Hawaii: 2 Days of Excitement and Reflection

Wow, was Hawaii exciting! The fun just never stopped. The first day was probably the most dare devilish day that I have ever been through. Hailey, Patricia, Nikki, Tom, and I went to find a place to SKYDIVE! I mean, I never thought that I would do something SO crazy in all of my life. It took us a while to figure out where we were going to go, and how to get there, but once we did we were fully committed. We found out van and squeezed about 25 SAS students into a 15 passenger van to drive 45 minutes to the north shore to go jump out of an airplane. We got there and there were a lot of people coming down at the time that we were pulling in and they were just landing all over the place. The five of us were able to get our jumps in on the second plane after we arrived. We got lucky too, because when the third plane went up the winds changed to blowing toward the ocean, so they had to come back down. There were 7 SAS students who got to jump, and the five of us were part of that. It was so cool. There are not really words to describe the feeling of knowing that you are about to just drop/jump out of a plane. I was the 4th out of 5 to go in our plane, and it was cool just to watch people drop and get sucked out. When I went out we did a flip out of the plane, and then a few turns, free fell for a few seconds then glided right back to the field. It was really cool. The total time free falling was about 30-40 seconds, and the ride on with the chute open was about 4-5 minutes. We were the last to go, and we got a lot of evil looks for it. People were trying to be happy for us, asking how it was and everything. We could tell they were mad though. I forgot to mention the things that we saw before we went up in the plane. We first got there and a guy was walking around with a neck brace on, there was a lady walking with crutches with a hurt leg, and there was a person who came in too fast and basically had a crash landing. I think all of those things made one of the girls that I was with tear up a little bit when she was set to jump. She had to go last in our plane. I think the guy forced her out, and she loved it once she was down. It all turned out ok. After we jumped we had to wait around for a long time for the shuttle to come back and pick us up. We were trying to get to the beach in a timely fashion, but it took us a lot longer than we thought it would. We wanted to go surfing a Waikiki beach. We ended up getting done skydiving at about 11:30, but didn’t get to the beach until about 3. We would have done it a lot faster, had they not cancelled all the jumps after us. We ended up making to the beach for about an hour. It was very crowded, and we were told that was because it was a Sunday. I didn’t end up going surfing, or learning to surf for two reasons. One the waves were not that big, and two Patricia and I had to be back to go to her Aunt and Uncles house. We went there for dinner and to just hang out a little bit to get away from all the touristy things. We had a home cooked meal, which was great and just got to hang out and talk. There were five of us that went, and I ended up being the only guy. It seems to happen that way when the ship is 75% women. We ended up learning how to do a hula dance. Her aunt and uncle sell DVDs that are made for children to learn hula dancing. We hung out there for a while, and then headed back to the ship. Some of the girls went out, but I was tired from being up so early, and went to sleep. I was up early that morning, and had to get up early the second morning for a full day at Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor took up the better part of my second day, and I am really ok with that all. I was suppose to be with three girls, but one didn’t wake up after repeated calls and bangs on her door. She ended up meeting up with us later on in the afternoon. The Arizona Memorial was really just mind blowing. I don’t really know how to put it, because at one time I am in awe of what happened because of the destruction, but also in awe of the men that fought and were part of all that happened. It is really something special to me now. They asked us not to talk while we were on the boat to get to the Memorial, and also while we were out there. It was hard not to talk about it, but at the same time I don’t know what I would have said. You could see parts of the ship that were still above the water, and there was even a place that oil was still leaking out of and floating to the top of the water. I would have thought after all these years that all the oil that was on the ship would have either burned up that day, or seeped out already. We spent about 30 minutes out on the Memorial, and then were shuffled back to the main area. There was a WWII submarine and a battleship that we could board and look through, so we decided to do that. I told the girls that I was with, that the submarine was one thing I had to do, because of my Uncle Charlie. He has told me so many stories about his submarine days, and sometimes it is hard to believe the things that happened to him. I sure believe them now. I saw bunk rooms, the control rooms, the engine room (where Uncle Charlie was the main man), and all the other rooms that are on the subs. It is so small and the holes that allow you to go from section to section are really small. I thought that I was going to hit my head, or bang my knee every time I went through them. It was crazy! I really don’t see how they lived like they did. The submarine that I was on was called the Bowfin. It was put into service a year after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. A girl that was with me has a cousin that is in the Navy in Hawaii. She said that she might be able to get us a tour of a current submarine. We didn’t end up getting to, but I sure was hoping for one. We headed to the battleship next. It was pretty cool, but I thought the first two things were the coolest. I mean there were some cool thing on the ship, like replicas of the treaties that were signed by the Japanese, Britain, and the US. It didn’t really get me all excited like the Arizona Memorial and the submarine though. We went pretty quickly through the ship. I guess the coolest thing on the ship was seeing just how big the guns they had were. I mean the things were absolutely massive! We caught the bus back to the main park, then headed to a very late and needed lunch at a big mall that was a lot farther away than we had all thought. I was able to get an American slice of pizza, and it was AWESOME to say the least. We went to Barnes and Noble as well. We stayed in there a while because Tom wanted to get some good Christian book and Kayla wanted to get a bible. I helped them pick out some books and a bible, as much as I could. But it was awesome that they wanted to spend time in Hawaii getting those things instead of heading to the beach or something like that. Kayla is seeking, and Tom has been renewed on the trip and is trying to go deeper. It is just awesome to see them wanting to do those things though. We just walked around the mall a little looking for souvenirs and then headed back to the ship. We were brave and walked back to the ship, and it was a lot more complicated and farther than we though. I was able to have a conversation on the phone with a few people while I walked back. It was nice to be able to talk on the phone to people back home while we walked. Tom and Nikki split off from us, so it was just Kayla, Julia, and I walking back to the ship. We boarded about an hour and a half before we really needed to, but it gave me a chance to talk to some other people on the phone. I wish I would have had more time, and the time difference was not so different so that more people would have been up. It is off the Guatemala next. I will be there in about 8 days, and we are going to be there for three. I have a couple of finals before Guatemala, and have to start hitting the books, which I don’t want to do at all! It is just hard to get motivated to study when all the great things are happening on the ship! I hope everyone is well back home! Just about 2 weeks before I will be home.

Japan: Where People Feel It Is Their Job To Help!

Japan was jammed packed with things to do. We were always on the move. I don’t think that I got much sleep at all while I was traveling around. I was a little sick with a soar throat and congestion throughout the trip, so that hampered my sleep a little. I was traveling around with Spencer (a guy in my small group from SC) and a few girls from up north. Without further introduction to the 5 days here is what went on around us.

It took forever to clear the ship. We were just waiting around until all of us could get off the ship because it was a long process that they called by seas (or sections of the ship). We were some of the last people off the ship, which made it that much longer of a process. We had to go through a face to face meeting with an immigration officer, get finger prints taken, and a picture put into their database. It was really just a lot of unnecessary protection if you ask me. I guess every country has its systems though. We headed straight to the train station to get our JR Rail Pass. It is basically this think that lets you ride the bullet train whenever you would like to. It really came in handy for the trip. It made things very convenient. We had to wait in that line for a while, because it seemed like so many people from SAS were in line to get their passes at the same time. We ended up getting everyone’s passes after about an hour or so in line. It moved faster than we all thought that it would. We rushed to the other train station to catch a train to Hiroshima. We were about 5 minutes early for the train, so we were happy about that. We were running around all crazy just trying to figure out the train system at first. We figured it out pretty fast though. It was off the Hiroshima. We were with a couple of guys the first day and they had a hotel. We ended up staying at the same hotel and just sneaking people into rooms. They did not charge by room, but by person. There were 6 of us so we had 2 people charge a room to their credit card and then we just paid them back and crashed in their room. We went to dinner that night, and just kind of walked around the city. It was just a relaxing night before a busy day the second day.

The second day started way too early for my liking. I did not get a lot of sleep the night before with being sick, sleeping on a floor, and just in general getting to bed late at night. I was pretty stupid with my sleeping patterns on this trip as you will find out. We started out by going to breakfast at some little café across the street from our hotel. It was a really good meal, and we noticed that the Japanese seem to really like waffles. They are everywhere! They are really good though. We headed to the Peace Museum after breakfast. It was very intense. It was full of the historical events leading up to and the destructive aftermath that was caused in the city in the first building. There are 3 floors that you look around and see all that was caused physically to the buildings and natural things. The second building that you walk into is about the people. It shows pictures of people right after the bombing and all the destruction that was caused to them, their homes, and just the overall way of life change right after the bombing. It was very intense and very sad to see. We were all just kind of taken aback by it all. There is a whole area with a building that is one of the only ones that withstood the bombing, a tribute to some of the foreigners that were in Hiroshima during the time, and just general memorial statues and things. Some wanted to move a little faster than others, so we ended up splitting groups. I was one that stayed in the slower group. I think that we probably had more fun anyways. We were able to take more in, and experience a little more on an emotional level and not just see the sites. Spencer went off by himself for a while and prayed. It was really cool what happened about 20 minutes after he did that too. We continued to walk around and we were approached by some ladies. They spoke a little English, and told us that they were studying the bible and gave us a booklet. It was called something like Why God Lets Horrible Things Happen. We were really just kind of taken by shock when they were telling us these things, and Spencer later told me that he just prayed for a peace on the city and that they would understand why this happened to them and that they would continue to deal with it in a peaceful manner. It was really just kind of a God moment to us. The girls that we traveled with are not Christians, but are seeking, so it was cool for them to see something like that happen. We ran into a “survivor” of the bombing a little later. He was not born yet, but his mother was 4 months pregnant with him. He told us a lot about his family and what they were doing when the bomb hit, and what they did after it hit. He said that when he was little he had some health problems, but since his younger years he has not had any problems medically. His mother is still alive and is 93 years old. We headed to lunch, and then to Kyoto for the evening/night. Kyoto was a really beautiful place. It is cherry blossom season in Japan now, and the cherry blossom trees are everywhere in Kyoto. We went to a park where there was a festival going on. It was absolutely beautiful to see all of the trees and we even got to see a few Geishas. They would not let us take any pictures of them at all. It was really kind of odd, and Spencer asked one of them, and she looked like she was going to go off on him. We actually got to see a man propose on the festival grounds, but away from all the noise and everything. It was really pretty cool too see. I don’t know what nationality they were, but they were white, so I am guess European or American. It was off to our “hotel” or the night after the festival. We actually stayed in an internet café for the night. It was actually pretty cool. Spencer and I shared a little booth, and it folded out like a bed. So we had a desk with a computer and TV on it and then a small place to sleep too. We only had to pay 15 USD for 7 hours. We arrived at 11PM and had to be out at 6AM. I did not sleep a wink all night that night. I called my parents on Skype, so that is what kept me up all night long.

