Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
I am so very thankful for this opportunity.
I am so very thankful for everyone who pushed me to take this opportunity.
I am so very thankful for everyone you.

Off the coast of Japan

Sunday, November 22 – Off the coast of Japan
17:49

I’m currently in-transit between Yokohama and Kobe. There’s around 150 other passengers that are on the ship with me, including Ryan, Viki, Eric and a few of my other friends. I am really trying to be productive today. I just began my 10 page paper for my West and the World class, and I have every intention to finish it today.
I went to a child’s yoga class today, that was instructed by Ian. He had plans in school to do a study on yoga for children with behavioral issues, within his short amount of study he noticed a difference in the children, but had Stella and couldn’t continue his study. The class he instructed today was the class he gave to those students. It was a really nice class. He told me I should come to his regular classes on A days, which I plan to do. I really enjoy him and his family. They’re really great people.

I also received my package from home today. I have “thug a test” family. About a month or two ago (ship time is very strange, and you are mentally unable to keep track of real time) I asked my mother to send me peacock feathers. The peacock feathers are to do a ceremony of sorts (from The Darjeeling Limited) in Hawaii with some of my pals. I received a relatively heavy package, and as I was heading back to my room carrying it, I went through all the possible things it could be. I knew if it was a package and not just an envelope, there was going to be Double Stuf Oreos. What I didn’t expect was a bunch of other goodies, including DR. PEPPER! This package is going to be a life saver during our ten day haul.

And as I was writing this, cute little Stella came on the intercom to have us all sing happy birthday to Rita (the voice). I love days that are different from the rest.

I plan to look into the JET program. If I get accepted this would involve me living in Japan and teaching English. I’ve only spent around 30 hours in Japan so far, but I’ve really enjoyed it. There’s A LOT to do. I have always loved the Asian culture. Although it’s minimally difficult to find, there is Dr. Pepper in vending machines.

My funds are running really low. I’ve had a few unexpected expenses on the ship, including a visa for Viet Nam that I didn’t know about (which the majority of the ship didn’t know about, including teachers). I also didn’t know what to expect in a few of the countries, and didn’t budget correctly.  The expenses I have left are for my Osaka stay, Hawaii, the Ambassador's Ball, etc. I’m having a minor freak out, but I think I will make it.

It is difficult to think that the voyage will be over in 22 days. The ten day trip between Japan and Hawaii may be a tough one - full of school work, a global studies exam, and collection of pictures.

Brooke's adventures in China!

Wednesday, November 18 – Between China and Japan
15:43
First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOTHER, Uncle Michael and Ryan Biehle (my best friend on the ship)! Secondly, I had the best possible time in China. My adventure felt exactly how an adventure should feel. It was difficult to make bullet points for China, because there was just so much going on!

Hong Kong, like I mentioned before, was great and I loved it. I would go back in a heartbeat. The skyline is absolutely stunning. Our tour of Hong Kong was fantastic - I got over 500 pictures and had a delicious lunch. Victoria’s Peak has the most breathtaking views of HK. The nightlife is incredible. Joey, Anjuli, Matt and I went out to dinner and had such a great time. We spent the majority of dinner laughing. There were streets of bars and clubs, and 7elevens with cheap beer. Matt and I ended up smoking hookah with Viki, Chelsea and some others before going on a mission to find Alyssa with Brian. At one point we cheers-ed with Dean Nick. We took the ferry to dinner, and had to take a taxi back - which involves going through an underwater tunnel (mom would love this). It’s really long and really cool!

Our flight experience was so neat. The airport was huge. I have never been on a flight knowing more than two people. It was really interesting being on a flight knowing 70+ (other groups were on our flight, too). The food was excellent. Toward the end of the flight, they put on a video where the flight attendants showed you how to stretch - it was quite humorous. I sat next to Andrea, whom I never really talked to before and now really like. I sat behind James and Brian, and near Chelsea, Carley and Allie. We took off in warm weather and landed in the snow! Jackie was so stoked because it was her first time seeing snow.

