Tokyo or Bust - Last stop in Asia

My sister Jane has always preferred bullet points, so I’ve tried with each post to begin with a synopsis incase the entries get too longwinded.  With Japan, I’m struggling to make a synopsis.  So in an attempt not to ramble, I’m numbering my reasons for why Japan was so fantastic.
1. It was beautiful.  Kyoto and Hiroshima were both quite picturesque while Tokyo was a blur of lights, color, and fashion risks.  And then there was the natural beauty: the lovely cherry blossoms, in full bloom at the time of the ship’s arrival, and the mountains, towering over the cities.  If for no other reason, I need to return to Japan to see Mt. Fuji.  
2. The people were wonderful.  Within seconds of us appearing lost a local would approach and use whatever English they could to help us find our way.  Also, the Japanese dress fabulously.  People in Tokyo are generally better dressed than anywhere else I’ve been.  I felt out of place in my old travelling clothes. In the subway, the majority of travelers wore suits. The teenagers were a blend of pattern, color, and extreme hair.   Many women looked as if they’d spent hours perfecting their makeup.  The children looked straight out of a Von Trap family celebration – many wearing matching outfits, sometimes with a nautical inspiration. 
3. Hiroshima.  The day before we arrived to Japan was the first day of the miniature crisis when North Korea decided to test a satellite over Japan and Japan threatened to respond with force.  Hiroshima gave me a new perspective about how the Japanese see war.  Japan has transformed into a pro-peace first world country. This concept amazed me.  The museum at Hiroshima held no resentment towards the west or Americans.  It encouraged unity to promote the abandonment of nuclear weapons.
3. The food: tempura, noodles, sushi, dumplings, soups, fried rice (better than in China), vending machine apple and grape cider that is so oh good and sake that was completely drinkable (after a whiskey coke of questionable size and proportion).  The food was spiced to perfection and prices were generally comparable to the States.
4. The glamour.  In my Day 4 description I discuss a bar that we visited called New York Bar and Grill.  It was sensationally glamorous.  It amazed me that the world’s largest city – 27 million people – was mostly well organized and well dressed.  Yes, there were still pimps in Roppongi (the party district).  And yes, I’m sure there are many societal problems that I just did not encounter in only five days.  There was just something strangely glamorous about Tokyo – even the teenagers in Harajuku carried themselves with such happiness and gracefulness.  I wish I’d had more time in that district.
If these reasons haven’t made this obvious, I’d love to return as soon as possible.

Day 1: Japan began with an early 7am wake up call.  As soon as immigration officials boarded, we were required to wake up to allow them to have face to face time with us and our passports and to walk past a camera of some sort that apparently tests our temperature.  We got off the ship around 11 am and headed straight to the train station to transfer our vouchers for Japan Railways Passes for the actual passes.  This had been so complicated.  To get a J.R. pass, one must purchase it within three months of entry to Japan.  It is impossible to actually buy the pass. You have to buy a voucher for a pass, which you get by showing your passport and paying a ridiculous amount of money.  I purchased mine in Thailand and had to transfer from Bhat (the Thai currency) to Yen in order to purchase the voucher.  After waiting in line for an hour we got a quick lunch before finding a train to Kyoto.  The plan for our five days in Japan was two days in Kyoto, one in Hiroshima, and two in Tokyo.  I should probably mention who “we” is – in Japan I traveled with Katie, Andrea, Trish, Aaron, and Ian (who met up with us the second day).  One of the reasons I’ve been so excited for Japan is because the five/six of us have been planning this trip since Namibia. We were so excited that there was a country where none of us had any set plans and we could all travel together.  I was thrilled to travel just with people that I really liked.  We referred to it as our family vacation.  It felt like a family vacation.
By the time we arrived in Kyoto day one was more than halfway over.  Thanks to the directions from Hostel World, we were able to walk from the train station to our hostel, aptly named, Kyoto Cheapest Inn.  Upon arrival, the smell of fresh air and cherry blossoms overwhelmed us.  Thanks to my dad’s previous trips to Tokyo I already had a few coins (versus giant bills from ATMs), so I treated everyone to drinks from our first Japanese vending machine. 
Quick side note: One of the biggest banks in Japan is Seven-Eleven (yes, as in the gas station).  Carrying a foreign credit card, the only places where I can withdraw money is from a 7/11 or from a post office.
So we made a brief stop to withdraw money and buy snacks on the way to our hostel.  Kyoto was not what I expected.  It felt very suburban and seemed like a quiet little town.  It was perfectly clean.  We passed several schools with children playing in the schoolyards.  As they saw the five of us pass, they smiled and waved, “hello!”  The kids in Kyoto were so willing to try to talk to us. It was adorable.  We got to our hostel in time to check in and get a bit of Internet time before dinner.  We stayed in an 18 bunk mixed dorm.  Although there were lockers, most just left their things under their beds and assumed it would still be there. 
That night, we wondered around, desperately wanting sushi.  It quickly became apparent that sushi was not as big of a deal in Kyoto as it was in the United States.  We ended up walking into a restaurant that looked quite authentic.  We were the only ones in the restaurant, so the owner took pity on us.  He basically made us whatever he thought we would eat.  The meal included fried rice, tempura, egg rolls, soup and sake.  We sat on floor mats and feasted. 
After dinner, we headed out to the pub area of Kyoto.  It was a weeknight and nothing much was going on.  The only clubs that were open were ones that were definitely not trying to attract female visitors.  We ended up (of course) at an Irish pub, where we each had a drink before giving up and heading back to the hostel.

