Japan was calm. Calm and polite. The hard part was remembering not to eat and walk at the same time because it's rude. I hope that didn't include ice cream because I really didn't want to stand outside the 7-11 and eat my ice cream unshielded in the cold. It's not really that cold, it was like 55ºF. All the girls where in big furry coats, big furry winter boots and tiny mini skirts. Fashion over saneness I guess.

The first day just consisted of walking around Kobe and looking for sushi. If I had one solid plan in Japan it was to eat as much sushi as I could handle! And I did:



Kobe had lots of shops, including a few sock stores. First time I'd ever seen a store just for socks. It also had a lot of the American stuff, McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, etc. The streets are full of vending machines. These aren't the kind you're used to, these are giant machines that can be filled with more than just drinks. I've heard it rumored that they can even contain socks. (What's with the Japanese and socks anyway?)




I did a home visit one day as well. The woman who picked us up was petite and thin. She took us to her home and fed us and fed us and fed us. It's a good thing the visit was only four hours. Her husband tended to some plum trees at a monestary or temple. So she had lots of plums to make us food with. I had a ton of plum juice and plum cake. Not to mention green tea and black tea and candies. All very delicious. After all the tea I had to excuse myself to use her bathroom and there I experienced the most fascinating thing. Her toilet seat was heated. I was so jealous. What I would give to have a heated toilet seat in the middle of winter in New England.

I also went to Kyoto. We happened to be there the one day out of the month that they have the big street market. I can't remember the name of it but it happens on the grounds of a Buddhist Temple. There were great things there, unfortunately everything was really expensive. I changed $100 into yen and that's all I had for spending for the whole 4 days in Japan. But being the skilled shopper I am, I managed to find the "drift store stand" and bought two used kimonos for about $8. I also found a few other good things and some good snacks. I love red bean anything! Red beans are sweet and so the Japanese make lots of snacks with them. Like fried dough stuffed with red bean paste and red bean ice-cream. I love the stuff.

Getting around was a mission. Nothing is in English and not that many people really spoke enough to communicate a complete thought. The best we could do sometimes was say the name of the city we needed to get too and have them point. I asked an elderly couple how to get to Juso, and by that I mean I just repeated the word "Juso" two or three times until they understood me. The man pointed up a flight of stairs and waved his hand a bit, I'm guessing he was trying to tell me to go upstairs and make a few turns. I thought I wouldn't make it and then the woman started arguing with him, looked at us, pointed to the train that just pulled in and said "JUSO, JUSO!".

They continued to argue, each urging me to go in different directions. I went with the woman's suggestion since I figured the train is here and I wasn't going to understand where the man wanted me to go anyway. So I thanked them and ran off. The woman was right.

The people are soooo polite, they line up to get into the train. Not like the States where you have to fight to get in or out. They also don't talk on the train, and if they do they whisper. It's amazing! AND… the trains are on time. I asked a man when the train would come, he took out his schedule and pointed to a set of numbers: a time schedule with seconds. No way a train could be on time to the second! Well it was, give or take 3 seconds. Unbelievable. I hear Swiss trains are just as timely.

When we got to Hong Kong we docked at a mall… seriously, you walk out of the ship and it leads you straight into a giant mall. And what was in this mall?... Ben and Jerry's, Sees Chocolate, California Pizza Kitchen, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Starbucks, Gap, and a fancy restaurant called Pizza Hut. Fancy as in this was the first time I ever saw Pizza Hut that looked like a 4 star restaurant and had more than just pizza on the menu. Hong Kong felt like New York City to me, except with a London personality and a plethora of Chinese people.
 
After picking up the latest edition of the "Walking Tour of Hong Kong" Brochure, we set off to find the Jade Market. (Have I mentioned that you can find jade in almost every country I've ever visited and you should never pay more than $5 for any of it?) At the jade market I fell in love with a deep red jade bracelet. The woman asked for $50 (USD) for something that should have cost $5 max. Again I found myself wishing I was at a Walmart with a fixed and decent price. I managed to get it for $13. I'm still bitter I overpaid but after searching the entire jade market and not finding another one like it I came to terms with it… of course I found myself hoping she'd accidentally drop the money on the street, ha ha ha. Anyway, putting my grown up face back on, I also found that pearls are super cheap in Hong Kong. I bought a fresh water string of pink pearls for $15 or so with a pair of earings… and I think they are actually real. One of the girls rubbed one on her teeth and said they felt real. (Apparantly if they are fake they are too slick and slide right off the surface of your tooth, but real ones grab a little.) You can also burn them… real pearls don't burn, I learned that in Mauritius. But I didn't want to risk ruining my necklace if it was fake. And that's pretty much all the shopping I did in Honk Kong. By now my bank account was more than dry. I have to say I spent a good amount of time in the Starbucks, with cheap Internet and American food. I tried the Chinese food a few times and really didn't like it.
 