The group we had on our huge independent trip was amazing. Once we got to Beijing we had to split up into 3 groups since there was 70 of us. I couldn’t of asked or received a better group. I had Jackie, Anjuli, Carley, Lane, Mary-Chanler, Katie, Vanessa, the two Allys, several other great girls and one boy - Mike (25 total). Our tour guide, Robert, was so adorable. He would address us as “girls and the boy” or “my beautiful flowers and the bee”. At the end he told us about his wife, and how he wanted a girl (to which the whole bus full of girls went, “AW”).

The first night in Beijing was a little rough. A decent sized group of us tried to go out to dinner together - which epically failed. We ended up at this random bar in a hotel that served “American” food. That bar is very confused as to what American food is. Not one of us enjoyed our meals. After we attempted to go to Ho Hi (that’s how it’s pronounced, I’m not sure how it’s spelled). That was another epic fail. We ended up back at our hotel, in which I wanted to go back out because I did not want to waste our night in Beijing. James and I ended up finding Ho Hi, which is this amazing bar, club and restaurant area - that looks like Epcot since it’s all around this lake. All the places have bright neon lights. It was also deserted. James and I walked around the entire lake, stopping in a bar where we watched a bit of American sports and had a Chinese version of hot chocolate which was hot water that was brown. (That one hotel in South Africa has the best hot chocolate in the entire world. Literally.) We were still hungry, but all the restaurants closed on us, so we tried to find our way to McDonald’s. Taxi drivers wanted nothing to do with either James or I - these nice locals ended up helping us out, with the very little english they knew and the VERY little Chinese we knew. Apparently they say McDonald’s differently. At the end of the night, James and I ended up with some McDonald’s in our tummies and back to our hotel safe and sound.

The third day of our tour (second day in Beijing) included going to the Silk Street Pearl Market for an hour, where we all purchased warmer clothing. There was absolutely way too much to buy in there and for way too cheap. It was a shoppers paradise, M-ma would of loved it. I tried my hardest to spend next to nothing. The second portion of our day included touring a bell tower, having lunch at a sweet woman’s house, and riding around on rickshaw of sorts through a traditional style neighborhood. We then spent around two hours traveling to The Great Wall of China, climbed a bit of it at sunset and then had a wonderful dinner before making the second most difficult hike of my life.

The hike was about 40 minutes straight up, in the snow, while wearing layers upon layers of clothing. You strip as you hike up because you get so incredibly hot from your layers and hiking. Oh, and your only source of light was the little flash light they gave you. It was a beautiful hike up - you could see every possible star in the sky (which you really can’t imagine how many there are until you see it yourself). Once at the top, the three groups separated into three different watch towers. Our group got the short straw and we had to hike an extra 15 to 20 minutes on the most dangerous parts of the wall in the pitch black, ice and snow. I had a bit of video from this adventure, but it still doesn’t capture what we went through. There was this one staircase that was all ice, and if you tried to hold on to the wall - the wall would fall apart. There was another part that was more or less a 80 degree incline, with no edges.

We were all pretty thrilled when we got to our watch tower. We spread out our two mats and two sleeping bags - grabbed a beer and headed out under the stars. The majority of us couldn’t hack the cold for two long, myself included, and cocooned ourselves in our sleeping bags. This was the one and only time that I was offered unlimited beer - and I didn’t even finish my one. This went for most everyone else. We were visited by a few others from other watch towers - and they were quite silly, mentioning the death traps they had to go through to get to our watch towers. A few people actually SLEPT outside, which had to have been 10 degrees colder. I failed to mention it was negative 15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) when we got off the bus, at the bottom of the mountain. I can’t even tell you how cold it was in our watch tower.

Sleeping was interesting. I was warm, outside of my feet. I went through a few panic attacks from being so bundled up. I woke up a few times wishing it was morning already because I didn’t want to sleep anymore. I finally woke up around 5:30, got up and peed - in nature on The Great Wall (it wasn’t even close to as bad as I thought it was going to be). As I headed back, I ran into Anjuli - who went through the same night as me, besides she didn’t have panic attacks, she just kept waking up having to pee. The both of us went back to our cocoons, and had the best one hour sleep that was interrupted by Robert begging all of us to get up to see the sunrise. Me, and my photographer (shutter-bug) self, got up out of my toasty cove to take a few rather crappy pictures - in awe at the sight of the miles of wall going off in the distance - and went back into my sleeping bag. I enjoyed some peach juice and Oreo cookies for breakfast (the night before I got to experience a peanut butter cream Oreo - delicious), before heading out on our hike - which involved going BACK through our death trap, in the opposite direction. Our group officially hiked more of the Great Wall than any other group.

