Blog 9

As I stated in my last blog, I was able to get back on the ship for to sail to Hong Kong, while I had originally planned to independently travel and meet the ship there. Luckily, the Chinese immigration department was kind enough of to accommodate these changes in my plans. So I spent 2 days and 3 nights on the ship and I can't really complain, I saved some money and some complicated travel situations during the busy Chinese New Year. There was no class on these days and I would say there was only about 1/6 of the passengers aboard. We all just kinda' chilled for two days. They played non-stop movies and Friends DVD's on the closed circuit television, and it was a very low-key 2 days where we were all able to rest up and catch up on any studying that we might have. Every night on the ship, we got a 5 course meal where we were waited on by the crew. Very fancy!

On the third day, we would arrive in Hong Kong, so once again, 5:30AM I was on the front deck with my camera in hand. This entrance into Hong Kong was very exotic and unexpected. I didn't know that Hong Kong was such a subtropical destination. As we neared, I started to see huge hilly green islands appear out of the dense fog, like a scene out of Jurassic park. We neared the assortment of islands that the metro area of Hong Kong is comprised of, as the ship decks started to fill with picture taking voyagers. Once again, we docked right next to some of the coolest looking skyscrapers, right in the heart of Hong Kong. The coolest one was the pair of look-alike towers from the latest Batman movie. From the ship, we were able to identify the building that Batman flew off of, busted in the window of the other, and successfully kidnapped the Asian villain. Once we were ported, I set out with Betsy and McKenna who were going to visit some markets. I had that choice or I could have gone with some buds to the island of Macau, which is apparently the Vegas of Asia. God knows I would have had a great time, but Mom and Dad wouldn't be too happy if I had to call because I gambled away all my money. Plus, I've got the real Vegas 9 hours from home in Colorado. Anyway, we found our way to the Ladies market, the gold fish market, and the bird market. The ladies market was just a bunch of handbags, trinquets, soccer jerseys, watches, and jewelry… pretty blah, but very cheap. There is a girl on the ship who calls me Becham, so I bought a Becham Jersey for 10 bucks to keep me from going insanely bored while the girls shopped. I also ate the grosses thing that I could find, just for kicks. It ended up being just some tentacles on a stick… not too bad. We made our way to the gold fish market which is exactly like it sounds, just a bunch of goldfish and that's it; and then on to the bird market. The bird market was in fact pretty cool, it was a covered area that had all kinds of bird chirping and squawking away. There were big beautiful parrots that you could feed, and exotic birds that you would have sit on your shoulder for pictures.

After all this fun, the smell of city was really starting to get to us and it was getting packed with the crowds of rush hour. Once we made our way back to the ship, it was about dark. We ate on the ship, which seems to be getting worse and worse as the time goes on, and then waited to watch the light show that goes on every night. This light show goes on all over the city, and all the skyscrapers and buildings participate in their own unique way. It is truly an amazing sight to see, many of the buildings shoot big powerful lasers from the top and others light up with neon from top to bottom. You could do a panorama from the boat and literally turn a 360 and see a great assortment of lights the whole time. All who were left on the ship filled the decks to watch the spectacular site. Once again, another unreal and unforgettable experience! That night, we headed out to a night life district that was across the bay. It was one street that was on a hill and there was an escalator in the middle of it that went straight up the street. The escalator boasted that it was the longest escalator in the world. The rest of night, most of the SASers met up at this spot, I went home early but rumor has it; Some partied literally all night there.

The next morning, I woke up bright and early and went up to eat on deck 6. There, I explored my options for the day, and then decided to set out for an adventure alone. I visited the info desk and had an idea of what I wanted to do. I would head out to see a giant copper budha about 10 miles away. Luckily, I found my buddy Kyle from Colorado and we decided to roll out together. We boarded the train, which I was thankful to see was in English as well as Cantonese, and set out for this monument. This was when I got a true appreciation for the terrain. It was all green, humid, and mountainous. I felt like at any moment, a snake could have slinked down out of any of these huge trees… or a primitive tribe would be around the bend chanting… or King Kong was about to swing out from a vine. Actually the goal was to find a monkey, I was unsuccessful, but I'll find one in Vietnam though. After we got off the train, we got some food at a local restaurant. I had some noodles, which I ended up just pointing to on the menu, and Kyle went up to the counter and did the most American thing he could have done by saying "yeah, can I get the little sandwiches."