I also visited the Space Museum and spent a good couple of hours in there. I'm a closet Science, Space, Quantum Mechanics Maniac. I'm all about the Science Channel and Brain Greene books. Anyway, it was a great museum. They had a couple simulations including a space walk and they had a movie theater. I watched a movie on Einstein and his quest for the Theory of Everything in a sky theater. The movie was projected on the ceiling in a circular room and parts of it were projected at all 360 degrees. I actually took a nap for the last half of the movie since I dooze off. I was so tired from walking around everywhere for so many days. We just walked and walked and walked through markets and streets and anything walkable.

There's a lot of cheap crap for sale at the night market on the street and everything in the stores is waaaayyyy too expensive to even look at. I almost laughed when I ran into the Indians. Yes, there are Indian men on every block trying to sell you things, but this time, they aren't carrying their special merchandise around in front of your face. These guys are dressed well, some even in suits, and they come up to you and very politely ask you if you'd like handbags and jewelry or some other fake design product. And these guys have sticking power too, they may follow you for half a block or so. Overall, individually they aren't as annoying as the sellers in India, but at this point I just want to hurt anyone who tries to talk to me! I found it funny that they just come up to you and I guess if I wanted something they would lead me to an alley? Or a trunk or something? I don't know, it's pretty sketchy. I kinda felt like Hong Kong was a big shopping stop for most people. There wasn't really all that much to do besides shopping, especially not for cheap.
 
I also went to the giant Buddha statue and a fishing village on Lantau Island. The giant Buddha was giant, end of story. The fishing village was interesting. These are people who are considered poor, they live in little tin shacks on stilts on the water. The government built a huge apartment complex to relocate the people to in like 1992, but no one has ever moved into it. The people refuse to move out of their shacks on the water which their families have lived in for generations. It was funny though because among all these tin shacks was a nicely built bank building. They had a bank and health services and really everything they needed, they just live in tin shacks. Over all it was good to see the flip end of Hong Kong. Not all of it is giant malls and fancy neon lights… they have a ghetto too.
 
 
From the ship


Double decker bus

The first day in Vietnam I went on a field trip to 500 different religious sites. OK, it was more like eight places but it felt like 500. We went to a Mosque, a Church, some Buddhist Temples, a Cao Dai Temple, and even the site of some Ancestor Worship. To be honest, by this point in the trip I've seen so many religious sites that I think if I see one more Pagoda I'm going to barf. Anyway, the church was interesting because it has a giant statue of the Virgin Mary outside and it has a formation in the rock that looks like a tear rolling down her right cheek. Supposedly it just appeared one day and since then the statue of the Crying Virgin has been a hot spot for pilgrimage and tourists. We also went to a few Buddhist temples, one of which had a "super far out" Buddha. And that's the best way I can describe him. He had neon lights, Black lights, incense, and all kinds of craziness. I felt like I had been warped into the 70's. It was definitely the coolest Buddha dudes I'd ever seen. The Cao Dai Temple was the most educational… see this religion is a mix of Christianity, Buddhism, and the Muslim faith. They try to take what they consider the most important aspects of each and melt them into one religion. I would tell you more but my tour guide didn't really know anything else and I couldn't find anyone who spoke English. It looks like their main symbol is the 3rd Eye of wisdom, and it can be found all over the temple. They also had a lot of dragons. I wish I could tell you more. Nonetheless I commemorate their efforts to bring unity.

One of the places I loved the most was the Nguyen Dihn Chieu School for the Blind. They are the only school for the blind in Vietnam it seems. The children come from all over, some of them are totally blind and others are visually impaired with low vision. The schooling is free but the parents have to send a certain amount of money for food. Some of the kids live there, the local ones can go home in the evenings. They teach them all the regular educational stuff like math and reading, but they also teach them how to work with their handicap. They learn to use brail and get around on their own. They teach them arts and crafts and musical instruments. They prepare them to be integrated into regular schools and then be successful in the world. We got to meet a lot of the kids and see how they made school books in brail with a brail machine that was donated. Some of the kids played music for us and sang. They played one Vietnamese musical instrument that had at least 30 strings on it. They were extremely talented. They also make beaded bracelets and other crafts to sell and raise money for the school. (Yay, guilt-free shopping).