The hike itself was fantastic. It wasn’t as difficult as Table Mountain. The snow and ice caused a few challenges. A few parts of the wall were rather sketchy, but really neat to climb on. I stopped A LOT to take pictures. Anjuli was my official model of the day (which no one ever minds, due to my camera). We hiked for about 3 miles, and I couldn’t tell you how many hours. The last leg of the wall was the most difficult. After crossing a bridge that is hanging above water, you hike up. It was more or less a staircase from the very bottom of it to the top of it (which isn’t the highest part of the wall, but still difficult). Once you got to “the end”, you could either hike even more to get down or zip line down. I chose to zip line. Jackie and I did it together, and it was incredible. The view was incredible. The act was incredible. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done and it took 30 seconds. Neither Jackie or I have ever done anything like zip lining, and we did it OFF The Great Wall of China.

Once at the bottom, we had lunch which involved an orange chicken of sorts that was my MOST FAVORITE DISH EVER. I was so stoked when she set it down. Whoever told me that Chinese food in China isn’t as good as American Chinese food is DAMN WRONG. It’s better, WAY better, here. We also only had lunch at the bottom of The Great Wall because our buses broke down - the rumor that went around was that the Diesel froze over night.

Our buses eventually started back up, and we headed back to Beijing. This is the part of the trip where our inside joke “FAOUR-CLOCK” comes in, but I won’t explain. We were given the option to go to an acrobat show (which cost $50 USD) or go back to the market. My friends and I all chose the market - it’s just such a rad place. I didn’t buy a lot there, but I sure wanted to. The rest of the night was spent at the hotel watching Chinese television (which is fantastic - I actually saw a really old American Oreo commercial dubbed over in Chinese), showing our purchases to each other, and wifi (which was spent on Skype and email only - since China blocks social networking sites).

The final day was more or less miserable in the sense of weather. We were absolutely freezing. We toured the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Bird's Nest and Swim Cube. We had another excellent meal - which again included “orange chicken”. We were also served Peking Duck, which was delicious. After our regular tour, we were then taken on this crazy escapade - where we were taken to this tea ceremony, which was basically an infomercial for their tea, tea cups, and “pee-pee boy”. After that we had the option to go to a kung fu (more money out of your pocket) or to do whatever you wanted in the area of the kung fu show. Jackie, Anjuli and I got Pizza Hut - which took all of the time we were allotted, and we had to rush out of the restaurant. Our night ended with goodbyes to our lovely tour guide Robert, and an awesome sleeper train to Shanghai.

The first bit of being on the train was interesting. Jackie and I were roomed with Vanessa (which was great), but we thought we would also be with Anjuli (who was ticketed for the room next to us). The other person in our room was this girl Katie, who is one of my least favorite people on this trip. She is also the least favorite of many others. Here is a few reasons why: she has a very annoying voice, she doesn’t seem to think before she speaks, her opinions are off the charts, she thinks she got several items of hers stolen by strangers in Mauritius when it was most definitely her “friends” (this story blows my mind at how dim she is), she lost her debit card during our trip and doesn’t really know how, she dared to ask other people to buy her dinner with several shopping bags in her hands since she lost her debit card, later she asked Jackie to use her iTouch to email home (which was a fiasco in itself since she’s so dim), etc. Jackie entered the room before me, and turned around with this face of “oh-my-god-no-fucking-way” (which she describes as feelings of future disastrous situations and being severely upset). I immediately knew what that face meant. At the same time there were people from other rooms trying to switch people so they could be with their friends. I took this opportunity to ask Katie to switch with one of them, so we could have Anjuli and they could have their friends and so we didn’t have to have Katie. She was hesitant at first, claiming she already put everything under her bed - but I wouldn’t take no for an answer. It took her about 5 minutes to clear out, and about 2 minutes for us to get settled in cabin 10!

