Hawaiiiiii!!!!! ... last port :-(

Well sailed in to Honolulu and when we got there we didn’t really know what to do. So we ventured around and just relaxed for the day. We went and searched for a California pizza kitchen and enjoyed the heat and the down. We stopped by park/beach thing for a little bit and enjoyed that for a while until we had worn ourselves out and headed to the ship because we needed a nap. That night we babysat for Kate and Shawn because we were so tired we couldn’t go back out.  The second morning we woke up quite early to go see the Pearl Harbor sight.   Oh man was that a sight to see. It was heartbreaking at points but it was something I am so glad I saw.  The place was beautiful and they were setting up for the December 7th memorial because it was just a few days away. We took the ferry over to the USS Arizona monument to check it out.  That is when my heart just ached that this many people had lost their lives I couldn’t believe it but the names and the ship were right there to prove it.  The oil was still leaking out of the sunken ship which baffled me.  After we walked around the monument for about an hour we walked down to go check out the flea market that was supposed to be down the street. After walking a ways we saw a sign that said No flea market. It was pretty devastating but it’s alright. We took a bus back to port and was going to go to the beach but decide to just chill by the boat and go to Hooters for lunch. Nothing like some football and some wings, on a Saturday. After enjoying some Hooters which wasn’t the same without my loves from home.  We walked around and shopped a little before heading back to the ship for on ship time.  We got back on the ship and decided to lie out in the sun for a few hours instead of going to the beach it’s the same sun on deck seven just no sand.  That evening we sailed out of Honolulu and headed for Hilo.

                The next morning we arrived in Hilo on “The Big Island” they had told us that there are not tons to do and there aren’t many beaches but we found one. I went to my first black sand beach which was pretty cool. We laid in the beautiful weather all day and walked around and saw Sea Turtles. They were so close we could swim with them if we wanted to.   After lying on the beach all day we headed back to get ready for our Lu ‘Ou that someone had given us tickets to. We headed to the University of Hawaii Hilo campus and were greeted with such welcoming people. We tried some new foods and had a lot of fun for the evening.  Once that was over we headed back to the ship for the night.  The next morning we got up and rented a car for the day with all of our friends. We drove to see some beautiful waterfalls and do start this hike that was the CRAZIEST thing I have ever done. Picture just walking so straight down that you have to lean back. And when you’re walking up you have to lean forward or else you would just tumble down.  It was the craziest thing. We got halfway down and decided it wasn’t worth it , and went back up. It was crazy it took us way longer to get half way back up.  We went to the next falls called Akaka Falls which was beautiful.  After going to Akaka falls we went and got frozen yogurt. Returned the car and headed back to the ship for the evening so we wouldn’t have to wait in any lines. They had a BBQ on the ship for us that evening which was pretty sweet.  As we pulled off the port one last time we got quite sad and realized this amazing journey is almost over and it is so bittersweet. As much as I want to go and see my family, this is my home now and my shipmates are my family and I am going to be lost without them.

So there’s no next port. Next port is home.. San Diago here we come.

10 day strech from Japan to Hawaii ( The important days)

Ten day stretch  ( I KNOW IM A LITTLE LATE SORRYY! )

Day 1  11/24/10
So today was A18.
We had our first day back to classes today  which pretty much stunk because we haven’t really had classes since before Singapore ( ya  a long time ago) we had 2 classes here and 2 classes there and now we have 10 days of classes!   Tonight we  had our Special Occasion Dining which is a night you get to dress up nice and get served a 5 course meal with a glass of Champagne for 25 dollars ( not bad)  and it’s a nice change of pace from not so good ship food ( one of the only downfall of this trip).  Getting ready I wasn’t sure what I wanted to wear but I decided lets go all out. So I wore a really cute dress with  a pair of heals, earrings and makeup ( yup girls  I was a girl for a night you would all be proud )  How sad is it that my steward noticed I had makeup on and said “WOW Amy you have makeup on what is going on! “ I said “ oh just a special occasion dinner Don” he said “ Well I am going to wait and not pack up so I can see what you look like all dressed up! “  He was blown away because he always sees me in my Pjs and basketball shorts and a sweatshirt ( exactly what I am wearing right now)  Walking around the ship I got complements how I am rocking my hair and looking beautiful which I hated but I said thank you and took the compliment. A few people were joking about  why you dressing up all the time because they know I always dress down haha.  Dinner was very good  I had tomato and mozerella for an appetizer, Broccoli cheddar soup, ceaser salad, and for a main entrée I had stuffed chicken that was stuffed with spinach and cheese. It was great  oh and the champagne was from south Africa and it was just wonderful!  It was all around a good first day at sea but you can never forget that you still have 9 days left! Tommrow is Thanksgiving!!!

Day 2 11/25/10
So today was B18 and THANKSGIVING!!!
It defiantly didn’t feel like thanksgiving today since the day was the same as any other here. We all had to go to school and tutoring today like it was a normal day. Holidays are no big deal here!  I enjoyed my day of no classes and just tutoring getting some stuff done but it was one of my busiest days at sea. I woke up at 7 am for breakfast and then took a shower before I had tutoring with Lyla at 9:30. After tutoring I went straight to a meeting with my Spanish teacher to go over some of the stuff we had learned the day before in class. After my meeting with my Spanish teacher I went and had some lunch before I had to get dressed for dinner that night because I had a meeting and stuff. I got dressed nice again but not quite as nice as the night before. I wore jeans and a nice shirt with flats and my cute headband that everyone on this ship loves. At 1:30 I had a meeting with Janna Gies one of the Deans Wife’s. Don’t worry I was far from in trouble. I was meeting with her because I bought the materials to learn how to knit! Yup she taught me how to knit!  It is something great to learn!  So we hung out and talked for an hour while she taught me the starts and middles and ends of knitting and I got the hang of it right away.  After my meeting with her I went and tutored my other child at 230 and at 3 we had Alumni ball seating signups for the Staff Faculty and Lifelong Learners. This was absolute Chaos. You would think this was for them or something. After sign ups I went straight to family thanksgiving dinner with my extended family! Since I don’t eat thanksgiving dinner usually ship thanksgiving wasn’t much better than any other day of food on this ship and the pumpkin pie was awful which was very upsetting. After dinner Ashleigh came and joined us and we played a game of Oh Hell! (AWESOME card game that I will teach all of you when I get home!! I can’t wait) After that game  I hung around the ship for the night and got some homework done. 
Day 3 11/26/10
Today was A19!
Well A days are my busy days so it is not too much fun. I woke up for breakfast around 7:15 and met my friends for breakfast which is the only meal I enjoy eating on this ship. After breakfast I went to Espñnol Class with my favorites Maggie and Marissa! What is funny is I have developed a nickname on this boat that is pretty funny. It’s Amelia!  I Love it and respond to it. It all started one day in Spanish class when Sarah ( my professor) was asking questions and called on Amelia and no one responded and she said again… Amelia  and look straight at me but I still didn’t understand and Maggie said that’s you. I was said oh sorry and everyone started laughing. It stuck from that day on!  After Spanish class is Global Studies which is the definition of boring, then Global music, and then Lunch time which is dreadful since oh did I tell you the food is not good.  After lunch I went back to my cabin and started working on some art stuff for about an hour before Art Class. Around 1:30 I went to art class and after went straight to another day of Signups for everyone but students.  Except for the whole 3 hours no one showed up. So I was knitting and playing Uno with Gail, Tom, Lauren, and Leo which I haven’t played in such a long time. After finishing working the sign up table and no one showing up. I headed up to grab dinner real quick before heading to my normal A day Alumni ball meeting then a night of Cards with the family! After cards I went back to work on my school work before going to watch the screening of a movie that a girl on the ship is in. It’s a documentary on Skiing around the world. My friend Lexi appears in it. She goes to the north pole to ski some pretty crazy slops. It was really cool to watch because the movie doesn’t come out to the public for another year and we have seen it!
Day 4 11/27/10 (1)
Today was B19!
Today was a normal day at sea Not much happened other than school work tutoring and a couple card games and the realization that at midnight we will be living 11/27 alllllll over again!

Day 5 11/27/10  (2)
Today was A20!
So this is our second November 27 and we get to do it all over again!  Which  is crazy to me! Today was another normal day except it's the same date as yesterday which is hard to believe! haha we are reliving a day. I get to live 366 daysss this year!!  Normal day at sea though study study study anddd relax on deck 7 :)

Day 6 11/28/10
Today was B20
Today was again another normal day at sea nothing exciting happened on this wonderful day at sea other than i looked outside and ocean was all around just like a like it!