Day 2 and Day 3 really just kind of run together for me, as you could imagine with the no sleep thing happening. We had planned on going on a bike ride around Kyoto, but that just did not work out because the 5 of us were just way too tired for that to really mean anything to us. We headed to a place called Hanoke. It was a place known for its hot springs, and it was suppose to have a great view Mt. Fuji too. It didn’t because it was a cloudy day. The hot springs were a nice bath/shower since we stayed in an internet café and were unable to take a shower the night before or that morning. Spencer and I were the only men at the hot spring place until the very end. There were two men who showed up as we were getting out to change. They just stripped down, and it got really awkward for both me and Spencer. We got out of there pretty quick, because of the awkwardness, and the fact that the men didn’t seem like they really cared for Americans to be using their bath area. We waited on the girls in the lobby area. We only had to wait for a few minutes for them to come down. We headed out to find some lunch by this point. A man started talking to us on the street and he took it upon himself to find us a restaurant. We didn’t end up going to the one that he had taken us to, because it was SO expensive. We went to one that looked like it had good food, but once we got there realized that the only good thing was on the kids menu. The chef came out to talk to us, and he ended up giving up a bigger portion of the main meal and cutting out drink and desert from the meal. It was very nice of him to do that for us, and it turned out to be very good! We all had the same thing to eat at that restaurant. We headed back to train station to get on with our day. We headed to Mt. Fuji, or at least the closest train station to the mountain. We could see it pretty well from the train station, but it was a little cloudy so the pictures didn’t come out as good as we would have liked. Mt. Fuji sure was a site to see. We were able to see the perfect cone shape of the mountain from where we were. We stayed there for about 10-20 minutes and then headed up into Tokyo. We met a lady at the train station, who was so gracious to us. She shared some oranges with us, which I was all about! She ended up being a Christian, and we told her about how we were too. She was so interested that Spencer is going to school studying religions of all types. Spencer sat next to her on the train, and she helped us get to where we needed to be. It was really just a cool experience to meet her, and hear a little about her life. She said that her favorite song was Amazing Grace, so at the train station before we got onto the train we played it on an iPod and were able to sing it with her. It seemed like it really touched her. She was a single lady who had no children. Looking back on it, I wish we could have talked more, but the language barrier there is just so hard to overcome sometimes, especially with older people. We got to Tokyo that night, and had to find the place we were going to stay. It was hidden, and the entrance was on the backside of the street that it said it was. We stayed in capsules. It was one person to a room, and there was a clock/radio/TV in the room and that is it. It is kind of like a hostel, but a little more upscale. I think that only pictures will capture just what we were staying in, and I will try to get that up at some point. I just don’t have the internet capabilities to do it on the ship, and the time off the ship. We went out to find a sushi place after we got settled into our hotel. We went to a place that had a conveyer belt that took plates of sushi around. Different colored plates were different prices. It was really a cool concept that I think would go over well in the states. There were the cheap plates like shrimp and rice, and the expensive plates like horse and rice. I kept it pretty mild. I didn’t feel like shelling out a lot of money for something that I knew I wouldn’t like. I was going to grab a plate one time, and ended up knocking off another plate with mine. I was so embarrassed and felt like a klutz. They didn’t charge me for that plate though. The sushi was SO good though. Some of the, if not the best that I have ever had. We went out walking the city of Tokyo after dinner. We didn’t stay out to late, since we were getting up late to go around the city in the morning to make it back to the ship to drop our stuff off before the game.

Day 4 was an incredible day. I was feeling better, and I got a pretty good nights sleep. We got up early so that we could get a start to our day. We road a train all over Tokyo to see all the sites. We were able to see the Times Square of Tokyo and where they film a lot of the movies. It is suppose to be the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. There were a ton of people there, but I don’t feel like it could be considered the busiest. Maybe we were not there at the right time of day. We went to some kind of temple after the Shibuya area. It was not really worth it to me to go to the temple, since I had seen temples in all sorts of countries before. We didn’t stay to long though so that was good. We headed to the Tokyo Tower. We could see all of Tokyo and even some cities outside of Tokyo. It was pretty much impossible to tell where a city started and where one stopped. It was just buildings upon buildings. There were buildings as far as the eye could see. We didn’t stay up top to long. We had to get some food before heading back to Yokohama for the baseball game. It was a thrill getting back to the ship. We had so many trains and subways to catch and had to figure it out on the go, and since we were in a rush it made it that much more stressful for us. We finally made it back to the ship, changed and then headed out to see the Yokohama Baystars play the Yomuiri Giants. We sat with the Giants killed the Baystars. The game atmosphere was awesome. The teams would cheer nonstop during their teams at bat, which I thought was weird. I would have thought they would have cheered during the other team’s at bats. A lot of the cheers were actually in English. I couldn’t really tell that though until I stood in front of them when I went to the bathroom one time. It was really just an atmosphere that I had never experienced at a baseball game, but it was a lot of fun. I had to explain a lot of things to one of the girls that I was sitting with. There were actually a lot of really good plays, but it was not American baseball. We were going to head back to the ship after the game, since it was cold and we all didn’t have enough on to keep us warm. We walked the total opposite way of the port and didn’t realize it until we hit a fair that we could see from the port, but it was no where near. We got to see some of Yokohama at night, so that was nice. We got some food once we got back to the ship, and then I called it a night.

Our last day of Japan was a little bad for me. I started feeling really bad again, so I didn’t get out like I would have liked to. I actually didn’t get out at all. I slept for a lot of the day because I was feeling so bad, and just wanted to sleep. I got off the ship to go back through emigration. We had to have another face to face meeting, and it took forever to get through. There are 1000 people who had to go through the line, and there were only like 4 or 5 lines open. It was miserable just standing in line. I tried to get as much work done once back on the ship, but it is really hard to have focus on the ship. We have 9 days to go to Hawaii. It should be a long hard stretch since I actually have to go to class and everything. I am really looking forward to it though. It will give me time to rest up.

We have two Easters on the ship, and today was the first of those. We had a sunrise service this morning. It was really cold out on the deck, but at the same time it was really nice to see all the people who came out. There were some that came out from the woodwork. I think that the actual service that we are having tomorrow night will be more crowded, but it was encouraging to see all the people who came to this one. Be in prayer about the service that is going to take place tomorrow that it would stretch people, and touch them in a way that they would have never though. There are quite a few seekers on the ship, and this could be a time that gets them over the hump and asking the tough questions that leads to something greater for them.

China: Ancient and Future Architectural Geniuses

China was a country that was filled with so many things, and was so diverse in the places that I went. I was in three of the major cities (Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai). I have tried to write this a few times and am really struggling with getting it all down on paper. Since I am going so quickly through the countries, it is hard to really get the full grip on it all and remember exactly what happened in China. So here is my best go at it.

We came into port in Hong Kong, and what a beautiful city. It was foggy for most of the day, and so we didn’t get to see the full beauty of it, but man you could just tell that it was a gorgeous city from the start. Colin and I went out with some girls to walk around town, but they were being way to slow for us, so we told them we would meet them back at the ship at 2 so we could pick up Spencer. He had to stay on the ship because he had bought some snake wine in Vietnam and tried to bring it on the ship. He was not sneaking it, because people had told him that it was able to be brought on the ship. He got his dock time reduced because he appealed it and showed that he didn’t drink on the ship, and had no prior behavioral problems. He first got 8 hours dock time, but then they reduced it to 4 hours. I felt like I needed to explain that more, but now I probably just confused you. Before heading back to the ship, Colin and I went to eat. We just went to some random restaurant to get some real Chinese food. We were the only Americans in the place, and the only people with forks on our plates. It was really kind of strange once we thought about it. To top it all off and make us feel stranger, they sat us in the back corner of the place. It was quite the experience. Colin ordered some chicken, and I think everything came but the head. I ordered some beef stuff, and well I am not so sure that it was beef. It taste unlike any beef that I have ever taste, and didn’t have the texture of beef. Colin asked the lady what animal we were eating, and she said I don’t know. We are not sure that she understood us, but we also weren’t sure that it was beef. Anyways, it was back to the ship to pick up Spencer. We headed to Victoria’s peak to get a view of the whole city. It was great, but would have been better to see it on a clear day. We didn’t spend too much time up on the peaks, because we wanted to fit as much as we could in during the day, since we only had one day there.

We headed back down the peaks, and caught the subway to some district with a lot of stores. I had to buy a small external hard drive, because I have run out of room on all the ones from home and the ship for my pictures. I don’t want to lose these things, so I am backing them up in anyway that I can. We headed back to the ship for dinner, and the Hong Kong light show. The whole city of Hong Kong is lit up at night. It is a really cool site. During the light show they have green lasers going on top of the buildings. We were not close enough to hear the music that was playing with it, but the show was still really cool. The building that they used in The Dark Knight was really lit up, and just towered over all the other buildings in the city. That was pretty cool to see. We headed out to Shoe Street, for desert, and the Ladies Market after the light show. It was just fun to see the night life in the city. I have never been to NYC, but it felt like I was in the Chinese NYC. It was really bright everywhere you turned with lit up signs, or cars coming every which way. It was just really fun to be out in. We got back around midnight, since most of us had to be up in the morning to head to Beijing. I had to pack and get ready for my trip, since I had done no preparing in the time from Vietnam to China.

It was an early morning to catch a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing. They always give us a lot of extra time incase of traffic and everything, so we sat at the airport for a long time. I guess sitting at a Chinese airport is better than sitting on the ship not being able to go out because you don’t have enough time to really do anything. We had a 3 hour flight to Beijing, and I slept most of the way. I took sleep wherever I could get it in China. I was still worn out from Vietnam, and did not get much in China either. We got to Beijing and headed to the hotel where we were staying. We had about an hour before going to dinner, so not much time to do much. There was not really anything near to our hotel anyways. We went to dinner at a great Chinese restaurant. They just kept bringing out food. It was family style, and all the food went to the middle of the table. We all shared and it was just really good food! We were all stuffed and wanting more at the same time. After dinner we went to the University that was hosting us for the 4 days we were there. They threw us a party of sorts. We just talked to get to know some of the students at first. I have two new girlfriends, Nancy and Sarah. They were a little older than me, but talked to me the whole night. I don’t know that they talked to anyone else. I actually had a small conversation about God with Sarah. She either didn’t want to talk about it or did not have the vocabulary to have a conversation about it, but she said that she didn’t have the vocabulary. They gave me their emails when they had to leave. It was really funny. They wanted to take all sorts of pictures with me. I got one with my camera, and it is basically me smiling really big and them with blank stares on their face. It was really funny to me! The party ended at 9:30 and boy were they exact. They stopped the party mid song to shuffle us out. As we were walking back to the hotel, some of us decided to go to a coffee shop. We just sat around talking, and getting to know each other. When you go on a SAS trip sometimes you don’t know anyone else on the trip. I knew a couple of people, but they were not the ones that I wanted to be around a lot and especially at night. I had fun just hanging out at a coffee shop. I tried to leave a tip but later found out that it was rude to leave a tip in China. I didn’t want to offend anyone so I just took back my money, and went on. We had to be up early for our next day’s festivities.

