Hong Kong (very late...)

Here we go. I wrote some of this a long time ago, and now I’m just finishing it up:

Apparently I haven’t posted anything as far as the actual journey goes in a really long time. Back in Hong Kong (which feels like forever ago), I only had one day there, and of course I went to Hong Kong Disney. I wasn’t planning on it because I didn’t want to spend my one day in Hong Kong at Disneyland, but it was pretty close to the ship and it didn’t cost too much, so I went for part of the day. It was eerie. It has practically the same layout as Disneyland back home. Once you purchase your ticket and walk under the train tracks, there’s Main Street. Fire Station, Magic shop, and everything. It was the first “familiar” place I had seen in months, but it didn’t seem right. I’m in Hong Kong, not California! It felt like another dimension or a ghost town or something supernatural and in Chinese. Once you wandered deeper into the park, it started to become less familiar. It was much smaller, and the rides weren’t all the same. They had Space Mountain, Astro Blaster, and the Jungle Cruise. Those were the only rides that were the “same” as Disney in California. Space mountain was kind of cool, but the one in California was better. The best ride they had was by far the Jungle Cruise. As soon as you walked up to it, there were three different lines, one for each language they offered. I want to say they had English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, but Japanese might have been thrown in there somewhere. Everybody who has been on the jungle cruise knows about the inordinate amount of lame jokes they throw in there, right? Well it’s a million times better when it’s told in “Engrish”. Our guide wasn’t quite fluent. Every time she tried to make a joke, she really had to make a huge effort to remember what words to say. It took so long that it was almost painful waiting for her to deliver the punch line. She did the joke about the spiders that jump 15 feet, but it’s safe because the boat is only 10 feet away from the spider. By the time the punchline came, I think the spiders were long gone. For the majority of the cruise, the girl didn’t even bother to tell jokes. She was just overly hyper and started yelling in Chinese at the different animals that were attacking her boat. It. Was. Hilarious. I can’t even explain it, it was so funny.

Not much else was accomplished in Hong Kong. I really wanted to try and find some floating restaurants to have dinner at, but they were pretty far away from the ship and nobody I was with felt like venturing that far away to eat. We also didn’t want to miss the laser light show that happens every night on the water. I don’t know if it was just because of the weather, but I wasn’t really that impressed. It was pretty foggy that night, so we couldn’t see a lot of the lasers, but it was still pretty neat that a city puts on something like that every night. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. I went to a night market and bought a few souvenirs from Hong Kong, but I didn’t want to stay out too late because my Beijing trip to Tsinghua University was the following morning. This was the big trip I had been waiting for, and I wanted to be ready for it.

More later!

The Last Day...

Here it is. The final day. I know I haven't updated in a while, so this may seem out of place, but in all honesty I know that if I don't do this now I may never do it. This isn't necessarily my final post, but it will be my final post from the ship. Time has gone by so fast. It doesn't seem like it should be over. I feel that this is the point on the voayage where everyone is finally comfortable with life on the ship and we're all ready for another go around. To make us leave the ship is like jamming a wrench in our gears. It will completely devastate our way of life. I suppose I'm speaking in generalities, but this is at least how I feel. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm ungrateful or I don't want to see anybody again, it's just that this has been one of the best experiences in my life, and I'm never going to get it back. Even as I write this entry I feel like I'm wasting precious time I could be using saying goodbye to everyone I may never see again.
I'll probably write a really long entry tomorrow while I'm on the plane, so don't expect this to be the end quite yet.

On a side note, if you read my blog at all or are reading it right now, please make some sort of comment. I want to thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say, and I have no other way of knowing who you are unless you comment. Even if I don't know you, we can fix that, or if you want to remain anonymous, that's fine too. Just please comment either way. It'll make me happy :-)

Thank you...

Hey everyone,
So I don't have anything written for my time in Japan yet, and I don't have enough time on the internet to even attempt to do it justice, so I'll update later about Japan, Hawaii, and life inbetween. However, when in Hawaii I recieved a little DVD from Chandler in the mail...