Day 7 11/29/10
Today was A21!
This morning I woke up slightly late  for my 8 A.M first time all semester. I woke up at 8:11 , good thing my class is about 50 steps from my room! Oh the things I love about the boat.   I went to Spanish class and then headed to the dreaded Global studies. But todays lecture was actually really interesting , the guest lecturer was Rocky one of the professors. It was about what to take and do after this voyage. He basically stated that 50 percent of us will go right back to our old selves and forget about the incredible things we have done and not do anything about it and the other have will be a part of change and do something about it. The things we have seen are just unreal and indescribable. The things that are called schools that are so far from schools the homeless we have seen. The kids that have grabbed us crying asing us for money. It all images that just stick in your head you can never forget.  The lecture really made me think about what I am going to do after this trip. I am thinking of a few things. Like saving up 20 bucks a week and making PB&J’s can going to the common once a week and feeding the homeless. If I can travel around countries and help them out why not help out the people right outside our front door.  After Global studies I headed to work on some stuff for my classes until lunch time.  After lunch we had art class which is a class that has defiantly grown on me.  After art  I came back to my room before our monthly lifeboat drill and our last one! Wahoo!  Our life boat is the biggest so it always takes the longest for them to take roll. Once all were accounted for the captain came on  “Attentions ship company, Attention Ships Company. . I would like to announce that this was our fastest lifeboat drill ever! “ We were quite proud of ourselves and headed back inside.  We have two voices on this ship that come over the loud speaker  that is Cathy ( aka God) and the Captain.  Cathy speaks to us 2 times a day once at noon and once at 5:30. She starts with the same thing ever day and some people don’t like it unless its her that wakes them up.  That’s something I will miss every day. Every day at noon you hear “Good Afternoon Voyagers these are your mid day announcements for .. and the date”. And the captain comes on every time he talks with Attention ships company and usually that is at 9 A.M in ports and no one ever likes to be woken up to him because usually that means the alarm will sound for a drill and it is quite loud and annoying.  After the lifeboat drill ended I headed in to work the ball signups for an hour and then headed to dinner. The food just keeps getting worse on this boat so I have just been eating less and less but weirdly we only have 14 days left of this food.  After dinner I had  an Alumni ball meeting like usually and then we had our nightly game of cards with the family.  Bob usually brings a prize everyday for the winner and if he wins the prize is deferred to the next night. I lost to him tonight by 3 points but he gave me the prize anyways.  It’s a possibility I could be lost without this game when I get home so I may be teaching you all when I get home ( and by maybe I mean defiantly) . After cards we had our 8 p.m drawing party tha we are now known for. We sit in the knock outside my room and draw for about 4 hours sounds like fun huh! Tonight I just about finished my portfolio and I have on sketch left in my sketch book.  Now I am laying in bed and its about 1:30 A.M because  we lost another hour tonight so now we are 6 hours away from home and we are on Hawaii time which means were getting close!!!
Day 8 11/30/10
Today was B21!
This morning I woke up early to head to what I didn’t know was going to be my favorite breakfast on the trip. Oh man they had fried eggs and bacon and English muffins !! oh man soooooooooooooooooooo good ( this is compared to the normal food we have on this ship)  After breakfast I headed down and wrote my paper until it was time to go to tutor Lyla for an hour. At 9:30 I headed up to tutor her on multiplication and the solar system fun stuffff. The ship was rocking but that never bothers me  which is a good thing after hanging out/tutoring Lyla for an hour I headed to my room to finish my homework and study for my Espanol oral exam.  Then I decided to head up on to the back 7th deck to hang out grab some lunch and work on finishing my papers.  I hung around there for a while finishing up both  of them so I had nothing left to do but study.  I roamed around the ship for a bit which I tend to do because  you don’t want to do work 100 percent of the day I need some break. Later on I had Alumni ball signups again and following that I went to daily meditation which was very enjoyable. We meditated for a half hour and then I headed up to dinner. I ate dinner super fast and then we had our nightly game of cards and guess who won!! MEEEE  the prize of the night was candy.  After our game of cards we hung out in the cabin for a bit before it was time for some fun. We had the open talent night. Oh man was that a fun night. There was everything from play readiing, poetry reading, singing, dancing, and even a class act from Slim, Marcus, and Mike and Lauren.  The poetry reading was out of this world it defiantly a huge talent what poets can do.  One group of boys sang a song that was nice minus they obviously talked about drinking and getting laid in it, but the chorus was nice.   The final act were the boys and oh man did they have me rolling.  Now let me explain these three boys to you real quick. Slim is a 6 foot 8 tall Black boy from Rochester, he got his nickname because when he was growing up he was fat. Marcus is a 6’4” ish Black boy also from Rochester who makes people laugh when he just says hello. And Mike well hes my best firend but other than that he is about 6’4”ish  also and black and he is just hilarious. Now Lauren is one of the independent children on this ship. She is 11 years old and she has three older brothers forever but I explained to her, her older brothers are scared of dirt. These boys are scared of dogs, sea turtles, hights, and 900 other things.  So you can picture these boys now, they all got in dresses and danced to single ladies at the talent show along with many other songs and lauren kept right up with them. The whole room was crying because they were laughing so hard.  The boys in there dresses was priceless (don’t worry I have it on tape so I can show you) .  After the talent show we headed to study for our oral exam for Spanish until 2 Am then headed to bed. Only twooo days left till Hawaiiiii!!!

Day 9  12/1/10
Today was A22!! THE LAST DAY OF CLASSESSSSS FORR MEE!!!

Well I woke up around 650 to head to breakfast and study for an hour before my Spanish oral exam. Spanish started and I figured why not wait and make myself nervous just go. So we went fourth. Oh was it funny.  We had to argue in Spanish,  person A ( Me) Was graduating and had to try to convince  her roommate that they should have a party tonight. Person B ( my partner) had an exam in the morning so it was important that she got to sleep.   So we argued for three mintues and it was just so funny because we only know so much.  My professor said we did a great job. After Spanish I printed out my papers and went to Global Studies for the last time and then to my last Global music class.  Hung out and ate lunch and then went to my last class of the semester which was Art. Passed in my sketch books that we have been working so hard on for the whole semester, and was so relieved that all I had left to do was study.  As happy I was that classes were over, I was so not happy at the same time because that means this Is almost over. I can’t believe that time has gone by so fast.. It seems like just yesterday I was packing my stuff up and saying goodbye.   After art class I didn’t know what to do with myself and I was exhausted so I did my daily round of hellos to the staff and then headed to my room for a nap. I guess I was really tired because it took Kayla 20 minutes to wake me up from my nap. She called my name about 10 times and I was out like a light.  She woke me up and I went up with her so she could eat before our meeting. We had our daily A day alumni ball meeting and then I headed to my other extended family(not bobs I have 2) dinner. It was wonderful. Don is just wonderful as well as his wife.  After dinner I chatted with Mary, Jim, and Chelsea Davidson for about an hour, they are by the  coolest people ever ( Jim was President Nixon’s  head secret service guy  how cool is that) , and Mary works for the Secret Service also. We chatted about life and they said “Amy we were talking earlier about how much you brighten the day everyday and how cheery you are”  I like having that effect on people. There’s no time to waste life being miserable or sad, being happy is the way to be.  After chatting with them for a bit I headed up to watch the Chorus Concert in the Glazer Lounge.  My friend Marissa had a solo and she did AMAZING! After that I decided to take a shower because I was wrestles and slightly board.  While I was in the shower I decided I wanted to work out, so I got out of the shower and went and worked out. Now I am back in my cabin laying low for the night, and enjoying myself. 1 day till Hawaiiiiii !! I can’t wait!

Day 10
12/22/10
TODAY WAS B22!!

Today I had no classes because my semester was over ( minus finals that I still have to study for) but I took my one day on this long strech to just lay relax and not stress about anything. Tomorrow is HAWAIIIIIII!!



Ecological Handprints.org

JAPAN!!!

