**********************************************

Saturday, September 30, 2006

China!

I wrote this before we got to Vietnam, but then the internet stopped working. There will be a Vietnam blog soon to come but let me just say I LOVE it here! Ok, so on to China…

China was crazy and amazing at the same time. I absolutely loved it.

Sailing into Hong Kong on Thursday morning was an experience in itself and I’m glad that I was able to do it. As soon as we reached land, there was a non-stop line of skyscrapers. They went on for miles and miles lining the waterfront.
I got really lucky with my Beijing trip. Out of the six trips going to Beijing my group was the first one to leave on Thursday and the last one to get back on Saturday, leavening Sunday open for Hong Kong. However, I didn’t get so lucky at the airport. I went to take some Hong Kong dollars out of the ATM. When I was done it gave me a receipt, and it gave me my card back, but it didn’t give me my money. I called HSBC (the bank) but they told me I had to call my home bank. All I could think was I’m in China, how am I going to do that? So for now calling Bank of America is on my to do list.
We flew on Dragon Air from HK to Beijing and I would have to say, it was probably the best flight I’ve ever taken. They gave us free newspapers, there were bottles of water in the pouch in front of us, and the trays even had a little cup holder that flipped down so you didn’t have to put down your whole tray when you got a drink. For dinner we were given Dim Sum which tasted great and little containers of Hagen Daz ice cream. Honestly, what type of airlines gives you Hagen Daz? The in-flight movie was “Nacho Libre.” I can’t say that I really enjoyed it, it was actually really terrible.
We got into Beijing at around 6pm and were met at the airport by three girls from our host University, Peking University and then headed to the school to eat dinner with other students. The student I ate dinner with was named Susan (her American name kind of like how we choose different names in Spanish class). She was very sweet and is looking at coming to the US to get her doctorate. The dinner was very good. I would actually say it was probably my favorite meal all week. The food just tasted really good.
The question that had plagued each and every one of us since we got our itineraries had been what on earth is a cloisonné factory? On Friday we found out. Cloisonné can be anything from jewelry, to vases, to ornaments. These are fashioned out of metal on which designs are set. They are hand painted are really beautiful. At the end of our tour of the factory we of course got a chance to shop in the factory store. Many other SAS kids were buying large expensive vases or pictures and getting them sent home. Some of the items ran upwards of $100. I guess I’m just cheap but I bought a few things some earrings, bracelets and a charm.
After the factory we went to the Ming Tombs. I guess there must be more than one Ming tomb because I looked all over for the avenue of Elephants and Camels and couldn’t find it. I was so disappointed, that was the only thing I wanted to see there. I did find small elephants you can sit on like stools, but it wasn’t the same.
Overall I was less than impressed with the tomb we went to which was called “the underground palace.” We had to climb down 5 sets of stairs to get into the tomb which was boring and over visited. I personally didn’t think there was anything special down there. Even the coffins were incased in bright red boxes that seemed entirely out of place.
The Ming tombs was where had I my first experience with Chinese street retail. It was honestly scary, they don’t let up. They’ll pull you into their stall and keep showing you things. Since they don’t know English they just kept repeating the word here over and over as they show you “jade” charms, dragon sculptures, t-shirts. I finally ended up buying a Chinese placemat/chopsticks set just to get away. The one good thing is you can bargain down so things you buy aren’t that expensive. I got the set for $3, and I probably could have even bargained it down cheaper.
That afternoon we went to the Great Wall at Jurongguang pass. I was somewhat disappointed that you couldn’t see the wall stretching on for miles and miles, we were at somewhat of an isolated section, but it was supposed to be the most important section in the entire wall. I have to admit that as we pulled into view I had a slight feeling of dread. The wall at Jurongguang pass it mostly a climb up a mountain. When you get to the top you are at the highest point in the entire great wall. Anyone who makes it to the top is called a Hero, and I can now see why.
The climb to the top of the great wall was the second hardest thing I’ve done in my life, only surpassed by the climb I did to Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier. I don’t think you could fully understand the difficulty unless you saw it. There were nearly no flat spots on the entire climb. The sheer angle of the stairs was quite difficult, I can’t imagine having to climb it without a handrail, and the steps aren’t uniform. One step may be two feet tall and the next one may be 2 inches.
In each of the guard towers you also have the choice to climb to the top of them. The staircases in these are even worse. They are narrow, steep, and have been walked on so many times that the stones have a saddle shape. I could have sworn more than once that I was going to fall.
When I finally reached the top (and hour and 15 minutes after starting) it was so crowded with SAS students I could hardly move (there were 2 other SAS groups there at the same time). The view made up for it though. You could see for miles and miles. I probably could have seen even farther if the infamous Beijing smog hadn’t settled.
Honestly, the smog in Beijing is so bad that in the city area visibility is only about a mile ore less. Everything has a brownish tint to it. Beijing actually reminds me a lot of Tijuana, Mexico. Dirty, run down, and full of poverty. At the same time though they are feverishly getting prepared for the Olympics. Construction is going on everywhere. They’re building hundreds of new hotels, shopping areas, and resorts. We were able to see a few. One incorporated themes from all different Asian countries; another looked like it was pulled right out of the Mediterranean.

