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We caught an early morning flight for Beijing the next day (February 18th). The airplane food was pretty interesting; they served bird’s nest soup, mini jellied eggs, a spicy fish sandwich, and spicy cabbage. Flavor combinations and textures that we pretty unfamiliar to my palette, but overall not bad at all .The full 4-day/3-night was as follows:
• Day 1: Temple of Heaven, Trishaw ride around Hutong District, Jiaozi (dumpling) dinner with local family
• Day 2: Tian’men Square and Forbidden City, Service visit at Guan’ai Migrant School in Shunyi, shopping at the Silk Market
• Day 3: Drive past '08 Olympics area (bird's nest and ice cube), Beijing International Kungfu School, Badaling section of Great Wall (cable car up, toboggan down), Chinese acrobatic show
• Day 4: Early morning flight to Hong Kong

I had an amazing time in Beijing. The Temple of Heaven was an unexpectedly great time. I didn’t know much about the Temple going in and so didn’t know what to expect. Before reaching the temple, we walked through the inner courtyard where hundreds of elderly Chinese men and women were gathered singing, dancing, and playing games together. We were able to join in the dancing and the playing of shuttlecock, a game that’s almost identical to hacky sack, but that is played with a feathered contraption instead of a beanbag. It was great to see such a sense of community, especially among the elderly. Elderly people in China seem to be more fit and much happier than their western counterparts. The smiling faces of elderly people would be an image that I would revisit many times in China, whether it was on the faces of elderly people strolling with their grandchildren or doing early morning group Tai Chai (very slow-paced, controlled martial arts) in the park. I suspect that the replacement of senior citizen homes with family time and very active communal activities greatly attributes to this. The service visit at the Guan’ai School for children was another great highlight. Students at Guang’ai School are either orphans or have parents that have committed crimes. Due to their family’s dishonorable past, they are ineligible for government subsidies and subject to discrimination within society. We met the school’s inspirational founder, Shi Qinghua. He is not a rich man by any means, but was able to build the school (which currently houses 103 homeless children) four years ago. We donated and installed a couple of computers, and helped clean the school premises. We also got a chance to play with the kids and have a big tug of war tournament. Lasting only a few hours, the visit was brief (far too brief) but very meaningful and fun. The third highlight from the trip was visiting the Great Wall of China. It’s a place that I never fathomed being able to visit so early in my life. I had a blast riding up the cable car all the way up the wall and riding the toboggan (metal sled) all the way down part of the wall. The view from the wall was amazingly beautiful. It’s not until you’re actually on the wall do you realize why it’s one of the 7 wonders of the world. It’s so HIGH UP and well built. It was difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that it was built more than 15 centuries ago, by HAND, and it’s still standing till this day. More than 300,000 men worked for 10 years to complete it and thousands died in the process. It’s a permanent reminder of the magnificent feats and miracles that human beings are able to accomplish, should they only resolve to. It made me want to stop stuffing my face w. food and enjoying...and actually do something of substance. But then it was time to go to dinner lol.
• New food loves: REAL Chinese food, pretty much everything I ate in Shanghai, DUMPLINGS, roasted goose, warm milk tea with tapioca balls, pork/shrimp dim sum, and warm Chinese bread w. butter and ice cream on top (sounds strange, but its soo good.)


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Beijing--Great Wall!!

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• Itinerary: Shanghai  Beijing  Hong Kong
I had an amazing time in Shanghai, mostly because both days were filled with two things that make me happy—good food and good company. The first day was spent touring Shanghai by car and on foot with Neha’s uncle’s contact Kiki. Kiki works in operations for the sports car company Fiat and is one of less than a handful of women in her company. When I told her that our Global Studies project focused on female empowerment, her face lit up, and we had a great discussion about her experiences over lunch at a place called Chinese Medicine. After lunch, we stumbled upon a Chinese dragon parade show in the streets. We spent most of the afternoon shopping at a huge underground copy market near the science district and ended the evening with the most amazing dinner at a place whose name escapes me. I experienced 2 “small world realization” moments in Shanghai. The first one occurred later that night, a bunch of us went to M2 club near People’s Square. Upon conversation, I later found out that the MC at the club, John “Lambo” Bowdre, and I had a mutual friend in the states, Sheldon Fields. Lambo and Sheldon are both Alphas and former summer Wall Street kids. Sheldon and I are both from West Orange and I got to know him through BWUA and random conversations freshman year. Lambo currently lives in China but started out studying abroad at Shanghai University just last Spring. He turned down a full time offer doing IB at UBS to pursue his entrepreneurial passions and set up an entertainment group in China. He is doing very well for himself and was able to bring his little brother over to help build his company. I found his story to be very inspiring, especially given his age and high risk decision. We had a great conversation that night and he offered to show me and my friends around Shanghai. So the next day, he, Karim, and I spent the next day exploring Shanghai. Lambo is conversant in Mandarin, so he was able to order for us and help us haggle at the copy market. We had such a fun, chill day, cracking jokes and doing touristy stuff like eating, shopping in non-touristy places. It was definitely a highlight of Shanghai.