Oh Japan. We arrived in Kobe Japan on Friday and didn’t really know what to do.  So Kayla and I just headed out only getting directions to the city center. We jumped on the monorail when we got off we walked around for a bit not really looking for anything in particular just simply walking with no purpose which can be really fun in a foreign city.  As we walked around we went in a few shops and noticed the prices on everything. People had told us that Japan was expensive but oh my goodness a key chain for $8!!! That is out of control. So right then I made my decision too bad everyone no gifts from this port even for me.  We were walking around and we knew we wanted to get stamps to send postcards and postcards haha. Makes sense.  We found a post office so we bought some stamps and continued on.  We found some postcards a little later. We knew we wanted to find this place called 100 YEN store.  It’s kind of like our dollar store.  We found the store so we decided to head in. It was on the 6th and 7th floor of a building.  We found a few odd and end things to buy. The Academic Deans wife on the ship knits and she told me if I got yarn and knitting needles she would teach me how to knit. So I found them at that store and bought some. I was so excited I couldn’t wait to tell her.  We continued our journey around and realized we were nowhere near where we wanted to be so we finally looked at our map. We saw a Ferris wheel and I mean we always have our kid in us so we decided to walk and find it.   We walked for about 45 minutes and finally found it.  There was a pier and a couple little rides.  We took a ride on a mini roller coaster and we went for a ride on the Ferris wheel which had an amazing view. We could see our ship off in the distance it was so nice because it was right next to the water and the harbor was just an awesome.  We sat there for about an hour and just talked through our whole trips all the funny things all the stupid things .It was so nice to just sit and reflect on everything we have done in the past 3 months!   After we talked and enjoyed the view we decided to walk back to the ship. It was a nice walk but we had no idea where we were going! It was a fun adventure we just kept walking toward the ship. Ask people who spoke no English and hoped they pointed in the right direction. But hey isn’t that the fun of it!  Finally we made it back to the ship for the night it was a good day all together. The next morning we were popped and Kobe was so expensive we decided to do one of the professors a favor who have their kids on board with them. We told them to go out and enjoy themselves and we would spend the day with the twins Olivia and Sienna who are 2 years old. We had a great day with them.   That night we were sailing out of Kobe and heading to Yokohama with one day In Transit.  That was a great day to get work done and spend some time with our friends since there aren’t many days left.  We arrived in Yokohama the following day. Kayla and I weren’t positive what we were going to do but we wanted to go to the Zoo. So we did. We asked how to get there and they explained take this train then this train the n that bus then walk then this then that. I said okay and said Kayla let’s go! So we navigated our way to the Zoo and it was very much worth it. The zoo was full of amazing animals from all over the world. They had all different parts to the zoo. We walked from looking at lions to looking at penguins and they even had seagulls (ya I know an exhibit of seagulls). We saw a giant Seal and Sea lion; we saw a polar bear and bush dogs.  It took us about 2 hours to get through the whole zoo. We had told Kate and Shawn that we would watch the girls at night to, to keep us from spending money.  It cost about 150 to get to Tokyo so we decided to have this port be once where we relaxed and spent little money.  After walking through the zoo we started our adventure back. When we got back we took a quick nap and then hung out with the girls for the night. We watched toy story 2 with them. They were both sick so we had a rough night putting them to bed. But nothing worse than putting my little buddy Patrick to bed when he was their age (miss you and love you Patrick Lu Lu). We woke up the next morning and a group of my other friends had asked me to go to a Soccer game to them. I said well I have never been to a professional soccer game why not my first one be in Japan has.  So at noon we headed out to go see a professional game. We paid 25 dollars for great great seats! It was such a rush going to this soccer game. Both teams’ fans were so into the game. But they didn’t mix. Red sat on one end and Blue sat on the other and they didn’t stop the whole game.  Right before the game started they opened up a HUGE flag over the crowd on our side it was so cool because we were under it helping wave it around. It was just giant. We stayed for 75 minutes of the game and it was the most active game I have ever been to. The red crowded jumped in complete unison just bobbed up and down with little jumps like they were toys. They were so proud and so into their game and never gave up hope. Shawn had joined us and came to the game. About 75 minutes into the game we decided to head back to the ship because we didn’t want to be late for on ship time and get dock time. When we got back the lines were huge because we had to go through customs. I made it through customs and had to wait in another line for them to check our bags.  They checked each bag very carefully because they knew we had a 10 day stretch coming up. Shawn and one of the girls key cards that you use to get on and off the ship and he thought the girls hadn’t been able to get off yet so he ran in and I took his bag. While I was standing in line one of the Life Long Learners named Jim that I have become very close with ( You all know me I am close with almost all the Staff, Faculty, and Lifelong Learners, oh ya and the crew!)  Him and his wife were told that they had to wait in the long line. But they don’t check the older people’s bags because they don’t have any restrictions except the normal drugs and stuff. So I felt bad and was mad so I went over and told him I would carry his bags on and bring them to his room for him and let them get on the ship because if you didn’t have a bag you could just cut the line and go on. So now I had Jim’s bag, Corrine his wife’s bag, Shawn’s bag, and my bags. I did it to be nice because I didn’t think it would be far. But it was my good deed for the day. Finally after an hour I made it on to the ship and just had to find everyone to give them their stuff. When I gave Jim his stuff he was more than thankful to me and confessed that I was the sweetest girl he knew and he loved me oh so much.

Well all together I learned that Japan is CRAZY expensive (like 8 dollars for a key chain) and that it is beautiful but it is all looks no touch haha. I like it but it wasn’t my favorite country. 
We have our longest and waviest stretch of the voyage that is lasting us 10 days! But then comes Hawaii!!

Like is said NEXT STOP!!   HAWAIIIII!

FINALLY CHINA BLOG ! ENJOY!

China!

