April 12th (the first)

I’m currently 15 hours ahead of Pittsburgh time (crazy!) but apparently that’s the limit. Tonight, instead of losing another hour, we’ll actually gain another day! So I get the wonderful pleasure of living through April 12th two days in a row! I’m still a little confused as to how it all works, but all I know is that today is April 12, and I’m ahead of the east coast, and tomorrow will also be April 12, but I’ll be behind east coast time then. WEIRD!

In other news, Taiwan was short-lived, but pretty cool. We stayed in Taipei the 2 days we were there (we docked in a city called Keelung that has nothing going for it really).  A 45 minute train ride to Taipei only cost me a little over a dollar, so that’s pretty awesome.

I was looking forward to being on the ship for a long time to give myself a rest from all of the countries in Asia, but now I’m just bored and getting cabin fever. They have a bunch of activities for us to do to keep us occupied, but I just want to get to Hawaii and then get home. 5 more days at sea, 2 days in Hawaii, 5 more days at sea, San Diego for 3 days, and then I’m home!! So excited, but a little sad at the same time.

Shout out to Kelsey for your 21st birthday!! I know it’s not quite midnight at home yet, but I’m going for a record on how many times I can wish you Happy Birthday in the same day ☺

Vietnam, Cambodia, and China!

Asia was such a blur. Everything went by so fast! I’m used to having a week or so between each port, but since Singapore, we’ve only had 2 days to recover. Quick recap:

Vietnam and Cambodia were HOT, I got a dress made in Vietnam and learned how to cross the street (walk into oncoming traffic and the cars and motorcycles will move around you… pretty sweet concept, but scary!). Cambodia was amazing, but also horrifying. I learned in more detail how the Khmer Rouge government killed millions of Cambodians (a greater percentage than the Holocaust) just because these people were intellectuals and they didn’t want to be overthrown. Angkor Wat temple was beautiful though. So were all of the other temples (like the one that Tomb Raider was filmed in!) I got a fish massage (where little fish ate the dead skin off of my feet!) and probably the best massage of my life for only $10 an hour! The prices in both countries were incredible. I bought more stuff than I can even mention in here and spent under $150 total. Though they aren’t real designer brands, they still seem to be pretty good quality surprisingly, and as the locals joke about it, the things you can buy there are “same same but different”

China was beyond awesome! Hong Kong (where we stopped first) had a beautiful skyline, especially at night. We went up on an incline to a mountain to see everything from high up. It reminded me of Mt. Washington! (I miss home). The rugby sevens was going on when we got there, so we got to meet a lot of British and Irish people there to celebrate which was a lot of fun!

I flew to Beijing (my flight was awesome by the way—we even got to watch our takeoff from a camera on the front of the plane on the tv screens on our headrests!) to see the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Olympic stadium, and the Great Wall. One of my friends tht was in our group travelling with us fell on the wall and is in pretty bad shape, so please keep her in your prayers! She is slowly making progress though, so there are good signs. I got to hike on the Great Wall, which was literally a hike and very intense. It was so pretty though and indescribably huge—over 4,000 miles total!

Took a sleeper train to Shanghai, and the experience was a million percent better than my India sleeper train. There were only 4 beds per compartment and there was actually a door that even had a lock! The floors were clean and, though I didn’t, I would have felt comfortable walking around barefoot. There were REAL toilets with toilet paper (not the squatter toilets that we were used to that are literally porcelain holes in the ground).

Shanghai’s skyline was even prettier than Hong Kong’s! I went up into this tower (that reminded me of the CN Tower in Toronto) that had a glass floor that was pretty sweet. I met a lot of fun people in Shanghai too; there were a lot of people from England and America that were working in Shanghai. I think it would be a great place to live (too bad I don’t understand Chinese).

Right now, we’re actually docked in Japanese waters because we’re not able to travel straight from China to Taiwan. I hope I’ll get another passport stamp. My passport is looking pretty impressive! We get to Taiwan tomorrow morning!

India and Singapore

My India experience in a nutshell:

The drivers are crazy. They don’t pay any attention to lanes… There might as well be 5 lanes instead of 3. The auto-rickshaws are tiny and you feel like they could break down any second. But I got to drive one for a minute or two (not by choice—my driver told me to drive, and when I politely declined he took his hands off the wheel... I learned fast). The rickshaws (bicycles pulling a 2 seater cart that can fit 4 Indians) are exactly that—rickety. I felt like I might fall out too many times for my liking.

The food wasn’t as bad as expected. I would even go as far to say that it was pleasant at times (though we did get Chinese food one day, and McDonalds another).

