-off area. I’m guessing that if you try to tamper with the carvings that you will be found and also tampered with.

That was interesting for a few minutes. It’s only so entertaining to watch someone make markings on a piece of paper from carvings on stone. It’s not like he was getting instructions to find the arc of the covenant – although I can’t be sure about that.

On my way back out to the entrance, I had some extra time, so I played around with my camera again to get it to take a picture of me using the timer. The gardens towards the front of the place are quite nice. There are small pagoda-like structures dotted throughout, and it makes for a lovely, peaceful environment. Here’s how the picture turned out.

I’m still trying to figure out crossing my arms. What would I do with them otherwise? Put them on my hips? In my pockets? Anyway, we met out in front shortly after and walked back to the bus. On the walk, we passed a few small shops that displayed what have to be the largest brushes I’ve certainly ever seen. These brushes were two feet long and you’d need two hands to use them. I’m not sure what I would do with something like that unless I were an expert calligrapher, of which I am not.

All that and now it was only lunchtime, but there was a twist with lunch. We were eating at the Orient Hotel, which is known for having a top-floor rotating restaurant, with excellent views of the city. It’s one of those deals where you come for the meal, but stay for the rotation. Our bus arrives at the hotel and stops in front of the doors. This is great for now, but when we come back out after eating, that bus is going to be parked somewhere in Xi’an. Judging by the lack of spaces for bus in front of the hotel, we should have ample opportunity to walk off our lunch.

We were given no direction how to get to the restaurant. At the time we didn’t know that this was a top-floor restaurant. All we knew was that it rotates. This group of the blind leading the blind found an elevator and went to the top and made it to the restaurant. But before I continue, I want you to think to yourself. I want you to remember some of the moments that have happened to me since the voyage started. And I want you to take those into account and divine what I’m about to say about the restaurant.

The rotating restaurant was not rotating. To say that I was shocked would be totally false. That fact was one of the most unsurprising moments of the voyage. I was so prepared to dine at the non-rotating rotating restaurant that there wasn’t even a second thought.

The views from the top were very nice. Unfortunately, the 8 million residents of this largely industrial city don’t exactly live in a beautiful city. Low and gray are two adjectives that you don’t want to have to use to describe a city, but they’re applicable here. It would have been better if the smog didn’t lower the visibility so much, but beggars can’t be choosers. The view is what I found to be typical of my time in Xi’an. As far as I’m concerned, this is the norm there. And that’s not healthy for anybody or anything. But I’m sure I’ll be fine…

Lunch was surprisingly good. It seems the extra effort exerted in rotating the restaurant (however they do it) was instead but into the cuisine, which may have been the best stuff I’ve had in the country so far. The food was served buffet-style in a ring. The tables were lined against the windows, and the food was along with circular inner wall. I made sure to eat as much as I could because there’s no guarantee where the next one’s going to be. And given that tonight it our flight to the ship in Qingdao, I’ve got a bad premonition about dinner.

After absolutely stuffing myself, we took the elevator down and had no idea where the bus was. We looked up and down the street and saw a congregation of buses way down the block. Not really having another option, we headed down. Amidst the sea of buses, we found ours. As soon as the group mingled its way down, we drove off again.

They gave us another option at this stop. We could go shopping, pay extra and visit the drum tower, or walk down the block to the bell tower, which is free of charge. I nixed shopping right away, and seeing no real difference between bells and drums other than cost, I headed down to the bell tower with a group of about ten. I’m not sure what happened to everyone else.

Now that we’re nearing the end of what has been both an epic and whirlwind tour of Beijing and Xi’an over the past five days, I’m finding myself looking back at it a bit on the walk over to the bell tower. Like a few of the other ports we visited, I could not have done what I’ve done in the recent past. South Africa was under great political and social upheaval. Vietnam has been warring for the past two thousand years. And China’s doors have been unequivocally shut. If there is one word to describe what I think of China, it’s gray.

The skies, as far as I’m concerned, are perpetually gray. The communist government, as restrictive as it is, tries to imbue a sense that it isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. But they do a very bad job managing that gray area. As much as they might make you think one way, no matter what you do or where you go, it is apparent that this is not a free country. There’s a difference between having military soldiers standing around in Grand Central Station in New York City, and the Chinese standing at stone-cold attention strategically placed throughout the country. And I still feel like there’s a very steely sense that I can’t get rid of. China feels different. There’s something else invading my senses here that I haven’t felt before.

Anyway, to get to the bell tower, we have to take the underground tunnel. There’s a traffic circle around the tower, so the only way for people to cross the street is to walk beneath it. That makes sense – you want to cut down on the number of people that get hit by cars. And you want to keep traffic moving, too. It’s a win-win. Here’s a look at the place:

On the walk over I was talking to Simon, the professor on the ship from New Zealand, and he was telling me that shortly before the voyage began he and his wife were at Victoria Falls in Africa. This astonished me for some reason. It’s a destination that I’d love to go to and don’t get the chance to meet people that have been there. I quizzed him a bit about it and how to plan and watch out for stuff when you’re out there. Since he’s been there the political climate in the area has become somewhat dangerous and now isn’t the best time to go, but it will be again.

Simon and I walked around the Bell Tower a bit. If you wanted to pay a fee they would let you ring the bell! I took a pass. I really didn’t see a reason to ring the bell than to be able to say that I rang the bell at the Bell Tower in Xi’an. Because you know everybody that I tell that story to is going to know exactly what I’m talking about.

There are a few levels on the Bell Tower and the one at the top gives you the best view of the area. Even on our fifth and last day of the trip, the pollution is still amazing. It’s not so bad that you feel it with every breath. But you see it and know that it’s going in and out of you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Here’s a self-portrait to give you an idea:

My bus is parked somewhere further back in the smog somewhere. I don’t see it, but I’m fairly certain that it hasn’t left me. Something else you can see in the photo is the traffic. That’s one of the four roads leading to the tower and it is a fast and busy stream that does not relent. Everybody really does have somewhere to go.

There’s nothing to do at the Bell Tower other than look around, so I headed back. I’m not sure where I lost Simon, but I did. As I neared where the bus dropped us off, I saw a group from my trip with an ice cream. But it wasn’t a Magnum Bar, it was a soft-serve ice cream dish and it looked delicious. I asked them where they got it and they pointed to a familiar looking building behind me. I didn’t know that they had ice cream there, but I don’t care.

So I walked into McDonald’s and stood on line to place my order. And it was here that it felt like I was doing the thing that most locals are familiar with – going to a McDonald’s. There was a slight moment of panic when I didn’t know if the attendant understood English. That would be an important moment, because then I would have to resort to the caveman-like grunts to get my point across, and while I’m sure that would have worked, I really didn’t want to do it in a McDonald’s.

The attendant knew English (well enough to get me a cup of ice cream) and I happily went outside with my ice cream. While it was no Magnum Bar, it was still good ice cream, that I think was more closely related to frozen yogurt. Anyway, I went back to where the group was congregating and other people asked me where I got my ice cream, and then off they went to McDonald’s to follow suit. It was one of the biggest hits of the trip. But could you imagine how much bigger of a hit it would have been if lunch were bad?

From there, we all finished our lovely ice cream and loaded back on the bus, leaving the city limits of Xi’an. But on our way back to the airport, we had one more stop to make. I still don’t know what to make of this stop. I can’t tell if this is something that in the future will be as big as the terra cotta warriors, or the Chinese just think that it will be as big as the warriors, but won’t be.

The place is another excavation site, but what makes it different is that everything being excavated is miniature. There are thousands of miniature people, all exaggeratingly thin and elongated laying in this excavation that appears to be very early in its excavation. They aren’t well arranged and they are scattered all over the place. But where the warrior site excelled in the awe of the site, the mini site makes up by appearance and presentation. We walked in glass-enclosed walkways above the pit in dark dimly lit corridors and rooms. We were at least fifteen feet underground in this immaculately clean space.

The corridor snaked its way around the perimeter of the area before descending to a lower portion. There was a pace the group was moving at with a guide, but we didn’t have to stay with the guide. I found the pace to be overly slow, so I ventured ahead a little bit expecting there to be more. After the downstairs section was the gift shop so I backtracked a bit and took some more time.

In addition to the people, most everything was miniature. There were small cattle, small fire pits, and pottery (much of it broken.) And they say that there’s much more to excavate, yet these hallways encased in glass seem a bit permanent for a greater excavation. Nonetheless, the Chinese say that as they keep digging at this site that it may be a greater find than the terra cotta warriors. I have to disagree because the warriors are also supposed to have a great more to excavate. The sheer number here would just have to be so much more, and that’s what time will tell.

After spending a little more time than was able to hold my attention (I was able to find a bench with a few other people to sit down on in the gift shop), we departed the site. Apparently we had to take a different route back to the bus and I had the opportunity to take this awkward-looking photo:

Not really sure what happened with that one. I’d like to be able to do that one again… Anyway, that was our last stop in central China before heading back to the Xi’an airport. And then my mind starts to think ahead of us. By the time we get to the airport, it will roughly be dinnertime. Will we be fed, will we be on our own, or what? There’s one option that I wouldn’t like – eating back at that horrid restaurant in the airport that we ate in on our arrival? I didn’t enjoy anything there, and really don’t want to go back in.

We arrive at the airport (without stopping to get something to eat along the way…) and our guide is just about to leave us when he says that dinner is in airport restaurant. Anything but the airport restaurant! And it’s not just me that thinks that, it’s pretty much unanimous. In fact, I’d say less than ten people went in. The rest of us spread out into the airport to either find something to eat, or check-in, which we couldn’t do yet. They took our passports again and we were told to meet back at a location at a certain time to pick our stuff up.

So I wandered off with a few people for a while, looking for a snack or something to occupy my time. The Xi’an Airport is really quite a boring place, not surprisingly. I found the Handleys (the doctors family) hanging around in a café upstairs. That became a nice place to sit.

When we picked up our passes downstairs there was a guy (best way to describe him) with scissors and a piece of cardstock cutting out profiles of people who will pay him – in a style popular in Victorian England. I didn’t see the need in having that, but other people sure did. Now they’ve got a profile of themselves that they can, I don’t know…put in their wallet?

Once we picked up our boarding passes and passports we went back up to the café before going through security. Out of all the airports I’ve been in, this one was the longest line to security I had seen. I’m not really sure why, but it was. Going through security there was a small sense of happiness that this flight would be the last flight of the voyage. After this flight, there’s only a flight home from San Diego, and that flight is still about three weeks away. It will be nice to not fly for three weeks.

After security I walked over to the gate and sat down with my Sudoku book I reserve for air travel. It has served me quite well since I purchased it in Manaus, Brazil. And after all the air travel I’ve done, I still haven’t put much of a dent into the book. And I’m quite sure that even after this flight in Qingdao (pronounced ching-dow) I still won’t have gotten very far into it.

Once on the flight I had a lovely seat – for a change. And I was sitting next to someone else from the trip, Kathryn (who happens to live just a few doors down on the ship,) which also has happened with a low frequency. And instead of doing my Sudoku book for the flight, Kathryn was chatty – and I didn’t mind at all. I was chatty back as it was something to do on the flight. The flight, roughly two hours, went by quite quickly and it was actually pleasant. I couldn’t have been happier.

And if we’ve done this once, we’ve done it a thousand times. There were many trips to Beijing this week. The ship only came into port this morning and it’s leaving tomorrow evening. All these trips have to come back some time. Our flight landed late in the evening, and the last thing we wanted to do was stand in an eternal line to board back onto the ship. That threat, along with the size of our trip’s two buses again brings along the dangerous proposition of racing buses back to the port. I understand why we need to race back to the port, and I want to get back to the port as soon as possible, but I’d also like to get there alive and in one piece. As I’ve seen in some past bus races (specifically the drag racing in India) these races can get borderline dangerous. Because for some reason, bus drivers love to be told to drive faster than another bus.

Qingdao, China

We exit the airport and hurriedly rush over to the buses so that as soon as one is filled we can depart. And it’s not just the students that do this. One of the professors got on the bus just after me and was already telling the bus driver to go – and people were still getting on the bus.

So we’re racing through the streets of northeastern China in the dead of night. There are very few cars on the road, or signs of life for that matter. The other bus is behind us, then it’s ahead of us, which elicits cries of anxiety from my bus and the bus driver goes faster and overtakes the other bus again. And all the while I’m thinking that when buses heading down to Atlantic City crash and flip over they most certainly are not racing another bus there.

And as we drive I’m expecting to see some kind of city and an eventual sign of life. But as we keep driving, I’m not seeing anything resembling someplace where I want to be. I don’t want to make it sound like we were driving through shantytowns, but we were not in areas that scream ‘advanced civilization.’ As a matter of fact, I felt the need to rename Qingdao as Middle-of-Nowhere-China. Not sure how that translates in Chinese.

And out of the depressing sites we see out the window, all of a sudden the ship appears like a beacon. This is the longest that I’ve been away from the ship and it’s quite the sight for sore eyes, especially after the parts of Qingdao we just went through. My bus wins again, with the other bus in tow shortly behind. And thankfully there was no line to get on the ship. I’m really not sure when the other Beijing trips were due back but they all have to come back here sometime.

No sooner does the bus stop do people jump up and try to get off the bus as soon as possible, so that we can get on line to get back on the ship as soon as possible. I make it on line in the first ten people, which I see as a nice victory. Bedraggled, unshaven for five days, and wanting a nice shower, I head straight down to the room and when I go inside I’m delighted to see that my laundry is returned and sitting on my bed. Yes, that’s the laundry that I haven’t seen since the day we left Vietnam, also that last day that I saw Mom. It’s nice to have it back, to say the least.

As much as I wanted to get to bed, I had to unpack everything from the trip and then pick and choose what I needed to repack for my day trip tomorrow. It’s one of those things were the bed is looming but I just can’t get to it yet because I’ve too much to do. I did as little as I could, just preparing the items that I would need for our sixth and final day in China, and then passed out.

Just for your frame of reference, today, our last day in China, is day 78 of 101 for the voyage. 78 days never went by so fast. Anyway, I was up at 7 to make sure that I ate something for breakfast, then headed over to the Union for the trip departure. It wasn’t that big of a trip, but still decently sized. Probably somewhere around twenty of us, give or take a few.

We all head down to the mini-bus and climb aboard. Our guide is an odd guy that had a couple interesting stories to tell us. As we were driving through the “ghettos” of China (which may or may not have been ghettos, but they certainly could have passed for ghettos) our guide told us about the local transportation. Back in the not too distant past the Chinese rode bicycles and cars were just not driven to any extent. Then the car caught on as a status symbol and suddenly you weren’t anybody unless you had a car. And then that devolved into being considered a second-class citizen if you could not afford a car. That seems a bit extreme to me, but that’s where Qingdao is now. Our guide never told us what he drove.

But he did tell us about the trip he wanted to take to Japan. You need to have government permission to go out of the country. So he applied for a passport out of the country, and amongst the questions he was asked was how much money he has in his name. He told them. They said that he didn’t have enough money and they weren’t going to let him go. Seems like an odd thing to be the deal-breaker. Needless to say, that didn’t exactly raise the mood on the bus.

As we boarded the bus, we were told that the drive to our first stop would be about forty minutes. But before I go any further, let me tell you about what trip I was on. The trip was about religion in Qingdao and we were to visit a number of religious sites in and around Qingdao. Forty minutes sounds like it’s outside of Qingdao, so I’m not sure where we’re getting religion in Qingdao from.

And so we’re sitting on the bus and we’re going through the unscenic countryside of northeastern China. No rice patties or sprawling cities. Just some stuff here and some stuff there. It’s a very hilly, if not slightly mountainous area. Much of it is along a body of water. I’m not sure what sea it is, but it’s some sea that we’ll be sailing through tomorrow.

Our forty minute drive, not hampered by traffic, accidents, or anything, totaled about one-hundred minutes, give or take a minute. So the estimate was off by 150%. It was about to be that kind of day. The first stop is a Daoist temple. Or Taoist temple. The pronunciation doesn’t translate to our alphabet well. The sound is a combination of a hard ‘d’ and a hard ‘t’ and it’s said with a bit of force and gusto. I’ll go back and forth with the spellings.

Unlike the thousands of Buddhist sites I’ve visited, there is no singular house of worship here. Rather, a number of small structures are scattered about a tree-filled hill/mountain-side. And the best way to describe the Daoist temple is to call it repetitive. It’s pretty much that if you see five minutes of the place, there’s not going to be much of anything else that you won’t have already seen.

In case you’re wondering, Taoism is an odd religion that doesn’t behave like any other religion that I’m aware of. Its three tenets are compassion, moderation, and humility, and it’s been around influencing eastern Asia for over two thousand years, so it must do something for them.

The “stuff” that is on the grounds is…I’m not sure what that stuff is. But I made sure to take pictures of them. One of my personal favorites was the omnipresence of this symbol:

It must mean something about the peace and serenity of Taoism. If it doesn’t, then I have absolutely no idea what is. I also found a giant urn-like structure that was right in the middle of a tiny courtyard. It looked interesting, too.

I’m sure the Chinese beneath me says something to the extent that any person that leans on this will incur the wrath of some long-gone emperor. But that can’t be as bad as one of the other features of the temple area. There’s one sickly looking tree with an arm growing at an odd angle that you’re supposed to kiss for good luck. This seemed to be a must-see stop for the Chinese because nearly every Chinese person that came by kissed that tree. I was not going to go near that tree. Just like the Ganges in India, doing as the locals do may not be the best of ideas. Besides, my luck on this voyage was been pretty good and I don’t want to throw anything out of balance.

That photo above is of our tour guide, who has the very Chinese name of Frank by the way, lecturing to us. Something that you may notice in the picture is the temperature. Some people just look chilly in their heavy coats. I’m the flash of orange bundled up in the back. Others look downright frigid, clinging to every ounce of clothing on them. You can tell that most of us misjudged the temperature this morning. This morning actually bordered with one of the coldest mornings of the trip. The only competition would be early morning back on safari in South Africa.

Around about this point, the natives (meaning the college-aged students) were growing a little restless at being led about by our sufficient tour guide. In the interim, I sat and had a picture taken with two of my favorite non-student ship people. Below on the left is Brenda, the best nurse on the ship. You’ll remember Brenda from both my trips to Kuala Lumpur and India. (To refresh your memory: Brenda was the one on the flights in India where I watched what she ate, and ate whatever she ate and didn’t touch whatever she didn’t touch.) Brenda is still my gastroenterological barometer. And Erika is in the middle. You’ll remember Erika as an RD on the ship and the advisor to the Ambassador’s Ball. You’re going to hear a lot more about Erika in the coming weeks, so we’ll leave her be for now.

Either sensing the restless natives or just doing what he usually does, the guide gave us an option to wander about for a while or to go on a hike up the mountain. Even the non-hiking types in the group were intrigued by the idea of breaking up the morning with a hike. He said it was a bit strenuous so not all of us should do it. I’m thinking that this is going to be a good hike and I’m quite looking forward to it at this point, as are a number of us from the group. Plus, there’s supposed to be a shrine at the top, too.

So we set off on the hike. There’s some stairs right when we leave, then the paved path levels off a little bit. Then there’s a bit more of an incline in the paved path, but nothing remotely strenuous yet. And about two minutes later we arrive at a shrine. “That’s it?” I said. “Wow, that was disappointing.”

The view in the photo below is a bit deceiving as the start of the “hike” didn’t start at sea level, as we had been slowly increasing in altitude during the tour. And the view was really not all that impressive. Still can’t see the sky. If we could see the sky then there might be a view worth remembering, but no.

And there’s a small shrine/mini-temple at the top in addition to the mediocre-at-best view. So we stood around for a while until it was time to “hike” back down to meet back with the group. After braving the treacherous way down, we weaved our way back through the grounds to the bus. Much like the Confucian temple Mom and I visited in Hanoi, I’m still not quite sure what the religion is about. But I’ve been culturally enriched because of it!

But now it’s lunch time already. (All that driving and hiking really ate up the time.) I can only imagine where we’re going to be eating, but I can sure bet that there’s going to be a lazy susan on the table. That much I know for sure.

We leave the Daoist temple from what I believe is Laoshan, and drive for who knows how long to lunch. Here’s a picture of the establishment. I will not forget what this place looked like for a very long time.

Walking in we passed a bunch of fish tanks on the first floor and we all got excited that we were going to have a nice lunch of fresh seafood. There were tanks and tanks and it all looked pleasingly clean. Upstairs on the second floor is the big room with the tables and chairs. There are four tables set, so we take a seat at the tables and each table has one to three empty seats, which I don’t see as a problem. The wait staff however, does see that as a severe problem and they’re going to limit us to three tables. This is where all the problems begin.

The three tables do not have enough seats, let alone room to pull up chairs, for all of us to fit at. Nonetheless, we’re playing Table Survivor and one of the tables has to go. Wouldn’t you know it was my table. I liked the people at my table, and now we were being split up amongst the other tables. So we’re all now awkwardly pulling chairs through the dining area and trying to find two people that will let us squeeze between them. Once we all get a seat, and get cozy, we can start eating.

The first stuff that comes out (and gets set down on the lazy susan) is the standard sticky white rice. We’re all figuring fish is following so we’re passing the bowl and taking a lean amount. We’re also taking a lean amount because that bowl is not big enough for the few extra people that have pulled chairs up, so we’re all going to be having a lighter than average lunch because of that.

What I didn’t know at the time was how much lighter lunch would actually be for me. A few minutes later, the cavalcade of dishes began and were placed on the lazy susan. Few were touching anything for a few reasons. First, we didn’t recognize what came out. Second, we were waiting for fish-like foods. And third, I was trying to figure out exactly what was brought out. Some stuff looked like bread, but it was stark white, like they forgot to bake it. I’m assuming that that was not bread after all. Some items looked like stringy brain-like things that I wanted no part of. As time went on, and the food stopped coming, it became clear that we weren’t going to be getting any fish. Apparently, this was one of those wacky vegetarian meals. Every table got the same items, though. Looking back on past meals, I’m very glad I never went to go sit with the sequestered vegetarians at their own table. It’s evident that I wouldn’t have much cared for anything at all.

It was here, with a few grains of rice left on my plate that I proclaimed this lunch meal the absolute worst meal of the entire voyage – hands down. The elephant ear fish in the Mekong Delta does not compare. It’s eons worse than that bowl of brown muck I got for dinner in Mauritius. And it was well below anything I came across in India. Congratulations, China! You have the title of the worst food in the world.

I dived back into the rice because I felt that I needed some kind of sustenance before we arrived back at the ship. I knew it wouldn’t be much of anything, but it was better than nothing. Later, we all decided that instead of being served the fish, we were served the food that they feed the fish. I hope to never eat fish food ever again.

Once we were all “finished” with our lunches, we headed back downstairs to depart and mouthwateringly gazed at the fish in the tanks on the way out. At this point, as if I weren’t impressed with Qingdao (and its surrounding areas, wherever we were), I certainly did not know what was in store for us in the afternoon hours. Let’s not forget that this is a religion in Qingdao tour, and I think I’ve seen quite enough of religion at this point in the voyage. So in case you’re wondering why I’m on this trip at all, what else could I possibly be doing in Qingdao otherwise?

Believe it or not, the next stop was a Buddhist temple and shrine. I know! I never would have guessed that there could possibly be any more Buddha! It was a pagoda called the Qingdao Zhanshan Temple that was built back in 1934. Here’s a picture of the place:

The excitement captured in that photo is the exact excitement that existed at the time the photo was taken. Both in myself and the group. Let’s not forget how we’ve gotten where we are today. Five days in India, three days off, four days in Malaysia, three days off, five days in Vietnam, three days off, and now we’re on our sixth and final day in China. We’re spent. And on top of it all, we have two days at sea before five days in Japan. This is where the rubber is meeting the road in the voyage, and some people in the group here at the Buddhist temple were hoping that the rubber on the bus was going to be hitting the road sooner rather than later. We’re up at the top of the hill with the pagoda, and we slowly walk down and pass around and through smaller Buddhist shrines, where we can go in but can’t take pictures of.

Along the way down, I learned something very interesting about China. Our guide was standing next to a sign written in Chinese and someone asked what it said. He looked at the characters and said what the characters mean, then tried to make a cohesive thought about what they meant in that order with one another. He gave an answer that made no sense whatsoever. Here I determined that Chinese is a written language that is open to some interpretation and much less people are really fluent in it that we might have come to expect.

To say that the group was losing interest as we walked around the incense and Buddhas was an understatement. They were done. I was still looking at it all as something to do.

We arrive at the bottom where the bus is waiting and that’s where the mutiny begins. Half of the group wants to go back to the ship, as they’ve had enough, and the other group wants to go to the last stop of the day which, as luck would have it, is the Roman Catholic church in town. I think that would be the second or third on the trip for me. I decided to be in the group to stick around for the church, primarily because I could hear my grandmother telling me to go there.

So half the trip took the other mini bus back to the ship and whatever was left of the diminished group went to the church. I wasn’t really sure what to expect of a Catholic church in China, as I didn’t know that practicing that religion was allowed. I still don’t think it’s allowed, but it’s not something that’s enforced – if you know what I mean. We go into St. Michael’s Cathedral, and it is quite lovely inside. It was built back in 1934, then shut down for the Cultural Revolution and wasn’t reopened until 1981. Here’s some of the inside:

And here’s the outside:

Inside there, you would never be able to tell where on Earth you were, aside from the Chinese characters that were randomly about the place. And for that fact it was quite odd that this was my last stop and memory of China – something completely different from everything else I saw in China.

There was a couple outside taking photos for the wedding. She was in a white flowing gown and he was in a black tux. It looked rather normal. I couldn’t figure it out, until I found that there really was nothing to figure.

Some people wanted to hang around the area instead of going back to the ship now. It was about mid-afternoon and while the neighborhood looked safe, it also didn’t look like there was anything to see or do. Plus, I was beat and rundown, and starving.

Back at the ship and off Chinese land, I threw my stuff in the room and went upstairs to get a grilled cheese sandwich. While still theoretically vegetarian, I don’t know what a fish would do with a grilled cheese sandwich, so I’m not going to call it fish food for my own sanity. And boy, was that sandwich tasty. I felt much better after it, although I did feel a bit odd. Hoping that it wasn’t the onset of a cold.

I took the rest of the day very easily. I got to unpacking my laundry that I haven’t seen in what feels like weeks. It was good to have clean clothes again. But at this point, I’ve almost got enough for another load to send out.

Slowly people made their way back on the ship, and as the sun set on China, so did my time there. There’s no view from the port of Qingdao, so as far as I was concerned we were out of China. But we weren’t out of phone range, so I found a quiet spot in the back of the ship and called home. I’m not completely sure of the time, but it’s late Sunday April 22nd here, so it has to be early Monday with the twelve hour time difference. It’s always nice to call home. It’s nice to know that the other side of the Earth is still there. And it wasn’t long after that call that I went to bed.

Leg 10: Qingdao, China to Kobe, Japan

Awoke at 9 to a lovely thought that I’ve had before: I have another cold. And this one might be a doozy. I’ve lost track of how many colds I’ve had since February. I think this is three, but maybe four. Some may have overlapped. I’m taking medicine for it and hoping that it gets knocked out early. I can’t be down and out when we pull into Japan. Japan is stacking up to be the busiest time I’ll have in port – out of all the ports. Japan is where I make my stand to prove what I’ve learned and become since the start of the voyage. The challenges that Japan throws at me will test my mettle and I will determine, once and for all, what I’m made of, what kind of traveler I am, and hopefully learn a bit more about myself in the process. But all that is hanging in the balance with the onset of this cold. And let’s not forget that the Ambassador’s Ball is about two weeks away – and I’m still the President of that. There’s a lot stacking up in front of me and there’s a lot to happen. But one thing that is certain – there are 22 days to San Diego. And this thing is far from being anticlimactic and uninteresting. You haven’t seen anything yet.