Welll we just completed country number 10 and it was defiantly one of my favorite ports!
Day one of China was all about roaming. My friend Ashleigh and I decided to just go and see where we ended up. We ended up at a market and then at an amusement park! Ha-ha. We got off the ship and started looking for the ferry to take us across the harbor to the other side of Hong Kong. (If you didn’t know because most people don’t Hong Kong is the Puerto Rico of China. I didn’t understand that concept till we got more stamps and had to fill out customs forms 2 times.)  So when Ash and I were trying to find the ferry we found the Hop on Hop off Hong Kong tour bus. We could get around the city for a flat price and take our time oh and it included a Ferry ticket there and back.  That sounded good to us.  We bought our tickets and headed on to the ferry let me tell you they don’t waste any space people flooded onto this ferry like they were running from something. The ferry ride lasted all about 3 minutes but it was a really pretty view.  We went to get on the red line tour bus but it was full so we jumped on the Green line one that went to an island.   It’s a topless bus (no perverts not shirtless) it was a double decker bus with no top. We sat up top so we could enjoy the view. It was beautiful!  The sky scrapers were everywhere and they were so pretty, the city was just amazing. As we were driving we saw the apartment buildings and they were so no up to standard with the rest of the city. They were all run down and didn’t look too maintained.  We got to a stop that was called Ocean Park Adventure Park. It looked really cool but we decided to stay on the bus. As the bus drove away we saw a sign that said Panda’s here. We immediately regretted our decision but we looked forward to what we might see. As we drove alone we saw a breath taking view of the ocean and mountains and beaches. It was absolutely beautiful I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The bus was whipping down the street around the corners it was so funny. Ashleigh and I were laughing about how we were going to lose a hand taking a picture. As we rode on the bus we had headphones that explained what was around us. We finally got to the stop that we were going to get off at which was a world famous market called Stanley Island Market. I don’t know why it was famous but it was expensive. We walked around and knew the next bus would come in an hour. We wanted to go see how much it was to go in the amusement park so we could decide if we wanted to go in. We walked around and bought a few things then headed back to the bus. We got on the bus and it went back the other way. We were either going to go jump on the red bus or go the amusement park. When we were riding back we saw the amusement park was split in half by a mountain and had a cable car that went over the mountain which was pretty cool! So we really wanted to go at this point. We got to the stop and jumped off realizing if it was too expensive we would have to wait an hour for the next bus.  We walked up to the ticket counter and she told us the price and it was really cheap for an amusement park. I asked her “umm is that for everything inside” with much confusion she said back yes everything but food.  So I looked Ash and said PANDAS... RIDES … LET GOO! So we paid and headed into the park. We went straight for the panda exhibit.   It was so cool to see pandas they were just so cute. I never thought I would get to see them!  After looking at An An and Ji Ji the pandas we headed to find our next bit of fun. There was a cable car that went over or a train that went through the mountain. We decided we were going to take the train there cable car back.  We jumped on the train and they made it a ride like you were going underwater it was so cool. (I know living in my kid world again.)  When we got to the other side I saw a rollercoaster and log flume I was in my glory. Ashleigh doesn’t like roller coasters but I told her she was going on it weather she liked it or not.  She didn’t like that too much. We started walking now  you had to walked down and go down this and go down 3 sets of escalators to get to a ride it was crazy.  We finally got to the long flume ride.  Being 10 again we got super excited and waited in line. These little kids thought they could cut us but when we went to cut them back they made a scene so we just stayed in our spot and waited.  We went on the log flume that we thought was going to be awesome… That was false it wasn’t it was short and pretty stupid lol. After we headed to this roller coaster and Ashleigh said I don’t want to go on and I said lets go. So we waited in line. One thing we learned in this line that Chinese people don’t have personal bubbles like we do. Ashleigh is one person that has a HUGE personal bubble. There was a lady in line that was basically standing on her. It was hilarious because Ash didn’t move her feet and the lady just kept getting closer. The line got cut off at us so the next ride was ours. I was super excited because we would be in the front but Ash didn’t like that too much. She looked at me and said “Amy I hate you” with so much love in her voice.  We go on the front seat of the ride when we got off the ride she said oh that wasn’t that bad. Little did I know she had never been on an upside down ride. We were walking over to the other part of the park and we saw a Seal Exhibit. It was cool because the seals were fighting. On jumped on to the rock and it was the BIGGEST thing I had ever seen in my life. We started cracking up and were so entertained. We got to the upside down roller coaster and we are standing in line and Ashley is saying “I don’t want to go I don’t want to go” she still hadn’t told me she had never been on one.  It’s our ride and the Meany I am we went in the very back seat because everyone knows that the way front and the way back are the two best seats. She was like Amy are you serious. I’m sorry if I puke.  So the ride starts to go and she is freaking out.  The ride wasn’t that big of deal. Kind of like the corkscrew that Canobie Lake Park.  The ride is over and she looks over and says “That was my first upside down roller coaster lets go on again”. I started cracking up and sure enough we went on again but sat in the second seat from the front. We had a ball.  After that we headed to the Aquarium that was in the park to.  How can I describe this aquarium to you? The Aquarium itself was awesome we saw giant sting rays and all sorts of cools stuff. We walked into the building and there were about 3000 people in this little walkway. All doing their own thing stopping taking pictures. Our personal bubbles just were totally invaded. It was hilarious. We enjoyed it for about 15 seconds before we decided to bolt through the crowd and get the hell out of there. It was like try to move through walls. It was impossible. We were darting around things but we thought it was NEVER going to end. Finally we got out and I thought I had just been freed from jail not even exaggerating.  We took the cable cars back and headed back to the ship. I got back to the ship and got changed and went out to dinner with my friend Molly’s family.  It was Molly, Mandi, Tom, Marisa, Maggie, and Jake. Carly, Gail, Marcus went but they had to leave. Ed and Kayla didn’t make it.  We watched the World famous light show that wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and then headed to dinner. We went to a restaurant that had not one bit of English and we had no idea what we ordered.  Molly’s parents ordered a little bit of everything for us to all split. Everyone got a beer and I stuck with my coke a cola haha.  They started bring food and we had no idea what we were eating but I decided to be super brave. Eventually we found out we ate some fried Eel, Chicken, beef, Some kind of shell fish that had little bumpy things on it( super chew but I guess it was good) I jumped leaps and bounds that night trying things.  But dinner was excellent. Her parents paid even though we all offered money.  After dinner the rest of them went out and Maggie and I headed back to the ship for the night since we had a long couple days ahead of us.  I had an all around great day in Hong Kong. I would defiantly go back there.
The next morning started our adventure.  We woke up in the morning finished packing before heading out to the airport. Carly Kayla Gail and I headed to the airport in a taxi. We got to the airport and checked in and headed to the terminal. There was free wifi so I got to Skype my Mom and Sister!! Which was very exciting! We boarded the plane and were off to Beijing. We flue China air, it was a nice plane. It was a 2.5 hour flight, so I took a nap. But as I was napping I heard them come by with drinks and then a little while later I smelt some food.  I figured the food you had to pay for since it was only a 2.5 hour flight. But nope it was free. I got fruit, bread, butter, and a tray of spaghetti, desert, and a drink all for free. It was great and very tasty and unfamiliar. I am used to snack packs of pretzels on the flights at home.  Once we landed we had to go through customs again and I had another face to face that had a hard time believing my passport was me.  She looked at me about 4 times and said “You have short hair” then looked down and said “you have no hair” I said yes ma’am I shaved my head.  But she just didn’t get it. She looked again asked me to take my glasses off and looked down very confused and gave me my passport. It was quite funny to me.  The whole group of 170 headed out to the buses to get checked in and head to the hotel.  I asked my friend Maggie if Kayla and I could be in their group of 30 the next day. Her exact quote was “I have to ask Wex” now I knew who Wex was but I wasn’t sure why she had to ask him. Then I found out … They had a list.  Wex said we could so I was very excited because they are a really funny group.  We went to the hotel and then Gail, Carly, Kayla, Lindsy, Naya, and I went out to dinner. We enjoyed our walk through Beijing that kind of reminded me of a calmer NYC.  We saw street venders on one side but decided to go into a restaurant because it was quite cold.  We defiantly picked the wrong restaurant because there again was NO ENGLISH included in this dinner. It was one of the funniest dinners I have ever had in my life.  So many funny things happened.  We ordered things we didn’t even know what they included. Lucky what I ordered was excellent. Carly ordered something that tasted like napkins. OH man we couldn’t stop laughing at this dinner. I have some quotes I wrote down that I will post in a separate blog.  After our interesting dinner we headed to go check out the street venders... it was very interesting. There were pineapples dipped in sugar on a stick which were SO GOOD! There were fried anything you could think of.  Snake, fish, beetles, dog, testicles, everything just everything. They were throwing things at us to scare us it was so funny.  We were walking long taking pictures and sadly some guy asked me if I was pregnant. It was the saddest funniest thing ever. I got so mad but I was laughing. I looked far from fat let alone pregnant. We have no idea why he said that but it was so funny.  We saw fried Ice cream and just everything. After wondering around freezing our butts off we headed back to the hotel for the night. 
The next morning we woke up and headed down to breakfast and then went on our way.  We went to another hotel and broke up into groups and that’s when the fun began. We had a group of twenty eight. But there was a good group of us that stayed close and had a great time. It was Sammy, Kayla, Marisa, Maggie, Wex, Mike, Slim, Andre, Naya, Jamal, Chelsea, and a few more.  Little did I know that this week I was going to make some of my best friends on this trip.  We went on the bus and started our trip to the great wall. We went first to the Forbidden City which was really cool. Wex, Slim, and Mike all go to school together and there is one more of them that completes them but he went with another group. His name is Marcus and he is quite a character just like the rest of them.  They just made the Forbidden City that much funnier and fun as well as everything else we did. After we saw the Forbidden City we went to Tiananmen Square which everyone was calling Timitz Square ( which is deck five center of our ship) .  When we were walking through the square and everywhere else people would try to tell you things. There were these little crazy toys that a 2 year old would play with it  spun around and lit up and this is when Mike and I became best friends forever and ever.  We walked by 6 people in a row that were selling them and Mike was a huge magnet for these sellers he saw the them and said “ dude I’m 20 what would I do with that”  they would all walk up to him and say one for you one for you and every time his response would be “No.. Nope..Na.. Nope” but the just didn’t get it. When the six people asked him he mumbled “ If I said know to the first 5 why would I buy one from you” and I just started cracking up laughing. The things that come out of this kid’s mouth I couldn’t stop laughing.  When we were walking back to the bus we saw a boy that was wearing a Chris Brown hat. They had literally said Chris Brown on it  Mike saw it and just said “ watup brotha” like the kid was going to understand him.  One we got back to the bus we headed to the market where we did some shopping before we headed on our 2 or more hour trek to the great wall.  We ate lunch before our drive to which wasn’t very good but we all dealt with it. After Lunch we squashed on to the bus that had NO leg room at all and started this long drive. Most people fell asleep for the drive. We didn’t realize the night that we had ahead of us. We lucked out with a good group and not a drunken group haha.  Our group was full of laughs and good times. It was awesome.  When we arrived near the great wall for dinner we headed in for dinner and had to wait a little bit which  mister slim was no to happy about because he was very hungry.  Finally they started bringing out food that was alright. The other groups started coming and some people you could tell were already completely drunk. It was FREEZING outside. Every time we would go outside we would say WE HAVE TO SLEEP IN THIS! We just couldn’t believe how cold we were going to be. We sat around this restaurant for a while before we started our full on TREK to the great wall.   Finally we all got bundled up and when I say buddle up I was wearing  4 pairs of socks, 4 pairs of pants, 2 thermals, a t-shirt, and a winter North face with  hat and gloves and I was still cold. We started our trek that was a 45 minute walk to wear we were parking it to sleep.  We had to pick up some sleeping bags on our way up. Each person got a mat and 2 sleeping bags.  It was dark by the time we were walking up the walkway to the wall. We started climbing stairs after stairs and I could just hear Mike mumbling things behind me and I couldn’t help but crack up about the things he was saying.  Finally we could see the great wall and we figured we were almost there. We got up on the wall and the feeling I had that I was ON  “The Great Wall of China” was just unbelievable. Whoever in their live can imagine being on top of this beautiful man made structure. We finished our climb up to our watch tower where we set up our sleeping bags and walked around and hung out with everyone for a little bit.  Kayla Mike Marcus and I were all chillin out talking to people that were walking by and laughing at drunken people. We were all cracking jokes and just laughing our asses off. After a while we decided to head to bed because we had another long day. Climbing had warmed us up but after standing for awhile it was quite cold.  The temperature  was actually -11°C which is about 13°F! Which is pretty damn cold to be sleeping outside, but we just kept thinking about the fact that we were sleeping on the Great Wall and whoever does this ! NOONE.  When we climbed back up to our watch tower to our sleeping bags we  all  crawled into our sleeping bags but it was still quite cold. I  don’t like my face covered when I sleep but it was either FREEZING face or face covered. I finally had fallen sleep and some girl came RUNNING up yelling about how some dumb ass drunken girl fell down the stairs . She was shining the flash light yelling and I just wanted to tell her to shut up and go away but she didn’t.  Eventually I fell asleep but it was a long night of trying to stay warm and tossing and turning. Finally after wondering all night what time it was and when it was going to be morning. I woke up and it was the coolest thing to wake up to.  To sit up and be on the Great Wall with your best friends made the cold okay. I sat up and looked over the edge to see a beautiful view of China and the rest of the Great Wall. It was absolutely breathtaking and indescribable. I could finally say that I slept on the Great Wall.   What an amazing thing to be able to say.  I just stood with my sleeping bag and took everything that was going on in. The fact that I was in China, that I was traveling the world, that I had been to So many countries, that I was one of the luckiest girls in the world, that I was on The Great Wall, that I had made such amazing friends in such a short time, then the bitter sweet that this eventually has to end.  We had to trek all the way back down to put our sleeping bags away and then we had to climb back up. We hiked the Wall for a bit before going back to the bus. We got some of the most beautiful pictures of the trip and just enjoyed each other’s company.   After hiking the wall we headed back to the restaurant to wait a bit until the bus left.  We piled on the bus and headed back on another 2 hour drive to see the where the Beijing Olympics were held. We ate lunch first at a wonderful restaurant with great food. We had a lot of laughs because we were all so exhausted. After lunch we headed over. We only got to see the outside which  I didn’t like very much because I didn’t like too much but you can only do so much. It was so cool to stand in the same place Michael Phelps stood along with a ton of other Olympic Gold Medalist. How lucky was I to  go there. I just stood and looked up and spun around to realize where I was right that second. I was on the Olympic greens and I couldn’t believe it. After walking around the Olympic Greens for a bit we headed back to the bus to go do some more shopping and then head to the train station. Finally it was 8:20 p.m and we were getting on the train after a very long couple of days.  I had never been on a sleeper car train before, and it was quite an experience. I didn’t know how it worked. All 170 of us got on the train. We took up 4 cars.  It was actually a lot of fun .The train was from 9:20 until 7:25 A.M. We hung around and played cards for a bit until I got tired and fell asleep. We had a few really stupid people who trashed the train because they have no respect but I mean I guess you always have morons.  As I was falling asleep I was just looking up  realizing everything I had just done. I had just slept and climbed The Great Wall of China and then saw the Olympic Stadiums. Who gets to do that all in two days? Not many.  I just took a deep breath and realized how lucky I really was. Let’s just say I feel asleep with a nice smile on my face! 
        The next morning I woke up in a panic because the train was stopped. I was scared we missed our stop but then I realized that our stop was the last stop.  It was our turn we got off the train and headed back to the ship. Little did we know that when we arrived at the ship all of our cranky selves were going to have to go through Immigration and stand in a long line for about 2 hours to get back on the ship. None of us wanted to stand in line but we had no other choice.  We got on the ship and relaxed for a little while, while our passports got taken to get stamped. After waiting around for a bit, all of us who just spend 3 whole days together decided what is one more day.  We  all headed out but got split up. Wex, Mike, Chels, and I all walked around a place called Peoples Sq. Because we realized we didn’t want to spend any more money and just enjoy the scenery. I couldn’t have picked better people to walk around with or a better place to be. We had such a great time doing absolutely nothing. We had our final encounter with the  squatting toilet which over these past couple ports has been an adventure. We almost saw two locals fight which was pretty funny because they were both so scrawny. We went to star bucks and figured out that Mike didn’t know what a Carmel Macchiato was and he couldn’t pronounce it. He pronounced it  Machiado hahaha it was so funny. Wex wasn’t feeling good so he ventured in a taxi back to the ship, which I am assuming was a project because no one spoke English.  But that was the fun part of getting around the city. Chels, Mike, and I walked around trying to find a building but had no idea where we were going. Every time someone would offer Mike something he would have the same response and I would just start bursting out laughing. One man walked up to us and said “bags… watches”  just like all the rest.  Mike looked at him and said  “nope” so he walked up to Chelsea and was talking to her and then he walked around and said “ohhhhh… you look like Cinderelllaaaa” I looked back at him with straight confusion and said “ hey buddy Cinderella ya she has hair”  Chelsea and Mike just couldn’t help but start hysterically laughing.  It was so funny. A couple minutes later we were crossing the street and some lady said “bags.. Watches”  something we hadn’t heard before.  She offered Mike something and he came back with “ yup bought that yesterday” she said “you did how much” and he said “ 50 cents” she looked at him really confused and said “ well.. How about a new bag for your mother” he came back with “ bought that yesterday” and kept walking. Let’s just say she didn’t like him to much haha. But we got a nice laugh out of it.  It felt like every 5 feet there was something “ bags.. Watches.. Shopping” and every time “Nope. No shopping”. We wondered for a good 2 hours until we got to water and found the building we were looking for to take pictures of and it just so happen that we found the boat too. We walked back to the boat and went in so we could take a nap and eat some dinner.  A little later I made a quick last minute decision to go to a Chinese Acrobatic Show through Semester at Sea.  It was one of the best last minute decisions I have ever made.  It was probably the COOLEST thing ever.  The people had such talents and it was so enjoyable.  There were people flipping and jumping and balancing pots on the heads oh man it was crazy. My jaw was on the floor the whole time. If anyone had a chance to go to see one of these shows, I would highly recommend it.  After I got home form that I hung out for a bit and then headed to bed for the night.