For everyone that helped in making the dvd, thank you. Especially you, Chandler. I can't believe you took so much time to make something like that. You have no idea how much it means to me. It's hard being halfway around the world and having little contact with everyone. In all honesty, I didn't know if I was missed or not because nobody would ever comment on my blog (a few of you did, I know, but mostly I wouldn't get any comments), and I would get so unmotivated to update at all because I didn't even know if people were reading what I would post. Watching the dvd helped me so much. Yes, I did get a little teary-eyed while watching, and I walked around the ship a little taller that day. I know I'm repeating myself, but I can't say it enough: thank you all for being my friend. They say that 10 people will think about you before they fall asleep. For everyone out there, just know that I'll be one of those 10 :-)

China

I'm still in China, staying at the Tsinghua University Guest house, so my time in China is by no means up. However, I felt the need to post this, because today at the Forbidden City a great battle took place. Two mighty warriors clashed. Buildings were destroyed. Lives were shattered. Yet the turmoil continued. It was a mighty battle, but the war rages on, a victor yet to be decided.

Hong Kong

I think this will be my last batch of pictures for now, because these take a long time to upload and Grant still hasn't used the internet yet. Yes, we had one day in Hong Kong and went to Hong Kong Disney. I hadn't had a Disney fix in quite a long time, and it felt like such a relief to finally be back at Disneyland, but it felt eerie at the same time. Main Street looked almost identical to the one in California, except that it was in China. It felt familiar, but strange at the same time. Kind of like it wasn't supposed to be there. Most everything was in Chinese too, which kind of throws you off. It's much smaller than Disneyland in California. It only has three major rides in common: Space Mountain, Astro Blasters, and the Jungle Cruise. It had some others too, like Winnie the Pooh and the Teacups. The Jungle Cruise was probably my favorite, because it was so different from the Disneyland one. There were three separate lines depending on what language you wanted to ride the ride in, and we chose English, obviously. The only problem was that even though the guide is speaking English, that by no means garuntees that you will understand her. Half of the time it felt like she was speaking Chinese, and the other half she was screaming into the microphone because she was scared of the animals. She did try to make some of the staple Jungle Cruise jokes, but she had a hard time executing them in English. It was cute.

Vietnam

Here's some more pictures from Vietnam/Cambodia. The painting is one that I really wanted to get at Angkor Wat, but I didn't have enought money so I had to settle for a smaller one.

Malaysia

Here we've got some pics from my host family and Kuala Lumpur.

India

Here's a little bit of India. In one of the pictures you can see me in front of the Taj Mahal. Quite literally in front of it. The marble monument is the site where Ghandi was cremated.

Mauritius

It’s pretty late at night right now, so I don’t have much time to explain anything, but here are a lot of picture posts that I’ve neglected to put for a while. I’m trying to keep it at about 5 per country, but it’s not working so well. Maybe you can deduce what all these pictures are if you’ve been reading my past posts. But if you’re lazy and you haven’t, then you can use your imagination to come up with an intense, life-threatening scenario that only the most skilled people could get out of, and then relate that to my picture.

P.S. –I’m going to the Great Wall tomorrow.

Yes Laura, that was an April Fool's. I don't really want to join the army.

Right now I'm in the Hong Kong airport on my way to Beijing to stay at Tsinghua University. I was planning on uploading some pictures here, but right now it's not working. It might be working now, because it seems like they're uploading. I don't have any time to explain them though, because we board soon. I guess it worked! I 'll try to upload some more. I'll give a present to whoever can figure out what the first picture is of.

What I've been thinking...

Hello Everyone!

Cambodia went really well, and so did the last of Vietnam. I mostly just shopped some more, because everything there is insanely cheap. I don’t think I can express that enough. I bought all of the Star Wars movies for about $3, and a lot of my friends bought around 60 “Disney” movies for around twenty bucks. I have quotes there because the boxed set that the movies come in say that it’s a Disney collection, but it has movies in it like Shrek, Final Fantasy 7, and the Animatrix, which are clearly not Disney at all. The quality of the movies are pretty decent, but every once in a while something will be screwed up. I say a water puppet performance on the last day also, which I enjoyed. The puppets are made out of wood that floats on water and are controlled by puppeteers behind a curtain using metal rods. It’s pretty interesting how it all works.