The Foreign Delegation

2008-07-27T11:11:00.017-05:00

We pull up to the Beijing airport, site of the infamous running-into of a local a few days earlier, and as always is the case when traveling with a Semester at Sea group, confusion abounds. In addition to always having no rhyme or reason to checking in, someone comes around to collect everybody’s passport. I always feel uneasy seeing my passport shuffled into a large stack of other passports then hidden from view. There’s something about the implications of losing a passport that is incredibly unappealing.

The waiting for passports is never a predictable matter. In Johannesburg we were running late for our flight (that itself would later never leave the ground) and people were getting tense when the passports were gone for over ten minutes. In Ho Chi Minh City all the passports were given back, and I didn’t have mine yet, and then we found out there was a second pile, and mine was in there. In Hong Kong we didn’t even have to group the passports because we all went up to the counter individually, which was clearly the best course of action. There, the passport never left my eyesight. Here, the waiting game was on.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Then we were going on fifteen, and we all stood around like silly Americans that have no idea what we’re doing in China. And that was a very correct statement at the time. In this waiting time, I keep my eyes on the lookout for someone, anyone, to walk out with a stack of passports with boarding passes sticking out of them. Then I saw them. And somehow mine was one of the first ones out. What was up with that.

They told us that we would need to get moving to the gate because again, we were cutting it close again. Yet there was a problem. Nobody knew the gate or terminal. After getting through security, we all started trying to decipher the screens to see where we needed to go because the information wasn’t on the boarding passes, in English anyway. You would think these screens would be relatively easy to decipher, but he organization with the letters and numbers was not smart. Someone thought they had the terminal figured out, so we all rushed that way.

As we shuffled through the airport, it appeared that our gate loomed in what looked like a temporary terminal. And if it wasn’t temporary, it should be. The floor of the terminal was on the same level as the tarmac for the planes and there was no cool air on, so it was a large, stuffy, warm room with uncomfortable chairs to wait around in. There was apparently free wireless internet, though.

Once we were in that terminal, there were more screens, but our flight was not on any of them. There was a rumor going around that someone had seen our flight appear on it and we were all in the right spot, but that was an unverified report. I stood in front of those screens for a few minutes, to no avail, before figuring that if everyone else is here, the rumor must be correct. And if it was wrong, we’d all be wrong together.

I went back and looked at the screens a few minutes later and our flight had magically appeared, almost as if it wasn’t supposed to be on the screen until now.

Not long after, boarding began. And if they didn’t hand out the passports alphabetically, we sure were seated alphabetically. I had to sit in the last row on the Johannesburg to Cape Town flight about a month prior and there was no way I ever wanted to sit in the back row ever again. The seats do not recline at all, there is less leg room, it takes forever to get on and off the plane, and there’s just no positive to sit there.

I was in the last row of the plane with the Wayland-Smiths. I was on the aisle, so at least I could stick my legs out a little bit. Giles is a professor on the ship and his wife, Kate, has come along on the voyage. They are two of the most wonderful people and they made it much easier to spend two hours in the back row of an airplane.

I pulled out my Sudoku book that I bought way back in Brazil, and still haven’t gotten close to completing because I only pull it out for flights (and not like there’s a shortage of those), and I did a couple of those puzzles. They’re very helpful during take-off at that moment where the engines slow down and I think that means were going to crash.

Before we departed, they showed the same video we saw in the Hong Kong flight. There’s one part where they show the people exiting the plane in the emergency escape slide. It’s very funny because the people do it in slow motion in yellow jumpsuits very calmly. There’s no way a real-life usage of the escape slide would remotely resemble that.

I don’t know if it was because I was in the back of the plane, but the flight was a little bumpier than my past few flights have been. We might have flown over some mountains along the way, too. I’m not exactly sure what’s between Beijing and Xi’an. And to be honest, while we were flying through the air, I wasn’t exactly sure where Xi’an was in relation to Beijing. I know it’s further inland, but I don’t know if it’s more south or west of Beijing. I’ll have to look at the world map on the wall of the room when I get back to the ship.

As we came in for landing they pulled down the video again so that we could see us land with the camera attached to the airplane. That view, no matter how many times you see it, never makes you feel any better. It’s like sitting in the passenger seat of a car and wanting to press the brake on your side of the car.

Of the two tour guides that accompanied us through Beijing, only one joined us on the flight out to Beijing. He was the guide for the other bus, so I really hoped, as did those also on my bus, that people would remain on the same bus group that they started the trip on. I liked my spot on the less rowdy bus with all the professors and my less rowdy friends.

So we landed and headed towards the exit of the airport, but we stopped before leaving. Dinner tonight was in the airport restaurant. I know what you’re thinking: is it a nice airport restaurant, or a not-so-nice restaurant? Starting the theme of the next 24-hours or so, our guides took us to a not-so-nice restaurant in the Xi’an airport. After inquiring about what would be served, some of the group dissented.

The dissension stemmed from the fact that dinner was not going to be that great, as evidenced by the fact that we were eating in the Xi’an airport. When asked if there was a place to eat back at the hotel, the guides said that there was. The issue was whether or not people wanted to forego their already-paid-for meal in the Xi’an airport and instead get something to eat over at the hotel. The group was split. My logic was that this meal was already paid for so I might as well stay for it. If it’s no good, then it’s no good and I can get something to eat back at the hotel. Plus, I was hungry. Flying works up an appetite.

The group was split almost evenly. About half of the people from my non-rowdy bus wanted out, and about half from the rowdy bus didn’t want to eat there. Because both buses were waiting outside the airport, one bus would take half the group back to the hotel early, while the other bus would wait for the rest of us to finish dinner.

And so, half our group left with the guide from Beijing, and the rest of us stayed for dinner. It was not long into dinner and not long after the bus left that I, and quite a few others, realized that we may have not made the right call. Dinner was what I’ll call less than spectacular. The service was horrid. And we sat at the large table with the lazy susan, so all service entails is putting enough food on the table and assisting with beverages. I guess that was too much to ask for. There was plenty of white sticky rice. And I had my fill of that, as well as trying a bunch of the other stuff. I don’t want to make it sound like all I had was rice. I ate enough to be full, and most of that wasn’t rice.

Once we were all done with dinner, or rather dinner was done with us based on the overall mood in the restaurant in the Xi’an airport, we headed out to the bus for the ride to the airport. It was dark out and I expected the ride to be quiet because we had all had a long and busy day. We as passengers were very quite and trying to nap, but our guide at the front of the bus was fervent to tell us the entire history of Xi’an. As time went on and the drive dragged on, it became clear that this hotel was nowhere near the airport. In fact, it was over an hour away. The city of Xi’an is actually over an hour away from the Xi’an airport. And the guide talked for the entire drive. She did not shut up. A while into the drive, it was clear that we were not paying attention at all, and I felt bad, but there was nothing I could do. The sound of her voice permeated through the entire bus, and even when some of the more rowdy passengers tempted their rowdiness, she didn’t stop. It was sheer torture.

We finally pull up to the hotel and check-in. It’s sorta late but I went back downstairs to sit with some people from the earlier group who hadn’t eaten yet, as well as some people from my group who also hadn’t eaten yet. The food looked better, but it seemed a little off. There wasn’t something that I could put my finger on, but the french fries did not appear well.

After dinner had concluded, I had to get to bed. Tomorrow was the big day in Xi’an with the Terra Cotta Warriors. I’ve waited the whole voyage for this stop, and there was nothing that was going to keep me away from it. But there sure would be something to make the day even more memorable.

Last night they told us that we would have a wake-up call. I assumed that the phrase ‘a wake-up call’ would mean one wake-up call. Let’s go over the sequence of events of the morning. I knew that we had to be out and on the bus by 8:30, so there was going to be a 7am wake-up call. (Again, with the waking up early.) So I went to bed expecting to get up then.

The roommate’s alarm clock went off at 6:20. He got up turned it off and went back to bed. It woke me up, and I wasn’t entirely sure if the alarm was an error or he actually set it up to go off. Ten minutes later the phone rings at 6:30 to wake up the roommate. I’m awake because I haven’t had the chance to fall back asleep yet, but I lay in bed with my eyes closed.

If this is the wake-up call that we were all getting, I don’t think my roommate would have gotten up and walked out the door. So now I’m laying in bed trying to figure out if there will actually be the promised 7am wake-up call. I figure there will be, and it’s not like I’m going to fall back asleep at this point. I would have gotten up but breakfast wasn’t open yet and I’d be sitting around. I have no idea where the roommate went off to.

Still awake from the earlier barrage of alarm clocks, the 7am wake-up call came as scheduled, and I got right out of bed because I had been up for the last 40 minutes anyway. I dressed, freshened up and went down for breakfast. Yesterday, they told us that breakfast would be a ‘western-style’ breakfast, meaning that breakfast would be foods that we were familiar with, as opposed to local food. Apparently the Chinese are not known for the breakfast choices.

And as I learned, the Chinese are also not known for their western breakfasts either. Although, I have to say that I am not an impartial judge. I’m not a big fan of breakfast anyway, and with that in mind, this morning breakfast was particularly not incredibly enjoyable. Pretty bad, actually. I had some fruit and I forced down a couple other items. The others who like breakfast didn’t seem to think that it was the most stellar of meals either. And there’s nothing like a stron hearty breakfast before embarking out upon our not-to-be-forgotten day.

After breakfast we loaded up onto our two buses. Thankfully, everyone stuck to the same bus that we started out on in Beijing. There was the rowdy bus, and then there was the bus half-filled with professors – and to refresh your memory, I was on the latter. Once we were on the buses, the guide on our bus gave us a bit of a heads up as to what was happening later in the day. We were visiting some other sites in Xi’an in the morning and would be going to the Terra Cotta Warriors this afternoon. However, there is a foreign delegation at the warriors today so our schedule may shift. Nobody knows how or when the schedule will shift, but if it does, it will only be about 10-30 minutes shifted. With that bit of business out of the way, onward we went to the Wild Goose Pagoda.

Instead of first going to the Wild Goose Pagoda, we went next door to the Wild Goose Pagoda Art Museum. I’m pretty sure that’s not the actual name of the place, but I can’t seem to think of a better name for it, or be aware of what the actual name of the place is. The best part of the place was what we passed on the way in. Not only were there people doing tai chi, but there were people doing tai chi with swords. With swords!

On first glance, it looks very cool until you realize that the fundamental key to tai chi is moving very slowly. So if these people were moving at a fast-forward speed, it would be great to watch. These people were moving at a snail’s pace. So while, fascinating and very cool to see, it gets older the longer you look at it. But still, more interesting than the entire Wild Goose Pagoda Art Museum.

So they put us with a tour guide, a perky one at that, as they walked us through the art museum. It wasn’t set up like a typical museum. To go from room to room you had to go outside and then back in the next door. There’s a picture below that gives the general idea of what the place looks like, with a glimpse of the pagoda in the background in the lot next door.

The architecture in China is unlike anything else in the world. It is unique to solely China, even though the untrained eye would get confused with the stuff in Japan. But I found it fascinating that as wonderful as the structures are in China, they don’t always seem to be on top of things in terms of general maintenance. Take the museum for instance. Inside it was clean and well taken care-of. The grounds looked kempt. But the roofs were another story. Structurally, I’m sure they were passable, but this was all over them:

It just seems to me that having the roots of a plant penetrate into the roof of a building is not going to be beneficial in the long run. I could be wrong and they could have been planted there as some kind of rich history and tradition in China – but I’m pretty sure I’m right, because those plants sure looked they didn’t need to be there. What’s nice is that they’re not weeds. They appear to have some sort of woody base, which is nice to see.

Anyway, we were led from room to room to look at paintings and artwork that wasn’t all that impressive. A large portion of it had worn away over the years so the guide was telling us what it used to be instead of what it is. And a lot of the artwork is period-specific, in that you have to know what was going on at the time of the painting to get its significance. The guide tried her best to convey that to us, but after a while, it all blends together and you just go along with it.

At the other end of the museum was what I at first thought was a calligraphy lesson, but it was more of a calligraphy/painting demonstration. The Chinese use a certain type of brush and ink to do their paintings and it looked like it was all in the wrist, so I certainly don’t have a future in this sort of thing. After the short demonstration, they shut the door behind us and told us that all of the paintings hanging up around us were for sale, and we could look around and buy if we were so inclined.

Between departing China and arriving in Japan (only two days apart) I have a paper due for art history where we have to find some kind of artwork and write about it using terms and stuff we’ve learning in class, as well as a comparison to western art. So I’ve been on the prowl for something good to compare. And one of the paintings on the wall looked very interesting and I instantly thought that I could write about it. The way it’s painted is fascinating. I took out my camera and took a photo of it. Here it is:

No sooner did I snap a photo was there a frantic shout from a woman behind me, proclaiming, “No photos!” I apologize and quickly put my camera away, but the damage was done – I had my photo for my art history paper and I could get that thought off of my head. We were still shut in that room for another ten or twenty minutes wandering around looking at art that a bunch of college students were not going to buy. And the reason why we were shut in the room in the first place is because most tours that come through there are wealthy, old foreigners. And they actually buy the art. They haven’t learned that they’re just wasting their time with us.

I’m not so sure why we were so excited to get outside. The photo above shows the sky as anything but blue. And when they finally let us outside the gift shop, I took a photo of the sun. Yes, believe it or not, behind all that smog, the sun is shining behind there – somewhere.

The perky tour guide departed us and we made our walk over to the actual pagoda now, because apparently that stop at the museum was necessary. I know I’m supposed to be exposing myself to the culture and experiencing China, but I’ve got to try to do that with something that can keep my attention span, as well as the attention span of a group of very tired and over-sensitized college students. It just didn’t work well.

The pagoda is a Buddhist pagoda built in the seventh century but has been rebuilt a number of times over the years due to earthquakes and what we’ll call daily ‘wear-and-tear.’ When we get to the pagoda, the group I’ve been hanging out with decide that they’re really not interested in walking around, and they’d rather look around the gift shop here, or sit around. As uninterested as I may be in this pagoda that you have to pay to go inside, I’m still going to do what I can to experience it.

But I walk over to the gift shop first just to see what’s going on in there, because it seems overly active. And it was exactly what you would think the gift shop would be. A bunch of stuff that’s almost enough to make you want to buy something, but you really don’t need it at all. In the back of the store (anytime you hear ‘back of store’ you should get cautious) there was this wacky thing that related to your zodiac sign and once you figured what it was, you would then have to buy something. I didn’t buy it.

On my way walking through the grounds, I found my new friends the Wayland-Smiths and I asked them to take a photo of me in front of the pagoda. It seems like a simple request, but there was a problem in where I asked the question, and I did not realize this at the time. I was standing a few feet in front of the pagoda and to get any of the pagoda into the photo meant asking these kind, older travelers to get down low to the ground in an incredibly awkward pose to get as much of the pagoda in the view as possible, and they did an admirable job given the amount of room they had and the unique restrictions surrounding the photo. Here’s how it came out.

I really can’t complain about the photo, but after they left, I took a photo of the top half of the pagoda. Then I came back and brought it into Photoshop, and this is what I was able to do with it:

All things considered, that’s pretty good if I do say so myself. I and so say so myself. And get a look at that sky! Isn’t that just stunning. As I continued my trek around the grounds, I passed by a fellow traveler whom I still do not know the name of, and don’t think I’ve ever said two words to, and that person asked if I’d like a photo in front of the pagoda. I can’t say no, and then the woman took a photo of me, but it wasn’t in front of the wild goose pagoda, rather a pagoda-like gazebo about forty feet away from the big pagoda.

It actually turned out to be a rather nice photo. Again, the problem being that I have no idea what I’m standing in front of, other than a decorative-looking pagoda-like gazebo. As I continued to circle around the pagoda, I tried to take a photo of myself in front of it. You may be saying to yourself that there’s no way I can do it. If the Wayland-Smith could not achieve it, than it cannot be done! Well, I had to try.

At the very least, I got all the pagoda in the photo, but other than that, it’s nothing spectacular. So at this point now, I’m feeling a little frisky with the camera as I try to figure out new and interesting ways to photograph myself, as clearly the self-portrait route is the way to go. And as I’ve now had this camera for over three months, I figured it was time to start playing around with the timer buttons to see what kind of trouble I could get into there.

I walked around and found a little garden area with some stone tigers (or are they lions?) in the area. And I thought that it was a photo op. No one being around me, I used the time delay to take the following photos:

So at this point, I’m done at the Wild Goose Pagoda, but we’ve still go some time left. So I find where my friends are sitting around and I see them with ice cream. Mind you, it’s still around 10 in the morning. But just like I did at the Great Wall, I went over and found a Magnum bar and had it as my brunch. I was hungry as breakfast didn’t do a whole lot for me, and lunch was still a while a way.

Next on the Xi’an fun tour was the Shaanxi History Museum. Let’s make sure I make clear what this place is. This is a history museum with artifacts from Chinese history. I know a great deal about American history, and it takes something to keep my attention in those museums. I have a very general overview of Chinese history, so this museum was going to have to be something special to keep my attention.

But before we entered into the museum, our guide sat us down and started talking to us. And she talked, and she talked, and she talked. I was sitting there looking around at the group and none of us appeared to be paying attention in the slightest. You tend to think pity on the guide for having no one pay attention to her, but you have to remember the pain that she is inflicting upon us in return, so there’s nothing to feel sorry for. After what seemed like a mild eternity, she let us go, and that wasn’t all much better.

To the Chinese, this may have been the most fascinating museum in the country. To me and my fellow travelers, this was sheer torture and boredom to the extreme. And we had something like an hour and a half here. It was painful. After a while, I started taking pictures of some of the stuff we were looking at just to find a more sufficient way to pass the time. This stuff wasn’t even interesting to the slightest degree.

And you would think that a dagger on display from around 948 BC would be something impressive. Believe it or not, it’s really not. It looks like a three-thousand year-old dagger. Just as you would think it would. And it keeps your interest for a few seconds. The five-thousand year-old jars were not much more interesting either. Actually, a jar is much less interesting than a dagger, no matter the age.

But if anything were to keep my interest, and I mean anything, it would be the skulls. One of the skulls was from 200,000 years ago. But then the one next to it claims to be from 1.15 million years ago. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that humans weren’t around that long ago. It did identify the skull as belonging to Lantian Man, but I’m pretty sure that the ‘Man’ refers to a human man. So I’m not saying that this gets added to the list of shams, but I’m just saying that something seems fishy. And judging by what they had on display for the skull, they seemed to have added a bit to it.

I really wish there were more to tell you about the museum. We walked around through the two halves, which didn’t appear to have any kind of thematic separation. We wandered around trying to figure out what we were looking at and why we should care. In the center of the museum was a little bench and we tried to pass some time there between halves of the museum. There really was nothing that I looked at where I stood astonished by what was in front of me.

Once my group was done with the museum we went outside where a bunch of other people were already waiting for our time to end. Included in that bunch was my art history professor. So I didn’t feel incredibly bad about not staying inside longer, because if she can’t take it any longer, then I’ve nothing to feel ashamed about.

Our group outside grew and grew until it was finally time to leave and head out to lunch. This museum was still in the city limits of Xi’an, and the restaurant is much closer to the warriors, which are very far outside of town. They’re really not in Xi’an. And even while we were on the bus to lunch, our guide was unmerciful and talked us to death.

Although, there was one interesting item of discussion. There were more details about our arrival at the Terra Cotta Warriors. Due to the foreign delegation’s delay, we would be skipping the shopping mall out in front and they would take us in an alternative entrance, that would drop us off right in front of the warrior area. The foreign delegation is still at the warriors and details of our schedule were still up in the air, but we would definitely still make it to the warriors today. And even after this announcement, we were still talked to death by our guide. At this point, the natives are growing restless with our leader. We’ve had enough talking.

At the restaurant they sit us on the far side of this giant room at giant tables with lazy susans. I’m getting sick of these lazy susans and the food that they feed us on it. And beverages are incredibly complicated. You have to share from the bottles at the other tables because there’s not an even distribution of them through the area. Sometimes the food is different from table to table, and organization never seems to be of the utmost importance. And all of this is really growing old on me. I’m longing to eat at a table without a lazy susan, and to have my food come on a plate of my own, but I’ve got a feeling that’s not going to happen while I’m in China.

As we’re eating, our chatty guide comes around and informs us that the delegation is scheduled to leave at 2:30, so to pass some of the extra time, we would remain and hang out longer at lunch until it was time to depart. Also, if we were so inclined, next door to lunch was a silk shop where we could go watch people make silk. And I’m sure, if we were so inclined, to purchase some silk. I don’t need any silk, so I was in no rush to head over there.

At some point during lunch, the guide comes around again, and as I’m curious, I ask what country this foreign delegation is from. The guide said that she did not know the country of origin. And if we don’t hear, we could check the news on television tonight to see who was there. But our guide also said that she would probably be back too late because we were seeing a show tonight and we would be back after the news had already ended.

So, for as long as I can make it in the restaurant, I find it’s time to start doing something else than chatting, so the last two tables get up and head over to the silk place to see if there’s entertainment there, because this waiting is really not all it’s cracked up to be. The silk place had a place to buy silk in front, and then they had the back part of the store where they make the silk. And when we came in, we were told that we just missed the demonstration about how the turn the raw stuff that the silkworm produces into string form, and then weaved into fabric. It looks like incredibly boring and tedious work, so I’m rather glad I’m not going to be doing that for a living. Because if I lived in China, that would be a distinct career possibility, if you know what I mean.

I wasn’t in the silk place for long before word started getting around that it was finally time to get out and load back on the buses. So now we’re on the buses and we get some more about the foreign delegation. We’ve still got about a half hour drive ahead of us, and by the time we get there the foreign delegation should have left. Our guides went on to tell us that we should not ask the guards about the recently departed delegation, as they’re not going to know anything. She then went into a story about when President Clinton came out to visit there was the same song and dance about security and secrecy and shutting the place down for him. At this point in the day and the story, I, as well as everyone else, are increasingly questioning what we’re hearing about the foreign delegation. Something doesn’t seem to add up right, but we can’t put our finger on exactly what’s going awry.

I immediately flashed back to India when we were at the fort in Jaipur and we were supposed to ride the elephants to the top, but we were told it was a national holiday and we would be unable to do that. But as soon as we get up to the top of the fort, we see that the elephants are running up and down, seemingly on schedule. That lie burned a lot of people, but I just went with it. Some people took that trip for the sole purpose of riding those elephants. I didn’t; I forgot we were riding elephants until after I was reminded during the trip. What’s happening now in China is a momentary moment of panic where I don’t know if we’re going to see the warriors, or if were going to be in for a rude slap in the face.

Nonetheless, the bus trudged onward to the site. We arrived at the gate that allows us to skip the shopping mall, as promised, and went right in. There were some odd exchanges with guards talking to the bus driver and guide as we pulled in, but as long as we were going to be let off the bus, I didn’t care. The guide then tells us that she talked to the guard and that the buses can’t go any further and we would have to walk to the entrance. It wasn’t a far walk, but we were getting off the bus.

As we exited the bus, we noticed an incredibly strange sight. For being shut down with the foreign delegation recently exited, there seemed to be an awful lot of people around. Enough people to the point where all of these people could not have entered within the last half hour. And there was no line at the entrance either. This was when the pieces began to coalesce.

We followed our guide through the entrance. The way the place is set up is that there are four different sites, each in its own warehouse/airplane hangar type of building. There’s the main building, and then there are the neighboring sites, each one in its own building. Before we’re let loose with the 90 minutes that we were granted, our guide takes us over into a corner and starts talking to us. She loves the sound of her voice, and none of us can take it anymore. We’ve waited for months to get here, and we’re right outside the door, and she wants to lecture us. Absolutely nobody was paying attention. The history professor was not paying attention. We were just waiting for her to let us go, and trying to be polite by not walking off in the middle of her self-serving speech about something. I thought she would be talking for a short time, because there’s no way that anyone would do this to these poor, already tortured, silly Americans.

She blabbed for 20 minutes. I was beside myself, looking for an escape route. I didn’t find an easy escape route. But if she went on for a few more minutes, I was going to high-tail out of there, escape route or not. But before she finally let us go, she said that we were to meet her back in that same spot in a half hour. Then she let us go. Knowing that I had some of my time cruched as it was, there was no way I was going to meet her back there for more lecture. In fact, nobody met her back there at 3:30. We knew where the bus was, and we knew when we had to be back there. And that was all that mattered.

So my friend Rhea and I decide to stick together to get as much done as possible in whatever was left of our time. We go into the main building first, where the largest excavation is located, and the only was to describe the Terra Cotta Warriors is spendictacular. They are absolutely unbelievable. The magnitude upon which the scale is, is just extraordinary. This is the view you have when you walk in:

But to be honest, there was a part of me that was, shall I say, let down slightly. From what glimpses I had seen of this hangar these warriors are in, I thought that the entire place had already been excavated, and the entire floor would be the army. Instead, as you can see in the photo, there’s the first quarter with the warriors excavated and restored, then there’s a smattering of warriors in hundreds and hundreds of pieces in various states of excavation, and then there’s the sections that have yet to be touched. The excavation is still in its very early stages. I didn’t know that.

Towards the back of the hangar were some active reassembly projects. I was annoyed that there was nobody there working on them now, and assumed that they were active works, and not just meant to look like active works. There really should have been people working on putting the pieces back together, because I could have watched that for hours and hours. But, we had a schedule, as well as two other pits to see.

What’s also important to remember is that in terms of ‘doing,’ there is little to do. The signs (that have English) are small and don’t take long to read. What there is, is what is sitting in front of you. And you have to stop and marvel every chance you get. To comprehend that this is an army buried with the intention of coming to life should the important guy they were buried with be disturbed. And as far as I know, they know who the guy is, but have not excavated his body. And judging by the progress in the excavation happening while I was there, I am not in danger.

So my group and I slowly move around the interior perimeter of the hangar. Stopping every so often to look at the new angle and see something that we haven’t seen before. Towards the back there is very little. In the photo above are some horses that look to be recently, or nearing, their restoration. I had to have a photo of me and the horse’s rears. Don’t ask why. The photo just begged to be taken.

If you’ve taken note of my travels through Asia, and specifically China, there are tour groups from other areas of Asia, and they travel in impassable packs. The walkway in the hangar is maybe ten feet, and sometimes there was no getting around it without a little gentle pushing and shoving. It’s not like there’s something special in the part they are (other than their tour guide). There is nobody at the railing fifteen feet away. I tend to prefer a free and clear view.

At this point in our stop here at the warriors, the half hour has passed to meet back with the tour guide for more lectures, and nobody went back. We’re still on the opposite side of the hangar. I can’t rush the moment. To think of where I am still blows my mind. Perhaps my thoughts are best captured with this video I took of myself there:

Around this point, the group starts to split as people want to see everything in a slightly different order, so I hang around with my friend Rhea for the rest of the warriors. We make our way back towards the entrance and see that the crowd on the way in had diminished. On the way in, there was a crowd seven people deep to see the place, but if you walked twenty feet to the left, there was nobody. Go figure. So we get over towards the front and take a few nice unobstructed photos.

At this point we figure that we’re going to have to get a move on to see everything so we head over to the pit next door. This pit wasn’t nearly as big or nearly as excavated, hence why nobody knows that there are multiple pits. Pit 2 is different because it consists of mixed military forces, like archers, war chariors, cavalrymen, and infantrymen. It’s in a bit of an ‘L’ shape, and still takes quite a bit of time to walk around. It’s also not nearly as well-lit, so the photos are spotty. It’s also barely excavated.

As you can see, there’s less to look at, so you can’t spend as much time here as you would at the other pits, just based on the size. And because I’m all about saving time and seeing as much as possible, leaving the back door of Pit 2 takes you to Pit 3. So we decided to exit Pit 2 halfway around, and head out to Pit 3. Pit 3 is smaller still. A little better lit, but the warriors are much lower in the pit, so it makes photographing both uncomfortable and difficult.

Pit 3 is known as the command center of pits 1 and 2, but they say history has been unkind to this pit, as only 68 figures are around. Perhaps there were only 68 to begin with. Who needs more than 68 people to tell everyone what to do. In fact, this is about all there is to Pit 3, below. Not an incredible amount, yet congruence with everything else on site, it’s all still unbelievable.

