Semester at Sea - Spring 2007 (Alex Song)

(Written the night of April 26th, our second night in Japan)

Megan and I hung out. Shopped at the mall, got my disposable cameras from Carnival (Brazil) and rafting (South Africa) finally developed, replenished my stock of fiber (the hair product, not the stuff for your system), bought some American music to catch up (Modest Mouse, The Ataris, and….Avril Lavigne. What?), took the Shin-Kobe cablecar up to Nunobiki Herb Park (which I can only describe as pure bliss - quiet, amazing view of the city, blooming flowers, and the perfect sunny weather to go with it), had what I can only describe as breaded, deep-fried lobster (there’s a word for these things, I know) with miso soup and assorted veggies for lunch, internet cafe’d it for a bit (woohoo picture update!), got the last piece for my Ambassador’s Ball outfit, got fraps, and came back to the ship.

Since then I’ve been watching the pirated copy of The Sopranos I purchased in Vietnam and listening to my new CDs. As I do so, I’m preparing the backlog of picture posts that I need to get on here.

Like all the other Seattlites have remarked, Kobe feels just like home. It’s really nice to be able to have some alone time, not in a third world country, with high speed internet, without sweating from the heat, without going thirsty from lack of drinking water, without going hungry from lack of non-contaminated food, and without fear of becoming a victim of crime. Japan now tops Singapore as my favorite place to be after the United States of America.

And they have Ichiro posters too!

Here it finally is….the Malaysia/Singapore write-up…

A very unique port as we didn’t dock on land. The ship anchored in the middle of the harbor, and we got dry land via the Explorers’ emergency life boats, or tender boats. It was a fun, new experience when we went out….but for others, not so fun. The boats only ran every 30 minutes, making it very inconvenient for people who stayed in the area to get on/off whenever they wanted.

Anywhos, after serving my 2 hours of dock time, Adam and I took a cab to the Penang airport, got flights, and arrived at Kuala Lumpur around 6pm. We spent the next 5 hours riding the rails, taking pictures of the twin towers and the KL tower, walking around downtown and eating sushi at this bomb place called Hanabi. At this point there’s a long mini-story here that involves us heading back to the airport at 11 in order to catch a standby flight back early (instead of waiting until our 6am flight). We get there, find out that the airlines don’t operate between midnight and 6, and so we end up waiting for 6 hours at this horrible, horrible airport that’s way too bright, way too uncomfortable, and way too overpopulated for an airport with no flights.

Anywhos, we finally get back to the Penang airport, where we hang out for an hour or two until our Singapore group arrives. Another two hours of waiting and we’re in the seats of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 on our way to Singapore! Let me tell you, Singapore Airlines is damned classy. Not only did we get decent hot meals for a 50 minute flight, our 777 had that in-flight entertainment system with on-demand Nintendo, current movies, music, and phone built into the seats. Now that’s style. Upon arriving in this huge megastructure they called an airport, we met our guide and bussed over to the hotel where we had an hour to prep before the beginning of our first tour.

I fell asleep and overslept by an hour, totally missing the first half of the tour (which I heard wasn’t very exciting), and ended up taking a cab to meet them at the Raffles Hotel. From there we went to the Clarke Quay waterfront where we took a bumboat tour of the Singapore River. After we returned to the hotel and freshened up, a few of us went out to dine at the Equinox - a nice little restaurant located at the top (70th floor) of the tallest building in Singapore. And then, after around 30 hours of intense sight-seeing and dining in two major cities in two countries and taking 3 flights, I finally crashed.

The next morning we departed for Sentosa, which I can only describe as a paradise within a paradise. Singapore itself was very nice with the lack of litter and crime, the bright sunny weather and beautiful waterfronts, but Sentosa was nicer…and had really sunny beaches. We first visited the Underwater World aquarium, where we got to molest various sea creatures in a shallow tank and view even more aquatic animals in various tanks, including the “Sea Angel”, which had it’s own little section and special viewing tank.

