ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
My expectations I left in Japan,
My ignorance I left in China,
My innocence I left in Vietnam,
My selfishness I left in Burma,
My arrogance I left in India,
My inhibitions I left in Egypt,
My anxiety I left in Turkey,
My doubts I left in Croatia,
My hesitance I left in Spain,
Myself I found at sea.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I'll lean against the world,
One that supports my aching body
Matching the creases of the Earth
With changing over time.
I am no longer who you befriended
But a mirror in disguise,
Reflecting on the past
With a deceptive calm.
The ocean caresses the ship,
Massaging its sides,
Like thousands of cool hands on my back,
Urging me along the way.
Children smile and stare and wave,
Made of knobby bodies and
Callused feet as they scurry to me,
Broken hands tapping on my pockets.
I turn from these crowded cities--
They clog my pores with smog and grease,
I search for soft hills padded with grass
Or steep mountains packed with trees.
Women paint their faces and hide their bodies,
Protected from the sun's damaging effect,
Or hidden from wandering eyes
And distrustful hands.
Young girls loop their arms with mine
Asking questions and welcoming me,
They smile and touch my face
As young men ask to kiss my cheeks.
Drifting cats and begging dogs
Sniff at trash piled against fences,
Or investigates wrappers thrown to the curb,
Licking what they find inside.
Dusty roads printed with pawas and toes
Turn to cobbled alleyways,
Full of history, boxes
and cat food.
Busses smell of dry smoke and lemon,
They weave through mountains and
Speed through turns,
Riding the edges of sudden drops.
Coffee smells poor from windows and doors,
Bitter, fresh, sweet, enticing,
And people sounds follow closely,
Relaxed, busy, happy at once.
And now there is land before me
And land behind me,
Yet all I can see is ocean
And sky.
And though the land where I am going
Is as familliar as the language on
My lips,
I know the truth...
For the wind told its secrets to me...
We are as different as we are the same,
Culture is what makes us amazing,
And holding on to it is as important
As drinking water and holding hands.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Virginia Tech
i am so depressed. it's hard in NC because i cant really find anyone who understands this. People are calling this the college coumbine. this is so unlike columbine for me. during columbine-i didn't know any of those kids, i was only in 6th grade or so, i didnt know the school, the area, any of it...
but this...
i know this school
i know friends who go there
i know virginia
i know blacksburg
i know wat a hokie is
i know how beautiful the campus is
i know how nice people are there
i know what a good school it is
and i know for a while now people will think of this instead of the football team whenever VT is mentioned.
i might write more later...
i just...you kno
LOVE and PEACE
For today...
we ARE all HoKiEs!!!!!
but this...
i know this school
i know friends who go there
i know virginia
i know blacksburg
i know wat a hokie is
i know how beautiful the campus is
i know how nice people are there
i know what a good school it is
and i know for a while now people will think of this instead of the football team whenever VT is mentioned.
i might write more later...
i just...you kno
LOVE and PEACE
For today...
we ARE all HoKiEs!!!!!
Friday, February 16, 2007
Friday, January 5, 2007
waz up!
oi...i think i've recovered, but only time will tell! i'm going to try to write about my time in Turkey this weekend when i'm not busy packing and getting settled in to my NEW APARTMENT!!!!! i'm going to App State University in North Carolina now. i'm really excited about living in another state. i mean it's only 3-4 hours from Roanoke but it's 8 hours from where i lived for about 15 years.
anywho i really need to write about turkey before i forget all the towns that we visited :)
will write more later i promise and will see when i can visit Merritt soon! it may be hard to figure out how, but it will happen.
DD
anywho i really need to write about turkey before i forget all the towns that we visited :)
will write more later i promise and will see when i can visit Merritt soon! it may be hard to figure out how, but it will happen.
DD
Monday, November 20, 2006
it did work...
well dont u think my second post was better....
people are spending thousands for the simplest things!! during the auction! i won 2 laundry days so that paid my raffle tickets back! YAY!!
DD
people are spending thousands for the simplest things!! during the auction! i won 2 laundry days so that paid my raffle tickets back! YAY!!
DD
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Questions for moi!!
Hey! I think this is the package I sent from Egypt! I put a bunch of stuff I had left over from Hong Kong and Japan because that’s really all the papers I had. I didn’t accumulate that much paper or wrappers from India or Vietnam. I’m sad (but not surprised) the one from Vietnam has been a no show. It had some good articles in it.
The package you received is not the package I sent at all. It took about two hours to get that through their “post office,” which was in an abandoned warehouse or something. They pulled it apart. By the time it was over they had completely reorganized and taken out some of the stuff I wanted to send for one reason or another. If you liked that package, then you’ll really like the one I sent you a few days ago. It’s pretty. When my taxi driver first pulled up to it I was thinking, “OMGoodness! This is the part where I get kidnapped! I can see the headlines now!” But then a bunch of veiled women walked out and I thought well okay.
If I can, I’ll email Mr. C some pictures of the pyramids and Turkey and everything. The internet is easy to access, but webshots still takes too long.
Um..
I was so excited to hear from you all that I wrote all this yesterday on this random computer and then when I tried to update, it wouldn’t work so I lost my post. Now I cant remember all that I wanted to say. But it will make more sense now, that comp I was on had a different keyboard. That made it more fun though.
Nick- Hmmm… wat do people look like? Well er like people? Do you mean how they dress? Here’s something interesting—In Egypt a lot of women wear veil over their hair, even if they are not Muslim. And they dress a lot more conservatively than we do also. So, I saw a lot of women wear earrings on their veils where their ears would be. And girls would wear long pants and turtlenecks and then wear their spaghetti strapped shirts and short skirts over their clothes. Something else I just thought of while writing about Burmese food—the men in Burma chew on something called the beetle. It’s a leaf wrapped around some nuts and berries and you treat it like chewing tobacco. So all of their teeth were awful! I mean awful! Some people looked like their gums were in a constant state of bleeding or something. A lot of the older men that we ran in to were missing some of their teeth. Bleh! And a lot of people—men and women—walk with their arms around one another or with their arms entwined.
Sasha-since we came in the winter, Egypt was not really hot at all. At least it was not humid. There was a nice breeze the entire time we were there. Burma and Vietnam were much more unbearable. It was a nice dry heat so it was the only country at that time where I wasn’t very smelly by the end. When we saw the sunrise at the great pyramid, it was FREEZING!! Tokyo was exactly like NY except for all the Japanese writing everywhere and the people dress so differently. Maybe not drastically differently. Here’s an example—in NY you may see a lot of business people wearing sneakers or flat shoes so that their feet don’t hurt. Because you walk everywhere, right? Well in Japan, I saw everybody wearing heels or business shoes. And that’s the same with a lot of these countries, they don’t wear sneakers (they just make them).
Morgan- Ohhhh….my favorite place? Well food wise-definitely when we hit Egypt. I was starving till I hit Egypt. India I want to go back to because it’s such a diverse country and I only got to see one level of it. Different parts of India are like different countries all together. Hong Kong was a lot of fun. If I were to study abroad again in one of these countries I’ve visited, it would probably be Egypt. The people there were amazing. Hopefully, I put up a real update soon about Egypt.
Victoria- Burmese food was not my cup of tea. We went out into the countryside and I was afraid of getting sick so I was really weary about wat I ate already. Every boy in Burma has to become a monk at some point in his life. So a lot of people are vegetarians if I remember correctly. At the orphanage we visited the kids there were cared for by monks and only ate vege food. Their lunch every day consisted of rice, some spices, possibly bamboo if I heard right, and a piece of potato is wat it looked like. And they eat with their hands! And their hands are not wat you call clean. That could be an hw asst. for all of you. Make rice for dinner with some random veges and chop up some chicken and then eat it with your hands. Your goal is to not make a mess of everything! Because I most certainly did. On that note—try washing a pair of jeans in the sink and then dry them with a hair dryer! I’m telling you, I should be getting credit for all these weird things we need to do! Laundry 101.
The pyramids were AMAZING! I had to tell myself that it was real and that it wasn’t a movie set or something. By the time we realized that they only sell so many tickets to get inside the pyramids, they were sold out. But that’s okay I had a blast just walking around them. I really wanted to climb to the top of one, but I also really didn’t want to get a tour of an authentic Egyptian jail. It’s sad that the sphinx is in such sad shape. OH! Try doing this and if it doesn’t work, then I will find the pic for you. Look at old paintings of the sphinx. What is different about it? Try to find picks of the sphinx from before it was uncovered and only the head was sticking out. Do you see a difference?
We love the different time zone situation! When we change our clocks we get to have 25 hour days. So we get to sleep an extra hour! If we were on the spring voyage we would have 23 hour days and would lose an hour at night. That is not cool!
Personally, I get weird reactions because I am a woman and have REALLY short hair. At the Turkish bath the woman there said I looked like a soldier. And in Burma all the ladies were staring at me and I would get double takes from the guys when I smiled at them. Generally, I have had all positive experiences as an American. Mostly, people don’t understand you when you say the United States, so you have to say America. And their reply usually is, “yes, America, good.” And then sometimes they ask for your hand in marriage. Most of the time they want to know if you are from California or Washington DC. I was really surprised at what some Turks said about our president when we were there. They were really bold and opinionated there. But Turkey does share a border with Iraq, so that may have something to do with it.
The rest of the world, as far as I’ve experienced, LOVES AMERICANS! Generally speaking of course. It’s more an issue of my government doesn’t like your government, but people can all relate to that. In Egypt at the beginning of the Iraq affair, the American University in Cairo (which is 70% Egyptian) held a protest on it’s quad against the war. It was not a protest against Americans, but against wat our government was doing. People do that in the states all the time. So I think people across the globe have more in common than what we are led to believe by the media. I was worried about that before I left, but have been surprised. Then again we are going to places that rely heavily on tourism as well so they are not going to turn down our business. But I don’t believe it’s just that.
When I get home, I will definitely not give the media as much credit as I used to. You are only hearing about a microsecond of what is going on in the world and there is always more to be said then what you hear. When I was watching the news yesterday and they were talking about Pres. Bush’s visit to Vietnam and Vietnam’s recovery since the AMERICAN WAR there (that’s what they call it). Basically saying that the same thing could happen in Iraq. They put a slant on it and showed the city in the capital and how modern it is. I believe Vietnam has only one globally accredited university. A lot of its people live on farms on a little more than one USD a day. It still has a long way to go. Their economy is growing, but they need more infrastructures and more of an emphasis on educating its people especially in the rural areas. They really need to work on gender equality as well, because men (as per usual) are valued more since boys are the ones who grow up and take care of their parents when they get old—sorry mom and dad. I sent you my information package for Vietnam I think. Go through it. It has all sorts of info on Vietnam and it’s people and
People on the news all have an AGENDA (Yeah DR.C!!). They want you to agree with them. They want you on their side of what they are reporting. There is usually something they are not telling you, or you can’t hear the entire story. Why? Because there is always so much going on in the world. I am learning how small the world is, but at the same time how unimaginably complex it is. No matter what they tell you, I am inclined to believe there is something more to it.
And as a little something extra—for every time you hear about an American soldier acting like a fool somewhere, there are a dozen more somewhere saving lives. For once, I would like to hear more about those saving lives and less about the ones destroying them. The news today is too violent. They are just trying to shock you to get their ratings up. But we are getting harder to shock and I’m almost positive it will get better.
Well this is a lot better than my original post I wrote yesterday. I didn’t have word yesterday and my grammar skills rely heavily on word so it was pretty bad.
So many good questions!! Hopefully, I’ll get more soon!!
DD
The package you received is not the package I sent at all. It took about two hours to get that through their “post office,” which was in an abandoned warehouse or something. They pulled it apart. By the time it was over they had completely reorganized and taken out some of the stuff I wanted to send for one reason or another. If you liked that package, then you’ll really like the one I sent you a few days ago. It’s pretty. When my taxi driver first pulled up to it I was thinking, “OMGoodness! This is the part where I get kidnapped! I can see the headlines now!” But then a bunch of veiled women walked out and I thought well okay.
If I can, I’ll email Mr. C some pictures of the pyramids and Turkey and everything. The internet is easy to access, but webshots still takes too long.
Um..
I was so excited to hear from you all that I wrote all this yesterday on this random computer and then when I tried to update, it wouldn’t work so I lost my post. Now I cant remember all that I wanted to say. But it will make more sense now, that comp I was on had a different keyboard. That made it more fun though.
Nick- Hmmm… wat do people look like? Well er like people? Do you mean how they dress? Here’s something interesting—In Egypt a lot of women wear veil over their hair, even if they are not Muslim. And they dress a lot more conservatively than we do also. So, I saw a lot of women wear earrings on their veils where their ears would be. And girls would wear long pants and turtlenecks and then wear their spaghetti strapped shirts and short skirts over their clothes. Something else I just thought of while writing about Burmese food—the men in Burma chew on something called the beetle. It’s a leaf wrapped around some nuts and berries and you treat it like chewing tobacco. So all of their teeth were awful! I mean awful! Some people looked like their gums were in a constant state of bleeding or something. A lot of the older men that we ran in to were missing some of their teeth. Bleh! And a lot of people—men and women—walk with their arms around one another or with their arms entwined.
