I'm alive! Just barely.
Here she is! Not super detailed but it'll do. Feel free to fix spelling or grammar....I didn't really read through it again.
I’m alive! Just barely.
Hawaii:
Hawaii was actually just a fueling port for the ship, but if we signed up for a field program, then we got to go explore for a bit. I signed up for the submarine and beach program. At about noon we took a bus to some other water and got on a different boat. The new boat took us to a submarine. I guess I never really thought about how you would board a submarine. It emerged out of the water and pulled up next to the boat. We went down the steps and then got in the sub from the top. We then went 150 feet down into the ocean full of all kinds of fish, coral, ships, planes, seaweed farming, and 3 sea turtles. The sea turtles definitely made my day. We were submerged for about 45 minutes before coming back to the top. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting smoothie bowls and sitting out on the beach relaxing. It was almost hard to walk around on land after having a week on the ship, but I survived Hawaii. We went back to the ship, but I caught another bus going to Walmart to pick up anything that you forgot at home. And, no I didn’t have any other option, if it was my choice, we would have gone to Target. 11:00pm came around and we headed out another 10 days on the Pacific.
One night we had an organization fair where we could sign up for different clubs that are aboard the ship. I’m now part of the SAS current events club, global business network, interport student organization, Tae Kwan Do, and Improv club. I’ve been to one Tae Kwan Do session but the others have been cancelled due to rough seas and weather. The Improv club has met once and it was fantastic! I’ve never been to an Improv meeting before and I have no idea why. It was hilarious. Just imagine Who’s Line Is It Anyway? but with a bunch of college students and different scenarios. Highly recommended.
As mentioned above, the seas have gotten quite a bit rougher.
1/18/17
I just got back back from the Lost Day Dance. We’ve had a lot of homework and classes and we lost the day of January 16th so naturally we had a dance party. I have to say, I was sort of reluctant and tired at first, but Amanda said we should go so we did…and I’m glad we did. Even though we were a group of 200 college students, we had a drink limit of 2 and most people didn’t even get that. I guess the best word to describe the dance is: real. We danced when we wanted and danced when we didn’t want to(that was due to the rocking of the ship). We had a night off from homework and planning trips. I know planning trips doesn’t sound like much work, but have you ever tried to plan a trip when you didn’t have any internet and pretty limited resources? It’s work. And I know we are on a ship doing homework, but the courses are condensed to half of what they would be at home. So when we just spent 10 straight days having class, readings, and papers; a dance felt pretty great. We also have “a day off” tomorrow, even though it’ll be spent studying. All of this is 110% worth it. I absolutely love it. Sometimes I can’t believe that I’ve only known these people for less than two weeks. And once we start going to some countries, it’ll be even better. T-5 days until Japan!
Rough days at sea…just think of it as an earthquake in a building that doesn’t collapse.
1/28/17
I have a question...why is the US not caught up to Japanese technology? Just going into a bathroom is a cultural experience. I have the pictures but it's always different. Most toilet seats are heated and there's a speaker that plays water next to your ear. It's glorious
Sooo my time in Japan....the first day was spent at Universal Japan. Honestly, I had a lot of fun and felt like I was a kid again. Roller coasters, Charlie Brown, and churros served all around. Emma, Ashlee, Sierra, and I relived our younger years and ended the night with some top notch revolving sushi. Literally it's on a conveyer belt and you just grab the plates you want and then pay for it at the end. I was happy and full with the total bill being less than $9 for the best sushi I've ever had. We took only a couple wrong trains to get us back to the ship for the night. The next morning was my macroeconomics field class. We took our suit dressed selves to tour the Bank of Japan and the Osaka security exchange, meet with a guy from the US consulate, and had a wonderful traditional Japanese lunch. The third day was a field program that I had signed up for. A group of about 30 of us took a 3 hour bus ride up a mountain to a Buddhist temple town. It was probably one of my favorite experiences in my entire life. We went inside a couple temples, ate traditional meals with the monks, and ended the night with a meditation session. For the meditation session, we learned how to properly sit, with the right foot and right hand over the left. The right hand is the "Buddhist hand" while the left hand is the human hand. By putting the right above the left, you are purifying the bad desires in the human mind that we all have. I'm working on a project that led me to speaking with some of the monks and learned some interesting things. One of the monks came from law school. We slept in simplistic rooms on the floor with a space heater. In the morning we woke up early to attend a prayer service and a fire ceremony. They chanted sutra during both of them, but the meaning of each was different. The prayer service was something that they did every day. We all sat around the monks in the main temple while they chanted sutra, and we each made a wish/prayer and sprinkled incense onto a burning stone. After the prayer service, we went to the fire ceremony. The fire ceremony usually only happens once a month on the 28th. If you were born on the 28th of any month, then you always have a strong spirit protecting you. The fire is used to purify. We had breakfast and headed to the cemetery. It's hard to call it a cemetery though because it was so beautiful and incredible to see. There is a monk there who rests in eternal meditation. There are monks that serve him breakfast twice every morning. We got to witness it once as they purified the food and then carried it to the big mausoleum where the monk resides. The walls inside the room where he meditates are covered with 15,000 miniature exact-same statues of Buddha. The ceilings are full of just as many lanterns. It was just incredible. We finished our trip with another traditional meal and headed back to Kobe. I changed, repacked, and went to Osaka to meet up with friends. We ate some good food, found a couple cool bars, and stayed in a hostel. The last day was spent exploring around Osaka, eating crepes, seeing the Osaka castle, and buying some Japanese snacks. We made it back on the ship! First port down...going crazy fast. Hope everyone is well at home ❤
I’m alive! Just barely.