        The next morning I woke up and we decided to just walk around the city for the day.  Jules, Chris, Becca, and I all just roamed around for a bit and did some last minute shopping for the day and then headed back to the ship.

China was probably one of my favorite places. Doing the things I did was absolutely crazy. Sleeping on the great wall was damn cold but 100 percent worth it and I  wouldn’t change it for the world. I am grateful for everything that I did and wouldn’t change the people I did it with or anything for anything.
CHINA = A MUST GO TO PLACE! :-)

NEXT STOP JAPAN!

FINALLY CHINA BLOG ! ENJOY!

China!

Welll we just completed country number 10 and it was defiantly one of my favorite ports!
Day one of China was all about roaming. My friend Ashleigh and I decided to just go and see where we ended up. We ended up at a market and then at an amusement park! Ha-ha. We got off the ship and started looking for the ferry to take us across the harbor to the other side of Hong Kong. (If you didn’t know because most people don’t Hong Kong is the Puerto Rico of China. I didn’t understand that concept till we got more stamps and had to fill out customs forms 2 times.)  So when Ash and I were trying to find the ferry we found the Hop on Hop off Hong Kong tour bus. We could get around the city for a flat price and take our time oh and it included a Ferry ticket there and back.  That sounded good to us.  We bought our tickets and headed on to the ferry let me tell you they don’t waste any space people flooded onto this ferry like they were running from something. The ferry ride lasted all about 3 minutes but it was a really pretty view.  We went to get on the red line tour bus but it was full so we jumped on the Green line one that went to an island.   It’s a topless bus (no perverts not shirtless) it was a double decker bus with no top. We sat up top so we could enjoy the view. It was beautiful!  The sky scrapers were everywhere and they were so pretty, the city was just amazing. As we were driving we saw the apartment buildings and they were so no up to standard with the rest of the city. They were all run down and didn’t look too maintained.  We got to a stop that was called Ocean Park Adventure Park. It looked really cool but we decided to stay on the bus. As the bus drove away we saw a sign that said Panda’s here. We immediately regretted our decision but we looked forward to what we might see. As we drove alone we saw a breath taking view of the ocean and mountains and beaches. It was absolutely beautiful I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The bus was whipping down the street around the corners it was so funny. Ashleigh and I were laughing about how we were going to lose a hand taking a picture. As we rode on the bus we had headphones that explained what was around us. We finally got to the stop that we were going to get off at which was a world famous market called Stanley Island Market. I don’t know why it was famous but it was expensive. We walked around and knew the next bus would come in an hour. We wanted to go see how much it was to go in the amusement park so we could decide if we wanted to go in. We walked around and bought a few things then headed back to the bus. We got on the bus and it went back the other way. We were either going to go jump on the red bus or go the amusement park. When we were riding back we saw the amusement park was split in half by a mountain and had a cable car that went over the mountain which was pretty cool! So we really wanted to go at this point. We got to the stop and jumped off realizing if it was too expensive we would have to wait an hour for the next bus.  We walked up to the ticket counter and she told us the price and it was really cheap for an amusement park. I asked her “umm is that for everything inside” with much confusion she said back yes everything but food.  So I looked Ash and said PANDAS... RIDES … LET GOO! So we paid and headed into the park. We went straight for the panda exhibit.   It was so cool to see pandas they were just so cute. I never thought I would get to see them!  After looking at An An and Ji Ji the pandas we headed to find our next bit of fun. There was a cable car that went over or a train that went through the mountain. We decided we were going to take the train there cable car back.  We jumped on the train and they made it a ride like you were going underwater it was so cool. (I know living in my kid world again.)  When we got to the other side I saw a rollercoaster and log flume I was in my glory. Ashleigh doesn’t like roller coasters but I told her she was going on it weather she liked it or not.  She didn’t like that too much. We started walking now  you had to walked down and go down this and go down 3 sets of escalators to get to a ride it was crazy.  We finally got to the long flume ride.  Being 10 again we got super excited and waited in line. These little kids thought they could cut us but when we went to cut them back they made a scene so we just stayed in our spot and waited.  We went on the log flume that we thought was going to be awesome… That was false it wasn’t it was short and pretty stupid lol. After we headed to this roller coaster and Ashleigh said I don’t want to go on and I said lets go. So we waited in line. One thing we learned in this line that Chinese people don’t have personal bubbles like we do. Ashleigh is one person that has a HUGE personal bubble. There was a lady in line that was basically standing on her. It was hilarious because Ash didn’t move her feet and the lady just kept getting closer. The line got cut off at us so the next ride was ours. I was super excited because we would be in the front but Ash didn’t like that too much. She looked at me and said “Amy I hate you” with so much love in her voice.  We go on the front seat of the ride when we got off the ride she said oh that wasn’t that bad. Little did I know she had never been on an upside down ride. We were walking over to the other part of the park and we saw a Seal Exhibit. It was cool because the seals were fighting. On jumped on to the rock and it was the BIGGEST thing I had ever seen in my life. We started cracking up and were so entertained. We got to the upside down roller coaster and we are standing in line and Ashley is saying “I don’t want to go I don’t want to go” she still hadn’t told me she had never been on one.  It’s our ride and the Meany I am we went in the very back seat because everyone knows that the way front and the way back are the two best seats. She was like Amy are you serious. I’m sorry if I puke.  So the ride starts to go and she is freaking out.  The ride wasn’t that big of deal. Kind of like the corkscrew that Canobie Lake Park.  The ride is over and she looks over and says “That was my first upside down roller coaster lets go on again”. I started cracking up and sure enough we went on again but sat in the second seat from the front. We had a ball.  After that we headed to the Aquarium that was in the park to.  How can I describe this aquarium to you? The Aquarium itself was awesome we saw giant sting rays and all sorts of cools stuff. We walked into the building and there were about 3000 people in this little walkway. All doing their own thing stopping taking pictures. Our personal bubbles just were totally invaded. It was hilarious. We enjoyed it for about 15 seconds before we decided to bolt through the crowd and get the hell out of there. It was like try to move through walls. It was impossible. We were darting around things but we thought it was NEVER going to end. Finally we got out and I thought I had just been freed from jail not even exaggerating.  We took the cable cars back and headed back to the ship. I got back to the ship and got changed and went out to dinner with my friend Molly’s family.  It was Molly, Mandi, Tom, Marisa, Maggie, and Jake. Carly, Gail, Marcus went but they had to leave. Ed and Kayla didn’t make it.  We watched the World famous light show that wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and then headed to dinner. We went to a restaurant that had not one bit of English and we had no idea what we ordered.  Molly’s parents ordered a little bit of everything for us to all split. Everyone got a beer and I stuck with my coke a cola haha.  They started bring food and we had no idea what we were eating but I decided to be super brave. Eventually we found out we ate some fried Eel, Chicken, beef, Some kind of shell fish that had little bumpy things on it( super chew but I guess it was good) I jumped leaps and bounds that night trying things.  But dinner was excellent. Her parents paid even though we all offered money.  After dinner the rest of them went out and Maggie and I headed back to the ship for the night since we had a long couple days ahead of us.  I had an all around great day in Hong Kong. I would defiantly go back there.
The next morning started our adventure.  We woke up in the morning finished packing before heading out to the airport. Carly Kayla Gail and I headed to the airport in a taxi. We got to the airport and checked in and headed to the terminal. There was free wifi so I got to Skype my Mom and Sister!! Which was very exciting! We boarded the plane and were off to Beijing. We flue China air, it was a nice plane. It was a 2.5 hour flight, so I took a nap. But as I was napping I heard them come by with drinks and then a little while later I smelt some food.  I figured the food you had to pay for since it was only a 2.5 hour flight. But nope it was free. I got fruit, bread, butter, and a tray of spaghetti, desert, and a drink all for free. It was great and very tasty and unfamiliar. I am used to snack packs of pretzels on the flights at home.  Once we landed we had to go through customs again and I had another face to face that had a hard time believing my passport was me.  She looked at me about 4 times and said “You have short hair” then looked down and said “you have no hair” I said yes ma’am I shaved my head.  But she just didn’t get it. She looked again asked me to take my glasses off and looked down very confused and gave me my passport. It was quite funny to me.  The whole group of 170 headed out to the buses to get checked in and head to the hotel.  I asked my friend Maggie if Kayla and I could be in their group of 30 the next day. Her exact quote was “I have to ask Wex” now I knew who Wex was but I wasn’t sure why she had to ask him. Then I found out … They had a list.  Wex said we could so I was very excited because they are a really funny group.  We went to the hotel and then Gail, Carly, Kayla, Lindsy, Naya, and I went out to dinner. We enjoyed our walk through Beijing that kind of reminded me of a calmer NYC.  We saw street venders on one side but decided to go into a restaurant because it was quite cold.  We defiantly picked the wrong restaurant because there again was NO ENGLISH included in this dinner. It was one of the funniest dinners I have ever had in my life.  So many funny things happened.  We ordered things we didn’t even know what they included. Lucky what I ordered was excellent. Carly ordered something that tasted like napkins. OH man we couldn’t stop laughing at this dinner. I have some quotes I wrote down that I will post in a separate blog.  After our interesting dinner we headed to go check out the street venders... it was very interesting. There were pineapples dipped in sugar on a stick which were SO GOOD! There were fried anything you could think of.  Snake, fish, beetles, dog, testicles, everything just everything. They were throwing things at us to scare us it was so funny.  We were walking long taking pictures and sadly some guy asked me if I was pregnant. It was the saddest funniest thing ever. I got so mad but I was laughing. I looked far from fat let alone pregnant. We have no idea why he said that but it was so funny.  We saw fried Ice cream and just everything. After wondering around freezing our butts off we headed back to the hotel for the night. 
