Guatemala

The following is Jonathan's blog post from our time in Guatemala.  I think he does an amazing job vividly describing our time in our final port, so I've decided to put up his post instead of writing my own.  Enjoy!!!...

THE FINAL EXAM

Author: Jonathan Katz

The days before Guatemala were fraught with hours of studying and final exams.  I had both of my tests on the same day, the day before we landed in Puerto Queztal, Guatemala.

A few weeks ago, the passed around a sheet to buy SAS trips for Japan, Hawaii, and Guatemala.  Isaiah and I figured we'd spent enough money on expensive SAS trips and it was time to give exploration a try.  We saw it as our own little travelers “final exam.”  As the day we were to land in Puerto Quetzal loomed closer, we were more and more disappointed with our decisions.

We had learned that the port itself was in the middle of nowhere.  Like Laem Chabang (Thailand) but much, much worse.  Guatemala City, they told us, was basically off limits (though they couldn't really stop you) because there are an astronomical amount of murders there.  Tikal, the city with all the Mayan ruins which would have been an easy SAS trip to be was a flight or a 10 hour bus ride away.  The insurance company that does reports on the safety of each country recommended we have an 11PM curfew, no matter where we are in the country.   The closest place we could go was the safest city in Guatemala: Antigua.  And its 2 hours away.

So now we're thinking “Great.  We chose a port where it is ridiculously unsafe and there is nowhere to go and nothing to do to not have any SAS trips.”  So the night before we arrived in Puerto Quetzal, we studied for this little traveler's final exam. Isaiah, Ari, and I hopped on wikitravel to garner some intel on Antigua.  We decided we'd go into Antigua, find a place to stay, and go from there.

We arrived in Puerto Quetzal and got off the ship and took the shuttle from our crappy port to another crappy port where the ship called “The World” was docked.  This ship is a ship of condominiums.  You live in the condo and travel the world.  Yeah.  Anyway, there was a transportation company who had a complete monopoly on all of the ways to get out of the port, and their prices were through the roof.

We were some of the last people off of the ship, so we couldn't take a bus to Antigua and get a good rate.  The price of a three-man taxi to Antigua was $160.  That was ridiculous.  We bargained and stood our ground since the diplomats at the diplomatic briefing that morning told us it shouldn't be more than $40 to get from Puerto Quetzal to Antigua.  They knew we weren't joking when they said the only way they could take us to Antigua for the price we were offering was in the back of a pick up truck. We thought this was awesome so we agreed, but we ended up in a regular old sedan taxi and were somewhat disappointed.

This man drove so fast, we made it there in half the time we were told it would take.  He dropped us in the center park of this city, and right away we saw some SASers.  But what struck us was the simplicity of this city.  There were fourteen streets: seven going N-S and seven going E-W.  It would have been much simpler if they had any street signs anywhere, but they didn't.  We grabbed a quick lunch with Tim and more people we found, and then went to find a place to stay.

The wikitravel sheet we had gave us a few options, and after getting lost and calling a hotel from basically right next door to it, we found a place.  The hotel we called was full but the man who owns it owns another hotel and he put us up there.  Our hotel offered a small travel agency, so we booked a 6AM hike up the Pacaya Volcano for the following day.

For dinner we hit a place called “Travel Menu” owned by a Danish man.  The food was AMAZING and the prices were cheap.  Here, Isaiah, Ari, and I reflected on our trip and asked each other questions about favorite moments, embarrassing moments, cultural slip-ups, etc.

We then went to a bar where it was “ladies night” which meant that girls got alcohol for absurdly cheap prices.  I think ladies night is a misnomer.  It really attracts more men when girls are getting drunk for low prices.  This place was crawling with SASers because it was the only place we could go because it was the safest. 

We left the bar past our “curfew” time, and had trouble finding our hotel because at night they close the doors and you have to knock and a man opens a little window to make sure you stay at the hotel.  We had walked past it twice before realizing what was going on.  We got back to the hotel and played a game of Settles of Catan.  I brought it because we didn't know how safe we'd feel in Antigua, so if we had to be in our hotel early, we would need something to do!

The next day was probably the best last full day in a port anyone could have asked for.  It had it all.  We did it all.  Let's get this started.