Day 2: The next morning we decided to see everything we possibly could within a day in Kyoto.  Kyoto used to be the capitol of Japan, so we toured the beautiful Imperial Palace, where flowers and cherry blossoms left me in awe.  The gardens were perfectly manicured in traditional Japanese style.  After that, we decided to try to walk to our next destination, which was the Golden Pavilion, on the outskirts of Kyoto.  This basically took the rest of the afternoon. We got completely lost and ended up wandering into one of the oldest temple complexes in Japan before eating lunch at a Japanese diner, which consisted of more delicious noodle soup and tea.
We finally found Ryoanji Temple, which is famous for a stone zen garden built in the 15th century.  The garden complex was bright with flowers and the zen garden was oddly intoxicating.  The stones had been raked into wave shapes, with rocks strategically placed. I can’t explain its uniqueness or understated beauty well, but it made perfect sense in person.
The Golden Pavillion was a complex of parks and temple. It was once again beautiful, peaceful, well manicured, and a fabulous example of Japanese order in architecture.  I loved walking through the gardens – noticing the lines of bamboo and the contrast between the orange gates and the green surroundings.  It was also at the Golden Temple where I found the coolest vending machines yet.  Not only did they have ice cream cups and soda from vending machines, here they had cups of ice, which could be filled up with a variety of soda flavors.  It was fantastic. 
Side note: In Japan, the McDonalds have green tea Oreo McFlurries.  Green tea ice cream with Oreos mixed in.  It’s sort of strange.
Our next stop was to Gion, which is the district known for Geishas.  The original plan was to go to one of the places where they’ll dress you up like geishas. (I know this is ridiculous. It just would have been so much fun.) We tried to find one, but all the signs were in Japanese, and the stores were closing.  We explored a bit before heading back to the area where we hoped to have dinner. 
We were so excited to eat sushi off of a conveyor belt.  They charge you per plate, and you’re allowed to just take plates off of the conveyor as they pass by you.  Behind the conveyor belt are chefs, constructing the sushi and sashimi.  I didn’t know that I liked sushi that much until I was forced to try it in Japan. Although it was mostly sashimi, I still learned that I love salmon, tuna, and anything with wasabi.  After dinner, we went back to the hostel, hoping that we could find Ian, who was supposed to meet us there.
That night we were exhausted from a long day of walking.  Ian and I made a quick 7/11 run to get snacks and extra drinks before discovering everyone had decided to stay in for the night.  We made friends with the other hostel guests and had a fun night socializing.  We met backpackers from Germany, Holland, the U.K., and of course other Semester at Sea students.  There was also a guy from Portland, Oregon who had actually convinced the hostel to hire him to help with the English-speaking guests. He had been living in an 18-bed dorm for nearly three months. 

Day 3: This was the day that I realized how incredible Japan is.  We woke up at 8am to catch an early(ish) train to Hiroshima.  I had been nervous about this day.  We got to Hiroshima a few hours later and spent the rest of the morning/afternoon touring the park and museum.  This museum was so fair. I was amazed.  I didn’t feel ashamed saying that I was American.  The museum gave a very fair history of Japanese involvement in China, the events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was very fair in explaining why the United States chose to drop the bomb.  There was of course a sense of tragedy surrounding Hiroshima.  Three million civilians died in what really was an early step in the Cold War.  Still, the over all message was one of hope.  I was overwhelmed by the peaceful nature of Hiroshima and the Japanese people.  Never before had I seen a first world country that was so blatantly pro-peace.  It was truly moving. 
Outside, there are still thousands of paper cranes, made to honor a young girl named Sadako, who desperately folded paper cranes, believing that if she folded a thousand she would be cured of the leukemia that took her life as a result of the atomic bomb.  I had heard of the paper cranes, but I was unaware that the Children’s Memorial park was created due to demands by Sadako’s classmates.  The museum still houses some cranes by Sadako.  There are glass boxes stuffed with cranes that have been sent by classrooms around the globe. 
We caught the 3pm bullet train to Tokyo and arrived four hours later.  (We were on the slower of the bullet train types.) We arrived in Tokyo and immediately searched out our Capsule Hotel, for which I was quite excited.  Our Capsule Hotel was in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, which is famous for electronics and manga. 
Side note: Tokyo is so expensive. It is SO expensive that the most expensive place I’ve stayed during this entire trip was a CAPSULE in Tokyo for $42 for one night. Ridiculous.
Okay, so the Capsule. The Capsule Hotels are a strange experience. Upon entry, guests are required to remove their shoes. We were then given three keys: one for the door to our room of capsules, one for our capsule, and one for a locker for our things.  The men’s capsules were on the 2nd through 5th floors, with their shower and bathrooms above. The women’s capsules were on the 7th through 9th floors, with shower facilities on the 10th.  The capsules themselves were probably 6x2.5ft.  Inside the capsule was a blanket, a pillow (filled with rice, by the way) and towels.  The capsules were quite modern – each one came equipped with a television, alarm clock, and radio.  The only real trouble with the capsules was that we were required to check out by 10am the next morning. 
That night we decided to go to Roppongi, which is the district in Tokyo known for the best bars.  I was frustrated to discover that even in Tokyo there is a huge problem with prostitution.  The streets of Roppongi were polluted with pimps and prostitutes.  None of the bars were very busy – it was a weeknight night, after all.  We ended up at one called Tommy’s.  We immediately struck up a conversation with Tommy, who was in his early 60’s with a long gray ponytail.  He wore a Hawaiian shirt and was thrilled when we walked in to his bar. (We were his only customers.)  He played darts with us as we watched the NCAA Final game.  I already knew the outcome – I’d been happy to see the UNC victory from Kyoto the night before.  For some reason the game was broadcasted in Japan the night after it happened.  Strange.  After time with Tommy (and receiving free “Merry Christmas” postcards from him), we decided to find a bar with more going on.  It seriously felt like nothing was happening in the city. We were so confused.  We finally made our way to a bar named, of all things, Geronimo.  Yes, we found a Native American themed bar in Tokyo.  Unfortunately it wasn’t as fun as it sounds.  We left just a few minutes after arrival. 

