Thank You

I just want to thank everyone who has followed my blog over the past few months. I hope you all enjoyed reading it, and please know your comments have all been much appreciated. And with that, this is me signing off until my next adventure!

School's Out

Classes have ended, and finals are over. In less than 12 hours we’ll be in San Diego, and back on US soil. It’s a strange feeling really. We have spent the past 3 ½ months at sea, and now we’re all going to get off the ship, and return our various parts of the country. It’s going to be very strange not to see thee people everyday. We’ve developed such habits, “wake me up for lunch”, and “See you at step tonight?”. And your friends are always only right up the hall.

Tonight we’re having a convocation for all those who are done with college once we get off the ship, as many of them have missed graduation at their home universities. It’s been a day of swapping pictures, trading contact information, and saying good bye. Everyone is filled with all kinds of emotions right now; excitement about seeing family, sadness over leaving friends, anxiety about going home. It’s impossible to sum up the past 100 days, other than to say, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

What's the Buzz?

The buzz around the ship right now is Burma. We were initially supposed to go to Burma, but it was taken off the itinerary. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he wouldn’t sail with us if we were going to be stopping there. When asked a few days ago to explain why he refused to go to Burma, the Archbishop shed some light on the human rights violations that are currently occurring there. He also told us about Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically chosen Prime Minister of Burma, and the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been imprisoned for 11 of the past 17 years because of the military junta's fear of her bringing about a revolution. She has asked that people not come to Burma, thus not support the economy. The Burmese government is the only one in the world that in 2006 used anti-personnel mines to terrorize civilians on a regular basis, the government is using starvation as a method of warfare, the military is suppressing political activity, there are attacks on human rights promoters and defenders, and there are plans to attack civilians and jeopardize their access to food.

A group of students sent a letter to ISE (Institute for Shipboard Education) inquiring about the decision to put Burma back on the itinerary for upcoming voyages, considering all the reasons not to. ISE replied saying that many students in the past said it was their favorite port, and that ISE uses a travel agent that is not linked with the government at all. The questions this raised on the ship though were what about the port fees? Don’t those go to the government? And many people travel independently, not going through the SAS field office. It was also brought to our attention that last spring’s inter-port lecturer from Burma was completely opposed to SAS going there. She wasn’t worried about the safety of the students, but the safety of the Burmese those students interacted with. So the question remains, why is SAS going back to Burma? It’s an ongoing discussion between students on the ship and those in the ISE office in Virginia.

To read more on the issues of Burma, check out www.uscampaignforburma.org

Hawaii

Yesterday we were in Hawaii, the most isolated population center in the world. Our final port. And our reintroduction to the US. It was strange to be in a port where everyone speaks English, and odd to be using American currency again. We didn’t have to do any conversions in our head when making purchases because everything was marked in US dollars. We were docked in Honolulu, where it is extremely touristy. It was like we went from being travelers, to tourists.

But it was a beautiful day, so we headed out, wandering around and checking things out in the area. We didn’t stay out too long before we had to be back at the ship to be picked up to go skydiving. Yes, I went skydiving yesterday. It was amazing! I was really antsy as we waited for our turn to go up in the plane. I jumped tandem with Jim, who has been doing this for years and was really cool. When it was our turn to go, we just tipped out of the plane, flipped in the air, and then started falling. It was such a crazy feeling, falling through the air. And then Jim let out the parachute, and we floated down. He even let me fly the parachute for a while. It was an incredible view.

After getting back on the ground, adrenaline still high, we went down to the beach for sunset and dinner. The sunset was breathtaking. And there were tiki torches lit all along the beach. We ate at a restaurant right on the beach with a live band and hula performance. It was an extremely relaxing evening. Then it was back to the ship, and back out to sea for one more week.

I think spending the day in Hawaii was an odd feeling for many of us on the ship. To be back in the US was weird. Watching everyone pull out their cell phones and make call after call I realized how much I’ve gotten used to not carrying a phone with me. (It takes 100 days to form a habit) I’ve gotten used to being able to just walk outside my room and have everything I need right there. There are a lot of little things that I think I’m going to have to readjust to.

Desmond Tutu Photo

It’s only taken my 92 days, but I finally got a picture with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He had an autograph/ photo session the other day.

Rocking and Rolling

We are on our 7^th straight day at sea. And the ship is rocking all over the place. Trying to walk down the hall is a quite a challenge. You think you’re doing fine, and then all of a sudden we hit a wave and you’re thrown into the wall. We had gotten spoiled with really calm waters and a lot of time in port.

For most people it’s been a pretty draining week, being the last week of classes. Everyone has exams, projects, and papers due. I’ve actually lucked out and had only a couple of field observations and one research paper to turn in this week. I’ve had one professor cancel our last field report, and another cancel our final, giving us extra points for attendance instead.

We’ve also been turning our clocks ahead a lot this week, almost every night we lose another hour. With the exception of Wednesday night, when we gained back 24 hours, having just crossed the International Date Line. So we had two Wednesday May 2’s. And we took advantage of that, celebrating a friend’s birthday with cake two nights.

Last night we had the Ambassador’s Ball. We all got dressed up and had a fancy dinner followed by dancing and an amazing dessert spread. It was a lot of fun. And nice to see everyone dressed up and not just wearing sweats. The entire shipboard community was out and about.