While we were chatting in our room, amazed at how great the sleeper train and our adventure was, the two Allys come by. The blonde Ally says in a very “ugh” way, “you will never guess who’s in my room.” I laugh and say, “I bet I can, because I was the one who kicked her out of my room and put her into yours.” It was quite hysterical. The night on the sleeper train was spent exploring other SAS cabins, who were ALL drinking. Actually, if they didn’t bring on their own alcohol, they quickly made the train sell out of beer. The four of us in cabin 10 locked our door around midnight, to avoid anymore drunken interruptions, and chatted until we all fall asleep. It was really nice.

This adventure was so epic. I felt like I made some really good friends, and I felt like I rekindled a friendship that was almost lost. I have some of the best pictures of the trip. I can now say I have seen the great wall - as well as slept, hiked and zip lined off of it (all in the snow). I was really stoked to see Tiananmen Square, although our tour guide would not discuss what we know it for.

Jackie and my plan for the last day in Shanghai was to get tattoos. I asked the woman who spoke a bit of english that was on our bus from the train station to the ship where I could get a tattoo. She wrote down of a place we could go, and also wrote down “tattoo” in Chinese. Jackie and I put our stuff on the ship, had to wait to be cleared (because we missed that bit by being in Beijing and not going with the ship from Hong Kong to Shanghai). During our hour or so wait time, we heard an announcement on the ship that explained that the ship would not be leaving Shanghai until the next day - which meant we had another night in Shanghai. It was due to some bed weather in the seas that we did not want to go through. I thought it was so awesome being able to stay one more night in Shanghai!

Since we had to wait a rather long time to be cleared, we decided to get lunch where we met up with Matt and Viki. The two of them, as well as Chelsea and Rachel decided they wanted to come with us. The six of us obviously couldn’t fit into one taxi, so we decided to take two. Matt showed the two taxi drivers the SAME piece of paper on where to go. The two taxis didn’t make it to the same place. Rachel, Matt and I spent a good 10 minutes waiting for the other taxi or the people who were in it. We then ventured off after some warm beverages (since it was rainy and chilly out). We asked around in this mall of sorts for a tattoo shop. We were told to go this way and that way. We ventured in this section of Shanghai for about an hour until we found a piercing shop who pointed us in the direction to find a tattoo shop. We took a taxi there, found the tattoo shop after about 20 minutes. When we arrived, the man in the shop wasn’t the least bit interested in us being there and wanted to charge me triple what I would be charged in the states. I decided against getting it there. It didn’t feel right, and I didn’t want to pay more than I would at home.

So the day changed a bit. After Matt and Rachel ate some Subway (and Matt had a tasty smoothie of sorts), Matt suggested taking the Metro to People’s Market. We arrive, look around in the shops for about 20 minutes. Matt splits from Rachel and I and comes back not even two minutes later with an excited look on his face, telling us that we need to come with him to, “see this”. He brings us around the corner. I hear a tattoo gun, and then I slip into this 8x4 shop that’s half full of wigs and the other half has a man with his tattoo kit tattooing my friend Viki. Jackie just finished getting her tattoo, and Chelsea was sitting on the sofa (that was some how shoved in that shop).

The other taxi (Chelsea, Jackie and Viki) explained their experience with us: a very tall man who spoke English and helped point them in the right direction, shopping while looking for a tattoo shop, randomly finding a tattoo shop, finding out that the tattoo artist only spoke Chinese, and a random woman who spoke English and Chinese helped translate to the man what the girls wanted and stuck around for about an hour.
While Viki and Chelsea were getting tattoos, Matt, Rachel and I tried on some wigs. They were too much to handle. Matt and I decided that after I got my tattoo we were going to get wigs and wear them out that night. I then spent a bunch of money on my tattoo, a sweet pair of boots, a wig and sunglasses.