Day 4: We woke up with the hotel’s mandatory wake-up call (in only Japanese) at 9am.  I tiredly climbed out of my capsule (in usual camp style, I requested a top bunk), and headed to the bathrooms and then downstairs to buy orange juice and hot coffee from the hotel’s vending machines.
Side note: Japanese toilets. They’re incredible. We went from squatting throughout every other country to a land of toilets that are heated, with built in sinks and some even sing.  At Hiroshima, there was a sensor that made the speaker in the wall play sounds of rushing water.  Even at Kyoto Cheapest Inn the toilet seats were heated.  This is a slightly awkward side note, but completely worth mentioning.
We started out our day late, after transferring our baggage to our hostel for the second night in Tokyo.  I had been in charge of hotel reservations for Japan, so I tried to pack in as much experience as possible in Japanese hospitality.  I’ll write more about this hostel later. It took us a while to find it, but finally we did and decided to take the subway to the Imperial Palace Gardens, where we saw more cherry blossoms and explored a bit in what was once home to the monarchy.  Parts of the Gardens are still private.
By this point it was nearing 12pm and we’d never had much of a breakfast. We decided that we would eat at the first place we saw once we got to Harajuku, which is the fashion district of Tokyo.  I told the boys that my parents should really be thanking them – if not for feeling guilty about making them wait for us to shop, I would have had trouble not shopping there. It was like a very compact and clean NYC, with more colorful clothes.  This district was experimental, which was noticeable as soon as we exited the Subway station.  There were boys with make up, white jeans, cowboy boots with heels, and non-matching earrings – one guy wore a pink hoop in one ear and just studs in the other.  The girls sported large wigs, varying in color.  They wore giant heels with colored leggings. There were 50’s style skirts matched with layered patterned tops.  It was fantastic. 
We ended up eating at what really could have been a Japanese Denny’s. It was ridiculous. The rest of the afternoon we spent wandering around Harajuku, before heading back to our hostel to change for going out that night. 
Anne Hostel Asakusabashi was closest to a subway stop also called Asakusabashi.  We were a few streets off of the main drive and had a four story walk up to get to the hostel. In the afternoon we checked in, and were thrilled to discover that the two three person rooms I had reserved actually connected to make one giant six-person room.  The six of us chose our spots and began to assemble our beds.  This was a very traditional experience, in which we had no mattresses, but instead were given comforters, sheets, and pillows, with which we could make our own beds for the evening.  We were really thrilled by the authenticity.
After making ourselves more night-in-the-city appropriate, we caught the subway to go to Shibuya, which is the Tokyo equivalent of Times Square. It was insane. As soon as we got off the train, we were immersed in a giant pack of people. The girls and I linked arms in a laughing attempt not to lose each other.  The lights were incredible.  Colored billboards and two story chain restaurants and stores surrounded us. When the light turned red, a mass of people came from every corner to cross the main intersection.  It must have been 300 people at least.  People hustled past me, knocking my shoulders as they moved about their busy lives.  I tried to take pictures, but they all came out just as blurs, which I found disappointing, but quite appropriate.  We ate dinner before catching cabs to meet up with a few other students who were planning to meet us at New York Bar & Grill.
To explain where we were next, I think I should explain why we were going there. That morning at the Imperial Gardens we ran into a few friends from the ship. They wanted to meet up with us, so we suggested they meet us at this bar that I had been begging that we see.  The bar was made famous by Scarlett Johansen and Bill Murray in the film, Lost in Translation.  It is on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Hotel, and it surpassed my expectations.
So the six of us crammed into a single taxi (the third driver we called over agreed to fit five in the backseat) and headed to the hotel. We took the elevator to the 52nd floor, where dark wooden walls, jazz music, and huge picture windows, with panoramic views of Tokyo, immediately surrounded us.  I was practically giddy.  The hostess warned us that there was a 20,000 yen ($20) cover fee.  This was definitely the most expensive bar that I’d ever been near, but the jazz music was calling me, and my friends agreed.  We followed the hostess inside and we seated at the end of the bar tables.  The Jazz that I heard at the entrance was coming from a three-person band.  They were positioned in front one of the huge windows, blending in perfectly with the surrounding scene.  We each ordered drinks and the boys ordered cigars.  We stayed at the bar for over an hour, sitting, talking, and taking in all that was around us.  It was our last night in Asia, and I’m happy to say that it was one of the best.  After two rounds of drinks (I had a Bellini and an Uptown Girl – I wanted it because it came with a cherry blossom floating in it), we departed to go dancing.  Each club we found had what we thought to be an exorbitant entrance fee, and since we had just spent more than we should have, we chose to keep walking.
Somehow we ended up at a Karaoke club. Karaoke in Japan is nothing like karaoke in the states.  It isn’t a bar, first of all.  Karaoke is done in small rooms (seriously, they’re tiny), where only your group is able to listen.  So we all sat around our tiny table facing the TV and picked songs out of something comparable to a phonebook in size.  This wasn’t as fun as normal karaoke because it wasn’t remotely like performing.  It was simply a table of friends singing songs they all knew together, taking turns holding the microphones. 
After karaoke, we stopped at 7/11 for late night snacks and to figure out how to get to the fish market.  By this point it was 3 am and the fish market opens around then.  Unfortunately, one of my friends was beginning to feel a bit sick, so Katie and I volunteered to take her back to the hostel.  Although I wish I’d been able to try to the world’s freshest sushi (really, it comes directly off the boats to be made into sushi right at the market), I wasn’t too concerned because I know this won’t be my last time in Tokyo.  It was such a cool city – I have to return eventually.  We ended the night lost in Asakusabashi – having to search for nearly half an hour before we finally found the right alleyway that lead to our hostel. 