The first full day of Beijing was FULL of places and events. It was crazy just how much we fit into our day. We started off early and finished late. The first thing on the itinerary was the National Grand Theater. It was massive and surrounded by water. It really just kind of looked like a dome with water surrounding it. Actually I don’t remember seeing a way in or out of the structure. Next was a walk to Tiananmen Square. It was not a very far walk, and it was so big. There was really nothing there besides Mao’s Memorial. They had it set up where you just walked through it. You were not allowed to stop, or take pictures. It was really kind of creepy once you got into the building. There had been places in the Square where you could buy flowers to put in front of a big statue of Mao that looked exactly like the Lincoln Memorial, besides it being Mao instead of Lincoln. That was the first creepy thing, then you walked behind it all and they had preserved Mao’s “original” body. I don’t think there is anyway that it could have been his original body. He died in the late 60s or early 70s. It looked like wax to me anyways. I guess that is communism though. They tell you something, and you have to believe it, there is no other option. So after Mao’s Memorial we went to the Forbidden City, which was just right across the street from Tiananmen Square. It was MASSIVE. It was so much cooler than it looked on TV from the Olympics. I mean most things are better in person than in photos. There were so many rooms, and so many places to see. We only had like an hour to get through it all, and it wasn’t enough time to see it all. We basically had no time to just stop and take in all we were seeing so that we could see most of it. We did get to go up on a hill once we exited the city to see it all from above. It was really just breathe taking to see it all from above and see just how big it all really is. Lunch was next, and it was just as good as dinner the night before. I don’t think that I had a bad meal in China. It was all just so good, but sometimes we did get weird foods to try. The place we ate lunch was on the ground of the Temple of Heaven, which was our next site to see. The Temple of Heaven was ok I guess. It really didn’t get me all excited like the Forbidden City did. There were three temples that the people would use as prayer sites for different parts of nature. The biggest of the temples was used for prayer for the harvest. They gave us a little too much time at the temples. Some of us just sat around because there was too much time, and we just wanted to go to the next thing. We were suppose to head to an acrobatic show, but we were not going to make in time for the first showing, so he took us to the Pearl Market. What a place! It was like the market in Vietnam, but bigger, more choices, more fake stuff, and smelled a whole lot better! I of course bought some things, but knowing that we were going to two other markets on the other days I didn’t spend all my money on the first day. The acrobatic show was incredible! I mean it was something that just blew my mind. The first guy that came out was a juggler. He juggled 9 balls at one time! It was absolutely ridiculous. The next acts were just people contorting their bodies to do crazy things. I have never seen anything like this. The one act that was just absolutely threw me for a loop was when a guy was on a loose wire and doing flips, swinging around, and just doing things that should not, and I thought could not be done on a loose wire. After the show we went to dinner and just hung out at the hotel. It was a long day and we were all tired. It was going to be an early morning too.

Day 3 brought the thing that I was looking forward to most about China. THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA! I mean, it was absolutely breathe taking, and just so big. It was funny because we were told that we were like 10 minutes away and we couldn’t see the wall. I was thinking that this thing could be seen from space, but not from 10 minutes away. When we got to the parking lot I saw how far up the mountain the wall was. The hike up the mountain was a lot farther than I had thought it would be, but it was well worth it. I guess I just thought that they would let us off right next to the wall. It was a good hike though. There is not a lot of time for physical activity on the ship, so the hike was great for me. Once I actually got up to the wall I was a happy camper though. It was not as wide as I had thought it would be, maybe it was just the spot that I was at that was like that. I figured that it would be very wide though. I did get to go up on top of a building. It was cool to just be above everything and be able to see everything. It is hard to sum up my wall experience because there just aren’t words that describe it. I loved getting to be in a place that I have heard about in school for so many years, and never thought that I would be able to go. It happens that way at a lot of the places that I visit. We walked about ½ a mile on the wall to the place where we were to come down from. We came down by a sled of sorts. We were on a metal track and we just slid the whole way down. You pushed forward on a lever to go faster, and pulled back to stop. I was not able to go as fast as I wanted to because the girl in front of me went so slow. I caught her within like 30 seconds of the start of my ride. It ended up being like a 5 minute ride. Our guide told us that we were going to a pizza place for lunch, but once we got onto the bus he told us since we were late that it had closed. Pretty much everyone on the bus was mad, and some let it show. I really didn’t care where we ate, as long as I got some food, and was a little embarrassed when people started saying stuff. People finally settled down, and we ended up pulling up to a pizza restaurant. None of us realized what day it was until our bus driver said….APRIL FOOLS! It was really funny to me, but some people were still mad. I couldn’t believe it! After lunch, it was to another market. I need to stay away from all shopping centers from here on out. I have come to love to bargain. I mean it is so much fun! I feel bad once I get them so low, I just buy the things. We headed back to the hotel after the market and just hung out for the night. I called it another early night, even though we got to sleep in or until 9.

It took a while for everyone to get up and check out. I think we got a little behind schedule getting out day started. We went to the Summer Palace first. It was a really cool site, but again we didn’t get enough time there. We just were able to walk through and see what it had to offer, and then we had to get going for lunch. A couple of people missed the bus to lunch, and had to catch a cab to the place we were having lunch. The place we ate lunch was one of the coolest restaurants I have been to. There was a buffet that went all around the restaurant with seats in the middle. We were actually sat in the back room. I really think that they didn’t want to scare people away with us being out in the middle of everyone. It was crazy how much separation they made us have from the people while we were there. After lunch we went to the Birds Nest and the Water Cube. Those were two really cool places. We didn’t get to walk around a lot of the buildings, but the places we did get to walk were cool. We were able to go down onto the field of the Birds Nest and take pictures. It was not as big as I had thought it was. I was thinking something like Neyland Stadium, but it was actually quite a bit smaller than that. The Water Cube was something else. It was just awesome inside. It was cool to go in and see the place where so many gold metals were won by Phelps and even other Americans. They let us see the pool area, and the practice area, but that is about it. I did not realize that the outside was blown up plastic. It was actually really cool and innovative. We, again, had to rush through it all to get to another market. It seemed like they gave us plenty of time to shop in the markets, but didn’t give us enough time at the other places. I guess I found some good things at the markets, but I still would have rather had more time at other places. We headed to the airport, for our night flight to Shanghai. I had an FDP the next day to go to, so I was sad that I didn’t get to see Shanghai like I had wanted to besides driving through.

The last day in China I had an FDP for an art class that I was in. Brian (a guy in my bible study) was on the trip with me, so we got to have some good talks about life and just fun talks in general. It was a lot of fun, and I am glad that I went. We went to 3 different gardens, and they all seemed to be somewhat the same, but they were all very beautiful. They were full of rocks and ponds. But the way everything was lay out it was nice and peaceful. I could only imagine when people truly lived there how peaceful it would have been without all of the tourist there. They rank sites in China on an A system instead of a star system. One of the gardens that we went to was a five A garden, so up there on sites to see with the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. We also did a little canal tour, but my head was hurting so bad that I kept my eyes closed for most of the time. Everything looked the same after a while, and I had Brian tell me to open my eyes if there was anything worth seeing or taking a picture of. It took up all day, and we got back to the ship just before on ship time. It took us a while to get back because traffic in Shanghai was so bad. There were so many cars. I guess when you have a country with 1 billion people you will have cities with a lot of people and a lot of cars.

We are off to Japan now, and well I think that Japan is going to be a lot of fun. It is going to be really expensive, but I think that what we are going to do will be worth it all. I hope everyone is doing well back home!

Good Morning Vietnam!

Ok so I know that my title is a little cliché, or at least I feel like it is. I couldn’t think of anything that clever to call my Vietnam post though. Vietnam was awesome. I think that it was just so different from India and Thailand that it was kind of refreshing. It was not a kick in the face like the past two countries. I hung out with Spencer, Colin, Julia, Patricia, and some other people.

The first day was a little slow. We were waiting to hear from Nathan, so we didn’t want to do a lot away from the ship so that we could be sure to keep tabs on email. We went to get suits made the first thing. We went to the place that Zach recommended to us, and it was very nice. There were business cards of people who had had suits made there. There seemed to be some pretty prestigious names up on the board. I had two suits made, and I am very excited about them. One suit is like a stone color, or that is what I am told. I would just call it khaki. The other is another khaki color, but it is litter, and is linen. I also had a pink linen shirt made. I picked that one up the last day, but the two suits have to be shipped to me. We went to eat after our suit making experience. We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was actually really good. We got their signature pho dish. It started the Vietnamese culinary experience off on the right foot. We decided to go to the War Museum after lunch. The museum ended up being a kick in the face. It was so full of propaganda, and just flooded with pictures from the war. It was pretty intense. I was not expecting everything that was in the museum to be there. I am glad that I got that education out of it. I am kind of mad/sad that we did not get a very good education in school about the Vietnam War. I know that it is a part of our history in America, and I feel that we should know about it just as much as we should know about any other war that America has been involved in. We headed to the market after the museum, and I bought extremely too much stuff. It was all just such a good price, but it all added up. I bought more in Vietnam than I did in all the other countries combined I think. We came back to the ship after our shopping experience. It was nice to drop the bags and get everything in order before dinner. It was to Wayne’s Texas BBQ for dinner. What an amazing dinner too. I ate so much, and to top it all off I had apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert. I was so happy for a good American meal like that. We headed back to the ship and went to an internet café to call home, and just check general news.

The next day was awesome too. We started off on a walk to the Rex Hotel, which is the hotel where all the media stayed for the war. It was kind of cool to see where everyone stayed, and it was a really nice hotel. We were really lost, and ended up just having to walk back to the ship and catch a cab. We ended up being a lot closer than we thought, so we didn’t really need the cab. It is all good though. For about 6 of us to go to the Rex it was about a dollar. The cab rides were extremely cheap! It was nice to be able to get a cab and pay a dollar or two anywhere we wanted to go. We went to find a restaurant after we got to the Rex Hotel. It was not a very good restaurant, and turned me off a little bit to Vietnamese food. We were going to the Cu Chi Tunnels. They are the tunnels that the Vietnamese people used during the war. We could never figure out if the South or the North used the tunnels. They just referred to us as the enemies in a video that we watched when we first got there. The tour guide was really nice, but you could tell that he had been fed a lot of the information. I don’t think that he truly knew all the facts. He could have though. We got to walk through the tunnels. It was just about 40 meters that we went, so it wasn’t too far. It was pitch black and the only time we could really see was when we were getting out. It was a little scary in the middle of it all. They were so small, but they had made kitchens, dinning rooms, meeting rooms, and armory rooms. It was quit the process. It was about an hour and a half ride to and from there. Everyone but me fell asleep on the way back. They tunnels were out in the middle of no where so I we had to be careful that the guy was taking us to them, and back from them. He was a nice guy though. He was fun to talk to even though he couldn’t speak a ton of English. The Vietnamese people were very nice. That night, we went out to a crazy restaurant. Their food selection was a little too risky for me. Spencer had pigeon, and they brought him the head of the pigeon. I went with some spring rolls. I could not get myself to try all that crazy stuff. We went to a coffee shop in town after dinner. I got some good coffee, and some tiramisu. I was supper excited to get all of that after the terrible dinner!