After getting ready for the night, making half the ship crack up, and sharing a cab with a few LLCs (Eddie Diaz and Grant?), Matt and I ended up at a restaurant where we were the only two people in the place. The dinner was delicious and beer was mad cheap. After dinner we ended up at this bar where a bunch of our friends were - which only lasted about an hour before we all migrated to a really awesome, over-packed bar/club with a 60 RMB all you can drink cover charge.

We had really rough seas yesterday. It literally felt like the ship was crashing down on the water. Jackie and I ended up going to bed around 2100, while watching Alice in Wonderland, due to the rockiness of the ship. I woke up around 10:30 today, clearly needing the rest. It’s hard to believe we’ll be in Japan in two days. It’s even harder to believe that the voyage will be over in 26 days. I can’t explain to anyone how much work I have to do.

ASIA

Monday, November 9 – Water
16:30
The night before (November 1) my West and the World test, Brian (Boston) and I studied for a few hours. It was the best study session I've ever had. I went back to my room, and even though it was late, I decided to do some homework. The homework I did was my reflection for my Service Learning class- a guided reflection where we had to compare and contrast Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity. I slept, woke up feeling pretty good. Professor Hunt told us to do the last question first. The last question is a question everyone has to answer and is the longest. So, without looking at the rest of the test, I flipped to the last question. I literally laughed at the essay question: Compare and contrast Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. The other questions on the test were things Brian and I drilled into our heads the night previous. I left the class with a huge smile on my face. It's the best I've ever felt about a test in my life.

Wednesday, November 11 – Hong Kong
9:56
I forgot to mention this in my Vietnam update. The first day when we were out, Shannon stopped at a store that was selling makeup and perfume/cologne. I asked for and bought some Pure Poison (which is so old it lost it’s smell - oh well!). I then began looking for my dad’s cologne which I was sure was Eternity, but didn’t want to risk it. The sales woman had me try Eternity, which I immediately knew was right, but let her keep having me try other cologne to be sure. She sprayed another and handed it to me. I took a whiff and I was instantly overcome with memories. It hit me like a brick. I couldn’t believe that I could remember at smell for 14 years, but I began to cry. It was my Uncle Michael’s. Needless to say, the sales woman was so confused at why I was crying and I felt bad because I couldn’t explain it to her. It was a very strange experience.

Thursday, November 12 – Hong Kong
9:16
I love Hong Kong, and I’m really sad that I only had a day here. I’m about to leave to get on a plane to go to Beijing! I am so stoked! A lot of my good friends are going! There’s going to be around 50 of us on one flight! That will be the most I’ve ever known anyone on a flight ever! hahaha And we’re going from 80 degrees to around 20! I’m going to freeze!

Nam

Tuesday, November 3 – Vietnam
12:17
I’m in Nam.

Sunday, November 8 – Half way around the world
20:13

I’ve really started to hate the way I write in this and the way it sounds - how boring it is. I do plan on going back through my journal (since I’m keeping it on Pages) and editing it before I print it out, but I feel like I should just rewrite it all together. This is probably a big reason why I don’t write in it often.

I went to Post-port Reflections tonight. Post-port Reflections is led by the ship’s psychiatrists and it gives anyone who comes a chance to tell a story from the country we just visited. I’ve been to a few, but I have never told a story. I have a stack of my own personal really fantastic stories from Vietnam, and with the previous notion that I couldn’t filter one out to share I got up in front of 50 or so people and told this story:

