Back Home

Well its been about a week since I've back home and I'm getting back into "normal" life again. Pulling into Leominster for the first time was certainly a wierd feeling. I have never been away from my hometown for 3.5 months before. While the feeling i got was strange, at the same time I had felt like I had never left.

The voyage was absolutely the most incredible thing i have done with my life. Being in a different country every week, meeting people, seeing the landscapes, and travelling within the countries gave me new eyes from which to view the world, and it certainly gave me a different perspective of America. I can't wait to be able to travel again, to see more parts of the world and to experience different cultures and different lands.

While the countries and the experiences in port were nothing short of unforgettable, so too was what we came to know as the "12th port", the MV Explorer and the community that formed on it over the course of 100 days. We all went through a lot together, whether it was having an amazing time travelling in countries, enjoying the preports and other ship activities, or dealing with the news of the V-Tech shootings, we all formed a bond over the voyage that will always be there, no matter where we live in the country, or the world. I made some amazing friends that I miss already and I truly just savored every moment of living on a ship, going around the world.....at twenty miles an hour (as Dean Mike would say).

I want to just thank the incredible people that made this voyage so enjoyable, my friends and everyone I traveled with, the administration, the crew of the Explorer (who are some of the nicest people I've known), and the faculty and staff of Semester at Sea. And of course none of it would have been possible without the support and help of my family at home. I hope that I will again be able to experience an around the world voyage, or even just a reunion voyage.
As for me, I've already started my summer internship in Framingham, MA and will be returning to Babson in the fall for my senior year.

I still plan to post pictures from the last few ports, no idea when they will be up though.

coming soon...

sit tight, ill be making a concluding entry and be posting pictures of japan, hawaii, and our arrival in san diego soon.

its great to be home, but i already miss the ship and everyone onboard....maybe i can be a stowaway on the summer voyage....

Hawaii

Just about to board the Explorer for the last time (tear). I spent the day going to Pearl Harbor and Waikiki Beach. Be back in Mass a week from today. See everyone soon.

Japan

    The past few days on the ship have been quite hectic as the semester is winding down, but nowhere near as hectic as my five days in Japan were. In 5 days I traveled to five different cities and there were miles of walking, not much sleep, and a lot of sightseeing. For the first time in months, the Explorer docked in a country that is considered "1^st world" and it was strange to be in a place that was so developed, both economically and culturally. I guess it was a good primer for coming back to the States in just a couple weeks. Despite being so developed and modern, Japan is rich in culture and tradition. For example, even aboard the trains, the crew would bow upon entering and exiting each car, as a sign of respect to the passengers. At the same time, Japan is an extremely formal culture. Every male in this society wears a full suit, day in and day out. I constantly felt underdressed in Japan.

    Anyway, here's the rundown…

Day 1: We were welcomed onboard the ship by a group of Japanese students and a group of Japanese drummers. The performance was amazing and after they exchanged gifts with the officers and captain of the ship and some of the administration of Semester at Sea, it was our first glimpse at the level of respect that the Japanese have for us as visitors to their country. Even before we got off the ship we felt welcomed by Japan. Once we did get off, we spent a chaotic afternoon picking up our Japan Rail Passes and getting tickets to head out to Tokyo that evening. After standing in lines and running around to different train stations, we boarded the bullet train to Tokyo in the early evening. As you might expect by the name, these things are fast. I don't recall the exact speed, but I know it was well over 100 mph. Not only that, but throughout my travels in Japan, they served as the best place to sleep because the chairs were so comfortable and the leg room was unmatched by any other form of transportation.

    Anyway, we got to Tokyo in a little over three hours and set out on a mission to find some authentic Japanese dinner, and boy did we. Slava, Ali, Sashia and I ended up at a restaurant where we had to take our shoes off and sit on the floor to eat our tamporo and noodles. After our dinner, we headed towards Tokyo Tower, which is the highest steel structure in the world at 320 meters (yep, higher than the Eiffel Tower). We took the elevator to the observatory and then up even further to the special observatory for some incredible night views of the city of Tokyo.

    Our plan for staying overnight was to find what is called a "manga" café. More or less, these are internet cafes that are open around the clock and offer rates that you can sleep over in some really comfy leather chairs. For $12, it was the most economical choice for staying the night. The only problem was that these places improved impossible to find and after walking around the city for about 3 hours, we finally settled in to a café around 11:30pm. We planned on getting some sleep so we would be all ready for a full day in Tokyo, but when you live on a ship where internet is 30 cents a minute, unlimited internet is really attractive. That and sleeping in a place with lights and music on is not the easiest thing. Needless to say, I think I got about an hour and a half of sleep before we got up early to go to the fish market.

Day 2: Five AM rolled around real quick and we all headed out of the café and got on the subway to go to the largest fish market in Japan, and probably one of the largest in the world. Although we were all half asleep, the place was pretty amazing. We saw Tunas worth over $10,000 being traded and cut up, not to mention every sort of fish, octopus and other sea creatures all being put up for sale to the hundreds if not thousands of restaurants in Tokyo. They use these little flat bed trucks that zip around the narrow aisles of the market and I could have sworn I was about to be run over at least a dozen times in the short time that I was there.

