on the boat again...

For 9 days! Last stretch of school and finals before COSTA RICA! So excited.
Sidney Roche (Brooks Mom!)- I had a bite of one of the cookies you sent Brooks, they were delicious!!
Everyone's busy finishing papers and studying for finals, trying to get tan for Costa Rica.
We're renting a little house in Montezuma, Costa Rica- a little hippie town about 2 hours away from port.
Allison's birthday is the second day we're there so that should be a lot of fun. I'm so sad it's almost over!
I started packing last night, I packed most of my warm weather stuff, since I won't need it until I get home.

International Date Line

Morning! Welcome to November 22nd. In half an hour I will no longer be 16 hours in the future, but 8 hours in the past!

Japan!

Before Japan:
        I was so sick on the way from China to Japan. I think I had the flu in addition to seasickness. I ended up sleeping for almost 32 hours, just waking up when my friends came in to check on me. They were so great; they brought me tea and Ramen. So the crossing was uneventful, and I was nervous that I wouldn’t get better before Japan but I felt fine by the second day there.
Day 1: Kobe, Japan
        Disembarkation was ridiculous! We had to go through the faculty staff lounge and get our temperature taken, but they just made us walk past this camera type thing that captures body temperature. Then we had to wait in our rooms until our seas were called off the ship, where we had to do face-to-face passport checking, have our picture taken, and our fingerprints taken. Then we were free to go- but no one could get back on the ship until everyone was off. We left right away, Austin had a dentist appointment so we shared a cab with him just to see what was around- we found two Starbucks. We were in the Mottomachi area, so we walked through the shops and found WiFi. After that, we tried to get a little closer to port, found a post office with an ATM, and walked towards a ferris wheel. We found out that we were nowhere near port, after almost two hours of walking around we found our way back. You have to take a train from Kobe Station to the Port Terminal. We dropped our laptops off and went back out for a little bit, in the Sannomiya area. There was a lot of shopping and just a lot of people in general, Bill went back to the ship but Justin and I stayed out a little while longer, we had icecream and went into this crazy electronics store. It was like 8 floors, each floor had a different purpose- the first floor was TVs, second was computers, third was computer accessories, and so on… the top floor was for model trains and cars, so random. We went back to the ship and I packed for the rest of the week and went to bed early.
Day 2: Hiroshima, Japan
        We got tickets for Hiroshima and figured out where we had to go- the bullet train was crazy! It was so nice compared to India- the nicest train I’ve ever been on. It took a little over an hour to get to Hiroshima Station, from there we took a street car towards the Peace Park, and got off at a stop that looked like it had a lot of hotels. We were very lucky to find Hotel Active, at only $75 a night it was a really cool hotel. It was really modern, had free Internet access, coffee/hot chocolate on every floor, and free breakfast. We left our bags there and went over to the Peace Park. The first thing you see when you get off the street car is the building that was hit by the bomb but mostly survived. The whole top of the dome is gone, but the structure is still there. It was very eerie- the rubble is still all over the ground inside the fence. The park itself was beautiful, the river runs through it and there was even a flute concert going on. We walked to a few of the monuments, where they were draped in paper cranes (1,000 paper cranes is good luck- it’s also a sign of peace). We made our way to the museum and went through that. It’s a huge museum- by the end of it we were all really ancy to leave. It was lunchtime too, so we found a shopping plaza and had lunch there. No Japanese food- we had a mix of Italian and Chinese. We shopped a little then went back to the hotel to rest and get ready to go out. We went to a really nice Japanese restaurant for dinner- we ordered a bunch of random things and they were all really good- but we’re not sure exactly what we ordered because nothing was in English. We wandered around for a little bit, trying to find a bar or something but didn’t find anything. It was pouring out too, we bought these clear umbrellas that everyone seemed to carry, and eventually made our way back to the hotel. Esther used my computer to register for classes and we all hung out and made plans for the next day.