The next day was a very relaxing day. I was waiting on Spencer or Julia to get back, but both got back later than they though. I just kind of hung out at the ship for most of the day. I ended up getting dinner with Colin and Patricia at some really good pizza place. They had Dr. Pepper and Patricia was all about some Dr. Pepper. She wanted to buy a lot of them to bring back to the ship. I had gotten an email from Nathan earlier in the day, so the three of us went to meet him at a coffee shop. We were able to talk to some college students too. They had learned about American culture from movies, so I had to clear up a few things for them. They were asking some pretty risqué questions. I had to try to change the subject a couple of times. It was interesting, and when we had to go, one guy called me his Yoda because I taught him so much. He said I was his Yoda and he was my disciple. I was a little to much for me to handle. I wished I could have gotten his email or something to keep the relationship going. We talked to Nathan until late in the night, and decided to meet up the next afternoon.

It was the next day that I got all of my DVDs. I got ten seasons of Seinfeld, 6 seasons of Scrubs, 4 seasons of Lost, and all 22 James Bond movies for very cheap. It was awesome. I got really excited. We had lunch on the ship. It tends to get better, when we are in port, so we checked it out, so that we could save a little money. We met Nathan, and went to a house where some foreign volunteers meet before they go out to volunteer at places. We left to go to the orphanage. It was a pretty good ways away, and it was worth it though. We got a tour of the orphanage that we went to, and saw all of their facilities. They were better than the next day’s orphanage, but still not really all that great. We started to play with the kids, and at first they seemed a little scared of us. We ended up having a blast with them. We were being a little loud during their prayer for all the dinner foods though. I felt a little bad about that, but at the same time I was having so much fun just playing with the kids. They were getting on my shoulders, and my back. They just loved being loved on I think. They had a shower facility that was just in the corner of the court yard. We saw a lot of naked little boys running around after their showers. It was a little awkward, and I felt like a pedophile. Oh well. We went to dinner that night for Patricia’s birthday. We went back to Wayne’s and actually got to meet Wayne. I had a sweet tea, and it wasn’t like normal sweet tea from home, but it did the trick of filling that void in my life. That is one thing that I can’t wait to get back to, I need some sweet tea in my life. We did karaoke after dinner. I sang a few songs, and rocked out. Lindsey and I sang some awesome duets. We were scored by how good we did, and we were the second highest score of the night. We were pretty proud of that. Nathan and his friend went with us to dinner and karaoke. I think that they had fun and enjoyed being with us as much as we enjoyed them coming with us.

The next morning was a very early morning. We went to meet Nathan at another orphanage. The taxi driver was not really sure where he was going, and we finally found it, but we were so close to giving up on it all and telling him to take up back to the ship. We didn’t have a lot of time that morning because we had to be back for some fittings. We ended up having to wait on Nathan at the place we were meeting him, and we could have spent more time with the kids if we would have known that we just had to go in and start playing with them. I got attached to one little boy. I picked him up, and he started to try and get down, so I put him back down. Well a few minutes later I ended up just picking him up and taking him around the grounds. He started screaming not wanting to get down after all of that. It was so awesome. He just wanted to be held. The kids there were not treated very well and you could tell that they were fed very little, and not given much love at all. It broke my heart that I could not bring him home with me! We came back into town to get to our fittings and do some last minute things before having to be back on the ship. We planned our Japan trip, and got some of that worked out, since we don’t have a lot of time on the ship to do it.

Vietnam is a place that I really want to go back to one day. I think that the people are just awesome, and there is so much to see that I didn’t get to see. I am glad that I got to go to the orphanages though. It was just such a great experience to get to play with these kids, and bring a little joy to their lives, and love on them a little bit. Everyone needs some love in their life! China is next, and it will be a great country too. I am looking forward to getting onto the next country, there is no looking back!

Just to give an updates on some things. We are still having church services. I spoke at the one that was on Saturday the 28th. I gave my testimony and I think that it went over well. A girl shared a song that she wrote and it was so cool. It was based off of Jeremiah. I have also decided to try and start something with the UT football team. I have been in contact with a couple of football players and they seem to be open to the idea, so we will see how that goes. I have not been able to have many more conversation with my roommate. I have tried a couple of times, but he just does not have it and changes the subject. So be in prayer for those things. The small group on the ship is going well. They guys are bonding well, and we are able to throw our struggles and problems on each other. I am really glad that God put these men in my life. We have had great conversation. You can be in prayer about that too. Thanks for all the prayers; I will try to have the blog for China up faster than I got this one up. Hope everyone is doing well!

Thailand: Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll

Just to preface this whole blog entry, this one will not be as inspirational, informative, or exciting. It was a trip that I would say was more of a “spring break” type trip than an educational trip. There were definitely some eye opening experiences though. So without further babble here is my experience from Thailand.

Customs took forever to clear the ship. I think my group of passports, although being one of the first ones in the alphabet, was just about the last group called. They have the passports stacked in groups of 100, and I am the 34th person in line alphabetically. I would have thought I was one of the first, but I wasn’t. Anyways, it didn’t really matter all that much. We were said to have ported in Bangkok, but we really ported in the port that Bangkok uses, which is called Laem Chabang. It is about a 2 hour drive to Bangkok from there, but I think about only a 45 minute boat ride. It was really weird. The trip that I was on had to wait for everyone to get off the ship, so we couldn’t really do anything once off the ship anyways. There was a VERY small market right off the ship that people had set up for us. It was WAY overprices too. Just to give you an idea, postcards in Bangkok were like 5 baht, and they were 20 baht at the store. There was a huge mark up. I only bought a postcard at the store, since I forgot to out in Bangkok.

Once we finally were able to go, it was too late to do all of the things that we were going to do. We were able to go get lunch, but my stomach had been, and even to the day that I am writing this, acting up. I didn’t get to eat a lot of Thai food while I was there, but it’s ok because everyone said that Thai restaurants back home that are owned by Thai people are just as good. So I will just get Thai food more when I am back at home. We went to the airport after lunch. The traffic in Bangkok was unbelievable. It was just so jam packed. I had NEVER seen anything like it. I have been a lot of places too. They are not as crazy of drivers as some of the drivers in other countries, but there were a lot more people. The airport in Bangkok is one of the coolest airports. The outside walls were mainly all glass. And it is rounded in the terminal. It was just a really cool place. We made it pretty close to flight time. We were able to snag a drink from a shop, and then it was off to Phuket.

We arrived in Phuket at night time, so we couldn’t really see anything until the next day. We had been told that Phuket is one of the prettiest places on earth, and they were right. If you have ever seen the movie The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio, that was filmed on an island right off the shores of Phuket. The first night, we just kind of wanted to see what the city was like. The guy that I was rooming with, Thomas, and I went out to walk around and find some dinner. We ran into some girls before we really had gotten anywhere, and so we decided to eat with them. We ate and then went off on our adventure, and what an adventure it was. We walked to the street where all the night life was. There were hookers all over the place! People were trying to get us to come to their sex shows. It was really just not a very comfortable place. We were offered drugs multiple times. It was unlike anything I had ever been to. We went off to a side street where we thought we might find some more SAS people, but it turned out to be a place where a bunch of dirty old European and Australian men went to hang out. Girls, or guys who seemed to be girls, were trying to sell themselves to these men, and eventually us. We got out of there REAL quick! We ended up meeting up with some SAS people and just kind of hanging out at some clubs, dancing and stuff. The second part of the night was a lot more enjoyable than the first part.

We had a nice 0600 wake up call. We had to travel a long way the next day to get to the river we were canoeing down, and the elephant farm where we were riding elephants. It was a ride where everyone in the van was asleep the whole time. My stomach had not been too friendly to me this whole day. I ended up taking some medicine for it all later in the day. We got to the place where we were going to get in the canoes, and I told the girl I was going to ride with that I would be ride back. I went to ask the tour guide where a bathroom was, he told me to use the bush. I informed him it wasn’t that form of bathroom use. He pointed to a little outhouse, and in it I found a small toilet that had no flush. When you have to go, you have to go, so I did my business, and put the paper over it. There was a bucket of water and a scoop in it. You just pour the water over it, and that’s it. Sorry to share the details, but it was just crazy to me how they had a toilet set up. I ended up having to use another one like that later in the day too. So it was on with the canoe ride. We went about an hour and half down the river. It was so pretty with mountains and the water and everything. We saw some pretty cool reptiles swimming in the water. It scared the girl that I was with. We couldn’t really tell if they were lizards or snakes, or really anything about them. We just knew they weren’t fish. I started to think while looking up at all the trees, and caves in the mountains, “How awesome is God. I am so little in this world. This stuff has been around for millions of years, and here I am thinking I am somebody when I am 21 years old and know very little about the world, and everything that has gone on since creation.” It was a very humbling experience.

We went to lunch after the canoe ride. They gave us coconut milk to drink, from a coconut. They chopped it open in front of us and everything. I don’t really care for coconut so it wasn’t so big of a deal for me. I couldn’t eat much besides rice, because of my stomach problems. After lunch was the elephant ride. It was really cool too. Our elephant was probably a male in its prime. He had some really big tusks, and was really fast. We didn’t have a long ways to go for the ride, but it was through the forest and just a cool scenery place. We were one of the last to get on our elephant, who we named Big Willy for a couple of reasons that you can probably figure out. He was peeing when he was walking up to us, and peed for most of the time that we were riding. It was pretty funny just how much he went. We were passing other elephants left and ride, and we were the second group back total and the first from our smaller group. It was kind of scary when the guy started shouting at our elephant, and he started running. I was sitting on the seat the whole time, and Thomas got out and sat on his neck after a while. It was really pretty cool that he got to do that. We headed back on our long ride back to the hotel after our elephant rides. Everyone passed out in the van but me. I slept a little, but I just couldn’t stay asleep the whole time. It started raining on us when we were on the way back. It quit right before we got back to the hotel though, so that was nice. Thomas, Collin and I went to dinner that night. We went to a pretty nice Thai place. It was really inexpensive though. We thought that it was going to be expensive since it was nice, but we got a lot of food for cheap. Thai food is really good, but really spicy too!