My second “small world” moment happened later that night at club M1nt. Up 21 floors from ground level, M1nt is Shanghai’s premiere upscale nightclub, with amazing views of the city. The venue was absolutely beautiful and the music was great, but the crowd was somewhat bland, filled with models and older businessman. At the coat check, I struck up conversation with a PR guy from Australia, who was apparently responsible for booking the models for the club. He then introduced us to a few models, Olivia (18 from Canada) and Jos (20 from Czech Rep.). Olivia looked really surprised to see me and upon conversation, I found out why. Even before I told her about our Semester at Sea voyage, she revealed that she remembers seeing me in Japan the week prior. She arrived in Shanghai two days earlier from a Tokyo photo shoot and recalled seeing me with a group of girls in Shibuya, Tokyo. She remembered me from my twists and my cap. What are the odds of us not only being in the same city in Tokyo but meeting up again a week later on the same night and in the same city in an entirely different country? SO eerie. We had a lot of fun that night. The girls had full reign over VIP and so we were VIP for the night. My experiences in Shanghai were definitely very memorable.

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Shanghai--It's A Small World After All

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China- Happy New Year!- Year of the Dragon

It was definitely an exciting time to be in China. The streets were either decorated in red in honor of Chinese New Year or plastered with little blue men in preparation for the 2010 World Expo that will be hosted in Shanghai this summer/fall. Fireworks went off every night all throughout the city. The Chinese believe in horoscopes too, but unlike the zodiac, one’s horoscope is based on your birth year instead of birth month. In honor of Chinese New Year, here are the horoscopes of my fellow 1988 babies and my family members. (I picked up this horoscope sheet at the tourist information center lol). Interesting how all of the horoscopes talk mostly about work and investments, and rational, competition, and obedience seem to be a recurring words/themes. Oh China. Lol

Me-Year of the Dragon (1988)
You’ll need to exercise patience this year, and your efforts will be rewarded. Couples will live through a difficult but temporary period at the beginning of the year. Don’t be too critical ofnyour partner. You’ll derive great satisfaction from work. Rational and honest behavior will bring you success. Beware of useless purchases and look out for financial opportunities in the last quarter.

Mommy-Year of the Snake
Us e this year to take stock of what you want in life and how to get it. If you can avoid flirtations, you’ll build on a solid relationship. For a positive outcome, be assertive and realistic. The end of the year is a good time to make financial investments.

Daddy- Year of the Dog
You’ll want to assert independence this year- just don’t act too brashly! Work at your romantic relationship to foster trust and sensuality. Work will go well if you control your lack of respect for authority. Some competition and changes in the third quarter will be to your advantage. The 2nd quarter is an excellent time to make investments.

Zim- Year of the Monkey
You’ll be full of charisma this year: decisiveness and action will bring various positive changes. You’ll be lucky in love at first and then restless. Be rational, and a relationship will blossom. Business will go well if you match opportunities with initiative. You may find funds for a special project.

Amaka- Year of the Rooster
Competition, benefiting from decisions, and a full social calendar is in store. Your love life will improve tremendously. The first quarter favors pursuing professional training. There’s a chance of rapid career progress: earn more autonomy by following the rules. A hobby or informal project may yield unexpected income. Resist impulsive spending and don’t make speculative investments in the third quarter.