The second to last night, a few friends and I went to 185 (a bar and restaurant). Half the tables are outside on the sidewalk, and are at a very low level. We had people coming up to us trying to sell us things from cigarettes to flowers and even pot. This little girl in a pink shirt comes up to our table with a big grin on her face, a piece of ice in one hand and her merchandise (flowers and additional assorted goods) in the other hand. She doesn’t try to sell us anything, she just starts flicking the sweat of the ice at us. She’s laughing, we’re laughing. She moves on to the next table, which is a table full of SAS girls and puts the ice on the back of one of the girls. Not even a minute later, we hear a thud on the table. My whole table looks around in confusion and then we realize there’s a rat in the middle of our table. It scurries around, jumps on the empty chair next to me. I don’t even move, I’m just watching. The rest of my table (all guys at this point) jump up out of their seats (good move on Travis’ part). The rat jumps onto Travis’ seat, and then jumps toward the table full of the SAS girls. They react in the typical girl way, screaming and panicking. The rat leaves as quickly and strangely as it came. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was a man at our table trying to sell Travis a massage when the rat came from the heavens. The man tried to hit it with his massaging tools, which is probably why it scurried all over the place. My friends and I are in complete amazement and wander at what just happened. The little girl in the pink heads back over to our table and approaches Travis. She at first gets him with the whole pointing trick; where she points at his knee, makes him look down and then touches his nose. She then proceeds with, “Let’s play rock-paper-scissors. If I win, you have to buy one of these flowers. If you win, I’ll give it to you for free.” He agrees. He loses the first game. She tells him it’s okay, they will play best 2 out of 5. She goes on to beat him all 5 games. We are all laughing at this point. He buys the rose because of how impressed he is with this little girl, her marketing tactics and well - because he lost. This all happened within the first 10 or so minutes that we were there and all during our first drink. Travis turns to the table and says, “I always judge the night by my first drink, and tonight’s going to be a good night.”

After I told my story, I realized how I wanted to write in my journal. I want to do bullet points so I don’t forget all that I did, and I want to tell a few of the best stories. Sorry for all of you that have been suffering through my journal so far.

To continue on with my story, Shannon was gone for the rat bit of the story, because she had been down the street buying a can of coke (she didn’t want to drink alcohol). She comes back, with a smile on her face, and tells me, “I have news that may be really good for you.” She goes on to tell me that she found Diet Dr. Pepper, and that the guy is out of regular Dr. Pepper. I explained to her that yes, that is good news because that means there IS Dr. Pepper in this country and I will be tasting 23 masterly blended flavors in the next few days. This bit will be important later on.

Here goes with the bullet points:

Day 1:

• Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) with Shannon, Eric and Chelsea.

• Having a blast crossing the road.
• Shopping, laughing and wifi by day.

• The four of us went out with Jackie, Ryan, Cody, Beth and Erin and ended up running into 50+ SAS students at Apocalypse Now. Lots of fun!


Day 2:

• $100 solution: a lot of things didn’t go according to plan.

• YMCA with the Vietnamese sewing girls who sang to us and showed us some kind of dance.

• The Vietnamese “one finger moving we are happy” song, which is closely related to our “if you’re happy and you know it”.

• Some of our students dancing to Thriller, hip hop dancing, and Joey Coe who sang Wagon Wheel (which made me tear up due to my parent’s wedding CD). 

• Learning about Disney Internship during lunch from Lauren Gray.

• Half of us didn’t go to the Agent Orange Orphanage due to time restraints, I was one of them who didn’t go. 

• No $100 solution, but I still had a fantastic day.

• Trip to Mui Ne with Ryan and Shannon: Four hours and met Joseph (“Canadian” Korean man).

• Stayed at Wind Champ first night because of Joseph and because it was 1:30 when we arrived.

• Wind Champ: crappy expensive hotel under renovation.

• Went out to Sankara, a “club” beach bar for about a half hour.

• Ryan was out until 5, came back and then Joseph showed up at 5:30 to take him back out until 9am.


Day 3:

• Shannon and I walked down the beach to check it out. We ate at a place called Joe’s (go figure) where we met three travelers (who just met the night before). One had been traveling for over a year, most of it spent in Australia (11 months) on a work visa. The other was a flight attendant who works every other month (on one month, off the other) and travels during the non working months (since he’s being paid half wage during the off months). The other girl, I think, was just on a holiday.

• The travelers told us about a hotel that was having a sale for just opening that looks amazing. We checked it out and decided to check out of our “hotel” and into Ocean Front. 

• Rode on motor bikes for hours: hit up sand dunes, a random village, and other awesome things. Great experience
.
• When we found out that we had to pay an extra $15 to have Ryan stay with us in the hotel, we decided to check out and grab the next bus to Ho Chi Minh. We liked Mui Ne, but Ho Chi Minh had a lot to offer and we didn’t really know what else to do in Mui Ne. 