On another note, I’ve been thinking a lot about my life. A lot of you know that I don’t know what I want to do after college, and I don’t even know what major I want to be. I’ve been hoping that this journey around the world would help me somehow to open up my eyes, and it has. I love traveling, and I want to help people. I’ve talked to a few of my new friends about a lot of things, and they’ve convinced me to join the Army after all of this is over. It would solve all of my money problems, allow me to travel the world, and I believe that I could help people. I know it may seem like a sudden decision, but I’ve been turning it over in my mind for a while. I haven’t decided what to do about college yet, whether I should finish it out with some major or not, but I’ll let everyone know when I think more about it.

I’ll update again sometime in China!

Ok, here's just one more picture. These are the colors that Grant and I got for our suits. Mine is green and his is orange. You can also see the different measurements that we have. It was a constant competition the whole time, but only one measurement really counted. In the aptly named "D" measurement, i beat him by one. By one what you may ask. I'm not sure, I only know that in the end, I was victorious.

Are those... PICTURES???

What? Whaaaaaat?????? But I never post pictures EVER! I haven't done anything like that since some time in the Western Hemisphere!! Well, I had a little opportunity to do it, and I figured why not?

I'm in Cambodia right now, right after my visit to Angkor Wat. I brought my camera and little flash drive with me, so i'm able to upload the pictures I currently have online, but I don't have my laptop, so the only pictures I have are the ones I've taken so far in Vietnam. The first picture up there is of Angkor Wat. It is either the largest or most holy Hindu Temple in the world. I can't remember which one it is. It's really big. The temple itself isn't insanely high, but it takes up a lot of area with it's wall and the like. We're going to it again tomorrow for a sunrise tour that conveniently starts at 5 in the morning.

The next picture is of me (I felt like I had to include one, but I didn't have many on my camera) in front of (drum roll)... Grant! Oh yeah, and Angkor Wat.

The next picture is the cutest girl EVER. Besides my sister of course. She was just hangin out behind the area you weren't supposed to go to, but she didn't care. She was just stickin it to the man and being cute at the same time. I wish i was cute so I could break the law.

The next picture is of two incredibly good looking millionares that we found in Vietnam. The exchange rate in Vietnam is insane (about 15,000 VN Dong to 1 US Dollar), so we took out a million dong to play around with for the whole day. Let me tell you, dong disappears fast. There is SO much to buy in Vietnam, I can't even describe it. I thought the mall in Malaysia that had 17 or so stories had a lot to buy, but Vietnam has the coolest stuff EVER. I bought 2 custom fit suits that I'm going to pick up in a few days. One is white and the other is lime green. We'll see how that goes.

The last picture is just one I took in Vietnam. I wish I had more time there, because it seems like there is a lot to do. I just spent one day there and then I came to Cambodia today. I'll see what I can do about updating later, but until then, take care!

Why don't I ever use the internet in port?

Hello.

Surprise surprise, I didn’t have much free time in Malaysia to go on the internet. I suppose I could have at one point, but it was 4:30 in the morning and I decided to sleep instead. Sorry.

Back in India, after my wonderful night in Hotel Perfect, we caught a train to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. It departed at around 6 in the morning, so everybody else in my group slept, but I love looking at scenery, so I stayed awake and just stared out the window for two hours. The scenery of the Indian countryside is so serene, which is a great contrast to the bustling, overcrowded cities. Every once in a while you can see an abandoned building or temple that some people may have occupied as their home. Sometimes there will be little villages, or the awkward people squatting beside the railroad, relieving themselves in the manner of the Eastern toilet. For those of you who have never even seen a squatting toilet, that is a cultural experience in itself. A very different kind of cultural experience. Sorry, I kind of lost my TRAIN of thought. I’ll try to stay on TRACK.

So we arrive at the station and head over to the Taj Mahal. It’s such a weird monument, because even when you get in close proximity of it, it seems like there’s some kind of fog or mist covering it up. It’s pretty surreal once you’re there. I didn’t realize how big the actual site of the Taj was. There is a huge wall around it with identical buildings to the East and West (identical to each other, not identical to the Taj), and the symmetry of the whole area is near perfect. The symmetry would be completely perfect, but the coffins inside that were carved from marble are deliberately to one side, because in the Islamic faith, God is the only thing that is perfect, and to have a building that is completely symmetrical, or perfect, would be a blasphemy to the religion. I think that’s how the story goes. The Taj is also built entirely out of a kind of white marble in India which is apparently 7 times stronger than Italian marble. Apparently my marble coasters that I bought were too. Before they broke.