We have only until 4:30 to make it back to the bus, so it’s not that we’re starting to get close on time, but if we dilly dally on something – it has to be worth dilly dallying on, moreso than the average of what we’re seeing. And Pit 3 didn’t really warrant hanging around for an extended time. We circumnavigated the perimeter of the pit. There was nothing but the figures in the front of the pit, so once we wound back to the front, we headed back out the door to complete the loop back around Pit 2.

On the other side of Pit 2 were some of the more intact warriors in display cases. There was an archer without the bow and arrow. That rotted away centuries ago. There was a guy with a horse. Amongst others as well. We walked through because there was another building that we had yet to see. We weren’t sure if it was another pit or something else, but we had to make sure that we saw that, too. So we expedited our walk through the other half of Pit 2 to get to the other building.

The other building is more of a museum and place where they try to take your money. There may have also been a gift shop, but I’m not too sure on that one. It seemed like the original purpose of the building was to display a miniature painted chariot and horses that had been excavated thirty years ago. As impressive as that miniature thing was, it didn’t need a whole new building for it. They seemed to have struggled to figure out what else to put into the building. It did not keep my attention at all.

We decided to cut out losses and head back out. At this point, we haven’t got long before we have to meet back, but we have just enough time to go back into Pit 1 one more time. You have to. It’s something that I’m not going to see again for a while, so to get one last look at it is important. Even when we walked in the second time, and at this point there were many less people here, it still is awe inspiring. Now there was nobody right at the front, where everyone crowded around earlier, and it really is the best way to see the space. You don’t get to see the detail from up there, but you get a good appreciation for just the scope of it all.

And it was at this point that it hit me. I’ve waited for the entire trip to be here. And the time for it to come to an end was upon us. I’ve always known this was a place that I couldn’t stay in forever, because that’s just silly. I’d always have to enter and exit. But what struck me was that I know that I’ll get back one day and, hopefully, they’ll have done some more excavation and the sight will be even more impressive. It’s not that I want to walk back in and not recognize the place, but I want to walk in remembering this very moment, and still be mesmerized. That’s all I want. And with that, we turned around and headed outside.

But where I thought the fun would end, I was wrong. The real fun was only just beginning. I didn’t think there would be mind games going on, but there were, and they sure were fun to get into. I see a small group of us outside in the plaza, one of which is my history professor, Dr. Joyce. Dr. Joyce then begins to recount her investigation into this foreign delegation.

If you remember, upon arriving there were an awful lot of people about to have just arrived if the place reopened. So Dr. Joyce somehow found a group of guys from, of all places, Cincinnati and asked them how long they’ve been here. They said that they’d been there since ten o’clock that morning. Dr. Joyce asked about the foreign delegation, and they said that there was no foreign delegation. There’s more to this section of the story, but that comes in a bit later. This was all I learned at the time.

So we’d been had by our guides – sort of. It’s not like we never made it to the warriors. Then we’d really have been had, as well as furious and angry. In the end this lie that we were fed only effected us marginally in that we went to the warriors a little later than we were expected to. But while it only marginally effected us, there was a greater impetus for the guides to lie to us.

As we meet back up on the bus and the truth and rumors swirl with one another, as best as we can figure at the time, here’s what we think happened: Semester at Sea has a policy that because we are on an educational voyage, all the of the tour groups are strictly instructed to cut out the stops at shops, as they are not educational. This however did not stop any other trip that I have ever been on. We went to multiple shops on every other tour that I’ve been on. We did in the Amazon, India, and Vietnam. This is nothing unusual.

But when this tour company was contacted we were originally supposed to go through the supposedly massive shops that lead into the warriors. We skipped those. As the guides would not be getting their commission for dragging us through there, they had to get their commission another way. And didn’t it seem like a bit of a coincidence that the silk shop was right next to the restaurant, and we just happened to be delayed on our day’s events while we were there? And the reason why we stayed there at the restaurant was because the foreign delegation was at the warriors. And it was just the cover that was needed for the guides to reap their commission from the silk shop for making us bored enough to wander in there, after being suggested to wander in there by the guides.

And that was the best we could figure the story.

When we arrived back at the hotel, after the information download the entire bus ride back (and it was a long download because we hit all the Xi’an rush hour traffic – who knew Xi’an had a rush hour?), our trip guide Simon asked us to remain on the bus while the guides departed before us. Usually this is not a good sign. I remember from my school days that this was usually followed with some sort of riot act reading. Instead, he filled in some more details about the foreign delegation.

He elaborated that someone on the trip, who he did not name (and I later found out was Dr. Joyce), confronted one of the guides that she lied about there being a foreign delegation. The guide was caught in a lie. She panicked and completely broke down, wanting to quit our tour and get away. She cried, which I’m still unconvinced was not part of the act, and eventually Simon convinced to remain on the trip. But he told us that although this foreign delegation was a lie, we should maintain the courtesy of not bringing it up again to the guides.

We agreed and thanked him for smoothing the situation over and going over it with all of us together so that we’re all pretty much on the same page with whatever just happened.

And that is the end of the story of the foreign delegation. But before I wrap up the story for good, there’s one more bit of info that I learned yet later on. Simon and his wife Anne Claire met the guides for dinner very late the night before. Simon was thinking that they were going to go over the next day’s events, but that didn’t exactly happen. The guides largely ignored Simon and his wife, and essentially told them that there was never any intention, past or present, to take us through the large shopping area outside the warriors. Taking us through the shortcut was the plan, and was always the plan. Which begs the question: do they pull this foreign delegation story with every tour group they have??

After we got off the bus, we had about an hour before we had to depart for our evening’s activities, which was dinner and a show of the Tang Dynasty. I had enough time to take a shower and turn on CNN International. That channel has been in every hotel room that I have been in that has had a television, which immediately limits the number.

Then there we were again loading up onto the bus for the Tang Dynasty dinner show. And let me tell you, what a dinner it was. So we all sit down at tables, and the gentleman that I am, I let people sit before me and I can’t exactly see all the stage, and I’m not exactly facing the stage either, but I figure that I’ll be able to make do.

They serve dinner before the show and it was three plates that weren’t exactly dinner. The first dish that came out was so pathetic that I had to take a photo of it.

Five French fries – count ‘em. And that broccoli in the middle of the plate sure wasn’t going to be touched. I’m still uncertain what’s more pathetic: the fact that the dish was five French fries and broccoli or that each of the five French fries had come with the ketchup already applied.

The next dish that came out was some kind of fish or chicken dish. I’m not exactly sure what it was because I never got one. And I told the servers that I never got one, but they didn’t speak English. Although they did seem to notice that I did not have food in front of me. And I never did get that dish because the next one came out. Let’s just say that I didn’t bother to leave a tip.

So dinner or lack thereof ended and the show began. It was not as good as the acrobatic show because I’m not entirely sure what we were seeing. In my opinion, it had nothing to do with the Tang Dynasty. I knew nothing more about the dynasty when I left. That said, the show was a number of vignettes where costumed people danced and moved about.

It was entertaining enough to be considered a night out, but it was nothing spectacular. It was late when the show ended, and as we had a long day we went to bed back at the hotel. And it almost seems appropriate that a day that has had loads of excitement and boredom in many different forms, it ends teetering between the two with the Tang Dynasty show. And all of this and it’s only our fourth day in China. There’s still two more days, and there’s still plenty for China to throw my way.

The WORST Smell of the ENTIRE Voyage

2008-04-06T21:12:00.032-05:00

I remained in the bathroom for a while after exhuming the duck from my stomach. I wanted to make sure that I had gotten it all and did not need to exhume any more. Minute by minute, I began to feel better, so I figured that I had taken care of the issue. I cleaned my mouth and then went back out to try to fall back asleep, it being just before 2am. I’m not sure how I fell asleep, but I did.

Much to my chagrin, I was not ready to get out of bed at 8. But I wasn’t about to forego the events of the day and just sit around the hotel room and see how I felt. Hell or high water, I was going out today. Once I was freshened up and dressed, I went downstairs for breakfast. Now I know what you’re thinking – why would I be going down for breakfast if I still might not be feeling well? I was hungry.

I had a banana. I felt like I needed to have some kind of sustenance in me for the day. We’ll see how well that goes. I told a few people in my group about my events of the evening, to see if it was a widespread thing, or just lucky me. And from what I gathered, it was just lucky me. That means that there was probably nothing wrong with the duck, with the exception that it was a little too greasy and oily for my stomach to handle.

After breakfast, we all went out to load up on the bus. I happen to find the doc on the way to the bus, so I pulled him aside to ask what I should be doing today. He said to go hungry today. I said I’d had a banana. And he asked why I did that. I said I was hungry. Then he said to just take it easy today. Take it easy? Now why would I want to do that?

Today is a jam-packed day so we didn’t want to be late. And none of us were late – but the tour guides were. Apparently there was traffic, or an accident somewhere. Imagine that – traffic during the morning rush in Beijing. We were growing concerned because no one knew where they were, and we were slowly losing time in our day. Stuff was going to start to get tight. Eventually, they did show up, which was nice of them.

Once we were all on the buses, as well as the tour guides, we shoved off. Something that I did not mention with the buses was the breakdown of the riders on each bus. My group surveyed the entire group on the trip and found that about a quarter of everyone was a professor, staff, or family. And somewhere between a quarter and a half of the group was what we’d call a rowdy, frat-like group. When we exited the airport, we made sure that it was our sole plan to get on the well-behaved bus with the professors. We weren’t about to be inconvenienced on the rowdy bus, which happened to have a number of people that have potential to hold the group up and be late. And we were successful in getting on the good bus, and were very happy about that.

Unlike the skies when we arrived yesterday, when the skies were clear and blue, they were now completely overcast, but I don’t think it was from usual clouds. The pollution in Beijing is second to none as far as I’m concerned. If there is a more polluted city on this planet, I don’t want to see it. I can’t figure out whether it’s smog that’s hanging above our heads, or it’s just the pollution in the air stuck in a thermal inversion. No matter what it is, mark my words – the athletes coming for the Olympics next year are going to be in for a rough go.

To this day, I still have no idea exactly where we went. I’ve looked at a few pictures and notes people took, but I cannot find where we went anywhere. All I know is that we drove out of Beijing for a long time, about an hour, and arrived at a section of the Great Wall. I will eventually find where I was, but I’m going to have to work on that.

What’s interesting is that a large portion of the original Great Wall is in a great state of disrepair. This section was not in a state of disrepair, and was also not part of the original wall. The section we were at was built only a few hundred years ago, while most of the wall dates back much, much further. Nonetheless, we were at the Great Wall of China. Yet another place I never thought I’d get to in my life, let alone at age 20.

So, the bus arrives in the parking lot and before we exit the tour guide gives us two important pieces of information. Because he was late arriving this morning, our schedule was to be adjusted and slightly shortened in places. Here at the Great Wall, our time was decreased down to one hour forty-five minutes, and who knows where it was decreased from. He then went on to tell us that this particular section of wall is on the side of a mountain and to reach the top would take about an hour, and another hour to get back down. You may be noticing that if we were to attempt to reach the top, there is a likelihood that the bus will leave without us. Two hours to go up and down the wall, but fifteen minutes less to do it in. The other tidbit that we had to know was that we were taking a group photo before we were to be let go.

I thought the group photo would be 1, 2, 3, click, and I’d be off on my way. To the group’s dismay, that photo took fifteen minutes to take. I’m not sure what caused all the monkey-ing around, but the group was unable to all get to the same point at the same time very easily. And the tour guides didn’t seem to be in that much of a rush either. Sure, they’d been to the wall already, and they’d be going back. I won’t exactly be back tomorrow, if you know what I mean.

Once we got the all clear for the photo, I turned around and started the ascension, without a second thought. I already asked my group if they were going to try to make it to the top, and I was the only one who was going to try. Can you believe that? Sick boy is the only one of my group of friends to try for the top. I’m guessing most of the whole group was going to try to mount an effort to the top, but I don’t think everyone is going to make it. I just hoped that I would.

The start had a bit of a flat plain, and I grabbed one of my friends who had started off with me to grab this photo of me before the climb began.

If you’ll notice, I’ve still got my Semester at Sea hoodie on, because it was relatively cool at the wall. And if you’ll also notice in the photo, wherever we are, it’s still overcast. But that was no surprise.

Anyway, I quickly lost the group that had been with me, and I think I set a pace for myself that was a bit too quick. The only stairs that I’ve done in the past few months have been on the ship, and while that doesn’t seem like a lot, I go up and down those stairs quite a bit. However, I apparently did not go up and down the stairs enough to prepare because I started to feel it. But now I expected to be like Lance Armstrong going up the mountains, and the more he vomited the faster he went. Although, I was hoping to have the vomiting behind me by now.

When I did stop the first time, the hoodie had to be removed because I was working up quite a sweat. I also stopped for a water break, and felt awful as I watched people from my group pass me by. I wasn’t bound and determined to be the first to the top, but one of the first to the top. Don’t ask why.

The remainder of the journey progressed like the tortoise and the hare. I rushed at some points, took my time at others, and altogether stopped at others, usually to take some pictures. There were a number of points when I thought that I was reaching the top, or at least getting close. What would happen is that the higher I would go, I would see over the next ridge that there was still more steps up ahead.

This was the first stop I stopped at (shortly before the hoodie came off):

And this was the view that I had toward the top:

I said to myself that getting there would be no problem, and I lessened the pace a bit because I was doing well on time. And the further up I went, the more my legs screamed for stopping. I found that good stopping points were the structures we’ll call guardhouses. They’re empty, with no rooms, and have two levels. Just places to look for invaders. Here’s one of the ones I stopped at:

And this was the view down now:

And this was the view to the top, except that’s not the top.

But I kept seeing more and more stairs, as if they were magically materializing just to spite me. But I finally think that I was reaching the top, because if this wasn’t it, I don’t know what I’d do. Probably keep going, but the pace would have to be picked up, and that was asking for a bit.

Much to my joy it did turn out that the top was the next guardhouse, so I stopped and filmed the following video:

And after long last, I made it to the top of the Great Wall of China. I was the second student to make it to the top, and the group that I arrived simultaneously with was the oddest group I’ve ever seen. I arrived at the top, a minute or so behind the first person from the trip, along with the Ebersole family (that’s Mom, Dad, and daughter), and Arnie, one of the two psychologists on the ship, who is in his 70s. Here’s our group photo:

And to top it all off, one of the next people to the top was David Amante, one of the older professors on the ship. When I saw him at the top, I was stunned – I didn’t think he would even try to make it to the top. He beat most of the students to the top and I was very, very impressed.

This is the view from the top. Don’t forget that the greenish pond at the bottom was where we started. Maybe you can see it through the haze/pollution.

If you look close, you can’t see most of the wall from the top because the ridges are blocking the view, but you can see all the way to the bottom. And just like a mountain climber can’t spend too much time at the top of Everest in order to make it back to alive, I couldn’t spend too long at the top to make it back down in time for the bus departure. So the rapid descent began.

And I took breaks on the way down, too. I stopped and bought a shirt that proclaimed “I Climbed the Great Wall of China” which I thought was pretty cool. And then I took this photo of me with the summit in the background.

And on the way down, I found it to be of the same difficulty, but I different kind of difficult. It’s the feeling of walking down, and feeling like you’re going to fall and there are weird feelings in your legs, so I took breaks on the way down, too.

Once I made it to the bottom, most of my group was there and appeared to have just finished enjoying an ice cream. Knowing I shouldn’t be eating anything, based on doctor’s orders, I went over and purchased a Magnum ice cream bar for myself – and it was delicious. After climbing up what I’m approximating to be 1000 ft of stairs up and 1000 ft of stairs down, the ice cream was a nice touch. And I did it all with fifteen minutes to spare before departure.

Also at the bottom was David Amante’s wife, who, after learning I had climbed to the top, nervously asked where her husband was. I told her that I saw him at the top and her eyes went wide with fright and shock. I don’t think he was supposed to make it to the top. She then muttered, “Well, he had been exercising more.” Then I told her that I hadn’t seen him since the top.

What was interesting at the top was there were two ways down. The way we came up, and another way down. I was tempted to take the other way down, but I couldn’t see where it ended up, and the last thing I need to be doing in China is being places I shouldn’t. So I took the same way back down. This is where the story gets odd.

We have no idea where David and the student are. We’re getting ready to go in a few minutes and we keep looking at the wall for a sign of David and one other student. Then, behind us, we hear the distinct grunting of an older man. We turn around and see a steep embankment with a retaining wall, and a tree next t the wall. And here comes David Amante climbing up the tree and over the wall. I looked over the wall, and he and the student had to climb up about fifteen or twenty feet to get where we were. And at the bottom of the wall was the road we drove in on. I have no idea where they came from, but they said they took the other way down, and that was the only way they could get back to us. I’m quite glad I went down the way I did.

Once we all wandered, slowly wandered at that, over to the buses, we loaded up and departed. Some people on the trip did things other than scale the wall. One of my professors bought a mid-sized Tang Dynasty horse, and the Tang Dynasty ended in the year 907. Apparently, she got the horse for a steal of a bargain, but would now have to schlep it all over China. This was only Day 2 of the five-day trip.

Our next stop was a giant store, which just happened to have a place to eat all the way in the back of the store. We were given enough time to eat, and then plenty of time to wander the store. Seeing as how I really shouldn’t be pushing it with my diet today, I stuck to the white sticky rice at lunch, even though a portion of the stuff on the giant table with the lazy-susan looked edible, rather unfortunately.

And continuing the theme of unfortunate food-related events, it was someone’s birthday in the group, and cake was being passed around. This confused me for a couple reasons. First, my luck there’s cake when I shouldn’t be eating it – and I didn’t. There was still too much left to do today to risk forfeiture. Second, what is a cake doing in China? I’ve been looking for rice that’s anything but plain, white, and sticky, and here I am looking at what appears to be a properly made cake. Although, I didn’t eat it, so I can’t verify that it actually was cake-like.

After our table finished eating there was, as usual, about a half hour before the bus was to depart. So I guess we might as well walk through the giant store. What else have we got to do? And as the number of ports on the trip begins to bring itself to a close, I’ve got two masks left to grab. One from Japan, and one from China. So the goal was to find a mask in this store that I was sanctioned to for the next half hour.

And I found an area with masks. But something was different. In every other place that I’ve bought a mask, the store has been a little dirty, small, and cheaper than this place I’m in. But the likelihood of finding something in China was not a high prospect as far as I was concerned, so I’m jumping on this opportunity. To make this matter even more different, there was a sign behind the display that stated that bargaining for prices was not to be permitted. I read it and figured that I might as not well try.

There were two varieties of masks available. One that was more towards my price range, and a really fun looking type of mask that was more out of my price range. Again differing from the past, these masks were behind the counter, and I had to wait for an attendant to come around and assist, and surprisingly that did not take much time at all. And as soon as I point to the lower price mask, the guy starts to bargain prices with me, ignoring how own sign. Now I have to switch my entire tactic and strategy.

I realize at this point, I’ll be most likely leaving with a mask, and not it just mattered how much I’ll be paying, and which type I’ll get. As soon as he starts the bargaining, I ask how much the more expensive mask is, then I start the waffling, that I don’t have that kind of money, but I really want that one. I turned on the acting a bit, and he barely budged on the price of that one. But when I came back to the cheaper mask, he lowered it further. The guy spoke pretty good English, so the language barrier wasn’t an issue, but as he lowered the price of the cheaper mask, I tried to get him to lower the price of the other mask, and he still wouldn’t budge. If he lowered it a bit more, I would have gone with it. But he lost that, and I went with the cheaper mask, which is still quite nice. Very Chinese.

And now the problem was what would I do with the remaining 20 minutes. I know what you’re thinking – I could have argued prices for 20 more minutes. I have a limit for how long I bargain. If I keep going too long, I eventually get annoyed and leave with nothing, and I was trying to avoid that here.

I walked around the store, which was about a third of a size of a typical Wal-Mart. I found one section with a lot of fragile, breakable glass, and was immediately found myself drawn to that area. The glass was a hollow globe-type thing but all the artwork, writing, and drawings were done on the inside of the glass, hence the sky-high price. I also didn’t think that I’d be able to transport it back to the ship, so I didn’t even give the glass globes the time of day. But they were impressive.

15 more minutes to kill. I found an attached room to the main area, and went in there. (And he was never seen or heard from again.) And in this room was the super-expensive, old stuff. This is thousands of dollars of stuff, and hundreds of years old. There were beautiful dragons, and other fine antique-looking items that would not be allowed on an airplane. I went through the entire area, marveling at the quality of the overpriced stuff in there. I call it overpriced, but in reality it could have been a bargain. I’m not exactly an appraiser.

That took up a giant chunk of time, and on my way out of the store, I found the professor that bought the Ming Dynasty horse. And she showed me a picture of it on her camera, because I don’t think she was going to unwrap it out of the box to pass around. That was bundled up until return to the ship. And that journey was still days away.

We all loaded back on the bus and headed off to wherever we were going next, and that turned out to be the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is an imperial garden that is open to the public. It’s just under three square kilometers, most of which is water. Other than that, that’s about all I know about it. It’s beautiful though.

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for. I have kept my nose open for the entire trip, and now it is time to unveil THE WORST SMELL ENCOUNTERED ON THE ENTIRE VOYAGE. Many thought it would be in India, but they thought wrong. China holds the honor, and the specific location is in a happy house outside of the entrance to the Summer Palace. Allow me to explain.

To refresh your memory, a happy house is the term for a bathroom. The buses dropped us off about a fifty meters from the entrance in an area that looked shady at best. And the guide said that if we needed to use the happy house, we could do it now. Most of us had to use the happy house, so we excused ourselves. About a foot or two from the doorway, we knew something was wrong, but once we went inside, something was really wrong. And it didn’t look dirty either. And I think that was the problem. The smell had a hint of a cleaning solution, along with a lot of something else. The smell was not a typical bathroom smell. The smell was not human or of this world. It was overpowering. It hit me like walking into a wall in the happy house. That was certainly not a ‘happy’ house. The smell was so bad, that the air should have been opaque. I got out of there as soon as I could because I didn’t need whatever that was staying in my lungs anymore. After all the rivers in India I drove over, after the far reaches of the Amazon jungle I’ve been to, and after being behind the business end of a wild elephant in South Africa, the award for worst smell in the world (so far…) is handed to the happy house outside of the Summer Palace. And for the proverbial cherry on top, the urinals had the sign below above them. Good luck trying to figure out what it’s for:

After the happy house adventure, which threw the entire group for a loop (even those that didn’t have to use the happy house went in to breathe in this fabled smell, then came running out hysterically laughing how awful it was – I wasn’t about to go back in – I still remember the smell), it was now time for the Summer Palace. Just like the majority of places we go, we’re in the minority here again, but most people aren’t tourists here. The Summer Palace is a very rough equivalent of Central Park in New York City (a very rough equivalent). It’s a place for people to relax, walk around, or exercise – under the watch of the government.

It may have been the smell from the happy house working through me, or perhaps a touch of starvation or dehydration, but I started posing next to the statues:

You can tell the lion is male because the one paw is on top of the ball, which is supposed to represent the Earth, and therefore man’s dominance of the Earth. Oh, those wacky Chinese…

I don’t want to say that we rushed through the Summer Palace, but our tour guide had us moving at a pace that would suggest that we did rush through the Summer Palace. So I’ll say it: we rushed through the Summer Palace. And what else was tough was that unless you were right up in front of the group, we couldn’t hear the guide. I tried for a while, he was kind of wily so if you were at the front in one spot, you weren’t going to stay there for long. I stopped trying and hung out in the back walking around, taking photos and commenting with others around me, which included some of the fun people from my bus, and the doc’s family.

This is a photo taken across the lake in the middle of the place. Don’t get me wrong, the Summer Palace is absolutely beautiful. But I’m sure it’s even more beautiful when the air is clear.

The entire time that we were walking the grounds, we had to follow a little yellow flag at the top of a stick held by our guide. There were a few times I fell behind a bit and had to catch up – so thank goodness that flag was there…otherwise I would have been lost in China forever.

So, at one point, my group decided to take a photo in front of what I’m guessing may be cherry blossoms, although I’m guessing not, just because not every blooming tree in Asia this time of year is a cherry blossom.

One of the most intriguing parts for me was this incredibly long corridor with incredibly intricately painted features. I’m sure our guide said what the story behind it was, but I have no idea. There has to be a reason for building an incredibly long corridor (only part of which you can see in the photo below). I just don’t know what that reason it is.

I think this corridor is about three-quarters of a kilometer long, and as far as I can tell, it’s actual name is the Long Corridor. Anyway, in the picture above, you can get an idea of what the drawings and paintings are like the entire length of the corridor, and the detail really is stunning. Below I have a picture of a part of the ceiling. This isn’t what the entire ceiling is like, because this is just where the entrances to the corridor are.

Moving swiftly onward through the grounds, and the corridor, I found that our guide was walking the group outside of the corridor. I was puzzled as to why we were avoiding walking through it, so I went inside the corridor and walked through that. The handiwork is phenomenal, why would I avoid it? I’m guessing that taking a big group through the corridor might block it up, or the guide selfishly thinks that not everyone will hear him if we’re squeezed in the corridor. Either way, it didn’t matter – I walked through it.

Eventually we started to work our way out to where the buses had moved to pick us up on the other side. But, along the way we ran into people selling stuff. Someone had a Beijing Olympics 2008 t-shirt for five dollars. I’m sure there’s something wrong with it, bit I bought one, along with a few other people. I figured I can always wear a t-shirt. I don’t need something kitschy.

Then we walked by the supposedly famous marble boat. It’s a boat that’s made of marble that looks like it floats. But it doesn’t. But as a feat of carving, it is quite stunning. But it would be even more stunning if it floated, let me tell you that.

The further away from the central lake you get, the less there is to see, so once we moved away from the lake, we had a pretty steady walk back to the bus. But the scenery was still absolutely beautiful. Then we exited the grounds, and the scenery went from beautiful to shady in the blink of an eye. There were shaky looking shops outside between the exit and the buses. And just as we were leaving, we passed this below, something you will never see in the US:

We often forget that we’re in a foreign country and unexpected things can happen to people in the group. Once the group was back at the buses, the other bus (verifying my reason for wanting to avoid that bus) was missing one person, and no one knew where she was. The presented a dilemma I had not seen before. No one carried a phone, so there was no method of contact. And the people she hung around had no idea where she was. She didn’t say she was going anywhere. So we waited for her to show up – and she didn’t show up.

The plan was devised for that bus to hang behind and wait while our bus drove back to the hotel – at rush hour. We were still behind schedule from the late arrival of the guides this morning, and we were about to be a little more under the gun. The evening’s event was a Chinese acrobatic show. Believe it or not, China is known for its Chinese acrobatic acts. And the original plan was for us to go back to the hotel to relax and freshen up for an hour or so, then leisurely depart for the show. This was in crisis as we may have to go straight to the show. I say crisis because we were on the adult bus, and a few people needed to get back to the hotel for necessities such as hairspray. Let’s just say that I was not in crisis.

As the cause for crisis was initially a need for ‘freshening up’ the crisis began to waver back and forth into whether we would make the show in time. Beijing is kind of a big city, and we were on the other side of it at the time. The traffic was unbelievable. Who doesn’t own a car? There’s a difference between owning a car to get around, and owning a car as a status symbol. I guess it’s their way to save face.

On the way back, we passed a number of interesting looking buildings, but none were as interesting as the Bird’s Nest, which will be the site of the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics. Can you tell why they call it the Bird’s Nest?

We must have made up some time somewhere because we were told that we had fifteen minutes to freshen up at the hotel before we had to depart for the show. I went in and used the clean bathroom, as well as dropped off my backpack, which I didn’t need for the nighttime activities. I made it down with plenty of time to spare. However, the individual that needed the hairspray almost made us late. Once we were back on the bus, I’m not sure how the word got to us, but the other bus departed without the missing girl, and she supposedly was separated somehow and was taking a taxi back to the hotel, so she was fine.

The theater is made for the acrobatic show. They don’t travel, people come to them. I wanted one thing in the show: I wanted those 80 people on one bicycle. I didn’t want to be disappointed. The first act started with the acrobatic lion-like creatures on seesaws.