The smells were not too bad either. There was this one bridge that we had to cross every time we left and got back to our port that smelled like it might be above a sewage plant, but other than that, I smelled more incense and spices than anything bad.

I got to see the Taj Mahal, and it was absolutely breathtaking. And I went on a boat on the Ganges River and saw cremation ceremonies and people bathing in the river that they consider to be holy and sin cleansing. I even dipped my hand in the water and trickled some onto my head—not the full effect, but I wasn’t trying to get some disease. They throw all of the cremated bodies’ ashes into the river. And some bodies (children under 12, pregnant women, and people that died of a snakebite) that don’t get cremated get thrown in whole…

Shopping was intense. I got so much for so little! There are about 45 rupees to a dollar, so it was great for us.


The day after we left India was called Neptune day.  There are these three steps to transform us from “pollywogs” into “shellbacks” which were a little ridiculous and I didn’t participate in them, but everything was a lot of fun to watch. Step 1: get doused in “fish guts” (slimy goo) and jump into the pool. Step 2: kiss a fish (it was a dead fish). Step 3: Option to shave your head. We also didn’t have class this day, so I quite enjoyed it.


Singapore was a complete 180 from India. It was clean and civilized and so modern. You will get fined if you spit, chew gum, jay walk, litter, and don’t flush the toilet. But my roommates and I spent our day shopping and eating and eating some more and then we went to a karaoke bar, which was hilarious!


With everything that’s been happening in Japan, we changed our itinerary. We’re now going to Taiwan… So if anyone knows of anything fun to do there, PLEASE let me know. I’m sure whatever we do will be fun there, so I’m trying not to be a Debbie Downer like a lot of people on the ship are. They think it’s going to be too similar to China, but whatever.  I do feel bad for the 20 something Chinese students on the ship that are going to have a hell of a time trying to get into Taiwan.


Ok, that’s all for now; we’re about to dock in Vietnam now! So I’m off to do some more shopping!! (Just wanted to give Susie something to read in class :P)

Almost India

Yesterday was the halfway point of the trip. I’m sad and surprised that it’s already gone this fast. It literally feels like we just left Ghana and that was a month ago. But we get to India tomorrow, and to say I’m excited is the understatement of the year. I did manage to bring 3 overstuffed suitcases full of clothing inappropriate for India though. The only things I have that are acceptable are sweatpants and tee shirts. It’s a good thing that my flight to Delhi doesn’t leave until 7:45 pm the first day, so I’ll hopefully have some time to go shopping and buy a sari or two… or at least some linen pants.

After Delhi, I’m going to Varanasi, and Agra (where the Taj Mahal is). I really wanted to go in the Ganges River in Varanasi (Hindus believe that the water will cleanse all of your sins away if you bathe in the river, and I thought it would be a cool experience) but then I was told that not only are people’s ashes thrown into the river, but also some dead bodies. Apparently there are so many people that want their ashes thrown into the river after their death, that they don’t have time to burn everyone’s body completely. So they will cremate half of a body and just dump the remains into the river. I think I’ll just stick to watching everyone else cleanse their sins.

I went to a lecture on Indian culture last night and learned some important facts. You can’t use your left hand… EVER. Don’t wear leather (not that I even brought any on this trip) and always step into a room with your right foot first. I also learned (confirmed my belief) that I will not like Indian food. All of the inter-port students (students that live in India that met us on the ship in Mauritius to tell everyone things that we couldn’t find in guide books) said that pretty much everything is spicy. I like hot food, but not curry. It’s going to be a lot of naan for me in the next week! I’ve been stocking up on mini boxes of cereal from breakfast too though, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.
On another note, I’m finally getting wireless internet in my room! For a while, it seemed like literally everyone but our part of the ship was getting wifi, but we finally have it, so I’m writing this while lying on my bed!

Ummmm… some other random things from the past week or so:

We stopped at Diego Garcia a few days ago to drop off 2 students that needed to be flown to Singapore to get medical treatment. It’s a British military base in the Indian Ocean that is fairly top secret. We were instructed by the captain not to take pictures under any circumstances (though I know some people definitely did). But I’m told that you can google the island and get info on it (I wouldn’t know since we don’t have internet though).

I let my friend Chance give me a haircut. I decided it wasn’t worth it to pay $40 for just a trim. I was a little nervous, but he did a really good job.

I’m fasting for 24 hours. A group of students on the ship is doing it to promote knowledge about starvation in India. The poorest 5 states in India have more starvation than the poorest 26 countries in Africa. And these people are all living on less than $1.25 a day. I’ve been sans food since 6:30 pm last night, and it’s only 2 pm here (we’re 10 and a half hours ahead of Pittsburgh now) but so far, so good.

fun fact

My roommate, Lauren, just showed me this quote and I had to share.