That night we ate Peking Duck for dinner. It wasn’t what I expected. It was basically little pieces of duck that you put inside a small tortilla and eat it. It didn’t taste bad. It actually tasted good, it juts wasn’t spectacular like I thought it would be.
After dinner we got to watch a Chinese acrobatic show and it was spectacular, amazing, phenomenal. These people did things that I would only be able to do I my dreams. They balanced people on their heads, did unicycle tricks on a tight rope, fit 15 people onto a bike, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. This was the one time in the trip so far that I wished I had a video camera.
On Saturday, we checked out of the hotel and first went to the Temple of Heaven. The temple of Heaven is where the Ming and Qing Emperors would go to pray for a good harvest among other things. I liked the Temple of heaven best out of all the Imperial monuments we visited. Surrounding all of the temple pieces is a large park where the Chinese come on Saturdays and just hang out. There were groups singing, other groups playing music, and other groups dancing. Then there were others playing this game called Tai Chi Ball. It’s played with two people, each person having a racket with a stretchy elastic material in the middle. You throw a yellow ball back and forth with slow choreographed moves, around the back, under the leg, twists and turns. It looks really good when it’s done right. I myself am pretty terrible at the game. We walked by a couple people playing it and they offered to play it with us. I kept dropping the ball, it was embarrassing but so fun at the same time. Both me and Diana ended up buying a set. So, to my family, I have a new game to play at birthday parties J.
After the temple of heaven we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city. This was the most visibly communist area in Beijing. All of the PRC’s political buildings surround the square, and there are constantly uniformed guards walking around Since now their getting ready for the Olympics and also their National day (Oct. 1) they had erected huge monuments to the country and Olympics out of statues and flowers in Tiananmen square. It was interesting to see. Out of the 5 cartoon characters they have for the Olympics I decided my favorite is the Panda. I even bought a sitcker of him to put on my Nalgene.
There were a lot of beggars in Tiananmen square. I felt bad, but at the same time they wouldn’t leave me alone so I just wanted them to go away. They weren’t just normal people begging either, they all had something wrong with them or were amputees. One boy had severely disfigured feet and a massive tumor on his back, another man had no arm.
I was so disappointed that that the Forbidden city was under renovation. The one building that everyone associates with the Forbidden City, which has the throne inside of it, was completely veiled over and you couldn’t go in it either. It was the one building I wanted to see.
One thing I noticed in the Forbidden City was you could really tell the difference between the un renovated buildings and the renovated ones. The renovated ones had bright shiny new paint jobs, where the old ones were chipped and peeling.
About half way through the city a art student approached me and Diana telling us there was a free art exposition that we should see. I should have known as soon as I saw the building that it wasn’t an art expo at all. Once we got in all she tried to do was sell us paintings. Some were hers, some were other art students, and they were all good, but I didn’t have money to buy art in China. She told us that these paintings usually go for $100 US but since we were students also she was going to give us a special deal of only 200 Yuan. I was completely honest and told here that I only had 50 Yuan. After a couple seconds of consideration she said Ok you can have it for 50 Yuan. I think she must have been desperate to make a sale because 50 Yuan is only about $5 US. It’s a really beautiful picture though. It has birds and flowers on it, it looks very Chinese.
When we were walking to the bus after the Forbidden City we were surrounded by street merchants who wouldn’t let up. It was a good thing and annoying thing at the same time. They were desperate so they would follow you for blocks and bargain until they finally made a sale. I got quite a few things for less than $10. I actually think that my whole time I China I only spent about $60 and I got quite a bit of stuff.
The flight back to Hong Kong was not as nice as our flight to Beijing. We flew on China Air and everything just seemed more worn and less special. The food sucked. We did get ice cream but it wasn’t Hagen Daz. They also didn’t start the movie until about half way through the flight so we weren’t able to finish it. The plane was mostly filled with SAS students (our group and another University trip group) so when the movie turned off nearly the whole plane groaned. Now in Vietnam there is going to be a mad rush to buy “Take the Lead.”