We finished up and set out for the Budha. What we didn't know, is that we were headed in the exact opposite direction and ended up winding through a tropical path, seeing a small temple, and then winding up at a High School where the punk ass kids laughed and made fun of the lost white Americans. We got turned around and headed back for the Budha, it ended up that we had to take a gondola to the top of a small mountain to get to it, but it was very worth it. This Budha was at least 5 stories tall and very cool, but packed with tourists none-the-less. After we finally reached it, it was getting pretty late. I returned to the ship after dealing with the hustle and bustle of the city, again and then spent 2 hours trying to figure out the internet situation, which never worked for me anyway.

Sorry, you'll have to wait 'til I get to Vietnam to see the pics. There was a night market down Nathan Street, which was very close to the ship, and I had to check that out. I decided to set out by myself again and I would catch up with everyone else later that night, because everyone else wanted to go out and party, or had already left for the bars. I grabbed my Nikon and had myself an evening at the night market. It was pretty similar to the ladies market with the same type of goods, look, and feel; but I felt that it was slightly less safe. I definitely was glad I had my money belt that night. I know that New York is supposed to be the city that never sleeps, but I gotta tell ya, any city that has a district where the primary shopping hours are from 8PM to 3AM, I gotta say has my vote. I snapped some cool pictures of the place and then headed back to the ship.

The next day, I slept in till about 10:30 and then spent the day exploring more of the city solo. I made sure to get some stamps and postcards at this port, so Gramma and Grampa, you'll be getting some soon!

We'll be in Vietnam in about 36 hours.

Blog 8

After Realizing that my attempts to post pictures throughout my blog have all been failures, I am now aware that these works may, at times, seem incomplete. I will have to be more descriptive in my explanations. Sorry for the technical difficulties

The country of China! Where to begin!

I woke up on the day that we ported in Shanghai at 5AM again, I keep doing this and we usually won't get in until way later anyway. So it's usually just me standing on the front deck staring into the black water in the freezing cold and wind. For Shanghai, however, that was not the case. The city is up a very large river that the ship sailed through in order to get to where we would dock. It was unbelievable to cruise through the industrial areas and more and more lights spring up and the city gets closer and closer. We started to go under bridges, pass by other boats and see the formation of the skyline until we arrived at where we would dock, which just so happened to be right next to the Oriental Pearl Tower (the big needle). it was a great view from the ship. After being on the ship for the majority of the morning, immigration finally cleared us to get off. The first thing I did was head to a commercial district which was in full celebration effect for the Chinese New Year, which was going on at the time. The time that we were there, we were told most of the city and it's inhabitants were in the suburbs with their families for the holiday, but judging by the crowds, I strongly wanted to argue otherwise. The city of Shanghai, however, has 18 million people! I had not known crowds until I got there. It was a dog eat dog world out there. It was all business, and bustle, and come-look-at-my-shop, and special-price-for-you, and people open fire peeing all over the place, and octopus on sticks, and… just a free-for-all.

That day I was hanging out with my buddy Griffin, and we were on the hunt for a camera. Not just any camera either, I've been known to snap a few pics and my Dad encouraged me to get a nice one. I was looking for a Nikon, and a Nikon is what I got. With my buddy looking up the best buy prices on his phone, I was able to haggle down the price for a Nikon D5000 with a 18;55 VR lens and 4 GB memory card for a decent price. Now after that, it was getting to be night time and we were getting hungry. So, as we were in a foreign country and very cultural individuals, we settle on Pizza Hut to eat dinner; aka my employer. I know… Griffin's idea. However my Chinese Pizza Hut experience was a cultural experience on its own. It was more like a California Pizza Kitchen than a Pizza Hut. I looked over at a lady who was enjoying some hot wings, and she was eating it with a fork. As my Dad would say, it's not a pop sickle (BOBsickle). We ordered a beer each and they brought them to us at room temperature, and customers do not get water with their meals in China either. We began the journey back to the ship and then got ready for a night out. We ended up at a bar where the SASers seemed to be congregating and found that the bars were mostly comprised of foreigners. I think white people are the world's drinkers, I will have to explore that theory further, but it's interesting because I met so many people from other countries at bars (not to say that I went to a lot of bars) and not very many locals or even Asian looking people. Or maybe we were just hitting the foreigner spots. Another thing is that China was so dirt cheap with everything; food, snacks, clothes. But drinks were pretty expensive, about 6 or 7 USD. Anyway, we had a found a cool bar at the top of the Hyatt hotel called Cloud 9. It was rumored that it is the highest bar in the world. I didn't care because the only thing higher than that was the cost my drink at that place. Given, it WAS a cool view… I get it… Over it. We found another spot which was on the 7^th story somewhere else, chilled out, did some dancing, and it was a great night.