I’ve also been learning hula dance from one of the RDs who is from Hawaii. We’re going to be performing a traditional hula dance and a more modern dance tomorrow night during pre-port. It’s hard to believe that we’ll be in Hawaii on Monday. This stretch at sea went a lot faster than I expected.

Japan

Japan was amazing. It was such a busy 5 days! I hardly stopped to sleep. Communication was difficult, but that just made it interesting. We found ways to get by. The hospitality of people in Japan was incredible. I found that people were very willing to try and help you out, even if they didn’t understand you, in which case they found someone else who could.

Upon arriving in Japan, we had to have our temperatures taken to assure we were ok to get off the ship. They we were welcomed by a drum performance on the ship, and finally around noon were cleared to get off. We spent our first afternoon going to the train station to get bullet train tickets to Hiroshima and Kyoto for later in the week. We must have looked confused in the train station trying to figure out where to get the tickets we needed, because this little old man came up to us and asked if he could help. He was adorable. Later that night we got ready to go out for dinner, and on the train met Chris who’s from Norway and is studying in Japan right now. He had been at the ship earlier in the evening for a welcome reception with Japanese students. So he showed us around for the evening. We all went out to dinner, and then to a karaoke place. We got a room for the 5 of us, and then sang karaoke for a couple of hours. It was a blast!

The next morning I was up and on my way to Osaka. We spent the day walking around checking out the city, and visiting the castle that’s there. Later that evening we went to a baseball game in Osaka.

On our third day in Japan, I was up and checking things out in Kobe for a while. It’s amazing that you can walk into these shops that look tiny from the outside, but they go up for 6 floors and are packed with everything you could imagine. You can find everything from toiletries to televisions to Gucci bags. Then I had the chance to visit a Japanese home. Keiko, my host, was very sweet and welcomed us right into her house. We got to help her make lunch. I made tempura using chopsticks. It was the most difficult cooking experience ever! I also got to try on Keiko’s kimono. Talk about a process! There are about a dozen layers of things to put on. Talking to Keiko I learned that most women, unless they have their parents nearby who can help take care of their children, do not work once they’re married. Many women go to school, have a short career, and then by about 25 have quite their career and are stay-at-home moms while their husbands are out working long days to support the family.

Later that evening, we were off to Hiroshima via bullet train. Upon arriving in Hiroshima, Shea and I checked into our ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, and then headed out to explore for a while. We actually ended up in an arcade. Arcades are huge in Japan. And it was amazing to see a bunch of men in business suits and ties playing games in the arcade around 11 on a Friday night. We played a couple of games, including DDR which Shea destroyed me at. Back at the ryokan, we used the communal bathroom that was on the floor, rolled out our beds, and watched some Japanese TV before going to sleep. Let me just say that Japanese commercials are the best. Everything is so exaggerated that even while we didn’t know what they were saying, we found them hysterical. I would advise anyone who goes to Japan to spend a night in a ryokan. It’s such a different feeling than being in a hotel.

We spent the next day in Hiroshima. We visited the Peace Park with all of its memorials. The park itself was beautiful. There was the Children’s Memorial where thousands of paper cranes were on display. There’s a story about a girl, Sadako, who had cancer as a result of the atomic bomb, and according to belief that folding 1000 paper cranes will make your wish come true, she folded cranes. Now students world wide will fold cranes and send them here. We also spent time in the Peace Museum. It was an incredible exhibit. Some of the displays were very difficult to look at. There were pictures of people very badly burned by the atomic bomb, and items that belonged to students who died within a day or two of the bomb being dropped. Reading about young children being burned and dying was awful. One of the most moving exhibits was a wall full of letters written by the mayors of Hiroshima since the dropping of the bomb to other countries every time there was any discussion regarding nuclear weapons. There were some spells where there was a letter written daily.

After seeing everything in Hiroshima, we went to Miyajima which is famous for its floating gate. It’s one of the top 3 things to see in Japan. When we arrived, it was low tide, so the gate didn’t actually look like it was floating. But it did by the time we left. Then it was back to Kobe. We ate dinner from a vending machine. It was quite interesting. You put your money in, choose which meal you want, and it spits out a ticket. You give the ticked to the waiter, and then sit down and he’ll bring your food out to you when it’s ready. Then we went out for karaoke again, and sang all night. I sang myself horse. I did more karaoke in Japan than I have in my life. Did you know that half the words in Mr. Roboto are actually Japanese?

On our final day in Japan, we went to Kyoto. We got to see a geisha show which was very exciting. They don’t perform all the time, so we lucked out that we happened to be there when we were. We also walked around a couple of temples. We probably shouldn’t have kept Kyoto for the last day. We were so tired by that point it was difficult to really take everything in. Maybe I’ll get back someday.

Overall, Japan was amazing. Public transportation was timely and easy to use. There were signs all over that had English that didn’t make sense. I actually felt really tall. And in the bathrooms, there would be squatter toilets, and then in the next stall over, there would be a western bidet toilet complete with a heated seat. Japan was comfortable, being similar in many ways to the States, but at the same time, a completely different experience.