Hong Kong was a really nice city, really big. We were docked on the Kowloon side so we could look over the Hong Kong Island from the ship. My only regret from my time in Hong Kong was that I didn’t make it up to Victoria Peak. If I ever go back I will go up there, but the one day I was in Hong Kong the weather was overcast and drizzly so the view wouldn’t have been very good.
Priscilla, who’s family is from Hong Kong showed a bunch of us girls around the city. We went to a market area in Kowloon that was amazing. We went to both the Ladies Market and the Goldfish Market and also to another market right next to both of them that didn’t have a name. The bargaining wasn’t as easy as in China because they weren’t as desperate, but I was still able to buy some cool things. I was able to get two LeSportsac bags, one messenger and a small duffel for less than $10 US.
Later we took the Star Ferry over the Hong Kong Island. The Pilipino women who work as domestic workers in HK have Sundays off, so every Sunday they congregate in the park right outside of the ferry terminal. It was crazy, there were literally thousands of Pilipino women just sitting around.
Every night at 8 HK puts on a laser light show from the buildings on HK Island. It was crazy looking. I couldn’t imagine any US city doing the same thing. Different colored lights would run up and down even the highest skyscrapers. I wish we had been able to hear the soundtrack that is supposed to go along with it.

Monday, September 18, 2006

JAPAN

So I’ve tried to post this for the last two days but our internet wasn’t working very well.

I POSTED PICTURES ---------------------------->
WARNING: My N button on my computer is broken so if a word appears to be missing a letter that is why.

So this is where flexibility comes into play with SAS. Last night we came back to the ship after spending a great last day in Japan and turned on the TV. Instead of saying Kobe to Qingdao it said Kobe to Hong Kong. Basically, if we went to Qingdao we would have to barrel right through the center of the Typhoon Shanshan (for those of you who don’t know what a typhoon is it is the same thing as a Hurricane with another name). In the middle of the typhoon there are 36 foot waves and 160 knot winds. So basically in a mandatory meeting last night they explained to us that we would be missing Qingdao and heading straight for Hong Kong by way of the Pacific ocean instead of the inland passage. For all of us that have Beijing trips we’ll be flying out of Hong Kong instead. The best news was we’ll be getting 50% of whatever we paid for the trip back. I have no idea why but I like the idea that I get to go on the trip and get money back. The most disappointing thing is I wont get to spend any time in Hong Kong. I’ll get to see it from the ship and bus but that’s it. Originally, we had 6 days between Qingdao and Hong Kong but now we only have 4 days total. We just have to look at it as an adventure I guess.

