Hilo

Honolulu

89th Floor of Taipei 101

Taipei 101

Wu Lai

Taiwan National Palace Museum

China

Can’t believe that it is actually April. I remember getting on this trip and thinking that April will feel like years from now, but it really flew by. China was unforgettable. The first day we got into Hong Kong at around 10 in the morning. it was a little later then what we expected because the seas were really rough the prior few days. Once we got in, I could tell what my professors were talking about when they said that the smog would limit visibility. I could see the other side of the harbor, but down farther was so clouded in smog. I’d say I could see about two miles or so before it became completely white.

I decided to tag along with Mike, Paige, and Jess. We took the star ferry across the harbor to the main island of Hong Kong. The first thing I noticed was the amount of luxury cars. Every other car seemed to be a Mercedes, Lexus, or BMW. There were also a good amount of Porsches and I saw three Bentleys and two Ferraris. The four of us ended up going to this restaurant where a lot of SASers went to because they heard from people who had been and said it was great. The servers would walk around with trays of all kinds of interesting stuff and you just waved them down if you saw something you wanted. It was relatively cheap for the kind of atmosphere they had.

After lunch, we decided to try and find this huge escalator to go up, but when we got there, it was just a series of escalators. Mike and I thought it was cool, but not something to spend forty fives on. Once we got to the top, Paige insisted on going to the zoo and tea museum. We got a little turned around and found the botanical gardens, which was also a bit of a snooze. We cut through those and then into the zoo. At this point, Mike and I were bored. I mean we were in Hong Kong and Paige wanted to spend time looking at lemurs and orangutans. After that, we thought the museum would be a little cooler, but we were wrong. The museum was a bunch of different kinds of tea and different cups of historic value. Good thing the museum was in Hong Kong park, which was a nice place to wait while Jess and Paige went through the tea museum.

After we split up with them, Mike and I got a taxi to the shopping district so Mike could get a bigger backpack for his independent travel. After getting that, we decided to head back to the ship for dinner. We waited until 8 to see the light show that the buildings of Hong Kong performed every night. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was neat to see. Because it was earth hour, at 8:30 all of the lights of the buildings turned off which I thought was something cool to see. After watching the skyline, Mike and I met up with Steph and Katie and we decided to walk a few blocks away to check out the night life, until we discovered how expensive everything was. We got back to the ship at around 2:30 after Mike and I decided to sit and watch the skyline by the harbor. The next day, we left for Beijing. The Hong Kong airport wasn’t anything special. They had American stores and American food. Our flight was at 1:55 and I ended up sleeping the whole way, which was about 3 hours. Once we exited out of the terminal, we didn’t find a person waiting for us. Turns out the university completely forgot about our trip so we spent the next 3 and a half hours in the airport. It was surprising how everyone was as patient as we were.

Finally at around quarter to nine, a guide that ISE had booked picked us up from the airport. We were taken to the Jade Palace hotel where we stayed the night. I ended up going down the street with Lee and Russ in order to find some food since we didn’t have too much to eat at the airport. We found a place that was very Chinese. Never before did I have trouble with a language barrier but here, it was almost impossible. I tried to make a hand gesture for drinking while saying coke, and the waitress started cracking up hysterically. So much so, that she had to turn away and a second waitress had to take my order. This didn’t really give me a good feeling about mandarin. The next day, we were picked up by the same tour guide that brought us to the hotel and she told us that we were going to the Great Wall. It was about an hour ride outside of Beijing. I slept a little on the way and once we got there, it was kind of cool and deserted. The hike itself was a lot harder than I anticipated. The stairs were very uneven too. One would be a baby step while the next would be almost waist high. There were a surprising amount of older people climbing the wall too, it was a workout. Once we got to the top of the section, the view was breathtaking. Of course I took pictures, but it doesn’t do the scene real justice. The walk down was a lot easier.