    After roaming the fish market for a while, we set out to find some breakfast before heading to the Imperial Palace. We found that the only thing open was the fine establishment of David and Deluca's and killed an hour or so there while waiting for the palace to open at 8:30. The imperial palace is still a functioning complex and we found out that we were not actually allowed to go in. However, the surrounding grounds act as an oasis in the middle of the city and the area is wide open and quite large. We spent a while just sitting in the grounds, taking it all in and watching as the everyday life of Tokyo buzzed around us.

    The rest of the day we spent visiting different districts of Tokyo and in mid afternoon we took the train back to Kobe to spend the night on the ship. We were all quite exhausted from lots and lots of walking and lack of sleep, so the Explorer was a happy site at the end of the day.

Day 3: We caught a morning train to Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. Once there, we headed to a castle that we were able to walk through. Many of the shoguns of Japan ruled from this place and the artwork and architecture inside and outside of the castle are quite amazing. The hardwood floor inside was actually engineered to make the sound of a mockingbird under footsteps so that the shogun would know if someone had entered his castle. Four hundred years after being built, the floor still works and as we walked through the 30 rooms of the castle, we could hear the mockingbird chirping. Surrounding the castle are many gardens that are kept immaculate, we even saw a woman trimming blades of grass by hand.

    After touring the castle, we headed to the golden pavilion; a shrine that (as you may have guessed) is covered completely in gold. Like the castle, the shrine was surrounded by beautiful gardens. From the pavilion, we took the city bus to the Ito district, which has been left relatively untouched since ancient times. The narrow streets were lined with wooden buildings built in traditional Japanese architecture. We walked a little ways out of the district to a 5^th floor restaurant that overlooked the city for a late lunch. Following lunch, we headed back to the train station and got on a train to Osaka.

    Once in Osaka, we headed out on a planned walking tour that we had found in one of our guide books. The first stop was the floating garden observatory, a skyscraper that consists of two towers connected in the middle by a donut shaped observatory. It's difficult to describe, but the view from the top was quite incredible. Osaka is a city that is divided by many canals and waterways and it was an incredible site to see the sun setting over the waterways and the skyscrapers of the city. After coming back down, we walked towards Hep Five, a giant ferris wheel in the middle of the city. We took a ride that lasted a good 20 minutes because this thing is so big and had another great view of the city. I'm not sure what it is about Asia and ferris wheels, but I think that each of the last four countries we have been to have had a giant ferris wheel.

    We next headed toward a district that is famous for its many restaurants. On the subway, we met a Japanese man who was actually raised in SoCal and had recently moved back to Japan. He talked to us for a while and was nice enough to bring us to the restaurant we had been looking for. This area of Osaka was plastered in neon billboards and huge crowds of people. It really looked like the Japan you see on TV. At the center of these advertisements and billboards was a 3 or 4 story tall poster of Dice-K…Go Sox! After dinner, we headed back to the train station to take a train back to Kobe for the night.

Day 4: I was excited about this day for quite some time as it was the day the four of us were headed to Hiroshima. We arrived early in the morning and after standing in line to buy tickets for the Hiroshima Carps baseball game that afternoon, we headed to the A-Bomb Dome, which is right across the street from the baseball stadium. This is one of the only remaining buildings standing after the A-Bomb was dropped and it stands as both a memorial and reminder to the world of the dangers of nuclear war. While at the dome, we were approached by a man who said he was a survivor of the bomb and was now a free tour guide. He was in his mother's womb when the bomb went off and experienced many health problems as a child from the radiation. He showed us around to some of the sites that we would have never caught had he not shown us. Among these were the hypocenter of the bomb (where it was actually dropped) and a statue that displayed the shadow left by the blast. It was a surreal experience standing in the space right below where the Atomic bomb exploded.

    The guide gave us a great tour throughout the Peace Park, which is an incredible memorial, and left us at the museum. The museum was an incredibly moving experience and probably hit me harder than anything I have seen thus far on the voyage. The four of us did not speak one word or take one picture for the time we were in the museum. The artifacts, anecdotes, and photographs of this low point in history were shocking and heart-wrenching.

    After the emotional experience of the museum and Peace Park, it was certainly a good change of pace to head to a Japanese baseball game. The day was absolutely perfect for baseball, about 75 degrees and sunny. The Carps were taking on the Tigers, which are one of the most popular teams in Japan. Despite being the underdogs, we decided to support the Carps and all bought T-shirts. A Japanese baseball game is unlike anything I've seen before. The crowd is completely into it all nine innings. The stadium is divided perfectly in half between Carp and Tiger fans and the crowd conducts organized chants throughout the whole game. It's completely different from the atmosphere at an MLB game. Speaking of which, I can't wait to get home and watch baseball after hearing the Yankees are in the cellar and the Sox are tearing it up. After all was said and done, the Carps pulled out the upset and beat the Tigers 8-4.

Day 5: After four days of traveling, we were ready to spend the last day in Kobe. The first thing on the agenda…Kobe beef. Kobe is famous for its incredible beef. The difference comes from the way they raise their cows. By constantly massaging the cows and feeding them beer, the fat is evenly dispersed throughout the cow and the result….absolute heaven. Kobe beef is the most incredible thing to ever enter the confines of my oral orifice. It literally melts in your mouth. I could honestly go on for pages about how good it was, but I won't seeing this entry is already way too long. After lunch, Ali, Dan, and I went to a saki museum and brewery and took a little stroll alongside a river way that was lined with Japanese families enjoying the day. We then headed to an internet café, and then to dinner before heading back to the ship.