Now for Japan! I had an absolutely amazing time. To tell you the truth I wasn’t looking forward to it to much, the country had just never interested me to much, but now I would definitely go back.
When we pulled into the Port of Kobe on Tuesday there was a fireboat spouting fountains of water and a marching band to greet us. It was a really exciting moment. Everyone was standing on the decks watching. The Japanese people in the port and even on the overpass behind the port were all waving to us. There was even a cute old man dancing around to the music with an umbrella and a fan.
Although the ship pulled in at 8 am our cultural and diplomatic briefings took forever so we weren’t cleared to get off he ship until around 11:30. Instead of getting involved in the mad rush to get off Diana and I held back a little back and waited. When we did get off we went right up to the train line to take it into Sanamoya Station. We decided to get our rail passes before going to the ATM because we knew there would be a bad line if we waited. We didn’t have to wait in line for the passes but the ATM line was long and it would only let you take out money in multiples of 10,000 yen (approx. $100) and the max it would let you take out is 30,000 yen.
We went back to the train station to catch our train to Kyoto and got totally lost. We didn’t know what track to go to which trains went where (sometimes the trains don’t put your city as the destination but one past it). Luckily we ran into an American couple who had visited Japan several times so they were a lot of help. We got on an express train to Kyoto but before we even got Osaka something happened on the track so we had to get off and switch to a local train for the rest of the ride, which took forever. See, express trains only make a few stops local trains stop at EVERY stop along the way.
We finally got into Kyoto around 3:15. Let me say Kyoto station is architecturally amazing. I don’t think I could even conjure the words to explain what it looks like. It was fascinating but easy to get confused in too. We eventually found the tourist info center and they were so helpful. The man even made a reservation at a Ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn) for us, which was conveniently located across the street from the station.
The Ryokan was really awesome. When you walk in you have to take off your shoes and put on slippers. You wore the slippers up to our room and then right inside the door there was a little square of wood floor and a sink, beyond that there is a tatamie mat floor. I made the mistake of wearing the slippers onto the mat floor and I got yelled at by the lady that showed us our room. I don’t know what she said though because obviously it was in Japanese.
During the day the room was set up with a small table in the middle with tea on it and two pillows to sit on. Then there was also a TV in the corner. An odd mix. At night they put out thick mats for us to sleep on. It was really comfy except for the rice pillow. I’m glad I don’t have to sleep on one of those every night.
After we got settled into the Ryokan we attempted to make it to Sanjusangendo before it closed at 5:00. We made it there at 4:35 so stoked that we made it before closing. It turned out that they stop letting people in at 4:30. It was disappointing. So after that, thoroughly disappointed I decided to buy a coke in an aluminum bottle for one of the hundreds of vending machines and we walked to Gion, which is the geisha district. It wasn’t at all what I expected. It pictured it to be very traditional, but it was fairly modern with a lot of shops. We saw a couple geisha. Three of them we’re pretty sure were fake, we saw all of them on a street where all the tourists are. We’re pretty sure they just walk around so that the tourists can take pictures of them, but we did see another geisha in a completely different part of Gion who we definitely think was real. She was more well put together and was accompanied by her assistant, she ducked into a restaurant (I think that’s what it was) before we got to close though, and all restaurant doors are covered with curtains we couldn’t see inside.
The next day we woke up early and took the train out to Inari so we could go to Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine (Shinto), which is the shrine used in the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha” when she’s running through all of the red torri. I ended up having to buy an overpriced umbrella from a convenience store because it was raining so hard. I tried to do it with just a hat and coat, but in minutes I would have been soaked through.
The shrine was even more amazing than I had imagined. The torri were never ending, they stretched on for 4 kilometers, every now and again being broken up by a shrine. My favorite area was where the torri led up to a shrine right on a lake. Around the large shrine there were several personal shrines with miniature torri. What added to the element was a slight mist in the are caused by the rain that carried the smell of incense.
After Fushimi Inari we went to the Golden Pavilion. It was cool looking but not as cool as I thought it would be. Maybe I would have liked it better if I’d seen it before Fushimi Inari. Next we tried our luck again at Sanjusangendo. This time we were able to get in. I have to say it was amazing also. It was a giant hall filled with 1000 life sized Kanon figures and 1 giant Kanon. Kanon is one of Buddha’s Bodhisattvas. The scale of the work was incredible. It’s hard to imagine that so many statues can be made by hand. I wanted to take pictures so bad but because it’s still a functioning temple we weren’t allowed to.
The next temple we went to was called Nazen-ji. It wasn’t one of the more common temples so I’d doubt if anyone else from SAS went there but the description given of it in Lonely planet attracted both me and Diana to it. There is the normal temple complex, of which the grounds are free but you have to pay to get into any of the buildings. The Lonely Planet guide told us that if we walked through the complex, under a red brick aqueduct, and up a path we would be able to find a waterfall that the devout believe is sacred and bath under. When we finally reached the top of many stairs we found the waterfall. It was not a spectacular waterfall, just a stream of water dropping off of a rock but the setting was somewhat ethereal. Again there was a mist from the rain and set against the trees and waterfall it seemed somewhat magical.