Ugonma- Year of the Pig (no Ugonma, I didn’t make this up. lol)
2010 brings luck: resist your sentimental instincts to make the most of it. You may have relationship problems but you’ll resolve them. Despite intriguing encounters, singles should havlue stability in the 2nd quarter. You’ll be motivated at work and develop good relationships. Over-excitement in the 2nd quarter is a danger. Your finances will improve but you must curb spending in 2nd quarter, and should not take any risks in the third.

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Chinese New Year!!--Year of the Tiger

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• Itinerary:
o Day 1: Neha, Alyssa, Allie, Katie, and I took the Japanese Rail (JR) from Yokohama to Shibuya district in Tokyo to meet up with Alyssa’s friend Shinta, who showed us around Tokyo for the first couple of days. The Japanese rail system greatly resembled the San Francisco BART system and so it was really easy to navigate. Shibuya, with its massive electronic billboards and midday bustle reminded me of Times Square. We spent most of the day just walking around the streets and window shopping at 109 mall. We had dinner later that night at a Soba noodle place.
o Day 2: We spent the morning in Shinjuku district in Tokyo. After walking around the underground market in Isetan mall, we checked out a large electronics store. Japanese electronics from phones to computers and even appliances like fridges/washers are so advanced. Colorful Panasonic flip phones, with digital light displays on the front cover seem to be extremely popular. After lunch at a traditional Ramen noodle bar (tastes nothing like Cup O’Noodle), we hopped on the JR and spent the afternoon in Harajukwu district. Luckily, even though it wasn’t Sunday, we ran into some people dressed in classic Harajukwu style. We shopped in the outdoor market, Forever 21, and Top Shop for a bit and had the most amazing homemade ice cream at the popular Hanabatake ice cream shop. Later that night we met up with everyone at the Tokyo Marriot and went to Muse night club in Roppongi district.
o Day 3: Most of the day was spent walking around the Ginzu district of Tokyo. We visited the Sony Showroom where we tested soon to be released electronics like 3-D Home TVs and Playstation consoles and superior quality digital SLRS. After dinner, Amy, Emily, Stephanie and I took the bullet train from Tokyo to Kobe and stayed in Green Hill Hotel because we all had Semester at Sea field trips the next day.
o Day 4: Spent the morning walking around Kobe and visited the Ikuta Jinja (Shinto) Shrine in Kobe. In the evening, I saw a theatre performance in Gion Corner with Semester at Sea. The performance including a tea ceremony, Koto music, Japanese flower arrangement, Gagaku (court music), Kyogen (comic play) and Kyomai (Kyoto style dance) performed by Japanese Geishas.
o Day 5: Visited the Gin Ju hot spring bath house in Arima, Kobe and had Kobe beef in a restaurant in Arima.
• Other places to visit: Hiroshima, Mt. Fuji, Fish market in Tokyo, Golden Temple in Kyoto, Zen Temple near Kobe

Japan is a beautiful fusion of both old and new, tradition and innovation. Arima and Gion Corner represent traditional Japanese culture while Tokyo serves as the epicenter of cultural and technological innovation. Verbs that describe Japan: Three C’s and a P:

• Conservative (& somewhat contradictory). Japan is very much a patriarchal society where women are very submissive and lower their voice a few octaves when talking to men. From the Toto toilets w. sound mufflers and deafening silence prevalent on all trains, it is clear that Japanese people are extremely private. Yet at the same token, the fashion, especially all over Tokyo (Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku districts) is very loud and electric. Both male and female fashion showed signs of a definite hip-hop/rock influence. Guys wore baggy jeans with Nike dunks and disheveled hair and girls were unapologetically sexy in very short skirts/shorts, printed stockings (some w. garters), and high heels/stilettos.

• Communal—The Japanese certainly seem to adhere to the “it takes a village” idea of child rearing. While on the bullet train a young girl ran down the aisle and was stopped by an older woman. While the older woman was not related to her, she picked her up and sat her on her lap and pacified her. The girl’s mother, sitting two aisles away looked over and smiled, thanking the woman with a head nod. They sat like this for a couple hours. I remember thinking, this would rarely happen in the United States. People are extremely individualistic in the States and there is always an underlying fear of child abduction. There isn’t the same level of trust as there is in Japan. The hot spring bath house experience in Arima, Kobe served as another striking example of Japan’s communal nature. One must be completely bare skinned in the bath house, no bathing suits were allowed. My friends and I, along with older Japanese women undressed together in the locker room and then entered a separate bathhouse where we washed and then got into the hot spring jaccuzi. At first it was a bit awkward getting completely undressed together, however after a while we completely let go of our inhibitions and got over the fact that we were completely naked. The hot spring and sauna were extremely relaxing. Although it may sound clichéd, I truly found the entire experience to be very liberating.