So we have completed our last foreign port and only a day in Hawaii stands between us and San Diego. Everyone on the ship is getting pretty emotional about leaving, as well as being stressed about end of the semester school work. It seems that everyone is bittersweet about going home, we are all excited to get back to our friends, families, and hometowns, but at the same time everyone is disappointed to leave such an incredible voyage.

     I probably won't post again til I'm back in Mass as internet minutes are running quite low, but maybe I'll get the chance to make a post in Hawaii.

Hong Kong and Beijing

    Hong Kong is labeled a "Special Administrative Region" of China, meaning that it is technically part of the country of China. However, Hong Kong is governed both politically and economically independent of China. Because of its success in finance, banking, and manufacturing China allows Hong Kong to take care of itself. As for China, we all know that its economy is growing at an incredible rate and is reaching the status of a world super power. Throughout my stay in Beijing, the city was rapidly preparing for the 2008 summer Olympics. The history in the country is beyond rich. The thousands of years as an empire has left the country with several landmarks that are among the world's most impressive.

Day 1: As the Explorer pulled into Hong Kong harbor, the most developed and expansive metropolis I have ever seen slowly revealed itself under the cover of clouds and fog. The skyline is incredible and spreads for miles and miles. I couldn't wait to see it at night, but more on that later. After disembarking, Kyle, Slava, Dan, Ali, Sashia and I headed across the harbor from Kowloon Island to Hong Kong Island aboard the Star Ferry. Our first mission was to find some lunch, preferably dim sum. We ended up finding a dim sum restaurant and some fantastic Chinese food. Ordering was comical to say the least, as the waiters spoke no English and we did not know the correct process for ordering. Fortunately, we took some guesses and figured it all out.

    We walked around for a bit and visited a historic temple before finding the world's longest escalator. It is actually a series of escalators that takes passengers from the lower portion of Hong Kong to the upper portion. I'm not sure exactly how long the escalator is but if I had to guess I would say it travels for the better part of a mile. We discovered that the end of the escalator was the lower cable station to get to the top of Victoria Peak, which we were planning on doing later that night. We walked back down to the central subway station and hopped on the subway to go to Mong Kok, an outdoor market on Kowloon Island. The Hong Kong subways are incredibly fast and extremely clean. The six of us split up when we got to the market and spent a few hours shopping before heading back to the ship to drop off our purchases.

    After asking around for a good place to have dinner, we ended up at a restaurant that overlooked the skyline and was very upscale. After conquering the task of ordering, we had another great meal. It will surely be hard to go back to what Americans call Chinese food. Every night at 8:00pm, the Hong Kong skyline conducts alight and laser show like no other that is completely synchronized to music. The show was incredible and I was able to get some great pictures. At the end of the show, we stayed on the viewing platform for a while taking some goofy pictures and just enjoying being together in such an incredible place. Just as we were leaving, the sky opened up and for a period of about 20 minutes there was a torrential monsoon type rain and wind that swept up everything that wasn't secured in the area. Kyle had to save a Chinese couple that got taken out by a tarp.

    Once the rain had stopped, we took the ferry to HK Island again and walked our way to the escalator, then to the cable station. By this time it was 11:30 and the rain had cleared the clouds that had covered the city for the whole day. We boarded the last cable car of the night to the top of Victoria Peak. Being at the top of Hong Kong, overlooking the most awesome skyline in the world is surely something I will never forget. We were able to spend about a half hour at the top before taking the final train of the night back down.

Day 2: Slava and I were signed up for a trip to Beijing hosted by the University of International Business and Economics. We arrived to the campus after a 3 hour flight and short bus ride. We met up with some Chinese students and they proceeded to give us a tour of their campus and ask us questions about our home universities and American life. Following a dinner of Peking Duck with the students, Slava and I met up with our friend Jing from Babson who has been studying abroad at UIBE for the semester. It was great to meet up with a friend half a world away from home and the three of us had a lot of fun over the next few days. Jing showed us the area around UIBE before heading back to campus for the night, where we were staying in guest apartments.

Day 3: We traveled with the SAS group to downtown Beijing where the bus dropped us close to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Because we had plans to meet Jing at a market in about an hour, Slava and I split off from the group and walked through the square and Forbidden City very quickly, some power tourism if you will. The City and Square are both incredible and humungous. Like many of the Chinese historical places, these sites displayed the richness and power that the Chinese Emperors held. We headed to the Silk Market where Jing proceeded to manhandle the shopkeepers with bargaining. After being in markets in several countries, Slava and I thought we had a pretty good handle on bargaining, but Jing quickly put us to shame. He doesn't take anything but the lowest possible price from the shopkeepers.

    After filling two large duffel bags with purchases, we met up with the SAS group for lunch and an afternoon visit to the Temple of Heaven which was as amazing. After dinner back close to the University, Jing took us out to meet some of his friends and to some of the local bars that they frequent.

Day 4: We boarded the bus in the morning for the hour and a half trip to the Great Wall. I'm not sure how many stairs it took to get to the wall, but I was pretty winded by the time we reached the base of the wall. Like standing at the Taj Mahal, it was quite difficult to fathom that I was standing on the Great Wall of China. The wall is quite unlevel and much of it consists of long staircases between the guard stations. We were able to spend over an hour on the wall, just taking it all in and taking plenty of pictures to remember the experience. Thankfully, to get down the wall, there was a much easier way than all those stairs. There was a stainless steel toboggan track that we could take to the bottom of the hill that was over a 1.5km long. This thing got going FAST and it was probably one of the most fun experiences I've had on SAS.