There were incredibly young children in the show performing acts that no young child their age should even be attempting, like creating this tower:

And then act one ended with the girls and spinning plates on sticks. I was convinced that those plates were attached to the sticks. There’s no way that that many people can spin that many plates on sticks and jump around and contort their bodies. That is, until the end came, and they all dropped the plates at once to prove that they weren’t attached. Again, I was proved wrong.

Something you might be able to notice in that photo above is the green laser in the back. The laser went up and down, and shot directly into the audience. After the first pass where it felt like I was getting corrective Lasik surgery, I closed my eyes the other twenty times the light buzzed by my eyes. I remembered I was in China and there may not regulations against the lasers that point into acrobatic show audiences.

Then we hit intermission, and I’m assuming the point of intermission is to allow time to clean up all the plates that they just dropped. And, feeling inspired by the astounding feats of acrobatics we had just been watching, I decided to participate in my own acrobatic demonstration. So I balanced my water bottle on top of my head:

And apparently Magnum bars are quite popular in China because the attendants were walking around trying to sell them. They were all gone by the time they got around to me, but that was okay, I was still following doctor’s orders and was starving myself.

Then the second half came along, with its multitude of acts. Acts like climbing a staircase using only one hand, and the girls on the bicycle! So, it starts out with a bunch of girls riding on their own bicycles. They ride them normally, they ride them sideways, they ride them while standing on top of them, you name it, and they rode their bicycle that way. And then they all ditched their bicycles, and started climbing up on the same bicycle, until at least ten girls were on the same bicycle.

Talk about a fun way to end the day! I can’t even ride a bicycle without holding the handlebars, and here these girls are piling on top of each other just to ride around in circles. I still haven’t figured out which of the ten was driving the bike, but I’m thinking that it was probably a group effort.

The acrobatic show was good fun and it really was a nice way to end the day. It was quite entertaining, but I was left with one thought at the end that I can’t seem to place. I was left feeling like it was a dress rehearsal. There was something about it that didn’t make it seem like they were really in it to win it, if you know what I mean. I’m sure it wasn’t a dress rehearsal, and as impressive as it was, I was left feeling room for improvement in some areas – like the positioning of the green laser of death.

When we exited the theater, as far as I could see down the street was a line of buses, waiting for people to board back on. I was towards the front of the group, so we kept walking down these dark Chinese streets trying to find the bus. We kept walking, walking, and walking, and the buses just kept on going. I’m guessing that because we arrived close to show time that we may have missed out on a prime parking spot. We were walking so far that we thought that we must have missed the bus by now. But just as we were losing hope, there it was. We realized that it was going to take some people a little while to reach the bus, so we might as well get comfortable.

We also realized that if people walked back on the other side of the street, they were most likely going to miss the bus. Sure enough, we look out the window and see people going right by the bus, and off into oblivion. Someone exited the bus to yell for them, and then stood outside so that no one else would walk by the bus, and that turned out to be a good move because I’m guessing that we were so far away that people were just going to keep on walking for the sake of walking.

Eventually we did have everyone on the bus, and a certain someone with hairspray in their hair was last, then we drove back to the hotel, which without traffic is a few minutes away, but we would never find the place if we walked. Too many turns, and it was also dark. I’ve walked the backstreets of Beijing once and I think that was enough.

Now at this point, it’s just before 10, and the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel was nearing its close. I had eaten small stuff throughout the day, and I was fine. I was hungry, I got the problematic duck out of me, let’s go. There was, of course, the option brought up of going out into Beijing to find a real place to eat, but at this point, the group sentiment was that we were pooped. And the restaurant served Western food, or so it said it did. I ordered the spaghetti Bolognese, which in later thought was probably too heavy. I should have went with something a little lighter. But it was too late now. Plus, don’t forget, I was hungry.

The meal came out and it was actually pretty good, I must say. I ate the whole thing and that also was most likely not the most brilliant of ideas, but there was no turning back now.

Shortly thereafter the stomach began to rumble. And also shortly thereafter, I went to bed.

Well, I should say ‘tried’ to go to bed. The roommate was getting ready for bed, when his satellite phone rang, and it was his family. And I guess they wanted to have a conversation, nearing midnight in China. I guess the family back home isn’t too good with the time conversion, and they just called at a time that was convenient for them. And I’m sure the roommate was thrilled to talk to his family, and I can’t fault him for that. What I can fault him for is not excusing himself from the room to go talk somewhere where he won’t be keeping me up for the nearly hour-long chat. I put forth the effort to get more sleep, but it was not in the cards for me.

I was up at 7, which felt awfully early again. It was another jam-packed day. And today was even more jam-packed because there was a flight wedged into the afternoon. Yes, today, day 3 of 6 in China was our last in Beijing. I think whirlwind might be the best way to describe our journey thus far. And I’m sure it would be applicable for the remaining days of the journey.

While the dinner stayed down, indicating the end of my miraculous recovery, I still only ate two croissants and a ‘donut’ at breakfast, as somehow that was all I was able to eat. There was quite a large spread, but that’s all that I went for. Everything else was out of my breakfast food zone, which is the narrowest zone of all my meals.

The first item on the agenda started us out at Tiananmen Square. I had not been there in over a day, but I have to say that it’s much less creepy during the day when it’s light out and the square is populated. But it wasn’t just populated, it was absolutely packed with people, who looked like they were doing little more than milling around.

Again, we had our guide with his flag in the middle of the world’s largest public gathering space. The trouble is that there were multiple tours throughout the area, and he wasn’t the only one with a flag on a stick. But the saving grace was that as far as I could tell, there was only one flag on a stick with a silly group of Americans following it around.

Much like the day before at the Summer Palace, it was tough to hear our guide. I could hear the other guides in the area much better because they had a microphone with a speaker attached to their hip. The problem there was that those guides were with non-English speaking tour groups, so I have no idea what they were saying. It was another lose-lose situation that I tried to make the best of by wandering around and taking photos in front of monuments that I had no idea what they were.

You may be noticing that I’m wearing the same loud, orange hoodie in all the photos. Don’t forget that my laundry was not back to the room by the time I departed for China, and that I am wearing different, clean clothes underneath the hoodie daily.

That photo above was quite out of the way, too. Me and the other people that ran around to take photos were about 100 meters away from the group when the picture was taken, and we all tried to keep an eye on the group. Because while we were posing for photos, the group was on the move across Tiananmen Square.

Something to note while I’m on the topic of Tiananmen Square: in the US, when a tragedy happens somewhere, there’s always some kind of memorial to mark what happened. The US does not shy away from marking tragedies. In China, if the government does not want the people to know about something of their history, as far as they are concerned, it never happened. There is zero evidence of the uprising and massacre that took place in Tiananmen Square just 18 years earlier. The man with the shopping bag that blocked the tanks was most likely on the same street as our hotel. And we were in the square during the anniversary of the events (4/15/89 to 6/4/89) and you would never know. The government reported up to 300 casualties, the New York Times reported up to 800, but the student associations of China reported numbers as high as 3,000. NATO finds as many as 7,000 died. But you’d never know. And that’s exactly how the government wants it to be.

Eventually the group worked its way towards the street splitting the Forbidden City from Tiananmen Square, and it was time for another group photo, and it took almost as long as the photo before it. I’m not sure why, but photography has not been bundled down to a science yet. The difference with this photo-op was that there was no rush to run up a wall. We were just crossing the street and, as far as I was aware, we were not behind schedule at all.

Now we walked across the street and into the Forbidden City, which I figured cannot be housing something important because while there was what I’ll call ‘security’ we could walk right in. But I didn’t go in before posing with the Chairman Mao.

There are few more prominent symbols of China than that photo of Chairman Mao hanging outside of the Forbidden City. But as we must keep moving, we entered the Forbidden City, and let me tell you, this place is large. Gigantically large. Our guide moved us through the square at the bottom of the map below.

At the end of this first area, he told us that we had an hour and a half to ourselves, but we had to meet at the other end of the City at that time. We didn’t think that that would be much of a challenge, but that was before we found the map, and realized how big the place is. It’s big. So my group immediately started walking to try to see as much as possible, and make sure that it was possible to reach the other side in an hour and a half.

As we started to walk we saw signs for a rather intriguing location, something appropriate for a ship full of students: the Hall of Mental Cultivation. To make a long story short, we never found it. I’m not sure what that says about my mental cultivation, but we tried to find it. We got lost, it’s a bit of a big place.

In some spots there was nobody:

It was at times like that we almost felt like we wandered into the wrong area, if you know what I mean. And other times it was wall-to-wall people, and you had to fight your way through the crowds to see what everyone was looking at. And most of the time, they were looking at something that I would react to with: “That’s it, huh?”

Even now, well over a year before the Olympics, they’re really trying to clean up. Aside from taking the homeless off the street and throwing them in prison, they’re refurbishing much of the Forbidden City to make it look extra nice when the rest of the world comes to visit. Unfortunately for us, much of that stuff is currently covered in scaffolding, so we’re getting somewhat of the short end of the stick.

One of the places we ducked into to look around was some kind of museum, with a bunch of important old stuff in it. It did not take long for me to realize that these objects were laughably bizarre in their nature, and I’ll take the time to highlight two of them for you. The first item below is an instrument that demonstrates how the Moon revolves around the Earth, and how the Earth revolves around the Sun.

But the first sentence of the description reads, “When it works…” I’m guessing that this piece is in the museum as a showpiece because nobody can get it working again. The second example is the following interesting looking contraption.

What is this, you ask? Well the official description says that it is a “copper vase used in the ancient game of throwing bamboo, wooden, or ivory sticks; in the life of court, throwing sticks into the vase was an amusement.” And this gets put into a museum? A thing to throw sticks into? I could make one of those in my backyard. While the game may not be amusing, the description of it in the museum certainly is for me.

The Forbidden City is what I call beautifully repetitive. They have a fondness for the color red and this orange-colored roofing tile. They seem to use it everywhere. But it works.

And there was a point when my group took a break to sit, and I’m not sure what happened, but I lost my group. I have no idea where they went. But I found the doc and one of his daughters at the same time I was feeling lost and lonely. The only section we had left was the imperial garden at the end, and we had about twenty minutes to cover that in, so I joined them.

The imperial garden is the epitome of peaceful tranquility. There are some really fun looking rocks that the Chinese seem to be fascinated with. The photo below is supposed to be the most famous of these rocks. I’m not sure what’s going on with the Chinese and their rocks, but I’ll go along with it.

And as soon as it came, our time in the Forbidden City drew itself to a close. And we all met outside the north gate, and waited, and waited, and waited, but I’m not entirely sure what we were waiting for. But I was with what appeared to be the entire group, so I wasn’t going to get antsy. Although lunch was the next stop, and I was growing hungry. My ‘donut’ and croissants did not hold me over as I had hoped they would.

And then the order was given to be on the move. As usual, the buses had moved and it was a game of follow the leader, and hoping that the game was not the blind leading the blind. I was up towards the front of the group, so I was unawares of some of the antics and issues in the group behind me. So we’re walking along the outside of the Forbidden City, which is surrounded by a moat here on the other side, and we have to walk the length of that, then down a side street that is, coincidentally, lined with buses. When I get to the bus and climb on, someone comes running down looking for a first-aid kit, rather frantically at that, too.

I have no idea what’s going on, but as time goes on, it’s clear that someone has a head wound that they developed on the way to the bus. This is blowing my mind because I did not see anything in the way that would cause a gash in the head. I look out the window of the bus, and there’s a guy being attended to by the doc, and he is covered in blood. The cut in his head was apparently not to bad, and would just need some dressing. Then, as the rest of the group comes on the bus, the story develops.

Apparently, there were a few hawkers trying to sell something, and they were bothering this guy, and in an attempt to avoid them, he jumped from the street to the sidewalk, and did not see the giant metal sign that was right next to his head, and it cut him open. And yes, you guessed it, he was on the other bus. Are you seeing how my advanced thought process continues to pay off?

Lunch was supposed to be low-key, I think, but it didn’t turn out that way. First, this sign was in the neighborhood:

And then we walked into the restaurant and this sign greeted us:

BE CAREFUL WHILE DANCING ON THE TABLE? I can understand the first two rules about taking care of belongings, but rule 3 is be careful when dancing on the tables? Where were they taking us?! And on top of it all, this restaurant could not have been more discreetly hidden on a side alleyway. You need to know that this place exists to be able to find it.

I expected a hole in the wall place when we walked in, but it was surprisingly clean looking. There was a stage at the front, but I think it’s only used during dinner because it was vacant for us. No dancing for us, as so it would seem. Although, there were TVs that were running a loop of some bizarre performances, with music that graded on me the third, fourth, and fifth time it looped.

And on top of it all, there was cross-contamination. Another Semester at Sea group came in the restaurant about halfway through the meal. And because there was no attached store to occupy our extra time, we had the opportunity to mingle with them. Only on Semester at Sea can you run into people you haven’t seen in three days in the middle of a giant city like Beijing in a restaurant that probably doesn’t officially exist.

Next, we went off to our last stop in Beijing – the Temple of Heaven. This iconic temple is of the Taoist religion and was where the ancient emperors would come to pray for a good harvest. And of course, it has grounds that surround the temple. And perhaps one of my most favorite parts of my entire time in China was what I witnessed at the Temple of Heaven and captured in the video below. Repeated viewing is a must. Keep your eyes on the one in the red hat especially, although the one with the drum is also a winner:

I have watched that video more times than I can remember, and it never ceases to amaze me. What are these people doing? And why is the crowd watching them gigantic? I would have stayed longer, but I feel like I saw all there was to see. This is the perfect example of why we all need to stop and smell the flowers. I could have easily walked by this crowd, but I would have missed the mysterious and entrancing Woman in the Red Hat, and her partner, Drum Girl. And they look like they’re having so much fun. I made me wish that I had my own red handkerchief to wave with them.

And is it me, or are they completely out of sync with the music? There appears to be a lack of rehearsal. And I just noticed that there was a red microphone in front. I can only imagine the singing that would have accompanied this once-in-a-lifetime performance.

Anyway, while I was being mesmerized by Woman in the Red Hat and Drum Girl, I lost my group, and did not find them until we all met back at the bus. The Temple of Heaven is not a huge complex, and most of the attraction is the temple itself, so why I was unable to find my group boggles my mind a bit. But I did stop and take a photo of this guy, who has a cousin doing the same shtick in Central Park:

Alas, I may have had no group, but that did not stop me from taking one of the better self-pictures I have taken:

You can’t go inside of it, so the best you can do is take pictures of yourself in front of it, and I made sure that I did that and I did it well.

Out in back of the temple was a large group of people that were cutting stones with old, dull tools. I figured that they were either prisoners, or did not do well in school and the government relegated them to that job. On second thought, the prisoners would not be treated that well…

Aside from walking around and taking pictures, there is little to do at the Temple of Heaven, especially after losing your group. So as I walked back out, I walked out of what would most likely be the last time I am in Beijing for at least a while. I’d like to come back once they figure out the pollution and traffic and human rights issues, but I don’t know that I’ll be waiting around for a short time for that.

For the rest of the day, it’s all about travel. We’re heading to the airport for the approximately two-hour flight (a short one) to Xi’an. What would we find in Xi’an? Well, more pollution. The reappearance of the ubiquitous Magnum bar. And aside from the greatest archeological find of the 20th century, we would find the story of the Foreign Delegation. A story that is one for the record books.

But first, we’ve got to get there.

The Duck Quacked On the Way Out

2007-12-30T00:14:00.000-05:00

Leg 8: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Hong Kong to China

I had no want or desire to go back into Global, so I stayed outside on the fifth deck for a short time and watched us sail down the Saigon River. Being this giant ship in this tiny river really is a sight to see. Much more of a sight than Global ever will be.

But nonetheless, I went inside as I think I would have been chased inside if I stayed outside. Believe it or not, Global wasn’t that bad today, as it was mostly Chinese history of the past fifty or so years, starting with the Cultural Revolution. What made Global doable today was that the vast majority of it was a video about Tiananmen Square. I’d always known about the incident that occurred, but I never knew the background story and details, and learning about it was absolutely fascinating. The story is heart wrenching and unbelievable what was done to the Chinese citizens. I never knew that it was that close to ending communist rule in China.

What is even more fascinating was something I learned at some point later. There’s a student on board that is from China that attends school in the states, and he said that he never knew about what happened in Tiananmen Square at all. It’s not taught, mentioned, or spoke of at all throughout the country. That astonishes me. That in today’s world information is controlled is a bit science fiction-esque for me.

After our decent Global (and I say that cautiously), we still had about two more hours to go until we exited the river and emerged back out into open water, so I parked myself on the back of the ship to watch the world go by again. I still kept a watchful eye in the event that we overturned any smaller fishing craft, but I did not see any of that happening, and I was watching our wake and some of the smaller boats. Some went for a ride, but it appears that all boats survived unscathed for the remainder of our exit of Vietnam.

By the time we were out of the river, it was time for lunch and I was a bit hot from sitting outside in the sun for the past few hours, so I went in to cool off and hold off for a few minutes before I headed over to what I was sure was going to be a stellar lunch. As usual, I was wrong, and it was far from stellar. Everything is tasting the same, and that’s not a good thing.

In the afternoon, I think I actually took a thousand pages of notes in my cinema class. It may have been a thousand. The professor put up slides that were so chock full of stuff that she told us not to bother writing it all down and she would put it on the ship intranet. Still, that’s a thousand pages of notes that I’d have to write down in the near future.

After my cinema class, I had a reaction paper to write for my cinema class. With available time dwindling as fast as a Vietnamese motorbike rider, I’m really finding that planning out my time is becoming more important, and subsequently exponentially difficult. Nonetheless, I was able to get that paper done; the prodding was that if I didn’t get it done now, it wasn’t going to get done for weeks.

Around 5, I had to go to the Union because two of my professors decided to show us all a video in lieu of going to the next class. Now that’s really killing two birds with one stone for me. I’m sure the video was about China, and more specifically I’m sure it had something to do with its history and art, as those were the two classes I was getting credit for by showing up. I also handed in the paper that I had just spent my afternoon completing. The video was almost an hour and the quality clearly indicated its age to be at lest ten or fifteen years old. The narrator was quite funny – but wasn’t trying to be. In the end, I think it was either about the Tang or Qing dynasty. (Those dynasties are only separated by about 100o years…)

A few of my friends were also at the video so we went straight to dinner afterwards. We’d decided that somehow this trip is beginning to bring itself to a close and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be eating every meal off the back deck as opposed to inside. We can eat inside when we get back home, but eating on the back of the ship, watching the sunset is something that’s going to go away, and we’re going to miss it when it does. There’s a few tricks to eating outside, and most involve where to sit and where not to sit. If you sit by the doors, every time they open a cold jet of air chills you, and if you sit in direct sunlight, and it’s early enough, it gets really hot and uncomfortable. So finding that butter zone of tables is quite tricky, especially if a bunch are taken when you get there, because there are far more people wanting to eat on the back deck than there are tables.

After dinner Tom, one of the RDs (resident directors), was going to show me and a couple other people how to make origami flowers. The kids on the ship were working on origami cranes to deliver to the peace park when we arrived in Japan. They were aiming for 1000. I was wishfully thinking for ~800 – one for every person at the Ambassador’s Ball. The idea being that each person would have one on their plate when they sat down for dinner. And to this point, I had not made one of the flowers, so needless to say, there would be a challenge sitting in front of me and my Ambassador’s Ball crew.

So, I met up with Tom and a couple other people to learn how to do this. To give you an idea, it took him about 10 minutes to get the first one done, and by the time I finally got one together, it was nearly another ten minutes later. This was not nearly as easy as I had expected it to be and really cast the idea of putting 800 of these together within the next few weeks into doubt. He had to depart after we started to pick up the idea, but a few of us stayed back to try to learn how to do this folding stuff. Those are really clever Japanese to put together an incredibly complicated series of folds to make a beautiful paper flower.

We stayed in the back of the empty room until I noticed that it started to fill up with people. I figured that something was going on and we might have to leave, which was all well and good because there was a big global studies exam the next day that I really needed to start studying for. I soon realized that it was a community college thing – an informal talk the ship’s doc was giving about medical myths. I figured I’d stay around for a while because it sounded interesting. That, and I felt guilty leaving once everyone started coming in the room.

I paid attention while I sat in the back trying to remember how to fold these annoying flowers, and believe it or not the stuff the doc was talking about was pretty interesting. It was a bit about how some doctors don’t think that their patients are smart enough to make an informed decision and how the group he works for is a place that provides the patient with all the information about whatever they’ve got so that they can make an informed and proper decision about their health. One thing he talked a bunch about was prostate cancer and how some people decline the results of their test because they don’t want to know if they have it or not because they could have it, but go on to lead a completely normal and healthy life for another fifty years and never have a problem, or they could learn the results and possibly have a lower quality of life over those fifty years because they know they’re living with cancer. There’s much more to it and it was fascinating and lets me know what to look for in a doctor as time goes on.

All in all, I was very glad that I decided to stay and listen to Dr. Matt rather than going off to study for my global exam. It’s absolutely worth the lower possible score. It also made me think that there were a slew of other community college events throughout the voyage that I glanced over and now I’m thinking that I might have wanted to go to a few of the previous ones, but I’m not going to sit and bemoan about it.

After that, I actually had to get my rear in gear for studying and I hurriedly did as much as I could before I passed out, and I think that was coming sooner rather than later. I wouldn’t say that I was cramming because that would indicate that I stayed up late and tried to fit as much info in my head as possible. I didn’t do either. I went to bed shortly thereafter and stopped studying immediately when my head reached a saturation point.

When I woke up in the morning, I did some firm studying for the exam during breakfast and I was rather satisfied with what I was able to accomplish so I felt prepared for it. My location for taking the exam is the Union and it was more full than normal because we’re not in any rough seas. The last exam we took had some people go down for the count before the exam because the Union is the worst place on the ship to be if the seas are rough – unless you’re me and the seas don’t bother you at all and it all seems like a really fun ride.

I didn’t think the exam to be all that bad, and that could be a good sign or a bad sign. I’ll find out whenever scores are posted for the exam, which might be as soon as this afternoon if the past is no indication. As I usually do at the conclusion of an exam, I like to relax a bit and hang out on the back deck and let the joy of completing that exam wash over me. I don’t know why I started going out on the back deck, but this is the third of four exams and I’ve done it after both of the previous two.

But I couldn’t relax for long as I had a mission to accomplish with my Ambassadors Ball Seating Lieutenant Katie. Now that we had everybody signed up for the ball, and Kaite spent most of yesterday finding a table for everybody, we have to go through all 800 participants and make sure that they paid and that they’re assigned one seat apiece. Not two or zero seat apiece, just one. Because if there’s an issue with seating, this is where it might spring up. So, we have a long and tedious process before us that we’d like to finish as soon as possible so that we can post the seating arrangements.

One by one, Katie read out a name on a table from her spreadsheet, and I checked it off on my master spreadsheet. That way, along the way we will know if someone is in there twice, or not at all. After everyone is in, we compare my master spreadsheet with the giant packet of signatures for those who paid and make sure everyone assigned a seat paid the $25 fee. It’s not something that’s going to be quick to finish and it’s not something that I can say I’m really looking forward to, but it’s something I’ve got to get done with Katie if we’re going to have a successful ball.

Because I didn’t have my art class today due to the video yesterday about one of the Chinese dynasties, we worked through lunch and well into the afternoon to get as much done as we could on the list. Once we got about halfway through the list (about four hours later) we decided to call it a day.

Then I went upstairs to see if the exam scores were up, and they were. I got a 72 and I could not have cared less. The next item on my agenda was to find paper to use for folding those 800 flowers I decided to commission – an idea that is slowly become more of a regret than a brilliant brainwave. Everyday at sea a Dean’s Memo is published and it has all the important events of the upcoming days. It’s something I will have to increasingly use for ball stuff. But it’s printed on colored paper, and that’s ideal for the flowers. It’s recycling at its finest. The trick is finding the old paper. I scoured the ship and procured a decent amount that was still only about a tenth of the amount of paper we’ll need – but hey, it’s a start.

Being as busy as we are, being in port more than on the ship the past few weeks, my room has gotten a little on the cluttered side and I was starting to not be able to find anything, so I figured a little planned cleaning would be a really good idea. But I noticed something that suddenly seemed like it might be a problem. Laundry went out early yesterday morning, and for me to have sufficient clothes for my five day trip in China, that laundry would need to come back. I put absolutely as much as I can into each laundry bag, which means that I only leave a few days of clothing out while it’s out being washed. The thought that my laundry might not be back until after I have to fly out of Hong Kong was starting to creep into my head. I pushed it back out as I was sure that it would be back if not tomorrow morning, then the morning after. Surely it would.

And now that we have decided to enjoy our meals outside on the back deck, it was cloudy at sunset today. I’m hoping this doesn’t become the norm. After dinner I had another paper to write, this one for my history class. It’s not that it’s a tough paper to write, it’s just the act of typing it out that’s going to be tough to muster the ability to do.

While I was out and about during the day, I wore my Lost shirt with the numbers on it (4 8 15 16 23 42) and people kept thinking that they were some sort of pattern. I told everyone what they were, with one exception. My RD Dan was bent on figuring out the pattern because he loves that kind of stuff – and because he was on duty working the student life desk and was bored. So I didn’t tell him that there was no pattern and said I’d come back later. When I came back later, he still hadn’t figured it out, but he thought he was close. I told him what they were and surprisingly I don’t think he was annoyed. It gave him something to do while he was on duty.

And at the end of the day, even though we were sailing almost due north, we had to lose another hour of sleep. And each one always hurts more than the last.

In the morning I opened my door expecting to see my laundered clothes, but instead found my roommate’s laundered clothes. I figured mine would be back the following day, but I would be forced to take some precautions in the afternoon. We had another really boring lecturer in global. It’s too bad that this class can only have one interesting day per month. And we used that up two days ago.

For the remainder of the morning, Katie and I finished double-checking our seating and there were only two or three small issues that came up, but those small issues could have been much bigger if we didn’t double-check and let them slide. With that long, tedious, and arduous task behind us now, we should be able to post the seating arrangement after China, as a few people still need to be added to the ball, even though that window of opportunity closed before Vietnam. There’s always excuses.

In my cinema class in the afternoon, we’re watching a bizarre movie about children performers in China, and while it’s a film and not a documentary, the scenes of the children being beaten was a little too much for me to handle. I know I’m exposing myself to other cultures, but I’m thinking that this may have been a little further than I was willing to go. I didn’t watch vast portions of it and can’t really tell you what was going on. It’s all in Chinese, and when I’m not looking at the screen I can’t see the subtitles, so I lose that important element.

And it was an odd numbered B day, so it was my day to visit with the dependent kids. As usual, I can never seem to find something to do or a way to make best use of my talents, so I started folding the flowers again and then tried to show the kids how to do it, and their learning curve was about as long as mine was, but their attention span is far shorter. I knew that I had to learn how to fold these flowers, and the kids don’t have anything riding on it, so if they didn’t get it, there was nothing off their back. So by the end, I had another small tower of flowers that I’d have to keep in the room.

We did dinner out on the back deck again this evening, and somehow I always seem to position myself away from the sunset, so it’s always behind me. That’s incredibly inconvenient when I’m trying to eat and watch the sunset. There’s a lot of craning behind me. But we’re still holding true to our promise to eat out there and that’s what matters.

As always before we pull into a port, we had a meeting for our trips, and I was glad to see that I would have a bunch of friends on the trip, as well as having it led by Professor Simon and his wife Ann Claire, both of whom are wonderful. They were married just before the trip left. The trip we’re taking in China looks like a doozy. It’s the longest that I’m taking. Most other trips were four days, and this one is five. And instead of two plane flights, we’ve got three. It’s a big trip, then again, we’re going to China, which is its own journey in and of itself. Also on the trip is Dr. Matt and his family. Just like Brenda the nurse in India, having a doc on the trip is just that added bit of assurance that in case something were to happen, I’d be able to get well-qualified medical treatment. (And wouldn’t you know that this was the trip where I’d actually need a doctor. But more on that later.)