Once we got back on the bus, we went to lunch/jade jewelry dealer. I think they anticipated on us buying things, but not many of us did. After lunch, we went to the Summer Palace. The palace was built on a pear-shaped lake which was huge. There weren’t too many interesting things to look at, but the general setting was very peaceful. After the summer palace, we went out to dinner. That night, we were informed that we would be moving to the university guesthouse. The guesthouse actually turned out to be cooler than the hotel. Oh, the one thing I found in common about all Chinese beds, is that they are ROCK hard. I jumped on my bed at the guesthouse hoping that it would be softer than the one at the Jade Palace, but I was wrong.

But anyway, the next day we went to the Forbidden City, which was cool. It did become repetitive though. We kept passing through sections that looked the same as the previous. Even the professor leading the trip made a comment about the similarity that each section had. It was also very crowded. The guide said they could have up to 50,000 people a day. Once we made our way through, we went across the street to Tiananmen Square. This also wasn’t so eventful. I kind of thought of it like going to Washington D.C. At first, everything you see is cool to look at and take in. As time goes on, it gets boring. After you leave, you realize what you just saw is something amazing that someone, somewhere in the world won’t ever see. So I tried to appreciate the moment as much as I could while it lasted.

After we left Tiananmen Square, we got lunch and then went to the Temple of Heaven. It was kind of embarrassing to see the other SAS kids doing handstands and making a big commotion while some Chinese people were on their knees praying. The temple itself was beautifully colored with reds, greens, and blues. It was pretty cool to be able to see where the emperor of China would once go to pray. After the temple, we went to a Chinese acrobatics show. T his show was great, but no one was allowed to take pictures or video. Some of the acts included men jumping through hopes that were near ten feet high, a guy juggling ten or eleven balls, women with extreme flexibility, and men flipping between two poles. T he whole show reminded me of Cirque De Solei. After the show, we were taken back to the guesthouse. Lee, Russ, and I decided to wander out around the university to try and find something interesting. I ended up trying this amazing skewer of some kind of meat, but it was great. A fter that, we all headed to bed.

The next day, we went to the Zoo to see the pandas. The panda actually looked like a man in a bear suit, but it was awesome to see. The rest of the zoo consisted of some nocturnal creatures, a fat lioness, and some elephants. After South Africa, I think I was a bit spoiled with the creatures. When we left the zoo, we got to see the Olympic Village. The Bird’s Nest was pretty cool see. I never realized how close it was in proximity to the Water Cube. Both were cool to see. After spending about half an hour there, we headed to the airport for our flight. That night, Lee, Russ and I decided to walk around Shanghai for awhile before we all headed to sleep. It was a long couple of days.

The following day, I met up with Mike, Kyle, and Erica. Mike and Kyle had just come back from their independent travel to Beijing. They had seen the same things I had, for about a third of the price. We all decided to check out the Shanghai World Financial Center. Once we got to the foot of the building, we realized it was around $25 American to go to the top, so we all decided to try to go to the top of the Pearl Tower but when we got there, we found that it was the same price. The one thing I noticed about walking around Shanghai during the day was the amount that people spit. Even on the Great Wall, people would hawk lugies left and right like people didn’t care. I mean it was gross, but people there believe that it is a healthy habit and completely acceptable. Another observation I had was how short everyone was, but I kind of expected that. We all ended up having dinner at this awesome place a few block away from the ship. It was about $2.50 American for a hefty portion of some real Chinese food, and the menu was English too! After we ate, we decided to hit a bar that was on the same block. There, the bar owner took a picture of the four of us and put it on the wall of his bar along with other Americans. It was pretty awesome to be immortalized on the wall of a bar in Shanghai.

The next morning, I met up with Kyle and Mike and we went to the market. The process of getting there took about two hours though. We ended up walking in a different direction from the subway stop and took the wrong train. In the ended, we gave up and got into a taxi. The market itself was huge and confusing. If you wanted something, it could be bought here. There were people selling all kinds of things, more so then in Vietnam. There were place I thought were stores that turned out to be malls. I think I counted three Dairy Queens and Two Starbucks just within the vicinity of the market. After the market, the three of us went onto the boardwalk and sat for about half an hour before we left to get back on the ship. The whole experience of China was great, I wish we could have stayed longer.