We were able to see a lot of sites in India. The Jaipur palace was huge and impressive, with huge walls outside the city made entirely of a “pink” sandstone. We went to an old observatory site, the Agra fort, a few more temples, and saw some of the government buildings in Delhi. I had a great time on the tour, but some moments were really awkward. We were only a group of nine on a little bus, so the traveling was spacious, but in between sites, the guides would take us to see how some of the local products were made. This was always REALLY awkward. Here come the rich Western people to watch the impoverished locals spend hours everyday on tedious manual labor. We went to shops for marble plates, carpets, jewelry, and silk, and every time I felt guilty for just existing. Whoever was in charge of the operation would greet us, take us to see how the items were made, give us a free drink, and then try and sucker us into buying something. I’ll admit that it did work on me once. I bought a carpet. I just had to. It’s one of those things you just have to do. It was $125 for me, which is a lot of money for a rug, but I didn’t feel so bad after Grant bought one for $350 that just has a picture of a tiger on it. It’s on the floor of our room now, and he doesn’t regret getting it at all.

On the last day of India I went on a trip to see Kancheepuram and Mamallapuram, which are more ruins and temples of India. There are really so many temples in India, it is ridiculous. I had fun, but I think I would have rather done it independently than through Semester at Sea. That seems to be the theme of all my port time now: I wish I would have done more trips independently. I had a great time in India though, and like always, I wish I could upload pictures. I probably won’t be able to upload anything until China, but who knows, I might get lucky in Vietnam. As far as India goes, I can’t really explain the experience through writing. All the different sights, sounds, smells, tastes (Naan is the best thing in the world. Period.), and people. I would like to go back there someday, but only in certain ways. It’s hard to explain.

Then we went to Malaysia.

I don’t know how much you know about Malaysia, but I knew practically nothing about it, so I didn’t really prepare for it. Just three days after India, BOOM, we were there. Selamat Datang. I had the homestay on the first day, and I have to say that I was a little disappointed. I thought it was going to be one of the most intimate cultural experiences that I was going to have on the whole voyage, but it just felt immensely touristy, if you can believe it. We arrived at the kampong (village), and there were banners everywhere saying “Welcome to Malaysia” that apparently belonged to a company that operates all of the homestays. I didn’t even know that companies like that existed. Apparently the families have people that stay with them all the time. Well, we were all assigned our families, and mine didn’t speak any English. I expected this, and I wanted to be in a family that didn’t speak English, but in all honesty we didn’t spend much time with our families. In the morning we woke up, had breakfast with them, and went off on a tour bus with the other SAS kids for the whole day, only to come back to our families at dinner time. Not quite the cultural experience I wanted. It didn’t seem like they put too much effort into the food either. After we had the same meal for the third time in a row, I was pretty hungry for something new. My family was great, and when I ate with them I enjoyed the food, but whenever we would eat as a group, it would be the same meal. Always. There were a lot of awkward activities that we did, but not all of the experience was negative. Some of the locals spoke English, and we got to find out a lot about the surrounding areas, and we heard about the huge tsunami that hit there four years ago. It was kind of funny, I got my host family a stuffed ship modeled after the MV Explorer, the ship we’re sailing on, and when I gave it to my dad, he smiled and pretended there was a tsunami and that our ship crashed. It was a little discomforting, but still pretty funny.

After the homestay we got a small group together and headed for Kuala Lumpur. There were only five of us: Grant, Melissa, Hope, Qi, and me. I don’t think I’ve mentioned him before, but Qi is amazing. He’s a student from China, his English is pretty good, and he won the Mr. Semester at Sea competition. It was really useful having him around too, because a lot of the people in Malaysia speak Chinese infinitely better than English, so he would be the guy to help us out with cab drivers and such. It was a small group, but most of the time that’s the best way to travel.