• Checked out around 5:30, with all of our stuff. Went to get tickets for the next bus home... which ended up being at 1:30 am - several hours from the time of purchase.

• Had a 5+ hour, 600 Dong ($28) dinner: 2 appetizers, 2 sodas, 2 bottles of water, 2 big Tiger beers, 7 mojitos, 3 entrees, and a pizza.
 (Shannon forgetting Ryan's name, "These Germans are bothering me")
• After our 5 hour dinner, we ended up sitting with a table of Swedish guys and one girl that are our age. Played “drink while you think” and their version of Ring of Fire. 

• Left the restaurant and went to Sankara until 1:30.

• The bus didn’t come until after 2


Day 4:

• Woke up in Ho Chi Minh City after a lovely 4 hour nap at 6am, headed back to the ship to sleep until noon.
• Out shopping with Shannon: purchased all our essential souvenirs (postcards and the like).

• Night with Travis, Shannon and Ryan: night of the rat and Dr. Pepper story. Left 185, moved onto Lush and then Apocalypse Now. Rode on Motorbikes 

Day 5:

•Cu Chi Tunnels: First one in. Awesome. Learned a lot.

• Out with Travis: found a lot of great items, our day long quest for Dr. Pepper ending in Diet Dr. Pepper. We had dinner at 185, with our Diet Dr. Pepper, where we had banging burgers (the best I have ever had). We were meeting up with some friends there (who were basically finished when we arrived), and one told me that he and Shannon found and purchased two Dr. Peppers for me. Freaking awesome.

• Back on the ship where I rushed to send out postcards in time, showered and caught Harry Potter (the one I missed over the summer) in the Union.

Vietnam is in my top 5. It’s up there with South Africa. I think I’d choose to come back to Vietnam over any other country we’ve visited so far. Next time I will be going to Hanoi and Halong Bay. I will bring lots of money to get clothing made for me. I did a lot in this country and had a lot of great adventures. It makes me wish I spent my time more wisely in India, but there’s always next time.

Not only did I have excellent adventures in Vietnam, I got a lot of great ideas of what I can do in my future. Work in Australia for a year? That sounds incredible. Intern at Disney over the summer? Count me in.

Thursday, October 15 – Right outside of Mauritius 
2:35
I saw whales again yesterday! This time a hell of a lot closer. They were jumping out of the water! It was incredible. Life is beautiful!

Tuesday, October 20 – Indian Ocean
2:53
Sea Olympics is today! I am so excited that I can’t sleep. I’ve been lying in bed for about an hour thinking about today. I keep going over my routine for synchronized swimming. Yesterday I made the torch for my sea (The Sargasso Sea), with help from Lindsay. I think it looks rather awesome. Lindsay and I get to carry it in during Opening Ceremonies! I’m so stoked. Other events I’m participating in dodge ball and a leg in the relay. I wish I could participate in more, but the timing doesn’t work out. Our sea is really small and there’s some events we aren’t even participating in.
Sargasso Cheer: “Show me your O face!”

Friday, October 23 – Latitude: 8 degrees, Longitude: 81 degrees
1:54
I figured I’d mention Mauritius before I get to India in six hours. Mauritius is a spring break destination. It is paradise. Beth, Erin, Cody, Ryan, Jackie, and I all stayed at The Klondike, a bungalow in Flic en Flack. Paradise. Our location was prime. Right on the water. Also, a group of our friends stayed at The Klondike, too. Things I want to remember: Cody = Coose, the delicious honey chicken pita, alcohol, the Germans, the playground, Ryan’s shirt at the club, and the giant bats.
The second day of Mauritius (our only full day) was the day of Ryan and I’s adventure. Ryan and I (the two of us tend to sleep in) got up around noon after everyone else. I made some great grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup for lunch. We made our way down to the beach where we got a kayak. The others got the other kayak available and the paddle boat. They only hung with us for like ten minutes, and then Ryan and I went off on our own adventure.