The Forbidden City

The Great Wall of China

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Hong Kong Park

Hong Kong

Vietnam

Can't believe that its March 24th already. Vietnam went by so quickly. The seas are really rocky right now. I just came from dinner and we had one good wave that caused drinks to hit the floor and people to drop their plates. But yeah, Vietnam was great.

The first day, I ended up being able to get on the city orientation tour with Kyle, Mike and Katie. As soon as we got off, there was a group of about 15 women dressed in traditional Vietnamese clothing holding a banner welcoming SAS to Ho Chi Min City. We all boarded the bus and our first stop was a Buddhist temple. On the way, I noticed that there was an abundance of scooters on the road. No real motorcycles, but for every car, there had to be at least 8 or 9 scooters on the road. The traffic was crazy here too. People would cut other people off left and right, but others didn’t seem to get pissed at this. Being in a bus was great though, no one tried to cut us off and we basically got to go whenever we wanted to.

The Buddhist temple was nothing special compared to the one in Singapore. I saw similar statues and people burning incense as an offering. After the temple, we had lunch at a very nice restaurant. Here, a coke cost 49000 dong, which is only about 2.50 American. I think the exact rate was 20,856 dong to the dollar, something ridiculous. We ended up eating some chicken soup, fish, rice, and shrimp. The food was very well prepared.

After lunch, we went to see a water puppet show across town. The stage was a pond of water at the foot of a building. In the building were people that would control the puppets. There were dragons, humans, geese, and what looked like a turtle, all of which did tricks on top of the water. For the finale, a dragon puppet spit fire from his mouth, which was pretty cool. The whole show only lasted around 10 minutes. After that, the people controlling the puppets came out from the back and bowed while we applauded.

After the show, we were taken to the former president’s palace, which was now the reunification palace. We were shown the various rooms where important representatives would meet as well as the bomb the shelter. After that, we were taken to Notre Dame church where we saw a service being held. It wasn’t really anything special, or anything I didn’t see before.

That night, Mike, Kyle and I decided we wanted to grab some Vietnamese food so we looked on wikitravel for a good place and we all decided to go to Allez Boo. As soon as we left the harbor, we were being bothered by people to get motorcycle rides. We ended up getting a taxi because we weren’t sure how safe the bikes would be. Once we pulled up to Allez Boo, the meter read 940, so we paid the driver 940000 dong. As soon as we all stepped out, the driver sped away and we realized that we almost paid 50 dollars for a taxi ride that less than 5 minutes long. We were pissed for the next few hours because it didn’t register with any of us how much we actually paid because the currency system was so inflated compared to the states.

At Allez Boo, I ended up getting steamed rice with crab meat, absolutely great. We all had a few drinks along with dinner and the total bill came to around $56, which was wasn’t exactly the kind of deal we had hoped to get. After Allez Boo, we walked for a few blocks and stumbled onto a place where the food was much cheaper. Here, the same dish was a fifth of the price compared to Allez Boo. We decided to sit down and have some french fries and garlic bread before we headed back to ship.

The next morning, Kyle and I got up early in order to get to the bus station for an early bus to My Tho, a city about 2 hours south of Saigon. The taxi ended taking us to a market, but still close to another bus station. We were sure that we paid him only $5 this time too. Once there we bought tickets from the station for 30000 dong each and got on our bus. We had to get off in order to transfer at another bus station. A few stops later, the whole bus seemed to tell us to get off for My Tho, like everyone knew where we wanted to go. I guess being American had its advantages some times. Once off, we were ushered onto a minibus where the man quickly demanded 500000 from both of us. This time, I knew that it was way too much, but Kyle said the he saw the man in front of us pay the same amount. I still didn’t think that $25 for a 2 hour ride was anywhere near reasonable, but Kyle had paid, so I did the same. The man walked right off the bus. After we discussed it, we tried to get our money when we realized that we made a big mistake. When Kyle stpped off the bus in order to make it clear to the man what we wanted, the driver started to pull away, so he had no choice but to get back on. Again, we got ripped off for around $20. These people were out to take advantage of any white person, and from then on, Kyle and I made sure not to do anything before we established a price.