• Courtesy- Everywhere we went, people would stop everything they were doing to help show us the way. If we asked someone for directions and they didn’t know, they would find someone who could help us. In Arima, we had trouble finding a good Kobe beef place that also offered vegetarian options. We walked into a pricey Kobe beef restaurant and talked to the owner in order to investigate their offerings. The restaurant had very few vegetarian options and was way out of our price range. Despite the fact that we were clearly not going to eat at his establishment, the owner not only helped locate a good, affordable restaurant, but also left his restaurant to walk us there to make sure we didn’t get lost. When we were there, he then preceded to help us order as the menus were in Japanese. He even negotiated with the chef in order to get me a smaller cut of Kobe beef steak for a better price. After our meal, he then served as a translator for Neha and I as we interviewed one of his employees. I’ve never experienced such above and beyond courtesy in my life. How ironic that Japanese treat American foreigners with such courtesy yet Americans are often extremely rude to foreigners.

• Perfectionist- The Japanese believe that food should look good as good as it tastes. This was very evident in all of the department store markets we visited. Each food counter boasted amazingly beautiful food displays. Japanese people are also very hard workers. No matter what the job, people did their job to the best of their ability.

• New food loves: Japanese sweets and desserts are the BEST. Strawberry Pocky sticks, mochie filled w. sweetened bean paste, Kinotoya egg custard, and Hanabatake icecream.

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Japan! Three C's and a P

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Logged onto the internet for a few minutes today and read an article in the Guardian UK about a 16-year old girl in Turkey that was buried alive by her family in an “honor killing”. Her crime?...talking to boys. Read here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/04/girl-buried-alive-turkey. Apparently, honor killings account for more than half of Turkey’s murders each year. This article literally paralyzed me for much of the afternoon. I kept trying to imagine how much fear & pain she must have felt, not only after realizing her fate but also that it was being carried out by her family, the very people that are supposed to protect her. It’s very hard to even try to fathom how horrible it must be to be buried alive. The article prompted a string of emotions-- sadness, guilt, and finally anger. The guilt stemmed from knowing that I could have easily been her, had I been born in Turkey to a family like hers. There is so much suffering in this world and for some reason I’m continually guarded from them. Don’t get me wrong, I thank God for blessing me with the family, life, and opportunities that I’ve been born into however, I sometimes question why me? Who am I am to have these experiences, opportunities, and freedoms when so many people, women, in the world are denied them. On a larger scale, it made me very angry about how women and girls are devalued and mistreated all over the world. The fact that a father, mother, relative, person can conceivably kill a young girl in such a gruesomely slow and cruel way is hard to stomach. We don’t even subject animals to such torturous death.

I also thought back to the documentary I watched on bride burnings in India a couple nights ago on the ship's tv network.The more I read and hear about the torture, burning, stoning, and overall dehumanization of women, the more outraged I get. The double standards sicken me. I’m sure that the boys that she was allegedly caught talking to will bear no such consequence. I doubt that they will even get reprimanded. It’s scary that we live in a world where young boys are taught that by merely being born a male, they have inherited the right to unfairly mistreat, punish, and subjugate women. A world where little girls are raised to believe they hold little value, and that the little value they do hold is not their own, but rather stored in their ability to act as their father’s or husband’s property. The fact that this girl’s mother did nothing or could do nothing to stop this illustrates just how painfully helpless women are in certain societies. It’s hard to imagine a mother not doing anything to stop her child from being buried alive. This article reminds me of an article I read somewhere (or a piece I watched on Oprah?) about the global warming of women. Every second thousands of women are killed at the hands of men. There is a lot of concern about sustainability and protecting Mother Earth. I agree that this is important. However, at the same token, we need to put more energy into sustaining our Earthly Mothers by combating their mistreatment and murder. It’s seriously at genocidal proportions—a 21st century Femicaust. I’m going off into a rant and I’m not really sure how to end this, but something seriously needs to be done. The treatment and empowerment of women is an issue that I think I want to dedicate my life’s work to.