Sasha-since we came in the winter, Egypt was not really hot at all. At least it was not humid. There was a nice breeze the entire time we were there. Burma and Vietnam were much more unbearable. It was a nice dry heat so it was the only country at that time where I wasn’t very smelly by the end. When we saw the sunrise at the great pyramid, it was FREEZING!! Tokyo was exactly like NY except for all the Japanese writing everywhere and the people dress so differently. Maybe not drastically differently. Here’s an example—in NY you may see a lot of business people wearing sneakers or flat shoes so that their feet don’t hurt. Because you walk everywhere, right? Well in Japan, I saw everybody wearing heels or business shoes. And that’s the same with a lot of these countries, they don’t wear sneakers (they just make them).
Morgan- Ohhhh….my favorite place? Well food wise-definitely when we hit Egypt. I was starving till I hit Egypt. India I want to go back to because it’s such a diverse country and I only got to see one level of it. Different parts of India are like different countries all together. Hong Kong was a lot of fun. If I were to study abroad again in one of these countries I’ve visited, it would probably be Egypt. The people there were amazing. Hopefully, I put up a real update soon about Egypt.
Victoria- Burmese food was not my cup of tea. We went out into the countryside and I was afraid of getting sick so I was really weary about wat I ate already. Every boy in Burma has to become a monk at some point in his life. So a lot of people are vegetarians if I remember correctly. At the orphanage we visited the kids there were cared for by monks and only ate vege food. Their lunch every day consisted of rice, some spices, possibly bamboo if I heard right, and a piece of potato is wat it looked like. And they eat with their hands! And their hands are not wat you call clean. That could be an hw asst. for all of you. Make rice for dinner with some random veges and chop up some chicken and then eat it with your hands. Your goal is to not make a mess of everything! Because I most certainly did. On that note—try washing a pair of jeans in the sink and then dry them with a hair dryer! I’m telling you, I should be getting credit for all these weird things we need to do! Laundry 101.
The pyramids were AMAZING! I had to tell myself that it was real and that it wasn’t a movie set or something. By the time we realized that they only sell so many tickets to get inside the pyramids, they were sold out. But that’s okay I had a blast just walking around them. I really wanted to climb to the top of one, but I also really didn’t want to get a tour of an authentic Egyptian jail. It’s sad that the sphinx is in such sad shape. OH! Try doing this and if it doesn’t work, then I will find the pic for you. Look at old paintings of the sphinx. What is different about it? Try to find picks of the sphinx from before it was uncovered and only the head was sticking out. Do you see a difference?
We love the different time zone situation! When we change our clocks we get to have 25 hour days. So we get to sleep an extra hour! If we were on the spring voyage we would have 23 hour days and would lose an hour at night. That is not cool!
Personally, I get weird reactions because I am a woman and have REALLY short hair. At the Turkish bath the woman there said I looked like a soldier. And in Burma all the ladies were staring at me and I would get double takes from the guys when I smiled at them. Generally, I have had all positive experiences as an American. Mostly, people don’t understand you when you say the United States, so you have to say America. And their reply usually is, “yes, America, good.” And then sometimes they ask for your hand in marriage. Most of the time they want to know if you are from California or Washington DC. I was really surprised at what some Turks said about our president when we were there. They were really bold and opinionated there. But Turkey does share a border with Iraq, so that may have something to do with it.
The rest of the world, as far as I’ve experienced, LOVES AMERICANS! Generally speaking of course. It’s more an issue of my government doesn’t like your government, but people can all relate to that. In Egypt at the beginning of the Iraq affair, the American University in Cairo (which is 70% Egyptian) held a protest on it’s quad against the war. It was not a protest against Americans, but against wat our government was doing. People do that in the states all the time. So I think people across the globe have more in common than what we are led to believe by the media. I was worried about that before I left, but have been surprised. Then again we are going to places that rely heavily on tourism as well so they are not going to turn down our business. But I don’t believe it’s just that.
When I get home, I will definitely not give the media as much credit as I used to. You are only hearing about a microsecond of what is going on in the world and there is always more to be said then what you hear. When I was watching the news yesterday and they were talking about Pres. Bush’s visit to Vietnam and Vietnam’s recovery since the AMERICAN WAR there (that’s what they call it). Basically saying that the same thing could happen in Iraq. They put a slant on it and showed the city in the capital and how modern it is. I believe Vietnam has only one globally accredited university. A lot of its people live on farms on a little more than one USD a day. It still has a long way to go. Their economy is growing, but they need more infrastructures and more of an emphasis on educating its people especially in the rural areas. They really need to work on gender equality as well, because men (as per usual) are valued more since boys are the ones who grow up and take care of their parents when they get old—sorry mom and dad. I sent you my information package for Vietnam I think. Go through it. It has all sorts of info on Vietnam and it’s people and
People on the news all have an AGENDA (Yeah DR.C!!). They want you to agree with them. They want you on their side of what they are reporting. There is usually something they are not telling you, or you can’t hear the entire story. Why? Because there is always so much going on in the world. I am learning how small the world is, but at the same time how unimaginably complex it is. No matter what they tell you, I am inclined to believe there is something more to it.
And as a little something extra—for every time you hear about an American soldier acting like a fool somewhere, there are a dozen more somewhere saving lives. For once, I would like to hear more about those saving lives and less about the ones destroying them. The news today is too violent. They are just trying to shock you to get their ratings up. But we are getting harder to shock and I’m almost positive it will get better.
Well this is a lot better than my original post I wrote yesterday. I didn’t have word yesterday and my grammar skills rely heavily on word so it was pretty bad.
So many good questions!! Hopefully, I’ll get more soon!!
DD
Friday, November 17, 2006
AHH YAY!!
I am sooo happy about getting questions from my class back home, that i am going to answer their questions...well..now.
i think this should be the package i sent from Egzpt.
i am so glad u got my package from egypt because it took 2 HOURS to send!! they need to work on their efficiencz! wait till u see the pics of that place WOW!
and the package u received was not the package i sent. they rifled thru that package top to bottom and totally ruined the organization i had going on. but if u liked it, then ull really like the one i sent out yesterday because its all pretty!
and im on a foreign keyboard right now so ignore all weird symbols from now on because i dont want to keep pecking
Nick--hm...wat do the people look like? well, im not quite sure what u mean...itćs so easz on this trip to look for all the difference in people, but i am trzing to look for szmolarities as well. Heres something interesting.
Sasha- Egpt was not reallz hot actuallz because we came in winter. but ićm sure it is during the summer months. wen we saw the sun rise at the great pzramid it was FREEYING!!! and the wind was soo cold!
Victoria- EEp! Burmese food was not mz cup of tea! thez eat with their hands there and of course rice is a part of everz meal. heres a hw assigntent make dinner tonight with rice and some kind of bean and mazbe something green or a meat or watever and just trz eating with zour hands and not make a fool of zourself. just donćt make a mess and annoz ur parental units. um...ićm trzing to remember wat we ate reallz....i was so afraid of getting sick that i didnt reallz eat that much wen we were out in the countrzside. at this nice restaurant i ate some duplings with pork inside and wok fried chicken. i highlz recommend anzthing that can be made with a wok.
and it hasnt been difficult adjusting to the time yones at all because wenever we have to change time itćs alwaz an hour back before we go to sleep so we get an extra hour of sleep between almost each port if not more. so wećve been having 25 hr dazs. if we were in the spring semester then we would be having 23 hr dazs bleh.
since i shaved mz head ićve received a lot of double takes and in the Turkish bath the ladz said i looked like a soldier. as American i have been welcomed and have not received anz flack for being American. I will tell za that
The rest of the world LOVES America! whenever i tell people where i am from thez smile at us and are like, <ć ah zeas America good<ć and then sometimes thez ask me to marrz them. i see now how different America is from the rest of the world tho. i cant quite explain it, but America has a fabulous set up i guess. our infrastructure and our pride in our own civil rights and just everzthing. itćs amaying the difference.
no i dont think ićlll give the news as much credit as i have in the past. on the news ur seeing a fraction of wat is going on in the world and the people giving zou that news alwazs have an AGENDA (zeah Dr. C). for everz storz zou hear about Am. soldiers doing something terrible in Iraq ićm sure there are at least a doyen or more that thez could be talking about where a soldier has done something heroic. The onlz thing the news wants to do is shock zou and get their ratings up--mz opinion anzwaz!
Thanks for the question and hopefullz mz third package will arrive soon! studz hard
o and sorrz this is not eloquant at all...the comp ićm on doesnt have word and ićm afraid mz grammar skills and spelling relz heavilz on word...
keep busz i know i will!
i think this should be the package i sent from Egzpt.
i am so glad u got my package from egypt because it took 2 HOURS to send!! they need to work on their efficiencz! wait till u see the pics of that place WOW!
and the package u received was not the package i sent. they rifled thru that package top to bottom and totally ruined the organization i had going on. but if u liked it, then ull really like the one i sent out yesterday because its all pretty!
and im on a foreign keyboard right now so ignore all weird symbols from now on because i dont want to keep pecking
Nick--hm...wat do the people look like? well, im not quite sure what u mean...itćs so easz on this trip to look for all the difference in people, but i am trzing to look for szmolarities as well. Heres something interesting.
Sasha- Egpt was not reallz hot actuallz because we came in winter. but ićm sure it is during the summer months. wen we saw the sun rise at the great pzramid it was FREEYING!!! and the wind was soo cold!
Victoria- EEp! Burmese food was not mz cup of tea! thez eat with their hands there and of course rice is a part of everz meal. heres a hw assigntent make dinner tonight with rice and some kind of bean and mazbe something green or a meat or watever and just trz eating with zour hands and not make a fool of zourself. just donćt make a mess and annoz ur parental units. um...ićm trzing to remember wat we ate reallz....i was so afraid of getting sick that i didnt reallz eat that much wen we were out in the countrzside. at this nice restaurant i ate some duplings with pork inside and wok fried chicken. i highlz recommend anzthing that can be made with a wok.
and it hasnt been difficult adjusting to the time yones at all because wenever we have to change time itćs alwaz an hour back before we go to sleep so we get an extra hour of sleep between almost each port if not more. so wećve been having 25 hr dazs. if we were in the spring semester then we would be having 23 hr dazs bleh.
since i shaved mz head ićve received a lot of double takes and in the Turkish bath the ladz said i looked like a soldier. as American i have been welcomed and have not received anz flack for being American. I will tell za that
The rest of the world LOVES America! whenever i tell people where i am from thez smile at us and are like, <ć ah zeas America good<ć and then sometimes thez ask me to marrz them. i see now how different America is from the rest of the world tho. i cant quite explain it, but America has a fabulous set up i guess. our infrastructure and our pride in our own civil rights and just everzthing. itćs amaying the difference.
no i dont think ićlll give the news as much credit as i have in the past. on the news ur seeing a fraction of wat is going on in the world and the people giving zou that news alwazs have an AGENDA (zeah Dr. C). for everz storz zou hear about Am. soldiers doing something terrible in Iraq ićm sure there are at least a doyen or more that thez could be talking about where a soldier has done something heroic. The onlz thing the news wants to do is shock zou and get their ratings up--mz opinion anzwaz!
Thanks for the question and hopefullz mz third package will arrive soon! studz hard
o and sorrz this is not eloquant at all...the comp ićm on doesnt have word and ićm afraid mz grammar skills and spelling relz heavilz on word...
keep busz i know i will!
Hello all
Sorry for the lag in updates....we havent had that much time in between port the past few countries.
And i don't know how of one this will be...i'll try to remember all that i did in Egypt.
In Egypt i signed up for my biggest SAS trip. it was 2 nights and 3 days in cairo, which was located about 1.5 hours from port! so i was really glad i signed up for this trip because they took care of all the hotel and pretty much all the food i guess too. Since i hadnt really had any big overnight trips with SAS i wasnt fed up with group trips yet. Some people had had enough of them and decided not to go even though they paid a lot of money for it already.
So we arrive at the hotel and it's like a frickin 5 star hotel!!! and the food was SOOOO good! any weight that i lost on this trip has been gained back since i hit the Med Sea! They had the chocolate balls that i want to try to make when i get home and i asked the guy what they were called and he said chocolate balls. Surprise!
Lets see the first day we um...went to the tomb of Imotep and um...did other stuff that i'll remember later. That night we had dinner on the nile on a boat. I got to ride a camel which was actually kind of freaky, but cool. Camels make the most interesting noises.
The next morning we woke up at like 4AM to go see the sunrise at the pyramids. It was amazing! we tried to ride another camel, but the tourist police was getting in the way. I acted like a complete tourist/american and did a cartwheel on the great pyramid. Then we went to the museum and got to see all of the King Tut artifacts including that mask that you always see in textbooks. it was so cool to see it in real life. i think they airbrush it in all of its photos.
Then lunch in of course a way too nice restaurant. i saw a Chillis, a TGIF, a Gold's gym, and of course hardees, McD, and KFC and Pizza hut, but i didnt eat at any of them. it was just weird to see them all sitting along the nile.
THat night we saw the sound and light show. on Halloween of all nights! how amazing is that to be in Egypt on Halloween!
We went to AUC for about an hour and got to see their rarebooks collection. but they werent given a lot of time to know we were coming to visit and didnt have any students for us to talk to.
So i went back the next day and spent the day talking with students and i wanted to maybe sit in on a class, but it didnt work out.
i know this is a weak update, but i've been at this cafe for too long trying to update my McAfee bc it expired and it was a pain. and bleh. and i wanna walk around some now.
so i'll tell you more about the Suex and Alexandria later on today.
DD
And i don't know how of one this will be...i'll try to remember all that i did in Egypt.