We headed to get massages after dinner. Our 2 hour Thai massage only cost 18 USD. Don’t be too envious back home. I know Mom and Dad were when I told them about it. How can you beat that though? We were scared about getting a massage with a “happy ending.” That is what people had told us to look out for. We were lucky and that didn’t happen. I was in the room with Thomas too, so we figured that it wasn’t going to be propositioned to us anyways. We were at a nice place, not just some side parlor. They really know how to get all your muscles loose and everything. I think they worked my legs for like an hour. I was thinking that most of it would be shoulders and back, but I think they spent the least amount of time there. It was more the head and legs. They put me into some crazy positions too. The clothes they gave us to put on were awesome, so awesome that I had to go get some from the market in Bangkok. Anyways, all the other people that I was with, about 10 of us, all thought that it was painful and they were sore the next day. I loved it though. I was thinking about having another one at some point while we were there, but I never got the time. We all went to a McDonalds for a CHEAP ice cream cone. I mean I think if you convert it back it was a 35 cent ice cream cone. I was a little ashamed to be going to an American restaurant while I was there. It was really good though. I called it a night after that, but got woken up at like 4 in the morning by Thomas coming in. He went out with a couple of the girls that we were hanging out with. They went to the beach and got the great idea of going in the ocean. Well the girl’s credit card got stolen while they were in the water. I felt really bad for her. Another guy that was with him had his camera and card stolen. He got so mad he hit a stack of chairs and broke his hand. I felt worse for him.

The next morning came really early after the long night after getting woken up. We were going on a beach tour type thing. I don’t really know what I would call it. We went to an island that is known as James Bond Island. They filmed part of Man with the Golden Gun there. It was really a pretty cool place. We took some pictures around it and everything. The next place we went to was really cool. They were big open caves, and we went into them with the canoes. We were able to just cruise around and take pictures of stuff. It was so beautiful; the pictures that I took don’t really do it justice. The next place was the coolest experience I think of the trip, to me at least. We went canoeing into a cave, and this cave was LOW. We had to lie down to get through it, and at one point I even got scraped getting through it. The walls were sharp rock, so it really hurt my knee when it got scrapped up. When we came out on the other side of the cave, it was a big open area with about 4 feet of water, and trees everywhere. It was at the top. It was just one of the coolest places I have ever been. I know I have said that a lot this blog, but Thailand was just really beautiful! We had to go back through the caves to get back to our boat. There were people going both ways, and we got stuck at one point. It was really kind of funny, but scary at the same time. I knew we would get out, that was no problem. The only thing I really had a problem with was my head was right above Thomas’s “area.” I don’t want to get to graphic or anything. My neck was getting tired from holding it up and not resting it either. We finally got out, and I had a neck cramp. Next we went to an island where we just got to hang out for a while. There were some locals that we joined in a game called Tocro. I think that is what it is called at least. I was terrible at it. It was a ball that was made out of some sort of light wood. We had to juggle it back and forth. I am not good with my feet, so I let it drop a lot. The last person to let it drop had to run around the formed circle, so I did a lot of running. We headed back to the hotel after the day on the water. It really made me ready to get back to the lake, but then I think about it and know that I have more countries left, and I would rather see these places. Sometimes the comforts of home sound nice when I have been gone so long. God has transformed me so much already, and I know that he is going to transform me even more the next month and a half.

Since it was St. Patrick’s Day, we all went to an Irish pub. It was actually a lot of fun. We were able to go and just hang out. The place was filled with either SAS students, or foreign tourist. It was really pretty funny. They played some really good American music, and we all sang along. I was really surprised not to hear the one song that I thought that I would, “Don’t Stop Believing.” It seems to be the most famous song for things like that. The band was just some local Thai people. They were actually really good, and spoke/sang English really well. It was pretty funny, because one of the counselors on the ship is from UT. She got up on stage for one song to sing. It was pretty funny to see her get up there. I saw her later and said something to her about it, she was pretty embarrassed. She didn’t know some of the students were there. We just laughed about it though. I called it a night pretty early, for one because I didn’t want to be around all the drunk people, and two it had been a long day.

We got to sleep in, since we were going to catch about a 1400 hour flight back to Bangkok. We took our time getting to the lobby and checked out. It was nice to not be rushed that morning. There were some pretty crazy stories floating around about the night before too. There were three people who got tattoos. One guy got a Thai beer emblem on his butt, and then two girls got lucky in Thai on their wrist. The two girls thought they were fake when they woke up, but looked at their pictures and saw the needles. They were really upset. About 20-30 people went skinny dipping in the ocean and about got arrested. It was just a night that I was glad that I was back at the hotel sleeping. We were on a massive plane on the way back to Bangkok. The service was incredible too. We were so hungry when we got to the airport that I had to break down and go to Burger King. There were Thai restaurants there, but we were in a huge hurry, so I went to get a burger. It was actually a lot better than Burger King back in the states. I don’t know if they use different stuff to cook them, or if I just have not had one in so long that I have forgotten. I was actually really surprised. The plane ride back was full of sleep. It was just such an exhausting trip. The service on the planes in foreign countries is so much better than back home. The people are much more friendly and all around just better at their jobs. It has been quite nice when I have had to fly. Bangkok was a really cool place. It was nothing like I thought it would be.

We got settled into our hotel, and wanted to go get a few things from the night market. It was a really cool place, and I some how got really good at getting the price down on a lot of items. I was terrible at bargaining in the previous countries, but I was either really on top of my game, or they were just really easy to talk down. It was a lot of fun. There was nothing that I really wanted, so I just bargained, but didn’t buy much. I got a few things, but there was nothing that I just HAD to have. We walked around for a couple of hours in the night market, but got hungry so decided to go back and take showers for dinner. Yes, if you have done the math we didn’t eat until very late. On the way back to the hotel Thomas and I stopped to look at something in a side shop. He was still looking at one of the items, and I had turned around to the street. There was an elephant walking on the side walk though. It blew my mind that there was an elephant just following its owner. Thomas went over and talked to the owner about getting up on it. I had no desire to do such a thing. He got up on it and I took pictures of him. It was really pretty funny now that I look back on it.

So we finally get to dinner about 10 at night. It was crazy how late it was. The place we went was in a back ally somewhere, but it was really good food. I had a chicken dish that had garlic, basil, and chili sauce mixed in. It was HOT! I took my first bite and started to cry it was so hot. I ate it all though, and it didn’t get any easier to eat as it went on. I drank a ton to get the spice killed down, or at least try to! The check was so hard to figure out. Everything was written in Thai. We knew how much everything cost so we knew that there was too much on the ticket. The owner or manager or whoever he was threatened to call the police when we paid him the right amount. So we threw in the extra money and walked out. We were all really mad. We thought that we would try a short cut, but it ended up being the wrong way. It was pretty funny now that I look back on it, but we were so lost in the middle of Bangkok at 1 in the morning, and just had to deal with that crazy ticket. We were all just ready to get back to the hotel. I ended up staying up all night since I was able to Skype mom and dad. I ended up talking to them each for about 30 minutes to an hour. When I got off when them, if I would have gone to sleep I would not have woken up for the next days events.

The next morning came early. We were going to the canals of Bangkok, and to The Grand Palace. The canals were just ok. I was not all that impressed, but I think we missed the good parts of them. We just rode from one spot over to the Grand Palace. The Grand Palace was, well lets just say it was shinny. It was full of golden buildings, and statues. It was a little disturbing to think that the people of Thailand have made this their idol. It makes me sad that something that can be taken out in seconds is what they worship and live for. It was pretty, don’t get me wrong, but it was not a lasting thing that they are worshiping. It just made me sad for them. The old king’s house was right outside of the gates. There was a lot of security at that Palace. I took a picture with two of the guards; they were not impressed with my thumbs up pose. You can see in the picture that one of them is shooting his eyes at me. It makes me laugh. We headed back to the ship after The Grand Palace, or at least I did. There was the option to go to a tiger farm, but I decided not to. I was just way too tired, and needed to get back to get everything I needed done and get to sleep. I was asleep by about 2100 hours. It was just a jam packed trip, and I needed to get back to get sleep. I went to the doctor about my stomach, and he gave me meds to take, and told me to get some sleep. I will not argue with that! It’s off to Vietnam, and I am really excited! It should be a lot of fun. Spencer, Nick, and Cory (all three guys that are in my small group) are going to hang out in Vietnam. We are not sure of our plans yet, but it’s going to be a good time!

India – A Land That Changes

India, well there is so much to say about it, but it is really hard to find the words to describe everything that I felt. I can easily tell you everything that I did while I was there, but the things that I felt while doing them is a different story. Here goes my best shot though.

The first day was a very relaxed day. I had to get up early the second morning to travel to Agra to be able to see the Taj the third day. The first day, Spencer and I went to find an internet café, and we were successful, but not without getting ripped off. We got off the ship, and were told that it should not cost but 50 rupees to go anywhere in the city. Well the guy told us 100 rupees to the internet café, and we just figured we would do it. So we get going and when we get to the gate of the port we switch from a bike carriage to rickshaw. These things were crazy! They were little three wheeled scooters, and the drivers were so aggressive on the PACKED roads. The diplomats that came to speak to us told us that Chennai had 4 times the population of Atlanta in ¼ of the city size. That figure just blew my mind. I couldn’t imagine that, but then once I got out into it I was made a believer that is for sure!

So back to the story, we were on our way to the internet café. The guy stops in the middle of a back road and tells us to follow him. We are a little worried, but this internet café is back there. We were told 250 rupees per person for an hour. We thought that would be a fine price, since it is like 5 American dollars. So we do our thing for an hour and we go to pay. Spencer has to pay for me, because I didn’t get in the exchange line quick enough and we had to get back for him to go one a day trip with SAS. Well he pays the 500 rupees, and we see the guy in front of him pay like 50 rupees. He had been there just as long as us too. We were so mad that we got ripped off like that, but we figured that we were Americans and there was nothing that we were going to do about it all. We get outside to the rickshaw driver and ask him, to make sure, how much it was back to the port. Thinking that it is 100 to the internet café, and then 100 back to the port, Well he pulls out a number like 500 a piece. We were taken back. We said that we were told that it was 100 rupees to the internet café. Well he pulls out that the 100 rupees was for the biker man that took us from the ship to the port gate. Well we never paid him, thinking that it was for the whole trip, and they worked for the same guy. We ended up talking him down and got that settled. Since we talked him down though, he was going to try to pull a smooth one on us. He pulls into a gas station, and asks us for money for gas. He told us to pay him there at the gas station. We sat there for a while telling him that we would pay him at the port and not at the gas station. It was about a 5 to 10 minute ordeal that we went through. He ended up just taking us back, and we went walked to the boat. We didn’t want to have to deal with anymore people like that for a while. We were both really pissed off at the way things went down.

Anyways, the rest of the day was just spent in leisure. I didn’t get back off the boat because I didn’t feel comfortable going to the city by myself. Pretty much everyone I know either left for an overnight trip the first day, or were on a day trip that got back later that evening. I ended up taking a nap, packing for my trip, and getting some reading done. It was just a nice quiet afternoon, compared to my very hectic morning. I had dinner with a guy from my bible study, and we just kind of hung out and talked for a lot of the night. We both got to bed pretty early, since we both were going on trips the next morning.