The next morning we work up at 5 30 and met some other SASers who were staying in our hotel on the shuttle to the Pacaya Volcano.  The shuttle was an hour of the bumpiest roads I have ever been on (I thought I was going to get to sleep a little on the shuttle...not so.)  We got there and everyone bought marshmallows.

The tour was in Spanish, but Ari could translate but it wasn't exactly a science tour and the guide's hand gestures were fine.  The first part of the hike was through a more forest-y type of mountain, with lots and lots of horse poop.  Lazy people or prissy girls or hung-over SASers can take horses up.  I was not and am not any of those three things, and neither were or are any of the people in our group so we were equestrian-free.

After the forest-y part we made it to the actual volcano.  It was covered black sand and we “skiied” down a large hill of this stuff.  As we walked closer the black sand turned into igneus rock that burnt the rubber off of your shoes it was so hot.  And then we made it close enough to the lava to feel the heat radiating off of it.  Lava has always been this mythical substance for me, hearing about it in science class or seeing it in movies.  I was standing three feet from molten rock!  I took lots of pictures and a video or two.

After the volcano we grabbed lunch at the Travel Menu place again because it was so good and then went to the market.

Another thing about Antigua is that it looks so small, but when you walk through a door into a shop, the volume of the shop seems impossibly large.  We were on a mission to get “pantooflas” (that spelling is purely phonetic, I have no idea how to actually spell it) which are really soft shoes that look like a Genie would were them.  Our friends told us they got theirs for 30 Quetzalas.


The first lady we find tries to tell us they are Q120.  That's ridiculous, so we find another lady.  She says Q75.  That was still crazy, so we found another lady who spoke english, who wanted Q50 (after some bargaining) that was still a little high so Ari and Isaiah went to look at jerseys and I went to find some cheaper shoes.  I found a lady to whom we hadn't spoken yet and I got her down to Q40 (which is what we were comfortable paying) but she didn't have our size.  I ran back to the lady who spoke English and said “Hey, I found a lady who is willing to sell us four pairs for Q40 each.  But I like you better.  Give us those for Q40.”  She got really excited and explained that the shoes she had showed us were her friends, who wanted a different price.  She ran away to her shop to find the shoes in our size but she didn't have them.  While she was gone, we got the Q160 together so we could pay in one swoop.

She gets back and explains that she didn't have in our size and that her friend wanted a different price.  I asked to talk to her friend.  We went to her friend who seemed upset that we weren't going for the rip-off price.  She really wanted Q50.  I took out the Q160 and said “Four for 40 each, right here, boom, take it or leave it.”  And they took it and now we have shoes to wear on the ship that are awesome.

After shopping we went to the big church that was right in the central square.  They have a Jesus whose elbows are jointed and whose hair blows in the wind.  He was in a box when we went there, but on Good Friday they take him out and re-enact the crucifixion and taking him down.  Since his elbows move and his hair blows, it is apparently really lifelike.

Then it was nap time.  'Nuff said.

We went across the street from our hotel for dinner, to a place called “La Pena de Sol Latina” where there was a live band playing.  It was great!  We ordered a giant plate of chips and guac and salsa and beans.  I got the best quesadilla I have ever had.  While we were eating one of the professors on the ship and his wife (who is also a professor) came in and recommended we have the brownie.  They also asked us how we were getting back to the ship.  We said we didn't know, and they offered to have their taxi guy pick us up.  We agreed.

This was the best brownie I have ever had.  I cannot even begin to explain.  It was warm and gushy, and with the cold ice cream.....it was just the best brownie in the world.

We had a few drinks here before trying to find a liquor store, which we could not.  We asked someone where we might find some alcohol, and they pointed us to a pharamcy.  Without thinking, we went in and asked them, and the guy said “big or small?” and we said “Big!” He hands us a big thing of rubbing alcohol.  Duh!  A pharmacy!  We can be such idiots.

So we go back to the restaurant with the band and have a few more drinks before heading out to the bar where we knew we'd find a bunch of SASers.  We also found some professors there!  Hanging out with professors has been one of the most rewarding things on this trip.  Getting to know these people on a personal level has really added to my learning.

We stayed at the bar for some time and then left to go to another one, but that one was dead so we went back and played Settlers of Catan again.  This game was hilarious because, well, we had spent quite some time at the bar.