My favorite part of Vietnam was the Mekong Delta. The Mekong River is huge and runs through Vietnam, Cambodia and some of the other countries in the area. There are islands in the middle large enough for villages. We got to ride canoes through the local villages and squeeze through the small waterways passing other canoes. The trip included a snack of some of their fruit and tea. They have one fruit called a Dragon fruit that is fire red on the outside and white with black pokadots on the inside. We also got to see were they make coconut candy. The women mix everything, cook it, cut it up into pieces and wrap it in rice paper which you can eat. Generally, the Mekong Delta is much calmer and relaxed than the city.

You can buy everything and anything in Ho Chi Ming City. Especially DVDs for a dollar… You can get the whole collection of Star Trek for a dollar a DVD… Not that I got them of course because those would be illegal to bring back home (cough, cough). I got a great teal teapot, some more jade bracelets (they are in every country) and a fancy looking robe with a big dragon on it. The lady said it was Vietnamese and Chinese silk… I'm not always sure I should believe what they say, but it feels like silk to me.

The city is covered in motorcycles. I guess they are more like mopeds. When you look down a street you see 200 motorcycles and 2 cars. There's almost as many motorcycles as people in the city. And one dollar gets you a motorcycle taxi ride anywhere in the city. And the special thing about Vietnam is when you want to cross the street… you just walk across in a straight line, at a constant speed and all the motorcycles swarm around you. It works everytime, even though I thought I was going to get killed each time.


sleeping in the mosque


The Koran


In a church


Pic of market from the bus


Out on the street


Motorcycles, motorcycles, motorcycles!


Decked out Buddha!


Inside the temple


At the blind school


At the Blind School, she was really curious!


At the Mekong Delta

The more I learn in Global Studies the more I realize how much I don't know about the world or my own country.

The Vietnam War, or as they call it, the American War, is still highly debatable. Pretty much I came to the conclusion that the US jumped into Vietnam's business to stop them from being communist… because we
care and want to spread democracy so that all the Vietnamese have a say in their government?

No, the US is not an angel. Looks to me like they wanted to stop communism in Vietnam to keep it from spreading in Asia because that would close off the free trade market or hinder it…

It's all about the money, it always is. But that's my opinion.  I went to the War Rembrandts Museum and I thought they did a pretty good job at trying to show the horridness of the war for both the Vietnamese and Americans. There were pictures of napalm victims and American soldiers "hanging out" and camp, and all kinds of things. A very broad coverage of the war. They even had a cell for display to show where the Vietcong kept there Vietnamese and American prisoners.

I guess I should give a brief overview of the war… in case you know as little about it as I did. (Maybe I should post my very detailed Global
Studies notes!)

I'll be brief.

The Vietnamese came under French rule in 1858. This is basically around the time when France, Britain, and any other European country with ships and guns tried to take over as many countries as they could. Basically the entire world nonwestern world came under some kind of rule by one or another European bully.

Anyway, they fought them off in like 1942 and then the Japanese came to conquer them. When Japan hit bottom at the end of World War II, the French came back. The Vietnamese kicked their buts big time in 1954. So according to Murphy, Franklin Roosevelt was going to let Vietnam be under their own rule, but when Truman stepped in he had other plans.

He wanted to build and maintain an independent noncommunist Vietnam…which meant instead of honoring the free election (which Ho Chi Mien would have won) the US decides to support a southern Vietnam power that was catholic and ravishly anti communist.  The problem was that the US was not fighting on familiar turf, and they were not only fighting the regular northern army, but also the
Viet Cong. These were the civilians who supported the North, they were farmers by day and fighters by night. The Viet Cong could have been the lonely farmer you saw out in the rice field or his 15 year old
daughter. The American soldiers couldn't tell who their enemies were, and in my opinion that is one of the main reasons they lost the war and why you hear so many stories of soldiers destroying villages.

Also there were the tunnels. The Chu Chi tunnels are an extensive underground network… the Vietnamese soldiers could live down there for months, they could come up and attack and disappear in seconds. The
tunnels were booby trapped and tiny. Many Americans got stuck in them and special American soldiers were sent to fight in the tunnels for weeks at a time. It's super intense.