The next morning we woke up and headed down to breakfast and then went on our way.  We went to another hotel and broke up into groups and that’s when the fun began. We had a group of twenty eight. But there was a good group of us that stayed close and had a great time. It was Sammy, Kayla, Marisa, Maggie, Wex, Mike, Slim, Andre, Naya, Jamal, Chelsea, and a few more.  Little did I know that this week I was going to make some of my best friends on this trip.  We went on the bus and started our trip to the great wall. We went first to the Forbidden City which was really cool. Wex, Slim, and Mike all go to school together and there is one more of them that completes them but he went with another group. His name is Marcus and he is quite a character just like the rest of them.  They just made the Forbidden City that much funnier and fun as well as everything else we did. After we saw the Forbidden City we went to Tiananmen Square which everyone was calling Timitz Square ( which is deck five center of our ship) .  When we were walking through the square and everywhere else people would try to tell you things. There were these little crazy toys that a 2 year old would play with it  spun around and lit up and this is when Mike and I became best friends forever and ever.  We walked by 6 people in a row that were selling them and Mike was a huge magnet for these sellers he saw the them and said “ dude I’m 20 what would I do with that”  they would all walk up to him and say one for you one for you and every time his response would be “No.. Nope..Na.. Nope” but the just didn’t get it. When the six people asked him he mumbled “ If I said know to the first 5 why would I buy one from you” and I just started cracking up laughing. The things that come out of this kid’s mouth I couldn’t stop laughing.  When we were walking back to the bus we saw a boy that was wearing a Chris Brown hat. They had literally said Chris Brown on it  Mike saw it and just said “ watup brotha” like the kid was going to understand him.  One we got back to the bus we headed to the market where we did some shopping before we headed on our 2 or more hour trek to the great wall.  We ate lunch before our drive to which wasn’t very good but we all dealt with it. After Lunch we squashed on to the bus that had NO leg room at all and started this long drive. Most people fell asleep for the drive. We didn’t realize the night that we had ahead of us. We lucked out with a good group and not a drunken group haha.  Our group was full of laughs and good times. It was awesome.  When we arrived near the great wall for dinner we headed in for dinner and had to wait a little bit which  mister slim was no to happy about because he was very hungry.  Finally they started bringing out food that was alright. The other groups started coming and some people you could tell were already completely drunk. It was FREEZING outside. Every time we would go outside we would say WE HAVE TO SLEEP IN THIS! We just couldn’t believe how cold we were going to be. We sat around this restaurant for a while before we started our full on TREK to the great wall.   Finally we all got bundled up and when I say buddle up I was wearing  4 pairs of socks, 4 pairs of pants, 2 thermals, a t-shirt, and a winter North face with  hat and gloves and I was still cold. We started our trek that was a 45 minute walk to wear we were parking it to sleep.  We had to pick up some sleeping bags on our way up. Each person got a mat and 2 sleeping bags.  It was dark by the time we were walking up the walkway to the wall. We started climbing stairs after stairs and I could just hear Mike mumbling things behind me and I couldn’t help but crack up about the things he was saying.  Finally we could see the great wall and we figured we were almost there. We got up on the wall and the feeling I had that I was ON  “The Great Wall of China” was just unbelievable. Whoever in their live can imagine being on top of this beautiful man made structure. We finished our climb up to our watch tower where we set up our sleeping bags and walked around and hung out with everyone for a little bit.  Kayla Mike Marcus and I were all chillin out talking to people that were walking by and laughing at drunken people. We were all cracking jokes and just laughing our asses off. After a while we decided to head to bed because we had another long day. Climbing had warmed us up but after standing for awhile it was quite cold.  The temperature  was actually -11°C which is about 13°F! Which is pretty damn cold to be sleeping outside, but we just kept thinking about the fact that we were sleeping on the Great Wall and whoever does this ! NOONE.  When we climbed back up to our watch tower to our sleeping bags we  all  crawled into our sleeping bags but it was still quite cold. I  don’t like my face covered when I sleep but it was either FREEZING face or face covered. I finally had fallen sleep and some girl came RUNNING up yelling about how some dumb ass drunken girl fell down the stairs . She was shining the flash light yelling and I just wanted to tell her to shut up and go away but she didn’t.  Eventually I fell asleep but it was a long night of trying to stay warm and tossing and turning. Finally after wondering all night what time it was and when it was going to be morning. I woke up and it was the coolest thing to wake up to.  To sit up and be on the Great Wall with your best friends made the cold okay. I sat up and looked over the edge to see a beautiful view of China and the rest of the Great Wall. It was absolutely breathtaking and indescribable. I could finally say that I slept on the Great Wall.   What an amazing thing to be able to say.  I just stood with my sleeping bag and took everything that was going on in. The fact that I was in China, that I was traveling the world, that I had been to So many countries, that I was one of the luckiest girls in the world, that I was on The Great Wall, that I had made such amazing friends in such a short time, then the bitter sweet that this eventually has to end.  We had to trek all the way back down to put our sleeping bags away and then we had to climb back up. We hiked the Wall for a bit before going back to the bus. We got some of the most beautiful pictures of the trip and just enjoyed each other’s company.   After hiking the wall we headed back to the restaurant to wait a bit until the bus left.  We piled on the bus and headed back on another 2 hour drive to see the where the Beijing Olympics were held. We ate lunch first at a wonderful restaurant with great food. We had a lot of laughs because we were all so exhausted. After lunch we headed over. We only got to see the outside which  I didn’t like very much because I didn’t like too much but you can only do so much. It was so cool to stand in the same place Michael Phelps stood along with a ton of other Olympic Gold Medalist. How lucky was I to  go there. I just stood and looked up and spun around to realize where I was right that second. I was on the Olympic greens and I couldn’t believe it. After walking around the Olympic Greens for a bit we headed back to the bus to go do some more shopping and then head to the train station. Finally it was 8:20 p.m and we were getting on the train after a very long couple of days.  I had never been on a sleeper car train before, and it was quite an experience. I didn’t know how it worked. All 170 of us got on the train. We took up 4 cars.  It was actually a lot of fun .The train was from 9:20 until 7:25 A.M. We hung around and played cards for a bit until I got tired and fell asleep. We had a few really stupid people who trashed the train because they have no respect but I mean I guess you always have morons.  As I was falling asleep I was just looking up  realizing everything I had just done. I had just slept and climbed The Great Wall of China and then saw the Olympic Stadiums. Who gets to do that all in two days? Not many.  I just took a deep breath and realized how lucky I really was. Let’s just say I feel asleep with a nice smile on my face! 
        The next morning I woke up in a panic because the train was stopped. I was scared we missed our stop but then I realized that our stop was the last stop.  It was our turn we got off the train and headed back to the ship. Little did we know that when we arrived at the ship all of our cranky selves were going to have to go through Immigration and stand in a long line for about 2 hours to get back on the ship. None of us wanted to stand in line but we had no other choice.  We got on the ship and relaxed for a little while, while our passports got taken to get stamped. After waiting around for a bit, all of us who just spend 3 whole days together decided what is one more day.  We  all headed out but got split up. Wex, Mike, Chels, and I all walked around a place called Peoples Sq. Because we realized we didn’t want to spend any more money and just enjoy the scenery. I couldn’t have picked better people to walk around with or a better place to be. We had such a great time doing absolutely nothing. We had our final encounter with the  squatting toilet which over these past couple ports has been an adventure. We almost saw two locals fight which was pretty funny because they were both so scrawny. We went to star bucks and figured out that Mike didn’t know what a Carmel Macchiato was and he couldn’t pronounce it. He pronounced it  Machiado hahaha it was so funny. Wex wasn’t feeling good so he ventured in a taxi back to the ship, which I am assuming was a project because no one spoke English.  But that was the fun part of getting around the city. Chels, Mike, and I walked around trying to find a building but had no idea where we were going. Every time someone would offer Mike something he would have the same response and I would just start bursting out laughing. One man walked up to us and said “bags… watches”  just like all the rest.  Mike looked at him and said  “nope” so he walked up to Chelsea and was talking to her and then he walked around and said “ohhhhh… you look like Cinderelllaaaa” I looked back at him with straight confusion and said “ hey buddy Cinderella ya she has hair”  Chelsea and Mike just couldn’t help but start hysterically laughing.  It was so funny. A couple minutes later we were crossing the street and some lady said “bags.. Watches”  something we hadn’t heard before.  She offered Mike something and he came back with “ yup bought that yesterday” she said “you did how much” and he said “ 50 cents” she looked at him really confused and said “ well.. How about a new bag for your mother” he came back with “ bought that yesterday” and kept walking. Let’s just say she didn’t like him to much haha. But we got a nice laugh out of it.  It felt like every 5 feet there was something “ bags.. Watches.. Shopping” and every time “Nope. No shopping”. We wondered for a good 2 hours until we got to water and found the building we were looking for to take pictures of and it just so happen that we found the boat too. We walked back to the boat and went in so we could take a nap and eat some dinner.  A little later I made a quick last minute decision to go to a Chinese Acrobatic Show through Semester at Sea.  It was one of the best last minute decisions I have ever made.  It was probably the COOLEST thing ever.  The people had such talents and it was so enjoyable.  There were people flipping and jumping and balancing pots on the heads oh man it was crazy. My jaw was on the floor the whole time. If anyone had a chance to go to see one of these shows, I would highly recommend it.  After I got home form that I hung out for a bit and then headed to bed for the night.