This day had it all: sightseeing on a volcano in the morning, shopping in the afternoon, socializing at night, and then playing Settlers, the official game of the trip.

We slept in on the last morning (this morning) and got breakfast/lunch at “The Bagel Barn,” did a little more shopping and then caught a ride with the professors back to the ship.

We did it!  We got ourselves into a foreign city, found a place to say, did stuff, and made it out without having any concrete plans!  Having Ari speaking Spanish helped a lot.  We gave ourselves our Traveler's Final Exam, and we passed.

Hawaii

Hawaii

April 19-20

Day 1

We docked in Honolulu on the island of Oahu on Sunday April 19, where we’d be spending two days and one night.  Immediately after docking, the halls and decks of the ship filled with people using their cell phones (which work normally in Hawaii) to call their families and friends.  Once we were allowed off the ship, pretty much everyone made their way to Waikiki beach, where they’d spend the day relaxing after a long week at sea.  I spent the entire day on the beach and had a great mahi-mahi sandwich for lunch.  That night, several hundred people from the ship made their way to The Duke’s beach restaurant and bar.  It was really cool seeing everyone out together having fun.

 

DAY 2

The next day, after spending the night on the ship, I went to snorkel at Hanauma Bay, one of my favorite snorkeling spots of the many we’ve been to in our various trips to Hawaii.  I sent the morning relaxing and snorkeling  before heading back to Waikiki to watch the Bulls, Celtics playoff game at a bar on the beach.  After the game, we had to head back to the ship to make sure we’d get through the incredibly long security line that was handled by US customs, rather than the ship’s security, and thus much slower and more involved.  After spending about an hour in line with most of the ship, we made it on with time to spare and would soon be heading to Guatemala. 

Japan

In an effort to get all caught up before we get to Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, I’m going to give a relatively abridged version of my time in Japan, Hawaii, and Guatemala.  I, however, look forward to discussing all of these countries at length with you when I am home…

 

Japan

We arrived in Kobe, Japan on Monday, April 4.  Soon after arrival we began what would be the longest immigration process of any country we’d visit.  We started with the whole ship and crew having to walk in front of an Infrared/heat sensing camera to make sure no one was sick.  Then, at around 10am, seas, one at a time, were called to get off.  My sea wasn’t called until 11:45.  Once we were, we had to wait in a long immigration line before meeting with an officer to review our visa and stamp our passport and then have their computers take our fingerprints as well as pictures.  Once we were off, me and a group of friends went to take a tour of a sake brewery.  It was very cool.  I never knew there were so many kinds of sake.  We sampled 8 different ones, all with distinct tastes.  After our brewery tour, we had a terrific sushi lunch at a conveyer belt restaurant.  You sit at a table along a long conveyer moving across the whole restaurant and just take plates of whatever you like.  At the end, they total the plates you have and give you the bill.  After lunch, we attempted to take an impromptu hike through a mountain to a supposedly very cool waterfall.  After about an hour (it was only supposed to take 30 min at most) we realized we had no idea where we were and were in no sight of a waterfall, so turned back and made our way back to the ship.  Everywhere we went (and everywhere we’d go throughout our time in Japan) we’d take their subway, which is definitely the nicest and the most wide-reaching that I have ever seen.  For dinner…well, to put it simply, I had probably the best meal ever.  Me and a bunch of people went to a Kobe beef dinner.  While expensive, it was absolutely amazing; unlike anything I have ever eaten.  After our terrific dinner, we made our way to a karaoke bar, where we spent an hour in our own room having fun picking songs to sing from a huge book with virtually any song imaginable. 

 

DAY 2

We woke up early to get on a train to Hiroshima.  For the rest of the time in Japan, I’d travel with my friends Max and Josh from Highland Park, Shayna who goes to Wisconsin, and Lizzie.  We got into Hiroshima at 11ish and would spend several hours looking at various monuments and remains of buildings before having lunch and visiting their peace museum.  The museum was very well designed and in addition to discussing the events leading up to and after the bombing, stressed the negative implications and effects of nuclear weapons on the world.  After our time in Hiroshima, we took a train to Kyoto.  In Kyoto, we stayed at a very nice ryokan, We were incredibly fortunate to be in Kyoto for the several week cherry blossom tree season, where everywhere you look were large trees with countless tiny pink leaves.  At night, we went visited the castle, which was all lit up and again, filled with cherry blossoms.  We had a terrific sushi and sashimi meal for dinner.