I got up early on day 2 to get ready for my trip. I was getting really excited, but found out that we had a day of traveling. We took a flight from Chennai to Delhi. We made some stop in the middle, but no one got off the plane. It was kind of miserable to just have to sit there and not be able to get up and stretch our legs. Some officer came on the ship and was making sure that all the bags belonged to someone. That was comforting in a way to know that they were at least checking to make sure there were no stray bags, but at the same time, it was kind of scary to thing that there was a very real possibility of someone doing something to our plane. Obviously we made it ok to Delhi, and back! We were told that we were not allowed to have liquids of any kind on the plain, along with batteries. I didn’t understand that, but the group leaders brought bags for us to check with all of that stuff in it. When we got to Delhi though, some people’s things were missing. I was lucky though, and all of my stuff was still there! It took forever for some of the people to calm down enough for us to leave and they realize that there was nothing they could do besides check the other bags of people that were on our flights once we got to the train.

We loaded up on buses to the train station. We got flower necklaces from some guy before we boarded the trains. People kept telling me that I looked so much like a tourist once I had the necklace, backpack, camera around my neck, and all my bright colors on. Someone took my picture and showed it to me, and I was shocked that I did look like a stereotypical tourist. I was a little ashamed of that fact! We got to the train station and that is when I really think I got my first taste of India. The smells were incredible, and not in a good way. They were so bad, and there were so many of them. We followed our trip leader right to the train. There were blind beggars, deaf beggar, children beggars, and just so many people wanting us to give them money. We knew that we couldn’t do it though. It was so hard to not, because I wanted to help them. They told us that most people work in groups. Little children are responsible to take all the money that they get to a head person. They torture them and do things to them so that people will give them more money. I found that out first hand once I got to Agra. The train ride was supposed to be a 2 hour train ride. We were going to get to Agra at like 8:30 for dinner at our hotel, but the train ride ended up being 5-6 hours long. It was miserable. I had only had breakfast that morning, because I fell asleep on the plane when they were giving out food. There was one man on the train that was selling chips. I was lucky enough to get one bag of chips, some people got none, and some people got more. The dinner at the hotel was not real good either. I have come to the conclusion that I do not like Indian food. Anyways, we got off the train in Agra and there were a few beggars, but we didn’t see many until we got to the outside where we found our buses. There were 4 or 5 little kids running around asking for money from us all. There was one little boy that I can not get out of my head right now. His top lip is cut in the middle pretty much all the way to his nose. It looked like a butterflied shrimp, and all around his mouth he looked like he had been burned. I walked right past him because there was no way that I could handle that. I am sitting here thinking about it and can’t even describe exactly how I felt about it all! I got on the bus and just thought about it. I decided to take a peek outside to see what Agra looked like, or what I could see of it. We had not started moving yet, and then all of the sudden that boy jumped in front of my window. It scared me so bad! I was thinking that this boy is going to haunt me for the rest of my life! We ended up getting to the hotel, eating, and then I went straight to bed.

We got a nice early wake up call, since we were going to see the Taj at sunrise! We all made it down for our bus, and were off to see the Taj. It was not a far bus ride at all, but we had to walk for about ½ a mile to a mile to get there. It was not a bad walk, but again the streets just smelled terrible, and we had kids coming up to us constantly to get us to give them money, or buy one of their trinkets. It was not fun to walk in at all. I was glad once we got into the gates, and there was no one, and we could just look at the Taj and admire it for what it is. What a beautiful building! It is made of all marble, and the thing is HUGE! I did not realize how big it was. The gardens around it are absolutely magnificent too. There was a mosque built to one side of the Taj a while back, and just to keep the symmetry correct they built another mosque the same size and everything right next to it. There were a lot of people there, but that is ok. I didn’t mind the people. It was just so cool to walk around the gardens, and get to go up inside the Taj. Thinking back on it, I can’t believe I got to do all of that. The feelings that I was feeling are just incredible, and I really can’t describe them all. We stayed there for about an hour, and then it was back to the hotel for breakfast.

We ate, and did a little shopping in the hotel shops. They had a few good things, but not many. We went to The Deserted City after breakfast. We got to go to rural India to see it too. The outskirts of town are unlike anything that I have ever seen before. Their houses can somtimes be just a cloth thrown over a line, like a little pop up tent. There are venders on the street selling fruit on wooded rolling carts. I was just in shock as to how these people live. It was such a culture shock to me. The Deserted City was cool. There were “students” there that wanted to show us around and tell us everything about it so they could practice their English. I didn’t want to fall into some kind of trap so I just kept walking when one would try to come up to me. I felt a little bad, but at the end they all asked the people they took around for money. I was not surprised by that in the least after all the scams that seem to be run around there. We went back to the hotel for lunch before our afternoon adventures. We constantly stayed on the move on this trip.

After lunch we went to some place that the emperor was held captive. This is the same emperor that the Taj was built for, and his son is the one who was holding him captive. It was a very cool place, but they seemed to live in a weird way. There were no walls completely closing in a room. They were always open to the outdoors. Rain would have ruined just about any furniture, assuming that it does rain there. I don’t think it ever does anything more than sprinkle from what I could tell though. Everything in the ancient buildings was either made of marble or from sand stone. It was all so pretty! Our guide got a little mad at us, because we were being so slow moving around. We thought we were in a hurry to get to the Taj again before our trip back to Delhi, but he told us we had some time so we went to a marble shop. It was incredibly beautiful! They had so much stuff there. I bought one thing from there. I couldn’t help myself. I was trying to resist, but I just couldn’t. The owner of the shop gave us a tour and told us how he was a decedent of the people who built the Taj. I don’t know how he would know that for sure, but he was very good at what he did. He had a lot of pictures of Bill Clinton on the walls, from when he visited him.

We were off to see the Taj again, but this time the beggars were so much worse, and there were so many more of them. It was just so overwhelming to go through. There were a few people who “snapped” and just started being mean to the people to get them to go away, but I tried to keep my cool and just say no, 1000 times it seemed. The Taj, at sunset was very pretty. The sun set behind the fort walls around it, so we didn’t get to see al the beautiful colors that we though we would. Since I had been inside and everything, I just sat at a distance and looked at it. Sitting peacefully looking at the Taj, it was really a time where I just kind of thought about all that I had seen, and done so far not only in India, but on the whole trip. It was very nice to reflect back like that at such a peaceful place. One kind of funny thing that our guide said to us was after we saw some Muslim students. He pointed them out, and proceeded to say, “Those are the future terrorist of the world.” We all couldn’t believe that he said that. I was shocked for sure! After the Taj at sunset we headed off to the train station to catch our train back to Delhi. The train station was miserable!

We got there, and we had to wait on the train. There were little kids everywhere, and I even got to see the kid that is still haunting my thoughts again. I walked pretty fast past him, but he seemed to follow me. He didn’t come all the way to the platform, but there were so many already there that it didn’t matter. There were children carrying babies begging for food or money. There was nothing that we could really do though. One guy on my trip pulled out a can of bug spray and the kids went nuts. I didn’t know what all they were going to do to him! Some man finally came and told them to get away from him that he didn’t have anything that they could use, or at least that is what I assume he told them. There were also shoe shiners. I had a guy tell me he was the number one shoe doctor in India. He tried to clean my shoes and followed me around for a long time. I had to keep walking so that he wouldn’t touch my shoes. Another guy on the trip kept telling the guy he had no money, and by this time we all were out of rupees. The guy kept cleaning his shoes, and then asked for money, but none of us had any to give him. All the shoe cleaners were so mad at him! We got on our train finally! I didn’t think I was going to make it without snapping, or just busting out into tears. It was so emotional. I didn’t know how to handle it all! The train was a lot faster than the one to Agra. It only took us 2 hours this time. We got to our hotel in Delhi, and it was one of the, if not the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. It was incredible, but I just went up to take the first shower since being in India. I was so dirty and the shower felt so good! It was nice to be clean again!

The next morning we had a breakfast buffet. It was awesome. They had omelets, bacon, doughnuts, and fresh squeezed juices. I was spoiled there that is for sure. We set out for a tour of Delhi. I didn’t know this, but there is a dividing line between Delhi, and New Delhi. The hotel was in New Delhi. It was nice in that part of the city, but once you cross into Delhi it is just crazy with people and it gets very dirty. We were going to the Red Fort. I don’t really know what it was all about, but it was made of sandstone and marble, just like everything else. It was very nice. I think I was so tired that I don’t think that everything, or anything, our guide told us stuck in my brain. We headed to lunch after the Red Fort, and then to the airport. We didn’t have to make a stop so the flight was a little longer, but we were able to get back faster. There were 3 buses to take us all back to the ship. The buses were racing, and our won. It was nice because we were able to get right onto the ship. Sometimes when there are a lot of people, like in this case, we have to wait in a huge line to get back on the ship. I was able to get back and get some food, which was very pleasing to my stomach!

The last day in India is one that I will remember for the rest of my life. I got to go to a disabled children’s school/home. I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but it was really cool. We were given a tour of the school, and saw some of the kids of doing their work. They train them based on the severity of their mental challenge. They group them into three levels. There are older people at the school too. They make paper cups to sell to street venders, and they make note cards. They are actually all really very cool. I am kind of regretting not getting them to send out. We were recruited to do some work around the school after our tours. We cut the grass and made small trenches around some plants for them to water. We used some weird tool that was not real easy to cut grass with. We had to go back behind ourselves to and pick up the clippings. It was hard work, and it was hot so we were ready for a good meal. We got to eat lunch at the home. It was the first Indian food that I actually liked. We ate with our hands, and on banana leaves. It was really fun. I would love to start doing that back home, but I know that I would be looked down upon in our culture. It was just really fun to do, messy, but fun. After lunch we were able to play with the kids. I was with two boys at first that knew no English and were playing some game where they flicked a “coin” to get others into holes. I never truly understood it. As more children came in I spread out. One little girl loved playing with my hat and sunglasses. She was deaf so I couldn’t talk to her at all. I didn’t know she was deaf for a while though. I was talking and using my hands enough for her to know what was going on. I got some awesome pictures of her, and hopefully I will be able to upload them in Thailand. Every time I try to upload pictures they don’t make it up for some reason. I am sorry for that, because I know there are some of you who are anxious to see pictures. There is nothing more that I want than for you all to be able to see these pictures to. They are not real artistic, but they do help tell the story. Anyways we played with these kids for almost two hours. One girl that was with us got peed on. I felt so bad for her. The kids were awesome though. I am really having a hard time expressing how awesome this experience was.

India was so humbling. Coming here showed me a part of the world that I figured I would never see, or even care to see. God has placed people in a dire situation here, but India and its people have taught me so much. I am thankful to Him that I was able to experience all of this. I am able to see just how great our God is, and how true He is in His word. The bible study that I am in on the ship has talked about how we are facing persecution on the ship, and even in some of these countries. We are called to follow His will, and together we are finding that much easier. Thank you all for any prayers that have and are being said for me and this trip. It is one that I will be changed forever by, and India has a huge part of that. Please pray for the bible study that I am a part of and that we will seek truth and God will for our studies and that His glory will be shown through us.