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'Honor' Killings: 21st century Femicaust

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Honolulu
The first day of Honolulu was pretty much a pathetic day of solitude. I spent the day at the dentist patching up a cavity :-/. I also ran a few errands at the Ala Moana mall. Luckily, things picked up at night. All of Semester at Sea descended on club Zanzibar, Honolulu. Free admission, good music, and great crowd=perfect night. I was pleasantly surprised by the current music because all the music on the radio in Honolulu seemed to be so outdated. They kept playing Puff Daddy-I’ll be Missing You & other archaic songs. The next day started out promising. I had plans to go to Waikiki Beach, but ran into an unexpected dilemma when my roommate Leah accidently lost her ATM card. Luckily we located it at the security office near port but by then it was time to get back on the ship. We missed jetskiing at Waikiki Beach, but it’s no biggie, because we can easily do that in another port or even some other time in the future. No time to lament on missed opportunities...next stop Japan! We arrive on Tuesday Feb 9th…counting down!!

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Honolulu

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Hilo
I spent the first day in Hilo feeling like a tourist but had fun. A bunch of us--Kareem, Sheila, Jason, Cameron etc. etc.--spent the day doing a van tour of Hilo. First, we had lunch at Verna’s Diner, which was all of us pretty much helping Jason eat his order of poco moco, a traditional Hawaiian dish of egg, rice, gravy, and chicken. We then made our way to National Volcano Park where we watched hot springs from the ground and walked through a lava tube, formed from hardened volcanic clasts and lava. Just when I thought Geology was the most useless course I’d taken at Penn so far, a lot of the information I crammed proved to be helpful during the tour. We then went to Rainbow Falls. The precipitation had been low so there weren’t any smaller waterfalls that we could jump off of L, but I’m planning to do that in Mauritius. Finally, we went to Richardson’s black sand beach, which was really cool. The ‘black sand’ was actually eroded mafic (igneous and metamorphic) rocks that were expelled by volcanoes. Later that night, we went to the “Luau Experience” held at the University of Hawai’i Hilo camp ground. The food was alright. I had pork, mac salad, and rice. I tried traditional Hawai’ian poi (made from mashed tero root) and salmon/tomato salad. Not a big fan of either but it was cool to try it. We thought that there would be professional entertainers/hula dancers, but the entertainment was by UH-H students and family members. The best part was Samoan chanting at the end. The call and response chanting reminded me of Nigerian chants (Igbo kwenu etc. etc). We had fun because we always do lol, but overall I would advise future Semester at Sea-er’s to not sign up for it—extremely overpriced for what you get. Neha and I spent the afternoon at a Hilo Thai restaurant and stocking up on essentials at Walmart w. Kareem and Sheila.


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‘Wiki’ synopsis of Hawai’i

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Everyone has mixed reviews about the courses/professors. I can honestly say that I love all of my courses. I made a few changes during add/drop period. I’m now currently enrolled in Digital Storytelling, Race in a Global Context, The Human Voice, and Global Studies.

Digital Storytelling:
I knew I’d like this course from the very first day. As soon as my professor, Erika Paterson, shared her nomadic past—teaching and kayaking in numerous countries; living without money for an entire year and bartering all of her goods—I knew that this was going to be an interesting and unconventional course. I really appreciate the fact that she is completely self taught, because she’s better equipped to understand beginner’s frustrations & be a more effective teacher that way. She teaches two sections and collectively we’ll be in charge of running the on-ship student channel. In addition to airing the aforementioned Sea TV news broadcast, we will also be creating music videos, documentaries, film shorts, and comedic TV series for the channel. My production team (name TBD) will be working on a TV series and comedic shorts. I’m currently working on a techno music video that parodies the daily announcements on the ship telecom. This is going to be a very demanding course, but I’m really looking forward to developing my film editing skills.