Day 5:  I woke up determined to find a modern art museum.  My goals in Tokyo had been basically two things: 1. Convince friends to go to New York Bar and Grill. 2. Find an experimental, off the map modern art museum.  I didn’t want to go to any museum with “Modern Art” in the name, for fear that it would be too established for what I was searching.  I ended up finding what I wanted in my Tokyo guidebook that I’d purchased in India.  Mori Art Museum was established 2003 and was on the 52nd floor of a new development in Roppongi Hills.  This area was filled with shops, and men and women in suits.
So back to that morning.  We ate breakfast at our hostel before heading out to do a few errands.  My friends wanted to get back to Yokohama (where our ship was now docked) in time to see a bit of that town as well.  Our morning was spent simply.  Katie found a post office, where we bought stamps and withdrew cash for what we really hoped would be the last time.  Katie had to develop pictures, and the six of us decided to have a coffee break across the street as they developed.  We were debating afternoon plans, and what it came down to was that for most of my friends going to an art museum that my guidebook said was only open if they had an exhibition and warned that tickets could be up to $15.  I probably could have quilted them into it, but no one looked that thrilled by the idea of a museum that none of us had heard of before. 
We began to walk towards the train station where I told them that I’d see them on the ship.  I couldn’t leave Tokyo without seeing something modern and inspirational, and I felt like I may find it at that museum.  My friend Andrea, being the wonderful person that she is, said, “I think I’ll stay with Taylor.” The two of us found a subway that took us close to the Roppongi Hills development.  We ate a final meal in Japan/all of Asia of tempura, noodle soup, and tea before heading over to the museum.  It was open and currently had an exhibition called The Kaleidoscopic Eye – seeing the world through different realities.  How fitting.  We bought our tickets on the first floor and took the elevator to the 52nd.  We were amazed as soon as we exited.  We were suddenly in a world of silver and whites – modern, to the extreme. 
This day simply fell into place perfectly.  Somehow, my last night and last day in Asia were two of my best.  Mori Art Museum left me inspired and laughing.  There was a giant, walkthrough kaleidoscope.  There was a dark room, full of at least twenty disco balls, creating a spinning star affect on each wall.  The art here was reactionary – some pieces dealing with the trouble from the Iraq war.  One short film looked at domestic violence through the lenses of a B&W horror film.  In one of my favorite rooms, there was a wooden table that one was supposed to touch to activate the installation.  Andrea and I walked into the room alone and touched the table.  The room was entirely dark aside from a spotlight on the table. Suddenly, the sound of a knife sharpening was behind us and we heard two voices in slow, steady conversation as a woman with a lazy, singsong like voice said the ABC’s.  It was fantastic.  Another exhibition was a lovely, Grecian fountain that spouted liquid LSD instead of water.  It was well boxed off so that no one would try to touch or taste.  The entire museum was filled with art that moved. Art to me is supposed to force a question and to reflect the stranger ends of society.  The museum was weird in the most wonderful way.  I loved it and I would really like to intern there… We’ll see.
We left the museum a bit after 3pm, which was only bad because we thought we’d leave Tokyo by 2pm.  It was fine though – we caught a train to Yokohama and were there an hour later.  We wandered around a bit more before getting back on the ship around 5pm. 
The ship decks were full as we departed that evening.  No one wanted to leave and next up were a long ten days at sea.  Still, we had Hawaii to come, and we all knew many more adventures awaited us…

A much delayed China entry...

A few days after India, there was a quote in our Dean’s Memo that stuck with me. I copy and pasted it here, thinking that at some point I would mention it in my blog.  It doesn’t necessarily fit with China, but it speaks to the way we’ve been travelling recently.  The Captain likes to remind us that this is not a cruise and the Dean always reminds us that we are students, not tourists.  So because this applies so thoroughly to my current travel experience, I’ll mention it before China.
The quote is “You don’t travel like this to have a holiday. You travel like this to have a confrontation with yourself.”  - Bert Van Hemingen   I think we’ve all found this to be particularly relevant.

So now on to China.

China is a country still on the rise, which scares me.  The first thing one notices in China is the military. They are everywhere. Formations of soldiers constantly march down sidewalks.  I saw one beggar in Beijing.  I don’t know how long he had been there, but when I walked by I saw a soldier (lightly) kick him and the man immediately rose to his knees as a confrontation of sorts began.  I was afraid to look too long.  Also, the city is bleak.  It feels communist. It is extremely clean and gray is the predominant color. There are huge apartment complexes.  It is quite common to see huge towers – each must house at least a thousand – and there are generally two – three towers all clumped together.  I did see many Mao posters, but more than that, there were hammer and sickles flags.  In the school where I took a calligraphy lesson, there were two huge posters on the wall saying, “Support the nation” next to the flag. 

As cold as the country can feel, the people were the opposite.  They were so excited to see young Western travelers.  They were fascinated with us and loved telling us, “hello!” and “thank you,” after taking a photo with us.  Over the course of four days, I was in at least 50 pictures with random Chinese people.  One of my favorite moments of the trip was when two Chinese students invited my friend and me to drink tea with them.  We sat for an hour, asking them about their families, school, culture, and anything else we could think to ask.  They were as curious about us as we were of them.  Still, there is a limit and they know it- what our guide called the “taboo” subjects.  I don’t know if any citizen ever feels safe.  Students wanting to use the Internet in China were required to turn in their passport unless they were in a hotel.  

Day 1: Although the ship docked in Hong Kong, my trip departed before I saw any more of Hong Kong than the airport. Our flight was direct to Beijing, where my stories begin. We arrived in the immaculately clean Beijing in time to check into our hotel and head straight to Zhengyangmen Quanjude restaurant for a Peking duck dinner.  We departed by bus and were shocked to discover that our restaurant was directly off of Tiananmen Square. We could see the portrait of Chairman Mao from the front windows of the restaurant.  Surprising for the world’s largest public square, it is actually closed at night.  The duck was mediocre, and the only “bad” meal I had in China.

Day 2: The day began with a two-hour drive to the Ju Rong Guan section of the Great Wall, built (I believe) in the fifth century.  One of the smaller lessons of SAS is how to fall asleep anywhere.  I fell asleep while still in Beijing and woke up amongst mountains, the Great Wall following the most prominent ridgeline.  The air was cold as we exited our bus and it was a stark difference from the heat of Vietnam and Cambodia.  We were thrilled to be cold again after being drenched with sweat in Southeast Asia.  Now in China, I wore layers of long sleeves, scarves and my North Face. Those who had no North Face bought fake ones at the wall.  I looked up into the icy air, not wanting to know for how long I’d be climbing stairs.  Our guide, Jonathan (obviously not his real name), gave us two hours to explore this section of the wall.  This section was made up of stones that had curved with age.  It was a tough hike. For people who are generally rather small, these steps were giant and continuous. Luckily, the hike was well broken up by Chinese people who wanted pictures with my friends and me.  This day I hiked with new friends Sarah and Jason.  Sarah is tiny with flowing blond hair.  Jason is one of the best-dressed guys on the ship and is African-American.  We took pictures with at least 20 Chinese on the way to the top of our section.