The next day, I set out solo in search of some new cultural stuff for my new camera to capture. I went back the same way that I went yesterday, skyped my Mom from a coffee house, and then heard about a place which was rich with more traditional culture, food, architecture, and cheap shopping. After wandering around for a while snapping away, I found a little nook in the street where it looked like there was a market with food and produce sales going on. I followed this small alley, (which I could literally stick out my hands and touch each wall) where people yelled and me and pointed to there food items or whatever they were selling until I got to an opening. The opening was just another small street that was bustling with people. This place, though, was amazingly packed with people and very cool. It smelled kinda funny; like dirty clothes, wet dog, filthy street, and fried food and noodles. There were vendors everywhere making their food. There was everything… from squid to udon noodles to duckhead with the eyes still in it. I wanted to eat the duck head just to say I did, but I felt like I just needed that little push to do it. You know like if someone would have dared me, then it would have been on. There were these weird bread type things that came up to about my waist on the table they were sitting on and I was taking pictures when I witnessed a little kid come up to the vendors table and just chomp on one of them. He got smacked the hell out of, by his Dad and I laughed and smiled at the Dad. Further down, was more shopping, I got a cool coat for super cheap, but am now realizing now that it may be too small in the arms for me. Anybody need a coat?

After eating some noodles and dirt cheap peanuts that I bought, I filled up my memory on the camera, and started to walk back to the ship. On my way, 3 random Asian kids, who looked about my age, approached me and wanted a picture. Not me to take a picture of them, they wanted a picture of me and them. This was not the first time this had happen or would happen, funny huh? Also, this was when I realized the rule about public urination. That day I saw at least 3 little kid's dicks, just open fire wherever they please. When I was walking to the market, I saw an old man in an ally taking a wiz, and then I saw a younger guy in a weird crouched position doing the same. I just assumed the old guy was a drunk and the other one was being a punk, but after these little kids just started whipping it out and let her rip, I realized that I must have not been fully briefed on the situation. I never joined in the fun, but looking back on it, I will definitely take advantage of that convenient way of life if I ever return. I got back to the ship in time to eat and then met up with Betsy,(the girl form Boulder) McKenna (her roommate from Hawaii with giant boobs), and a kid named Oliver… and I don't know where he's from but he's pretty cool. He's the kinda' guy that's always cookin'. You know, you never really know what he's up to, but he's always got a plan, and he's always got the coolest shit and the funnest thing to do; but you should probably think twice before you co-sign with him.

So as a collective group, we decide we're gonna go to this spot that's at the top of the other Hyatt hotel which was not as high as Cloud 9, but here's the kicker; there was a hot tub at the top! So we go to this hot tub bar to kick it and relax. By now, there's a crew of SASers up there and we're all hangin' and having a good time. Around midnight, we see fireworks start to go off. They start in random places throughout the city and just continue to light up and crack and pow throughout. This was an absolutely breathtaking experience. Apparently, this was the night when the Chinese just go ape-shit with their fireworks for the new year. We noticed that all the city lights and skyscrapers are no longer lit up and couldn't figure out why until this started happening. Literally, as far as the eye could see in any direction, it was just sparks, shapes, colors, and beautiful light going non-stop. So we're in a hot tub at the top of a hotel, and around us there is a beautiful cityscape of Chinas biggest city and everywhere we look there are balls of colored sparks. It was absolutely unbelievable.

The next day was the last day in Shanghai, I was lucky enough to get my plans changed so that I could stay on the ship and sail from Shanghai to Hong Kong to save money. I spent the day looking for a specific kind of purse for my Mom at a good price, so Ma, I hope you like it. I got back on the ship at 8 and we departed. That's about all I can write right now because it is 1:30 in the morning and I'm getting tired.

The next entry will be a little about the ship experience and all about Honk Kong!

Blog 7

Where was I?

Oh yeah! Walking around taking pictures with hot Asian girls… of course! The day in Shibuya was coming to an end.