Day 3: Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo
        The day ended up like this: breakfast in Hiroshima, lunch in Kyoto, dinner in Tokyo. But that was not the plan. Originally, we decided we were going to go to Kyoto and stay there for the night. We got there around noon, and couldn’t find a vacant hotel under $200. We were all so tired and grumpy from carrying our heavy backpacks around all day that we settled for lunch at McDonalds and then decided to just go to Tokyo. Unfortunately, the only tickets to Tokyo were scattered in the Smokers car. We settled for that, Bill switched with a Japanese man so we sat next to each other- thank god because it was a three-hour train ride and if people on either side of me were smoking I would’ve died! After the longest train ride ever, we arrived in Tokyo, found our way to the street, and tah-dah! A big building that said “HOTEL” on it. We walked over there, and settled for $90/night rooms, the man said “Small doubles…” boy were they small! The boys had to duck in the hallways and under the doors- and I think the bathrooms were nicer than the rooms themselves. Oh well it was a place to sleep that was close to the train station. We got ready and went out, the weird thing was they took your key when you left because the hotel closes at 2am, so if you’re not back- tough luck. We wandered the streets of Tokyo, unfortunately it was late on a Sunday night so it wasn’t very alive. The lights were all on though- so much light pollution. Oh and! All of Japan is in full swing Christmas mode. All the stores are playing Christmas music, all the buildings have decorations, Starbucks already has their Christmas drinks and cups out- it’s great! So, we found a place to eat, had dinner, went to an arcade, and then had McDonalds ice cream for dessert.  After a long day of traveling, we ended up back at the hotel and crashed.
Day 4: Tokyo, Yokohama
Bill and I decided we’d go back to Yokohama that night, and Justin and Esther were going to stay, so we checked out of one room, left all of our stuff in the other, and went out for the day. After traveling around the world- I still don’t know how to pack, my backpack was SO heavy! Anyway, we made our way to the Imperial Palace. It was cool how far back it was set in the middle of the city. We stayed there for a bit- which ended up working out really well because Austin and Allison were there too, what a coincidence! And we got to see the emperor ride by in a carriage. We walked for a little bit, then decided to split up. I went to Harajuku and Shibuya- and I’m so glad I did! Harajuku is so cool; it has all these little stores with the weirdest clothes. They’re big into boots, tights, and sweater/sweatshirt dresses. I wish I had more time/money to spend there! We wandered over to Shibuya without realizing it- SO MANY PEOPLE. The streets were so crowded. I went into Gap, which I’m pretty sure was a flagship store- they had an Icon Shop, which sold exclusive items in it. There winter line is really nice, I wonder how different it is from the US line? They have a ton of shops on this street, including an H&M that must’ve just opened because there was a line all the way down the street to get in and the cops were controlling crowds and only letting small groups of people in one at a time. It was insane. There were so many people there, and a lot of SAS kids with their huge backpacks so we made our way back to Tokyo station. We got a litttttle lost. Tokyo station is a massive confusing train station, with an underground mall, and a regular mall on top. It’s absolutely insane. We walked around in the underground mall for a bit- I found some cool souvenirs and a gift for my Secret Santa. Then we tried to find our hotel to get our backs, but we must’ve just turned the wrong way when we came out because we walked around the whole station before we found it. We grabbed our bags and went back to the train station, found our platform, and waited for our train. It was only a 15-minute ride to Yokohama, but then we walked the completely wrong direction from the port and had to get a taxi back. Once back at the boat, we talked with Andy about our Japan trip and he told us all about Tokyo, then Andy, Mackenzie, and I went out for dinner.
Day 5: Yokohama
        In preparation for the last leg of the voyage, we wanted to find a grocery store to stock up on snacks and whatever. I got lots of Cup of Noodle and Goldfish. It took us a while to find that grocery store, we wandered all over Yokohama, found a Starbucks, tried to find secret Santa gifts, and found Austin in the process. I wish I had gotten to see more of Yokohama, but from what I saw I really liked it. Now we’re back on the boat, 8 days until Hawaii!