I loved kayaking. We were out for 4 hours. We had to have gone about 2 miles each way. The view was absolutely stunning. The weather was so comfortable. Ryan and I’s talks were awesome. One of the things we wanted to do in Mauritius was to find a nude beach since we both missed out on it in Spain and in South Africa. Well, they don’t have them in Mauritius. I decided that we should just go further out in the water and we could make our own nude beach on the kayak. In our attempts to do this, the water became really rough. The kayak was taking the waves like a boogie board and I got really stoked and thought, “Let’s ride one in!” Before we knew it, our kayak was sideways and we capsized. My sunglasses are now off the coast of Mauritius. Now, how funny would that have been had we taken off our bathing suits and then capsized? Hilarious. We decided to go closer to the shore (smart decision), and head back. On our way back to the villa, I noticed a splash to my left. Upon second glance, I noticed there were whales surfacing about 200 feet away. It was the icing on the cake. This adventure and this day is ranked in my top 5 days of this trip. I wish I could explain it better, but it will always be in my heart and in my memories.
I don’t think I’ll ever be back to Mauritius, but I’m glad I went. It was a lot of fun! There was a quote on one of our bottles of rum that said something along the lines of Mauritius is what heaven was based off of.

Sunday, November 1 – Singapore (just refueling)
17:14
I was thinking to myself, “whoa, I haven’t written in a long time”, then I checked the date and I haven’t written in 8 days. Only 8 days and so much has happened. I’ve come and gone from India. There was a crew talent show. Yesterday was Halloween. Just an incredible amount of stuff! Time is flying by on now.
Where to start? My first day in India was a lot of fun. When we pulled into port I was so emotional and actually cried. I was so excited to be in my number one port! I left the ship with Shannon, Matt, Kristen and Chelsea. After waiting in a very long security line (that happened every time you left and came back from Chennai), we got in a rickshaw (after being confronted by ten different drivers) and went off to a camera store for Chelsea and then lunch. Our rickshaw drivers took us to a local Indian restaurant, where we were the ONLY white people in the whole place. After we ordered, Ian and Stella showed up (Ian is the husband to a teacher on the ship, and Stella is their 4 year old daughter. They are British, whereas Stella was born in America, but has a cute little British accent). We invited them to join us, which happened to be one of the best decisions of the voyage thus far. He kindly accepted and sat down with us. He had been in India before, so he explained the food to us and how to eat it.
We ended up spending the rest of the day with him and Stella. We went to a few shops. My favorite part of the day was when Ian, Matt, Shannon, Stella and I found a restaurant that offered beer. Ian, Matt, and I each had a King Fisher Super Strong beer. It was rather tasty. I don’t know if it was because it was a 40 or if it was “super strong” but I felt rather buzzed after the fact. Stella and Shannon had juice and Sprite, btw. Ian is super rad. He knew that my shoulder tattoos came from Hedwig and the Angry Inch! The greatest parts of this day was just experiencing it. There isn’t any crazy stories to tell. I went to a Welcome Reception later on in the night, and that was really fascinating. The Indian culture is so colorful. I forgot to mention how much I love rickshaws. I want one. The way they drive in India is so ridiculous and so much fun.
I had some good times in India, but nothing to really write about. The pictures will be enough for me. There’s one night, the night I actually went out, that I didn’t have a camera. I had a blast, and I really wish I had my camera!
I will just paste my India stickey note here and call it a day:
Kapaleeswarar Temple
“Jizz in my Pants” sound in the port
Auto Rickshaws/rickshaws
Second day: Nikola, Kristin, FJ.
Third day: Chelsea, Sean Frank, Rachel and Danielle/ night: Chelsea and Sean.
Fourth day: Service project, hanging out with Ryan, Beth and Erin, Awesome night with Matt and pals. Park Hotel (celebrity, sweet lime, taxi ride, Maria, favorite SASers).
Fifth day: Matt, Joey and our new friend in the AM, FDP in the afternoon.

I loved India. I looked forward to India. I wish I spent my time better in India or planned a bit more. I know I will be back so it’s not that big of deal, but there’s so much I want to do there.
I’m in a stupid weird mood, so I suck at writing right now. Just know that Halloween was great. I saw a water spout! I love this voyage!