We got to Kuala Lumpur by way of bus, which took about 6 or 7 hours from Penang. The bus system in Malaysia is also the bane of my existence. There is no system or method or anything that guides you. Well, there are numbered areas that the bus is supposed to be at, but the buses themselves aren’t labeled with where they are going, and there are a TON of buses at the station. Also, there are about 20 or so different bus companies that operate out of the station, and no all-inclusive help desk that will tell you the schedule of each bus, availability, or anything like that. Our first bus was about 30 minutes late, and for the entire 30 minutes we thought that we had missed our bus. Let’s just say that the buses in Malaysia are stressful.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at around 10:30 at night, with no reservation and no particular place to go. We managed to find a place that might very well top Hotel Perfect in luxury accommodations. I suppose it’s in a different category though, because it was a hostel, not a hotel. There were five of us, and we convinced them to let us have a four person bunk-bed dormitory room for two nights. It was a little cramped, but for $4 a night, who’s complaining? We were just relieved to have a place to stay.

Kuala Lumpur is one of the coolest cities ever. At night, there are so many lights around the city, and the famous landmarks, the KL Tower and Patronus Towers are incredible. Especially the Patronus Towers. Yes Harry Potter fans, they are called the Patronus Towers, and you should expecto a lot from them. They are highly reflective towers that are blasted with huge spotlights at night so that they shine like nothing else I’ve ever seen. And just on a side note, I found out about the last Harry Potter book being divided into two movies, and I’m very excited about it. Yes, I may be on the other side of the world, but I still get some news.

On out full day at KL, we spent most of our time in a shopping mall called Times Square. I know it sounds lame to spend most of your time in a foreign country in a shopping mall, but you have to see this thing. I think it was around 15 stories, and there were a billion shops. There was a theme park on floor 5 with an indoor roller coaster. Admission was about $10 USD, so we went to that for a few hours. This mall was just unreal. And to think that it was in Malaysia just baffled me. They had a Dairy Queen there, and for old times’ sake I had to order a Blizzard. Mango cheesecake. It was interesting to try mango in a blizzard, because they don’t have that back in the states (or maybe they do now, and I’ve just been gone for too long), but the “cheesecake” just seemed like graham cracker pieces.

I was really surprised at how developed a lot of Malaysia was. They are trying to become a first world country by 2020 (I think), and more power to them. This blog is way too long, and I hope you all are doing well. Take care, I’m off to Vietnam!

Why couldn’t the bicycle stand up by itself?
Because it was two tired.

Ok, quick update.
I'm in a random hotel in India. The highly acclaimed one-star accomodation Hotel Perfect. And believe me, it lives up to it's name. They have super-high speed internet (not really), but it's only 20 rupees for a half hour, which is about fifty cents, so it's worth it. I'm off to see the Taj Mahal tomorrow at 4 in the morning. Yay.

Last week was the Sea olympics on the ship! This is where all the floors compete in different events to see who is the best floor ever. We should have won, but we were cheated out of our pie eating contest victory. So we got fourth place. I competed in the synchronized swimming and lip synching events, both of which I helped choreograph. We won by a long shot in the sync swim with our Disney montage and got a standing ovation from the judges, and for lip sync we got second. Not bad considering there are ten Seas competing in each event.

Ok, I'll try to get online sometime later if I have time, but there are a total of 9 of us trying to use one computer. Thanks for reading!

More-itius

Mauritius has exceeded my expectations by a million times.

To be honest, I didn’t really care about this port when I first heard about it. Mauritius. Some random island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Whoopdie Doo. On our itinerary of amazing, culturally deep countries, it seemed kind of… random. Why in the world would we go here? Because we need to stop someplace before India? We have to add another port to our itinerary for some reason? I heard that Semester at Sea just chose Mauritius because they couldn’t go to Kenya anymore, and that they were going to take it off the itinerary next year because nobody took this country seriously. All the students did was rent villas, get drunk on the beach, and call it Spring Break. In short, I wasn’t expecting to have a good time.

Well, a lot of students did rent villas, a lot of students did get drunk on the beach, and a lot of students did call it Spring Break. I don’t mean to be judgmental or pretentious or anything, but honestly? HONESTLY? If you’re going to travel around the world visiting different countries, you should at least have the decency to be sober enough to REMEMBER the country once you leave. And I’m not only talking about Mauritius. Sorry, I get a little angry at some people who just reinforce the stereotype of the ignorant, drunk American that so many countries have. Ok, I’m done complaining.