I am looking forward to Thailand. I am going to Phuket, which is what The Beach was film I think. It is suppose to be very pretty and the group I am going with is pretty large. It should be a lot of fun, and should be relaxing. I will try to not make it so many days between blog next time. There was just a lot of traveling in the past 2 weeks! I hope everyone understands the delay!

Mauritius – An Island No One Really Knows About

What an eventful day! The sunrise over the mountains was just gorgeous. I got up early to get out to the top deck to take some pictures, and just enjoy the fresh morning air as we came into port. I about knocked myself out though. I slipped walking down some stairs, but luckily caught myself with the railings. No one was really around either, so I didn’t make that much of a fool of myself.

I had decided that I was going to go hiking with 4 other girls, 3 of whom were on my safari trip. It turned out that as we were getting cabs Matt, the guy I roomed with on the safari, came walking up. We ended up having to get two cabs; because there was no way that we would have been able to fit 6 people into one cab. We were thinking about fitting 5 into one, but that would have been a miserable drive for sure! We kind of got ripped off for our cab fair, but what is new. We didn’t really know what it should cost us to get to where we were going, but we soon got a far better deal than we could have ever imagined.

We thought that the place we were going to hike had waterfalls, and some great restaurant, but that was not the case. We hiked a mountain called, Le Pouce. It means thumb, and obviously it is shaped like a thumb. It was a lot harder of a climb than I thought it would be. Once on top though, it was just awesome. We could see just about everywhere on the island at that moment. We basically followed a SAS trip not knowing it, but now we are so glad that we did. We met one of their guides at the top. He was the owner of an adventure company called Vertical Limit in Mauritius. He was only hiking the mountain with the SAS students, so he told the group we were with that he would take us to Tamaroon Falls. It is a place with beautiful waterfalls, and there are places to cliff jump. He took us around the island, and before we went to jump we got some food with him and one of his workers. It was just so awesome to get all of this, and he was not expecting anything from us. He had seen SAS people on Mauritius before, and I think gotten a bad feel for them. I hope that we were able to change his mind. We jumped off of a cliff that was 7 meters high. He said that translated into something like 20-25 feet. I was pretty proud of myself for getting the courage to do it.

He told us about half way through the day that he had to go back to the port, which is where we had to go, so he took us back. I was sitting in the back on an old jeep that had side sitting benches. My bag was caught in the door so at a stop light, or what we thought was one, I opened the door so that I could get the strings out of the door. Well he started moving right at the time, and I thought that I was going to go flying out the door. I obviously didn’t, but it sure was a scare! We thought we had the door all the way shut too, but it came open again when he had slowed down and was speeding back up. We were a little scared back in the back. We made it safe. All of us had talked, or tried to and wanted to give him a little something for taking us around and making sure we were all safe and everything. He would not accept, only saying that when he went to New York City to study people were always nice and willing to show him around, so he was happy to do it for us. I mean, I don’t know if I know a single time when I have thought of picking up a total stranger and offered to show them around. I guess I am always skeptical about what is safe and what is not, but it makes me want to be able to do that sometime. Maybe I’ll be a little picky about when I choose to do that when I get back home. The day wore me out, and I passed out when I got back on the ship. I missed the opening ceremonies for our SAS Olympics. I will just have to make up for it all the competitions. Hopefully the Mediterranean Sea can kick some butt, and bring home the gold!

South Africa – The Trip MUST Go On

South Africa is a place that I probably could have stayed for the whole semester and been perfectly fine with. I did not get to see a lot of Capetown, or as they call it the Mother City, because of my four day safari. There will be a lot more on the safari later. I was a little bummed when I got up really early to see us pull into port, and it was a very very foggy morning. I went outside anyway to see if I could weather the storm. It was a little to cold, and the fog horn was a little too loud for my liking so I went back to sleep for a little while before breakfast. We got into port late, and I hated that because my day was jam packed and I didn’t want to lose any time. I had to go on a field trip essentially. It was actually very interesting, but I wanted to spend as much time with the Boones as I could. I got back to the ship after my educational trip to the museum where they have people telling stories about their life of oppression and segregation. It was interesting to see how racism is not just a part of America, but can be a part of other countries as well. There were a lot of blacks, and colored people who were not given many rights during the 60s to the 90s. They have been under a democratic rule for 15 years or so, but they are moving very slow on getting their housing and everything corrected.

When I got back to the ship I picked up Hailey, the girl that grandmother set up for me to meet before the trip. We were rushing to get to a pay phone so we could call Amy so that we could start our Capetown adventure. I must be really dumb, but when I was calling I didn’t use the area code because I figured that it was like America, and when you are in the area you don’t need an area code. I called probably 3 or 4 times before I tried the area code and it worked. I felt so dumb. She came and picked us up, and off we were. She took us to her house, and we got to meet the family. They are a great family. I know it is hard on her kids though to be in the position they are in. They are some of the only kids in their school that are Christians, and as I have found out, it is hard sometimes to take the ridicule and live in accordance to His will with not a lot of people around to hold you accountable.

Amy took us to the school that she works with. It is in a township, which is basically tin shacks built on top of one another, and no bigger than a couple of rooms in a house. There will sometimes be 15 people living in one, because everyone in the family just feeds off of the one person who works. The school was a little nicer than a tin shack though. It had cement walls, and the windows were getting protective bars put on them, which is what Central has given them money for in the past few months as I understood it. They were so grateful, because there can be a lot of crime in the townships, and that is just a nice way for them to secure some of their stuff, and the kids if something were to happen. The kids were great. We got there and just kind of looked around. They were excited to see Amy, but were a little standoffish to us a first. We couldn’t communicate with words to them, but we got the hang of it pretty quick. They loved to be chased and tickled. I got a kick out of it. After a while of playing, Amy got them together to sign to us. It was so awesome; they had hand movements and everything. The last song they sang was “Jesus Loves Me” or a variation of it. They started in their language but with the hand movements I picked up pretty fast what they were saying, and pretty soon they switched to English! It was the coolest thing, so I sang along with them. We took some pictures with the kids! They were all excited to take a picture and then see what it looked like after. Hailey had to be careful because they would just grab her camera and one about dropped it. I was sad that we didn’t get to stay longer, but the Boones had some things to do, and we were going to get back to the ship before it got to dark. I just kind of hung out at the ship for the night so that I could pack and I thought get a good night sleep.

I thought about getting a good night sleep, but I think I was just a little to excite. I stayed up until about 1:30am and had to be up at about 4am. It was kind of a bad choice to do that because I have trouble getting up to my alarm which is just a little alarm on a watch. I need to pick up an alarm clock in some story in Mauritius. It was a little awkward on the ride there and the plane flights because it was so early in the morning and everyone wanted to sleep, but once we got there it got better. Well it got a little worse, and then got better. There were a lot of things that happened with two of the guys basically throwing a fit about “not being at the right place” but everyone else thought the place we were at was not only correct, but nice enough not to complain about it. It was really embarrassing to all of us, but they left the camp we were at to be at the other one. It was such a nice place. We stayed in “tents.” You would walk into a concrete floor with a desk, a couch, two twin beds with a mosquito net around it, and there was a wall that went up behind the beds. On the other side of the wall is where the bathroom facilities were. It was very open. There were two sinks and shower heads. The shower took up basically the whole back part, with the sinks just on a counter that were basically part of the shower. The toilet had a little more privacy though, so that was good. The only thing about the toilet is that there was a window right next to it. The windows in the place were just netting, with a flap that would cover it if need be.

We took a game drive that night, and it was awesome. We spotted some really cool game, which is another word for animal if anyone was confused. We saw some giraffe, zebra, impala, buffalo, rhino, hippo and an elephant. Halfway through each drive we would stop for drinks and snacks. We stopped just in the middle of the road, or by a pond. It was kind of scary at first to think that anything could wander up to us at any moment. We never saw anything really close to us though until the last night, but Ill tell you about that a little farther down. The game drives were just incredible. Every game drive was 3 hours. In the morning from 6 to 9, and at night from 4:30 to 7:30. We had pretty much the rest of the time to ourselves to do what we wanted around camp. Napping was always a good option because we were up late at night, and we were at 5:30 in the morning. We got woken up by the beating of drums in the morning, and then they would bring us fresh African coffee to our tents about 5 minutes after that. It was AWESOME! We would eat breakfast and dinner right after our game drives, and we knew when the food was ready for all meals by the beating of drums. The food was great. It was different, but I liked just about everything. We had ostrich the first night, which I didn’t think I would like, but it ended up being pretty good. There were a lot of dishes like that, but I tried them all, and only didn’t like one type of soup.

The game drives, like I said, were amazing! It didn’t matter that I had gotten up at 5:30 in the morning, because we looked forward to them. They would always tell us every drive is different and you didn’t know what you would see. We had a driver of our vehicle, and then a tracker that would look for animals to point out to us, and look for animal tracks on the road. They were both from South Africa. Our driver was a white city boy who loved the outdoors, and our tracker was from a village not far from where we were staying. He walked to work every morning. I talked to him a lot, and he was just awesome. He is in one of my pictures, so when I figure out how to get them up, or they actually go up, you will get to see them.

The first morning we were out there, was awesome. We were just driving around, actually going to a place pretty far away from camp, and all of a sudden we see an elephant bathing itself. It was the coolest thing to see it drink up the water and spray it all over itself. We saw it sit down in the mud and everything. It was the coolest thing. The only problem with that is that his back side was turned to us most of the time. The next thing that we came across is some wildebeest. They were really running around in the field so it was nice not to just see them eating, like pretty much everything else we saw. The driver kept telling us how spoiled we were getting. He got a call on his radio about some lion, so we bolted over to see if we could catch them, which we didn’t at that time but we ended up getting to see them later. We stopped for our break, and then got back on the way. We tried to see our lions again, but they were still lying in the tall grass, and we could not drive off the paths. We did see two elephant in the distance where we could drive though, so we went that way. There was some distance in between the elephant, but they were walking the way of the road we were on. After the first crossed the road, we saw why there was distance in between them. There were two elephants that our guide said could not have been more than about 3 years old. They were so small, relative term small, and it was just such a site. We saw some more of your “general” game (giraffe, impala, etc) on our way back to camp. We had a big breakfast, and just hung out talking to each other the rest of the time. It was cool to meet people that I did. One guy from Buffalo, three girls from Ohio, a girl who is from FL but goes to Vandy. There were just connections every where for me. It was really neat. One of the girls from Ohio, Molly, sisters was a Chi O at UT, and is dating a guy from Webb. It was really cool to meet other people on the boat and not just the group of people I was used to being around. I might go hiking with some of the people in Mauritius.