        The next morning I woke up and we decided to just walk around the city for the day.  Jules, Chris, Becca, and I all just roamed around for a bit and did some last minute shopping for the day and then headed back to the ship.

China was probably one of my favorite places. Doing the things I did was absolutely crazy. Sleeping on the great wall was damn cold but 100 percent worth it and I  wouldn’t change it for the world. I am grateful for everything that I did and wouldn’t change the people I did it with or anything for anything.
CHINA = A MUST GO TO PLACE! :-)

China BLOG

Hey everyone .

My China blog will be up ASAP

there was such a quick turn around form China to Japan with Classes and registering for home classes I feel like i haven't had a second It will be up by Tommrow Morning your time I PROMISE!

Love you alll


less than 30 daysss



<3 Amy

Andre's Service

 

The first day back at sea on our way to China they had a service for Andre. They opened with prayers and read pieces from the bible.  His close friends all got a chance to talk about the short time they new Andre but how amazing it was to know him. Everyone just kept saying how much of an amazing person he was and how he loved to give to others.  After all of his friends got up and spoke. Archbishop Desmond  Tutu said a prayer which when he speaks is breath taking and could make anyone cry just the way he speaks. After Father was done speaking they played a slide show of all pictures people had with Andre so reflect back on his life.  It was so sad to just hear a Union full of people crying and grieving this horrible situation. After we finished watching the slide show the captain came up and told us how the rest of the ceremony would go.  Each individual would receive a flower we would all walk to the back of the boat say a prayer and throw the flower off the boat. It was heartbreaking seeing his friends and everyone so distraught.  This was a very difficult day for the whole ship weather you knew him or not. It opened a lot of people’s eyes to know that every day is a precious day and don’t take any second for granted because no one is invisible. Losing a shipmate makes the boat have kind of an empty place but it also brought our community that much closer.

 

Andre you are missed so much

 

*Rest Easy*

VIETNAM!!!

VIETNAM!