Sarah and I were the first girls to make it up and were once again laughing hysterically when a group of at least thirty Chinese people in matching hats wanted group pictures with us.  I still need to get the picture from Sarah, but there is a photograph of our three smiling faces in the middle of thirty Chinese people, most of whom were throwing up peace signs.  Once the photo shoot was over, we had a moment to breathe and to notice that it was snowing.  Of the three World Wonders that I have now seen, this one was by far the most fun.  I got to see mountains, breathe in cool fresh air, and be alone in ancient Chinese watchtowers.  It was a perfect morning.

After lunch, we toured the Summer Palace, which was lovely but disappointing, as we were not allowed inside the parts that looked the coolest.  After the Great Wall, it just seemed okay. Still looking back, it was a great example of Chinese art and architecture.  The coolest part of the Summer Palace was actually outside of it.  There is a park where old Chinese people congregate to do Tai Chi, dance, play cards and chess, and take movement classes.  Their exercises are so cool. I have a fabulous video of a man with a tennis racket spinning quickly enough that the ball never fell.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped for a brief photo op at the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube.  I was unaware that this was all one complex.  All of the Olympic structures were within easy walking distance of each other.  The Olympics is also the reason that Beijing was still so clean. I know I was breathing in toxins, but it was not nearly as bad as I’d imagined.  Also, the subway system was redone to make it more navigable for those used to Western letters. 

That night, Sarah and I went out alone in search of a market and dumplings.  Our guide had written something in Chinese for us to give to a cab driver, and we ended up at the silk market, which was not what we wanted.  We were walking towards a Starbucks when two Chinese people, a man and a woman who looked about our age (but better dressed), stopped us and said, “hello! How are you!”  Despite that English is required in the Chinese school systems very few know more than basic words. We responded, “hello,” expecting they’d keep walking, but instead they started talking to us. “Where are you from,” the man asked us.  “How long are you here for,” the woman wanted to know.  After a few minutes of chat we learned that their (English) names were Jeremy and May.  Jeremy had recently graduated and had an interview for a job that day.  May was still in school and majoring in Chinese and American Culture.  They asked us if we would join them for tea.  We agreed enthusiastically and followed them into an office building, where we took an elevator to the fourth floor and entered a small tearoom. The woman working offered to do a tea ceremony for us, as we were obviously non-native.  Jeremy translated as she explained the ceremony in Chinese. We each picked a tea to try as she heated up the tiny teacups.  We were told to rub the warm teacup in our hands, to increase circulation. Then we rubbed them on our temples, to stimulate our minds.  Finally, we put the cups to our eyes, to improve our vision.  We then passed the tea from person to person, symbolizing the giving of a friendship.  We were taught how to hold the teacups and instructed to drink each tea in two sips. 

Throughout all of this, we conversed with Jeremy and May about our very different lives.  Sarah told them about our photo shoot that morning.  Our new friends were surprised to learn that we had friends of other races in the United States.  In China, which is 95% Han, this was highly unusual. We asked them about their families and learned that each of them had siblings.  They explained that the one child law went into effect after their births. 

Interesting side note: the one child policy only applies to the Han race.  Minorities in China have different standards for the amount of children they may have.  Also, the five stars on the Chinese flag supposedly represent the five races in China.

I asked them (cautiously) about their government.  Our new friends explained that they did “vote.”  A Chinese citizen is permitted to vote for a local official, which votes for the station above them, etc.  Of course, there’s effectively one political party in China, so the choices are limited.  May wanted to know about marriage ages in the United States. I told her that although many do marry in their very early 20’s, it is also not unusual to wait until 30’s.  That people could marry at 22 (or Sarah’s friend who married at 18) shocked May.  In China, women may not marry until 22 and men may not marry until 24.  They tend to marry later.  At the end of our hour with them we exchanged emails and they wrote our names in Chinese characters.  I was so excited when May wrote my name and told me, “Taylor.  This means mountain happy in Chinese.”  It was simply too perfect.

Day 3: The morning began with a walk in Tiananmen Square.  We were given the opportunity to join the long line of Chinese and to see the inside of the Mao Zedong Memorial.  It is here where his body is preserved for viewing.  I joined the line and went through two security checkpoints (and had to leave my camera) in order to get through.  Women were crying as they left flowers in the first room of the Mao memorial.  There must have been hundreds of the same synthetic flower. There was a single government owned flower stand outside of the complex.  Finally, I was hustled through a room that contained a large glass central corridor in which were two Chinese military officials and Mao Zedong.  His body was covered not with a Chinese flag, but instead with the red hammer and sickle flag.  In about thirty seconds I was out of the room and into a gift shop that led back out to Tiananmen Square.

As a somewhat educated American, when I think Tiananmen Square, my first thought is of the student massacre and tank man from 1989.  The guides entirely avoid this topic.  One told us directly, “This subject is taboo. I am not permitted to discuss it. “  What’s comforting is that they do know what happened.  They just also know not to talk of it.  Some SAS trips were followed by a Chinese man while at the square.  Students noticed their guides to be more silent when they were being followed. Some guides were more vocal, saying that they know what happened because their parents or grandparents told them. One told her group that the Western world had exaggerated the massacre – that it wasn’t two to three thousand students killed – it was more like two to three hundred.  One student asked this guide if she liked her government.  She responded that “Yes, I respect our government.”  That’s the thing about China. They are not free to have opinions on government.  They just respect the establishment.

At this point I should probably mention that I’d been hanging out with Sarah for basically the entire China trip.  Last night after our tea we grabbed a quick dinner that unfortunately included a few peppers, to which Sarah is allergic.  She felt fine, and even went out to a bar that night, long after I’d gone to sleep.  The next morning she’d begun to feel ill, and started throwing up. This means that I spent much of my time at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City with Sarah, making sure she stayed hydrated and maybe ate something. 

The Forbidden City was HUGE and packed with tourists.  The complex housed the royal family for centuries.  There’s some statistic about you could live there until you were thirty and never sleep in the same room twice.  We spent an hour going through the key parts, but it was tough to see due to the mass of people. 

After a brief look inside the Temple of Heaven, we flew to Xi’an, home of the terracotta soldiers.  There, we had a delicious dinner of dumplings before checking into our hotel.

Day 4:
The morning was spent at an elementary school that likes to make extra money by giving calligraphy lessons to foreigners.  This is NOT easy. There are five different styles of calligraphy, although most people can only write one or two.  There is an older kind, their version of cursive, where most people can read it but find it too difficult to attempt to write in it. 