Now of course, the tunnels are a tourist attraction, so I got to go in one. There are 3 levels of deepness, the lowest being the smallest tunnels that you have to crawl through on your belly. Some of the top level tunnels are dug out bigger now to fit the big tourists. I have to say I've never been closterphobic before but I was feeling it while I was in there. Maybe it was just from having all this war stuff in my head which freaks me out anyway, but either way while I was in there I just wanted out.

Anyway… The US lost the war and after a century of western control, Vietnam was finally free to govern itself. And they are doing pretty well if you ask me.

All politics and mass headache thoughts aside, lets talk about the beauty of Myanmar! My first day there I did a trip into a village. I loved it so much that I went back into villages on several occasions.

We rode in horse wagons and these things that are kind of like rickshaws. It's a bicycle with a seat for one person on the side. It was fun strolling through the dirt streets and watching the people smile and be very surprised to see the masses of white students. More than anything it really surprised people that we were American.

I have to say the people in this country are really beautiful. Just on my first day I saw several people who I thought could totally be models. As we walked down the street, scaring some of the children who'd never
seen such light skin, a man held out his crying 3 year old son to me and said "a gift for you". The kid who was already in tears started crying almost hysterically as his father held him out only a foot in
front of me.

He was kidding (thank goodness) and laughed as his frighten kid tried to hide from us in his father's arms. There were quite a few kids who seemed to be afraid of us while I was in the villages, mostly the young ones. I guess if I was a 4 year old Burmese kid who'd never seen blonde hair I would be scared too. We must have seemed like lepers to them.

I really loved being in the villages. There are women on the roads who cook food and you sit right there on the side of the road, buy it from her and eat. One woman had some weird stuff that we thought was
intestines. We couldn't really communicate enough to find out exactly what it was but none of us was brave enough to try it. The doctor on the ship mentions diarrhea every time she talks to us and does a good
job of scaring us enough that I don't think anyone eats anything off the street like that.

In the market they had all kinds of food out. Fruits, fish, and crickets. They eat crickets as a snack. Quite a few people tried them. I could eat a worm or something but not an animal that's going to
crunch in my mouth and leave its legs or antennas stuck between my teeth, I don't do crickets. Anyway, I heard they just taste like grease.

It was just great hanging out in the village but I wish I could have communicated a little more. Most of them only knew enough English to say hello and a few rehearsed sentences, but I guess all you really need is a smile and they have plenty.

It seems the thing to do in Myanmar is hang out at the tea shops. They have sodas and tea and juice and maybe some other stuff. The sodas were good. I had one that tasted like caramel. If you've ever had the
Colombian soda called "La Colombiana" it tasted alot like that. They also had lime flavor and some other "normal" flavors. The tea was just like all the other countries except they put condensed milk in it so it was really sweet. Then when I tried the juice things got weird.

They had papaya, pineapple and avocado. I went for the pineapple… it was soooooooo sweet I couldn't handle it. It was the kind of sweet that makes your cheeks concave and your lips smack. I think they put
some really intense syrup of some sort in it. It was sweeter than anything I've ever tasted before in my life. Needless to say I couldn't finish it! But it was definitly an interesting experience.

The other thing that was fun and new was the Tenaka (which may be spelled wrong). Tenaka is a paste made from the inside of a tree in central Myanmar. I think. Remember I had a lot of communication
problems! So what you do is you take this paste and mix it with some water and spread it over your face, some people had it all over their body. It's suppose to be really good for your skin, keeps it smooth
and healthy, cures acne and blemishes and works all kinds of miracles.

As you look around you see it on women, girls and young boys, but not the older boys or men. They wear it all day long even if they are out and about so its not a beauty treatment you hide at home. Sometimes
the girls drew flowers or leaves on their faces with it. It comes in four smells: rose, flower, sandalwood and natural.

I had a really hard time figuring that out. First they gave me the rose, then the flower. I hate fake floral fragrances so I really just wanted one without a smell but they didn't seem to understand why I wouldn't take the rose one. Thankfully I saw a sandalwood one hiding way in the back so I took that one. The natural smelling one, which I found somewhere else later, smells a lot like the sandalwood but with a lighter smell. I have to say I haven't tried it on yet, but I keep meaning too. I'll let you know how it goes.





in the village




one of the boys who was afraid of me!








woman selling intestines, or something!




fancy restaurant

buddist nun at the monestary




tug of war with the little monks!












village girl with amazing eyes




walking in the village




at another tea shop



at the glass factory, making beer mugs




a plethora of glasses at the glass factory