    That afternoon we met up with Jing again and he took us to the Summer Palace. This is another imperial complex that is incredible in its stature and beauty. I realize I'm not offering much description for these landmarks, but this is because it is pretty difficult to put into words. After spending a few hours at the palace, we headed back to UIBE, passing the 2008 Olympic venues on our way. We had a small issue with our taxi driver that we eventually resolved and headed to get some cheap DVDs and some dinner on the street. After arriving back on campus, we met the rest of the SAS group and the Chinese students at a nightclub close to campus. This was quite the experience as none of the students had ever been to a nightclub or bar before, so they were pretty intrigued.

Day 5: Since the rest of the SAS group was headed to the Summer Palace, me and Slava used to morning to do some calling back home and emailing in Jing's dorm. After lunch on campus we headed to the airport for our flight to Qingdao. Around 7:00pm we arrived back at the explorer and grabbed a bite to eat before heading out to a nightclub that we heard about while on our flight from an American living in Qingdao. Kelly, Sashia, Slava and I spent the night at this Chinese hotspot where the dance floor bounced up and down like a trampoline. We were the only Americans in the place and it was a very interesting way to view the culture in China. I hadn't gone out too much in the other ports, so it was good to be thrown into a local place where the four of us were alone amongst a couple hundred Chinese.

Day 6: There is not much to do in Qingdao and if Semester at Sea needs any more incentive to change this port, the fact that the top attraction was Wal-Mart is pretty convincing. (I'm pretty jealous of the Spring 08 itinerary, as they get to go to Shanghai instead). Anyway, after sleeping in for a bit Ali, Kelly, Sashia, Slava and I headed to the area were Wal-Mart was and spent much of the day walking around, shopping, and just enjoying the area. We stopped back at the ship for a bit before going out to dinner. Before we had to head back to the ship for on-ship time, we stopped into a starbucks to take advantage of the free internet. (There were just way too many American things in this day).

Japan is up next and is our last country on the itineraryL. The next few weeks will be tough, knowing that this voyage is nearing its end. I already don't want to say goodbye to this experience, or to the friends I've made, or to this incredible community that has formed since the beginning of February. All there is to do is live each of these last weeks to their fullest and enjoy every moment that we all have with one another.

Picture Update

Vietnam and some of my hong kong pics are up. China wont be up til im in japan. blog update should come in the next few days.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ggallant1

Good Morning Vietnam

    I was pretty excited to come to Vietnam because of its interesting place in US history. I guess my expectations were that it would be a country still heavily affected by the war three decades later. However, I found that Vietnam has virtually forgotten about the war and has moved on. Unlike Americans, the Vietnamese just look at the war (known as The American War) as another conflict in a long and turbulent history.

    Our interport lecturer for Vietnam was the owner of a software company and holds a Phd from the Sloan School of Management at MIT where he was a Fulbright scholar. Needless to say, the guy was really smart and I, being a business student, was very interested in his story. Even though Vietnam is a socialist country, it is moving towards privatization and the economy is benefitting greatly from this. The economy is the second fastest growing economy in the region.

Anyway, as usual, here is a look at how I spent my time in Vietnam.

Day 1: Slava and I had a very clear mission for our first day in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon): Find suits for as cheap as possible. We headed to the largest market in the city and finally found a price and tailor that we liked. We got measured and placed our orders and our price was $190 for four suits. Take that Men's Warehouse! We continued the day shopping around the market. Vietnam is a hotspot for a good list of really cheap things: North Face, Puma, Polo, LaCoste, Diesel, and DVDs.

    We came back to the ship late in the afternoon and then met up with Ali, Kelly and Stacey to go out to dinner and to the night market. We had an awesome dinner at a place called Blue Ginger. It was a pretty upscale restaurant, yet no one paid more than $10 for their meal. We headed to the night market, which was outside. After a little while we all headed back to the ship because several of us (including myself) had trips that were leaving at the wee hours of dawn.

Day 2: My trip was to Hanoi and Halong Bay, which are both in the northern part of Vietnam. After the usual combination of planes and busses, we reached Hanoi (the capital of Vietnam) and visited a complex that doubled as a temple and school of literature. The complex had a very rich history. After, we headed to what is known to American Soldiers as the "Hanoi Hilton". This is a prison where many American soldiers were kept after having their aircraft shot down or being captured during the war. The most famous prisoner here was Senator John McCain, whose flight suit is still on display in the prison-turned museum.

    After lunch, we boarded busses for the 3 hour trip to Halong Bay. The ride was very scenic, as we passed through rural villages and miles upon miles of rice patties. Our hotel overlooked the bay and was close to a night market that we checked out before dinner. I got some pretty cool goodies here, including a silk robe embroidered with dragons, and yes, it is as ridiculous as it sounds.