From there, we went to see the Terra Cotta soldiers, which are housed in large part, where they were found.  I keep trying to figure out how to describe this “museum” and I have no real way to do it.  It was not typical.  The museum comprises several buildings, containing different sets of soldiers. The tour starts with a video about the discovery and how the warriors were originally made. Next, there are four large enclosed spaces, in which one can view the soldiers.  The coolest of these rooms was one with very few soldiers uncovered.  Apparently they are able to tell that the Emperor’s Tomb is beneath the soil there, but they have yet to figure out how to excavate without destroying the tomb.  They’re afraid to traps, as well as high levels of mercury in the open space beneath the soil.


After the soldiers, we headed to the airport.  We arrived in Shanghai that night around 10pm, where we met the ship.

Day 5: I woke up around 8am to meet my friends for breakfast and decide what to do with our day.  Katie decided that she wanted to go to the zoo.  So Katie, Trish, Andrea, Jana, Ian and I got cabs, and rode over to go see giant pandas.  The zoo was pretty depressing because the animals were kept in what I consider really terrible facilities.  The one good note was that on the way out we passed a bumper car track.  I looked at Ian, who already looked excited by the idea.  We got Katie to agree to it too. So we bought tickets, and rode bumper cars in the Shanghai Zoo. 
Bumper cars would have been the highlight of the day had we not followed that zoo visit with a trip to the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is the world’s second tallest building, and home to the world’s highest observation deck.  The building is only a few years old and feels seriously space age.  It was designed by a young Japanese artist, who created everything from the music and light show in the elevator, to the concept of the partially glass floor within the world’s highest observation deck. 
After this visit, we went back to ground level, where we were thrilled to find a Subway and Cold Stone.  We wondered around aimlessly for the rest of the afternoon before heading back to the ship.

The Heat is on in Saigon (and Cambodia)

This was the stop on the itinerary about which I most excited and apprehensive. My plan was to spend three days (2 nights) in Cambodia and the last two days in Saigon (yes, its okay to call it Saigon again – throughout the trip I never heard a local call it anything else).  I’ve been counting the days until I’d see Angkor Watt, but also quite nervous about Phnom Penh, as I knew that the remnants of the Khmer Rouge would probably leave me torn apart.  I was nervous about being American in Vietnam.  For my two days in Saigon, I was planning on visiting the Cu Chi tunnels as well as the War Remnants Museum, previously named The Museum of American Atrocities.  I was prepared for an uncomfortable few days. 

Cambodia did upset me. Tuol Sleng (also called the Genocide Museum) was possibly the most gruesome and upsetting thing I’ve ever seen.  It’s a terrible feeling to glance down to see human bone decaying in the ground upon which I stood – to see scraps of clothing embedded in the dirt like I saw at the Killing Fields. I had originally decided that I would mention them only briefly (simply too gruesome) but the thing about it is that the bones sticking out of the thick dirt once belonged to someone’s child/father/wife… I have to write about it because it would be immoral I feel, to ignore those tragedies, despite that I feel queasy even writing this now. Of course that may also have to do with the fact that we’re headed through a stormy Pacific right now.
   
The past few days have been a lesson on war.  I’m a relatively practical person – I’ve always seen war as a necessary evil.  The lessons of Cambodia and Vietnam are conflicting.  In Cambodia I felt offended that anyone could value human life so very little.  It is easy to ignore today’s genocides from the safety of our homes. It is difficult to fathom so many people dying and what that does to a society.
In Vietnam, I learned that war (for lack of a more eloquent term) sucks.  It is just really, really terrible, for all involved.  Prior to SAS, I wondered how I would feel about the world upon my return.  I have learned that we all want the same things: food, shelter, fulfillment, and love.  There are millions of people who have none of these things – I’ve seen too many orphaned children without even shoes they can call their own.  There is a phrase that merchants in Southeast Asia use with English speaking customers.  They show two shirts, two purses – anything, and tell us, “you see, same same, but different.”  I really like that phrase.  It does apply to fake versus real north face backpacks, but it also applies to a larger truth.  It sounds straight out of kindergarten, but what this voyage has shown me is that we are all “same same, but different.”

Day 1: We departed Saigon port and headed to the airport at 11am for our flight to Phnom Penh.  From there, we headed directly to the National Museum with our guide who told us to call him by his last name, Kim, as his first name was too complicated for westerners to pronounce.  The national museum was filled with artifacts thousands of years old.  It would have been better had the descriptions been in a language other than Khmer.  We then took a riverboat ride down the Mekong, during which I spoke with our guide about local politics and his family.  When the ride ended, we headed to the highlight of the day, Palm Tree Orphanage. 

A bit of background on the orphanage: Palm Tree Orphanage was founded by two SAS alum, one of which has the well-known last name of Kellogg.  It provides food, beds, mentors, and schooling to its 96 inhabitants.  These kids were incredible.  As we walked into their home, they descended upon us.  One of the girls, a twelve-year old named Sampors (I had her write it down so I could spell it correctly), immediately ran up and grabbed my hand.  She let go perhaps twice for the entire hour that I was there.  She’s still learning English, so it was sometimes difficult for us to communicate. Still, playing and laughing with her gave us an immediate bond.  She couldn’t play instruments, but still dragged me up to the music room to pretend to play one of the old keyboards that didn’t actually work. 

Although these children are orphans, they are not expecting to be adopted. The goal of the orphanage is to create healthy, educated adults in Cambodia.  In fact, there is an American law that prevents adopting from Cambodia. I don’t know why that is and I am rather offended by its existence.  In many ways, Cambodia felt like a miniature India. They need our help. 
That night we had dinner, and finally arrived to our hotel around 10pm.