Afterwards we went to the Dolphin Lagoon to watch a ho-hum show featuring 2 pink dolphins. Following that, the majority of the group went to the Images of Singapore exhibit, while me and a few other bored souls took a revolving viewing platform ride followed by a luuge (louge? luge? looge?) run down a hill and a cablecar back up. And then another cablecar (the big on) from Sentosa to Mount Faber, after which we were bussed to the Hog’s Breath Cafe for lunch.

Afterwards, Mary Jo and I went down to the park/beach front/whatever you call it where we cruised up and down the trail for a little over an hour (me on bike, her on rollerblades). This was the perfect afternoon - bright blue sunny day, a nice cool breeze, beachfront trail, and me on a bicycle for the first time since middle school. If I lived in Seattle (as opposed to what we locals call the “eastside”, the suburbs across the lake from downtown Seattle) where all the bike trails are, I could see myself taking this up on a daily basis.

Afterwards we went to this mall (the name escapes me) to meet up with one of her sorority sisters who was studying abroad in Singapore and went to her campus (something Tech) for dinner at the cafeteria - they had the pineapple fried rice (the least-asiany thing on the menu) and I decided to go with the sea cucumber. Yum. And of course, I got spoken to in Chinese by the cook and the cashier, who didn’t realize I was with the foreign students. I see this happening a lot on the remaining ports.

I just realized the last 3 paragraphs started with “afterwards”. If only I had gotten into the Writing About Travel class like I wanted…

Let’s try this again.

Following the events of the last paragraph, we rounded up some of the American study abroad students on campus, filled up two taxis, and set off to the club. This is where I was introduced to free-flow night (considering I haven’t gone clubbing in my own city as I just turned 21 may explain that), and where I think I was subjected to racial discrimination by the bouncer.

It’s easily enough. You pay the 20 Singapore dollars to the man, get your hand stamped, and go in. After waiting 15 minutes in line, I finally get upto the man who asks me for ID. Thinking that this was a little odd, I show him my ID knowing fully well that I’m past the legal drinking age in Singapore, and get rebuffed with a, “Gotta be 23,” followed by a gentle push out of line.

No one else in my group was 23, so this was a big WTF moment. The others got through, so while they were deciding how to deal with this situation, I bowed out, got a beer from the 7-11 next to my hotel, and watched MTV in my room. I had just turned 21, so being denied at the club was a big hit to me. As I sat there thinking, I realized several things:

1. There were no asian people in line
2. There were no asian males inside the club
3. The patrons consisted of caucasians, hispanics, and african-americas
4. The bouncer was a white ex-pat, probably from the UK or Australia

“Holy cow, did I just get dissed on account of my race?” I asked myself. I can’t be 100% sure that it was racial - there are an infinite number of variables that kept me from entering the club. Mary Jo didn’t think it was. I just can’t help feeling that it was.

In the morning, Ally and I shopped at the Chinese open-air market a few blocks away from the hotel that we randomly stumbled onto. And then we all flew back on yet another excellent Singapore Airlines flight.

And then waited nearly 1.5 hours in line to get on a damn tender.

India was by far the most amazing port yet. I mean, they’ve all been amazing one way or another, but India takes away everything you think you’ve known and completely stomps on it.

The main part of my stay in India, was of course, the trip to Delhi, Agra, and the Taj Mahal (CHE15 Group B to anyone dying to know). Our first day was a definite eye-opener, giving us a preview of what to expect for the next few days. We started off by taking an Indian Airlines flight to Delhi, which was unique for two reasons: they served a full meal for our little 2 hour journey, and the view outside the window at our cruising altitude. We all knew that much of India was polluted, but we had no idea at the intensity and scale of it until we saw a thick, smoky layer between our plane and the ground. It was surreal. One thing I noticed during the first day in Chennai was that the sky was definitely not visible due to all of the smog, but the sun’s rays were still getting through. Our plane ride above this layer revealed the blue sky above which both relieved and concerned me.

Upon our arrival in Delhi, we went to lunch at some hotel and departed for the train station, and this is where it began. The beggars and vendors started coming upto me, asking for money to feed their children or to buy their products. I suppose it’s no suprise that they were attracted to me first - on the previous day I saw a lot of Indians wearing brightly colored clothing, so today I had attempted to blend in by wearing a bright yellow South African soccer jersey. Unfortunately, the beggars and vendors did not wear bright colors, making my ensemble a total reverse-camoflague. The $1000 camera hanging around my neck probably didn’t help my situation either.