Japan!

I love the camaraderie of SASers. If you see eachother out- even if you've never talked to them before, you always stop to chat. We were in the Peace Park today and ran into a few people and just stopped to see what they'd done, what they're doing. And just now I was on Facebook, and one of the random people I added before I came on the trip but haven't met on the boat imed me and we're comparing what we're doing in Japan- they're staying at a guesthouse where people are "passed out on the floor in robes!" and we're at Hotel Active, a really young hip hotel it seems, with free hot chocolate and internet.

A Week in China...

Day 1: Hong Kong
       The first day and only day in Hong Kong was great. We pulled into port, which is a mall- and headed out. After wandering around the mall to find the exit, we took the ferry from Kowloon over to Hong Kong, then took a bus over to Aberdeen- a part of the city on the water. We walked around Aberdeen for a little, and most of the group went to have lunch on a floating restaurant. Being that we eat on a boat everyday, instead we went to go find Ocean Park. We had a quick lunch at KFC (a chicken sandwich with a side of…chicken?) and then took a taxi to Ocean Park- which is part zoo, part theme park. Mostly we went because Bill wanted to see the pandas- we never even made it to the amusement park part! The pandas were really cool though, and we watched this children’s show that we couldn’t understand a word of. It was interesting…after that everyone had gone off and we didn’t know where they were, so we went out to Dan Ryan’s Chicago Grill for dinner- yay cheeseburgers and fries! It was refreshing to eat such American food and not question it. After dinner we shopped a little in the mall, I already ran out of makeup so that was important. Starbucks, of course- which was really cool because we caught the Hong Kong light show that only goes from 8-8:15, and we didn’t even know! So we watched that and then went back to the boat. I packed for Beijing and everyone talked about their day- they went to the top of Victoria’s Peak and saw the city from there.
Day 2: Beijing
       The morning started at 7am in the Union, where we got our name tags, arrival cards, and backpacks to give as presents to our Beijing students. We got tp the airport and ended up having a lot of time to kill. We had Burger King for breakfast and then walked through a few shops, grabbed Starbucks- used the wiFi! I got to iSight with Lauren for about two seconds, and then got on the plane. 3 hours later, we were in Beijing. Once there, we had to wait a while for the buses so we all used the ATM and got coffee etc. I tried calling Sean but the number he gave me was wrong, luckily we had already made plans just incase. We finally boarded the buses and headed over to the hotel. Esther and I switched roommates so we ended up rooming together- which was nice, it’s always nicer to have someone you actually know then to share a room with some random person. We went over to the university for dinner and games with the students. This was the only time we got to interact with them, and they had been required to be there for one of their classes- it wasn’t the greatest part of the trip. We had pizza, bananas, and yogurt for dinner…and then Bill, Esther, Emma, and I ended up leaving before the games (they played cards) and went over to the hotel to meet Sean. Seeing Sean was so great, I’m glad everyone got to meet him too. He took us over to Ho Hai, which is a river that’s lit up with restaurants and bars. We went to a place called Purple, where he goes sometimes because his friend plays piano there. It was a really quiet place; we each had a drink and split a fruit sculpture thing. After that, we walked back through Ho Hai- ran into one of my professors, and Sean directed him to an area of bars he might like- and then Sean got us a taxi back to our hotel.
Day 4: Beijing
       Breakfast at the hotel included rice, noodles in soy sauce, and bread that tasted like water…so that was our first and only breakfast. After breakfast we drove over an hour to the Great Wall. I had asked Sean and my professor what they thought of the Wall- they both said, “It’s…great.”At breakfast, someone had mentioned that they got a text from their parents, about an e-mail they received from SAS. Before rumors started, our trip leader- the academic dean, got on each bus and announced that one of our classmates had been hit by a drunk driver in Hong Kong and was killed. Everyone was shocked; it was kind of hard news to handle. I didn’t know him personally, but I do know who he is. Esther had seen him a few hours before the accident and had put him in a cab to go back to the ship; no one knows what happened after that. He was alone when it happened, so it took a while to identify him and notify the ship. All the trips were told, but most people were on independent trips- including the boy’s roommate. When we saw people on indy trips, they already knew what happened. I’m not sure how the next two days will go, I’m sure the general mood on the ship will be different- and I’m sure they’ll talk about it as soon as everyone is on the ship.