Because we were going on a five-day trip, I would need five days worth of clothing. My laundry wasn’t back yet and I had three sets of clean clothes in the closet. That meant that those two sets of dirty clothes in the closet would have to be washed in the sink, and I did that after the trip meeting and before preport, hoping that they’d be able to dry by the morning. Once off the ship I would learn that an effective way to start the drying of the clothes is to lay the wet clothing on a towel and roll the two together really tightly, squeezing them so the water transfers into the towel. I wish I had known that now. I hung the wet clothes up in the shower.

Once I finished washing those two sets of clothes, I started packing for the trip so I wouldn’t have to do that in the morning. The idea for this trip is that we’d be moving around so much that I didn’t want a heavy backpack. But because China was going to be the first country we visit that’s a bit cooler (Hanoi-like) I need to pack a few of the heavier clothes, so I needed to pack smart. I did as best as I could and was glad that I didn’t have to pack bug spray for once. I’m done and fed up with that stuff. I don’t want to have to use that again for anything. That stuff was just as annoying as the malaria pills.

Then, much to my chagrin, we had an Ambassadors Ball meeting before the preport, and the attendance was quite low. At this point, I’ve disowned decorations and if we have any for the ball, it’s an added bonus. I’ve got more important things to do than beat people over the head to buy decorations. The turnout was also a bit disheartening if for no other reason than we’re in the home stretch now. Now is when we need the commitment, but drumming it up is becoming increasingly difficult.

Our ports being so close together now, we have combined logistical and cultural preport together. They’re really pushed together for the fact that it’s less for the deans to prepare and they get an extra day to do it. I’m not complaining – it’s easier for my schedule. I’m not saying that some parts of the preport were boring, but I found a number of opportunities to fold flowers in it. And towards the end, I was hoping that a dos and don’ts section would be included considering that it’s China and there have got to be at least a few dos and don’ts to know, but instead Julie Strand came out again and did her awful schpiel about music. The music isn’t the problem. Julie is the problem. And I can’t stand her anymore.

So, if you can remember way back, Joan is one of the lifelong learners whose son flew down to South Africa for the safari, and then flew back. And I met her daughter Cindy when I crashed the Lifelong Learner Sea Social. And tonight the whole family invited their adopted sea family, of which I am now apparently part of, up to their ‘penthouse suite.’ I call it a penthouse suite because the rooms are quite extravagant and large, being all the way up on Deck 7.

The rooms have got real stone in the bathroom, a bathtub, a king size bed, a sofa that converts into a pull-out bed, big television, a private outdoor deck – it’s essentially a very nice hotel room on a ship. So Joan and the real family had the sea family, about five of us up to her room for cookies. They ordered a tray up from the kitchen and I have no idea where these cookies have been hiding the entire voyage, but I couldn’t get enough of them. It was actual tasty food, albeit falling apart in my hand from the grease and fat content.

What was also fun about the night was that the Captain turned the exterior lights off so that we could look at the stars. While there were still some lights on here and there, the sky was very pretty. It was a very nice evening before we all go our separate ways again when we dock tomorrow. And Joan and her son and daughter could not be more polite and wonderful. I had a very nice time. I think she could have served broccoli flowerets and I would have had a wonderful time.

And because we pull into port tomorrow, I’ve got to get up early for the possible sunrise. So I promptly went to bed.

Hong Kong

There was no sunrise. It was cloudy and threatening rain, even at 6:30 when I woke up, which pained me to do so. I thought about going back to bed, but decided to stay awake and have breakfast instead. Maybe I’d be able to fall asleep on the flight. (Yeah, right.) It was a very eerie, misty, Hanoi-like atmosphere outside and I didn’t see any land, which is never a good sign when we’re due in port. With the exception being that I do believe there was fog and that was not all resultant from pollution – maybe some, but no Vietnam levels.

As each port we pull into is a completely different experience, Hong Kong was no different. I’m not sure of the waterways of the area, but as we moved through the water, there would be land on the port side of the boat and we would think that Hong Kong would be there, then it would turn into a sheer cliff face and then the starboard side would look like it could have really tall buildings coming up, then that island would end. So it became a very long process of looking back and forth and wondering when Hong Kong would present itself, and which side of the ship it would be on – we were taking bets. I’ve got some lovely photos of what I thought was the city, but turned out to be not the city.

Not Hong Kong:

(And please note when I refer to Hong Kong, I’m referring to the city portion. Everything you are seeing, and what I was seeing was the country of Hong Kong, but we’re looking for the world famous city.)

Even though there are buildings, still not Hong Kong:

Getting desperate, I turned the camera around to the back of the boat, and still did not find Hong Kong:

But finally, and those of you who selected the port (left) side of the ship won the bet, Hong Kong appeared:

What’s interesting about Hong Kong is that there is the city proper portion and then other areas around. Across the waterway, where we docked, is called Kowloon. Here’s a photo of me in front of the other side, Kowloon:

One of the students on the ship, who has lived in Hong Kong likens the relationship of Hong Kong to Kowloon as that of New York City to Brooklyn, if you know what I mean. And in case you haven’t already guessed it, it’s cheaper to dock in Kowloon than Hong Kong.

So often we feel like we’re on another planet on this trip because we are so removed from our lives. But this morning was something that reminded us we were on Earth. Just as we were starting to pull up to the dock, one of the professors said he was reading on-line about a shooting at Virginia Tech. Information was hard to come by and there was at best minimal to go on, but on a ship of college students, it all struck a bit of a chord with us. It produced a weird combination of feeling sorrow for what was happening in our country and the fact that we were just about to be let loose in a new country.

In lieu of a person from the consulate coming on board to talk to us before disembarking, it was decided that Desi would say a few words about what was happening back home. He was very eloquent and it felt right. Usually at the briefings, the attendance is low, but there was standing room only in the Union and satellite rooms. We were looking for information, or just a little centering. And we got what we needed, I think.

The term ‘departure upon arrival’ seems odd, but it applied to me. My China trip had to leave the ship first, before anyone else was to be let off at all. We had a flight to catch. This is the kind of morning where I wonder if the ship is going to dock on time, but it appeared that we were going to be on schedule, and I wasn’t concerned for some reason. It was a welcome change of pace.

Once the ship was cleared by immigration, we departed – having just arrived in port. I would have really liked to have seen more of Hong Kong than just the view we got from the ship on the other side of the waterway, but I’ve got bigger stuff to do on the way.

Instead of leaving the ship on Deck 2, we left on Deck 5 – but! – we did not have to walk down the giant staircase as Hong Kong is civilized and has a walkway that extended onto the ship. Unfortunately, it extended onto the area reserved for the smokers, and they were in full force when we were leaving. Aside from that unpleasantness waiting in line to leave, I was off the ship yet again, ready for another new adventure. (And what an adventure this trip would be…)

We loaded up onto buses and I was hoping that we would be driving through Hong Kong to get to the airport, but it turns out that we have to drive a half hour in the opposite direction, so there went Hong Kong. We did pass the exit for Hong Kong Disney along the way though. I had a few friends go there and they said that they had a good time and it was fun. Anyway, I was hoping for some scenery on the way to the airport to take photos of. This is the best I could come up with:

Needless to say, if there was stuff to see, I either missed it or was unable to get my camera on it fast enough. So, we get to the airport, and after months of the ship people telling us about travel restrictions and airport security, we finally arrived at an airport that seemed to actually have tight security. They checked our bags for liquids and had us bag them (a first,) they had us go through two metal detectors that we both operational (a first,) and they would not let us bring liquids on the plane at all (a first.) If that happened in some other countries, I may have been in trouble.

Nobody seemed to know what was going on, but moreso than usual. The security threw us all for a bit of a loop. The group consensus was that we would all meet at the gate by boarding time, and we had a couple hours to kill until that happened. So my group and I wandered around looking for something to entertain ourselves with. And then we found our salvation: the food court.

Hong Kong is a lovely country if for no other reason that they have Western amenities, like a Ben & Jerry’s (Penn State grads I might add.) I think the rest of my group went to Burger King for lunch, but that’s one Western amenity I can do without. Ben & Jerry’s for brunch sounded lovely to me. And, with my cup of ice cream, I get a free cookie at the store two spots over. Is that a deal, or is that a deal?

After we enjoyed our brunch, we looked at our watches and figured that it looked about time to start walking to the gate, wherever it was. First, we had to go down to the lower level where all the gates were, and when we stepped off the escalator, we came upon a rather odd-looking vending machine.

We moved closer to look what was inside, and we quickly came to realize that there was no food inside the vending machine…

…there were purses. What a country! Purses in a vending machine!? What will they think of next. We didn’t need any extra purses, so we didn’t need to purchase one. But we came to understand why purses were being sold – we passed just about every store there was on the way to the gate, and it just so happened our gate was about as far away as it could be. And if you know airports, that’s quite a long distance. But we budgeted time for that so we weren’t in any kind of rush, and that’s why we went in and out some of the stores.

Asia is known for having some really cool technology stuff, so we ducked into a high-tech looking store, and while the stuff in the store looked fun, something struck me as odd. There was a display case with the most popular CDs and DVDs, and the same person was at the top of both – Madonna. I had no idea that she had such a large following in Asia. And on every television in the store was the Madonna DVD playing. It’s like she’s some kind of demigod out here.

Eventually we schlepped all the way out to the gate, where most of the rest of the group already was. Apparently they didn’t see the need to eat or be entranced by Madonna along the way. We still had about fifteen minutes before boarding was supposed to start, but because we were flying, there was no way this flight was boarding on time. I don’t understand the concept of not boarding on time. To pass the time there was a bookstore across from the gate and I bemused myself there for a while. You would think that we were back in the US – nearly all the titles were in English. I would have bought one if I didn’t already have one, and had the gusto to want to lug one all over China. But if you looked around, you could tell we were out of the US – the newspapers were not in English, and there was a fairly large ‘dirty’ section, if you know what I mean.

Once boarding started, everyone again jumped up to get on line, and I sat back with my group telling them that there was no reason to stand in that long line – unless they really needed sufficient room to stow their backpacks. Because that’s actually what you lose when you wait to board. We forgot about that at the time, so our stuff crammed under the seat in front of us and gave us no leg room.

To my delight, we were in a big airplane – apparently Hong Kong to Beijing is a popular transit. The seats were arranged 2/4/2, which seemed like an unusual configuration to me. Why not 3/3/3? I guess that means that the most people you’ll have to climb over is one, but that takes all the fun out of flying.

As we taxied out to the runway, the television screens came to life with what to do in the event of an emergency, and people acting out the events. There is nothing like seeing people in jumpsuits use the escape slide parachute. It’s something I hope to not see for real, especially if they’re going to make us put on blue jumpsuits before leaving the airplane. But after that message ended, and the flight attendants took their seats, we saw this:

If you don’t like looking out the window for take-off, having a view from the nose is scary. But Vietnam had screens at the nose, too. How was China Air different? Once we made it into the air, the camera switched from the front of the plane to look directly below us to watch the ground go by. Now that’s truly frightening. I couldn’t watch that one.

Leg 9: Hong Kong to Beijing, China

Since the horrific flights in Brazil, my flights since have been quite calm. That was bound to change. For such a large plane, it sure bounced around a lot. I started to develop a bit of a white knuckle grip on my seat. To make matters more interesting, I had no idea how long a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing would be. It could be an hour or three hours or more and I would have no idea. I forgot to look. So, here I am on a turbulent airplane for an indeterminate amount of time, waiting for something to get my mind off. Then the movie screens started to lower and a movie started to play. Figuring that I was in Asia, we would be getting some wacky film I’d never seen or heard of, and certainly not dubbed in English. But then came on The 40-Year-Old Virgin in English. No one was more surprised that me.

Apparently the flight was close to two hours because they cut the film off before it was over as we were preparing for landing. And I never found out how it ends! And I want to know. It was a good movie, too. I’m going to have to search for it now.

China

I was quite happy to be back on the ground – as well as watch the TV screens as we approached the runway. That’s a bit nerve-racking, and is why I’m not going to be a pilot now or ever. This is the one point in the trip where I go from one country to another without being on a boat between.

It took a short time to realize it, but soon I made it sink in that I was in China. Land of myth and legend, and one of, if not the oldest civilization on Earth. China did what the ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece, and Egypt failed to do – survive to 2007. I was in Red China. I think it really hit me in line at customs. In which I again picked the quickest line and was quite happy about that. I never like looking the customs person in the face, they never seem happy to be there. China was no different.

After customs we went through the maze that is part of every airport to get to the baggage claim area. Here, there were stations where we had to fill out what we were declaring and bringing into the country, and then we would hand these to somebody on the way out. I don’t get how some people wouldn’t put the wrong info on the card, but I don’t want to find out what would happen. I filled mine out honestly.

There were no signs announcing that we had to fill out these wacky cards either, apparently we just had to figure it out. But because we weren’t in Brazil, there were directions in Chinese and English. It seemed like we were there forever, but that might be because everyone wanted to make a pit stop in the bathroom before leaving and it was so far away – we literally had to walk three or four minutes to reach the bathroom, and then back again, so needless to say, it delayed us a bit.

Once we went through the area where we had to hand in our forms, our tour guides met us on the other side. In every other country (even in the Amazon) our guides had to wear official clothing of their tour company. When I was river rafting in South Africa, the guide changed from his suit to rafting wear, then back to the suit for the drive back. Here, our guides were dressed like college students. No identification, but they did have a flag on a stick. They were dressed more casual than we were. I didn’t get it. I figured China would be a country where we could almost guarantee the guides would be dressed professionally.

Anyway, once we all gather we head outside and I really make an impression. Less than a couple minutes outside of the airport, I was concerned the police would be coming after me and locking me into a prison, never to see the light of day again. So here’s what happened: we walked out of the airport and started meandering through the parking lot, and I was talking to someone and was looking around, and essentially was barely paying attention to where I was going. I snapped my head to look where I was going, and before I knew it, there was a short Chinese woman right in my way, and I was not going to miss her, and I barreled right into her. I did react in time to prevent her falling to the ground because I grabbed her shoulders in a death grip. Once we were stabilized, I could have let go, but was unable to. My mind could not process I bumped into this woman and resultantly forgot to let her go. So about five whole seconds of immobility elapsed before I let her go and started apologizing profusely – but in English. She had no idea what I was saying, so I digressed into exaggerated facial expressions in a very poor game of charades. She gave a light smile and kept walking. I finally was able to push myself to keep moving with my group. And they saw the whole thing and badgered me about it for the rest of the day. Welcome to China! As long as that woman didn’t send the police after me, I wasn’t going to worry. That’s why once the bus left the parking lot I breathed a short sigh of relief.

I’ve seen lots of rush hours around the world now, but China may take the cake. India rush hour was heavy, but everyone moved a speeds far too high for safe driving – and everyone was driving different vehicles – a veritable cornucopia of automobiles. Vietnam had motorbike-dominated streets, but because they’re motorbikes and everyone somehow understands the traffic patterns, traffic moves. In China, the volume was not nearly as high as India and Vietnam, and the traffic moved at a snail’s pace.

Most of the vehicles were larger things like cars, buses, trucks and vans. To pass the time from the drive to the hotel, we started to observe some of the scenery. We found the electric company’s van.

As funnily as we looked at them, they looked back at us in an even funnier way. It’s like we were some kind of tourists taking photos of banal stuff. Oh, wait we were – I called it ‘returning the favor.’

Little did I know that the clear blue skies that began to disappear as the sun set would be the last time that I would see the sun in China. It was such a nice day that I figured that the next day would be like that also, but that would be an incorrect assumption as I would soon find out.

After what seemed like a very long time (because it was) we neared the hotel. But along with the traffic on the way, what else astonished me was the amount of KFCs about. KFCs are everywhere. You would think that Beijing invented the Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was unbelievable. I think I saw ten KFCs for each McDonald’s throughout Beijing. They were everywhere. And I couldn’t stand seeing it that often. The Beijing residents must clearly enjoy their KFC.

Finally we arrived at the hotel, here it is pictured below:

It was a nice place. Curvy but nice. It explains part of why the trip was as pricey as it was, I guess. We essentially had enough time to head up to the room, freshen up, then head back down to leave for dinner. It had been an eventful day so far, and it wasn’t about to end without a bang – and it’s coming…

For dinner, they took us to the place that they claimed invented the recipe for the Peking Duck. (For reference, Beijing is also known as Peking.) I’m thinking they invented their recipe for Peking Duck, which happens to be very good – from what I understand, this recipe predates most modern-looking restaurants. The restaurant was called the Beijing Hepingmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. Or the Quanjude for short. The restaurant was named a China Renowned Trademark in 1999, so this is the real deal.

The eating area, for us at least, was on the fourth or fifth floor, and instead of waiting on line at the elevator, I decided to sprint up the stairs and then strike a Rocky pose when I got to the top.

As we walked down the corridor into the dining room, there were a number of photos on the wall. There were a few faces I recognized, but one of the photos that stuck out most to be was the one of Nixon, who ate here during his infamous tour of China back during his presidency.

Holding the Asian tradition true, we all sat at a gigantic table and ate off of a lazy susan. Do you think that whatever the Chinese call that spinning thing directly translates to ‘lazy susan’?

I thought that Peking Duck was just one dish, and it may have been, but we had five or six different dishes out, all holding what appeared to be duck. Also, we were supposed to eat one kind of the duck with something called a pancake, which was essentially eating the duck like a tortilla. I found a fork to be much more effective.

And so I had the duck. I thought it was okay. Although, all the while I was eating it I could not get the image of a happy white duck with orange bill trotting along the side of a pond as happy as could be. Who knew that when cooked it would be very oily and greasy? I tried as much of the duck as I saw fit, and noticed that everyone else was picking one or two of the dishes and sticking to it. I was eating whatever was sitting around, and maybe overdid it a tad, but certainly no more than a tad, if that.

I sat at a very large round table with a big group, but not everybody got a seat at one of the big tables, so there was a group of three or four that sat behind us, behind a column in the room, and the servers kept forgetting that they were there, and weren’t getting much food. Because if you don’t tell them right away, and they move on to bringing out the next dish, that last one is history. Our table started sharing our leftovers with the forgotten table.

Whatever the last dish brought out was, some kind of duck prepared in some way, it was by far the best, and we had none left to share with the forgotten table because it all went so quick on our table. The forgotten table was quite upset to have been forgotten.

Once dinner ended, we departed, but I did not leave before taking a photo with a replica of what I had for dinner sitting just outside the restaurant.

That was odd. Our guide gave us the option of taking the bus back to the hotel, it being after 10 o’clock by now, or we could walk back through Tiananmen Square and the surrounding area. A group of us wanted to walk back, so we did, and off into the night we went.

There was a group of about ten or twelve of us to start, and nobody knows what happened in Tiananmen Square, but we looked around and it was only myself and three other girls, and we had no idea where the rest of the group went. The square wasn’t empty, so they could have been obscured behind people walking through the world’s largest public gathering place. The sheer size may have had something to do with it. As well as the fact that we were stopping to take photos along the way. We may have been distracted.

Somewhere along the way, one of the girls in the group heard that there was a night market in the area on the way back to the hotel, so we figured we’d be adventurous and try to find it. Little did we know that Beijing is not the easiest city to navigate through…

We got lost. We had no idea where we were and had no real idea where we were going. So, we went into a hotel and tried to get directions (and use the restroom as well – western toilets!) I wasn’t really in on the directions because (aside from the fact that I didn’t plan to purchase much of anything) I was more along for the fun of the ride than the actual destination we were attempting to reach. So we left the hotel we stumbled upon and set off again to search for the night market. This is what we found:

And this was the nice part we found. And it wasn’t the night market. We kept walking trying to find anything resembling a market, but we just found dingier, emptier and more frightening alleyways where I decided not to take out my nice looking camera to capture for posterity. Just believe me when I say there were people standing in doorways watching me walk by with a group of three other girls. I was feeling the need to be very conscious of our surroundings for safety purposes.

There was one alleyway we went down that had opaque puddles throughout and one incandescent light bulb hanging from a lone wire in the middle of the alleyway. There was little sound, and only a few lights on in the windows we walked by, as it was now clear that we were nowhere near a market, or any type of vendor for that matter, because we had entered living quarters. I wanted to get out of there as quick as possible.

A few minutes later, and a few blind guesses as to a general direction to go, we wind up amidst a horde of people on a street with shopping. I don’t think it was a night market as much as it was just a street with stores that were open. And we’re not talking average stores – one of the girls wanted to duck (pardon the pun) into a jewelry store to look around, and this is what is looked like:

Not exactly a quaint place. I left two of the girls to the jewelry store and I went off with the other to look what was around the corner. We found a little grocery store. It seemed like a grocery store the locals would use, and while it looked relatively normal on the surface, a closer inspection would reveal otherwise.

I decided to peruse the aisles to find something out of the ordinary. About two feet into the first aisle, I found all I needed. Can you tell what I’ve found?

Can you tell now?

In case you can’t read it, the bag is labeled as Beijing Roast Duck, which is what I just finished having for dinner. I’m not entirely sure how the duck is preserved inside of the bag, but I had a feeling it was in the form of a dried out, chip-like thing. There it was – all I wanted to find was something that I did not think was sold in the average grocery store in the non-perishable section. And if that does turn out to be perishable, that would concern me greatly.

We departed the grocery store and went back outside the jewelry store to wait for the rest of the group to come out. Once we were all ready to go, the new challenge was to find our way back to the hotel. We could have walked out to the main road and then walked along it to the hotel, or did what we did and tried to follow some more of the back roads to find the rear of the hotel. What we did not realize was that the hotel would probably look greatly different from behind than we’re used to seeing it from the front.

Eventually, we did come to realize that we had no idea what we were looking for and found ourselves immersed back into the maze of back alleyways, beginning to lose our sense of direction. I say that because we were having a tough time finding alleyways to head towards the main road, which is a direction that is necessary to travel to eventually reach the hotel.

Somehow we juked and jived and found our way to the back of what we thought was our hotel. It was not. So we went up and over the arched driveway to the front and then ran into another problem – dissension within the group. Half the group thought that we had passed the hotel and needed to go back. And I thought that we had yet to pass the hotel and needed to move in the other direction. To make matters worse, nothing at all looked familiar to us. We knew we were on the main road, and that we had to have driven by where we were standing, but we had no idea which way to go. I did put myself on the line and convince the group to move my way.

I was hoping we would find something familiar along the way, but became increasingly worried as all it seemed like we were passing were advertisements for Windows Vista. Apparently Windows seems to think that China will be a big market for their new operating system. Then we passed what looked like a small mall, and that did not look familiar at all, but one of the girls said she thinks she recognized the area. Some of the monkey came off my back there.

And just a few minutes later, we happened upon the hotel. Our excursion from dinner had taken us to just about midnight, and I was glad to have made it back and not be lost at night on the mean streets of Beijing. We departed and went to the rooms, and I went to bed about quarter after midnight, and fell asleep pretty quickly.

At exactly 12:50, and I mean exactly, I woke up and knew almost immediately that something was wrong. There was a disturbance in the force. I sat up in bed and felt incredibly nauseous, moreso than I did when I woke up that first night back in Malaysia. And just like I did then, I went straight into the bathroom. And I sat there, feeling awful. And when I say awful, I mean about as low as I can go.

Ten minutes went by. Twenty minutes went by. I was starting to feel slightly better at some points, then worse the next. I wavered back and forth between feeling better and worse, and was not making any progress.

Thirty minutes went by. How did I make it through some of the toughest parts of the world – the Amazon, India, Vietnam – and then fall in Beijing? And it wasn’t like I let my guard down either. It just didn’t make sense to me.

Forty minutes went by, and I decided that this was getting silly. I wasn’t about to spend the entire night sitting in the bathroom, because we had a jam-packed day tomorrow that I wanted to be there for. I started to feel slightly better, so I stood up and instantly felt exponentially worse. So, I started moving around to agitate myself, and then out it came.

And without going into great detail, let’s just say that the duck quaked on the way out.

The Show Stopping Dance Number

2007-10-05T15:49:00.000-05:00

We were quite upset to leave the intersection we were so fascinated with, but there was much more to see and do up here in northern Vietnam. It also started to drizzle from the overcast skies. Once we were all back on the bus, it was time to start the long drive to Ha Long Bay. Because the ride would be lengthy, our tour guide found it the perfect opportunity to tell us the entire history of the country of Vietnam. I’ll remind you that the country is currently in its longest stretch of time without being in a war in its nearly 2000 year history, and it’s only been about sixteen years of peace at that. Needless to say, it’s a storied and long history. That’s why he waited until we got to this long drive – he needed that much time to tell the story.

I felt compelled to listen initially, but after the twenty-minute mark, and only being in about the 1400s, I was done with the story. It wasn’t that he was going into great detail; he was just relaying every conflict that Vietnam has been involved in. It is a country that has been fighting for its existence its entire existence. They’ve been in a few conflicts.

After a while it was clear that he was losing people, but the trooper that our guide was, he kept on chugging for both people that were still listening. Most people were trying to fall asleep because we had all had a long journey to get here already. The volume of the speakers prevented me from doing that.

About halfway into the drive (just over an hour and a half into the trip) it was time for a pit stop. Our guide decided that it was time for a pit stop, at least. This pit stop is a story in itself. Right before we pulled in, our guide told us that the pit stop was also a place to buy stuff. What a coincidence! Anyway, he also told us that there were kids making stuff in there. There was a story about the kids in there, but it didn’t really sound legit to me.

When the bus pulled up, we were surrounded by large sculptures of what I assume are made of white marble. They were huge and there was no way anybody would buy that stuff. I was proved wrong later. But as we walked into the building, it was about the length of a football field on one level. It was all very clean with a lot of expensive-looking stuff around. The first thing we came upon were the children working. Whether this was forced labor, I don’t think it was. The conditions looked halfway decent. Although I could have been wrong.

The kids were weaving stuff, and they were weaving it so fast that their fingers were blurs. The concentration was unbelievable and I never saw one of them stop, and there were over fifty kids around. It was something that I hoped didn’t actually exist, but if there’s one thing that this trip does, it opens up your eyes a bit more.

As Mom and I strolled through the store, it became obvious that our tour guide is making some cash dropping us off here for a half hour and moving the bus to the other end of the store, forcing us to move through it at least once. The prices were on the high side, so to buy something, you really had to have a find, and nothing there was nothing that you couldn’t get somewhere. But as sure as we were wandering around the store, people looked like they were buying stuff. I couldn’t figure it out.

On another side of the store there is a display of people who bought stuff and where they’re from. It is a photo of these people with the item that they bought, usually an extravagant sculpture or large furniture piece, and next to their photo is their complete contact information, including their names, addresses, and Email address. If you wanted the item in the photo, it wasn’t going to be tough to find it to steal it. There was so much information up there, that the only thing missing was what kind of underwear they wear.

On our way out to the bus, we passed by people that were buying jewelry. That said, I’m sure it was cheaper than it was back in the states, but who comes out to Vietnam to buy cheaper jewelry? It just doesn’t make sense to me. It didn’t make sense to Mom either, so we went out back and took these photos of us standing in front of a rice field.

Mom and I were back on the bus on time. Actually, we were waiting at the bus on time – the doors were locked so we couldn’t go in. But some people found that a half hour at this roadside store (in the middle of nowhere) was not enough to satisfy their shopping needs. We were waiting for a few people to finish their purchases and make it back out to the bus. There was no rush, as there usually is when I’m waiting for people, but that’s beside the point. We were just hoping that they didn’t get lost. In due course, the last couple of people strolled out of the store, onto the bus, and off we went.

Soon after leaving, we entered an area that was clearly neat a coal plant. There were trees with large leafs on them, and they were completely covered in black soot to the point where you could not see the green of the leaf. The entire town had this post-apocalyptic look to it, with an entire and sure to be constant coat of soot covering everything.

It was also in this town that we drove through that our guide informed us that we were coming into an area where we would see that anything could be transported on a motorbike. I didn’t believe everything could be transported on a motorbike, but after the first two items that I saw on a motorbike, I stood corrected.