We finally boarded 2-3 hours later (our train was only slightly delayed, said our guide) and the harrassment/capitalism/desperate pleas followed us in. All any of us wanted was to take a nap after the day’s events. That was not an option, due to the throngs of beggars and vendors moving through the train cars and yelling in our ears about coffee or chai or tugging at our clothes and making the “I’m a starving child, give me food or money” motion. We could not go for 3 minutes without being approached by someone.

We finally arrived at the Hotel Mansingh and the vendors in the hotel mall pounced on us immediately - one of them enticed us in by displaying a custom t-shirt with a picture of the Taj Mahal on the front, and with the text “Welcome Semester at Sea” on the back. After dinner, my new friend Katie and I hit up the hotel bar and got pulled into buying full Indian outfits to wear to the Taj the following morning.

The next day consisted of the Taj Mahal at dawn, Fatehpur Sikri palaces, Agra Fort, and the Taj Mahal again. Not much to mention about those except that vendors and beggars were everywhere and it seemed they got more aggressive and persistant as the day went on. Following our last visit to the Taj, Katie and I were nearly held hostage by rickshaw drivers as we walked back to the bus.

Dinner was at the Pizza Hut adjacent to our hotel. We all received personal pizzas (chicken for the non-vegs, and cheese for the vegs) and a soft drink. Entertainment was provided by the Pizza Hut employees themselves, who performed a dance routine for us in the middle of the floor. I wasn’t very hungry to begin with, but I forced my pizza down knowing full well that I wouldn’t be able to hold onto it once we got to the train station.

Our train back to Delhi was much nicer - actual seats (opposed to shared bench seating), air conditioning, lighting, meal service (including ice cream), armed guards, and no vendors or beggars. And as if that wasn’t enough, our accomodations at the Hotel Ashok in Delhi were amazing. The Ashok is a luxury hotel that had it’s own nightclub, some restaurants (including a Korean restaurant), several hotel dining rooms, and just a lot of space to move around in. It was also our first taste of the internet in India…amazing stuff. Most of us hit up the club and got our drink on, knowing that we wouldn’t have to wake up until a normal waking up hour of 0800, and it was quite a relief. This hotel was the only place in India where I felt completely stress-free.

The next day saw us taking an extremely uninteresting city tour of Delhi followed by an extremely short visit to the Ghandi museum. And then it was off to the airport, where after another delayed flight (and one without air conditioning), we finally arrived back to the ship.

My last day in port, much like everyone else’s, was spent shopping. I did 4 hours at Spencers Plaza (billed as the largest mall in all of India….it was definiely the most westernized place I’ve seen here), an hour or two at another place, and we went back to Spencers for another few hours (where I finally found a shop that sold Canon digital cameras and hi-speed memory cards, but opted out of the camera as my AmEx didn’t extend their buyer protection to purchases outside of the US) before finally departing. Our autorickshaw driver annoyed the hell out of us - not sure if it was because he was inherently annoying or if because it was desperation. We started off okay as he said he’d be happy with whatever we paid him at the end, but then he made us go out of our way to visit 3 stores to “help him get a gift” (rickshaw drivers make commission from the tourists they bring to these stores) for his family. Then on our way back to the ship, while driving in crazy Indian traffic, he kept turning to us every 10 seconds asking us to donate whatever we had for his daughter (toys, pens, gum, etc). It pissed us off immensely - how was this idiot supposed to drive safely if he kept turning around to ask for money?

He stopped the autorickshaw across the street from the port area, once again asked us to give him something for his daughter, then quoted a high price for the ride (a big change from “I’ll be happy with whatever you give me.”) We gave him the standard fare, brushed him off as he tried to chase us down for more, and somehow managed to cross the street without dying (a common tactic was for rickshaw drivers to drop you off across the street and then charge you extra to bring you to the other side - my first driver pulled that on me until I gave him a firm no…he dropped us off on the other side anyways and got no tip from me). We all know he was probably desperate to feed his family (or to take advantage of the rich American tourists), but his actions enraged us immensely, and for that we left India with a bitter taste in our mouths for Indian rickshaw drivers.