In Egypt i signed up for my biggest SAS trip. it was 2 nights and 3 days in cairo, which was located about 1.5 hours from port! so i was really glad i signed up for this trip because they took care of all the hotel and pretty much all the food i guess too. Since i hadnt really had any big overnight trips with SAS i wasnt fed up with group trips yet. Some people had had enough of them and decided not to go even though they paid a lot of money for it already.
So we arrive at the hotel and it's like a frickin 5 star hotel!!! and the food was SOOOO good! any weight that i lost on this trip has been gained back since i hit the Med Sea! They had the chocolate balls that i want to try to make when i get home and i asked the guy what they were called and he said chocolate balls. Surprise!
Lets see the first day we um...went to the tomb of Imotep and um...did other stuff that i'll remember later. That night we had dinner on the nile on a boat. I got to ride a camel which was actually kind of freaky, but cool. Camels make the most interesting noises.
The next morning we woke up at like 4AM to go see the sunrise at the pyramids. It was amazing! we tried to ride another camel, but the tourist police was getting in the way. I acted like a complete tourist/american and did a cartwheel on the great pyramid. Then we went to the museum and got to see all of the King Tut artifacts including that mask that you always see in textbooks. it was so cool to see it in real life. i think they airbrush it in all of its photos.
Then lunch in of course a way too nice restaurant. i saw a Chillis, a TGIF, a Gold's gym, and of course hardees, McD, and KFC and Pizza hut, but i didnt eat at any of them. it was just weird to see them all sitting along the nile.
THat night we saw the sound and light show. on Halloween of all nights! how amazing is that to be in Egypt on Halloween!
We went to AUC for about an hour and got to see their rarebooks collection. but they werent given a lot of time to know we were coming to visit and didnt have any students for us to talk to.
So i went back the next day and spent the day talking with students and i wanted to maybe sit in on a class, but it didnt work out.
i know this is a weak update, but i've been at this cafe for too long trying to update my McAfee bc it expired and it was a pain. and bleh. and i wanna walk around some now.
so i'll tell you more about the Suex and Alexandria later on today.
DD
Thursday, October 26, 2006
I want you to know
it was brought to my attention that some of the subjects i talk about may not be appropriate for some middle schoolers who may or may not be reading my blog and this is what i have to say on the subject...
On my first day of sixth grade my teacher told us she was preparing us for college. I’ll admit I was a little intimidated at that point. I’ll let the teachers censor it for them if they want.
For those of you who don’t understand I’m trying to do a vicarious voyage thing with a class back at home. I’m going to write about things we are learning in class and things I’m experiencing on the ship because that is all I have to write and think about. Let it be known that there are consequences for your actions here on this ship. Even that guy who got drunk isn’t allowed to buy drink tickets anymore or be seen drunk. If he violates those, he will be thrown out of here so fast.
Don’t worry, the packet I sent to the class before India focused on the Caste system and the one I’m sending them in Egypt focuses on Whirling Dervishes. So I’m not asking them to study FGM or anything. But I also refuse to stylize my writing for one specific group of people. I’m also writing this for people who may take the voyage in the future or maybe even a random stalker or two. And I wouldn’t want to bore them now would I?
I could have written about the dead bodies we saw in India. Would that have been better?
Maybe I could put a little bit of a warning before going into “non sixth grade” things? No that would mean too much thinking about what is and what isn’t a sixth grade appropriate topic. And heck if I know what is. Not to mention that would make it even more likely that they would read it. Teenage mentality and all.
I’ll finish with this. I can’t perceive how my tone of voice is going to sound in this entry. I don’t want to freak out the class that may read this blog and no, I don’t think they should be actively learning about FGM, but this is my experience. I’m not going to dice it up because I’ve stopped writing in my journal religiously—hurts my hand too much. When I get back the changes I see in people and in myself will have been caused by the experience as a whole, not just the bits that were easy to swallow.
DD
On my first day of sixth grade my teacher told us she was preparing us for college. I’ll admit I was a little intimidated at that point. I’ll let the teachers censor it for them if they want.
For those of you who don’t understand I’m trying to do a vicarious voyage thing with a class back at home. I’m going to write about things we are learning in class and things I’m experiencing on the ship because that is all I have to write and think about. Let it be known that there are consequences for your actions here on this ship. Even that guy who got drunk isn’t allowed to buy drink tickets anymore or be seen drunk. If he violates those, he will be thrown out of here so fast.
Don’t worry, the packet I sent to the class before India focused on the Caste system and the one I’m sending them in Egypt focuses on Whirling Dervishes. So I’m not asking them to study FGM or anything. But I also refuse to stylize my writing for one specific group of people. I’m also writing this for people who may take the voyage in the future or maybe even a random stalker or two. And I wouldn’t want to bore them now would I?
I could have written about the dead bodies we saw in India. Would that have been better?
Maybe I could put a little bit of a warning before going into “non sixth grade” things? No that would mean too much thinking about what is and what isn’t a sixth grade appropriate topic. And heck if I know what is. Not to mention that would make it even more likely that they would read it. Teenage mentality and all.
I’ll finish with this. I can’t perceive how my tone of voice is going to sound in this entry. I don’t want to freak out the class that may read this blog and no, I don’t think they should be actively learning about FGM, but this is my experience. I’m not going to dice it up because I’ve stopped writing in my journal religiously—hurts my hand too much. When I get back the changes I see in people and in myself will have been caused by the experience as a whole, not just the bits that were easy to swallow.
DD
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
India and Burma
October 21, 2006
First of all…
I’m HAPPY to let y’all know that I’ve been accepted to Appalachian State University! Yay ME! I’m going to have an impossible time signing up for classes and stuff like that. A few people including one of my friends were kicked off the ship for drugs. I was really sad to hear that she had to leave. I always had a lot of fun with her I thought she was just really nice and everything. Sometimes you can’t help what your friends do. I was starting to wonder what you have to do to get kicked off this ship. They don’t kick off the guy that gets drunk and scares the crap out of some girl while trying to force himself into her room.
On an even sadder note, my RD, Nam, had to leave the ship as well. Her mom is unexpectedly really sick and she needed to go be with her. Already, I notice the difference with not having our own RD. Things are crazy with the Sea ‘Lympics and whatnot. It’s all over the place. When you’re trying to take down an army go for the officers who organize them. BUT WE WILL GET IT TOGETHER AND BRING HOME THAT TROPHY! Not to mention people were being way too loud in the hall at midnight and no one was there to come out and crack some skulls together.
BURMA
Yangon was located about 45 minutes from where the ship was docked. The city itself was disgusting. All the pollution and everything was really bothering me. And the friend that I was with was talking about staying on the ship the next day and not even leaving. I have a rule that I made myself about doing homework while in port. While we are in port homework is not something I will do. The point of being in these countries is to go see the countries. So when we were coming home from an orphanage visit to have lunch on the ship, I heard some other people talk about going to an elephant sanctuary. I’ll do that any time. And it was an opportunity to leave the city.
So we ate and then packed and took the shuttle back into the city. I was with Suz, Kimmie, and Alex. Alex and Suz, I think, had found a local that took them around the city on their first day and was nice and legit. The guy I found with Wendy and Andrew was not legit and wanted 10 bucks just for walking us around for an hour (and yes that is a lot especially because he kept taking us to places with government goods).
I didn’t expect to be going for very long. I thought I was only going to be gone for like one night and be back the next morning. So I only packed like one pair of jeans and a few shirts. So I had to borrow money and clothes, but the friends I were with were totally awesome about it.
We told Toe that we wanted to go to see elephants somewhere. So he hooked us up with some one else that had pictures of past kids he had taken on trips and itineraries set up for people who wanted to go on 15 or 20 day trips.
This may all sound pretty crazy, but I felt secure the entire time. Our only goal was to spend as little money as possible that would go to the government.
We hopped in a van with Robert and his driver and were off. The car ride that was supposed to be only 5 hours turned into 8 hours. But the countryside was beautiful and I was so happy to get out of the city at last. I had been in the city in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Japan so this was nice. I could almost trick myself into thinking I was home. The big difference was the smells and the guys walking around in skirts. Not to mention the women and girls were all wearing yellow make up on their face. It looked like yellow paint. It’s for mosquito and sun protection. But it also keeps their skin pale, which is what a lot of women aim for in these countries.
We arrived in Pyay fairly late, I don’t remember and Robert took us to a cheap, but decent hotel. At least it was better than the love hotel in Japan. We pretty much just went to sleep that night. The next morning, Robert drove us to this village where he said there was jungle and blahblahblah. When we got there, the kids immediately came up to us, but they didn’t beg for money, they just stared. We gave them lollipops and it was so cute because they didn’t know what to do with them. So we unwrapped some and put them in our mouths and they did the same. They threw the wrappers on the ground too, which is something that they are used to I’m sure. We picked up the wrappers for them and packed them out. This village was pretty far from products that have wrappers and we didn’t want to be the ones to introduce it to them. Their lives are very sustainable. They eat what they grow and then they burn their rubbish at night as a way to get rid of it and to keep the bugs down.
In this village, there was a museum that Robert said had a jungle behind it that had the ruins of some old temples and things. The museum wanted to charge us 9 bucks to get in. We didn’t want to spend that much on the museum because we had enough for food and hotel. Then we had emergency money in case Robert turned out to be a not so legit guy and tried to leave us we could offer him more money.
That never happened, Robert was a good guy. We explained to him that we wanted a dense jungle to hike in. He was reluctant because he knew the road to the village wasn’t that good and it was another 2 hours away. But that’s what we wanted and that’s what we got.
The mountains were absolutely beautiful. Everywhere they were replanting teak trees—which is Burma’s major export. We kept going up and around and finally came to the most remote village ever! It was great. Everybody was so tiny and staring at us. Robert talked to one of the locals for a minute before he found a guide that would take us on the trial through the mountains. Once again sounds risky, but Robert wasn’t about to let us disappear because he didn’t have all of his money yet.
We bought some sealed crackers and peanuts and things at this little stand in the village to take with us on the hike. It was the hardest hike I’ve ever been on in my life. I’m not sure what it was that kicked my butt. It was only about 8 miles. All the miles in Philmont didn’t compare to this one hike. It was immediately uphill and jagged and turning and muddy. It was so muddy I couldn’t believe it. We basically hiked in elephant tracks for a lot of the time. After about an hour we finally saw our first elephant. The poor elephant was carrying two guys and had a cut on his face. He was really well trained and went up and down at the slightest signal. After the elephant, we hiked some more. It was soo cool. Alex took a good fall and cut his arm. And our guide picked a plant and put it on the cut and the bleeding stopped immediately.
He took us to this really cool stream and we sat and ate for a little while. The water felt so good to splash on our heads and everything. We hiked through another village where all the dogs growled at us. I’ve never had so many dogs growling at me at the same time. Then it was time to go back.
That mountain kicked our butts. We were practically hiking on our hands and feet up muddy hills in elephant tracks. When we got back to the village where we started the women were laughing at us because we looked so tired. And apparently they were pointing at me when I wasn’t looking because of my shaved head. Women here have really really long hair.
Robert had some one go to a place near by and so when we got back he had four beautiful bottles of water ready for us. Water never looked so good. After taking off our shoes and catching our breath, we said goodbye to the villagers and our guide and headed back to the hotel.
We went out for beers that night, but Kimmie and I went to bed relatively early (I don’t like beer I’ve decided). Suz and Alex stayed out with some locals later.
So that was Burma for me. I’m definitely going to join some Free Burma groups when I get home because I love this country now and its people. I hope that one day they will be free.
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October 23, 2006
So, all in all, I loved India, but I hated Chennai. I got so tired of the taxi drivers lying to us about when this was open and when this was closed. They would take us somewhere besides where we wanted to go. They would try to charge us more after taking us somewhere. And apparently even the interport students were surprised at how we were treated.
I didn’t have a good 2 days to get out of the city and get lost like I did in Burma because I had orphanage visits and other things in between before my Dalit Village overnight. The orphanage visit was the same as the one in Vietnam. Only this time I held a ten year old size boy that was indeed 20 years old. I told the lady, “no, I’m 20.” There was one little one year old that I held that wouldn’t let me put her down or pass her off to anybody else. I felt loved.
On to my Dalit Village stay
The Dalits are the lowest of the low in the illegal Indian caste system. The government has to set aside a certain percentage of jobs for the Dalits so that they are hired. In the past people of higher castes would wash themselves after coming into contact with Dalits.
We visited a nursing school of girls first. It is free for the girls who all come from Dalit villages around the area. These girls were so excited to see us. It was great. They had a welcoming ceremony for us and put the dot on our foreheads that I still don’t quite know what it means. So if any of you can tell me let me know. The girls were so used to doing it that they couldn’t even explain to us what it meant. They put on a show for us with singing and dancing. I’ve decided that I love Indian dancing.
The facilities were very simple, but they love what they have. The classrooms were simple and void of technology. But I did see a few computers. Dad, if you get a new comp. this school would probably take the old one. You never know. Of course getting it there is probably eh, but it just occurred to me so I typed it. Anywho, they had printouts for us about information on the school and other projects they have worked on in the past geared to educating Dalits about their rites.
We had lunch and it was actually in a very modern facility on the campus and tasted good and everything. After lunch we had an opportunity to socialize with the students and ask them some questions. One of the girls is engaged and is going to be married in 3 months and she’s only 21. So the age when women get married is pretty much 21. We told them that in America people get married in their late 20s to early 30s generally speaking. Or you know whenever they feel like it. They were so giggly talking about boys. They were like a bunch of teenagers. We asked them if any of them had boyfriends or if they were allowed to or whatever and they all started giggling.