The first was a motorbike that had three fully-grown pigs lying across the back. And the driver of the motorbike was driving along as if there were nothing wrong at all. I know it’s a bit of an extraordinary claim, that’s why there’s a picture below. I was also convinced that the pigs on the back were dead because there was no movement. I would have thought that three pigs strapped together on the back of a dinky motorbike would have the pigs struggling ferociously for their freedom. Again, I was proved wrong when one of the pigs’ head picked up and wriggled a small bit. It was a brief movement, but enough to show that it wasn’t just a bump in the road and turn me into a believer.

Now, transporting a pig on the back of a motorbike is good, but it doesn’t convince me that ‘everything’ can be transported on the back of a motorbike. Then came the washing machine.

That was the clincher. There was a motorbike with a washing machine strapped to the back. That settled it: you can transport anything on the back of a motorbike, even if it is bigger than the motorbike itself – and still maintain the speed of the other vehicles on the road. I thought I had seen engineering feats before, but the washing machine on the back of a motorbike took the cake. Just think of the convenience. A washing machine breaks at the house, and the wife looks to the husband and says, “we need a new washing machine,” and the husband nonchalantly says, “okay, I’ll take the motorbike,” and the wife says, “sounds good.” That boggles my mind. A washing machine on a motorbike; I’m getting closer and closer to honestly admitting that, “now, I’ve seen it all” – but I’ve got too much trip left, I’m not there yet.

After another almost two hours since the stop, we arrived in the Ha Long Bay area. The town we were in was not Ha Long Bay, and I don’t think Ha Long Bay was outside of the hotel, but I was led to believe that it was in the vicinity. Also, before the bus pulled up to the hotel, our guide told us that we should not be going outside after dark because it is not safe. Unlike Hanoi where it is a city and there are a lot of people, that does not apply here where there is a lesser population and apparently quite a number of additional disreputable souls. Very seldom, if at all, have I heard a warning about not going outside. So when we get one, I’d think we should follow it.

But when we arrived, there was still some daylight left. The sun wasn’t out because that same haze that hung over Hanoi is hanging over where we are now, which I would guess is Ha Long City, even though the hotel is named Asean Halong Hotel. (We’re 170 kilometers east of Hanoi.) What I do know where we are is that we’re in the Tonkin Gulf and Ha Long Bay means ‘Bay of the Descending Dragon.’ I couldn’t have named it better myself.

As a result of the remaining daylight, it provided Mom the opportunity to try to find another layer of clothing. Because as chilly as it was here seaside, I would bet that as we went out on the water tomorrow, it would probably be chillier. That’s what we figured anyway. That, and that another layer would help Mom out tonight as well because it was already starting to get cooler as the sun lowered in the haze and approached what I assume is the horizon.

As we arrive at the hotel and congregate in the lobby, we had the fun experience of having stuff handed out to us again. It wasn’t the fiasco we had at the Ho Chi Minh City airport, but it was somewhat reminiscent of it. What I thought to be mildly odd, and logical for that matter, was that the students that had two parents, otherwise known as ‘both’ parents, come out on the trip, the students would be rooming with another student because there are only two to a room. If Mom came all this way out and I had a separate room, I would have been on the annoyed side.

Anyway, so Mom and I went up to the room to drop our backpacks off because our key was one of the first ones to come out. It was here that an opinion of Mom’s began to change. She had been saying how well all the parents were being treated and how good their accommodations had been, and how well everything had been organized, and I told her how the majority of the trips that I have been on have been the exact opposite. So she was convinced that everything that had been going our way on the trip so far (the change to the Hanoi Hilton because the other place was busy) was because the parents were with the trip. When we went into the room, I could tell that Mom was a tinge disappointed because it was clearly a step down from some of the places she had been staying in. I thought it even a little above par. I’m not sure why I have been, but I’ve been trying to debunk the theory that the parents are getting better treatment because they’re the parents. I just can’t come around to accept that.

After we freshened up in the room, we headed out of the hotel, looking for a jacket. On the way up the hill to the hotel, Mom said that she saw a small little store that was selling jackets. By the time that we went back down to the store, it had closed and looked like it had not just been open. But, as we looked across the street, just before the shoreline was what appeared to be a night market. Actually Mom called it a night market because I had never heard the term ‘night market’ before, so I just went along with it.

The sun was just starting to set so the night market was unprepared when we arrived and most of the vendors were still setting up for the evening. There were quite a number of vendors, there had to be at least 50, so the market must get hopping as the night draws on, but I’m not entirely sure where the patrons are coming from. It certainly shouldn’t be the two hotels across the street, because we were warned that we should not be outside.

As Mom and I walked through the night market, we saw that a lot of people were selling similar items, or items that were bizarre in nature. Towels and dresses seemed to be the most popular items, with a smattering of knick-knacks and odds and ends betwixed and between. Needless to say, we did not find a jacket. But we did have a nice stroll outside before it became ‘dangerous.’

So we walked back up the hill to the hotel and passed another Mom and daughter on their way back down the hill. We went upstairs to freshen up, and then back downstairs a while later because it was time for dinner. Amongst a handful of other people, we sat with the mother and daughter that went down the hill after us, as well as Margaret. I have mentioned Margaret before – she’s the 91-year-old traveler on the ship. She’s also done Semester at Sea every five or six years, since the late 70s, so she’s done it a few times needless to say.

To give you a taste of Margaret, a while back on the ship, we asked her what the secret to living long and healthy is. I was expecting a non-answer that really wouldn’t help at all, but I was surprised. She said that she does exercises to stand on the tip of her toes. She went on to tell us that you can do it standing against a wall, or even when you’re sitting in your seat on an airplane. But, that was her secret to how well she is doing, and you have to admit that doing this trip at 91 is the sign that she is one of the healthiest people, not just for her age, in the world. So she should know what she’s doing.

Margaret provided quite a bit of the entertainment that we had at dinner. Dinner itself was okay. There was a soup that I didn’t enjoy, probably because I don’t enjoy any kind of soup. And it seemed like it was taking an awful long time for our dinners to come out. Half our table asked that their food be heated for another minute or so because it was cold. It came back more than a few minutes later, and it was warmer, so they say. Mine was not hot, but I didn’t bother sending it back. It was fine the way it was. I don’t think that heating it up would have made it any better.

Another topic of discussion at dinner was what happened to the mother and daughter that passed us on the hill. Apparently, as they went by the other hotel, an attendant from that hotel told them that they should not leave the hotel grounds without someone walking with them. He was adamant about that, so instead they just walked around the other hotel and then came back to ours, figuring that it wasn’t worth it.

Mom and I told them that nobody said a thing to us and that we didn’t see anything that would make us concerned. They looked at us like we were crazy. So while Mom and I both felt completely safe, maybe because the mother and daughter didn’t have a guy with them, we may have missed quite an extra experience that we probably didn’t want.

After dinner, Mom and I went up to the room for the rest of the evening, because we certainly weren’t going to go outside at this point. I put on the television, and while I was flipping, I found another version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Except in this one, there was no English at all, and I had no idea what was going on, which lessens the viewing experience considerably, so we didn’t stay there long. Like in every other hotel I’ve been in, CNN International was there, amidst a few other English channels, and we wavered around those until we were tired, and that wasn’t too long, so we went to bed soon.

While not as early as the day before, we were awake at 6:30 for day 3 of Vietnam, with a fun-filled day awaiting us. We packed up and left the room, because we weren’t going to be staying in Ha Long City anymore, and went down to breakfast. This time, amidst other people, we sat with Pat, who you may remember from my Kuala Lumpur trip. And if you do not remember, Pat is one of the lifelong learners that was on my Kuala Lumpur trip in Malaysia. So Mom and I had a very nice breakfast with Pat, who was waiting for her traveling partner, Brenda, to come downstairs. Let’s just say that Brenda has established a reputation to miss breakfast.

We departed the hotel shortly thereafter and took the buses further down the road toward Ha Long Bay. The dock itself was only about another five minutes down the road because we were already on the banks of the bay. When we get off the buses, another classic Semester at Sea moment of confusion ensues, where nobody really knows what’s going on, or where our guide went. I would think that following the guide would have been important, or that he went off to grab the tickets would have been useful information for us.

So the guide comes back to the lost looking group of Americans and leads us over to where we hand in the ticket that we were just handed. We walk through what may have been a turnstile and out onto the dock. The best way to describe the boats at the dock is sheer pandemonium and confusion unlike anything I have ever seen before. There are a few docks, but we’re clearly on the big main dock. Here’s a photo of the view we saw in 360 degrees:

The boat system is the most bizarre system I may have ever seen in my entire life. A system that even beats the bizarreness of the US electoral system. The boats are all clumped in together, trying to get wherever they want to go. In much the same way that I referred to the international queue when I was in India, the queue that I have seen throughout Asia was exhibited wonderfully here with boats instead of people. To refresh your memory, which I’m certain doesn’t need refreshing anyway, in the US; we form a straight line and wait our turn. The international line, or queue as it’s more commonly referred to as, is in the shape of a ‘V’ where you try to get as close to where you want to get as possible, in any which direction that you can. There is no sense of order, but I thought I had gotten used to that by now, but I was wrong.

With the boats, when a boat wants to come in to dock, it floats into the area and it tries to push as many boats out of the way that it can, and then that’s good enough. You might be thinking why they stop when they are so far away from the dock, and you will see quite shortly how that process works. Until then, we waited up on the dock until we were told to do anything else. I’m not sure what we were waiting for, but eventually, we were told to walk down a very narrow set of concrete steps with no handrail, and then onto a wooden plank the was sitting on the bottom step and an adjacent boat. Mom and I were towards the front of the boat and thought that we had these wacky Vietnamese figured out and that we were ahead of the game. We were wrong.

We walk the plank onto the boat and then figure that we should go up on top so that we have a good spot. We walk right on the boat and up to the top. It was a very nice boat, and we would most certainly have a great view. Then we turn around and see that the pilot of the boat is waving at us. We wave back, and he keeps moving his hands like he’s trying to tell us something. We have no idea what’s going on, so we ignored him. Then we looked over to the boat next to us, and on top of the boat there started to appear the other people from our bus. We thought we had it figured out, but they told us that we were on the wrong boat. To say that I felt foolish or embarrassed may have been an understatement, and I wanted to get off the top of the boat as soon as possible. I didn’t need anyone else seeing me on top of the wrong boat.

What had happened was that Mom and I assumed that the boat that we first set foot on would be the boat that we would be sailing out on. We were wrong. The boat we were sailing out on was not within reach of the dock, so we had to traverse across the first boat next to the dock to reach our boat. It’s an oddly simple concept that was lost on us.

When we got over to the real boat, there was nobody on the lower level, so we figured that the top level would be packed, and we resigned to find another way to outsmart the people once again, yet remain victorious. The lower level of the boat is mostly constituted of the kitchen and staff quarters, then a dining area, and then doors at the front of the boat that open out onto a small area at the bow with a few benches and quite a nice view. So, it was here that we stayed and hoped that we wouldn’t be in the wrong spot again.

Our boat was quite near the dock, and there was a bevy of boats waiting behind us in our way. Logically, the pilot put the boat into reverse and slowly pushed the boats out of the way. Once we were out in open water, we turned to face Ha Long Bay, and set out, at an incredibly slow pace. Don’t get me wrong, I was in no hurry; but I would have preferred to feel a breeze blow in my face. It seemed as if all the boat traffic going to and coming back from Ha Long Bay was moving at about the same speed, so I would have to guess that there was some kind of speed restriction in place.

A short while later one person came downstairs to us saying that it was too crowded upstairs. I felt good about that. Around that time, we were starting to pass a small boat of two locals trying to sell fresh produce. At least I think it was fresh produce. I don’t speak Vietnamese. Anyway, they thrusted the produce towards us and we didn’t want any, but someone on the top of the boat must have displayed some kind of interest because I turned around and the next thing I see is this:

And sure enough, stuff starts getting passed from the small boat to the top of our boat. I’m thinking that it wasn’t the sales pitch that won them over as much as it was the silly Americans on top of the boat that are suckers for, I don’t know, maybe, guava? And it couldn’t have been just one person buying stuff because they were hanging off the side of our boat for quite a while.

As we were drawing nearer to the real part of Ha Long Bay, the scenery was very pretty. Essentially what Ha Long Bay is, is a concentrated area of almost two thousand giant limestone monoliths scattered throughout a large area in the bay. And within the limestone cliffs are an assortment of places to visit and see. The first of which place to see is a giant cave complex, Sung Sot Cave, inside one of the monoliths. The cave is in a monolith that is one of the closest to the port, so it’s obviously one of the most visited spots, and with good reason.

We drew nearer from the calm half hour boat ride out, and while it was very hazy outside still, the image of the limestone monoliths looming out of the haze is an extraordinary site to see. As we moved in on the caves, Mom took a rather contemplative photograph of me observing the area from the front of the boat.

As luck would have it, there was a large smattering of other boats already pulled up to the dock at the caves, which meant that we got to play our favorite game: ram the boat into the other boats to move them out of the way. And sure enough, we did. We were moving in on the other boats, and there could not have been anything the pilot saw different than I did, because all I saw was no way in, and boats in every square inch of real estate. Sure enough, the pilot knocked the speed up a little bit and drove straight into the fray. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but all I know is that boats were moving in every direction, in and out, and we snuck our way in, right up against the dock. It was miraculous.

The fun part was how they had us disembark the boat. The dock was cement and had about six or seven steps coming down until they abruptly stopped and dangled over the water. One of the deckhands on our boat took a plank and laid it across the front of the boat and one of the lower steps, and then we were to walk across and up. It seemed reminiscent of how we got on the ship, and there’s probably a reason for that.

They gave us a time to meet back at the boat and told us that it’s a one-way path through the cave, and we just loop around back to the dock. Mom and I set off on our adventure, amidst the teeming hordes that arrived there at the same time as our boat. The path up to the entrance to the cave was nearly entirely stairs straight up. Here’s what the view looked like on the way down:

Needless to say, the path moved at a relatively slow pace, if at all. There’s something that I’ve noticed about Asian tour groups as opposed to the American tour groups. When the Asian tours are around, the entire group stands wherever they want and usually block the path, so we can’t go anywhere and they’ll be largely oblivious to the people trying to get by. In contrast, the American tour groups don’t stick together and go off in twenty different directions. The caves were a case study on this idea.

After climbing the large number of steps to the entrance to the cave (I think I counted somewhere around 100) we were finally able to get inside. The last cave that I was in was in Puerto Rico, and that had one huge central chamber. The huge central chamber here was only about half the size, but still enormously large, but where the Vietnamese have the advantage is in the lovely colorful lights throughout. I could actually see where I was going the entire time. Mind you, there were lights in the cave in Puerto Rico, but they were just dull white lights scattered about. Here, it was a veritable explosion of color!

Just because I must say this, because I know someone has to be keeping track. These caves were visited by the Amazing Race in Race 10, Leg 4. That said, once we were inside the cave, we were able to move around a couple of the slow pokes in front of us that were holding us up, and now we could move around with at our ease. Not that we wanted to zip through the caves, but we didn’t want to be wailing in place behind a giant Asian tour group.

Something that I have come to realize at this point in the trip is that my camera is nearly totally inept at taking photographs inside dark places. And while the cave is not entirely dark, it’s dark enough to send my camera into a tizzy in the caves. I don’t know how many photos Mom and I took of each other and how many other unsuspecting souls we thrust our cameras into, but good photos were few and far between. Here are a few of my favorites from my camera:

And here are a few favorites from Mom’s camera:

Each one a winner in its own right.

As we moved into the large central area of the cave, we really slowed down because there were a few Asian tour groups that were not moving at all. It must also be a different tour company because our tour guide said that he has been out on the Ha Long Bay boat ride hundreds of times, and he’s still got to be in his 20s. And he wasn’t giving us a tour. You must have to pay extra for that, or be American.

After we snaked our way through the large groups, we found that we were nearing the exit, and there were more steps up to the exit, which I found to be a surprisingly narrow passageway. Some of the more plump individuals would have to hold their breath. Once we were outside, we had a lovely view of the area, as well as the docking area below. As I took this photo, it was here that I realized that I did not remember the exact features of our boat, and I wished that I did.

Mom said that she knew, and I didn’t have much of a choice to go along with her idea of what the boat looked like, because I certainly wasn’t going to be of any help. As we exited the cave, I assumed that there would be another set of steps taking us back down to the dock, in much the reverse manner that we did on the way in. As Mom and I were walking, we seemed to be going along the path in the opposite direction and only descending a bit at a time. I thought we were going to be late back to the boat because the path was taking us for such a ride; but then Mom reminded me that everyone else would be going the same way, and we were not one of the last groups out. Mom’s always excellent for telling me why I shouldn’t be as concerned as I should be.

Eventually, after passing a bunch of souvenir places along the path, we made it down to the path to the dock. It didn’t feel like a schlep because it was all downhill, but it didn’t feel like a leisurely stroll for some reason either. As we walked back down the dock, it was here that I hoped Mom would remember which one was our boat.

I can’t say that I was surprised because I really wasn’t, but not only did Mom identify our boat, she pointed out the boat that the other bus was on. It took a while for the rest of the boat to make it back because of the misleading amount of time it takes to exit the caves and make it back to the boat. I would think that the tour guide had that time already factored in. At least if I were the tour guide I would – it’s definitely something that happens to every group.

Our boat plowed out backwards, similar to how we plowed in, and off we were again into the bay. Being on a boat moving by these sheer cliff faces never gets old. Mom and I had a great view up in front and it was just lovely. Who gets to do this with their Mom? How lucky am I? It was at this point where we both looked at each other, and for what had to be the tenth time, at least, we asked ourselves, “What are we doing in Vietnam?” And neither of us had a good answer until we decided that we were in Vietnam having a great time.

As we moved through the bay a few events of interest happened. We moved right up to a floating little shack that looked like it had a few pens in the water in front of it. We pulled up just long enough for a bag to be thrown onboard, and then backed up and moved out. That was lunch. Can you say, ‘fresh?’ Eventually the other boat came right up alongside ours. Actually, it was closer than alongside, they tied the two boats together and motored through the bay. I never thought something like that would be a good idea, but after seeing the two boats do it, I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t be.

A few minutes after the two boats joined at the hip, we stopped for swim time. I looked at the water, and said ‘no’ to swimming, as did most people. Some adventurers ventured in; and instead of going in the water, they jumped off the top of the boat into the water. That was a little bit showy for me. And because there was nothing else to do but watch the people in the water, that’s what everyone did. As one of the swimmers noted, it looked sort of creepy to have all those people watching, but it was merely out of having no scenery moving by us, even though we did stop in a quiet picturesque corner. Even with the haze around, it was still beautiful. Someone in the water had a waterproof camera and snapped this photo of everyone watching them:

After the four or five people in the water climbed their way back on the boats (and jumped off again, and climbed back on, and jumped off, and eventually stayed on) the conjoined boats moved along through another part of the bay. But, this also meant that it was time for lunch as we started to head back to the dock. Before we went in for lunch however, we all looked at our ticket stubs for the outing. The boat ride, cave excursion, lunch, and everything cost about US$2. That’s it! We were wondering why some boats only looked like there were three or four people on board, and that’s because for fifty or so dollars, the boat is yours for three hours. I think that sounds like a plan for whenever the return visit decides to happen.

Lunch happens on the part of the boat that Mom and I were on, except inside the glass doors where all the restaurant-style booths are. I was thrilled that there were no lazy susans in eyesight. Mom and I sat with Mary Jo and her family, her sister, Mom, and Dad, who all came out on the trip, so we filled out a table of six well. To be completely honest, before this trip, I didn’t recognize Mary Jo at all. She might not have been on the ship for all I know. But that’s how it works on the ship. It’s easy to get lost and not see people.

Without question, our best meal in Vietnam was lunch on the boat. I’m not sure exactly how that happened, but it did. It was a lot of seafood, and I’m sure all of it came from that bag that was thrown on board the boat. The calamari was great, and the prawns were quite good as well, once you got the hard outer stuff off. In the states, shrimp come taken care of already, and all you have to do is cut off the tail. Here, the prawns really are fresh and are staring back at you. It took us about three or four minutes per prawn. The prawn was good, but it wasn’t worth the three or four minutes. Then a guy came around the tables and took the prawn out in three or four seconds. He went through our whole plate in a blur, and then he was gone to the next table. I wasn’t even sure what happened. It could have been black magic for all I know.

Then the fun began. As we were enjoying our lunch, the two conjoined boats made their way back towards the dock at Ha Long, separating as we drew nearer. It was evident that a number of the boats were out in the morning and had since returned, ensuring that there was no way we were going to get near the dock. The pilot drove right into the fray and got as close as he could, and turned off the engine. I expected to be in eyesight of the dock, but it still remained about 150 feet away. That would stop lesser people. Apparently not us though. Our tour guide stepped off the boat and onto the boat next to us. Because this gets tricky, I’ve included a diagram below:

We started off on our boat and went over to another boat, labeled 1, with the aid of our trusty plank. As we walked across the deck of this boat (partially obscured by the dragon on the boat in front of it), with people on it, not even batting an eye that we were on their boat, we walked directly onto the next boat, labeled 2 in the diagram. Are you following so far?

Mom and I, of course, were laughing hysterically at the absurdity of what we were doing. This is inconceivable back in the states. If you notice in the photo, there’s a decent gap between boats 2 and 3. That tripped a few people up in their crossing, particularly the shorter people with stubby legs. Mom and I were towards the back of the pack so we got to watch the leaps across the gap so we knew what we were doing once we came to it.

Once we were across, as I said earlier, these boats are still jostling around, and we were reminded of that while on boat 3. The photo below is relatively self-explanatory.

The object in the foreground is another boat that happened to drift its way into our path. The blue shirted man is now in between the boat and the other boat. It was absolutely hysterical. He escaped unscathed, but Mom and I had to wait for the boat to drift back before walking by. We didn’t want to be rammed by the boat. The squeeze did not look like it was the most exciting of circumstances for the squeeze-e. But it was so funny. So funny.

We walked the length of boat 3 and then another longer plank was waiting for us to take us back up to the top of the dock. And we survived. Mom and I had a tough time deciding what was the best part of the trip, and the squeeze play with the boat was certainly up there as a possibility. How could it not be? It was totally worth the less than two-dollar price of admission.

At this point, our lovely excursion into Ha Long concluded, and it was time to board back onto the buses and head back to Hanoi for the remainder of our time in the northern part of the country. It was a short walk back to the bus, and we were off.

As we did on the way into Ha Long Bay, it was time to look for interesting items on the back of motorbikes. It’s always good to have an activity to look forward to on a long bus ride. And again, we were not disappointed. Instead of seeing more interesting and different items, we saw unbelievable extensions of something we saw on the way in: more pigs!

This still blows my mind how this works, but there is something called a pig station, which is where people go to drop off their pigs, and pick up some more pigs as they so desire. Who knew that there was such a thing as a pig station? If you remain a nonbeliever, Mom snapped a photo of photographic evidence:

Let’s not forget to keep in mind that all those pigs are, in fact, still alive and well. How much longer that will be true is something I have no knowledge of. But amidst their sallow living conditions, there are, in fact, signs of life in them when they wiggle or convulse every so often. There is nothing like seeing a pig squirm on the back of a motorbike, while attached to three other pigs. It’s not something that leaves the mind quickly.

It seems obvious in hindsight, but we made a pit stop halfway through the four-hour drive back to Hanoi – at the exact same place we stopped the day before. But, what killed me to no end was that they still made us stay there a half hour! Who in their right mind is going to buy something today that they did not already buy yesterday, when we had a half hour to spend yesterday.

Who, you ask? Well, apparently a number of the people on our bus. How they found more items to purchase from the exact same selections is beyond me. I can’t fathom the logic. Some people must have found the half hour to be insufficient time to shop when we were here yesterday. Mom and I were bored about ten minutes into the stop yesterday, so I had no idea what we were going to try to entertain ourselves with today.

As we exited the bus, we walked in to the same room with all the young kids weaving with blurs for fingers. I didn’t feel comfortable in that room. The child labor never seems like a good idea, regardless of what the circumstances look like, or actually are.

Mom and I did another lap around the interior, and then went outside to try to walk off the other half of the time that we had. Funnily enough, we were the first people waiting back at the bus on the other side of the place. And still, people were late because they were making purchases. They still haven’t had to the chance to wear all the jewelry that they bought yesterday, and now it was time for more. They didn’t even have the time to figure out if it’s stuff that falls off a day or two after putting it on.

Once everyone was back on the bus, we headed for downtown Hanoi, where we’d spend roughly the next 24 hours. It became quite obvious when we were entering the city limits again, because the road pretty much looked like this or more crowded the entire time we were in Hanoi:

To keep up the idea that we were staying in nicer hotels because the parents were with us, the hotel we would have to be staying in would have to be, what we’ll call, “very nice.” The actual words that we would use would be “semi-dinky.” And Mom was finally surprised that the parents weren’t staying in nicer hotels. The Asean Halong Hotel is certainly doable, but in comparison to the places Mom has been staying, it was below average. I found it rather average and didn’t bat an eye. I’m used to it at this point.

They told us that we had a few hours to kill in the afternoon before we had to meet back at the hotel for departure for the evening’s fun-filled festivities. About more than half of the group decided to stay in and around the hotel. But Mom and I decided to venture out into Hanoi to see what was going on. It just seemed like time wasted to sit around with this very pretty, if heavily hazy and polluted, city around us. Honestly, in our entire time in northern Vietnam, we never saw the sun. Whether that was because of the local weather pattern that happened to be there when we were, or whether that’s just how it is, I’m not all too sure. I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

Before we left the semi-dinky hotel, we were informed which direction the city center was and headed off in that direction. They also told us about how many blocks it was away, but neither of us remembered. We set off in a direction that I think can best be described as ‘that way.’ We were sure that we would run into something eventually.

Along the way, we were able to hone our skills at crossing the street. Hanoi differs from Ho Chi Minh City in the composition of traffic, with Hanoi heavily laden on motorbikes. Most people ride motorbikes because the tax on a car is something in the neighborhood of 300%. That makes the option clear if you’re in doubt about what to buy. With this abundance of the more agile motorbikes, along with a dearth of traffic signals of any kind, crossing the street becomes markedly different than it does in some place like New York City. There, you wait for a light to change or a period of time when there are no cars coming down the road. If you wait for either of those circumstances in Hanoi, you’re not going to go anywhere fast.

The basic rule of thumb in crossing the street is that once you put your foot in the roadway, you are committed and you must walk across the street because the motorbikes will be adapting to you and swerving around you. And once you put that put in the roadway, you have to maintain the same speed while walking across. If you vary too much, you’re going to get hit by a motorbike.

The whole situation sounds bizarre, and that’s because it is, but it’s the way it works over here, and they’re not going to change just because a few silly Americans have trekked over. Mom and I learned quickly that it was best to cross the street with a local. If traffic was moving left to right, have a Vietnamese guy on your left, and when he goes, you go and basically shadow him as he crosses the street. That’s about as foolproof as it gets. Unfortunately, there’s not always a Vietnamese guy waiting to cross the street when we need to, so fending for yourself became a quickly learned skill. Much like getting into Carnegie Hall, the way to get to the other side of the street in Vietnam is practice, practice, practice.

Mom and I passed a large indoor shopping mall that we didn’t go into because we don’t need anything in there, and then came out into an open area across the street from what looked like a large pond or a small lake. In the square on our side of the street, there was a statue of a Vietnamese man. He must have been important, otherwise why would there be a statue of him here?

We walked up to the statue and were going to do a photo of each other, but a Vietnamese man came over and offered to take our photo via a series of hand gestures. I gave him my camera, and below is the photo that was taken.

What is interesting in this photo is what I was thinking while the photo was being taken. I wasn’t just pleasantly smiling. I was thinking and talking to Mom without moving my mouth. This is about what was running through my mind: “If he runs away with the camera, I’m ready to run after him. I have my feet in a starting block position. I am tensed and ready to take off. What’s he doing now? Why is he taking so long? He’s going to run. I’m ready for him. I’ll get him and wrestle the camera away from him.” Needless to say, half of Vietnam was on that camera, and I wasn’t about to lose that.