Race in a Global Context:
This class has been really interesting so far. I was smitten when the professor Audrey Sprenger from Harvard recognized Dubois as a sociological forefather and member of the American Sociological cannon and noted how the Sociological Association failed to give him proper recognition for years. I love how she peppers her lectures with really interesting, less-known facts and book suggestions. I also appreciate the fact that she delves deep and doesn’t sugarcoat a thing. We’re currently reading Crossing the Boulevard, which details the stories of over 40 immigrants in Queens, New York. I had no idea that Queens, New York is one of, if not the most, racially diverse city/borough in the U.S./World. As part of the final project, we’ll be creating ethnographic video diaries in each of the countries we visit. The assignment is to try to “define home” and capture what moves someone to flee their native country and what it’s like to leave everything behind when one flees to another country. As such we will be capturing the essence of home through things that can’t be easily transported or mailed (ie. smells, tastes, music, etc). She also wants us to document people in each of the countries we visit, that for one reason or another, can’t leave or will never leave the country. I’m still brainstorming but I know that I want to have conversations with various women from different social classes in every country I visit and gain insight into their daily realities, why some women leave, and why some stay. I will also document women who for some reason can never leave. Not sure what I’m going to do for the more abstract, “defining/capturing home”, part of the project though…

The Human Voice:
This is by far the chillest course I’m taking. We learn about tonality differences across languages and how breathing, posture, tongue position, and other factors affect our voices. The course goals are to learn how to better command and project our speaking voices as well as better understand language/sound composition and take on the tonality of other languages. The class is very interactive and experimental. So far we’ve been doing a series of breathing exercises; laying on the floor, walking around, and then talking about our experiences. I always leave feeling very relaxed--I love it so far.

Global Studies
The purpose of this course is to give us an overview of the political, social, and economic climates of the countries we will be sailing to while paying particular attention to cultural nuisances so that we can better contextualize and understand what we experience in port. I love that the past few classes have been filled with a series of guest lecturers and have been pretty interactive with discussion and Q&A.

Today’s lecture was pretty interesting. A panel of 3 visiting professors who have expertise on different facets of China (the political, economical, and social) gave us an overview of the current state of China. Candace asked a question about how capitalism prospers in a communistic country. The visiting professor from China responded by saying that China is more nationalistic or even socialist than communistic. They believe in pursuing policies that place the interest of the country first, even if those policies may negate communistic ideologies. In that sense, China takes on a “whatever it takes to prosper” stance. He ended his explanation with the following analogy. “If China wants to catch a mouse, they do not care whether it is a black or white cat that catches the mouse, or even a cat, all they care about is that whatever animal they use, gets the job done.” –not sure why that’s in quotes, because it’s not verbatim lol.

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Life on the Ship: Classes—“Dubois and Unpure Chinese communism?”

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The accommodations are pretty nice and comfortable. Once again, I captured a video tour of my room but I won’t be able to upload it until I get to port or after trip is over because of bandwidth/limited internet minutes. I have a spacious double (bigger than Penn dorm doubles lol). Each room has its own bathroom. Each room has a steward that makes the beds and cleans the bathrooms daily. It’s a strange feeling having someone cleaning up after me, but it is a nice perk to come back to a clean room after a long day of classes/gym/activities (I know, poor me lol). Each room also has a painting with notes from previous SAS alums in the back. It’s Semester at Sea tradition for each class to leave notes/tips/advice for the following year’s class in the backs of the paintings. Once Leah and I read the notes on the back of our painting I’ll create a separate blog post of it—including the tips/notes we leave behind J.

I know you are all probably wondering what the heck we do on the ship all day, besides class. There are nightly activities/lectures. Last night we made origami. There are also different committees and clubs that you can sign up for—leadership, students of service, peer advising etc. Neha and I signed up for Sea TV, which is the on-ship news broadcast group…and…ready…we were selected to be the two anchors! Lol! We will air episodes the day before we reach each port. The name of the news production will be “Lost at Sea News”—the news trailer will be to the tune of Lost lol. We are also working on improving employee (crew) rights and a crew appreciation day. We were talking to a few of the crew members a couple days ago and upon conversation learned that they work 12 hour shifts, get paid about $600 per month, and barely have free time. We are going to help organize a day where students serve the crew dinner and hopefully start discussions about higher wages/better benefits. More on that as it develops…

For the most part, we eat and work out. There is a gym, weight room, and yoga mats for ab workouts. Neha and I have been pretty good about working out every day in between ports. We usually do 30-minute cardio on the elliptical and then ab workouts on the deck. I love working out at night and doing ab workouts on the deck under the stars, with the ocean breeze to cool me down.