The sun was going down and it was starting to rain. We went back to the Hostel back on the subway. I'm not kidding, without Jimmy, we would have had no idea how to get around. The subways were interesting in that it was just people on-the-go, and it was very structured, people were just sitting on train cars packed like sardines staring at the ground or sleeping. Some of the them had doctors masks on, so if I wanted more space I would just break into a violent cough attack, and then I could stretch out. We decided to go back and nap for a while before dinner. We got a pretty late start that night, and we ate at around 11 PM and then at 12:02 we realized "welp, guess we're not going downtown." We were sitting in a booth, still thoroughly enjoying ourselves for dinner, when we heard Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" playing from the table behind us. We turned around and saw a Japanese couple who was playing the song from their lap top. It went with a personally edited and created video of his trip to New York, 2 weeks previously. We got to talking with them(as best we could) and they invited us to a karaoke club. We went and sang Karaoke with them and the rest of the night was pretty much history. The karaoke, however was funny in that it was all just different American music with lyrics while montages of white American girls from the 80's were playing in the background screen, usually sitting in a park by the fountain or sitting by the phone or looking passionately out a window; meanwhile we were standing on chairs and rapping Eminem or singing the Backstreet Boys. We didn't get back until about 4 AM that night either, after stopping at the 24 hour McDonalds for late night munchies. But I suppose it was more of early morning munchies. After thanking and greeting the nice locals we met… and checking our pockets to make sure they weren't conning us, we departed for the hostel to conclude another fun night.

We woke up the next day with nothing on the itinerary but adventure. We headed the opposite way of the subway, and stumbled across some awesome stuff. South of our hostel, we found a shopping area, with little souvenir shops, cheap dinning, soccer fields, arcades, batting cages, even a temple. At this temple, there was a little hut where smoke was coming out, and people were standing before it and ushering smoke out of it and in to themselves as some religious gesture. There was also Nazi signs all over, which apparently meant something in Japanese before it was the universal symbol for white power and genocide.

I bought a white headband that you would usually see on a sushi chef that says Kamikazee in Japanese writing. I would imagine that it is offensive… but I saw little kids wearing 'em too. For lunch that day, we went to a restaurant where you go inside, and there's a vending machine and then press the button of the picture of what you want, and then get a ticket. You sit down and they bring you miso soup, a small salad, and whatever you ordered with rice. I'm pretty sure mine was cat, but it was the best damn cat I've ever tasted. So we went back twice before the trip was over. Oh yeah and they also brought me a raw egg… which I thought was not raw and ate it accordingly….( I know we looked like such idiots). This place would come to be known as vending machine café. That night, we went to the first restaurant and ate sushi; completely unsatisfied and still hungry, we found our way to another place, where we couldn't communicate what-so-ever. We had one single bowl for the 4 of us of steaming meat (cat or dog), and then paid and left. Then we went back to Vending Machine Café and fulfilled our hunger needs.

We went back to the hostel and took a shower and got ready. My shower experience took about 30 minutes, which is why I only took two. At the hostel, we had a room that we all shared and then another room with a sink and two doors. Behind one door, was literally a 2 by 3 ft box with a toilet and the other was a 4 by 10 ft shower room. We actually all took off our pants before we got into the toilet room because we found it worked that much better. The shower had a lower part where water came out and a shower head. The shower head, however, did not turn hot. I ended up filling up a coke bottle and pouring it over myself the whole time. We went out to Ropongi again that night and were directed toward a club called Muse. We walked in and found two white kids shooting pool and two Asian bartenders, one of which was wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt. We looked at the menu and saw 12 dollar drinks. We sat and decided what we were gonna do before we got kicked out for not ordering drinks. After that we continued to walk until we found a black man who tried to hustle 30 bucks out of us to go to a bar and drink all-you-drink. We talked him down to 100 dollars for the 4 of us, and then I said "Do you have Red Bull?" he shook his head, and it was a done deal. We spent the night talking with new people and enjoying the atmosphere of this club/bar, before we all decided we had had enough… at 5AM, and made our way home.

The next day, we found some more SASers and toured Tokyo with them. We spent part of the day searching for one of their lost wallets and when we found it at a hotel, the guy at the desk said "Japan very safe". We went up in a tower and took some pictures, I wish I could remember the name of it, but it seems to have escaped me. We booked a night bus in order to get from Tokyo to Kobe, where the ship would meet us; and boarded the bus after a long walk uptown at 10:20 at night. When we got on the bus, we found no bathroom and that the bus was arranged with Asians in mind. I spent 9 hours with my knees slammed in a seat and my back upright. I'm very lucky that I was improperly hydrated. I nodded off a few times, but was awake for the majority of the trip. Needless to say… it sucked. The goal was to get to Kobe in time for breakfast on the ship (7AM-830), but we missed it by about 20 minutes. I came back and unpacked and showered before I got a knock on my door.