They put on another show for us. A girl danced to Indian hip hop and it was so cute. And they put on a play that was meant to be educational. It was the type of play they would put on to educate people about their rites or various things. This one supported educating women so that they could support themselves should they need too. If for some reason they couldn’t rely on their husbands.
So after talking with them for a while it was time to play throw ball. It looked like volley ball, but the ball was heavier and the texture was rougher. And you caught the ball and threw it back over the net instead of sending it back the other way. There were rules about how you could catch the ball. Like it couldn’t touch your body when you caught it and you can’t double catch it in your own hands. Stuff like that.
We played forever. It’s a good BBQ game or picnic game. Although, I’m not sure if it was fun just because of where we were playing it and who we were playing it with. One of the guys taught them how to give ten and to touch fists together. Every time we did something good we would do that with them and each other and they would giggle and laugh and stuff. It was soo much fun.
Oh and my team won both games. We smoked them.
So then it was off to the village by that time. We showed up when it was just getting dark. As soon as we arrived they started playing the drums and some other instruments to come into the village with. The village was only one street that went on for a while. It took us about 30 minutes to get to this stage they had set up. Apparently, some of the money that we spent on the trip went towards some performers that came and put on a show for us and for the village. So it was a treat for them as well.
Some dancers performed and then this guy and girl were wearing horse costumes that were very colorful. They played with fire as well, which was always cool.
Then when they and these acrobat performers went and they did flips and things, the power went out. Which shouldn’t have been too big of a surprise since a lot of electricity was flowing into that area. It was funny to watch a guy climb up a telephone pole like nothing and then climb back down without out any aid from ropes or anything. Now that I think about it, what was amazing was seeing how dark it got for those 15 minutes or so. Couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.
When the light came back on everybody cheered. Then a group of young men danced on stage for us. I love their style of dancing. We would probably call it crazy dancing. Then the young boys came onto the stage and danced as well. The girls that came onto the stage actually had a choreographed routine and they were such good dancers. Ah! They were all so cute!
After the show was over, it was time for a late dinner from the ship and then bed. One of my worst nights ever. We slept on the roof of the concrete welcome center. It was the only concrete building in the village and I think it was the only one with electricity. The villagers may be used to this but I was definitely not. I can handle my friends’ bedroom floor or whatever, but this was concrete and my hostelling sleeping bag which is very thin. Not to mention it is very normal for them to stay up late because it isn’t as hot out, but at 2AM the locals were setting off fireworks. And they were talking talking talking non stop right outside where we were sleeping. So I read until about 3 or 4 in the morning until I was finally drowsy enough to fall asleep even on the concrete floor. But that one night was worth the village stay.
We woke around 630 in the morning, which I guess is way earlier than what the villagers are used to. But I believe this because they stay up so late at night. It makes sense that they stay up late, but at the same time, it makes sense for them to get up early. Those are the times when it’s not as hot.
We finally got to go around the village and tour houses and see what kind of conditions they people lived in. Some had alters made to their ancestors that were just 3 or 4 bricks standing next to each other. All had straw roofs and mud floors. Some with more money had brick walls with straw roofs.
We started playing hand games with them. Then we started teaching them random games. We played London Bridge is going down, the “head shoulders knees and toes” song, and various other ones. These kids were so smart, they picked it up right away. I can almost see them playing on their own right now. They were soo cute. At around the time we were supposed to leave it started getting very cloudy and we still hadn’t given the “mayor” of the village the gifts and candy we had brought with us. This way he could distribute the stuff equally among the people so that no one gets a lot and others don’t get any. And they gave us a little brass candle holder thing.
I was sad to go, but glad that the monsoon rain didn’t come in the middle of the night while we were sleeping on the roof of a building. I didn’t really do anything the last day, I didn’t want to ruin my last vision of India with more of the dreaded city and it’s lying people.
Now I’m at sea for nine days. So maybe I’ll update again. I want to write more, but this is very tiresome. I’ve stopped writing everything in my journal because I pretty much do that here. But it’s easier to type up anyway. Maybe not very personal, but that’s what scrapbooks are for.
Oh! And I can’t even begin to tell you how glad I am that I didn’t go on the SAS trip to the Taj and whatever. It sounded like way too much traveling for the amount they paid. Most that I know that went on it said, “The Taj is beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking, but the trip sucked.” The only people that I know that had a good time going to the Taj trip and had a great time all together were the ones who went independently with just a few friends. I know this sounds hard, but independent travel really isn’t all that much harder. It’s just as stressful as big trips with SAS, but as long as you allow yourself time to get back on the ship and everything then you’ll be fine. The people I know that went to the Taj and stuff only spent about 200 dollars on round trip plane tickets and then who knows how little on food and lodgings. When the SAS trips cost about 1000 dollars or something. I’m just really glad I didn’t go. I can fairly easily go to the Taj any time because it’s such a touristy spot. All I need to do is call up a travel guide and say I want to go to the Taj and Veranasi and he’ll set me up. Of course if I did that then I’ll probably end up staying in too nice hotels and being very touristy instead of travlery. But that’s okay some of the time. You cant do everything. Yes there will be stuff that I wish I did, but that’s the way it is all the time, no matter what I do.
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So in my Sex and Gender Diversity class we are starting to learn about female circumcision. And we watched this wonderfully graphic movie on it. And I have to say, I’m slightly traumatized. Out of all of my anthropology classes and everything, I’ve avoided having to learn more about FGM other than that it exists. And something we had to read for the class really struck me.
In areas where this is practiced, cutting is seen as an essential part of a woman’s identity. If she does not have the surgery, she is seen as ugly, impure, and is considered an outsider. And though we may think of this practice as appalling, as an anthropologist in training, I try to look at from another perspective. An article I read by Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf stuck with me:
“Today some girls and women in the West starve themselves obsessively. Others undergo painful and potentially dangerous medical procedures—face lifts, liposuction, breast implants and the like—to conform to cultural standards of beauty and femininity. I am not trying to equate genital cutting with eating disorders or cosmetic surgery; nevertheless, people in the industrialized world must recognize that they too are influenced, often destructively, by traditional gender roles and demands.”
The article ends with the author stating that as more women in the areas that practice this surgery are educated, the more likely they will chose not to submit their daughters to it. Women she says will make sure that FGM ends. But that is only the beginning. What will it take for women or girls to be satisfied with themselves? Is it even possible to shed the pressures of society to look or act a different way than how you were born?
In the first half of the voyage we visited countries where the people generally have darker complexions. And they go through great lengths to make their skin as pale as possible. Back in the states, people risk skin cancer to make their skin darker. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?? Not even being tan is a good thing. Tanning is your skin reacting to the sun and trying to protect itself. Now I’m not saying I’m against laying out and getting a healthy dose of Vitamin D, but some of the girls on the 7th deck on this ship are going to be pruney when we arrive back in Florida.
Hopefully, one day we will all be free.
Well those are my thoughts for now.
I think this is long enough for y’all, no?
DD
First of all…
I’m HAPPY to let y’all know that I’ve been accepted to Appalachian State University! Yay ME! I’m going to have an impossible time signing up for classes and stuff like that. A few people including one of my friends were kicked off the ship for drugs. I was really sad to hear that she had to leave. I always had a lot of fun with her I thought she was just really nice and everything. Sometimes you can’t help what your friends do. I was starting to wonder what you have to do to get kicked off this ship. They don’t kick off the guy that gets drunk and scares the crap out of some girl while trying to force himself into her room.
On an even sadder note, my RD, Nam, had to leave the ship as well. Her mom is unexpectedly really sick and she needed to go be with her. Already, I notice the difference with not having our own RD. Things are crazy with the Sea ‘Lympics and whatnot. It’s all over the place. When you’re trying to take down an army go for the officers who organize them. BUT WE WILL GET IT TOGETHER AND BRING HOME THAT TROPHY! Not to mention people were being way too loud in the hall at midnight and no one was there to come out and crack some skulls together.
BURMA
Yangon was located about 45 minutes from where the ship was docked. The city itself was disgusting. All the pollution and everything was really bothering me. And the friend that I was with was talking about staying on the ship the next day and not even leaving. I have a rule that I made myself about doing homework while in port. While we are in port homework is not something I will do. The point of being in these countries is to go see the countries. So when we were coming home from an orphanage visit to have lunch on the ship, I heard some other people talk about going to an elephant sanctuary. I’ll do that any time. And it was an opportunity to leave the city.
So we ate and then packed and took the shuttle back into the city. I was with Suz, Kimmie, and Alex. Alex and Suz, I think, had found a local that took them around the city on their first day and was nice and legit. The guy I found with Wendy and Andrew was not legit and wanted 10 bucks just for walking us around for an hour (and yes that is a lot especially because he kept taking us to places with government goods).
I didn’t expect to be going for very long. I thought I was only going to be gone for like one night and be back the next morning. So I only packed like one pair of jeans and a few shirts. So I had to borrow money and clothes, but the friends I were with were totally awesome about it.
We told Toe that we wanted to go to see elephants somewhere. So he hooked us up with some one else that had pictures of past kids he had taken on trips and itineraries set up for people who wanted to go on 15 or 20 day trips.
This may all sound pretty crazy, but I felt secure the entire time. Our only goal was to spend as little money as possible that would go to the government.
We hopped in a van with Robert and his driver and were off. The car ride that was supposed to be only 5 hours turned into 8 hours. But the countryside was beautiful and I was so happy to get out of the city at last. I had been in the city in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Japan so this was nice. I could almost trick myself into thinking I was home. The big difference was the smells and the guys walking around in skirts. Not to mention the women and girls were all wearing yellow make up on their face. It looked like yellow paint. It’s for mosquito and sun protection. But it also keeps their skin pale, which is what a lot of women aim for in these countries.
We arrived in Pyay fairly late, I don’t remember and Robert took us to a cheap, but decent hotel. At least it was better than the love hotel in Japan. We pretty much just went to sleep that night. The next morning, Robert drove us to this village where he said there was jungle and blahblahblah. When we got there, the kids immediately came up to us, but they didn’t beg for money, they just stared. We gave them lollipops and it was so cute because they didn’t know what to do with them. So we unwrapped some and put them in our mouths and they did the same. They threw the wrappers on the ground too, which is something that they are used to I’m sure. We picked up the wrappers for them and packed them out. This village was pretty far from products that have wrappers and we didn’t want to be the ones to introduce it to them. Their lives are very sustainable. They eat what they grow and then they burn their rubbish at night as a way to get rid of it and to keep the bugs down.
In this village, there was a museum that Robert said had a jungle behind it that had the ruins of some old temples and things. The museum wanted to charge us 9 bucks to get in. We didn’t want to spend that much on the museum because we had enough for food and hotel. Then we had emergency money in case Robert turned out to be a not so legit guy and tried to leave us we could offer him more money.
That never happened, Robert was a good guy. We explained to him that we wanted a dense jungle to hike in. He was reluctant because he knew the road to the village wasn’t that good and it was another 2 hours away. But that’s what we wanted and that’s what we got.
The mountains were absolutely beautiful. Everywhere they were replanting teak trees—which is Burma’s major export. We kept going up and around and finally came to the most remote village ever! It was great. Everybody was so tiny and staring at us. Robert talked to one of the locals for a minute before he found a guide that would take us on the trial through the mountains. Once again sounds risky, but Robert wasn’t about to let us disappear because he didn’t have all of his money yet.
We bought some sealed crackers and peanuts and things at this little stand in the village to take with us on the hike. It was the hardest hike I’ve ever been on in my life. I’m not sure what it was that kicked my butt. It was only about 8 miles. All the miles in Philmont didn’t compare to this one hike. It was immediately uphill and jagged and turning and muddy. It was so muddy I couldn’t believe it. We basically hiked in elephant tracks for a lot of the time. After about an hour we finally saw our first elephant. The poor elephant was carrying two guys and had a cut on his face. He was really well trained and went up and down at the slightest signal. After the elephant, we hiked some more. It was soo cool. Alex took a good fall and cut his arm. And our guide picked a plant and put it on the cut and the bleeding stopped immediately.
He took us to this really cool stream and we sat and ate for a little while. The water felt so good to splash on our heads and everything. We hiked through another village where all the dogs growled at us. I’ve never had so many dogs growling at me at the same time. Then it was time to go back.
That mountain kicked our butts. We were practically hiking on our hands and feet up muddy hills in elephant tracks. When we got back to the village where we started the women were laughing at us because we looked so tired. And apparently they were pointing at me when I wasn’t looking because of my shaved head. Women here have really really long hair.
Robert had some one go to a place near by and so when we got back he had four beautiful bottles of water ready for us. Water never looked so good. After taking off our shoes and catching our breath, we said goodbye to the villagers and our guide and headed back to the hotel.
We went out for beers that night, but Kimmie and I went to bed relatively early (I don’t like beer I’ve decided). Suz and Alex stayed out with some locals later.
So that was Burma for me. I’m definitely going to join some Free Burma groups when I get home because I love this country now and its people. I hope that one day they will be free.
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October 23, 2006
So, all in all, I loved India, but I hated Chennai. I got so tired of the taxi drivers lying to us about when this was open and when this was closed. They would take us somewhere besides where we wanted to go. They would try to charge us more after taking us somewhere. And apparently even the interport students were surprised at how we were treated.