So the first day of Mauritius I went on a SAS trip called Adventure Park and Beach. I knew it involved ziplines of some sort, but I wasn’t expecting a whole lot. We had to drive a fair distance to the top of some mountains which had an AMAZING view of the country below, and the countryside was gorgeous. I think the reason that the ziplines were so fun was because we didn’t really have a guide. There was some guy in the beginning who showed us how to attach the carabineer to the wire, and then he kind of disappeared until the end. The bridges were rickety and old, and the obstacle course was legitimately tough. Tons of fun. Then we went to a nearby beach to see the drunk Semester at Sea kids who chose to get villas and stay at the beach all day. Fun. (There was one word in the last sentence that had sarcasm in it.) The second day we went on a catamaran to go snorkeling and view Mauritius from the ocean. The snorkeling was ok, but I got a real bad sunburn. I applied sunscreen three times. It didn’t matter.

This is how Mauritius hits me: The landscape and countryside remind me of Hawaii. There are tall, green mountains that I can only describe as island-mountains, and fields of sugar cane and some pineapple. The people and most of the buildings remind me of the Caribbean. There is a definite “island” feel with a similar degree of poverty among the local houses, but there is a good degree of tourism to contrast it too. Lastly, there is a hugely apparent splash of Indian culture. Dot, not feather. There’s a lot of curry in the food, and you can see a lot of Hindu temples on the side of the road when you are driving somewhere. This has largely to do with Mauritius being 52% Hindu. This leads to the best day I’ve had in Mauritius: today.

We are here at Mauritius during one of the biggest Hindu pilgrimages in the world. I think it’s the second largest Hindu pilgrimage outside of India, but don’t quote me on that. My friend Jeanette wanted to go also, so we got in a taxi and tried to make it there. We had heard before that people from Semester at Sea had tried to go there, and some had made it, but others couldn’t get close because the roads were blocked by the mass amounts of people on their pilgrimage. They get about 100,000 people a day, and it lasts for 5 days. Considering Mauritius has a population of 1.2 million people, that’s quite a crowd. It ALSO means that not all of the 52% of the Hindu population are doing a pilgrimage there. Hmm…

Somehow we made it there, and it could very well have been the greatest day I’ve had so far. From a distance you could see a 108 foot tall statue of Shiva jutting up from the forest, kind of like when you’re driving to Disneyland and you first see the Matterhorn or the Hollywood Tower of Terror. It was not touristy at all, so Jeanette and I stuck out like a sore body part. Usually people would choose thumb, but you can go with whatever you like. Perhaps a toe, or a kidney. There were thousands of people there, all around the huge lake that had pedestals around the edge for worship and offerings. There were so many temples stuck everywhere, and everyone was so nice. Food was free, which surprised me a whole lot. I can’t even begin to describe the experience there. I wish I could upload pictures, but the internet here isn’t good enough for pictures. Everybody there was so dedicated to what they believed in, and they were not hostile towards us for being different. I can’t even describe it. All I can say is wow. Wow.

Maybe I’ll finally have pictures up in India, if the internet is good there. Who knows?

Disclaimer: Not everyone who got a villa got wasted every night. Only most.

Did you hear about the cannibal who came late to the luncheon? Everyone gave him the cold shoulder.

Sorry about the wait...

It’s been quite a long time since my last update.

I’ve had some troubles with the internet, which is why I never posted on the ship, and once we got to South Africa I had NO free time to go on the internet. But let’s start from where we left off…

On my last day at Salvador we were able to find a hole-in-the-wall Capoiera school which was 15 Reai, which is about 10 US I think. I forget the exchange rate, which is kind of sad… Well it was quite an experience. For those of you who don’t know, Capoiera is the South American martial art developed by the slaves who had to disguise it as dancing so the “masters” wouldn’t know they were practicing fighting. In short, it’s break-dancing fighting. This is kind of a shame, considering I can’t even do a cartwheel. So I was embarrassed for a good deal of the lesson, but it was still an amazing experience. The people who owned the school didn’t speak any English, which in a weird way made the experience all the more enjoyable. Thus Brazil ended, and thanks to Capoeira, I was sore for half of our trip across the Atlantic.