 

DAY 3

After waking up relatively early (730am), we went to the palace (an enormous area filled with old buildings, gardens, and monuments/statues).  After, we went to an old temple before having a quick breakfast before heading to the train station to go to Tokyo.  Once in Tokyo we spent a while trying to find the hotel that Max had booked while on the ship.  Once we were settled in, we made our way to the Tokyo Yakult Swallows baseball stadium.  We had a quick snack outside of the stadium and then made our way inside for what would be the coolest and most unique baseball game I’ve ever attended.  We sat in the outfield, in the middle of the team’s “fan section” were, when the home team was up to bat, fans would constantly chant, cheer, and sing for each batter, having a unique song for each player on the team.  There were several devoted fans “conducting” the section and even various musical instruments constantly being played.  During the game, instead of the traditional hot dog, I had some teriyaki chicken skewer thing and a plate of soba noodles, very cool concessions for a baseball game.  The home team even had a an American player, Aaron Guiel, who has played on the Kansas City Royals and most recently the Yankees before coming to Japan. 

 

That night, after going out and returning to the hotel, my time slot to register for fall classes began at 2:30am.  So, I spent a couple hours registering, and at 4:30am, made my way to the famous Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest daily fish market in the world where people come from all over Japan to buy, sell, and ship their freshly-caught fish and seafood.  After walking through a maze of literally hundreds of stands and shops with some of the scariest crawling things I’ve ever seen, I found the auction area.  Here I witnessed the organized chaos of dozens of Japanese men screaming over one another, bidding on the gigantic, person-sized, fish laid out on the ground in front of them.  After spending a couple hours watching this and walking around, I proceeded to a makeshift sushi restaurant on the outskirts of the market where I would hands-down, have the best sushi meal of my life.  I had a total of nine pieces of the best and freshest fish ever; it must have been swimming several hours before.  I had three kinds of tuna, regular, fatty, and super fatty; one better than the next, and several other things I’m not sure what they were.  They were, however, so intricately prepared that the chef making them right in front of me, behind the bar, made it very clear that I was not allowed to use soy sauce, wasabi, or ginger.

 

After making my way back to the hotel to meet the just-waking up crowd, we had a nice and simple coffee and waffle breakfast at a nearby café and then headed to one of Tokyo’s craziest, ultra-modern shopping streets, where we’d spend several hours walking around and shopping.  Eventually, we made our way to the busiest intersection in Tokyo, where between every light change, literally hundreds of people would cross the intersection connection 6 different streets.  It was very cool, but my pictures and video are necessary to fully understand it.  Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and changed for our Passover service at the Tokyo JCC which I discussed in my earlier post.

 

DAY 5

We spent our last day in Japan in Yokohama, where our ship had made its way to over the past few days and was leaving from.  We walked around their Chinatown (kind of ironic, but cool since it is the largest Chinatown in all of Japan), ate a couple final Japanese meals, and went to an internet café before getting back on the ship to depart for Hawaii.

PANAMA CANAL TOMORROW

We will be going through the Panama Canal tomorrow and have been told the following...

 

Panama Canal:

Our tentative schedule is as follows:

            0910-1000  Transit Miraflores Locks

            1050-1130  Transit Pedro Miguel Locks

            1245  Pass by Gamboa

            1445-1705  Transit Gatun Locks

                           

When we go through the Panama Canal there will be a webcam at the Gatun Locks and the Miraflores Locks from the Panama Canal website: www.pancanal.com    This way your friends and families at home can watch the ship sail through! The Canal Website has a new High Resolution Webcam at the Miraflores locks for a very clear image of the ship! More information and links to the webcams are located on the Panama Canal folder on the public drive.

 

 

Quick Update

It is Tuesday morning and we have just arrived in Guatemala.  We will be here for the next three days (two nights).  We are docked in the port-city Puerto Quetzal, which is on the Western side of the country in the Pacific Ocean.  Our 7 days at sea since Hawaii were very busy.  We had our final exam in Global Studies (which was cumulative and thus fairly difficult), as well as two study days with no class so students couple prepare for their other final exams.  The A-Day set of exams took place yesterday and after Guatemala we will have another study-day before the B-Day exams.  For whatever terrific reason, none of my three classes had a final exam.  In Public Speaking, we gave our final persuasive speech.  In Asian-American Fiction, we had a final essay and presentation about a story from Hisaye Yamamoto's collection of short stories, "Seventeen Syllables".  In my Strategic Management class, my team is compiling an "Annual Report" for our class's shoe industry online simulation that we have been competing in all semester.  By the way, our team ended up "winning" the simulation (was the most successful and promising company over the 20 simulated years). 