Day 3: We woke up early to head to the bay for our boat ride. Arriving at the pier, I saw the most chaotic non-land scene ever. Basically there were 100s of boats jockeying for position along the dock, rubbing and crashing against each other. Boarding the boats, we had to walk through a couple other boats and hop decks to reach our vessel. The boat departed and for a relaxing day on the bay. Halong Bay is a natural wonder where thousands of islands rock formations jut out of the water. One even houses an enormous cave that we were able to go into. A few people went swimming in the bay, diving off the top deck of the boat. After swimming, the crew cooked us a Vietnamese seafood feast which was to die for.

    After a relaxing day on the bay, we took the bus back to Hanoi for the night. Before turning in for the night, we took in a water puppet show which is an cultural tradition in Vietnam. Hidden puppeteers tell stories and legend through moving puppets across a pool of water. They are very talented and it was also great to see traditional music performed live alongside the puppet show.

Day 4: This day was jam packed with touristy things. We visited the war museum, where I felt like that Vietnamese was holding some stolen American items, namely some fighter jets, helicopters, and remnants of a B-52 bomber. It was pretty interesting how the Vietnamese worded their heroics in the war and our tour guide pointed out that the museum was full of propaganda about the war used to make the Vietnamese armies sound a lot better than they actually were.

From the museum we headed to a complex which housed many official buildings, including the president's house, Ho Chi Minh's house on stilts, and the mausoleum that houses Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body. It was my first time seeing an embalmed body and I have to say, he looked pretty good for his age. After some free time in the old quarter of Hanoi, we headed back to the airport for the flight back to Saigon. I took a Boeing 777 for the first time, and let me tell you this a beast of an aircraft. The coolest part? The TVs on board show the view of take off and landing, as there is a camera attached the underbody of the plane.

Day 5: Our last day in Vietnam was once again dedicated to some shopping and picking up our suits. I headed out early with Slava, Kelly, and Ali. After finding out my suits wouldn't be ready until the end of the day, we headed to the market and I proceeded to purchase way too many Polo shirts (I just cant say no to $3 shirts). After a couple hours walking around the market, we headed to lunch at a local hotspot. I had some fantastic lo mein. After lunch, Kelly and I headed back to the market to pick up some more goodies, but not before an ATM decided to "detain" my card. Surprisingly, the bank was able to give me my card back after showing them the only form of ID I had on me, my ship ID, which is nothing more than a hotel key. I found this pretty comical. I eventually picked my suits around 5, which I look damn good in if I do say so myself.

    Back onboard the ship, the night consisted of some Grade A shannigans which consisted of an unnamed party cross dressing (no, it wasn't me). Let's just say I have some great blackmail pictures to take back to Babson.

I had a great time in Vietnam, as I do in every port and im very excited to head to Hong Kong and Beijing in just a few days.

No promises for pictures anytime soon as school is real busy these next couple days.

    

Quick Bit

    I haven't had the chance to do my full Vietnam right up yet, but that will be coming in the next few days hopefully. We just exited the Saigon River and are approaching the open ocean enroute to Hong Kong. Here is a summary of our noon time position report today (which is my whole point for this blog entry because I thought it was pretty funny).

    "The ship is still under the guidance of the Vietnamese pilot and therefore the position report is in Vietnamese, so I will do my best to translate. Our current latitude is somewhere north of the equator and our longitude is somewhere east of the prime meridian. Our distance made good since leaving Ho Chi Min City is the length of the Saigon River. Our distance to our next port is virtually the entire distance. Our average speed is about 5 knots faster than the small fishing boats that we are passing. "

    To put this in context, Dean Ron (who makes the announcements) has an extremely monotone and serious voice and seldom makes any jokes, so to here this as our noontime report was quite comical, I don't know, maybe it's just a Semester at Sea type of thing…

Three days til Hong Kong and I'll try to get my Vietnam entry written tomorrow, busy school week this week.

Malaysia

    Going into Malaysia, I didn't have many expectations. Actually since I've known the itinerary for the Spring 2007 voyage, Malaysia was perhaps one of the ports I overlooked. Somehow, being sandwiched between India and Vietnam, Malaysia got lost in the shuffle. Therefore, I was really impressed and greatly surprised at how wonderful Malaysia is. A hidden gem of the world, Malaysia is a predominately Muslim nation that is in the midst of an economic boom. Though the financial crisis of 1997 throughout all of Southeast Asia devastated Malaysia's modernization efforts, the country is now picking up where it left off. This is seen best in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the country and the financial hub of Southeast Asia. It is a modern city featuring towering skyscrapers and amazing architecture. Of course the best example of this is the Petronas Towers, which from 1996-2003 were the tallest buildings in the world.

    I had a wonderful time in the country during our 4 days here and I have to say that, not knowing what to expect out of the country really worked out well for me. Here is a breakdown of how the last four days went. Not sure when I will be able to get the pictures up.

Day 1: The interesting thing about porting in Penang was that ship was not able to dock. Instead, we were anchored in the harbor and had to use the lifeboats to get to shore. I may have been the only one, but I was pretty excited to take zip around in the dual engine lifeboats. Slava, Sashia, and I got to land around 11:30 and began walking around Penang. We were able to see a very extravagant Chinese Buddhist temple that was conducting some sort of ceremony where the whole grounds were covered in burning incense. Despite the lack of oxygen in the air, it was a pretty cool thing to see and the locals were all lighting incense sticks. I believe that it may have been in honor of their ancestors.