I was absolutely convinced that the guy was going to run off with the camera to the point where I had no explanation as to why I gave him the photo in the first place. I was looking around the area to see where he might run off to and which route I would take. I missed my calling as a secret agent.

The guy ended up taking the photo and handing the camera back. Then he wanted us to take a photo of him, which meant that he might not be a Vietnamese guy. I still can’t tell. When we were taking the photo of him, I doubt he was thinking the same thing that I was, but that’s probably because he’s not from the states. That just goes to show you that these Vietnamese are some of the nicest and most pleasant people that I have met on my trip thus far. It’s been an absolute pleasure here.

From the statue of the Vietnamese gentleman, we walked along the pond/lake for a while, through an odd sculpture park that seemed a bit odd even for sculpture. But, what we did find along the pond/lake was a vendor selling masks. I was quite happy that I found my mask. What intrigued me the most was that the variety of masks was greater than anywhere else I’ve ever seen, so I had to get two that were so different that they had to be a part of my collection. Again, it felt like another weight had been lifted off my shoulders – at least until the next port.

We walked through some interesting side streets before turning back to head back to the hotel, because we had gone quite a distance away already. Something to note of the streets in Hanoi, there are quite a number of streets where only one item is sold on the entire street. It’s quite obvious when you’re on that street. Every shop is selling pocketbooks on the street. Then the next street over, it’s all shoes. So if you’re looking for something specific, you’re looking for a street, not necessarily one shop in particular. It’s a convenient way of doing business, but it would never happen back in the states – we take competition too seriously.

Mom and I stopped at the backpack street and tried to finagle our way to getting a nice deal on a backpack. We did. Nice backpack. We decided that I’ve had the same backpack for six or seven years, but my brother goes through the same backpacks in about a year or two, so it was going to him.

Walking back to the hotel, we had to cross a number of streets, and by this time of the day, we were becoming professional at this, and I don’t use professional lightly. This is something that could be considered an Olympic sport; certainly much more so than water polo.

Also on the way back, we decided that Hanoi is a fun city, just because of what it is and how it works. There’s no magic formula, but the way that the old French architecture mixes with the modern Vietnamese culture is fun to watch. And any city where walking is entertaining, actually entertaining, is money in the bank.

So we go back to the hotel, and go upstairs to freshen up because we still had a few minutes before we had to meet back downstairs for the evening’s fun-filled festivities. Our destination for the evening, before dinner, was something called a water-puppet show. Just like Malaysia had puppets of shadows, Vietnam apparently has puppets of water. I was hoping that the water puppets would be better than the shadow puppets. They certainly couldn’t be worse. Although it just may have seemed worse because I was becoming ill at the time in Malaysia. An illness that is still persisting in me, but is coming and going with not a high frequency. It should go away eventually…I hope.

We boarded the buses and went to the center of Hanoi, which was about the exact spot where Mom and I decided to turn around and come back. In fact, we walked by this odd looking place described as a ‘water puppet theater’ and figured that it must be where we were going for the evening, although we didn’t want to chance it because as far as we knew at the time, there could be a water puppet theater on every other block. The only thing I know about the water puppets is that they’re apparently quite renown far and wide.

We pulled up to the theater and went through the all too familiar ordeal of trying to figure out the ticket process. Our tour guide went ahead to get them for us and then we were given odd instructions about walking to one side of the staircase and given the option to purchase something additional on the way in. None of it made much sense to me.

So, we go into the theater, and along with a small program about the show that we were going to see, we get a fan that did not appear to be in the greatest state of disinfection. It was ample to get the job done, but I don’t think that it would be something that I would be taking with me on the way out of the theater.

Much to my surprise, the theater looked quite like a theater, with rows of seating and an old style to the look. It did have its differences; the rows were incredibly close to one another, nearly on top of one another and my legs had absolutely nowhere to go. It was going to be a relatively uncomfortable presentation. Obviously another major difference in this theater was the fact that the stage was largely a pool of greenish water. To the left side of the stage was where the ‘band’ sat, and there were a number of other scenery decorations and prop-style stuff scattered around the perimeter of the pool of water. Directly behind the pool was a curtain where the puppeteers would stand, also about mid-thigh deep in water.

From what I understand of the story, this water puppet stuff has been in Vietnam for a very long time, and it was something that was done before there were proper methods of cleanliness, so the puppeteers would often die early in their lives from diseases that they received from standing in mid-thigh stagnant water in random ponds/lakes a long, long time ago. Since that time, I can only hope and assume that the practices have become safer for the puppeteers.

The way the puppets work is that there is a wooden figure on a stick, and that stick runs under the surface of the water, and under a curtain at the back of the pool and into the hands of the puppeteer who can do all sorts of things with the puppets. So they are not suspended from above, but working under the veil of the lovely opaque green water. It’s tough to take a photo of the action, but here’s one of the better ones:

I think the best way to describe the water puppet show is that parts of it were fun, and other parts of it were ehhhh. There were dragons shooting sparks out of their mouths circling each other on the water, and that was a lot of fun, and other times, there was just puppets running around the surface of the water.

It seems like some kind of off-Broadway show that travels via word of mouth, and I’m actually quite surprised that I have not seen or heard of water puppets until now. It seems like such a different art form that certainly by now Cirque du Soliel would have done something with it. Right?

The show was just under an hour, which was about all my knees could take – they were firmly planted into the back of the seat in front of me, and I’m pretty sure that I was starting to lose circulation. As we walked back out into the lobby, I realized all the odd stuff that was around were versions of the water puppets featured in the show. They were trying to sell a bunch of them, but I had to ask myself, what am I going to do with a water puppet? Do I have a water puppet theater in which to perform shows? And most importantly, who will want to come see my private water puppet functions?

After the show was dinner, and it was about time because it was starting to get a bit late into the evening; and I was starting to get hungry. The place we ate at was towards the other end of town, and I believe the place we ate at was called Wild Rice, which isn’t exactly the catchiest name for a restaurant, but I bet that it sounds much more exciting when spoken in Vietnamese.

Much like the place we had lunch in yesterday, the place near the infamous intersection, it was a relatively skinny building, but with high ceilings. The interior of this place was a little more furbished and modern looking, which while appealing to the eye, was not so much to the ear. I don’t know if I have ever been in a room with worse acoustics than the place we had dinner tonight. Mom and I sat at a table with a daughter and her parents, and the father was at the other end of the table, and nary heard a word that was spoken, and he was only four feet away from us.

On top of the awful acoustics of Wild Rice, dinner wasn’t that great, it paled in comparison to what we ate for lunch. And, from when we sat down to when everyone finished their tea after dinner, was two hours. That wasn’t because we were all having such a good time, the food that was brought out was so spaced out that one plate would come out for the table and when we would finish it, we would have to wait 20 minutes for more, and by that time we were starving again, because the plates weren’t that large to begin with.

Overall, dinner was ehhh, much like parts of the water puppet show. I felt bad for the father at our table because he often looked very bored and was looking around the room because he just couldn’t hear anything – it really was that bad. Mom and I had to lean in to make sure that we heard each other. So when our marathon dinner was finally over, we were quite happy.

The buses were waiting outside the restaurant, and somehow someone got to talking to the guide and we learned that we were on the same street as the hotel, just a number of blocks away. About half the group wanted to walk, and the other half bused back. What did Mom and I do? Do you have to ask? The guide wished us luck and safety on our walk as the buses drove away.

To set the scene, it’s completely dark outside, and it’s about 10 o’clock, and there are a few streetlights here and there, and there’s really very few people out at all. The streets aren’t very busy at all. But somehow traveling in our decently sized group felt safe. But Mom and I, the way we are, didn’t want to hang back and walk slowly, because that’s annoying, so as time went on, and the group stretched out, we worked our way from the back of the group to the front, really walking at our normal speed.

We made it back to the hotel about fifteen minutes later, and it was a very nice walk through what looked like a nice part of the city. At least, I think it looked nice; it really was quite dark and deserted. Back at the hotel, we went upstairs to end our evening. While we were getting ready for bed, I was flipping the channels on the TV, and we came across what looked an awful lot like Bowling for Dollars. It was all in Vietnamese, but there were contestants bowling, for what looked like money, so here in Vietnam, I guess that would be Bowling for Dong – I don’t think that title would work back in the states. That’s when we decided to go to bed.

We were up at 6:30 on Vietnam Day 4, and somehow, with about 8 hours of sleep, the longest continuous stretch of sleep that I think I’ve had in weeks, I feel even more tired. I’m not sure how that works, but I do not like it. We went downstairs to the semi-buffet breakfast, and again, breakfast wasn’t that great, probably because I don’t like breakfast to begin with, so I might be biased. But I wasn’t all that impressed.

After breakfast we loaded up into the bus and headed off to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. There’s nothing like seeing a preserved old dead guy right after eating. We drove over to the place, and there’s quite a bit of security because apparently this place is a big deal. It’s also apparently quite popular. The queue for the mausoleum was huge. The first part of the line was for security where you would have to leave all the video equipment and other miscellaneous items. I had my camera in my pocket, which we were allowed to, we just couldn’t take it out for photos at the mausoleum, and considering what was around, I wasn’t about to do that.

Once we were through security, there was a break in the line because we could now walk to the end of the line in front of us that was to enter the mausoleum. Looking around, you can tell that you’re somewhere important because of all the official looking people with weaponry. It’s like being around the Capitol back in Washington DC. So the line starts moving, and eventually the line moves onto a red carpet as we walk towards the mausoleum and the entrance steps. There’s people yelling for people to be quiet, and people not being quiet, and I wasn’t about to talk in eyesight of one of them, we must remember that we are still officially in a communist country.

Inside the mausoleum the line moves at a gentle pace in and out of the mausoleum because they’re not going to let you stop. If you stop, then there are going to be problems. So we go inside and the line snakes to the left and goes up some steps and eventually opens up into a very high ceiling. The walls are all stone and a dark gray. There’s an elevated walkway about fifteen feet above the ground that goes around the perimeter of the room where we were walking. In the space on the ground are very official and scary looking people. In the center of the room beneath two giant red flags, one with a star, the other with a hammer and sickle, is Ho Chi Minh, entombed in an ornate glass box. The body appeared awfully white bathed in a yellowish light. He almost looked like porcelain.

Once you walk through the center room, you go back down the steps and outside where I felt comfortable to breathe again. After debating the experience briefly, we began a tour of the complex. The mausoleum is merely the centerpiece of a sprawling complex of Ho Chi Minh. We stopped out in front of the mausoleum for reasons I don’t know, but it appeared to be the area where they parade their military all marching in sync with their weapons. There were some stands and a lot of speakers above our heads. Here are Mom and I at the spot:

From there, we went over to his big yellow French-styled house, and someone got yelled at for walking beyond the ‘do not pass this sign.’ And it was written in English. Silly Americans. From there, we walked around the grounds that used to be where Ho Chi Minh used to live. The giant yellowish house is what Ho Chi Minh used to use for guests. Towards the end of his life, he lived in a small two or three room structure built on stilts in another part of the grounds. It was small, but looked semi-comfortable if you ask me.

As we walked around the grounds that we at one point not that crowded, the schoolchildren started to arrive – in droves. I felt like I was back at the Bronx Zoo on the one day when all the schools decide to come at the same time – times ten. I’m not sure why, but Mom was taking photos of the children.

Where once there were a few children, there were now so many children around that we could not walk on the paths. It was amazing where the all came from. We spent a little more time walking around and looking at Ho Chi Minh’s stuff, which was mostly interesting, and the area was very pretty. They’ve done a lovely job with the upkeep.

So from there we boarded the buses and headed over to the war and military museum. The museum has a few components to it. There’s one building that has stuff from the war with the French, which was the war before the Americans came in, and then the other building is for what they call around here, the American War. And outside is an area of Vietnamese, French, and American war craft. There’s a giant plane you’ll see in a photo soon, and there’s tanks and an assortment of collectables.

First, our guide told us that we were going to see a ‘movie’ in the French building and we should all go in there. It was blisteringly hot in that room. Apparently there was a tour group that arrived there just before us, and I believe they were Chinese, so the locals had to have been irked, and we had to wait about 15 minutes until the next “movie.”

In the mean time, there was an assortment of information and pieces of the French war, and it was quite interesting reading up on that because it was a war that I had really never heard of. And as interesting as it was, it was something that only sustains one’s interest for a determinate length of time, and that length of time is less than the length of the “movie” we were waiting to watch. Not a good sign.

When it finally ended, we went over and sat in the front row because we figured there had the highest likelihood of keeping me awake. Let’s not forget that I awoke this morning more tired than when I went to bed. It’s been a bit of a struggle so far today. I’ve been running on empty once or twice before this voyage, and today marked the occasion where I was pretty sure that I would not have the chance to recover until we’re somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The “movie” consisted of a model laid out in front of us with little red dots lighting up showing the movement of troops throughout the area. There was a projection about the size of a t-shirt in the rear of the model. There was English narration for us; they had to switch over from the Chinese they used the film before. All in all, there wasn’t much to hold my attention – until – the Vietnamese emerged victorious and a four-inch flag popped up. Even Spielberg would have be jealous…well, maybe not.

I completely missed the direction our guide gave us as we were exiting the “movie” and instead Mom and I went off on our own. As we’ve been driving around Hanoi, we’ve noticed that there has been a giant watchtower-like monument that can be seen from far and wide, and Mom and I went to climb it. We were trying to beat the rush, but in reality there was no rush to climb a gargantuanly tall watchtower. It was rather clear as we began to go up that it was built for people shorter than myself:

The steps up to the top seemed to go on for quite a ways, but once we got to the top, there was quite a lovely view. The problem was that there was one last doorway to clear before emerging at the top, and I did not see it. And when I say that I cracked my head hard against it, there was a quite a bang, and subsequent pain. After taking a minute or two to shake it off, I was able to admire the lovely view of Hanoi. We would have taken photos, but there were signs that said not to. We were trying to figure out why, and we think it’s because at this height you can start to see into the Defense Department area. I don’t think they want photos of that – not that there was anything much to photograph…

While at the top we were also trying to find people from our group to wave to, but nobody was looking up at us, so that wasn’t going to happen. It would have been more exciting if we could have incited someone to look up and exclaim, “How’d they get up there?” or “Look, a bird, no a plane, no its!” – you get the point.

Once my throbbing in my head began to briefly subside, we looked around once more before carefully beginning to descend, looking out for any and all low ceilings and doorways. I was concerned that we would meet someone halfway down because one of us would have to turn about to whence we came, because that narrow winding staircase was only a couple feet wide.

We did not run into any other adventurers on the way down, and stopped at the lower precipice to have another look around the area to see what was around. The leftover war stuff looked very interesting. Below is a lovely photo of me in front of an airplane that nose-dived into the ground. I can’t imagine that there were survivors when that happened.

Once we were back down to ground level, we apparently had some more time to walk around on our own, so we went into the ‘American War’ building. Mom and I walked through it for a little while, but what we realized was that the museum was obviously devoted to how the Vietnamese triumphed over the US. And we really didn’t feel that great walking through there when all it was showed how great Vietnam was for winning and showing how they beat us. That wasn’t a great feeling, so we didn’t hang around there for too much longer.

After we left there, we felt like we pretty much covered the war museum, so there was a bit of wandering around, waiting to figure out when we had to depart. I was going to sit down at a table, but Mom pointed out that there were servers running around and that when we sit down, they’re going to ask us if we want something. So we didn’t sit. But the buses starting moving shortly thereafter, so there was no harm, no foul.

Our tour guide informed us that the portion of the day where we would be driven around to places was done, and that when the bus stopped, we could follow him on a walk-through of some side streets of Hanoi, or just meet back at the hotel for our departure back to the airport later in the afternoon. The group split here with about half staying with the tour guide and the other half off doing whatever they wanted to do, which may have included heading back to the hotel.

Mom and I stuck around because there was no reason not to. Where our tour guide took us was truly different. He basically took us through a market area where people were predominantly selling food. At first it seemed relatively normal, with lots of fruit and odd-looking vegetables lying around, but that must just have been the fruit and odd-looking vegetable section. Because then, I began to question the health standards in the area. I’ll let the below picture speak for itself.

Partway through the walkthrough I was concerned that my jacket around my waist brushed up against some raw meat. I briefly feared for my health and safety, as well as the health and safety of those around me. The fact that meat can be sold in that type of open-air market absolutely floors me. And if there’s that much fresh meat out there, you know that it is purchased, otherwise there wouldn’t be that much out there to begin with. We were there just before the lunch rush, so I’m guessing that some people buy the meat there and walk to somewhere else in the market, have them season it then cook it up. That still doesn’t seem very sanitary to me, but that’s just me.

Walking through the market was more fun than it should have been. It was just a group of wacky Americans walking though a wacky market. What’s so wrong about that? Thankfully, I did not see anyone of our group buy any of the raw meat products. Although, Mom and I were in the front of the group and anything could have been happening in the back of the pack.

Once we emerged from the market, there was a side street that was as bustling as side streets get. It reminded me of Greenwich Village at 2am on a Saturday night. I’m not sure how it did, but it did.

From there, our guide walked us back out to the main road and told us to make sure we were back to the hotel in time for the bus to depart to the airport. Mom and I went further around the street and found an area with a few interesting stores and shopped for a little bit before we began to start thinking about lunch. It was after noon, so by the time we found a place to eat, we would be hungry enough.

We made the decision to head back in the direction of the hotel and figure that we’d find a place along the way. As we were walking back, Mom was telling me about a place that we had passed on the bus a couple of times. It was called the Sofitel Hotel and she was pretty sure that that was the place where her boss stayed when he came to Hanoi a few months prior. We figured that they would have a decent menu, as they supposedly have quite the buffet as well, although not a normal buffet…

So we find the Sofitel, and you know it’s a nice hotel when there are classic cars parked out in front and there’s a loop where a doorman comes up and opens your door. Needless to say, it’s a nice looking place. We walk by one part and see that inside there’s a restaurant-looking place. There was a menu on the outside and we were enticed at the thought of a reasonably priced ham and cheese sandwich. That was really all we needed to make the decision.

Then came the difficult part, which was finding a way in. We didn’t see any entrances into the restaurant, or doors that looked like they were unlocked. So we go around the corner, and there’s another door there, I pull on the door, and it doesn’t open, and there’s a host standing right inside that looks at me for a moment before coming over to open the door. I thought he was going to chase us away for acting like the ‘riff-raff.’ But he let us in, and we were seated.

The place looked quite fancy, and empty. They sat us down, handed us menus and asked us if we wanted any wine with our lunch. This was the first sign that something was awry. We declined and then realized as we looked through the menu that there was no sign of the previously advertised ham and cheese sandwich. We looked at each other like we just briefly stepped into the Twilight Zone. The waiter came back and we basically asked where the ham and cheese sandwiches were, and he told us that was the ‘other’ restaurant through the lobby. I wasn’t entirely sure what the mix up was, but as long as we were being directed towards the ham and cheese sandwiches, I was fine.

The other restaurant seemed to be treated like the lesser of the two restaurants, but I thought it looked nicer. It was brighter and more like a real restaurant, and not over the top. We were handed the menus and were delighted to see that ham and cheese sandwiches were available here, about forty feet away from the other table we just relieved, on the other side of the lobby.

As I perused the menu further, I saw that there was a small pasta section, and the spaghetti looked very good to me. The spaghetti on the ship, and the pasta at large is not appetizing at this point in the voyage. I was in the mood for a ham and cheese sandwich, but if I could get a good bowl of spaghetti, I would be incredibly satisfied. So Mom stuck with her ham and cheese sandwich, and I went with the spaghetti, hoping for the best.

As we looked around, we realized that we were going to miss the buffet I was talking about earlier, and I was quite upset about it because it’s not just any buffet, it’s a decadent chocolate buffet. I’ve never heard of or seen a chocolate buffet, but what I can imagine is the thing of legend. And it starts after our bus departs for the airport. As I always say (for the sake of my sanity,) you have to have something to come back for. And I do say that in every country so far.

Our lunches came out, and my spaghetti was so good. Stuff is always better after a period of deprivation. Mom’s ham and cheese sandwich was also very good, so she says, and I can attest to as well because the bite I had was also quite good. All in all, we had a very nice lunch. Much nicer than I thought we’d be able to find. I was impressed with Hanoi, as I have been for the past three days.

Then came the option of dessert, and while there were only a small handful of choices, I selected the chocolatiest one I could find, and when that came out, I was then really upset that I was missing the buffet. That chocolate dessert was something to write home about. Although, I didn’t have to because Mom was already here. Lunch was great. I was in Hanoi with Mom. I couldn’t have been happier.

We still had a bunch of time to kill before we had to be back at the hotel, so we went over to the area where we were the afternoon before, in the city center area. We figured that with the remaining time left that we have in Vietnam that we might want to exchange some more of our money into Vietnamese dong, because we weren’t sure that we would have enough. I remembered seeing a place yesterday that looked like a place to exchange money, and remarkably, we were able to find our way back there.

We exchanged some money, and then Mom went on to tell me that she had not done a whole lot of shopping to bring stuff home. Apparently, Mom can’t take a trip to Vietnam and not bring stuff home for everybody. So we went off to look for stuff, and lazily stroll down some streets in Hanoi. At this point, I must have been in a good mood and not thinking straight because since lunch, a moving vehicle has nearly hit me twice. Thank goodness Mom was there to grab my arm and stop me from entering into the path of danger.

I’m not sure what happened, but needless to say, we lost track of time a bit. I looked at my Indian watch and told Mom that we need to start heading back to the hotel. We were about a half-hour walk away, at least. So, getting back, packing up, and checking out would be a good idea. I wouldn’t say that we rushed or hurried back to the hotel, but we did ‘walk with a purpose.’ An important purpose at that. And even at this point, a number of days in Vietnam, and two or three here in Hanoi, crossing the street never gets old. I’m really going to miss it.

We made it back with (some) time to spare. But it was certainly sufficient to make the bus as we were supposed to. Miraculously, all of the other passengers on the bus also made it back in time, so we left for the airport on time. I don’t think I have been in port where we were going back to the airport and everyone was on time. I tell you, these parents probably still have a trick or two stuffed up their sleeves.

I was snapping in and out of awake consciousness on the way back to the airport. The sights are always a sight to see, so the few times that I missed stuff, I was rather annoyed. Eventually, I felt like I was back home on my way to JFK because we hit backed up traffic. As we drove past, there was apparently an accident. I didn’t see it. I was on the other side of the bus and I tried to lean over to catch a glimpse, but alas, I missed it. From those who saw it, it sounded like a really good one. But in all the wacky driving that I’ve seen while in Vietnam, that accident remains the first and only one that I recall seeing (well, really hearing about.)

So, we arrive at the airport, wish our guide well, and figure out what to do from there. Our passports were held by the Semester at Sea trip leaders, and somehow Mom and I had ours in short time, so we went right up to a short line in front of a counter to get our boarding passes. From there, it seemed like nobody knew where we were supposed to be going, but Mom and I went right through security and over to our gate without a problem. Unlike the secluded boxes in the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, there were none here, so we were able to roam if we want to.

By the time we arrived at the gate, we had over an hour before departure, so we sat down and hung out. Not long after we arrived, somebody went to go stand in line to board the plane. Then another person went in line to board the plane, then another, and before we knew it, the line was stretching over 100 people long, and boarding had not started yet. Mom and I looked at one another like we were missing something. While we may have been missing something, I think those in line may have been missing more. Missing things like a point, or a purpose.

They stood in that line like their lives depended on it. They stood in that line for at least fifteen minutes before the flight was even beginning to board. It was Mom and I in the seats, as well as a few other parents and students, and some of the lifelong learners, mixed in with a few locals. Other than that, everyone else was in line like they didn’t have seat assignments. I got a few more sudoku puzzles done while sitting down. Mom read through some magazines. Then once the line shortened down to about fifteen or twenty, we hopped on line and walked on the plane.

Mom and I had seats next to one another, with an aisle between us. The two seats next to Mom’s left were the Whitneys, two of the trip leaders for the trip. He’s a professor and she’s the wife. To my right were the Christies. Next to me was the wife, and to her right was the infamous global studies professor. I have nothing against him, but I do have something against the class. I tried to have a conversation with both of them, but only the wife entertained the thought while I tried. It’s okay – I had a book to read and Mom across the aisle.

Much like our departure to Hanoi, here there were also screens so that we could watch the launch ourselves. The screens are like a train wreck. You don’t want to watch, but you can’t take your eyes off of it. It’s like I might be able to do something if I see something happen. As usual, nothing happened, but watching us fly up into the great hazy yonder, and especially seeing the empty runway sitting in front of us, is quite a memorable part of the trip.

The flight was only a few hours, and much like the flight up to Hanoi, it was one of the best flights of the voyage, just for the uneventfulness of it. I have nothing to complain about with the flight, and I’d call that unusual. When we landed, there was so much confusion that you would think FEMA was running the show. Some people were forced to check some of their luggage, so we had to wait for them, and the group separated somehow.

On top of it all, along with our group, there was also another Semester at Sea trip on our flight, so nobody knew where to go or what to do. So once the interior outside of the baggage carousel filled up, we all spilled outside to wait around in an area where there was an access road that was under construction with big plywood fences, and there’s a bunch of lost Americans standing around looking for direction and apparently still trying to square things away with some people somewhere.

I’m not entirely sure who took the initiative to walk around the corner to the parking area, because we couldn’t see it from where we were, but it was a brilliant idea and whoever did it should be commended. The parking lot seemed to look much different in the dark now, than when it did a few days ago when we were walking into the terminal at daybreak. It was clear that nobody knew where to go, but we were conditioned to move towards the large coach buses in the middle of the parking lot, assuming that they were for us.

Sure enough, all the buses were for Semester at Sea, but each but was something a little different. Half the buses were for the other trip that was also on our flight, and of the two remaining buses for our trip, one was going to stop at the parents’ hotel and the other bus was going to go directly to the ship. The trouble was that nobody knew which bus was which, so we decided which bus was which and boarded whichever one all the other parents and kids were going on.

Confusion was the name of the game again, but it no longer fazes me. I’m not sure how, but it looked like everyone made it away from the terminal and into a bus. At least I hoped they did – I didn’t take a head count on the bus. As this bus was the parent bus, the vast majority of people on the bus were scheduled to be on the Mekong Delta trip the following day. The trick of it was that nobody knew any information about who would meet what bus and where. The stories sounded like buses were going back and forth between the hotel and the ship in incorrect orders, then people were going to meet at the delta, and then the timing was well before 7 in the morning, and I’m not sure how an answer produced itself, but it did. I think the tour operator at the front of the bus calling his boss had a bit to do with that. It didn’t sound like they actually worked out the specifics of what they would do yet, but by the end of the half-hour bus ride, I think everything was straightened out. And yes, it did take the entire length of the bus ride back into downtown Ho Chi Minh City to iron out the logistics. At least the logistics were ironed out.

We arrived at the hotel for what I was sure to be a bit of fun because all the parents that went on the trip had to vacate their rooms, store their luggage with the hotel, and now find that luggage as well as their new room assignment. So we go into the hotel, and into the atrium area behind the lobby while Mom figures out her room assignment and luggage stuff. They were handing out fruity drinks, so I sat down and enjoyed my beverage while Mom went off to wherever she went off to.

She came back about five or so minutes later and I helped her with her luggage into the room. But the room was a smoking room. And the last person must have been a chain smoker because the smell was quite strong. It was strong enough to the point where it was unpleasant. Once we moved everything into the room, we went back outside to the atrium area to the little desk they had set up to see if they could switch rooms. Apparently there’s some kind of national holiday going on the upcoming weekend (have I been in a country yet where there hasn’t been some kind of national holiday – real or fake?) and this giant hotel is booked solid. Other parents were also there complaining that they had smoking rooms as well, and nobody was getting anything changed. Nobody was thrilled.