 

While in Guatemala, some friends and I (and pretty much all the students on the ship) are going to Antigua, the colonial Spanish capital of Central America.  It is about a 2 hour drive from our port.  There are a lot of ruins and cultural stuff to see as well as several volcanoes.  We are planning on taking a day to hike up (with a tour guide, of course) one of the active ones.  Also, we have been given safety briefings and updates for the last several days, and have been recommended not to go to Tikal (Ancient Mayan Ruins-requiring a flight) on our own or Guatemala City at all.  Antigua is supposed to be the safest city in Guatemala, so I'm not anticipating any issues.  Once we're back on the ship, its crazy to think that we'll only have a handful of days before we are in Fort Lauderdale.

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!!! (but not excited for this journey to end)

-Ari

China (part 2)

DAY 4

The next day, we woke up at 9ish, had a quick breakfast at our hostel, and then went out with the plan to see the Great Wall (about an hour outside of Beijing).  There are many tour busses that take people from right outside of Tieneman Square to several parts of the wall (there are many parts of the wall set up for tourists to visit).  Instead of waiting an hour for a bus to leave and having to spend the entire day stopping at several other places, we got a driver to take us there and back for about the same price as the “tour” would be, which worked out very well.  We were at the wall by around noon and spent several hours walking/hiking/climbing it.  We went to one of the less touristy parts of the wall (no Starbucks or KFC on it) that hasn’t been renovated as much.  It was a grueling, yet very cool experience.  The wall itself is pretty incredible.  It rises from between a few feet to several stories off the ground and stretches for as far as you can see.  At times the walls height changes drastically.  Over only a few yards, the wall can virtually drop, with countless uneven stairs (in width and in height) making our tour extremely strenuous, but still incredibly exciting.  By the end Scott’s and my legs were actually shaking when we were standing still.  After our time at the wall we had a late lunch (around 3:30ish) at a highly-reviewed restaurant famous for its Peking Duck, which is of course what we all had.  It was amazing, definitely one of the more memorable meals that I’ve had in the last four months.  It starts with the chef rolling out a cart with the duck and carving it at our table, making sure to keep all the skin.  You eat the duck with tortillas, a duck sauce, and various vegetables that you roll up together.  And the skin… wow. Incredibly crispy and delicious, like little chips.  After our terrific meal, we had a couple hours to kill before having to head back to the hostel to pick up our stuff to go to the train station, so we went to one of Beijing’s large shopping malls with the hope to see a movie.  They had lots of current American movies; unfortunately they were all dubbed into Chinese.  So we just walked around for a while, sat in space-age massage chairs for a while, and had ice cream.  Once we left the mall, instead of going straight to the hostel, we stopped at a night market on the way.  In addition to there being many vendors selling lots of small things, there was line of street food vendors and cards, probably a two blocks long, selling some of the most unknown and scary things I’ve ever seen.  I’d tell you what they are, but I don’t even know (you can try to guess from my pictures later).  While there were lots of things that looked delicious, knowing that we were about to be on a train for 13 hours, we refrained from trying anything.  Eventually, we made it back to the hostel, picked up our stuff, and left for the train station at around 8pm.  Even this late at night, the station was incredibly crowded, more people than were there a couple mornings ago.  And did I mention there was nothing in English telling us which of the dozens of “gates” was for our train, especially since there were 4 trains leaving for Shanghai in a span of 45 minutes.  Eventually we saw several other groups of SAS students also looking for the same train and were able to create a big enough group that someone who spoke Engligh came to help us.  I was incredibly impressed when we saw and got on the train.  Looking incredibly futuristic on the outside and very clean and modern on the inside, we found our way to our “cabin,” a moderately sized compartment with 2 bunk beds, each with its own controllable TV screen, light, and slippers to wear.  Each car had a nice bathroom and sinks to wash up at.  There was also a dining car (I had a decent bowl of noodles) and a lounge car.  However, pretty tired from the long day, we passed out pretty early and before we knew it they were saying things on the intercom in Chinese and we knew we were almost there when we heard the word “Shanghai” in the middle of the speech. 