After the hour bus ride to the Wall, we were told where to go and where to meet up. Then we started climbing- it’s a pretty steep climb up to the wall, nothing like Table Mountain but it has legitimate stairs which was a little awkward. The Wall was…great! I think we came to Beijing at a great time, the colors reminded me of home! All the leaves were changing (it’s COLD in Beijing, by the way). We went from Tower 10 to Tower 6, taking a ton of pictures on the way. At Tower 6 you have the choice to take the chute down (slide) or the chairlift, two of us took the chairlift (me!) and the other two took the slide. We shopped on the way back down to the meeting spot, I got the “I climbed the Great Wall!”t-shirt. We got back on the buses and went to lunch; our tour guide said it was his favorite place- really good…we went to Big Pizza, essentially a Pizza Hut buffet. Most people were disappointed that it wasn’t Chinese food but everyone had a ton of food anyway. Beijing is all about the unlimited beer? Unlimited beer everywhere we went- with no charge, it’s included. So strange. After the pizza we went to the Silk Market- AMAZZZZINNNG!!!! Possibly my favorite part- why? SHOPPING. So much shopping! I know I spent too much money, but I got awesome knock offs, jeans, etc. I LOVE my new True Religion jeans! Bargaining at the Silk Market was fun, they start at such a high price, our tour guide said to go 20% of that price. Since it’s freezing, and will be colder in Japan- I got a cute pea coat- she wanted $2650, I got it down to $250. Then Bill made me bargain for his jacket haha, my lady was GRIPPING my wrist and would NOT let me go. They all hand you their calculator- so you can’t just walk away, because if you try to hand it to them they just won’t take it. It’s so funny. They all compare prices too- “How much you pay for jacket??”I think it’s like, a set rule that they regulate their prices even though everyone sells the same stuff. After the Silk Market we went to an acrobatic show. It was so cool, it was like Cirque de Sole, but different. They were SO flexible, we had a kid from Canada behind us and the whole time it was “They got no bones!!!”The acts included things like…a man holding a women upside down on her head with one hand, juggling and tap dancing with 9 balls, 12 people on a bike, hoop jumping, contortionists, umbrella juggling, etc etc. It was so cool- couldn’t take pictures though, but Greg the cameraman got a DVD and said he might use it in the Voyage DVD. It was awesome that we had Greg AND Brittany (the photographer) on our trip; watch the SAS page for the slideshow! After Acrobats they went out for dinner, but Bill and I skipped it because Sean and I had made tentative plans, but they fell through, we ended up walking to McDonalds.
Day 5: Beijing
       We started this day out at ____ Square. We saw Mao’s memorial, it was so weird! They just keep his real body there, they only bring it out 2 times a day, but there were SO many people seeing it. All the Chinese people bought flowers and placed them at his memorial. After the memorial, we went over to the Forbidden City- that was cool. We had the little boxes with headphones that are supposed to narrate you through it- mine didn’t work. No one’s seemed to work that well, we gave up on them eventually. Oh! Before we went into the city we got chocolate chip cookies, but they were more like crackers with chocolate chips, they were SO GOOD- I hope I can find them in the states…anyway, the Forbidden City is HUGE. A lot of it you can’t even see- just through a door way, and the pushing and shoving to get to that doorway is ridiculous, we didn’t even bother after a while. It took a long time to walk through, but it was worth it. After that we took the buses to the Temple of Heaven where we had lunch and then walked through the three temples. It was interesting, but I’m kind of over visiting all the temples. A temple is a temple no matter which country you’re in. After the temples we went to _____ street, the street that they rebuilt for the Olympics. It was so creepy; it looked like a movie set because there are no tenants yet. It’s a replication of the old street, but everything’s a little more intricate. After walking that street, we went back to the Silk Market for an hour. A little more shopping, then back to the hotel. People went out for dinner but I wasn’t hungry so I stayed in and tried to watch TV- no such luck, EVERYTHING is in Mandarin, unlike India where it was all English. Everyone got back to the hotel and we wandered a bit, two boys were getting suits custom made in their room by a tailor so we checked that out for a bit, then we packed all of our stuff into a HUGE suitcase that Bill bought. 5 people completely filled the suitcase, and it’s so big Esther could fit in it and zip it up- and there was STILL room!