I didn’t have a good 2 days to get out of the city and get lost like I did in Burma because I had orphanage visits and other things in between before my Dalit Village overnight. The orphanage visit was the same as the one in Vietnam. Only this time I held a ten year old size boy that was indeed 20 years old. I told the lady, “no, I’m 20.” There was one little one year old that I held that wouldn’t let me put her down or pass her off to anybody else. I felt loved.
On to my Dalit Village stay
The Dalits are the lowest of the low in the illegal Indian caste system. The government has to set aside a certain percentage of jobs for the Dalits so that they are hired. In the past people of higher castes would wash themselves after coming into contact with Dalits.
We visited a nursing school of girls first. It is free for the girls who all come from Dalit villages around the area. These girls were so excited to see us. It was great. They had a welcoming ceremony for us and put the dot on our foreheads that I still don’t quite know what it means. So if any of you can tell me let me know. The girls were so used to doing it that they couldn’t even explain to us what it meant. They put on a show for us with singing and dancing. I’ve decided that I love Indian dancing.
The facilities were very simple, but they love what they have. The classrooms were simple and void of technology. But I did see a few computers. Dad, if you get a new comp. this school would probably take the old one. You never know. Of course getting it there is probably eh, but it just occurred to me so I typed it. Anywho, they had printouts for us about information on the school and other projects they have worked on in the past geared to educating Dalits about their rites.
We had lunch and it was actually in a very modern facility on the campus and tasted good and everything. After lunch we had an opportunity to socialize with the students and ask them some questions. One of the girls is engaged and is going to be married in 3 months and she’s only 21. So the age when women get married is pretty much 21. We told them that in America people get married in their late 20s to early 30s generally speaking. Or you know whenever they feel like it. They were so giggly talking about boys. They were like a bunch of teenagers. We asked them if any of them had boyfriends or if they were allowed to or whatever and they all started giggling.
They put on another show for us. A girl danced to Indian hip hop and it was so cute. And they put on a play that was meant to be educational. It was the type of play they would put on to educate people about their rites or various things. This one supported educating women so that they could support themselves should they need too. If for some reason they couldn’t rely on their husbands.
So after talking with them for a while it was time to play throw ball. It looked like volley ball, but the ball was heavier and the texture was rougher. And you caught the ball and threw it back over the net instead of sending it back the other way. There were rules about how you could catch the ball. Like it couldn’t touch your body when you caught it and you can’t double catch it in your own hands. Stuff like that.
We played forever. It’s a good BBQ game or picnic game. Although, I’m not sure if it was fun just because of where we were playing it and who we were playing it with. One of the guys taught them how to give ten and to touch fists together. Every time we did something good we would do that with them and each other and they would giggle and laugh and stuff. It was soo much fun.
Oh and my team won both games. We smoked them.
So then it was off to the village by that time. We showed up when it was just getting dark. As soon as we arrived they started playing the drums and some other instruments to come into the village with. The village was only one street that went on for a while. It took us about 30 minutes to get to this stage they had set up. Apparently, some of the money that we spent on the trip went towards some performers that came and put on a show for us and for the village. So it was a treat for them as well.
Some dancers performed and then this guy and girl were wearing horse costumes that were very colorful. They played with fire as well, which was always cool.
Then when they and these acrobat performers went and they did flips and things, the power went out. Which shouldn’t have been too big of a surprise since a lot of electricity was flowing into that area. It was funny to watch a guy climb up a telephone pole like nothing and then climb back down without out any aid from ropes or anything. Now that I think about it, what was amazing was seeing how dark it got for those 15 minutes or so. Couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.
When the light came back on everybody cheered. Then a group of young men danced on stage for us. I love their style of dancing. We would probably call it crazy dancing. Then the young boys came onto the stage and danced as well. The girls that came onto the stage actually had a choreographed routine and they were such good dancers. Ah! They were all so cute!
After the show was over, it was time for a late dinner from the ship and then bed. One of my worst nights ever. We slept on the roof of the concrete welcome center. It was the only concrete building in the village and I think it was the only one with electricity. The villagers may be used to this but I was definitely not. I can handle my friends’ bedroom floor or whatever, but this was concrete and my hostelling sleeping bag which is very thin. Not to mention it is very normal for them to stay up late because it isn’t as hot out, but at 2AM the locals were setting off fireworks. And they were talking talking talking non stop right outside where we were sleeping. So I read until about 3 or 4 in the morning until I was finally drowsy enough to fall asleep even on the concrete floor. But that one night was worth the village stay.
We woke around 630 in the morning, which I guess is way earlier than what the villagers are used to. But I believe this because they stay up so late at night. It makes sense that they stay up late, but at the same time, it makes sense for them to get up early. Those are the times when it’s not as hot.
We finally got to go around the village and tour houses and see what kind of conditions they people lived in. Some had alters made to their ancestors that were just 3 or 4 bricks standing next to each other. All had straw roofs and mud floors. Some with more money had brick walls with straw roofs.
We started playing hand games with them. Then we started teaching them random games. We played London Bridge is going down, the “head shoulders knees and toes” song, and various other ones. These kids were so smart, they picked it up right away. I can almost see them playing on their own right now. They were soo cute. At around the time we were supposed to leave it started getting very cloudy and we still hadn’t given the “mayor” of the village the gifts and candy we had brought with us. This way he could distribute the stuff equally among the people so that no one gets a lot and others don’t get any. And they gave us a little brass candle holder thing.
I was sad to go, but glad that the monsoon rain didn’t come in the middle of the night while we were sleeping on the roof of a building. I didn’t really do anything the last day, I didn’t want to ruin my last vision of India with more of the dreaded city and it’s lying people.
Now I’m at sea for nine days. So maybe I’ll update again. I want to write more, but this is very tiresome. I’ve stopped writing everything in my journal because I pretty much do that here. But it’s easier to type up anyway. Maybe not very personal, but that’s what scrapbooks are for.
Oh! And I can’t even begin to tell you how glad I am that I didn’t go on the SAS trip to the Taj and whatever. It sounded like way too much traveling for the amount they paid. Most that I know that went on it said, “The Taj is beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking, but the trip sucked.” The only people that I know that had a good time going to the Taj trip and had a great time all together were the ones who went independently with just a few friends. I know this sounds hard, but independent travel really isn’t all that much harder. It’s just as stressful as big trips with SAS, but as long as you allow yourself time to get back on the ship and everything then you’ll be fine. The people I know that went to the Taj and stuff only spent about 200 dollars on round trip plane tickets and then who knows how little on food and lodgings. When the SAS trips cost about 1000 dollars or something. I’m just really glad I didn’t go. I can fairly easily go to the Taj any time because it’s such a touristy spot. All I need to do is call up a travel guide and say I want to go to the Taj and Veranasi and he’ll set me up. Of course if I did that then I’ll probably end up staying in too nice hotels and being very touristy instead of travlery. But that’s okay some of the time. You cant do everything. Yes there will be stuff that I wish I did, but that’s the way it is all the time, no matter what I do.
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So in my Sex and Gender Diversity class we are starting to learn about female circumcision. And we watched this wonderfully graphic movie on it. And I have to say, I’m slightly traumatized. Out of all of my anthropology classes and everything, I’ve avoided having to learn more about FGM other than that it exists. And something we had to read for the class really struck me.
In areas where this is practiced, cutting is seen as an essential part of a woman’s identity. If she does not have the surgery, she is seen as ugly, impure, and is considered an outsider. And though we may think of this practice as appalling, as an anthropologist in training, I try to look at from another perspective. An article I read by Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf stuck with me:
“Today some girls and women in the West starve themselves obsessively. Others undergo painful and potentially dangerous medical procedures—face lifts, liposuction, breast implants and the like—to conform to cultural standards of beauty and femininity. I am not trying to equate genital cutting with eating disorders or cosmetic surgery; nevertheless, people in the industrialized world must recognize that they too are influenced, often destructively, by traditional gender roles and demands.”
The article ends with the author stating that as more women in the areas that practice this surgery are educated, the more likely they will chose not to submit their daughters to it. Women she says will make sure that FGM ends. But that is only the beginning. What will it take for women or girls to be satisfied with themselves? Is it even possible to shed the pressures of society to look or act a different way than how you were born?
In the first half of the voyage we visited countries where the people generally have darker complexions. And they go through great lengths to make their skin as pale as possible. Back in the states, people risk skin cancer to make their skin darker. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?? Not even being tan is a good thing. Tanning is your skin reacting to the sun and trying to protect itself. Now I’m not saying I’m against laying out and getting a healthy dose of Vitamin D, but some of the girls on the 7th deck on this ship are going to be pruney when we arrive back in Florida.
Hopefully, one day we will all be free.
Well those are my thoughts for now.
I think this is long enough for y’all, no?
DD
Monday, October 16, 2006
not much of an update really
i figured out a way to have free internet. which makes me wish i had a better post than this one i'm writing now.
the reason i haven't updated is that i've been sick. i'm better now, but i've lost my voice. my friends find the voice thing very amusing by the way.
India is annoying me so far. all the taxi drivers we ran into told us that spencer market was closed on sun. but apparantly that was a ploy to take us to really expensive places. and it wasnt closed. so we are going to try to get things done today.
we'll see
o and thanks all for nice comments. hil--email me with watever email address ur using these days so i can talk 2 u.
and i will update soon with u no a real update :)
dd
the reason i haven't updated is that i've been sick. i'm better now, but i've lost my voice. my friends find the voice thing very amusing by the way.
India is annoying me so far. all the taxi drivers we ran into told us that spencer market was closed on sun. but apparantly that was a ploy to take us to really expensive places. and it wasnt closed. so we are going to try to get things done today.
we'll see
o and thanks all for nice comments. hil--email me with watever email address ur using these days so i can talk 2 u.
and i will update soon with u no a real update :)
dd
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Hong Kong and Vietnam
Hong Kong
9/25/2006
I’m feeling the waves so, I’m not going to really update about Hong Kong yet, but I do want to tell you about this moment.
My last day in Hong Kong I basically ran errands. I found a grocery store and bought tide and my favorite oatmeal squares cereal and whatnot. I ran around and then went back to the ship to drop off everything and then take my laptop with me to starbucks. I have been good all week. I had one chocolate bar on my first night in China, but other than that I hadn’t had more than a bar or two since I left San Diego. And for me and my sweet tooth, that’s pretty darn good. Therefore, I was planning on buying something sweet (ie; chocolate cake) and of course a frap or something like that.
Now as a rule, I generally try to hold back from just giving people on the sidewalks money. I believe in soup kitchens and things like that. Yes, there are charities out there that don’t use your money the way you want them to, but that’s why you research them before giving them money. Case in point, when I was in New York during middle school, there was a homeless man standing on the sidewalk with a sign that said, “Please give me money for alcohol and drugs. (Hey, at least I’m not bull******* you).” Catch my drift. I’m not saying I haven’t, but you know how it is.
So, I’m on my way to Starbucks when something completely catches me by surprise. Or rather, some one caught me by surprise.
He was “standing” on the sidewalk. His left leg was only about as long as his arm. Standing for this man was on his hands and foot. His other leg—his right—was twisted or coiled around behind him so that his foot was touching or resting on his lower back.
At first, following my policy, I walked a few steps by him with most of the crowd. But then I paused and thought to myself, “what, Melody, are you made out of stone?” Since it was my last night in Hong Kong, I didn’t have much on me so I gave him a few ones and some coins, which I find very confusing by the way. And I was on my way—good deed done.
Once again my mind was back on the starbucks. “I wonder if I’ll get free internet. I hope the internet works. I hope I’ll be able to update all my windows and security networks.” And all that stuff. I walked into the starbucks and went up to the counter. I ordered, I payed. Then I sat down with my laptop.
Then I thought about the man. And I looked at my cake. “He probably doesn’t eat cake,” I thought to myself. He can’t work. It’s not that he doesn’t work. He can’t work. And I doubt he eats cake. Then I looked at my computer. No, he doesn’t have that either.
It will probably take me a while to sort out my feelings about what I see and do on this trip. I know I am going to see a lot more people like this man. And when I got out of the starbucks a few hours later, he was still there. Standing on the sidewalk with his cup. That is his job.
I didn’t take a picture of him. He is not an animal we go to the zoo to see. But I can see him clearly. And I’ve asked questions about him to myself. Was he born that way? Was he in an accident? Why didn’t they just amputate his leg? All sorts of nosey questions.
This is the beginning of a whole bunch of feelings I’ll probably have during this voyage. This is the beginning of the guilt for my privileges. The guilt I’ll have for being born where and when I was.
During Field Methods today we talked about what knock off products do to societies that we are visiting. Gucci bags are seen as the epitome of nice and beautiful and high class society. How can middle class citizens arise to that same standard that Western societies have? They buy or go to the knock off stores. To them it is not a fake bag. And in a way it helps make the real bags all the more fabulous and yet all the more unattainable for the middle class person in these countries. Even in Hong Kong, the middle class family may not be making what your average middle class family makes in America, but they have nannies and maids and that’s the standard. All of the maids were sitting out on Sunday—their day off--on broken down card board boxes and mats and things just socializing and doing each others hair and eye brows. And I mean hundreds and hundreds of Pilipino women sitting around the post office and subways just on the sides of the sidewalk doing whatever.
We also talked about globalization and the million dollar questions—will we really be improving the living conditions for people across the world or will we just be wiping out their way of life? Are we spreading knowledge or dismantling what makes each country so unique and different? We all want people to have enough to maintain a certain level of humanity, but who gets to decide what that standard is? The man with a small rice farm in Vietnam may be content with his way of life and may not want us to come in and tell him there is a “better” way to live. Who are we to decide that our way of life is better than his? What arrogance!