The next day we got up early to catch the bullet train to Tokyo. The scenery along the ride was amazing. Mountains, rice fields, and the ocean. It was beautiful. We reached Tokyo at around 10:30 and headed straight for our hotel in the Asakusa area of Tokyo. Since check in wasn’t until 3:00 we were able to drop our stuff off but had to wait to register. That hotel was something else. It was one of 2 capsule hotels in all of Tokyo that accept women. For those who don’t know, in a capsule hotel there are no “rooms.” You stay in a 7 foot tube which has it’s own light, TV, etc. Out of 9 floors, the eighth floor was only for women. I wanted to take a shower but since the hotel was mainly for men, the bath was also only for men so I had to wash my hair in the sink. I wonder what the other women do.
We went out and explored the Asakusa area. Near the hotel we found a temple called Senso-ji. It looked really spectacular with a 5 story pagoda. Right next to the temple there was a small amusement park that only took up a quarter city block but fit all the essential rides into it. I thought it was a strange contradiction. Later we took the train to Shinjuku. Diana had heard that it had really cool modern architecture, but we couldn’t find it. All we saw was a lot of lights and advertisements for ladies/gentlemen’s clubs. After wards we went to Shibuya, which is the Tokyo version of Times square. Although Shibuya is bigger I think Times Square looks more mesmerizing. The one awesome thing about Shibuya though is the foot traffic. It’s the busiest intersections on earth. Every few minutes all of the lights turn red and the whole intersection turns into a cross walk which hundreds of people cross each time.
Overall I didn’t like Tokyo to much. It was very crowded and claustrophobic.
The next day me and Diana split up and went our separate ways. She wanted to go up north to Morioka to see a festival and I wanted to go back south the Nara. I got up at 6:00 and caught the 7:00 bullet train back to Kyoto, where I caught an express train for Nara.
I had planned on just doing Nara alone (Japan is one of the safest countries in the world to travel around in) but when I got there I ran into my friends Raine and Robin. If you ever go to Japan I would highly recommend going to this city. About 1km from the train station there is a huge park that is full of tame deer. You can buy crackers for 150 yen to feed them, although this can become quite dangerous. Once the deer see that you have the crackers they will crowd around you like pigeons. It gets quite scary. A couple deer tried to eat my shirt and anther one kept butting me. As I’m backing up trying to get away I had this huge group of Japanese just laughing at me, I guess I was half laughing at myself. As we got farther into the compound the deer got less aggressive. They would bow before you have them a cracker, kind of like the hippogriph in Harry Potter. It was strange.
In the middle of the park was Todai-ji temple, which is the largest wooden structure in the world. Inside of it there was a 50ft Buddha statue. In my art and architecture class I had learned that the Buddha was big, but I didn’t think it was going to be as big as it was. I am honestly about as tall as one of his fingers. There’s one pillar in the building that has a hole carved into it that you can crawl through that is as big as one of nostrils.
We went to McDonalds for lunch and it was so good. I know your probably thinking McDonalds! Your in a foreign country! Well, the McDonalds in Japan (and also the Wendy’s) has some different options. I got a Teriyaki burger and it was SOOOO good. I would highly recommend getting one of you ever go to Japan. It’s worth it.