38.71SUM($A$1:$A$7)to wake up early and go to McDonalds for breakfast but no one did, well after we got on the buses and headed to the Summer Palace- there was a McDonalds across the street! Our guides told us we had 10 minutes- assuming a handful of us would go- we ALL went. They finally dragged us out and we went into the Summer Palace, it was really pretty. When we first walked in, a group of older Chinese people were line dancing- it was funny to watch. Some of them were really good! The Summer Palace is HUGE, there are two parts, separated by a lake, which you cross on neat little boats. The Palace itself is built up on a mountain, so there are a lot of rocks to climb around but it’s really cool because you can see the city all around it.
       After the Summer Palace we got lunch at an AMAZING buffet, it was so big! The food just kept going and going into all different rooms, and once you sat down they kept bringing skewers of meat over to the table to carve, it was ridiculouuuus. After the buffet, we went to the Olympic Venues…we decided to fork out a little less than 10USD to go inside the Birds Nest- well worth it! It was smaller than I imagined but just as cool. We took tons of pictures inside and walked around, they had four areas of costumes on mannequins- the costumes from the opening and closing ceremonies. It took us a while in the Nest because we went to the gift shop too. It was crazy, on the way to the gift shop these men stopped me and I couldn’t understand what one was saying to me and his friend goes, “He said it’s nice to finally meet you!”He started looking through pictures on his camera so I went to walk away and he said “No, no no!”And then he showed me a picture he took of me like, half an hour before? SO WEIRD! But that was apparently common, everyone has been taking pictures of us the whole time here. It was just weird for them to come up and show me? After the gift shop we walked over to the Water Cube, but didn’t go in. Apparently there wasn’t water in the pool anyway. Our group met, well…most of them. Some people showed up 15 minutes late and ended up getting dock time because we were getting on the buses to go to the airport. We all made it to the airport, got all of our bags checked (SO many people bought SO MUCH stuff!) and made it to the gate. I started not to feel well at the Olympic Venues; by the time we were at the airport I had a migraine and a bit of a fever. Someone gave me Advil and I got some coffee and I feel fine now, it was weird though because pretty much everyone had a headache. Anyway, I’m currently on the plane writing this and we’re flying over Shanghai, I think we’re landing soon.
Day 7: Shang Hai
             After traveling for four days straight, I was exhausted last night! I woke up and went out with Allison, Austin, and Bill to find the post office and an internet café. We found the post office, but never found the internet. We’re pretty sure that you just can’t go on it if you’re not from China. We did find McDonalds, however getting back to the ship was a little more difficult. This is the worst language barrier we’ve experienced- even in Hong Kong and Beijing most people understood a little English, here? Nothing. The address of port was written on our Green sheets in English- no one knew what it meant, apparently most of those words don’t even exist in Chinese because when we found someone who spoke pretty decent English, they didn’t know what “pier”meant. We eventually got in a cab, but it only brought us a few miles but it was enough to point us in the right direction. We got back on the ship to figure out what to do about Japan, and then headed out to buy our rail passes. We had a map in Mandarin this time, and the taxi driver appeared to know where he was going. 20 minutes later he leaves us at this construction site, saying this is the building. There was a man across the street- in the construction zone that kept looking at us and smiling, we went over to him and showed him our map. He ended up walking us about 15 minutes away from where we were dropped off, and went as far as to put us in the elevator to where we needed to buy the passes- he was so nice! We came back to the ship- they had the address written in mandarin available for us by now, and it’s definitely time for a nap.