    From here we kept walking, past a large mosque and then into the downtown area where the Komtar tower is located. The Komtar is the tallest building in Penang and after having some great Chinese food at the mall, we took the elevator up to the top where we had a 360 degree, panoramic view of the whole city. It was a great way to see the way the city was laid out and how expansive it was. We were even able to see the Explorer out in the harbor.

    Next, we grabbed a taxi to head to the temple of the reclining Buddha. The temple takes up both sides of a city street and one building houses a 75 foot long statue of Buddha laying down. The rest of the temple is filled with the ashes of many Malaysian's ancestors and hundreds of Buddha statues. From here, we took another taxi to Penang Hill (which seems more to me like a mountain). We took the cable car up to the top and once again we were presented with a great view of the city. There was also a mosque and a Hindu temple at the top of the mountain. It was interesting to see both religions physically represented feet away from each other.

    Our next stop of the day was to Kek Lok Se, the largest Buddhist temple in all of Southeast Asia. It is also known as the temple of 10,000 Buddhas. This place was absolutely incredible. Consisting of multiple buildings, the temple was terraced into a hill side and featured many temples and a 13 story pagoda. The intricacy of the artwork and architecture inside and outside of the buildings was like nothing I've seen. Upon heading down the hill to the entrance of the temple, we began to discover that we were being locked inside because it was closing time. Each path we walked down led to a locked gate. Eventually, we found our way out and, thankfully, I wasn't forced to spend the night with the monks.

    After grabbing dinner at the mall and doing some shopping, we headed back to the ship to get ready for our trip to Kuala Lumpur in the morning.

Day 2: The day started early with myself, Slava, Ali, and Dan traveling to the airport. The plan was for Kyle, Sashia, Katie, and Natalie to meet us later on that night as they were on another flight. After some planes, trains and automobiles, we reached our luxurious resort just outside of KL in mid-morning. I don't want to brag or anything, but our hotel consisted of 1200 rooms, an amusement park, water park, extreme park, bowling alley, ice rink, movie theater, and plenty of clubs and restaurants. We got settled in and took a quick dip in the pool before heading out. Unfortunately, the hotels parks were closed for maintenance every Tuesday, but we found out there was another adventure park off of the resort with go-karts and ATVs. Since we were waiting to do sightseeing til the next day when the rest of the group was there, the four of us decided to have a little fun on the first day….or so we thought. To make a really long story short, we were dropped off at a large construction site and told to just walk down the road and we would find the park. As we walked past bulldozers, tower cranes, and welding Malaysians, the sky turned extremely dark and the rain begin to sprinkle. We found the park, which had been closed for a month due to the construction. After failing to convince the mechanics to just let us play around on the ATVs for a bit, we begin to walk out of the site. Thankfully, one of the workers picked us up and drove us to our hotel and me missed being stuck in a torrential monsoon and lightning storm by about 30 seconds.

    The rest of the evening consisted of grabbing dinner, hanging out at a local bar, and going bowling with a new Malaysian friend we made. The other 4 people came to the hotel pretty late and we all headed to bed.

Day 3: We got up early and headed into KL to do some sightseeing. First stop was the Petronas Towers to make a reservation to go to the skybridge on the 41^st floor for later that afternoon. The architecture of the towers is simply amazing. A combination of stainless steel and glass make-up the outside while the architecture is based on Islamic architecture. After making our reservation we headed to Batu Caves, a Hindu temple built into a HUGE cave. After climbing the almost 300 steps to the cave entrance, and staying clear of some mischievous monkeys, we reveled in the sheer size and natural beauty of the cave. We headed back down after some picture taking and headed back to the Petronas Towers for lunch, shopping at the mall that makes up the base of the towers, and finally our trip up to the skybridge. What an amazing view from up here. KL is just an incredible city.

    We headed back to our hotel around 3 to take go to the water park as it was approaching 100 degrees F. That night looked similar to the night before and we all had a good time bowling with the group.

Day 4: We again headed into the city pretty early to do some last minute sightseeing before our flight back to Penang. We were able to see a couple of the landmarks in KL including the Supreme Court, Independence Square, the Central Market, and the National History Museum. It was then time to head back to Penang and we got back to the ship around 4pm.

This evening, Captain Jeremy announced that the Explorer would be taken up to full speed (30 knots) for a period of 8 hours while we navigate the Malacca Straight. The reason for this you might ask? PIRATES!! Though there has never been a pirate that has boarded a passenger ship, the area is infamous for pirates and as the captain has stated "I feel bad for any pirate who tries to approach our ship when its going 30 knots."

We reach 'Nam in 2 days…

Babson's Habitat for Humanity Spring Break Trip

This is some non-SAS material, but interesting nonetheless. The Babson Habitat for Humanity club just got back from Vera Cruz, Mexico where they built two homes for poor families. Emily was on the trip and she took a TON of great pictures. She and the rest of the group had a great time getting to know the families and it was hard for them to come back to the states. It was great that they were able to give two families a new place to live.

Check out some of the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/ezickell1

India

India

*Pcitures are up, enjoy*

WARNING: This is pretty long, Im sorry.

If someone were to ask me what India is like, I would have to respond by saying India is everything. India is poor and rich, it is happy and it is extremely sad, it is delicious and disgusting, it is fast and slow, it is religious and secular, it is developed and undeveloped, it is hot and….alright well its just plain hot. India is a shock to all the senses, the sights of the poorest people in the world, sleeping in the dirt with absolutely no belongings, then there is the sounds of a thousand horns all blaring at the same time, the smell of India is so bad sometimes that you can taste it in your mouth and it burns the back of your throat.