We also talked about ideas of beauty because a lot of people in Hong Kong and in China met people who wanted to take their pictures with them and told them they were beautiful. To me this is one of the bad side effects of globalization. If the ideal look is blonde with blue eyes and a certain shape of face with fair skin, then already A LOT of people have a “problem.” In the states young girls and women alike struggle with that “ideal” every day, but in the countries we’ve visited so far it seems to be worse. I’ve read articles about Asian women having surgery on their eyes to make their eye shape look more western. And a lot of the women wear lighter foundation than what their skin tone is to make them look paler. It just seems that this ideal look is even more impossible to obtain in the East for obvious reasons. How and when this happened I have no idea, but it needs to stop. Women are having too many corrective surgeries and are getting sick. They are going to end up like Michael Jackson—no matter how many surgeries he has, he will never be satisfied with his appearance.
I know I’m generalizing here, but this is what I’m thinking at this moment. And I don’t really feel like just telling you what I did because I already did that in my journal. I don’t want to just chase my tail with this blog.
Vietnam
10/05/2006
So I never got to updating with just that Hong Kong guy so I’m going to add my Orphanage and school visits from Vietnam with it.
I signed up for a service visit to a school for the deaf and an orphanage for kids with disabilities.
The kids at the school attend the school during the day and return home to their families at night. Some can attend regular classes at local schools and then only go to the school for exercises in listening and hearing or sign language and things like that. We were supposed to be supplied with toys to play with and to give the children. I was given a ruler, a map of Europe, and a book on elementary French words. A bit of a disappointment to be sure. But when we got there one there were plenty of crayons and markers and paper to go around. So we pulled them out and paired up with the kids. We each drew our families and showed our student named Chau (I think) was able to draw hers and write her name and she was sooo smart. I drew a very bad picture of the world and showed her where she was and where I was from. And it was great just to interact with them and “talk” to them.
Then they all dressed in these colorful costumes and did a dance for us that was so cute. The students all study art and dance. They sell crafts at the school to raise money for hearing aids and school supplies. Then the boys did a dance as well to hip hop music. They break danced and everything. It was great! None of us wanted to leave. These kids were so cute and smart. It was amazing how easy it was to communicate with them. They learn how to listen with their eyes and hands not just with the help of the hearing aids.
I wasn’t aware that the orphanage was for kids with disabilities and neither were many in our group. So we saved some of the candy and toys we had brought with us for the orphanage and then we weren’t allowed to give them any. For a good reason. This orphanage has about 400 kids and only a handful of staff. Comparable facilities in the states would have about 200 staff members. The women here can’t watch all of the kids at once so some of them had their ankles tied to the beds.
A group of children (and I wasn’t able to put them in any sort of age group) were in this one room. All of them were wearing diapers and some of them were soiled through. They don’t have the training or the means to teach all of the kids physical therapy and how to use their legs so many of them lose that ability. So there was a girl dragging herself across the floor and leaving a trail behind her. And of course we took off our shoes before entering the room so many of the SASers were barefoot. Great to think about huh?
They don’t get held very often so they really tried to jump on you which was interesting. I’m used to having kids jump on me that I know. But never random kids that I haven’t even met yet.
Hospital beds were lined up all over the place and I noticed this one boy who was half on his back and half on his side. He had completely lost the ability to use his arms, legs, feet, everything. He couldn’t sit up. I don’t think he could even move on his own. And he was trapped on a bed in the middle of the room with beds all around him. Probably because he never leaves that bed. So I climbed up on some other bed so I could say hi. And I was soo surprised when he replied with “hello, how are you.” It was slurred because he has a hard time with his speech. I told him I was good because well he speaks some English but that doesn’t mean he is fluent. There is a lot I would have liked to tell him.
A woman who said she takes care of him came over to help me understand what he was trying to say and to help translate. Now, this boy was as big as maybe a 10 year old. And he was wearing yellow bunny pajamas. So I assumed he was well little. But the woman helped me understand that his name is Bow. That is how it’s pronounced anyway. I’m not sure how to spell it. I asked him how old he is. And to my shock he replied 17. 17 frickin years old and he is stuck in that bed. They had told us that when the kids got older they went to a farm somewhere and helped pick coffee beans and tea leaves. I like to think these kids love the farm and are treated very well and not just used because they have no other place in society. It became apparent to me now that only those who are able to work at the farm go. The rest who knows. This boy was still 17. he’s not yet an adult. I didn’t ask where he would go. When we left that room to continue the tour of the facility, I had to say good bye and Bow replied with, “I’ll see you later.” I’ll never forget the smile on his face as I sat there and just held his hand. They get so little individual attention.
Then it was on to what we thought was a nursery. I went to the first crib I came to and started holding the boys hand. The man in the room told me he was three. There was another boy in the room who was crying a little bit so a woman picked him up and I asked if I could pick up this little boy. She nodded at me and I awkwardly picked him up.
I could tell immediately that he was not used to being picked up. He didn’t know what to do with his legs or body or head or any of it. But I know he liked it. He immediately started smiling and looking around. But he held his body board strait. Just as if he was still laying in that crib. The back of his head was completely flat from too much crib rest. I spun him around slowly just for fun I didn’t want to scare him and he would laugh and it was great. I danced with him for a while and took him out of the room into an open hall that showed the court yard and walked a bit. Then my arms were getting really tired and because he wasn’t really in a natural position I couldn’t maneuver him in my arms. And he couldn’t really hold his own head up either. So I tried putting him back down b/c my arms were going numb and he started crying and trying to lift himself back up. So of course I picked him back up again in different way and he started smiling again. Oh well. Let my arms go numb. I’m only here for a little while. This poor kid might as well be able to get him out of that crib for the time I’m here.
Because I couldn’t maneuver around objects very well while carrying him, I didn’t get to walk around the rest of the room. But apparently there was some other kids in that room the size of a three year old but were really 10 or 13. in cribs. The size of 3 yr olds. Their whole lives.
When it was time to go I had to put down the little boy and he started fussing again. The women came over and said she would take care of him.
So we all went and bought coffee and tea leaves and what we could to help the orphanage, but I was so sad at having to leave that little boy in that crib when all he wants to do is probably get out of it.
Most of this kids are abandoned at birth either where they are born or on the side of the road. We thought theses kids were awaiting adoption, but very few of them get adopted. They don’t have enough staff to give these kids what they need and the staff is untrained.
I’ll remember it. I wish I could do more for those kids.
So that was my first day in Nam. I did other things. Went to the Mekong Delta. Went to the Cu Chi tunnels. Got some bootleg DVDs. Oh and I shaved my head yesterday. I feel free! Hahaha!
I got all ur messages under comments section. At least i know a few people love me. The rest of u arent getting any pressies.
*rasberry*
dd
9/25/2006
I’m feeling the waves so, I’m not going to really update about Hong Kong yet, but I do want to tell you about this moment.
My last day in Hong Kong I basically ran errands. I found a grocery store and bought tide and my favorite oatmeal squares cereal and whatnot. I ran around and then went back to the ship to drop off everything and then take my laptop with me to starbucks. I have been good all week. I had one chocolate bar on my first night in China, but other than that I hadn’t had more than a bar or two since I left San Diego. And for me and my sweet tooth, that’s pretty darn good. Therefore, I was planning on buying something sweet (ie; chocolate cake) and of course a frap or something like that.
Now as a rule, I generally try to hold back from just giving people on the sidewalks money. I believe in soup kitchens and things like that. Yes, there are charities out there that don’t use your money the way you want them to, but that’s why you research them before giving them money. Case in point, when I was in New York during middle school, there was a homeless man standing on the sidewalk with a sign that said, “Please give me money for alcohol and drugs. (Hey, at least I’m not bull******* you).” Catch my drift. I’m not saying I haven’t, but you know how it is.
So, I’m on my way to Starbucks when something completely catches me by surprise. Or rather, some one caught me by surprise.
He was “standing” on the sidewalk. His left leg was only about as long as his arm. Standing for this man was on his hands and foot. His other leg—his right—was twisted or coiled around behind him so that his foot was touching or resting on his lower back.
At first, following my policy, I walked a few steps by him with most of the crowd. But then I paused and thought to myself, “what, Melody, are you made out of stone?” Since it was my last night in Hong Kong, I didn’t have much on me so I gave him a few ones and some coins, which I find very confusing by the way. And I was on my way—good deed done.
Once again my mind was back on the starbucks. “I wonder if I’ll get free internet. I hope the internet works. I hope I’ll be able to update all my windows and security networks.” And all that stuff. I walked into the starbucks and went up to the counter. I ordered, I payed. Then I sat down with my laptop.
Then I thought about the man. And I looked at my cake. “He probably doesn’t eat cake,” I thought to myself. He can’t work. It’s not that he doesn’t work. He can’t work. And I doubt he eats cake. Then I looked at my computer. No, he doesn’t have that either.
It will probably take me a while to sort out my feelings about what I see and do on this trip. I know I am going to see a lot more people like this man. And when I got out of the starbucks a few hours later, he was still there. Standing on the sidewalk with his cup. That is his job.
I didn’t take a picture of him. He is not an animal we go to the zoo to see. But I can see him clearly. And I’ve asked questions about him to myself. Was he born that way? Was he in an accident? Why didn’t they just amputate his leg? All sorts of nosey questions.
This is the beginning of a whole bunch of feelings I’ll probably have during this voyage. This is the beginning of the guilt for my privileges. The guilt I’ll have for being born where and when I was.
During Field Methods today we talked about what knock off products do to societies that we are visiting. Gucci bags are seen as the epitome of nice and beautiful and high class society. How can middle class citizens arise to that same standard that Western societies have? They buy or go to the knock off stores. To them it is not a fake bag. And in a way it helps make the real bags all the more fabulous and yet all the more unattainable for the middle class person in these countries. Even in Hong Kong, the middle class family may not be making what your average middle class family makes in America, but they have nannies and maids and that’s the standard. All of the maids were sitting out on Sunday—their day off--on broken down card board boxes and mats and things just socializing and doing each others hair and eye brows. And I mean hundreds and hundreds of Pilipino women sitting around the post office and subways just on the sides of the sidewalk doing whatever.
We also talked about globalization and the million dollar questions—will we really be improving the living conditions for people across the world or will we just be wiping out their way of life? Are we spreading knowledge or dismantling what makes each country so unique and different? We all want people to have enough to maintain a certain level of humanity, but who gets to decide what that standard is? The man with a small rice farm in Vietnam may be content with his way of life and may not want us to come in and tell him there is a “better” way to live. Who are we to decide that our way of life is better than his? What arrogance!
We also talked about ideas of beauty because a lot of people in Hong Kong and in China met people who wanted to take their pictures with them and told them they were beautiful. To me this is one of the bad side effects of globalization. If the ideal look is blonde with blue eyes and a certain shape of face with fair skin, then already A LOT of people have a “problem.” In the states young girls and women alike struggle with that “ideal” every day, but in the countries we’ve visited so far it seems to be worse. I’ve read articles about Asian women having surgery on their eyes to make their eye shape look more western. And a lot of the women wear lighter foundation than what their skin tone is to make them look paler. It just seems that this ideal look is even more impossible to obtain in the East for obvious reasons. How and when this happened I have no idea, but it needs to stop. Women are having too many corrective surgeries and are getting sick. They are going to end up like Michael Jackson—no matter how many surgeries he has, he will never be satisfied with his appearance.
I know I’m generalizing here, but this is what I’m thinking at this moment. And I don’t really feel like just telling you what I did because I already did that in my journal. I don’t want to just chase my tail with this blog.
Vietnam
10/05/2006
So I never got to updating with just that Hong Kong guy so I’m going to add my Orphanage and school visits from Vietnam with it.
I signed up for a service visit to a school for the deaf and an orphanage for kids with disabilities.
The kids at the school attend the school during the day and return home to their families at night. Some can attend regular classes at local schools and then only go to the school for exercises in listening and hearing or sign language and things like that. We were supposed to be supplied with toys to play with and to give the children. I was given a ruler, a map of Europe, and a book on elementary French words. A bit of a disappointment to be sure. But when we got there one there were plenty of crayons and markers and paper to go around. So we pulled them out and paired up with the kids. We each drew our families and showed our student named Chau (I think) was able to draw hers and write her name and she was sooo smart. I drew a very bad picture of the world and showed her where she was and where I was from. And it was great just to interact with them and “talk” to them.
Then they all dressed in these colorful costumes and did a dance for us that was so cute. The students all study art and dance. They sell crafts at the school to raise money for hearing aids and school supplies. Then the boys did a dance as well to hip hop music. They break danced and everything. It was great! None of us wanted to leave. These kids were so cute and smart. It was amazing how easy it was to communicate with them. They learn how to listen with their eyes and hands not just with the help of the hearing aids.
I wasn’t aware that the orphanage was for kids with disabilities and neither were many in our group. So we saved some of the candy and toys we had brought with us for the orphanage and then we weren’t allowed to give them any. For a good reason. This orphanage has about 400 kids and only a handful of staff. Comparable facilities in the states would have about 200 staff members. The women here can’t watch all of the kids at once so some of them had their ankles tied to the beds.
A group of children (and I wasn’t able to put them in any sort of age group) were in this one room. All of them were wearing diapers and some of them were soiled through. They don’t have the training or the means to teach all of the kids physical therapy and how to use their legs so many of them lose that ability. So there was a girl dragging herself across the floor and leaving a trail behind her. And of course we took off our shoes before entering the room so many of the SASers were barefoot. Great to think about huh?