The last words I wanted to hear were "Get up dude, we're going to a castle", but that's exactly what I heard. I got off the ship with the fellas, walked to the end of the dock and said "you guys have fun." I came back and unloaded my pictures on my computer and for some reason still couldn't sleep. At lunch time on the ship, I found Yudai, Sam, and Mac again and we went out exploring Kobe. I found a super hot Asian girl to take a picture with, while Yudai translated, probably just telling her we were idiots and then apologizing.

We went to an internet café but I couldn't do much with that Japanese keyboard. I wrote Happy Valentine's Day (2 days early in America) on a girl from home's wall on facebook, and watched how-to-learn-Chinese videos on youtube. In the city I bought some construction paper and a marker and did a little project, but it was more of a task just finding the supplies. I found some new stunna' shades for 10 bucks because my old ones fell off the boat in Hawaii. I came back to the ship called it a day and was out by 7:00PM.

What an adventure!

Blog 6

The Country of Japan! (part 1)

Wowee! What a week I've had. Two nights before we got off the ship, all the students had a Global Studies test, which was just about what I expected… I expect to see about a B or more realistically a C on that; but hey… that's how first tests go. The next day was Asia day; we had an entire day dedicated to the arts, history, and culture of various Asian countries. So all day, there were open classroom programs that included learning languages, painting, informational seminars, dances, traditional dressing, etc. It was very cool to experience, and everyone was very excited to get to the next day where we would be in Japan! I spent the evening packing and preparing for my 4 night trip. The plan was to hang out my buddies from southern California; Tim, Jimmy, and Jeff. I went to sleep around midnight but kept waking up because I was so excited! I decided to give up on sleeping around 5 and went up to roam the boat. I did some video taping on various decks and then took a nap by the window in the deserted union. I woke back up after about an hour to find the outside waters being with another ship or two. I went to the back deck and before I knew it, the sun was peeking out from a horizon that shown a mountainous silhouette and what looked like various Christmas lights scattered about the dark land formation. At this point, it was me and about 3 or 4 others on the back taking pictures. Japan literally means the land of the rising sun, and indeed it was. It was an extraordinary sight. If you haven't heard the Lupe Fiasco song – "Paris, Tokyo", I'm living it.

I was running off about five hours of sleep but still was amped with energy. Around 10 AM, the boat began to be unloaded and we were called by sea, which is what deck you're on. I live on deck 2 and am in the Aegean Sea. I didn't get off until about noon, and my buddies were waiting for me when I got off. Most of the students were just standing on the deck waiting to get off into the city of Yokohoma, , forced to star at the beautiful cityscape but couldn't quite reach; it was like a cruel joke. Once I finally got off, we spent the afternoon navigating the train system which I still have no idea how to do, but Jimmy was an expert on, somehow. We did a lot of walking and got lost multiple times before we finally reached The BakPak Tokyo Hostel and settled in. Before then we ate at a restaurant in a shopping district and that was when we really realized we had no communication skills and were out of luck if any confrontation was experienced. We took turns passing the menu around the table and pointing to the pictures while the waitress made gestures of recognition and then it was all good… That is until she brought out one plate of food and sat it in front of me and never returned to the table. We had a good laugh, found a way to use more pointing and finger counting to get more food for the rest of the fellas. I was the most proficient with my chopsticks but I became highly impressed with the friends progress. As we got up to leave, the two girls at the counter looked at each other pre-meditatively, said "one, two sree… sank you!", and then fell into uncontrollable laughter as we clapped.

That night, we went to a go to a place called Ropongi, which we were told was the Tokyo hot spot for clubs and bars. I was out for 2 things that night – sushi, and karaoke. We were told by the girl at the front desk of the hostel that Japanese people eat dinner around 9 or 10 and then go out and party till 5 in the morning. The subway stopped at 12AM and didn't start till 5AM, so we were pretty much obligated to do it this way. I'm not complaining, I like to party all night long! unlike my father. So we go out and find some sushi and thank Christ when we find a waitress that speaks English! The first thing that I noticed is PORTION size.