It’s also a surreal feeling to be on the deck and look out into the ocean. Only then am I reminded that I’m on a little ship floating around in the middle of the freaking Pacific Ocean. No one else in the world has our time zone. That’s wild. We’ve set our clocks back about 4 times since we’ve been on the ship, which makes us 7 hours behind the east coast. It’s been glorious gaining an extra hour of sleep every few days. It’s pretty scary to think that we are in the middle of the ocean and if anything were to happen it would take rescue teams at least 8 hours to get to us. We experienced pretty bad turbulent water the first few days—people were popping meclizine (sea sickness pills) like candy. Apparently, of all the oceans, the Pacific has the roughest waters. The constant motion died down substantially since leaving Hawaii and will end altogether once we reach the Indian Ocean.

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Life on the Ship-Accommodations, Amenities, and Activities

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Sorry for the long hiatus! The last few weeks have been very hectic, found it very difficult to find time to write. I’ve taken a ton of videos however, due to the ship’s bandwidth, I can’t upload any of them until I get back home. But I’ll try to upload a few once we get to Japan. The next few blog posts will just be a series of (LONG) updates to orient you about what life is like on the ship, and then I’ll talk about Hilo and Honolulu, Hawaii.

In a word, life on the ship has been great! The days are soo long. We’ve only been on the ship for a couple weeks but it feels like a couple months. There are over 600 students on the ship, but everyone pretty much knows each other already. It’s funny how quickly you bond with people once you are completely detached from cell phones, Facebook/internet, family, friends, and spend every waking hour with each other on a ship lol.

In terms of demographics of the ship, I would say its 90% white, 4% Black, 3% Asian, and 3% Hispanic. It was announced on the first day that the male to female ratio is 1:2 (33% male, 66% female). Most students come from small schools in the Midwest, California, and Southwest. While the ship is, for the most part, racially homogeneous, I would not say that I am constantly confronted with blatantly racist actions/comments or feel polarized. Not gonna lie, initially there were quite a few slightly annoying comments/pseudo-compliments about my hair and name--i.e. when I introduce myself as Chi-Chi, “oh that’s fun!”, (after asking me to repeat it) “really?, at least it’s easy to remember”. For laughs, I pretty much responded in the same manner when they in turn introduced themselves—i.e. “I’m Kelly”, me: “oh that’s fun too!” or “at least it’s easy to remember” lol. However, there were quite a few genuine compliments about my hair and name also, so it’s all good. Over time, I’ve learned that most comments are unintentional and come from a place of ignorance or lack of exposure—so I just address the more serious/blatant actions and mitigate/overlook the rest and move on. At the same token, I’ve resolved to not tokenize myself by taking it upon myself to bear the burden of constantly educating other people. I’m just going to be myself and allow genuine bonds to form, if true understanding and cross-cultural connections grow from the friendships I form, then that’s a beautiful thing.

For the most part, everyone I’ve met has been really chill. My roommate Leah Farrakhan is from Stone Mountain, Georgia. I’m so glad to have her as a roommate. My biggest fear was having a messy, passive-aggressive roommate that eats all my food and sabotages me by turning off the alarm without waking me up or something lol. I’ve heard (& experienced) some wild roommate horror stories. But we’re both really flexible and look out for each other. I connected with Neha Maheshwari from Cincinnati, OH, right off the bat. Originally due to the fact that we both have similar senses of humor and we’re both 2nd semester seniors that hustled our way onto the ship lol. Upon having a 3-hour conversation about our backgrounds (she’s Indian and I’m Nigerian), families, experiences, goals, and outlook on life, we realized how much we really have in common. I’ve pretty much been hanging out with Neha, Jenny Feuer (LA, CA), Amy Altzsuser (NJ/NY), Candace White (VA), and Kareem Cumberbatch from the Bahamas. These people have provided me with non-stop laughter since the very first day. We just finished planning out our itinerary/game plan for Japan, China, and India. We’re pretty much city hopping and don’t plan to sleep lol. So excited for what’s to come!
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Life on the Ship: The People—“Token black girl?”

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