I saw things in India that I don’t even want to write about, it was a whole different world and I have never seen anything like it, even after seeing the poor of South Africa and Brazil. I’m sure it hasn’t even set in for me yet and it will take some time to do so. Nevertheless, my experience in India was one I will never forget.

Day 1: After dealing with the extremely bureaucratic Indian immigration officials, we finally got off the ship and made our way to THE GATE. Dean Mike had warned us about the gate in both of our preports (which I could write a whole entry about and maybe I will). As soon as we passed through the gate we were bombarded with rickshaw drivers looking to take our money. “You want rickshaw? I give good price! Where you want to go, you want to go shopping? I give good price, my friend, my friend, come come!” I left the bartering for the rickshaw up to Kyle and Slava. We were told that the going rate to get into town was about 70 rupees, yet the first rate offered to us was 200 rupees a piece. We were able to get the driver down to 70 and we were on our way in our first rickshaw ride, over the course of which I probably said “holy shit!” at least a hundred times. India has absolutely no traffic rules, the lanes don’t mean anything, the horn is used liberally, stop signs are optional, and everyone drives within 6 inches of other vehicles (and I’m not exaggerating).

Our destination was Spencer’s Plaza, a market/mall type place where we were going to do some shopping. However, the rickshaw drivers get commission for taking us to some of their stores so we agreed with our driver that we would go to two stores before making it to Spencer’s. Once we got there we bought a lot of stuff for extremely cheap.
The rest of the day was spent on similar adventures with some arguments with rickshaw drivers thrown in. We also had some great Indian cuisine: Pizza Hut.

Day 2: My Delhi/Agra/Taj trip through SAS left the ship at 4:15am. We took a 2.5 hour flight to Delhi, had lunch and then transferred to the train station for what was supposed to be a 3.5 hour train ride. The train was delayed for over an hour and we ended up sitting at the train station for about 2.5 hours. The station was filled with poor families, beggers, and other pretty sad sights. We finally got on the train, a second class sleeper which was pretty short of comfortable. The ride ended up taking over 4 hours and we didn’t end up getting to the hotel until past 7:00pm. Fifteen straight hours of traveling wasn’t too enthralling. A group of us walked around the streets of Agra for a bit and hung out at the hotel and then headed to bed.

Day 3: The day began at 5:30am with a trip to the Taj Mahal for sunrise. What an experience this was, seeing one of the wonders of the world, something that you look at in photographs your whole life. It was surreal to have it right before my eyes and I just couldn’t stop taking pictures. Of course everyone knows what the Taj Mahal looks like, but not many people know what it actually is. It was built by the 5th Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan as a tomb for his beloved wife. It took 20,000 men and 22 years to construct. The middle dome required a 2 mile long ramp to be built in order for the marble stones to be brought to the top. The white marble is inlayed with some absurd amount of precious gems and jewels. In the midst of the construction of the Taj, Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his own son who was upset that his father was spending all of his inheritance on the Taj. Shah Jahan watched from his cell as the Taj was completed and never was able to visit the finished product. Upon his death, he too was buried inside of the Taj, though this wasn’t part of the original plan. The wife’s tomb is directly under center of the middle dome and Shah Jahan’s is off to the side, his tomb is in fact the only asymmetrical part of the Taj.
It is rumored that Shah Jahan wanted to build a second mausoleum for himself but was never able to complete this task. His tomb was going to be a second Taj, directly across the river and made out of black marble. If you wikipedia Black Taj, you can find a lot more interesting facts about this.

We left the Taj and headed back to the hotel for breakfast, then headed to a silk carpet store. The owner explained to us how the rugs were made and how durable and long-lasting they were. They take about 5 years to make and are only made in Kashmir. After teaching us about them for a half hour or so, of course the store wanted to sell us some. The starting price? $650. Surprisingly, a few kids on the trip bought some. From here, we boarded the busses again and took a 45 minute drive to a ghost city of the Mughal Empire.
This city was built by emperor Akbah, the 3rd emperor, after finding a healer in the area that allowed Akbah’s wife to produced a male heir to the throne. The capital was moved from Agra to this city, constructed of red sandstone. Because of water shortages, Akbah and his people were forced to leave after just 20 years and though the city is 400 years old, it is in pristine condition. It even houses a life sized Parchese board. Did you know that the US and India are the only two countries that play Parchese?

After the ghost city, we headed back to Agra for lunch at the hotel, and then back out to go to Agra Fort. Agra Fort is actually not a fort, but a city of mosques and palaces where the Mughul royalty spent many years. Like the ghost city, the fort is in amazing condition for being 400 years old. From the fort, you can see the Taj further down the river and also the “cell” where Shah Jahan was imprisoned. The architecture and intricacy of the buildings is amazing. After touring the fort, we headed back to the Taj for sunset. Beginning and ending the day at the Taj Mahal was incredible and no matter how long I stared at it, I still could not grasp the fact that I was there seeing it.

We had dinner at Pizza Hut, where the waiters performed a choreographed Indian dance (if only they did this while waiting for pizza in the states) and then headed to the train station for the train back to Delhi. Thankfully, it was first class and the express train this time. We arrived in Delhi at an amazing hotel called Hotel Ashkok and headed to bed.