"Mauritius was made first, and then Heaven, and that Heaven was copied after Mauritius."--Mark Twain


Oh, and you should look at this: http://laurensas2011.blogspot.com. It's Lauren's blog, and it's 5829075x better than mine. If you want a better idea of what Mauritius is like you should read her last post :)

Mauritius

For those of you that don't know, because I definitely had no idea before I looked it up on a map, Mauritius is a teeny tiny island right by Madagascar on the eastern side of Africa. It is a little paradise there. It's french speaking, but unfortunately since we were only there for a day, I didn't have any time to practice my high-school french on the locals. A huge group of my friends (there were 30 of us total) rented a catamaran for the afternoon and just sailed around the island. There was plenty to drink on the boat, so of course it was a good time. We got to go snorkeling (though we didn't see much) and swam to a beach when we were anchored.
I got a few bruises yesterday that rival some of Mary's worst ones. Though now they're really painful. It was my friend Emma's birthday, and since both of her parents are teachers on the ship, they ordered tacos to their room for all of her friends. (Tacos are a rare treat on the ship, because we're used to only getting pasta, potatoes, and rolls.) Since tacos were at 7:30 and I got back to the ship by 6, I decided I'd take a little nap beforehand. Too bad all of my roommates also took a nap and we all slept through our alarms and the multiple phone calls we got to wake us up. But after missing tacos, we had some roommate bonding time, which was precious.
India is in 6 days!!! So excited :)

South Africa

South Africa is the rape capital of the world (scary). There is a lot of theft there, and a lot of crime. But luckily nothing happened to me or any of my friends while we were there! I thought it was quite nice.
People never honk their horn at you. Multiple times cars snuck up behind me and almost hit me because I didn’t even hear them coming up. This was actually a nice reprieve from Ghana where we heard horns honking 20 times a minute.
The only thing I hate about Cape Town is the damn wind. It messed up our plans so many times while we were here! We were supposed to dock on Thursday, but because of the “strong winds,” they told us that it wasn’t safe. We had to sail around the harbor for a full day and a half just waiting for the winds to die down. Finally at 10 am on Friday, we were able to dock and made it past customs and immigration by noon. But we still wasted a day and a half. Then a group of friends and I tried to go skydiving on Saturday, but had to postpone it until Tuesday because the winds would mess up our landing. Later that day on Saturday after our failed attempt at skydiving, we tried to go on this speedboat, but they wouldn’t sail because of the winds again. It was annoying, but I ended up doing everything that I wanted to, so I guess it worked out.
We took a cable car up to the top of Table Mountain instead of hiking. Since we lost that day and a half, Greg and I wanted to try to fit in as much as we could and didn’t mind skipping the two and a half hour hike. It’s called Table Mountain because the top is flat like a table. It always has this huge cloud at the top, and when it’s really thick (thick enough that it’s not safe for people to go hiking up there because they will get lost) they call it the tablecloth. Sometimes when there’s a really strong wind, they also don’t let people climb the mountain because people will literally get blown off of the mountain. One of our tour guides was telling us how there are at least 10 deaths a year on the mountain from either people getting lost or falling off during strong wind. The view from the top of the mountain was unbelievably beautiful though.
I have a new favorite candy. It’s called Kinder Joy, and for some reason they don’t make it in the US. It’s this egg that has a toy in one half, and in the other half there are these two chocolate truffle type things sitting in this hazelnut cream stuff. You eat it with a spoon. Oh, and this was the first country that it was safe to drink the water and eat the food! So that was exciting. We probably won’t be able to drink the water again until we get to Japan.
I went shark cage diving! We had to wake up at 5am to go, but it was worth it. We were just in these cages submerged in water and had on goggles to see under the water. The sharks came right up to the cage and one even head butted the cage and whipped its tail against it. The water was freezing though. Literally. It was 8 degrees Celsius. The wetsuits helped a little, but it was still super cold.
And I toured two wineries. South Africa is known for wine (I had no idea), so I got to learn the proper way to taste wine and got to see how it was pressed and filtered and stored and everything. I still don’t like red wine though, even though it’s apparently the only thing that real wine connoisseurs like. After our wine tour, we went to Robben Island. It’s basically like the Alcatraz of South Africa. In the olden days they used the island to keep lepers there because they thought that if all of them died, then the disease was cured. More recently, they kept all of the political opponents to Apartheid there, like Nelson Mandela. We got to see his cell where he was kept.
And to make a perfect end to our trip to South Africa, I JUMPED OUT OF A PLANE!!! It was beyond amazing, and I’m definitely going skydiving a lot more when I get home (maybe even again in Hawaii if I still have money by the time we get there!)