Go Obama!

Obama won, yay! It was an interesting day on the ship. Global studies was pushed back, and most classes ended up being delayed, cancelled, or just about the election. We had it streaming into the union as well as on the closed circuit TV.

Malaysia

Malaysia!
Day 1: I’m so glad I made the decision to skip my business FDP and go on the Island Orientation- I’m not sure why I booked both but good thing I did! All I heard about was how awful the FDP ended up being; they went to a rice museum…3 hours away! Our orientation was good, we started at the Khoo Kongsi temple, went to the Butterfly Farm, saw the Kek Lok Si temple, and the Botanical Gardens as well. The Kek Lok Si temple was AMAZING. It was so incredible, you walk up these stairs, and they just keep going. But throughout the stairways are just vendors, selling all kinds of souvenirs. There are all these stores in the temple, and all different parts of the temple, I couldn’t really piece it together. The garden was really cool too, there were just dozens of monkeys running around- one got mad and jumped on a light post and tried to shake it down. We headed over to Starbucks after orientation; it was DELICIOUS, of course. The mall was different; it wasn’t really a western mall even though it did have Starbucks and McDonalds. There were so many shoe stores- and to go with that, sock stores. We went to 7-11 too, I bought hot chocolate, and it’s been so nice to have packs of hot chocolate on the boat! We tried to walk back to the ship, but got stuck in Little India- you think we would be able to skip that part, but we walked through it and it was like the clean and calm version of India. It was brightly light with colored lights and everyone was just walking around- but it wasn’t over crowded.
Day 2: We thought we’d find some good markets, but we ended up in a cab that didn’t really take us where we wanted to go. We started at a flea market, which was interesting to see. So many cell phones and cell phone accessories! The flea market sold a lot of toiletries and things like watches and sunglasses- but not really knock offs that you’d expect to find. Someone was playing Hannah Montana music at their stall, it was funny. My friend Austin ate some of this huge stinky fruit that he ended up being allergic to, luckily Allison had benedryl on her. Our cab driver took us to Starbucks, then to what was supposed to be a craft market but only had one table of crafts and then the weirdest selection of clothes I’d ever seen. The men’s section was okay, they had random MTV t-shirts and things like that, but the women’s department was either traditional clothes or lingerie! We didn’t stay there very long, so we went across the street to a coffee/chocolate shop. It was great! The second we walked in we were handed free samples of all different kinds of coffee and hot chocolate, and later candy. Next-door was a place where they do Batik so our cab driver showed that to us too. We asked to be dropped back off near the mall, had lunch at Pizza Hut (it’s the same!) and walked around for a bit. I got an Abercrombie sweatshirt for…15USD at a random store. We went back to the ship and just relaxed the rest of the night.
Day 3: Allison and Bill had an FDP all morning so I slept in and then woke Andy up (Andy is roommates with Bill/Austin/and Justin) and we went out near the mall with Matt (Matt’s one of the professors son’s, he’s 17 and a senior in high school- we went on the Taj trip together). Andy wanted to get his lip pierced- apparently a lot of people did that in Malaysia. So we went to the place his friends told him about and this guy named “Fun”pierced his lip. Then we shopped a little bit, and met up with Bill, Allison, and Austin- we all had our laptops so we went to Starbucks to take advantage of the free WiFi, unfortunately Flickr was being really slow so I could only get a few pictures up but there are there some now! http://flickr.com/photos/emmyrz should be the address. Unfortunately I couldn’t label them or anything because nothing would really work and I didn’t want to sit at Starbucks all night. We shopped a bit and headed back to Starbucks to meet up with everyone, Mackenzie was there too, and there was TORENTIAL downpour! Some girl had her backpack stolen with her laptop and several cameras in it, we decided it was a good time to leave…but we couldn’t really leave the mall because we had one backpack with 2 laptops and 2 cameras in it- with the rain, so we had dinner at Pizza Hut again and went to the grocery store to pick up some dry packaged food for the boat. We also found a DVD store…I got the whole Sex and the City set for 20USD, Allison got 2 seasons of Heroes for around 15USD, Bill got West Wing- I think that’s all we got that night. Eventually we made it back to the ship.
Day 4: Allison and I went on an Arts &Crafts FDP, it was really fun. Our guide was really funny. We got to make our own Batik cloths; we dripped wax on the clothes to make the design and then painted them. It was really hard, so Allison and I ended up convincing them to let us do the one where you just paint the ones they already wax for you…so we ended up with two pieces. We waited around for a long time at the end before we had lunch. We ate and then went back to do coconut crafts but it was really rushed so I didn’t get anything or do any of it. It was still fun though, we met the boys outside the pier- that’s another thing about Malaysia, the port wasn’t finished so we had to float in the middle of the harbor and drop lifeboats and tender to the pier! It was SO awful. The weather was so hot and humid; it was hard to breathe in the lifeboats. And it was scheduled, so the lifeboats left the boat on the hour, and the pier on the half hour- if you missed it- oh well. Anyway, the boys met us there and we split up. Bill and I went to the more Western mall because he needs a computer charger and there’s a Forever21 there. I got a few things at Forever21 and looked around Gap- I just wondered what was in stores in the US and if it was the same in Malaysia and if the windows were the same and stuff. It was the nicest Forever21 I’ve ever seen! It was really big, spread out, the music wasn’t loud, and there weren’t many younger girls in there. We got more Starbucks and went back to the boat. Everyone got ready and we went out to the night market. After confusion with the taxi (it was 50 ringget, not 15)- we got there, but no one was really in the mood for it- plus we’ll be seeing most of it in Vietnam. It was all knock offs and DVDs, silly toys and American things. We ended up only staying for a bit, going into a hotel bar, then finding a taxi and going to McDonalds. It was SO GOOD. It was the highlight of the night haha. Andy, Bill, and I went- we got SO much food. This was the breakdown of our order: 3 supersized value meals, 5 “items (dollar menu), 2 desserts- less than 20USD. It was delicious. We ate it while waiting for the tender boat since we missed it by 2 minutes, but it was good nonetheless.
Day 5: Last day in Penang! Allison and I went out to find this market that only happens on the last Sunday of every month, which we just happened to be there for. It was nice- definitely more crafts than we had seen so far! There were really nice things there but we were both so tired and hot that we just spent what we had left. We stayed less than an hour and caught the next tender back. Spending the last day in port on the boat is really relaxing; everyone just hangs out and catches up. It’s a good time to get organized. Dinner was amazing too, mac and cheese!
Now we’re on our way to VIETNAM!!!! So excited. We’ve been bunkered in Singapore all day for fuel- I woke up and I can see the tug right outside my window haha. We get to Vietnam on the 30th- I think that morning we’re all running out and getting fitted for dresses, then I have my Nike FDP- 200 people signed up and only 40 got it, there’s no missing that one! I have stuff every other day, so the second day I think we’ll go to the War Remnants Museum and other sight seeing things, the third day is the Chu Chi tunnels, fourth day market, fifth day zoo, sixth day…who know.