 

DAY 5

We arrived at 7:30am, took a cab to the port, where the ship had literally just arrived.  Unfortunately, we (and an increasing group of SAS students arriving on other trains) had to wait for the ship to clear customs at around 10am before we could get on.  Once we were allowed on the ship, I rested for a couple hours and at around noon went out with a bunch of people to get rail passes for Japan.  These are passes for unlimited usage of the long-distance bullet trains in Japan for a one week period.  They are only sold outside of Japan and are meant for tourists who will be visiting the country to allow them to affordably travel throughout the country (individual train tickets can be between $50 and $150 each way).  Right outside of the building where we got the passes, we had a delicious street snack that was an egg/pancake/crepe/wrap-thing.  Once it was covered in a hot chili sauce, it was delicious.  Afterwards, we went to the enormous Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s (and probably China’s) largest shopping area, with a combination of hundreds of outdoor small craft stores mixed in with more upscale stores, all surrounded by lots of restaurants, food courts, and food stands.  We spent several hours walking around, shopping, and eating.  We eventually made it back to the ship, rested for a little, and then headed out for dinner at around 9ish.  In a fairly large group, we went to a restaurant where we met one of our friends on the ship and her older sister who is in Shanghai teaching English.  We had an amazing all-you-can-eat and drink tepanyaki dinner (for only $20).  We all sat around a large table with a hot grill in the middle where we cooked our food on ourselves.  We could have any of dozens of things, all brought to us raw on large trays, ranging from chicken, to several kinds of beefs, to various vegetables, and to scallops that came on individual oyster shells to put them on the grill over.  They even had a small sushi and sashimi selection that was pretty good. After several hours consisting of trays and trays of delicious do-it-yourself food, lots of beers, and several pitchers (yes pitchers, not the little white ceramic things) of sake, the 15 of us headed to a nearby bar/club where we’d meet up with A LOT of other SAS students.

 

DAY 6

After a relatively late night, I woke up at 11ish and went out with Jonathan and the Table Mountain crew.  Since we were leaving for Japan that day and had to be back on the ship by 6pm, our lone goal for the day was to go to a famous dumpling restaurant/stand, the one that Anthony Bourdain went to when he was in Shanghai.  We learned that Shanghai is known for their dumplings and that this place is supposed to be the best.  After getting dropped off at the dumpling place (which ended up being in the middle of the huge shopping street we went to the day before), we were met with an enormous line, with no less than 100 people (all locals) in it, all waiting for these dumplings.  The restaurant has a take-out window and a inside dining room. So after our jaws-dropped from seeing the line, we checked out the inside, just to be told that the wait would be at least an hour and that you have to wait there the whole time.  So instead we decided to walk around for a bit and try again in an hour hoping that the line would die down.  While we were walking, we noticed an abundance of Chinese police and security and a large wave of people moving towards us with lots of people taking pictures of someone or something in the middle.  The herd passed us, and there was a large security detail around someone in the middle, who we unfortunately never had the chance to make out.  Soon after, we learned that it was Musharaff, Pakistan’s President.  Later on while walking around, we saw his wife, with a much small security detail, shopping.  Eventually we decided to head back to the dumpling place, where the line had quieted down a little, but was still pretty long.  We waited in line for about 25 minutes with lots of people looking at us before making it to the window which reminded me a lot of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld.  You order at one side; they only have one kind of dumpling and you can get a reused ticket for either a small or a large, and them very systematically, you hand them the ticket and pay for your dumplings as they are handed to you.  We all silently ate our dumplings sitting on some steps by the restaurant, as we saw everyone else doing.  You eat them with vinegar, which goes surprisingly well.  They were absolutely delicious, besides being molten hot.  Afterwards, we continued to walk around the area for a little; (we wanted to go to the top of Shanghai’s largest building, which we’ve heard has amazing views, but it was and had been extremely overcast the entire day), so we headed back to the ship.  By 8pm, much of the ship was outside by the pool taking pictures of Shanghai’s skyline as we were pulling away. 