Our afternoon game drive turned out to be both really awesome and miserable at the same time. We went back to look for those lion. We found out that there were three female lions, and a young cub. They were still in the field that we “saw” them in earlier in the day, so our driver broke the rules and we drive out to find them. WE DROVE WITHIN 30 FEET OF 3 FEMALE LION AND A CUB! It was ridiculous how crazy it was. You could see the power of the lions from the muscles in their body, and the look in their eye was really quite frightening. I know I wanted to get out of there, and we did pretty quickly because it came a down pour. It was raining and lightening so bad where we were. We were the only car that got hit by the rain, and when we got back to camp it had not rained at all. We went back out after dropping a few people off, but didn’t see much the rest of the afternoon. There were two rainbows that popped up side by side after the rain had passed. That was pretty cool to see. They both went all the way across the sky too!

The next morning was a flop. We didn’t see anything. I took 5 pictures all morning, and 3 of the 5 were of just plain scenery. We looked for some lion, and were on its tracks that it left about an hour before. They said it was a big male too. I was really looking forward to getting to see that, but it never happened. Then we heard of some leopard in the area. We went to go hunt for those, but again no luck. It was cool though because you always were on the lookout, and it never got old and boring like you would think 3 hours in a jeep would. I had a really good group the whole time too. There were 3 jeep and we had 7 people plus the driver and tracker. There were 4 students, parents of the girl that goes to Vandy, and a life long learner. The life long learner was just awesome! She made me laugh the whole time. We would be looking at something exciting, and she would say look there is a cool bird over on this side. We would all just laugh. She might “adopt” me into her extended family on the ship.

The afternoon drive will be the one to remember! It was packed full of stuff. We had two missions. Follow up on the lion tracks from earlier in the day, and on the leopard. We didn’t get the lion tracks but two calls came in. One was for two male lion and the other the leopard were out. We were closer to the leopard so we headed that way. On our way we ran into an elephant. It was a little ways into the brush, so we didn’t stay around to see it for very long. We headed off in the direction of the leopard again, around a corner, 5 count them, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 rhino in the road about 200 yards in front of us. We came within 100 yards of them, and then they walked within 20 feet of us! It was crazy. Those things were HUGE! We sat there just capturing pictures of them, and it was just awesome. I thought they might charge, but they turned and when into the bush, or just a field in our terms. So our adventure to capture the leopard was on. We got into the riverbed where they had been spotted and another vehicle from our camp was there. They were going wild because they said that there was a mama leopard and two cubs. So we moved a little more ahead, and we saw it run across the “road.” Our driver was trying to get up there to it, because he said that sometimes you just see them run across the road because they hide so much. We ended up catching the mama and just snapping pictures of her. I thought that she was going to attack us to protect her babies. She started to come close to the truck, and I got really scared to be real honest. She walked behind us, and when we turned around we saw both cubs. One of the cubs followed the mother into the bush, probably where there den is. I think it would be a leopard den. We will go with that. The other lay down in the sand and just sat there for us. We snapped photos like crazy. The dad of the girl said that he was going to send us all a CD with his photos. He got some really good ones; most of mine came out blurry for some reason.

We got out of the place with the leopard, and we went to get a snack and drink with the other group. When the drivers met up they were just going so wild. It was awesome that they were just as excited about everything as we were, maybe more so than a few of the people. The guides really made our experience that much better. I had to go to the bathroom, so I went over to some trees over kind of on a hill. When I got there though, I got a little scared. There was an elephant coming through and I was peeing just 50 yards from it. We had a contest of who could spit hare poop the farthest. I lost by a lot. I don’t know what the deal was but mine just seemed to fly right down. People were messing with some hippo in the water too. Dangerous animals those hippo. They were opening their mouths, and our guides were saying that we needed to get out of there before they came up on the land. We went back to camp for dinner. The 3rd group took a while to get back because after they went after the male lions they tried to get to the leopard. They didn’t see it, but caught it the next morning. We tried the next morning for the lions but couldn’t find them. They were hiding in the brush. One of the girls filmed the lions roaring! It was insane to see them just roaring at each other to communicate!

The next morning we went out, but didn’t really see much, We couldn’t stay out very long because we had to be back to get to the airport. We got back to the boat after time to be on the ship, and people were watching thinking we were going to get dock time, but we didn’t. It was kind of weird not having to wait in line and just jumping on the boat. We didn’t end up leaving port until the next morning (Monday) because there were high winds and rough seas to get out of the narrow gate. I didn’t even realize we didn’t leave until the morning. I was so tired from everything that I just passed out once back to the room. Mauritius for a day is next. It probably won’t live up to Capetown, but it will be fun to see other countries!

Namibia: The Country of Sand

Namibia is so far, and by far my favorite country so far. It was so awesome. The people, the sites, the food, and anything else that you could imagine. It helps that it is very cheap too. The country has no middle class. People are either very poor, or very rich. My tour guide on one of my trips was telling us that a nice house on the beach would only cost about 30 to 40 thousand American. I was thinking I should just move here. There is not to many trees, bushes, or grass. It is mainly sand dunes. There are huge sand dunes that come all the way up to the beach. It is BEAUTFUL!

 

I started off the trip by going on a 4X4 tour of the sand dunes. It was really pretty cool. I kinda thought it was going to be ATV riding in the desert. It turned out to be a toured guide of the desert. We were in old Land Rovers. They were actually a lot of fun to be in. My guide did not like to follow in the leaders path like a lot of the other drivers so he would take us “off roading” in the dunes every now and then. He was a lot of fun and very informative. We got to see, what one person named, the “Small Five.” These five include a scorpion, sidewinder, cameleon, sand beetle, and a geiko. The main guide would just randomly stop, and we would all think why in the world is he stopping. He would walk probably 50-100 yards and pick something up out of the sand. He found a sidewinder that way. I was just like wow! How in the world could you know that there was going to be a snake over there? My pictures will probably discribe the experience better than my words. I am having trouble discribing it all, because well it was a lot and I mean a lot of sand everywhere you could see. Every once and a while you could see either Walvis Bay or Swakopmund. Those are the two towns that the desert separates. At the end of the tour, or what we thought was the end of the tour, our driver drove up a large dune. It was pretty compact sand, so we got up quickly and we just sat there for a few minutes. When I looked to the sides of us, we were all in a line and my driver said something in Afrikaans, then we just went over the hill. IT WAS A HUGE DUNE! If I were skiing I would have been in knee deep powder. It’s the only was I know to discribe it. Our driver would hold the break down and we would slide down the mountain for a few yards then stop. He would let off and away we would go. I kinda thought that it was going to cause a sand avalanche.

 

After the 4X4 tour, I came back to the boat to get cleaned up for dinner. We went to what I think was the only restaurant open in Walvis Bay that night. It seemed like everything just shut down for the day. The people that I went with were the people that rode in my 4X4 with me for the tour. They were good people from Nebraska, Washington, and well I cant remember where the other girl is from. Whoops. We all got something different and decided to share a little of each with everyone. We had crocodile, warthog, beef rump, and a chicken dish. The warthog was not very good, but everything else was really good. We got the beef rump and chicken for safe dishes that we knew we would like. I really like the crocodile, but it really just kind of took on the taste of the sauce that it was in. Not a whole lot of taste for it. I paid for two drinks(no free refills), the chicken dinner, and a dessert, all for $14 American. The food was so cheap, but so good. Maybe I am just used to food only being that cheap at Taco Bell, so not as high quality.

 

The second day, I kinda slept in a little later than I wanted to. I was a little upset with myself. I was just so tired from the day before in the sun. I was planning on going to walk around Walvis Bay and just kind of experience the culture a little bit while I waited on Dan and Mack to get back from their SAS trip. They missed it though so I wasn’t really sure if I was going to end up meeting them, or if I was just going to hang out with some other people. I decided after lunch to go walk around. I was a little nervous to walk around by myself, but its an adventure. While I was walking out of the port I ran into two Namibians, and they were awesome. I talked to them for like 30 minutes. I was a little freaked out at first because they were talking about the way I was dressed, and they kinda were hinting that they wanted my Mions. I was not about to part with my Mions in the middle of a nasty port though. They were telling me how they wished they were American like me and could travel the world and have a lot of money like all Americans do. It made me kind of sad to think about. Again, when I think about it now, I think of just how much God has blessed my life with all he has provided for me. They said they have never traveled outside of Namibia, and very rarely outside of Walvis Bay. When I left the two Namibians, I was just walking and started hearing my name yelled out. It was Dan and Mack coming back from Swakopmund. I “ran” back to the ship to catch up with them, since I was not really caring to be alone. We all went back to Swakopmund, which is a town settled by Germans. They had set up that morning to go ATVing so I just walked around the town. The town was so awesome. It was all closed down though, which is what a guy told me every Namibian town does on Sundays pretty much. Since I found that out, I figured I would just kind of see things in the town, even though I couldn’t go into any stores. I found an internet café and got some pictures uploaded, read some news, and talked to some people. It was very nice to hear voices from home! I just kind of hung around the town until they all came back.

 

We went out to dinner that night, to again what seemed to be the only place open. It was amazing to me that the town knew that there were about 500 tourist in the town and no one wanted to stay open an extra day. It was pretty good food, but I thought that I might have gotten TD or travelers diarrhea. I know, its probably to much information to share, but its just part of it. I was scared, so I figured I would share. I luckily did not have it though! We went to the only bar that was open in town, and I think every SAS person went there that night. The bar scene is not me, but I put up with it, met some people, and had the best time that I could. There wasn’t really anything else to do. Mack and I left after Dan, and he had the key to the room, and what we found out the hotel in general. We were lucky that the security guard did not leave early. He was about to leave as we were coming back, and he let us in the building. We would have been sleeping outside if it werent for him.

 

I had to sleep on the floor, which Mack liked to refer to as the Ritz-Carlton. He had to do it the night before. We had 5 people sleeping in a room for 2! We got up the next morning to go back to Walvis Bay. Mack and Dan had an FDP to go to. I just kind hung out on the boat, caught up in my journal, and did my quiet time. We went lunch at the same restaurant that I ate at the night before, but that is ok. It was good, because I got to try more of the good food. I kind of got a free meal out of it all because they didn’t get my order, and I just ate everyone elses left overs, and appatizers. I will not make the same mistake that I did though. I made the mistake of being the “sober sailor” or in other words the one who gets everyone back to the ship in one piece after they have been drinking. I had fun for a while hanging with everyone, but as it got closer to time to be back on the ship, I was getting a little worried. I tried to hurry people up, but they weren’t listening. 5 more minutes and I would have been out of there. If we are late to the ship 1-14 minutes is 3 hours of time we have to stay on the ship at the next port. 15-30 minutes is 6 hours and it works its way up to 12 hours. I am not about to stay on the ship for other peoples ignorance, and entertainment for a few minutes. Like I said, that will not be a mistake I will make twice.

 

All in all it was a good trip to Namibia. I had a great time. It is a very relaxing country, and really there is not much to do. It was nice, I know that I will be really busy in South Africa. Only one day on the ship and then I am in South Africa, so that is a really nice thing too. I hope everything is well for everyone back in the States, take care!

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