 

So we arrived in Vietnam and we had to go down a river to get there! It was a really cool view but we also were awake at about 5AM to see it so it wasn’t that cool haha.  When we arrived in port we stayed on the boat  because Kayla had a service project that I was going to try to get on. Well I didn’t get on it, so she headed off to her trip and I was stuck alone. Soooo I went by myself into town because They told us it was a safe place that you could travel on your own.  I got on the bus that took us to the city center and started to walk towards the market. When I was walking a lady gave me a piece of paper that I almost didn’t even look at. But I took a glance and couldn’t believe my eyes.  A manicure for $1 dollar … A facial for $3 Dollars..  I was told that I HAD to get a massage in Vietnam that they were amazing and cheap. Well cheap didn’t explain my day! I turned back around and the lady said Come in Come in. Well it was kind of sketchy at first and when I say kind of I mean it was I walked down a long hall then up 6 floors down a hallway. As she opened the door I was slightly scared because the rest of the building was pretty old, I took a step into the salon and it was beautiful! I couldn’t believe my eyes they sat me down and gave me a glass of water. They showed me the packages that were $ 25, $30, and $40 dollars. Now you think that was for like a manicure and a pedicure or just a message. You’re wrong!  I picked the 30 dollar package and made a deal with them because I couldn’t decide.  I was looking at the first package because I wanted a manicure and pedicure but I also wanted an hour foot massage. She said no problem.  So my package included  1 hour full body massage, 1 hour facial, 1 hour foot massage , manicure and pedicure all for $30 dollars !! I know my chin dropped to! And let me tell you this was the best message I have ever got in my life. The girl was walking on me and jumping and all sorts of crazy things but I’ll tell you it was defiantly a deep tissue amazing message. My facial was AMAZING ..Foot Massage was OUT OF THIS WORLD!  Haha  needless to say  My walk to the market turned in to a girls day for me for a total of $40 dollars  because I tipped them. After I finished that I walked around a bit very proud of myself because usually I am a huge scardy cat about walking around alone but I have gained a lot of confidence on this voyage ( now I’m not stupid I wouldn’t walk around alone unless it was safe!)  I headed back to the ship to meet Kayla. We hung out on the boat and ate dinner and then decided to go to a trip with SAS for 8 dollars to a night club that had an open mic. It was pretty cool to hear the people sing they had such beautiful voices. Everyone ordered drinks and I saw on the menu  “Shirley Temple” I was game for that. I ordered it and enjoyed every second of it!  After we left the show we headed back to the ship for the night to head to bed. We had a long day of shopping ahead of us the next day!

            They next morning we slept in a bit because we were in no rush. They said its not good to go to the markets really early because they try to start their prices high so then the rest of the day their prices are high. We took the bus to the center and walked down the street to the market.  WHAT A PACKED PLACE! This market was crazy and had everything you could imagine  from food to suits to purses to lingerie they had just about everything. I had one goal that day and it was to get myself a Northface and Nike shox!  So we walked around the market bargaining our little hearts away getting some CRAZY deals on things.  We shopped all day long. We went in a bicycle rickshaw which was a lot of fun except they guy ripped us off.  Then we found this DVD place that had SEASONS OF EVERYTHING FOR SOOOO CHEAP!  I didn’t get many because I forgot what everyone liked ( sorry) and because I was spending money left and right ! Finally we found a store that had north faces and nike’s. Well needless to say we spend about 2 hours in that store trying to decide what we wanted. Finally we came to a conclusion but we knew we had to come back the next day!  After shopping all day we headed back to the ship because A professor had asked us to watch her kids for the night so they could go out and enjoy a dinner. Kayla and I defiantly didn’t mind watching 2 year old twins that are the CUTEST things in the world.  We headed to their room around six and the fun began. We taught  them how to paint and we had so much fun. After we painted we headed downstairs to clean them up and settle down and watch a movie. We watched Finding Nemo until they went to bed. After putting them to bed we hung out in Kate and Shawn’s room until they came back we watched Boston Med and hung out.  After they came back we headed to bed.

            The next morning we headed out to do some more shopping. Big surprise! Who needs the high class stores when you have Vietnam!  When we were heading to the store we ran into some of the dependent children and their parents on the ship. They were going to see a water puppet show and the kids asked us to come with them. We walked for what felt like forever to this water puppet show. The kids were so cute holding our hands and stuff but crossing these streets are super scary because you actually don’t wait you just walk and pray! It was crazy!   With kids on both sides it made the situation way more stressful because it’s not just you crossing that you have to worry about.  Crossing the street here is like playing frogger with 1 million cars, bikes, and motorcycles! It was fun but pretty dangerous.  The kids were so excited that we were with them.  We were with Rachael, Riley, Lyla, Ellis, and  Myles who are all soo cute!  Their moms Don and Lucile were amazing and paid for our museum and water puppet show for helping them out and getting the kids out of their hair for a bit. It was so sweet of them we thanked those about 50 times!  The water puppet show was pretty interesting and funny because you could see the metal poles through the water but the kids had a good time. After that we left the kids so we could go finish our shopping. We took a taxi that cost  us  crazy 1 dollar  which was pretty funny.  It started to rain while we were in the taxi  and by the time we got to the store it was DOWN Pouring   and when I said down pouring  I mean like monsoon we were SOAKED!  I was not a very happy camper since my shoes got soaked and everything was just soaked!  It was crazy but so funny.  We headed back to the bus and went back to the boat for the night because traveling around in the rain was useless and wet.

            The fourth day was an eventful one. We got up early and decided that we were going to pick Edward up at the airport instead of letting him find his own way to the boat! We were so excited to have him back!  We slept in and then went and went shopping again ( big surprise) after a while of showing it started raining harder than it did the day before which I didn’t think that was physically possible.  We got absolutely soaked.  We headed back to the boat to shower and stuff before we went to dinner. When we got back to the boat we were in our room and  over the loud speaker  the captain came one and said “ATTENTION CODE BLUE CODE BLUE CABIN 4120” His voice was extremely serious. A couple minutes later I found out code blue was a medical emergency.  I walked up to the  fourth floor to check out what was going on  and people were running around like crazy. The captain and staff captain were SPRINTING DOWN THE HALL!  We heard tons of rumors but we didn’t know what to believe. We went up to Deck 5 were we found everyone standing around in silence and some people crying. People said someone is about to die, Someone died , and a million other things.  Finally they told us they would let us know what had happened when they knew.  We went back to our room and a little while later found out that we had lost a shipmate. A student named Andre had passed away and a student had found him. That student happens to be a good friend of mine.  Not really knowing what to do because we couldn’t’ really do much We headed out for dinner to the Hard Rock Café.  Which ended up being kind of an expensive meal but it was worth it. After dinner we went to the airport to pick up Ed. When he arrived at the airport he was very happy to see us.  We headed back to the ship so he could re-embark on the ship. The taxi driver didn’t know where to go so good thing I did. I lead the taxi driver back to the ship like I lived in Vietnam or something. Good thing I have a good sense of direction.  When we arrived back at the boat it was like a Ghost down. Everyone was crying and trying to cope with this tragic situation. But the worst part was is some people didn’t know because they didn’t return until the following day.  We ended up staying in for the night and trying our best to comfort our peers.

            The next morning we had to be up early for our Chu Chi Tunnels trip. We took a 2 hour bus ride to the Tunnels. They showed us the little holes that the people fit in to get into the tunnels.  We got to jump down into the holes that were very tiny but I FIT!  They showed us the traps that they used to use against the Americans during the war. We watched a movie on their point of view on the “American War” aka the Vietnam War. It was really interesting to see how this whole system worked.  We saw an American Tanker and go to climb on it which was really cool.  After doing that we got to a shooting range. You could pay 14 dollars for 10 bullets and you would have the capability to shoot a gun. Ed and I decided to shoot an AK 47 which was actually the coolest thing ever. After we shot the guns we headed to the tunnels to crawl through. We headed down in the tunnels and I couldn’t believe that people lived in these tunnels. We were on our hands and knees crawling through. It was so cool but so dirty.  After crawling through the tunnels we headed back to the bus and headed to the ship. Ed hadn’t gone shopping yet so we took him shopping so he could get everything he needed. We went to a place for lunch  where not a soul spoke English. We ordered Spring Rolls and some soup. I liked the Spring Rolls till I saw the inside then just kind of lost my appetite.  We finished up shopping and guess what it started to do. YOUR RIGHT .. IT starting DOWN POORING again. Worse than the day before which was again crazy. I didn’t even bother trying to stay dry I just trudged through the rain and got absolutely soaked. We headed back to the boat for the BBQ that the ship was having for dinner and said good- bye to Vietnam. 

Vietnam was an awesome place that I would go back to in a second. I would love to go to Cambodia and a bunch of other places I didn’t get to go to and to SHOP MY LIFE AWAY because the shopping here is so cheap and amazing. DVD serious for 5 dollars  100 dollar sneakers for 30 dollars . Heavy winter North faces for 30 dollars. It was just crazy. The people were more than welcoming and friendly. I just loved them.  Cheap messages what more could you ask for.

The night that we all got back on the boat we had a meeting about the Tragedy that had occurred on board. They made it clear to us that Andre was gone and it was extremely unfortunate. They stated that we would have a service the following day at 2 pm.

 

 

Vietnam post will be up within two days

Hi Everyone,

 

Sorry I havne't posted Vietnam. It was amazing and I will try to get it done tommrow. It has been a rough couple of days here. We had a Death on the boat. A student named Andre. So we have been having meetings and things like that. My blog will be up soon. I promise!

 

Miss you alll

 

 

Rest Easy Andre

 

 

Love you all

 

Amy