Hong Kong and China (part 1)

Hong Kong/China

March 29-April 3

 

DAY 1

We docked in Hong Kong on Monday March 29 at around 7am.  After a brief immigration process (just picking up our passports in person) and a relatively short diplomatic briefing, we were off the ship at around 10am.  Our docking situation reminded me a lot of ours in South Africa, except this time, we were literally docked at a huge, very nice, upscale shopping mall (something that I’d soon find Hong Kong has an abundance of). A gangway, very much like a jetway for airplanes, connected us to the middle of the mall, immediately surrounding us with name-brand stores, restaurants, and one of the several food courts in the mall.  After waiting for friends to get off and spending a few minutes online at one of the complimentary computers at a coffee shop, me and my friend Jonathan (and lots of other SAS students) made a long journey to the Stanley Market, a large waterfront indoor/outdoor market, with lots of restaurants, on the other side of the island.  We began by taking the 10 minute Star Ferry from the small island our ship was docked (still part of Hong Kong) to Hong Kong’s “mainland”.  Conveniently, the Star Ferry docks connected to another huge mall that we had to walk through to get out.  After a full half hour of trying to figure our way around/out of the second mall, we ended up at the Four Seasons hotel that was connected to it, and the concierge was kind enough to provide us with a detailed and personalized sheet telling us how to take the bus system to Stanley, as well as provide us with the name of a great Dim Sum restaurant there and call to make sure that they could seat us.  Maybe they thought we were staying there???  After about a 40 minute bus ride, we arrived at the market, absolutely starving.  We then had an amazing dim sum meal at the restaurant we had been recommended.  We had several kinds of dumplings, a noodle thing, and something else that was delicious, not quite sure what it was.  Our meal was also our first instance showing that Hong Kong wouldn’t be as cheap as the countries we had recently visited (India, Thailand, and Vietnam).  After eating, we walked around the waterfront and market for a while and eventually took the bus back to “downtown” Hong Kong and then took the ferry back to the ship.  After getting back to the ship at around 6pm, we had dinner on the ship and then at 8pm the decks of the ship were filled with people watching the nightly laser-light show on downtown Hong Kong.  Yes, a nightly laser-light show. What does that mean???  It’s hard to describe, but every night at 8pm the many buildings making up Hong Kong’s immense skyline partake in an immense laser light show for about 15 minutes.  Each building “participates” in some way.  Some have huge colorful lights, some windows flash on and off in cool patterns, and several have extremely powerful green lasers that shine.  It was pretty cool to see an entire skyline “put on a show”.  Afterwards, a bunch of the Chicago people and I went to a California Pizza Kitchen conveniently in the ship’s mall for some appetizers and drinks.  Afterwards, we took the ferry to the “mainland” and went out on what I can easily say was the craziest street I have ever seen.  To preface, I should mention that the Rugby World Championships were being played in Hong Kong that week, so there were lots of fans from all over the world there to support their teams.  Usually, SAS students “take over” a street, but this was taken over by crazy rugby fans.  I can honestly say that, hands down, the all of the Halloween celebrations I’ve seen in Madison did not even compare to this.

 

DAY 2

On our second day, I woke up at around 11-ish, walked around the mall and the neighboring streets for a little, and then had lunch in a COMPLETELY local food court type thing.  Looking for a “local” lunch experience, I found an underground food court somewhere, filled only with locals (don’t be mistaken; it was a nice place, with lots of business-men and women on their lunch breaks), with not a word of English printed anywhere, and said this is the perfect place for lunch.  I ordered by pointing at a picture of a plate of food on the menu above the counter, hoping that it was the chicken and rice that it looked like.  I turned out to be correct, and it was actually a pretty good meal, although kind of awkward being literally the only American in the place.  Afterwards, I made my way back to the ship, did some emailing, and packed for our trip to Beijing.  Me and my friend Scott (who spent the morning on a SAS trip for a class) would be going to Beijing in a couple hours.  We were flying out of the city Shenzhen, not Hong Kong, which is part of China’s mainland and to get there had to take a shuttle there, go through immigration to exit Hong Kong and enter China, and then get a cab to the Shenzhen Airport.  The process took several hours, but we arrived with more than enough time to make the flight and even have a pretty awful airport Chinese food meal.  Our flight was three hours long and we were each fortunate enough to have several seats to ourselves, as the plane was not that crowded.  It was very interesting seeing how the airline industry in other countries is in so much better shape than ours, and how so many of the things that have been done away with in recent years are still present.  Everyone got hot towels, several drinks, and a surprisingly good duck/rice/vegetable meal.  We landed in Beijing at around 10pm, with no plans for where to stay for the night.  Not too worried, me and Scott, and two SAS girls that were on the plane with us found a very highly rated hostel in the heart of Beijing that we could stay at for the couple nights.  After a frustrating while trying to get a cab to understand where we were trying to go, and being helped by a very nice traffic officer (who also spoke no English) we were on the way to the hostel.  This was our first true experience of seeing how pretty much no one speaks English in China, which was a very weird concept for us since everywhere else we have been we could manage to get by communicating with at least a little bit of English.  We got to the hostel at around 11:30pm, checked out the room (which we were very impressed with (2 bunk beds)) and passed out.