Hawaii:
Hawaii was actually just a fueling port for the ship, but if we signed up for a field program, then we got to go explore for a bit. I signed up for the submarine and beach program. At about noon we took a bus to some other water and got on a different boat. The new boat took us to a submarine. I guess I never really thought about how you would board a submarine. It emerged out of the water and pulled up next to the boat. We went down the steps and then got in the sub from the top. We then went 150 feet down into the ocean full of all kinds of fish, coral, ships, planes, seaweed farming, and 3 sea turtles. The sea turtles definitely made my day. We were submerged for about 45 minutes before coming back to the top. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting smoothie bowls and sitting out on the beach relaxing. It was almost hard to walk around on land after having a week on the ship, but I survived Hawaii. We went back to the ship, but I caught another bus going to Walmart to pick up anything that you forgot at home. And, no I didn’t have any other option, if it was my choice, we would have gone to Target. 11:00pm came around and we headed out another 10 days on the Pacific.
One night we had an organization fair where we could sign up for different clubs that are aboard the ship. I’m now part of the SAS current events club, global business network, interport student organization, Tae Kwan Do, and Improv club. I’ve been to one Tae Kwan Do session but the others have been cancelled due to rough seas and weather. The Improv club has met once and it was fantastic! I’ve never been to an Improv meeting before and I have no idea why. It was hilarious. Just imagine Who’s Line Is It Anyway? but with a bunch of college students and different scenarios. Highly recommended.
As mentioned above, the seas have gotten quite a bit rougher.
1/18/17
I just got back back from the Lost Day Dance. We’ve had a lot of homework and classes and we lost the day of January 16th so naturally we had a dance party. I have to say, I was sort of reluctant and tired at first, but Amanda said we should go so we did…and I’m glad we did. Even though we were a group of 200 college students, we had a drink limit of 2 and most people didn’t even get that. I guess the best word to describe the dance is: real. We danced when we wanted and danced when we didn’t want to(that was due to the rocking of the ship). We had a night off from homework and planning trips. I know planning trips doesn’t sound like much work, but have you ever tried to plan a trip when you didn’t have any internet and pretty limited resources? It’s work. And I know we are on a ship doing homework, but the courses are condensed to half of what they would be at home. So when we just spent 10 straight days having class, readings, and papers; a dance felt pretty great. We also have “a day off” tomorrow, even though it’ll be spent studying. All of this is 110% worth it. I absolutely love it. Sometimes I can’t believe that I’ve only known these people for less than two weeks. And once we start going to some countries, it’ll be even better. T-5 days until Japan!
Rough days at sea…just think of it as an earthquake in a building that doesn’t collapse.
1/28/17
I have a question...why is the US not caught up to Japanese technology? Just going into a bathroom is a cultural experience. I have the pictures but it's always different. Most toilet seats are heated and there's a speaker that plays water next to your ear. It's glorious
Sooo my time in Japan....the first day was spent at Universal Japan. Honestly, I had a lot of fun and felt like I was a kid again. Roller coasters, Charlie Brown, and churros served all around. Emma, Ashlee, Sierra, and I relived our younger years and ended the night with some top notch revolving sushi. Literally it's on a conveyer belt and you just grab the plates you want and then pay for it at the end. I was happy and full with the total bill being less than $9 for the best sushi I've ever had. We took only a couple wrong trains to get us back to the ship for the night. The next morning was my macroeconomics field class. We took our suit dressed selves to tour the Bank of Japan and the Osaka security exchange, meet with a guy from the US consulate, and had a wonderful traditional Japanese lunch. The third day was a field program that I had signed up for. A group of about 30 of us took a 3 hour bus ride up a mountain to a Buddhist temple town. It was probably one of my favorite experiences in my entire life. We went inside a couple temples, ate traditional meals with the monks, and ended the night with a meditation session. For the meditation session, we learned how to properly sit, with the right foot and right hand over the left. The right hand is the "Buddhist hand" while the left hand is the human hand. By putting the right above the left, you are purifying the bad desires in the human mind that we all have. I'm working on a project that led me to speaking with some of the monks and learned some interesting things. One of the monks came from law school. We slept in simplistic rooms on the floor with a space heater. In the morning we woke up early to attend a prayer service and a fire ceremony. They chanted sutra during both of them, but the meaning of each was different. The prayer service was something that they did every day. We all sat around the monks in the main temple while they chanted sutra, and we each made a wish/prayer and sprinkled incense onto a burning stone. After the prayer service, we went to the fire ceremony. The fire ceremony usually only happens once a month on the 28th. If you were born on the 28th of any month, then you always have a strong spirit protecting you. The fire is used to purify. We had breakfast and headed to the cemetery. It's hard to call it a cemetery though because it was so beautiful and incredible to see. There is a monk there who rests in eternal meditation. There are monks that serve him breakfast twice every morning. We got to witness it once as they purified the food and then carried it to the big mausoleum where the monk resides. The walls inside the room where he meditates are covered with 15,000 miniature exact-same statues of Buddha. The ceilings are full of just as many lanterns. It was just incredible. We finished our trip with another traditional meal and headed back to Kobe. I changed, repacked, and went to Osaka to meet up with friends. We ate some good food, found a couple cool bars, and stayed in a hostel. The last day was spent exploring around Osaka, eating crepes, seeing the Osaka castle, and buying some Japanese snacks. We made it back on the ship! First port down...going crazy fast. Hope everyone is well at home ❤
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