I’m not sure how the information circulated, but somebody was able to get their room switched. There was a small flutter of activity as we figured out that that person went to the main front desk in the front lobby instead of the atrium. So, Mom and I, willing to try again so she wouldn’t develop emphysema while she was sleeping went down to the front desk to try our luck and see if there were any other rooms available.

I have to say that the lobby must not be talking to the atrium, in a one hand not talking to the other scenario, because they put Mom in a new room like there was never a problem in the world. It was a few floors higher, but there’s a working elevator. We were shocked at how easy it was to switch rooms down in the lobby. There was no problem whatsoever. The trick would now be to find Mom’s roommate so that she could also learn that the rooms were switched and so that all the luggage could be moved way up to the new room.

So Mom and I packed up the little that we had unpacked in the emphysema room and shuttled up to the new room that smelled like nothing – no smoke. A world of difference. Mom was still slightly annoyed that we were on the side of the hotel that had a lovely view of the adjacent hotel, but there was no smoke so all was well in the world. Well, almost – the room was right next to the elevators and those aren’t known for being the quietest of places in a hotel. Once we finally got everything into the new room, we figured that it was still early in the night and we were still a little hungry, so we were going to go out and look for ice cream.

So we walked out of the room and as the door shut, we realized that the room keys were still sitting in the room. Sometimes you’ve got to laugh. So we went back down to the lobby desk, not the atrium desk, and said that we locked the keys in the room. We figured there might be some trouble with this, because Mom had no ID on her or anything to prove that that was her room. But alas, the person just gave us another key – no questions asked. While being incredibly convenient, it does not leave a feeling that the hotel is the most secure of places, if they’re giving out room keys to anyone, any room. Mom and I didn’t feel all that great about that, but we had a room key. We went back up to grab the real key and a few other items we forgot to take with us, and then we were finally off to look for ice cream.

I did not remember seeing a place that we passed along the way, but we were sure that there had to be places to have ice cream in a city. Right? Well, yes, it is right, there are places to find ice cream. We found one relatively close to the hotel and went in and ordered our ice cream. In the States, when you order ice cream, they do it right there for you, in relatively short time. In this particular Vietnamese café, you go sit down and they’ll bring it to when they feel like it. It’s not like the place was busy either. There were only a few other people in there, but we were in no hurry.

So I’m facing the wall away from the counter, and Mom keeps looking over my shoulder making odd faces like she’s seeing something wrong. Eventually turn around and it appears that they’re preparing something that does not look like two dishes of ice cream. It was a bizarre looking item that did not resemble ice cream in any way. This is where we got to figuring that in Vietnam they do ice cream differently, or that they got our order completely wrong. It was one of the two, but we weren’t sure which one.

Then they tray up the items, whatever they are, and they bring them in our direction, and right past us to someone else in the café. We had failed to think that that was not our dessert that was being prepared. We had a good laugh with that one. It’s those crazy Americans again thinking that everything was going to be done for them first. It really was quite entertaining to laugh at our blunder.

A few minutes later, somewhat to our surprise, two dishes of ice cream emerged to be exactly what we ordered. Even more to our surprise was that it was actually quite tasty ice cream. I didn’t think the Vietnamese could make a decent ice cream, but I was wrong again. I liked being wrong here. We had a lovely little dessert on night four in Vietnam. It was also nice to relax after the big Hanoi trip we just got back from. But, as is always true with this trip, relaxation and rest never last for long.

It was getting on in the evening and we had to be up for our trip to the Mekong Delta in the morning, which is supposedly known for running long, not something that I want to happen tomorrow, but more on that a little later on. Mom and I walked back through the mean streets of Ho Chi Minh City back to the hotel, where we went back upstairs so I could get my travel backpack, then back downstairs so I could head back to the ship. Also with me was the charger for Mom’s camera so that I could charge up her battery and she would be able to use her camera for the rest of the trip. It’s a big responsibility.

We had the guy outside the hotel grab a cab for me, and off I went back to the ship, in a completely different way than I went the last time. If I thought I was being taken for a ride before, now I really felt like I was going to end up tied to a chair and on a grainy video on the internet in a few days. But like the last time, the driver made a final turn and there was the ship, a shining beacon in all its glory. I paid the driver and made my way back onto the ship, happy that there was no line that I had to stand on to get back to the ship, because I’m sure there was one when those buses pulled back up to the ship.

I came onto the ship and once I made it back to the room, running a bit on autopilot because I was still dead tired, I went in showered, and then unpacked the backpack and repacked it for the next day. This backpack is getting a lot of use out of me. I don’t know why, but I decided to fool around with my iPod to see if I could resuscitate it back to life. I fooled around with it for about a half hour, and like a gift from above, it worked like new. I felt quite happy about that. Then, as soon as I could, I went to bed.

It was Friday April 13 when I woke up, but if you told me it was May or Monday I wouldn’t have known, or really cared. Days and dates mean very little out here. That’s why the thought never crossed my mind that it was Friday the 13th. I’m actually quite glad that I hadn’t known. It’s not that I’m superstitious, just a little stitious.

I was up at 7 (a late day) so breakfast was open at the time that I needed it, which is something that never happens. I went out on the back deck and enjoyed my breakfast and I realized that as I was eating, the scene was just so perfect, lovely, and spendictacular. I took a photo because it really summarizes the trip perfectly. (Mom’s hotel is the tall white one next to the tall brown one.)

The juxtaposition of the amenities and life on the ship versus the reality of the countries we visited could not have been better. It was a beautiful morning, and I had a feeling in me that was as close to perfection that I have had few times before. Everything was great, and I’m not even setting this up for something bad to come. It was just lovely. And on top of it all, I still had one more day with Mom.

After breakfast, we met up with the ship group and headed down to the buses, where Mom was waiting and saving a seat for me. And the first thing she asks for is the charger for the camera, and I still had it sitting up in the room. This was only going to make a complicated day a little more complicated. The new wrinkle was that I had to go back into the ship, get the charger, and come back out. It doesn’t sound bad, but let’s get to the meat and potatoes of the day first.

If you remember, way back on the first day in Vietnam I was measured for a suit, and we still needed to go pick it up sometime today. That place closes at 7. The Mekong Delta trip is scheduled to be back at 4:30, but the rumor is that most trips this week (we’re the fourth) have been an average of an hour late. When we get back to the ship, I’m going to have to stand in line to get the charger, then get over to the suit place, and if any one of these chinks in the armor fail and take a long time, then there’s going to be a problem. I didn’t want to be, but I was stressed during the day, much more than I would have like to have been. Mom was not. What a surprise. And with that, we were off on another adventure.

We were headed for the My Tho area of the Mekong Delta, and that’s about a two-hour bus ride from greater Ho Chi Minh City. The drive meanders from the outskirts of the city to miles of rice fields and through smaller towns and markets. It harkens back to something I mentioned earlier in the voyage that I don’t like to sleep on bus rides because I like to look out the window at the world that whips by. The sights are always different and there’s always something interesting to see. However, as the trip goes on, it does become increasingly difficult to maintain that ability to stay awake on an otherwise boring bus ride. Unless that bus ride is in India and it is impossible to rest with all the honking and bumps in the road.

But the bus ride was not just two straight hours of driving, because there were a few stops factored in that sent the ride over two hours. The first was what we’ll call a market, for a lack of a better term. It was here that I came to grasp why the bird flu is prevalent in this part of the world. Here, let me show you around the market:

Those ducks are in quite close vicinity to dead ducks. I chose not to include that photo. But around the corner from those ducks are live chickens next to dead chickens in an incredibly unsanitary market. It may have been the most unsanitary market of the trip, and that’s saying a lot. It’s not that the market could be described as ‘squalor’, but I would not buy anything that could not be cleansed with bleach. The word ‘bizarre’ almost does not do this market justice. Before the voyage began, I was mildly concerned about stuff like the bird flu, and while I know that especially Vietnam has done much to combat the disease, I’ve learned how a disease like that can spread – very easily.

And wouldn’t you know, some people found this bizarre market to be their shopping mecca and came back on the bus with all sorts of stuff. I didn’t notice anything living, or formerly living.

A little further down the road we came upon what we’ll call, for a lack of a better term, a rest stop. In actuality that’s what it was and it was far nicer than anything I’ve ever seen on the Pennsylvania or New Jersey turnpike. Any bathroom that has moist towels (actual towels, not a towelette) waiting for you outside is a nice bathroom. Also at the rest stop was a little store that sold snacks as well as an assortment of other items. What we could not figure out was why there was so much Tintin. There were no actual books, but art of the cover. Obviously Tintin in Vietnam was the most prevalent, even though it was not one of the original twenty-some-odd official stories. Vietnam clearly has some kind of fascination bordering on obsession with Tintin. And I’m not so sure what the deal really is.

After departing that rest stop, we still had to make one more stop at a Buddhist temple before arriving in the delta. Mom said that one of her days in Thailand was spent going from Buddha to Buddha and she was sick of Buddha. I’ve seen quite a bit of Buddha and I was starting to get sick of Buddha, but I know that I’m coming up on a couple countries that really enjoy Buddha, so I tried to control my feelings about all the Buddhism.

The temple was alright. It’s a Buddhist temple, so there’s only so much to do and so many photos to take of stuff. There really isn’t that much to do but walk around. Needless to say Mom and I went through at our own pace and found a nice little store outside where we got a couple nice wooden carvings to hang on the wall back at the house. It was nice that we were able to do that.

Once we all loaded back on the bus, we finally arrived at the Mekong Delta. Just before we exited they told us that we should definitely have a hat. Mom did not, so she had to purchase a hat. She spent a whole dollar on this:

Some pictures really are priceless, as you can see by our hysterical laughter in the photo. (I tried to hold mine for the photo…) Did you notice the color of the chinstrap? Once we arrived at the dock, they loaded us up into rinky-dink boats, something I’m all too familiar with, and headed out into the river. We didn’t know where we were going, but it turned out to be the other side of the river, and that took a few minutes to transit.

Mom’s not that great with the rocking boats in that past, but I’ve noticed her get much better over the years and as the boat rocked, she said she was fine, and she looked fine too, so I’ve got to give her a lot of credit.

The ‘dock’ at the other side of the river was the riverbank itself. We had to make a bit of a jump to land, but I think we all made it. They took us over to some area about thirty feet inland. It was a small building with a wide canopy over a number of tables and chairs like we were going to be served some kind of food or drink substance.

I was right. Women came around and whipped up some kind of tea. Then we had to put stuff in the tea. I’m not sure what else went in with the lime, but it didn’t help. I’m not a big fan of normal tea, so this new kind of tea was something that I wasn’t the biggest fan of. The local spices that went into the tea was floating around inside the cup and it did not help to go down. I think at the time I described the tea as tasting like “drinking cigarette butts.”

As if the wacky tea was not enough, the high concentration of bees in the area meant that the honey was going to come out next. But it wasn’t normal honey; it had a kick to it. I think we did a shot of the honey. I think that’s what they made us to. We shouted something in Vietnamese then downed a shot. That was a unique experience. It woke me up, too. There were local medicinal spices in the tea and honey that are supposed to help you do things like sleep well. At least, that’s what they’re supposed to do. This was actually where the photo above was taken. You can see us enjoying our tea.

After our tea stop, we hustled back out to the boats and off we went for greater adventures. A few minutes later, and somewhere else on the river, we stopped into another bank and exited the boat. This time, we hiked inland for a few minutes before we saw civilization. Again there was some kind of covered structure set up to look like food or drinks were going to be brought out again.

Instead of tea, at this place, they brought out trays of fruit. Mom and I had our table to ourselves and the whole plate to ourselves. I recognized watermelon and pineapple, and there were quite a number of fruits that I did not recognize. I stuck to the pineapple and watermelon. They’ve told us over and over again that if you don’t have to eat the outside of a fruit, you should be good to go.

I really wasn’t sure what was going on with the miscellaneous stops that we were taking. I don’t think what we’ve seen so far is an accurate representation of the Mekong Delta as a whole. While the My Tho area is apparently famous for its orchards, I have read nowhere in the literature about its famous bees and tea. Nor have I actually seen an orchard. The paths we’re walking on are a bit densely forested with tropical vegetation akin to whatever latitude we are on.

Partway through our stay at the fruit stop, some kind of small two-man band wandered their way over from somewhere. It felt a bit like the Vietnamese version of Deliverance. They came out of nowhere with all sorts of foreign looking instruments that our lovely ethnomusicologist would love to get her hands on, so she could show the two-man band how they were playing their own instruments incorrectly. (Remember Malaysia?)

Anyway, once the band cleared out, after playing songs that I’ve actually heard of, we retraced our steps on the trail for a while, and then diverged to find a small tributary littered with quite small canoe/rafts. Mom and I were towards the front so we were in one of the first few minicanoes out of the gate. The minicanoes hold four riders so the trip leader and his wife hopped in the back. The trip leader, for a change of pace, was actually from Semester at Sea back in Virginia and was taking care of all the parents on the parent trip and would be leaving with them, too.

To move the minicanoe there was a small woman at the front and rear of the boat paddling and steering with nothing but a wide stick. It really was quite impressive to watch the power come out of their small bodies. At this point, it really felt like we were in the Mekong Delta in a real sense. It also greatly reminded me of my bioluminescent bay trip in Puerto Rico because where the mangrove branches closed in on the tiny inlet, here the dense vegetation closed in on the tiny inlet that we were paddling down. And when I say ‘we’ I mean the women paddling for us. I was in the front, and this was the cool view I had:

And this was the view I had behind me:

Mom seemed like she was having a good time. Something we noticed was that the boat in front of us was paddled by two men, and we were closing in on them, and I think if the inlet had been a little wider we would have passed them. Although, I’m not sure if doing something like that would be something that’s accepted in this country. It’s not something that would be in most other countries we visited so far.

It was a lengthy paddle down the inlet, but it was fun the entire way down. As we neared the end we passed a couple larger boats with angry eyes and faces pointed on the bow pointing down towards the water. Those are supposed to keep the mean animals in the water at bay. I’m not so sure that that would work so well.

Our river transport boats had made their way to the mouth of the inlet and were waiting for us. Our minicanoe left us and went right back upstream to get the next batch of people, whoever they were. I don’t think it would be anyone from our group though. But because we were one of the first ones in the water, we had to wait what seemed like an incredibly long time for everyone else to make it back to the boat. And the whole time all I’m seeing is that we’re going to be cutting it closer and closer to make it back to Ho Chi Minh City to run our errands. I was starting to become increasingly concerned.

Once we were all back on the boat, after what seemed like some people went down the inlet twice, we shoved off for the next destination. At this point it was after 1 o’clock, so I figured lunch was next. It wasn’t. The most confounding stop of all was next.

Next we went to a much larger inlet and parked just outside of it. There were large motorboats lined up to take us up the inlet. There were quite a number of motorboats lined up, but there were not enough. Mom and I were in one of the last groups and we had to wait for the first boat to go all the way in, and then come back out to pick us up. That also seemed to take like an incredibly long time.

It took a long time because it was a long ride up the river. The motorboats are quite different from the paddleboats. With the motorboats you get the big, fun wake and an increased chance of rocking and water entering into the craft. I’ve become such a bigger fan of boats over the past few months so anytime I’m on one it’s a great experience.

Once we finally arrived at the ‘dock’ and we disembarked the boat, there was nobody around to tell us where to go or what to do because we arrived so long after everyone else. Eventually someone indicated that we should follow one of two paths, but failed to note which one. I think I figured out that they both led to the same place, but getting to that point was a bit of a struggle.

Following the path we saw the group at yet another covered area, but this time with no tables or chairs. Everyone was just milling around and looking at stuff. But to get there first, we had to cross a wide and semi-deep stream. Instead of putting a bridge together, the locals used a fallen tree and attached a handrail to it. This tree was not large either, so some people really took their time crossing it. I made sure to jet across before any of the slowpokes tried to cross.

We found that this stop on the magical Vietnamese Mekong Delta mystery tour was for a coconut factory. They were making candy out of coconuts. They took us to a candy shoppe. They showed everyone (before we got there) the process and we had to put two and two together from all the stuff everywhere. This was not the Lucille Ball type of candy factory. It was all open air, with open flames and no hairnets. The candy looked like it came out decently, too. A bunch of people was suckered into buying an awful lot of it. It’s like writing a check to a dentist.

Mom and I were both pretty much done with the coconut factory pretty quickly, so we hung around until the crowd started to look bored, and there were there longer than we were, so once people started leaving, we did as well. Instead of walking over the log, we took the other path and did not have nearly as much trouble crossing the ‘ravine.’

I was unfortunately starting to get stressed about making it back to the City in time, but that may have been fueled by the fact that it was after two o’clock and all I’ve had to eat since breakfast was tea, a shot of honey, some pineapple and watermelon, and a coconut candy. So needless to say I was on the hungry side, and I think everyone else was as well. There were four separate groups of Semester at Sea here today, and I think we may have gotten one of the later or last lunches at the seafood place. And what a place that would turn out to be.

Mom and I went back to the motorboat and boarded in. The ride down was as fun as the ride up. Every so often the vegetation along the bank breaks and you can see inside and into the small places where people live. I’m not sure how one goes about attaining property here in the delta, but I can’t imagine it being incredibly difficult.

Once we were all back at the original riverboat, we headed a little further downstream to where we would finally be having lunch. I think they wanted to make sure that we were all good and hungry. I think that was a safe bet at this point. We were walking in as another group was leaving, and apparently back to their buses to head back. I’m not entirely sure how they got so ahead of us, but there’s lots of stuff I don’t know going on today.

So we find a non-vegetarian table because those people have to be sequestered somewhere else, even in the Mekong Delta. That said, all but one or two of the tables were non-vegetarian, so it wasn’t that tough to find a table. As it would turn out, sitting at the vegetarian table may have turned out to be a good idea.

I’m going to be frank about lunch, which at the time they brought it out was closer to dinner – it was the worst meal of the trip – SO FAR. Let’s not forget that we’ve still got quite a number of in-port days remaining in some wacky countries. They brought out an assortment of odd items. Perhaps the most odd of all was the fish. When they were bringing out fish, I thought that that would be a good idea. How can fish go wrong?

Well, it turns out the fish is called Elephant Ear fish. That was the first sign that we were going to begin to spiral wildly out of control here. As if the name of the fish was not bad enough, the fish came out and had not been gutted or prepared or anything that is normally done to fish, even on Survivor. To top it all off, the fish came out mounted, so it could look at you when it was put at your table. This was how our lunch was served to us:

After getting over the fact that it was not a centerpiece, but our lunch, I did not know what to do. I’ve never had to pick a fish apart with the scales still peeling off. Nobody at our table knew what to do. Actually, nobody at any of the other tables knew what to do either. Eventually, someone came around to the tables to show us how we were supposed to be peeling the skin back and digging in for a piece of the meat, and hopefully not coming out with other innards.

Wouldn’t you know that it did not taste good at all? The more and more I tried to eat it, the less I would eat, and the less hungry I became. It really wasn’t good at all. As if that was not enough, they kept bringing out more delectable items. Each one looked worse than the one before it and made the Elephant Ear fish look better by the second. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s called an Elephant Ear fish because it’s supposed to look like an elephant’s ear. Apparently, the Vietnamese have never seen an elephant before.)

Eventually, they brought out a soup, and it was at this point, I threw in the towel and didn’t bother to look at any more of the food that was being brought out. The soup was an orchestration in itself. It was not brought out in bowls, but a big bowl on top of its own heat source, which had to have been a safety hazard. One person at the table lifted up the lid, and I looked in and saw an amalgamation of unevenly sized chunks of stuff floating around inside a fluid that looked more like stomach contents than a broth. I pulled my seat away from the table and looked to see if anyone else was going to partake in the concoction.

Most people were not being as obvious about the fact that they were unhappy with lunch, but they soon joined me in calling it a day. It took a few minutes, but eventually my table decided to call it a day with lunch. Instead of eating, there was plenty of entertainment in the area because bees were flying around bothering people and stinging the people that were bothering the bees. Even after eating next to nothing, I felt quite full. I kept in the back of my head the fact that dinner would be around the corner.

Before we departed the lovely confines of the pavilion under which we ‘ate,’ I went to the bathroom. On the way back, I noticed that there were deep holes in the land in the area that were not connected to any tributary or inlet. They were just holes in the ground with a couple feet of water in them. I leaned over to take a look at what was in the murky water, and I found swimming Elephant Ear fish. They aren’t even being grown in the river – they’re growing in a dirty hole in the ground. I was quite happy that I did not have more of the fish to eat, because there is zero chance that growing fish in that manner is safe and sanitary on a short or long term basis.

After we were all set to go, we boarded back into the boats and then went upriver about fifteen or twenty minutes back to the initial drop-off point. They really took us up and down the river over the day. I’m not sure why, but some people waited until now to use the bathroom, and they were not nearly as clean as the ones that I just used. That’s what you get for waiting.

The best way to describe the ride back to Ho Chi Minh City was that I was running numbers and scenarios the entire time. I was stressing about how close we were going to cut it making it to the suit place by 7. Without hitting traffic into Ho Chi Minh City at rush hour should have us arriving around 5:30. Then I had to wait on line to get on the ship, a process that has taken up to an hour in the past, then Mom and I need to get to the suit place. There’s a lot of variables going on, and the plan has to be fluid in order to adapt to the changes and circumstances coming down the pike.

I was stressing about it again and as usual Mom was unconcerned. It took nearly three hours to get to the delta and that was with about an hours worth of stops. We left a little after 3:30, and figuring in the two hour transit, that’s where the 5:30 comes from, a full hour after the scheduled arrival time.

I’m not sure what happened, but right around 5 o’clock I could see the ship. I thought my eyes had deceived me. It really looked like we had taken the same route that we had in the morning, so I’m not entirely sure where we made up so much time. We hit traffic, too. That meant that we had some more wiggle room in the master plan, and we had to resort to Plan A. I never get to use Plan A.

So, we pull up to the boat, and I do what I can to hurry off the bus as fast as I can, even though Mom and I were in the backseat, and I made it to be the fifth or sixth person on line. Things were already looking incredibly positive. It appeared that Mom was right all along again. I made it onto the ship within ten minutes and rushed up two decks and down the long hallway to the room.

I threw my backpack onto the bed and grabbed the camera charger before I forgot that for a second time, then went right back the way I came and out of the ship. It was quite an efficient pit stop. And as luck would have it, the shuttle bus was minutes away from leaving to go downtown, saving us the trouble of waiting or finding a cab. Things were almost going too well.

The bus was nearly empty if we weren’t the only two people on it. As we were pulling out of the dock, the fourth and final bus from the Mekong Delta pulled in, and the line to get into the ship had grown to at least 15 to 20 people at that time, as it looked like another group arrived back while I was in the ship.

Mom and I departed the bus once it arrived outside of the Rex Hotel and but faith in each other that we would remember where the suit place was. The map that we had wouldn’t be any help because it was no help in finding the place in the first place. We both agreed on a side street to walk up, and we were both correct.

We walked into the suit place and the women all told us that we were the last one to pick up our order. It seems as though the two guys who put in an order for 17 hundred suits apiece had taken the opportunity to come earlier in the day and be out of our way. I tried on my suit, and it fit great. I was quite glad that there was no need for adjustments. There was a rumor swirling around that the suits are made loose and then have to be adjusted after the fitting. But that did not appear to be the case here. And I was thrilled about it. We left the suit place with over an hour of time to spare before they were to close. And I was now walking around the streets of Ho Chi Minh City with a suit over my shoulder.

And now the biggest decision and problem on our hands was whether to have dinner at a steak or Italian place. It’s amazing how things work out sometimes. I’m not used to that. While Mom and I did not have all the time in the world to spend with each other now, the white elephant that that was, I still had about four hours before I was due back on the ship, and I planned to enjoy my waning hours in Vietnam.

Even though time was ample, it wasn’t plentiful so we rushed over to the Italian restaurant, Santa Lucia, on the main avenue of downtown. We did quite well crossing the street. It’s a piece of cake down here compared to what it was up in Hanoi. This was like child’s play. I’m not sure why I settled on the Italian option, but I did. I think it was because the ship does not do Italian well and I really wanted another good meal before departing. I had a feeling that China and Japan would have a few tricks up their sleeves for food.

Our dinner was very good. The table of parents and student next to us agreed as well. It was nice to actually fill my belly as opposed to convincing myself that it was full so I wouldn’t have to eat anymore. Needless to say, I did not order the Elephant Ear fish. I don’t even think it was on the menu, although I really didn’t study the fish section tonight.

Just as I was upon entering Vietnam earlier in the week, I was happy. I had a great week and I spent it with Mom. What’s better than that? I can’t say enough about how much of a great time that Mom and I had. I loved every second of it. There’s not another person I would have rather done it with. And I’ve got to hand it to her – Mom did an excellent job for her first time out of the US. It felt like she’s been doing this forever.

After our dessert, we left the restaurant and started heading back to Mom’s hotel. We were discussing what to do in the morning. We were not leaving the dock until about 8 or 9 in the morning because the tide has to come in to exit the river safely. Mom was deciding whether or not she was going to go to the dock to watch the ship depart in the morning. I said I have my Global class starting around 9:20, and I’d only be getting up just before that because I was looking forward to catching up on some sleep. Mom said that she’d watch the ship leave from the hotel. And I said that was fine.

At this point, we were about at Mom’s hotel and we executed a move that we have much practiced on my many departures to and from college. I call it the quick goodbye. In one fluid, we got a cab and without any delay I wished Mom well on her trip back home, and she wished me well on the rest of my trip and she’ll see me in about a month in San Diego. There was a quick kiss and hug, then I was in the cab and gone before we both started tearing up. I made it into the cab before that happened. I’m going to guess Mom didn’t make it much further.

Again, a completely different route was taken back to the ship, but I made it to the ship, and not some dark room in an abandoned warehouse. I had to come back to the ship sooner rather than later in case there was a line to get in. Getting in late would mean dock time and not being able to leave the ship straight away when we pull into Hong Kong. And my trip to China leaves as we are pulling into port, so being late tonight was totally out of the question.

I made it back with 80 minutes to spare to on-ship time, and miraculously there was no line at all to board back onto the ship. And they didn’t check my suit for anything either. I found that unusual.

I did everything that I could to get to bed as soon as possible. There was no reason to stay up any later than necessary. I may have hit a record for how long it took me to shower and get into bed.

I awoke around 9 o’clock the next morning to the sound of the engines rumbling to life. I realized that we had not left port yet. I thought to myself a question: “Mom and I both said that we would not go out to look for one another on the dock. Why do I think that I should be going out to have a look?”

I’ve heard of people having connections with one another. That they know what the other is thinking at all times. I don’t have that with anyone. But what I do have with Mom is some bizarre otherworldly connection. It’s mother-son connection that I doubt few others on the planet have. Here’s how I knew that the connection was as strong as it was: as I am walking out of the ship outside onto the starboard side of Deck 5, I observe a group of about four people exiting a cab on the dock. I don’t have my glasses on, but I didn’t need them. Not only did Mom and I both show up to look for one another when we specifically said we would not, but we arrived at the EXACT same moment. Now you tell me that there’s no mother-son superconnection there.

There she was, just as I somehow knew she always would be. I still can’t figure that out and it remains one of the many mysteries of the voyage.

That’s me waving goodbye to Mom and a few of the other parents as we were pulling out. But as we started moving, something odd began to happen. You may have wondered why this entry is titled “The Show Stopping Dance Number.” You may have thought I was referring to something that already happened, like something at the water puppet show, or something I forgot to write about. (What, me forget to write about something?) No, what happened as we were pulling out of the port was the Show Stopping Dance Number. Instead of letting me explain it, I’ll let the video speak for itself:

That was Mom. And that was Vietnam. Thrilling and exciting from beginning to end. It was one of my favorite countries on the trip so far, right up there with South Africa, which could not have been more different from Vietnam. It’s a country that I’d like to come back to. There’s still a bunch more I’ve yet to cover, but that will have to wait for another time. As for now, we’re off to sail down the Saigon River, maybe flip over a few small boats along the way, and in a few minutes, I’ll go inside for Global studies, for reasons unknown.

Thanks for coming, Mom! I love you!