After Nara we just went back to Kobe and walked around for a while. We met up with Heidi, Ruby, Sara, and Matte and they went and got some Sake. Since me and Sarah weren’t drinking, the girls behind the counter gave us free cokes. At first we couldn’t understand what they were doing, and the language barrier wasn’t helping much, but somehow it came across that they were just giving them to us.
It was so nice to get back to the ship that night, take a shower, and finally drop all of my stuff. I was so sick of walking with my backpack on. My neck still hurts from it.
The next day Heidi and I took the train down to Himeji to see the castle. It was kind of drizzling so I reluctantly brought along my umbrella. After 15 minutes the rain stopped and I ended up having to carry around my massive umbrella for the rest of the day.
As soon as you get out of the station you can see the castle on the top of a hill in the distance. You have to walk about 1km to actually get to the grounds and then when your inside you have to do a lot of extra walking and climbing. It was really beautiful although the inside wasn’t as impressive as I thought it would be. We had to take of our shoes and carry them in a bag every time we entered a building. The main castle building is 7 stories tall and you have to climb up steep staircases to get to the top. It acted somewhat like a museum. On each floor there would be a few glass cases containing some sort of painting, weapon, or Samurai Armor. Once on the top floor there was a spectacular view of all Himeji. The roofs of all the castle buildings looked really cool to. On the tips of the roofs there were dolphin figures.
After completing our first goal, visiting the castle, Heidi and I set out to accomplish our other goal, find and eat conveyor belt sushi. In blogs from past voyages I had heard all about conveyor belt sushi, so much so that I thought it was quite common. It was honestly the hardest thing to find ever. We asked several people in Himeji and still couldn’t find it so we decided to go back to Kobe and try our luck. After spending about half and hour trying to communicate with the women in the tourist center at Sanamoya station we finally got directions to a place.
I didn’t hate sushi as much as I thought I would. It actually wasn’t bad at all, at least the type I had. I had a piece of shrimp and some yellow stuff in it. There were other types of sushi coming out on the belt that I would have rather shot myself than ate. Squid sushi, eel sushi, fish eggs, you name it they had it.
After feeling satisfied with accomplishing both of our goals we set out to find the 100 yen store (equivalent to the US $1 store). When we got there we knew it was the place to be because about 10 other SAS kids and even the cameraman were there. 100 yen stores are much better than a $1 store could ever be. You can buy anything there and they’re fairly decent stuff. Any type of school supplies, canvases for painting on, dishes. Chopsticks, makeup, cleaning stuff, socks, Hello Kitty stuff (I was really excited about this), food, headphones, the list could go on and on.
After getting a crepe from “Dipper Dans,” and thoroughly stocking up on all flavors of Pocky we headed back to the ship. I’m sad to have left Japan but I’m so excited for the countries to come. Since now we have the two extra days at sea we had our A7 day yesterday, then we have today and tomorrow off of all classes except for Global Studies and we’ll have B7 on Wednesday. Then it’s Hong Kong on Thursday. I’m so excited!