 

DAY 3

We woke up the next morning at around 10am and went to Beijing’s central train station to buy our overnight train tickets to Shanghai for the next night.  I can’t even begin to describe the 2 hour process that it took us to get the tickets.  The train station was the size of an airport, and along the outside were dozens and dozens of ticket windows, each with at least 30 people in line.  And did I mention that there was not a word of English on any sign anywhere and that each line was for something different.  Or that for about an hour of trying to find help, no one, actually no one, spoke any English.  Eventually we decided to wait in one of the lines and had prepared a piece of paper with “Shanghai” in Chinese and the date we wanted to go.  After waiting in line for about a half hour, we got to the front only to see that the woman behind the counter spoke no English, couldn’t help us, and just moved on to the person behind us in line.  That was when an incredibly nice, young Chinese student, who had probably taken a basic English class saw us and tried to help us.  After asking several train station security guards, he was able to direct us to the “foreigner/tourist” ticket window, which was around several buildings and down a long corridor.  We thanked him and were finally able to buy our tickets.  Afterwards, we had a quick lunch nearby at what seemed to be a chain-like Chinese restaurant.  After lunch, we took the subway to Tieneman Square where we walked around for a while before going to the Forbidden City.  The Forbidden City was enormous, and seemed to be huge pavilion and building, one after another, before leading to a gigantic garden area.  We spent several hours there before going to see all of the Olympic stuff.  We got to see the Water Cube, which is immense (and blue), a lot bigger than it ever seemed on TV, as well its neighboring National Stadium (The Bird’s Nest), which we were fortunate to arrive just before the stopped selling tickets for tours.  We took a tour of the stadium, getting to walk freely on the field and sit in the stands while they looped highlights from last summer’s games on the many screens.  After the Olympic sites, we took the subway (unfortunately during rush hour) back.  This was the most insane train/subway experience ever.  I have never seen so many people cram into a train.  The train would arrive, already seemingly filled, with people sitting and standing, just to see another 50 people squeeze their way in.  After having to transfer three different times, we made it back to the station by our hostel.  On our walk back, we stopped at a delicious smelling, hole-in-the-wall dumpling place for a quick bite.  As we’d become accustomed to, the “menu” (list of 5 or 6 things on the wall) was all in Chinese with now numbers/prices, or at least not written in normal numeral characters.  There were 3 make-shift tables, the other two filled with locals.  It was pretty funny; after sitting down we knew the old man and woman running the place spoke no English and they knew that we spoke no Chinese.  We “ordered” simply by pointing at what the people at the other table were eating.  We ended up having four “trays” of 6-8 dumplings; all different kinds and all delicious.  When we were ready to pay, we had no idea how much our meal cost and they had no idea how to tell us.  So, the old woman took the amount we owe out of the register to show us how much to pay.  We were kind of unsure what she meant since she only held up 16 yuan, which is a little less than $2.  But we paid, and went back to the hostel.  After resting for a little and using their cheap internet stations, we went for a late dinner at a nearby restaurant where I had a decent chicken dish.   Next, we went back to the hostel, talked and played cards with a bunch of other SAS students staying there before going to bed.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

I’ll have the rest up in a few days, along with Japan’s post.  We get to Hawaii tomorrow morning; or for that matter in a few hours.  My phone WILL work, so please give me a call, regardless of what time it is for me.

 

Hope everything’s great at home and Happy Anniversary Nonny and Papa!!!