India was a wild ride. I got a glimpse of widespread poverty, left with beautiful Indian-made products, made a wonderful new friend, learned how to deal with asshole taxi drivers (I have never taken a cab before SAS), and obtained a much deeper appreciation for our everyday conveniences in the US such as traffic laws, air conditioning, clean drinking water, pollution laws, pest control products, and those groups that pick up trash along the highways.

However, India is still kinda smelly.

(Note: This post was written on our first day in port 3/25)

“What’s that weird smell?” was the question I asked myself when I woke this morning. They were right, the Chennai funk was noticable, and it had invaded my cabin.

Our hour long bus ride to the rural farm and village revealed little new information to me. Yes, the cities look exactly like how they are depicted in movies, or at your local international district. Trash is everywhere, including parks and beaches. I witnessed two men urinating by the side of the road, in the open (but with their backs turned for some sense of privacy). Many of the areas we were at had the noticable odor of urine, fecal matter (from animals, I hope), and other elements I’m not familiar with. There were public urinals, but these were nothing but 4 walls that were chest-high, with a hole leading into the ground and no running water.

The farm and village visit itself was pretty cool. Our guide had been running this trip for SAS for 13 years, and was a very knowledgable guy who spoke fluent english. Our lunch consisted of some yummy homemade cuisine with two types of rice, eggplant, potatos, boiled eggs, chutney, some type of flatbread, and some other items I can’t recall. After touring the farm area (and witnessing a dog fight that I found pretty wicked - this stray, malnourished little doggy jumped our guide’s well-fed, healthy, much larger german shepherd).

After touring the farm, we rode on a cart pulled by oxen (or buffalo, or whatever they were). After it took us through the village, we turned onto the main road with the rickshaws, buses, and motorcycles. Something to note here is that pedestrians do NOT have right of way. It was like playing a real-life game of Frogger.

Along the route, the local children would run upto the cart, giving us the opportunity to pass out our goodies (pencils, stickers, books, etc). It was pretty cool. Adult villagers also came out to just look at us like we were an exhibit - it was a little weird having a small mob of people gather and look at you without interacting, but I guess whiteys don’t really come around that often.

I never realized how much I had missed the ship until we stepped back in that night - the air conditioning, lack of the Chennai funk, and clean drinking water was amazing. I could probably sleep like a baby, but I leave for the Delhi/Agra/Taj Mahal trip in a few hours. This is going to be awesome.

The highlight of my stay in South Africa was my tent safari in Kruger National Park. Staying up all night, meeting everyone at 4:30am, a 2 hour flight, and a 6 hour bus ride kicked off 3 amazing days of camping and animal viewing. We had 4 game drives (3 in the day and 1 at night) in which the 18 of us were split into 2 groups of 9. The groups constantly changed and each group had different and unique experiences - I managed to be one of the few lucky ones to have the best combination of groups. Reasons why:

• Saw a leopard
• Had a run-in with an elephant who urinated in front of us
• Saw a really small baby baboon
• Saw lions!

Yeah. The only thing I missed out on was hyenas, which isn’t so bad as I still got to experience one of them while it was raiding our camp in the middle of the night.

I don’t normally post more than one recap for a port, but a lot has gone on so far. Also, it’s 3:07am here and as my safari group leaves in 90 minutes, it’s best for me to not sleep.

The day started off at 12am, appropriately enough. My attempts at engaging my REM sleep cycle were unsuccessful, and in the events that ensued (pacing around my room, watching TV, reading my textbooks), I noticed that a full moon was out, and noticed it’s reflection on the water, worthy of a picture.

I spent the next hour trying to get some nighttime pictures of the moon, the moon’s reflection on the water, and various sites around the ship. Since I wanted to get pictures of the sunrise and our entry into port, I promised myself to take a small nap and wakeup.

Of course, we all know that my sleep pattern can’t be controlled by mere willpower of mind or an array of cleverly arranged alarms around my room. The Voice ended up waking me up, with a warning to get to the Union in 5 minutes for our briefing by the US consulate officials.