They don’t get held very often so they really tried to jump on you which was interesting. I’m used to having kids jump on me that I know. But never random kids that I haven’t even met yet.
Hospital beds were lined up all over the place and I noticed this one boy who was half on his back and half on his side. He had completely lost the ability to use his arms, legs, feet, everything. He couldn’t sit up. I don’t think he could even move on his own. And he was trapped on a bed in the middle of the room with beds all around him. Probably because he never leaves that bed. So I climbed up on some other bed so I could say hi. And I was soo surprised when he replied with “hello, how are you.” It was slurred because he has a hard time with his speech. I told him I was good because well he speaks some English but that doesn’t mean he is fluent. There is a lot I would have liked to tell him.
A woman who said she takes care of him came over to help me understand what he was trying to say and to help translate. Now, this boy was as big as maybe a 10 year old. And he was wearing yellow bunny pajamas. So I assumed he was well little. But the woman helped me understand that his name is Bow. That is how it’s pronounced anyway. I’m not sure how to spell it. I asked him how old he is. And to my shock he replied 17. 17 frickin years old and he is stuck in that bed. They had told us that when the kids got older they went to a farm somewhere and helped pick coffee beans and tea leaves. I like to think these kids love the farm and are treated very well and not just used because they have no other place in society. It became apparent to me now that only those who are able to work at the farm go. The rest who knows. This boy was still 17. he’s not yet an adult. I didn’t ask where he would go. When we left that room to continue the tour of the facility, I had to say good bye and Bow replied with, “I’ll see you later.” I’ll never forget the smile on his face as I sat there and just held his hand. They get so little individual attention.
Then it was on to what we thought was a nursery. I went to the first crib I came to and started holding the boys hand. The man in the room told me he was three. There was another boy in the room who was crying a little bit so a woman picked him up and I asked if I could pick up this little boy. She nodded at me and I awkwardly picked him up.
I could tell immediately that he was not used to being picked up. He didn’t know what to do with his legs or body or head or any of it. But I know he liked it. He immediately started smiling and looking around. But he held his body board strait. Just as if he was still laying in that crib. The back of his head was completely flat from too much crib rest. I spun him around slowly just for fun I didn’t want to scare him and he would laugh and it was great. I danced with him for a while and took him out of the room into an open hall that showed the court yard and walked a bit. Then my arms were getting really tired and because he wasn’t really in a natural position I couldn’t maneuver him in my arms. And he couldn’t really hold his own head up either. So I tried putting him back down b/c my arms were going numb and he started crying and trying to lift himself back up. So of course I picked him back up again in different way and he started smiling again. Oh well. Let my arms go numb. I’m only here for a little while. This poor kid might as well be able to get him out of that crib for the time I’m here.
Because I couldn’t maneuver around objects very well while carrying him, I didn’t get to walk around the rest of the room. But apparently there was some other kids in that room the size of a three year old but were really 10 or 13. in cribs. The size of 3 yr olds. Their whole lives.
When it was time to go I had to put down the little boy and he started fussing again. The women came over and said she would take care of him.
So we all went and bought coffee and tea leaves and what we could to help the orphanage, but I was so sad at having to leave that little boy in that crib when all he wants to do is probably get out of it.
Most of this kids are abandoned at birth either where they are born or on the side of the road. We thought theses kids were awaiting adoption, but very few of them get adopted. They don’t have enough staff to give these kids what they need and the staff is untrained.
I’ll remember it. I wish I could do more for those kids.
So that was my first day in Nam. I did other things. Went to the Mekong Delta. Went to the Cu Chi tunnels. Got some bootleg DVDs. Oh and I shaved my head yesterday. I feel free! Hahaha!
I got all ur messages under comments section. At least i know a few people love me. The rest of u arent getting any pressies.
*rasberry*
dd
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Hong Kong
Ok, i just spent the past forever updating my windows and mcaffee watever and i'm sure u want photos so i'll make this sort of brief by telling you only of my first day in Hong Kong.
I had big plans to show up at the airport with my friends and get tickets to Bejing. But then while immigration was going thru our passports i got called out of the shower and was told to go up to purser's.
I went to the room where they were going thru 700 passports and one of the guys came up to me and showed me my passport and was like, "so did you know that you have a page missing?" and i was like, "what?"
He showed me, it jumps from 6-9 and 24-26 or something like that. So in the proccess of putting my passport together the machine missed a page before binding it. it's very obvious it wasn't ripped out. So first it took an hour for them to deem my passport invalid. Then it took another hour for them to decide that i should come down to the consulate. And then it took a while for an agent to get there to take me to the consulate.
the lady at the consulate said that she and her supervisor had never seen anything like it. and i said, "so out of the millions of passports issued, i got the one that was messed up. Great."
And by now i'm thinking of all my friends on their planes to Beijing.
So now i have to carry two passports. one with my visas and one that's good for a year. plus this extra paper that says who knows wat.
Then the agent drops me off at the ferry and says the ship is right at the end of the ferry. i'm a bit worred at this point seeing as how i don't speak Cantanese and my guide just dumped me. But you could see the ship from the ferry and it really does take u right up next to it. it was only a 15 min ride. after wondering around the mall for a while i finally found the terminal and made it back on the ship.
Now the ship.
By now it was about 400PM and it was absolutley deserted. I was a bit concerned. I traveled around by myself on the last day here (today) but i wasn't ready for that yet on my first day, i didn't know where anything was. I ended up running into this guy that was by himself and we talked about how everybody ran to Beijing.
So we (me and Jake) ran around Hong Kong for 2 days and one night in my case. I'll tell ya wat we did in the next few days.
So lesson to all
count the number of pages in ur passport
now check the link on the side to webshots and i'll try to put pics up
DD
I had big plans to show up at the airport with my friends and get tickets to Bejing. But then while immigration was going thru our passports i got called out of the shower and was told to go up to purser's.
I went to the room where they were going thru 700 passports and one of the guys came up to me and showed me my passport and was like, "so did you know that you have a page missing?" and i was like, "what?"
He showed me, it jumps from 6-9 and 24-26 or something like that. So in the proccess of putting my passport together the machine missed a page before binding it. it's very obvious it wasn't ripped out. So first it took an hour for them to deem my passport invalid. Then it took another hour for them to decide that i should come down to the consulate. And then it took a while for an agent to get there to take me to the consulate.
the lady at the consulate said that she and her supervisor had never seen anything like it. and i said, "so out of the millions of passports issued, i got the one that was messed up. Great."
And by now i'm thinking of all my friends on their planes to Beijing.
So now i have to carry two passports. one with my visas and one that's good for a year. plus this extra paper that says who knows wat.
Then the agent drops me off at the ferry and says the ship is right at the end of the ferry. i'm a bit worred at this point seeing as how i don't speak Cantanese and my guide just dumped me. But you could see the ship from the ferry and it really does take u right up next to it. it was only a 15 min ride. after wondering around the mall for a while i finally found the terminal and made it back on the ship.
Now the ship.
By now it was about 400PM and it was absolutley deserted. I was a bit concerned. I traveled around by myself on the last day here (today) but i wasn't ready for that yet on my first day, i didn't know where anything was. I ended up running into this guy that was by himself and we talked about how everybody ran to Beijing.
So we (me and Jake) ran around Hong Kong for 2 days and one night in my case. I'll tell ya wat we did in the next few days.
So lesson to all
count the number of pages in ur passport
now check the link on the side to webshots and i'll try to put pics up
DD
New Questions
Question from Shivani: What are fashions like in Japan?Question from Alice: Did you like Japan more than Hawaii?Question from Erin: How is Japanese money different from American?
Shivani- I felt sooo underdressed the whole time we were in Japan! Everyone was so put together and accessorized! All the women were wearing heals even though you walk everywhere and they all looked like they were in pain too! I was in pain and i was wearing sneakers. As far as specific fashion goes i would say they all seemed to wear a lot of layers if that makes sense. Like skirts with tights underneath and then a tankini with a thing over that and a sweater and then the jewelry! it looked like it took them a lot longer to get ready in the morning than it takes me. Not to mention i brought very few clothes with me and we can only do so much laundry on the ship! I'm doing a cross cultural comparison of woman in advertising for my trip so i looked at a lot of the fashion magazines and billboards. And i was surprised at how many fair blonde women were all over the place! Even the Asian women they showed in adverstisements were very pale.
Alice- Japan was AMAZING! and i guess i liked it more than hawaii in a different way. i like hawaii for the beaches and the laziness. i liked Japan for the people and it's rich culture. Japanese people were SO NICE! always smiling and bowing at you and wanting to help even if they didn't know English very well. Their trains are soo efficient and i don't think a train was late a single time! Oh and something i forgot to write i think--children as young as five or six run around the train stations going to school by themselves. this isn't just like the bus stop down the street. these kids are in major cities and they go all over the place in their uniforms and one was even able to tell us directions!! we heard him speaking English to some one and we just said the name of the place and he actually told us the platform to go to!!!
Erin-Japanes money is very easy to figure out. First off in appearance it's a lot more colorful and prettier than Am money, but i have been staring at it for 20 years so that could be why. 1000 yen is like 10 bucks, 10000 yen is like 100 bucks. So it was pretty easy to just move the decimal over. but it was kind of weird every now and then to pay "$1000" for something. It's even more obvious here in Hong Kong the difference in value because i just bought a $120.00 pizza yesterday that's roughly 14 bucks.
thank you all for ur questions
how many people are in ur class?
i'll try to update wat i did in Hong Kong sometime tonight when there arent SCREAMING kids in the coffee place banging on the tables on the comp next to me. and i mean SCREAMING i can feel it in my ear drums! I can't blieve their parents are letting these boys be this loud in this little coffee shop and i'm glad they can't see me writing about them on the net! :) cheers!
DD
Shivani- I felt sooo underdressed the whole time we were in Japan! Everyone was so put together and accessorized! All the women were wearing heals even though you walk everywhere and they all looked like they were in pain too! I was in pain and i was wearing sneakers. As far as specific fashion goes i would say they all seemed to wear a lot of layers if that makes sense. Like skirts with tights underneath and then a tankini with a thing over that and a sweater and then the jewelry! it looked like it took them a lot longer to get ready in the morning than it takes me. Not to mention i brought very few clothes with me and we can only do so much laundry on the ship! I'm doing a cross cultural comparison of woman in advertising for my trip so i looked at a lot of the fashion magazines and billboards. And i was surprised at how many fair blonde women were all over the place! Even the Asian women they showed in adverstisements were very pale.
Alice- Japan was AMAZING! and i guess i liked it more than hawaii in a different way. i like hawaii for the beaches and the laziness. i liked Japan for the people and it's rich culture. Japanese people were SO NICE! always smiling and bowing at you and wanting to help even if they didn't know English very well. Their trains are soo efficient and i don't think a train was late a single time! Oh and something i forgot to write i think--children as young as five or six run around the train stations going to school by themselves. this isn't just like the bus stop down the street. these kids are in major cities and they go all over the place in their uniforms and one was even able to tell us directions!! we heard him speaking English to some one and we just said the name of the place and he actually told us the platform to go to!!!
Erin-Japanes money is very easy to figure out. First off in appearance it's a lot more colorful and prettier than Am money, but i have been staring at it for 20 years so that could be why. 1000 yen is like 10 bucks, 10000 yen is like 100 bucks. So it was pretty easy to just move the decimal over. but it was kind of weird every now and then to pay "$1000" for something. It's even more obvious here in Hong Kong the difference in value because i just bought a $120.00 pizza yesterday that's roughly 14 bucks.
thank you all for ur questions
how many people are in ur class?
i'll try to update wat i did in Hong Kong sometime tonight when there arent SCREAMING kids in the coffee place banging on the tables on the comp next to me. and i mean SCREAMING i can feel it in my ear drums! I can't blieve their parents are letting these boys be this loud in this little coffee shop and i'm glad they can't see me writing about them on the net! :) cheers!
DD
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
JAPAN!!
JAPAN!!!!!
Before I tell you all what I did in Japan a few things: We’ve been rerouted straight to Hong Kong because of the typhoon—so Chrys if you sent me a letter to Qingdao (Ching-dow) then I probably won’t get it. Any info about this typhoon would be extremely interesting b/c it’s very hard to get info here on the ship. It is making the ship go UP and DOWN and ALL AROUND! And the internet hasn’t been working for the past few days. Mom, I sent you the kimono and the handkerchiefs in the mail umm…a few days ago, I guess…my days are kind of bleeding together. Please post some current events going on for me…I heard there was a shooting at a school in Canada. And I don’t know just any current events would be fascinating to me right now. Next is a segment I’m going to call, “Rumor Has It.” Oh and Chrys, are your pics of the wedding available online anywhere?
Rumor Has it—that a whole handful of students are in really big trouble for drunkenness and drugs. So, you see ladies and gentlemen, it does happen. Next is that we will be known as the “Ship that got Rerouted.” Already we’ve been moved to Hong Kong. And the ship is abuzz with talk that we may not make it to Egypt or Turkey because of terrorism. I’m all for it as long as we make it to the Mediterranean Sea. Why, you may ask. Because than we will be moved to Greece or Italy or EUROPE people. I have nothing against Africa (and in fact love the idea of visiting Africa), but if we go around Africa then we will miss Croatia and Spain as well. And the latter half of our itinerary would be down the drain! NOT COOL!! There have been a few trips in Egypt cancelled already; the ones to the Mosques and Islamic communities. Or anything that had to deal with Islam. Go figure.