Day 2:  Just a warning – I’ve tried to limit my description of this day so that it isn’t too graphic, but I’m about to talk about a lot of events that were tragically ignored by the western world.  We woke up at 6am to arrive at 7:20am at the Tuol Sleng, also known as The Genocide Museum.  Tuol Sleng was first a high school, but when the Khmer Rouge took over, they chose it to be their new prison.  Prior to seeing the Killing Fields, it was the most upsetting thing I’ve ever seen. Tuol Sleng is comprised of three buildings, each with three stories. Each room (still) contains a metal bed and generally some torture devices. In some rooms the floors are still bloodstained. . The thing about it is that this is Cambodia, and so nothing is well funded. Parts of the buildings are falling apart but nothing is off limits. Tourists are free to wander, so many times I found myself alone in a room where hundreds probably died. From 1971-1975 (when the Khmer Rouge regime held the most power), 14,000 people died at Tuol Sleng simply for being educated.  The entire place felt dead and it made me feel ghostly too.  People, no different from Americans, were massacred for being educated – 3-4 million, at least, over a 4 year span.  No one stepped in.  No one stopped this massacre until the Vietnamese found it for their economic benefit. There got to a point at Tuol Sleng when I had to finally break down.  Seeing what people are capable of doing to one another was simply too much.  I can’t imagine how our guide, Kim, felt. He and his sister were orphaned by the regime.  (His father was a professor.)  On our way out of the museum, we were stopped by a beggar, who was the first acid victim that I’d seen. Acid throwing is a huge problem in Cambodia.  Skyy Fitzgerald, a documentary filmmaker who is a partial voyager on Semester at Sea, was actually banned from reentering Cambodia after making a film about this problem.
 
Side note: After more than THIRTY YEARS, the man in charge of Tuol Sleng and responsible for the merciless deaths of 14,000 people is finally standing trial. There was an article in the NYT a few days ago. It hit home a lot closer than it used to.

Next up on our morning of tragedy was a stop at Cambodia’s infamous Killing Fields.  These began simply as places to dump bodies (think concentration camp mass graves) but ended up being another site for holding and killings too.  Due to the amount of people that were being sent to die there, they had to build cells so that they had a place for people to wait before their execution.  I really hate to type this (I’m feeling slightly ill) and I know that its tough to read, but I cannot with good conscience talk about Cambodia and not talk about the atrocities.  This day will stay with me for a long time.  I have walked on this land.  I have glanced down to see human bones beneath my feet.  I have seen the bloodstained scraps of clothing, still trapped in this forsaken ground.  I have seen the tower of sculls, divided by sex and age.  I can’t erase these images from my mind, and I can’t talk about Cambodia without mentioning them. 

Having said all of this, the country is moving forward.  The people are proud of their new direction, despite that Cambodia is still one of the most corrupt and impoverished countries in the world.  One slightly troubling detail – their current Prime Minister was part of the Khmer Rouge regime.  They have elections, but there is large speculation that they are not fairly counted. 
After lunch, we went to the Royal Palace, which is similar to the Grand Palace in Thailand and not worth discussing in great detail.  It was just another giant palace full of jewels that would be better used to feed the starving population.  From here, we left for the to the airport. On the way, Kim thanked us for being coming, and told us how much it meant to Cambodians to have tourists.  He told us how much our presence and money meant to Cambodia. His two children go to private school for 50 dollars a year. He struggles to pay it. When we got close to the airport, he sang a song for us in Khmer.  This is a man who has literally been through hell – he told us stories of walking for days to stay out of the way in the early 70s (these are his earliest memories – he spent years 1-5 with family in the countryside of Cambodia).  He showed us the size of his fist, explaining his ration for a week’s worth of rice.  Kim showed no anger towards those who had done him so much harm.  He just does what he has to in order to survive and support his children and sister.  We adored him and made it our goal to tip his kids into another year of private school.

That night, we flew from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, home of the pride of Cambodia, Angkor Watt.  We were there long enough to take a few pictures and watch a bit of sunset.  That night, our dinner was at a cultural show, which was really just an overpriced tourist destination.  They tried to charge us 3.25 USD for a Diet Coke.  At this point in my travelling, I’ve learned to know that is total crap and that there’s generally a better option within 100 feet. I grabbed a friend, left the cultural show, walked across the street to find Lucky Grocery Store (a chain in Cambodia), and buy Diet Cokes for 50 cents each.  It was also the first time in the trip when I’ve found real American (straight from New Jersey and not yet expired) Skittles.  It was quite exciting.

Day 3: We woke up at 5am to see at Angkor Watt at sunrise.  This was so incredible. We sat quietly, watching the lily pads open and the sun slowly rise from behind the 12th century temple.  After sunrise we went back to the hotel for breakfast before heading back to the Angkor Watt complex. I was unaware of how large Angkor Watt really is. Ninety percent is still buried and it is the world’s largest temple. In the afternoon we visited Bayon, which is famous for the faces carved in to the large stones.  I bought a t-shirt for a dollar just to get a map of the complex. They say that to go through Angkor Watt fully, one needs about a week. We had a day and a half.  That night, we flew back to Vietnam, smelly and with much on our tired minds.

We arrived in Vietnam at 7:30 and I was still in need of a dress. With friends Betsy and Amy, we took a cab from the airport to a market so we could eat real Vietnamese food and I could get a dress made before the stores closed at 8pm.  That night was my first experience with pha (I believe that’s how its spelled – pronounced fa), which is Vietnamese soup. It contains beef, noodles, peppers, leaves of some sort and I have no idea what else. It was delicious and really, really spicy. We were all a step past glistening as we finished our meal.

Day 4: I had been nervous for this day for a while now. I had an all day trip that took me to the Cao Dai temples and the Cu Chi tunnels. The large majority of Vietnam is Buddhist, so those who do practice Cao Daism are only about 3% of the population. It’s a somewhat strange religion – they have three patron saints: a Chinese man I’ve never heard of, a Vietnamese man I’ve never heard of, and Victor Hugo.  I don’t get it. The temples we saw were basically the Vatican of their religion.  I found it disappointing because there were more tourists than followers of the religion.

After lunch, we headed to what I was most nervous to see, the Cu Chi Tunnels. 
The tour of the Tunnels started out with a video meant to explain the use of the tunnels and some tactics that made the Vietnamese victorious. As an American, I found myself feeling very uncomfortable. They talk about the pride one woman felt as she won an award for “Best Killer of the Americans.”  I squirmed on my seat.  We journeyed further into the jungle where our guide (dressed as a Vietcong) showed us traps they’d set up to kill U.S. soldiers. They included trap doors that fell into poisoned spikes of various sizes and types. “This is how we killed the Americans,” he told us excitedly.