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Hawaii ( and a little more)

First off, let me say I POSTED PICTURES! Check out my link to the side. Now for my entry….

Aloha! Hawaii was beautiful! Everything about it is just a little sweeter. I will admit I didn’t like what I saw of Oahu as much as Maui, but Hawaii is Hawaii.
Nearly everyone on the ship woke up at 5:30 Saturday morning to go out on deck to see our approach to the Island and watch the sunrise. I was so happy to finally see land again after 5 days. After all, Hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world. We approached the Island before the sun came up so you could see the lights from the lines of houses stretching up the hillsides. It was a pretty awesome sight.
We docked probably around 7:15, then we had to go through customs so we weren’t able to get off the ship until about 8:00 or 8:15. I was glad that I hadn’t made any real plans so I didn’t feel like I had to rush off anywhere. A lot of students were going on SAS trips but wanted to buy Japan rail passes (another thing I was happy I had already taken care of). So they ran off to find taxi’s to take them to the travel agencies.
Jess, Jennifer, Izumi, and I decided to just walk to Waikiki instead of taking a bus to save some money. We didn’t plan on Ala Moana center being as far away as it was though. It was made worse because it was so hot out and there wasn’t a lot of shade along the walk. By the time we finally reached the mall all of us were SO thirsty. We made a beeline for the food court. Although part of me wanted some substantial form of thirst quencher I still opted for the strawberry passion fruit smoothie, which is only my favorite drink ever.
After we had all gotten our drinks we decided to try and find a travel agent so that Jennifer could get a JR pass. We found the building on a map and it turned out to be pretty far so we caved in and took the bus. During the bus ride we decided that Jennifer and Izumi would get off to find the rail pass and me and jess would ride the bus back around to walmart to get some shopping done. Not a smart move on your part. We had been told that the bus went in a loop so we thought that we’d be able to get back to where we started, but when we got to the end of Waikiki by Diamond head the bus driver stopped the bus and told us we had to get off (he wasn’t very friendly).
At this point we were much farther away than we had intended. We lucked out though because we were dropped off right at the Okinawa festival. We walked around for awhile, observed the people and took some pictures in front of Diamond head then decided to try and make our way back to the ship. I took some pictures of this surfer statue that I thought was Duke H. (the great surfer), but it just ended up being some random statue. The Duke statue was farther down the beach and by the time we got to it we were so rushed I didn’t even get to take a picture.
We actually got really lucky, we randomly were able to catch a free Hilo Hattie shuttle to the Hilo Hattie store which is located kinda close to where the ship is, anyway closer than we were at the time. It was on a really cute open air trolley and the bus driver also doubled as a tour guide so we got a nice little tour of Honolulu. When we got to Hilo Hattie we decided to walk around the store since we were already there instead of staying on the trolly to the Aloha Tower cruise terminal. We got free shell lays, free pineapple orange juice and even got to see the biggest Hawaiian shirt in the world.
After we got back to the ship and changed we tried to catch the free trolley back to Waikiki but it passed us by so we ended up walking. At first Jess was hell bent on getting back down to the end of Waikiki by Diamond head because there was supposed to be “less tourists,” but by the time we finally reached Waikiki we were so tired and hot, we just wanted to plop down on the first piece of beach we found.
We ended up walking through the Hilton the get to the beach. It is so cool inside. They had this little shopping village that looked like you were in China. I wanted to take so many pictures but I held back. I’m trying to save all of my Chinese pictures for china. They also had flamingos which made me remember the Westin on Maui.
We spent about three hours on the beach. I thought it would have been really packed since it was labor day weekend but it was just average. The lack of people could have been due to the fact that our sun bathing was punctuated by rain showers. They didn’t last more than a minute but it was still somewhat uncomfortable.
Jess and I got back to the ship at about 2000. On ship time was 2100 but we didn’t want to chance getting 2 hours of dock time for Japan. I heard that there was about 20 people that were only about 5 minutes late but they still got dock time none the less.
After spending a wonderful day in Hawaii I had an interview to be photo editor for the yearbook. After the interview I wasn’t to confident that I had gotten it because of my lack of Adobe Photoshop skills and there were still 2 other people to interview. This morning Patrick (the photographer) left a note on my door asking me to come see him. I don’t know if he split the photo editor position, or just created new jobs. I forget my exact title, but my basic job is to collect photos people submit in the yearbook box on the server and choose which ones we use (at least that’s the impression I got). Anyway, I’m still so excited to finally get to work on a yearbook.
It’s so peaceful being out at sea again. To be able to look in all directions and see nothing is surreal. So far the waves have been a little bit rougher than the first half but it could definitely be worse. Everybody pretty much has their sea legs now so no one is getting sick any more.
Speaking of the water, yesterday I was standing on the front deck looking out and saw what I thought was a small bird. I thought I was pretty odd since we were so far away from land. Then I saw another one and another one. I finally figured out they were flying fish. It was a pretty awesome site.
We get to set our clocks back again tonight and then we will completely loose Thursday. Sept. 7 2006 is the day that doesn’t exist. I’m so thankful that we’re going around the world this way. If we were loosing an hour every night I would be one cranky person.