Now as for Japan…I LOVED IT!! Definitely want to go back there one day and take it in more. The people are so nice and beautiful. But for a country where English is mandatory in the schools, no one really knows it! But that’s okay; it’s all about the experience, right?
So, I was in a group of five, originally. The people I was with were Becca, Wendy, Nate, and Lucy. I met Becca when she helped me with the skydiving thing (good times). We left after lunch and had to wait about 30 minutes for Wendy to get a new student ID card with about 30 other students whose cards weren’t working. Then we took a tram to the Sonnyoma (sort of) station which let out right near a mall. How wonderful. We waited in yet another line so we could get money out of the ATM with our credit cards. Only to find out that in order to get cash off of your credit card, you need a pin. I had wondered about that, but some one told me (MOM) not to worry about it. So after the rest of us got money off of our debit cards, we went to a bank to try to get money for Wendy, who didn’t bring her debit card with her because she didn’t think she would need it. I don’t blame her, I almost didn’t bring mine because it didn’t seem like I would be able to use it anywhere. After that was unsuccessful we decided to loan her money until she could pay us back.
Since it was so late by now we decided to go to Kyoto first on our rail pass (which was worth every cent) since it was closer than Tokyo. We got to Kyoto in about an hour and walked around for a place to live for the night. This was our first great find. It looked a little small on the outside, but it was long. They only had one room left for the five of us and it was traditional style--meaning slide opening doors and straw matt floor with futons. At 30 bucks a person (3000 yen) we took it. They even had a little table with cushions around it where we had a midnight snack later on. Wendy used her credit card on the room so we could all give her cash. And they served us iced tea and iced coffee with this orange jello type thing that was really good. Oh, and you took your shoes off upon entering and wore slippers. And you wore a different set of slippers into the bathroom. Apparently, wearing the bathroom slippers anywhere but the bathroom is a big taboo. After setting our stuff down in the room, we went off in search of food.
We found this cute restaurant with traditional and western style seating. If we had been able to understand her, we probably would have gone for the traditional style seating, but we were low on experience at this point. Dinner was very good. I had avian flu free chicken and rice. I tried the meso soup, but it didn’t look like any sort of meso soup I had ever tried before. Lucy and Becca had a sushi platter of some kind that they said was good and I don’t even know what Wendy and Nate had. Afterward, we walked around in search of Pachinko. I’m not even going to try to describe pachinko to you, but it’s like pinball sort of. We tried to find one that didn’t have a whole bunch of middle aged men smoking, but that seemed to be that standard. One of the employees had a card that told the directions in several different languages, but he still had to help us for about 30 minutes to show us what was going on. He was REALLY nice. So about and hour and 1000 yen later (10 bucks) we were off in search of food again.
We wanted to find some sort of sweet something to have around our table in our room. We went to a seven eleven and found a whole bunch of stuff and went back to our room as quietly as possible and took pictures of us eating everything. Then to bed!
The next day we got up early and went straight to Nara. Nara was amazing. We kept getting side tracked down these streets with all of these bakeries and shops and I found an old kimono for my mom to cut up and make into a quilt down one of those streets. In Nara we visited the Todai-ji (Great Eastern Temple) which has a huge bronze statue of the Buddha and a Deer Park. If you ever visit the deer park, don’t feed the RABID, CRAZY deer unless you want to be kicked, bitten, and nipped at. We also found a cute restaurant in Nara where we had our own little room (traditional style) where no one could see us stabbing our food with our chopsticks.
As for Tokyo. I wouldn’t recommend sleeping in the area that we were in, which I cannot remember the name of. It was great for night life and karaoke and all that jazz, but all of the hotels in this area were love hotels. And they weren’t nice ones either. So, after enduring about 5 minutes in the love hotel, I got Wendy to go with me in a taxi to another hotel. I just handed our driver my travel book and he took us to another hotel. It was interesting to see Tokyo change from seedy to nice through the taxi windows though. We made it to the hotel at about 2AM and I finally got to call home. See, dad I do check in! And don’t let them give my babies any shots either. Anyway, we tried meeting back up with them the next day, but it didn’t work, so Wendy and I went back to Kobe and spent the night around that area and slept on the ship.
The next day, Wendy and I went to Hiroshima, which was enjoyable, but depressing, I guess. It’s like going to the Holocaust Museum in DC. It’s stuff that you have to see with your own eyes so you can acknowledge it as a truth in our world’s past, but it’s not the type of thing you like to dwell on. I was already feeling sick from reading a newspaper (my first English one in weeks) on the train so pictures of melted people didn’t really help. All over were testimonies about children who had been sent to demolition work to keep fire from burning down the whole city and there they were exposed to immense levels of radiation that severely burned them and killed the majority of them. What I found most interesting is that in books and stuff all you see is pictures of the destruction and fire. I knew that the bomb was a long time ago, but the place was alive with restaurants and parks, and museums and businesses.
Our last day in Kobe was pretty uneventful for me. I was feeling sick and only spent an hour outside the ship and then called it quits. I came to my room and tried to relax and watch the movies they were playing on our little TVs. After dinner I knocked myself out with Tylenol PM and missed the 9PM meeting about skipping Qingdao. The one meeting I miss and they finally announce something worth hearing.
And to add on to that…I was still feeling sick up until today. So skipping Qingdao worked out okay for me b/c it would not have been fun!
This may seem long, but there is a lot I didn’t tell you. Like the woman in Hiroshima who prayed for Wendy and I and said that our “blood will be purified”—she had it written on a little card in multiple languages. And about how everybody really does bow to each other even groups of friends. Oh! And about the drunk guys in Kobe after Hiroshima who (we think) tried to get us to buy them beer. The last thing they needed was more beer. Or how I really don’t like sake either, BLEH! Or about the thousands of vending machines selling cigarettes and beer and other stuff that we don’t know what it was! But this is long enough. And you know most of what I did in Japan! And that I had fun! And hopefully I’ll have as much fun in the rest of the countries we visit!
LOVE U ALL FOREVER!
DD
Before I tell you all what I did in Japan a few things: We’ve been rerouted straight to Hong Kong because of the typhoon—so Chrys if you sent me a letter to Qingdao (Ching-dow) then I probably won’t get it. Any info about this typhoon would be extremely interesting b/c it’s very hard to get info here on the ship. It is making the ship go UP and DOWN and ALL AROUND! And the internet hasn’t been working for the past few days. Mom, I sent you the kimono and the handkerchiefs in the mail umm…a few days ago, I guess…my days are kind of bleeding together. Please post some current events going on for me…I heard there was a shooting at a school in Canada. And I don’t know just any current events would be fascinating to me right now. Next is a segment I’m going to call, “Rumor Has It.” Oh and Chrys, are your pics of the wedding available online anywhere?
Rumor Has it—that a whole handful of students are in really big trouble for drunkenness and drugs. So, you see ladies and gentlemen, it does happen. Next is that we will be known as the “Ship that got Rerouted.” Already we’ve been moved to Hong Kong. And the ship is abuzz with talk that we may not make it to Egypt or Turkey because of terrorism. I’m all for it as long as we make it to the Mediterranean Sea. Why, you may ask. Because than we will be moved to Greece or Italy or EUROPE people. I have nothing against Africa (and in fact love the idea of visiting Africa), but if we go around Africa then we will miss Croatia and Spain as well. And the latter half of our itinerary would be down the drain! NOT COOL!! There have been a few trips in Egypt cancelled already; the ones to the Mosques and Islamic communities. Or anything that had to deal with Islam. Go figure.
Now as for Japan…I LOVED IT!! Definitely want to go back there one day and take it in more. The people are so nice and beautiful. But for a country where English is mandatory in the schools, no one really knows it! But that’s okay; it’s all about the experience, right?
So, I was in a group of five, originally. The people I was with were Becca, Wendy, Nate, and Lucy. I met Becca when she helped me with the skydiving thing (good times). We left after lunch and had to wait about 30 minutes for Wendy to get a new student ID card with about 30 other students whose cards weren’t working. Then we took a tram to the Sonnyoma (sort of) station which let out right near a mall. How wonderful. We waited in yet another line so we could get money out of the ATM with our credit cards. Only to find out that in order to get cash off of your credit card, you need a pin. I had wondered about that, but some one told me (MOM) not to worry about it. So after the rest of us got money off of our debit cards, we went to a bank to try to get money for Wendy, who didn’t bring her debit card with her because she didn’t think she would need it. I don’t blame her, I almost didn’t bring mine because it didn’t seem like I would be able to use it anywhere. After that was unsuccessful we decided to loan her money until she could pay us back.
Since it was so late by now we decided to go to Kyoto first on our rail pass (which was worth every cent) since it was closer than Tokyo. We got to Kyoto in about an hour and walked around for a place to live for the night. This was our first great find. It looked a little small on the outside, but it was long. They only had one room left for the five of us and it was traditional style--meaning slide opening doors and straw matt floor with futons. At 30 bucks a person (3000 yen) we took it. They even had a little table with cushions around it where we had a midnight snack later on. Wendy used her credit card on the room so we could all give her cash. And they served us iced tea and iced coffee with this orange jello type thing that was really good. Oh, and you took your shoes off upon entering and wore slippers. And you wore a different set of slippers into the bathroom. Apparently, wearing the bathroom slippers anywhere but the bathroom is a big taboo. After setting our stuff down in the room, we went off in search of food.
We found this cute restaurant with traditional and western style seating. If we had been able to understand her, we probably would have gone for the traditional style seating, but we were low on experience at this point. Dinner was very good. I had avian flu free chicken and rice. I tried the meso soup, but it didn’t look like any sort of meso soup I had ever tried before. Lucy and Becca had a sushi platter of some kind that they said was good and I don’t even know what Wendy and Nate had. Afterward, we walked around in search of Pachinko. I’m not even going to try to describe pachinko to you, but it’s like pinball sort of. We tried to find one that didn’t have a whole bunch of middle aged men smoking, but that seemed to be that standard. One of the employees had a card that told the directions in several different languages, but he still had to help us for about 30 minutes to show us what was going on. He was REALLY nice. So about and hour and 1000 yen later (10 bucks) we were off in search of food again.
We wanted to find some sort of sweet something to have around our table in our room. We went to a seven eleven and found a whole bunch of stuff and went back to our room as quietly as possible and took pictures of us eating everything. Then to bed!
The next day we got up early and went straight to Nara. Nara was amazing. We kept getting side tracked down these streets with all of these bakeries and shops and I found an old kimono for my mom to cut up and make into a quilt down one of those streets. In Nara we visited the Todai-ji (Great Eastern Temple) which has a huge bronze statue of the Buddha and a Deer Park. If you ever visit the deer park, don’t feed the RABID, CRAZY deer unless you want to be kicked, bitten, and nipped at. We also found a cute restaurant in Nara where we had our own little room (traditional style) where no one could see us stabbing our food with our chopsticks.
As for Tokyo. I wouldn’t recommend sleeping in the area that we were in, which I cannot remember the name of. It was great for night life and karaoke and all that jazz, but all of the hotels in this area were love hotels. And they weren’t nice ones either. So, after enduring about 5 minutes in the love hotel, I got Wendy to go with me in a taxi to another hotel. I just handed our driver my travel book and he took us to another hotel. It was interesting to see Tokyo change from seedy to nice through the taxi windows though. We made it to the hotel at about 2AM and I finally got to call home. See, dad I do check in! And don’t let them give my babies any shots either. Anyway, we tried meeting back up with them the next day, but it didn’t work, so Wendy and I went back to Kobe and spent the night around that area and slept on the ship.
The next day, Wendy and I went to Hiroshima, which was enjoyable, but depressing, I guess. It’s like going to the Holocaust Museum in DC. It’s stuff that you have to see with your own eyes so you can acknowledge it as a truth in our world’s past, but it’s not the type of thing you like to dwell on. I was already feeling sick from reading a newspaper (my first English one in weeks) on the train so pictures of melted people didn’t really help. All over were testimonies about children who had been sent to demolition work to keep fire from burning down the whole city and there they were exposed to immense levels of radiation that severely burned them and killed the majority of them. What I found most interesting is that in books and stuff all you see is pictures of the destruction and fire. I knew that the bomb was a long time ago, but the place was alive with restaurants and parks, and museums and businesses.
Our last day in Kobe was pretty uneventful for me. I was feeling sick and only spent an hour outside the ship and then called it quits. I came to my room and tried to relax and watch the movies they were playing on our little TVs. After dinner I knocked myself out with Tylenol PM and missed the 9PM meeting about skipping Qingdao. The one meeting I miss and they finally announce something worth hearing.
And to add on to that…I was still feeling sick up until today. So skipping Qingdao worked out okay for me b/c it would not have been fun!
This may seem long, but there is a lot I didn’t tell you. Like the woman in Hiroshima who prayed for Wendy and I and said that our “blood will be purified”—she had it written on a little card in multiple languages. And about how everybody really does bow to each other even groups of friends. Oh! And about the drunk guys in Kobe after Hiroshima who (we think) tried to get us to buy them beer. The last thing they needed was more beer. Or how I really don’t like sake either, BLEH! Or about the thousands of vending machines selling cigarettes and beer and other stuff that we don’t know what it was! But this is long enough. And you know most of what I did in Japan! And that I had fun! And hopefully I’ll have as much fun in the rest of the countries we visit!
LOVE U ALL FOREVER!
DD
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