I’m going to get right to the point. I’m bald. Or, that is to say, somebody shaved my head. I told a few of you that I’d do it when I crossed the Equator, and not many of you believed me. I look… interesting. I’ll post some pictures once we get to Mauritius, because the bandwidth on the ship is not up to par. Neptune Day started with some of King Neptune’s royal subjects marching down the hallway banging drums at 5 in the glorious morning. We then stumbled out of bed to the seventh deck, where we had fish guts poured on us, jumped in the pool, kissed a fish, and had to kiss King Neptune’s ring. It was something else. Then the head shaving commenced. A lot of the girls went first, because it was more dramatic for them. It was weird, because it was mandatory that everybody shave their head. A lot of the girls objected, but you can’t do too much when you’re in the middle of the Atlantic, and brute force always has a way of convincing people. It took a while for all the girls to get their head shaved because they have such long hair, and there’s so many of them. A few hours later it was my turn, and I said goodbye to my beautiful hair.

Now I know some of you are thinking, “Thomas, you had such beautiful, wavy, curly, attractive brown hair, it should be a crime for you to have it shaved off.” Well, yes, it actually is a crime. The penalty is 25-life. But we’re in international waters, so I can get away with anything. Except not studying on tests, which I don’t want to talk about. And by the way, that whole thing about brute force and hair cutting being mandatory is not true at all. I was just messing with you.

I just want to take a minute of your time to tell you how much I hate time changes, and how they slowly pierce my heart and eat away at my soul. And they make me tired, but mostly I just hate them because they pierce my heart and eat away at my soul.

So we finally made it to South Africa! This is the most opportune time to get sick, so of course my body did. I started developing a cough, but that didn’t stop me from waking up at 5 in the morning to watch us come into Cape Town. I shouldn’t have gotten up though. That was a mistake. I thought for some reason that the sunrise was at the same time, so it would be gorgeous, but the sunrise wasn’t for another hour, so you could barely see anything. I hastily went back to bed.

Cape Town is truly one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s right on the ocean, with Table Mountain overlooking the entire city. Every evening, clouds come to cover Table Mountain with what is appropriately named the Table Cloth. The clouds move so fast, it’s almost unreal. There’s a local legend of a Dutch pirate who came to Cape Town and made some kind of a bet with the devil to see who could smoke more, which is the explanation for the clouds everyday. It’s kind of a weird legend, and I don’t remember the specifics, but… yeah. I went to Robben Island on the first day, which was pretty emotional. Robben Island is the Alkatraz-esque island where political prisoners used to be held and tortured. Nelson Mandela spent a good deal of time here. It was extra emotional because every guide that works there is a former prisoner, and you get to hear a bit about their story. I have never been on a tour where everyone is so silent before.

The next morning was my safari! I had to get up at 2:45 in the morning to catch the plane. I went to the airport, and realized that I had a fever, and it couldn’t be cured by more cow bell. I stuck it out, figured that I paid to see animals, so I was going to see animals. After a two hour flight and a six hour bus ride, somehow I miraculously felt better, and continued my safari. The sleeping was in-tents, the animals were wild, and the food was delish. We went to Kruger, and the scenery was beautiful. We saw an abundance of animals, and I’ll tell you more about it once I can post pictures.

After the safari I went up to Stellenbasch, the wine country, with my friends Grant, Phil, and Christina, and our newfound friend/taxidriver Uncle Mayor. We went to some tastings, but I wasn’t really a big fan. I’m not wine-ing, I had a great time and am glad I went, but I suppose my taste buds aren’t “mature” enough. There was one kind of champagne that was actually pretty good though. Le Domaine. I have no idea what it is, but that was it’s name. On the way to the wine country we drove by numerous townships, which are the incredibly poor neighborhoods in South Africa. I really wish I would have gone to one of them, because the poverty there is indescribable. I honestly can’t even begin to write about it.

On the last day at Cape Town, we went shark diving. Actually, everybody else went shark diving, and I just paid full price to get sick and watch people have fun. That sums it up for the most part. I was sick within the hour of getting on the boat, and I sat in the same spot for about 5 hours while everyone else went down to dive with the sharks. That basically sums it up. I’m not bitter, just a little sour because it wasn’t sweet. I feel like I should have put spicy in that sentence, but I’m too tired of writing.

I’m back on the MV Explorer and heading for Mauritius. I know you’ve heard this before, but I’ll try SUPER hard to update on a regular basis and add pictures when I can.