Once we arrived in My Tho, we took separate bikes to a hotel in the middle of a small village. Here, we met Nikko, a man 36 years old who had moved from Finland to Vietnam around 10 months ago. He spoke English but it wasn’t the best. The price of the room at the hotel, which was $8, also included a free bike rental. So for the next four hours, Kyle and I biked around the village, going back into neighborhoods and seeing the Mekong Delta. At around 4, we decided to head back to the hotel, but we were a little lost. Luckily, Kyle had brought the business card of the hotel. We asked about ten people before we finally arrived back at the hotel.

After a nap, we wandered to the main part of the hotel and had elephant ear fish for dinner, which was a native fish to Mekong Delta. We stayed and talked with Nikko, the hotel owner, a lonely student about our age from Japan, and a younger couple from the UK that was staying at the hotel too. It was about 10 before we headed to bed. We woke up at around 9, said goodbye to everyone at the hotel, and got motorbikes back to the bus station. Our plan was to travel a further two hours south to Vihn Long, but because we got ripped off neither of us felt like dishing out more money to have the same thing potentially happen again. Once we got back to the ship, we got changed, ate, and then went to the war museum.

The war was refered to as the American War to the Vietnamese. After leaving the museum, I felt like a dick for what we did to these people. The pictures and accounts both Americans and Vietnamese people made me feel so terrible for America’s actions. After leaving, Kyle and I walked around and decided to eat on the ship and then go out to the night market. Mike had left for Cambodia earlier that day and wasn’t going to return until after on ship time, so it was just me and Kyle for the rest of the time. The night market was amazing. If you wanted something, they had it. Ffake DVDs, shirts, dress shirts, tailors, shoes, food, fake watches, backpacks, everything. I ended up getting a north face backpack for Abby for $6.25. Kyle told me that they normally go for around $100 back home, so I thought I made out pretty well. There were plenty of other deals like that, but because the bus back to the ship ended at 10:30, we left early.

The next day, Kyle and I spent all day wandering around the city. We weren’t really looking for anything specific, but just walking to take in the atmosphere. That night we hit the night market and had a good time bargaining with people, but we didn’t buy too many things. After getting back at 10:30, I decided to go out to a club called Lush. The club wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but I refused to buy a beer for 75000 dong when I knew I could get one a block down on the street for 10000. We left at about midnight and went to Apocalypse Now, which was another night club. I was with Janie and her friend and we decided to walk because it wasn’t too far away. On the way, Janie almost had her back purse stolen right off her shoulder by a man on a scooter. The scooter had driven up onto the sidewalk and the next thing I knew, I heard Janie hit the ground. At first I thought she had been hit, but she was just holding onto her purse when the man had grabbed onto it. It turns out she got drgged for about 5 feet before the guy on the scooter let go. Thankfully, she only had a few scrapes and she didn’t lose anything. It was something that they warned us about, but something that I never expected to happen. Apparently, there were three or four other similar events that happened that night as well.

The next morning, Kyle and I decided to head to this local place spend the rest of our dong. We heard about it from one of the younger doctors on the UVA medical staff that had joined us in India. When we got there, the place was full of Vietnamese and everyone stared at us as we walked in. Before we sat down for a minute, the waiter brought as a bowl of moist peanuts and a 2-liter jug of beer. After a while, locals started coming up to us and trying to talk with us. They were all very friendly and just wanted to practice their English. A little later on, people started singing and dancing around the place, probably because they were drunk. at around 3, Kyle and I headed to the market where we tried to spend the rest of our dong that we didn’t spend earlier. I tried to get a fake rolex for 100000 dong, but no one would go that low, so I settled for a T-shirt instead. We got back on the bus at around 5:15 and got back on the ship at 5:30. Vietnam was a great time.