Fast forward through that and the visit from the South African representative that’s equivalent to the governor of a US state, and we end up with me on a van that’s going towards the site of Skydiving Cape Town.

I won’t bore you with the details of waiting around for around 3 hours for my turn, being apprehensive the whole time, and chugging down a beer to calm my nerves. Nor will I discuss our skydiving instructors (tandem partners) that scared us shitless on the 20 minute flight up to 9,000 feet above Cape Town. Let’s dive into the jump itself (no pun intended).

So there’s 3 sets of us (student + instructor) crammed into this tiny Cessna whose interior body panels are falling off. Person one goes with a small scream. My turn already?

As instructed, I swung my legs out, crossed my arms, and tilted my head back. Then, I squeezed my eyes closed until I felt my instructor pushing us out of a perfectly nice (nice as in flyable) aircraft about 3 seconds later. 30 seconds of freefall later, my instructor pulled the ripcord, allowing me to fully enjoy the view. 3 minutes later, my ass landed in the sand and I was up and ready to go again. But not really.

Lunch was at this quick service Chinese/Japanese eatery on front street. Our sushi was made by a guy who didn’t know wtf he was doing (seriously…he was looking at the picture menu to figure out what went in our sushi rolls). There was a small worm or caterpillar in one of our salads, and a hair in one of our sushi rolls. These were discovered after I had devoured my rolls.

Pepto is a wonderful thing.

Dinner was fish and chips. And sushi.

It’s 3:56am now, and my safari group is due to meet in 30 minutes. 3 days of trekking it in the African wilderness with wild animals with only mosquito nets and DEET to protect us. Woo.

And before I go, we had our first official code blue of South Africa around 6 or 7pm today. A crewmember announced “Code blue, stretcher on deck 5 starboard” on the ship’s intercom. Later, a crewmember informed me that the code blue was for someone who had a little too much to drink. Before the sun started to set. Now that’s dedication.

I wonder how much duty I’d have to pay in order to ship home a box of wine?

Breaking news: Scuttlebutt around the computer lab says there’s porn on channel 5.

One sentence summary: I don’t think any other port will be able to top Brazil.

I’ve never been good at telling stories in any engaging or entertaining way, I’ll sum up my Brazil experience in the following words and short phrases: Lencois, 6 hour bus rides, Nova Schin and Skol, eating non-recommended foods, bed bugs, the serpent dance, finding our shakras, NGO, bed bugs, Etto, strenuous vertical hikes, tans, sunburns, bungee jumping, naps, entertaining roommates, Lonely Planet phrasebook, the steakhouse, small Carnaval and big Carnaval, meat on a stick, bad salty pizza, great mashed potatoes, flash rain, rappelling, unsanitary baneiros, the non-existence of mass, Modelo Mercado, the supermercado, humidity and heat, the steakhouse, the wine, drama (not mine), not being robbed, Daniel, the hokey pokey, tasty ice cream, the finicky ATMs, stores running out of products, the urine attack, mas gringos, being mobbed by beggars and vendors, Mama Africa, learning to tolerate beer, Crocodilo, the horrible sandwiches, and the capital of Brazil is the United States of America.

Honestly, those of us on the indy Lencois trip all agree that our experience tops that of everyone else…I’m very happy to have found the Facebook group in advance to have participated in this. I hope the rest of our ports will be as engaging, enjoyable, and enriching as Brazil was.

Since parents love to see their kids mentioned, here’s a few in alphabetical order (by first name) that were part of my experience in Brazil: Alex G, Amelia H, Andrea M, Bennet P, Brenna O, Carliegh M, Cory S, Dave R, Halle S, Kevin F, Kim M, Korynn M, Leanna B, Liz M, Matt H, Monica B, Regina D, Rob S, Roberto L, Shelly L, Teddy M, Tiffany P, Tina M, Tom B

I’ve plugged the security hole in my image gallery software so all of the previously posted pics are available again. Brazil pictures to be up in a few days after I’ve had time to look them over….I took 266 pictures of my own, and after everyone gets their pictures on the intranet, we should have well over 1,000.