Lastly, I just want to give a shout out to Chandler and Mallory for sending me MAIL. Wow, what a NICE thing to do for a FRIEND that is halfway around the WORLD. MAIL must make him feel very SPECIAL and HAPPY to have such GOOD friends. I know that he LOVES you for sending MAIL to him, especially since he’s going through a PROBLEM right now where he has to CAPITALIZE random words in his SENTENCES. It’s a TOUGH life, but THANK you two for making him feel SPECIAL.

May that be a hint to all of you. Take care!

Brazil!

Here’s some very simple math for you.

Iguassu Falls = One of the Most Beautiful Places in the World

Wow. I mean, wow. There are SO many waterfalls that are just plain huge and amazing and everything is just surreal, from the smaller tributary falls to La Garganta del Diablo. I took about a million pictures too. And for those of you who are saying “Thomas, that’s ridiculous, you can’t take a million pictures,” well, I did. With 856 high resolution 8 mega pixel pictures on one 2 gig memory card, I filled up 1,170 memory cards. Which, for those of you keeping track, would be about 56 pictures a second for 5 hours of being there. It’s pretty impressive, I know, but I’m a pretty impressive guy. But in all honesty, these falls have some of the most beautiful sights you will ever see. I haven’t even started looking through my pictures yet, because I’m afraid that pictures won’t do them justice. We got to go to Argentina today too, and see the other side of the falls. Of course, it was beautiful. Another stamp in my passport.

Well, we arrived in Brazil a few days ago for the last night of Carnavale! They were telling us tons of horror stories from Brazil, so a lot of people, including me, were a little afraid to go to the largest party in the world. It really is the largest party in the world, as I believe there are 2-3 million people in the streets partying for a week straight (or something ridiculous like that. The teachers were telling us stories about how people have their cameras ripped from there hands, jewelry torn from there body, and a teacher and student from a local institution were killed a year ago. There was one story about a man who went to the bank to withdraw money from the ATM, and upon leaving the bank, he was kidnapped by some locals. They kept him for about 3 weeks, and every day they took him to the bank to withdraw the maximum amount you can, which is $300, until his bank account was completely drained. Once it was drained, they just dropped him off somewhere in the city and said goodbye. Needless to say, once I got to Brazil, I didn’t have my camera on me for any part of Carnavale, which is a shame, because I could have gotten some great pictures, but it’s really better to be safe than sorry. Carnavale ended up to be pretty fun, and nothing bad really happened to us. Grant and I bought some pretty amazing Capoeira pants, which are the pants they wear for the Brazilian martial art, Capoeira. Grant bought plain white ones, and mine are bright yellow with green, red, and black stripes on the side. They are amazing. We didn’t stay out very late though, because our Iguassu trip started at 4:45 the next morning. Not something to look forward to, but Iguassu ended up being amazing.

The travel time it took to get here was around 12 hours, which is a pain, but travel is something you just have to get used to. The hotel is pretty nice, and I’m sitting in it right now (I brought my computer with me because I figured I’d be able to get free wifi, which is needless to say a rarity). The dinner we had the first night here was another of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me in my life. All you can eat buffet. Those words are music to my ears, especially when the food is top notch. It was a traditional Brazilian style cuisine with some Italian and Japanese dishes. Kind of an odd combination, but any food combination is a winner in my book. And the dessert was to die for. I had to try all of them, which ended up being around 10-15 things, and I must say that the best dessert was the passion fruit mousse, with the flan in a close second. The Brazilians really know how to do fruit. I mean, they know how to do fruit. The fruits that grow here are amazing, and there are so many that we have never heard of in the U.S. I’m trying to taste all the new foods I can, and so far my stomach is still untouchable. Brazilian food is by no means a disappointment.

We went to a giant aviary after the falls today too, which I wasn’t looking forward to, but ended up being a ton of fun. It was interesting, because you walk inside a giant cage and all the birds are flying and walking around you. You can get pretty close to a lot of those guys, and some of them look pretty scary. We leave Iguassu tomorrow :,-( and Grant and I are going to try and catch a Capoiera class the day before we leave. As far as everything else, the ship is doing fine. There are a number of smaller kids on the ship (and that number is four) who are ten and younger. I’m giving two of them, Bridget and Eric, piano lessons. It’s kind of hard because our resources are limited, but we’ll see what we can do. It’s getting late and this entry is way too long. I’ll try to post some pictures of the falls and I’ll try to post something before I get to Africa. Neptune Day is on the 14th…