We arrived at a tree with a guard beside it. He shuffled some leaves to display the tiny doorway and showed us how to enter and cover our trail with leaves.  He asked if anyone wanted to try.  I hopped into the cement and mud packed hole and closed the entrance behind me before turning on my headlamp.  I peered down this thin tunnel and quickly realized I was alone in a place had served as a hiding place before and after the Vietcong attacked.  I was unnerved and immediately pushed myself out.  I could tell we were headed to the shooting range when I heard the distinctive sound of an AK-47.  One of the tourist activities at the Cu Chi Tunnels is to shoot an AK-47 or a few other guns they have to offer.  I chose not to shoot one. They were charging 10 dollars a bullet and it felt entirely inappropriate considering my location.  On our way out, we were guided through a 20-meter portion of the tunnel.  I made it to the halfway staircase before it was my time to get out of there.  These were the largest tunnels and still they were tiny.  I was crouched over entirely to move through them.  Deeper into the tunnels, it gets so thin that one must belly-crawl.  I couldn’t have handled that.  It amazes me to think that children grew up in the tunnels.  There was no sewer system, so the Vietcong had to wait until nightfall to get out and use the bathroom. It was a world of darkness that lasted for years.  I am optimistically 5’8” and struggled to get through any part of the tunnel.  The American soldiers had no chance of infiltrating this system.  Seeing these up close magnified the tragedy of Vietnam. 

That night, on an entirely different note, I met up with Betsy and Amy to go out to dinner and maybe see a movie.  We discovered the really nice part of Saigon where there was a movie theater on the 12th floor of a mall.  On the 11th was a bowling alley and an arcade.  I watched Vietnamese people play DDR (Dance Dance Revolution).  It was sufficiently intimidating. We ended up not seeing a movie and instead eating KFC for the first time in the trip, despite that we’ve seen it in every single country. (More prevalent than McDonalds – who knew?) After taking pictures in an Asian photo booth, we left to go back to the ship.

Day 5: The next day I explored Saigon with Jeff and Matt.  The morning was spent walking to downtown and stopping at various sites.  We took pictures of propaganda posters (the amount of hammer and sickle flags is staggering) and found both the Reunification Palace and the U.S. Embassy, which is still the same building from the photograph of soldiers departing by helicopter from the roof.  After lunch at what was probably one of the hippest restaurants for young and wealthier Vietnamese (this was accidental, but quite cool), we went to the War Remnants museum. 
The Museum was surprisingly cheap – less than a dollar entrance fee.  The first exhibition had been funded partially by the citizens of Kentucky and was about foreign journalists who had died in Vietnam.  We then proceeded to a room on the numbers wounded and killed under the “South Vietnamese Puppet Government.”  The term “democracy” was entirely absent from the museum.  Outside, they had US tanks, helicopters and launchers to photograph and touch.  I then walked towards the central building, where it became more gruesome again – remember, this used to be called the “Museum of American Atrocities.”
Inside, there is a wall of photographs specifically of Vietnamese women and children running away of Americans with guns.  There is a photograph of an American soldier smiling holding the (very few) remains of a Vietnamese person (unclear if this was male or female).  There are photographs of fields of dead Vietnamese and of burned babies crying.  On the next wall, there was a large exhibition on Agent Orange.  I had noticed throughout Vietnam the large number of malformed individuals.  It struck me now that this was because of American actions.  The wall showed pictures of people born with no ears, a single arm, or babies with nothing but a chest and head.  I was lost in photos when my friend Kelly nudged me and said, “You aren’t going to believe this…” She pulled out her camera and began to tell me about her morning.  The night before she had met a Clemson graduate who was in Vietnam volunteering at an orphanage.  Because she goes to Clemson too, he invited her to come see his work.  She arrived that morning to a Buddhist temple where monks had created a space to house a few infants.  They were in metal cribs and at least four of them had the same expanded skulls that we saw on the walls in front of us.  She was clueless this morning as to why those children had been born that way, and suddenly realized that it was because of us.  Agent Orange was definitely not covered in my high school education on Vietnam. I arrived at this museum entirely unprepared.

In the last building was a recreation of the infamous Tiger Cages, complete with wax Vietnamese figures trapped by the Americans. 

I take all of this with a large grain of salt. I know that it is obviously a very skewed view and that this museum does not reflect the feeling of the Vietnamese people, who were some of the nicest, most giving and helpful people I’ve yet to meet.  They want to move forward.  They genuinely like American visitors.  If anything, it is their government that holds them back.  It’s time for Ho Chi Minh City to officially be back to Saigon.  The war is over, despite that its remnants remain ever-present in Vietnamese society. 
I left Jeff and Matt in the Ben Throng Market, nearby where I’d had a dress made the first day. I shopped a bit as I waited for my dress to be delivered to the tailors.  I arrived back on the ship at 7pm, and was in bed by 10.  It had been a physically and mentally exhausting five days.

Hello,

Well it will be a while before I actually am able to post about China (I'm still writing Cambodia and Vietnam), but I wanted to at least send out a story from my tour guides in China. Below is my favorite joke. Remember this was told by a Chinese man.

A man died and quickly discovered he was not permitted into heaven. He went down to hell to discover that there were actually two hells: capitalist hell and communist hell. There was a very short line to get into capitalist hell, and at the gates was Bill Gates.  The man asked Bill Gates, "what is capitalist hell like?" Bill Gates told him that in capitalist hell they chop up those who enter and burn them with oil. The man shuttered and decided to try his luck in communist hell. He arrived to see Karl Marx guarding the door and was surprised to notice the long line of people waiting to enter communist hell. The man asked, "what is communist hell like?" Marx told him that in communist hell, victims are chopped up and burned with oil. The man was confused. "You do the same thing as in capitalist hell. Why is the line so much longer to enter here?" Karl Marx frowned and said, "well in Communist hell, we tend to run out of oil."

That's all for now, I'll write more after I finish writing Cambodia and Vietnam, but I wanted to share that before I forgot it. Its been a fantastic few days.