I spent this entire trip consumptionally unsatisfied. They only sold 750 ml of hard alcohol, as opposed to handles in America, and every meal we had was just a 4 piece McNugget and rice…. or 5 pieces of sushi for 15 bucks. Dah! I spent most of money on food. Anyway we found sushi and had a great meal and I had a Sopporo. That's Asian beer for all you who aren't frequents in sushi restaurants. After dinner, we met up with Jeff's cousin, Sam who is also on SAS too. Sam, was with a kid named Mac from California, and Yudai, a Japanese student who goes to school in Texas. Yudai was very convenient to have around. He showed us a Karoake joint, that we found some SASers at. The way that it works is you get your own room with the group that you brought. I was having a great time but wanted to meet more Japanese people, so I spent the remainder of the evening just busting in on Japanese people doing Karoake. But it was 40 American dollars for all you can drink and sing until 5 AM… SOLD! We lost Tim and somewhere that night and we got back around 6AM very relieved to find him warm in his bed.

The next day we woke up and went to Shibuya, this is like the Japanese Times square. You know when you see the movies when Tokyo is just lit up with neon lights, huge screens with Japanese pop videos, and crosswalks where it's just an Asian free-for-all. This place was, just like other big cities in the world, was full of the most prestigious stores and brands worldwide. Everywhere you would look, it would be Louie Vutton, Nike, Gucci, Coach, Gap, etc; and of course there was a Starbucks and a McDonalds on every corner.

They even had the 100 yen menu! Yes… Yes… I went to Japan and went to McDonalds, but I only got an afternoon ice cream. That day was a big confusion of subway systems and people, and shops. It would have been my kind of place if I was rollin' in the dough, otherwise… eh… Still a very cool experience though. What we mostly did, was walk around and flash the stereotypical Asian peace sign with both hands and take pictures. We also looked for hot Japanese girls to take pictures with, a lot of them were wearing school girl outfits, but were pretty scared of interaction with us. Either because we were white(besides Arab-looking Jimmy), or didn't speak Japanese, or were a full foot taller; we were intimidating.

That is gonna have to some up Blog 6 since I've written a novel, much more to come.

Blog 5

It is the "lost day" at sea, here aboard the MV Explorer and tonight we will be hopping from Tuesday to Thursday at midnight as we cross the international dateline. I never really liked hump day anyway, but days of the week don't seem to matter anyway in the program. All I know is when assignments are due, and what days I should read or should have been doing reading that I didn't; once again, just kidding Mom and Dad. Speaking of assignments though, the work is really starting to pile up, it seems like all the teachers are trying to stuff in assignments before we get to Asia because once we hit, it's Japan-China-Vietnam right on top of each other. We've just been assigned customs and immigration paper work for foreign countries, it was kind of a pain in the ass to be honest. It took about an hour to do and had to be done absolutely perfect, luckily the experienced lady at the counter, when you turn it in, could spot mistakes at first glance; the captain sure does run a tight ship.

 

Otherwise, life, once again, is good! They filled up the pool two days ago and we were able to get in the salty ocean water. I decided to be a show off and swim underwater back and forth from one end to the other as many times as I could and hurt my eyes in the salty pool. Man! Did that sting! Last night we had a little dance that was called the Remix Dance, where everyone was supposed to wear mix-matching outfits. It turned out to be pretty fun, and had a very good turn out, who knew so many people good dance without booze? I wonder if people were able to sneak it on anyway… I know that at least one girl has already been kicked off the boat and I suspect more. I heard it was because she threw a shoe at the security guard who demanded to check her room, who knows though? Gossip is trafficked like heroine around here. There is a big composite type portrait, though, in Tymitz square, and 4 different people's pictures have been covered up already. We're not even out of the country yet! If I got kicked off, I think I would just stay in whatever country I was at, better to do that than face my parents.

 

We're about halfway to Japan now and I'm definitely noticing a decline in the temperature. I've breakin' out the jeans and wearing the Timberland's like the Colorado boy I am. When we get there, I'm planning on rolling with my pike buddies to Tokyo, where we'll get a Hostel for a while and we've got some ideas and some direction as what to do while we're there. I'm planning on a lot of sushi and Karaoke, but I know the city of Tokyo, so rich with culture, must have way more to offer than that. Japan, I'm also anticipating will be one of the most expensive ports, I'm crossing my fingers that my money holds out, not too worried though. I have made plans on the last day, to meet up with my childhood friend, Takuya. He was one of my best friends in Mrs. Fitch's 3^rd grade class at Huddleston Elementary, who lives by Kobe, and I can't wait to catch up with him.

 

After Kobe, you are all sure to get an update. Hope to hear from you soon.