Day 4: After breakfast at the hotel, we headed out on a bus tour of Delhi. The city is actually quite amazing and extremely different from Chennai. It was carefully planned out by the British while they still colonized India. The city is very green, as trees were planted along every street and every median to make sure the city would stay cool year round. The government buildings are quite remarkable (Delhi is India’s Washington DC). The presidential palace is three times the size of the White House. After seeing some of the sights of Delhi, we headed to the house where Ghandi spent the last 144 days of his life. The house has been turned into a museum, but they have left Ghandi’s bedroom, office, and meditation area untouched. They even retraced his footsteps out to the garden where he was assassinated. I wish we would have had more time to spend here because there was a lot of great things to read and sights around the estate to take in. Unfortunately, we had to head back to the hotel to checkout and then off to the airport. After a lot of traveling, we reached the ship in Chennai at about 9:00pm.

Day 5: I slept in pretty late and had lunch on the ship before heading out with a group of people to do some shopping (because there really isn’t that much else to do in Chennai). We spent a few more hours out at Spencer’s and returned to the ship pretty early.

Today we have an off day, which means time to catch up on sleep, schoolwork, and blogging. We have just a few days before reaching Malaysia. The voyage gets very condensed from this point forward and we won’t have a long stretch at sea until after Japan, which is a good thing. I just hope the next few weeks wont fly by too fast, I’m not ready for the time of my life to end just yet.

Feelin Good

Just a quick update, i put some pictures up from Mauritius (still more coming), the sea olympics, and the lip sync. I'll put the link again for convienence http://picasaweb.google.com/ggallant1

Last night I went to an info session for a non-profit called Feel Good. It is run by the sister of Jason Walter, who is on the voyage and lives in the bering sea. Feel Good is currently on 10 campuses nationwide and has a partnership with the Hunger Project. Its goal is to elimate world hunger by selling grilled cheese sandwhiches on college campuses...and it works. It has national non-profit status and hopes to grow to 30 campuses by 2008. The website can explain how it works a lot better than i can, but its worth checking out. The website is www.feelgoodworld.com and they have a blog at www.feelgoodforlife.blogspot.com

We get to India on Sunday morning, check back for more pictures from Mauritius.

Cheers

Sea Olympics

I’m sure for all the blog readers out there, you will find plenty of detailed posts about the Sea Olympics. I’m going to keep it short and sweet, mostly because I’m bitter that the Bering Sea tied for dead last place. Somehow, we managed to place 4^th in everything, which is pretty good out of 10 seas, except that they don’t award any points for 4^th place. The events were pretty fun though, even if we weren’t placing. Of course the highlight of the day was the lip sync, which was incredibly entertaining and all around hilarious.

The Bering Sea routine consisted of Ashley and Maddy doing Call on Me, Slava and Kyle doing the Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze Chippendales skit from SNL (funniest thing ive ever seen, EVER), and Jason dancing like a maniac to Mr. Roboto. Many other seas and sea RDs agreed that we should have taken the competition. However, the judges seemed to think that we weren’t doing too much lip syncing, though the video I have (blackmail) begs to differ. Once again we didn’t place.

The Aegean Sea took the gold overall, and I know the Baltic took the bronze, I’m unsure of silver.

The day was a lot of fun, but would’ve been a lot better if we placed a little better, but what can ya do?

Mauritius - The Best Plans are No Plans

Mauritius was a pretty laid back port. For any of you who have never heard of the place, it’s a small island nation (consisting of the two islands of Rodriguez and Maurice) east of Madagascar. Its culture is a mix of Indian, Africans, and French. It is also the former home of the extinct Dodo bird.

I went into Mauritius with no set plans as I knew that there wasn’t too much to do there and that it was famous for its beaches. Mark Twain has been quoted as saying “Mauritius was created first and heaven was modeled after it.” It was an interesting three days and it got off to a pretty bad start, but it got a lot better from there. Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures as I didn’t have my camera with me for 2 days, however im working on getting pictures from other people that were traveling with me.

Day1: We arrived in Port Louis four hours late because of rough seas the entire way from Cape Town. After getting off the ship, Slava and I began walking around the city, along the waterfront and inland to the Chinese market and Chinatown. Probably about two hours after I left the ship I noticed that my wallet was missing, I had been pick pocketed. So much of the next few hours was spent dealing with that situation, calling home to have my atm card canceled, and then heading back to the ship to deal with my lack of a ship ID. It eventually worked out, I got a new ID and my atm card canceled (thanks mom). Admist all of this, Slava and I were trying to figure out what we were going to do for the next two days because Port Luis wasn’t a very exciting place.

Fast forward to about 6pm, we returned to the ship after going back into the city and found a lot of people we knew hanging out in front of the ship. They were headed to flic en flac, one of the famous beaches, to stay in villas for the next two nights. We were invited along and packed and left in a matter of about 5 minutes. We found a place to stay with some new friends (Sammy, Dustin, Ryan, Erika, Claire, Julie, and Jenny) in a really nice condo, for very cheap.

We went to another villa complex where a lot of SAS kids were staying and had some fun there for a while.

Day 2: After cooking up some breakfast, we all headed to the beach for the day, stopping on the way to book a catamaran for day 3. We stayed at the beach til 5pm or so, then came back to the villa and some 3 or 4 of us cooked for the house. That night we went to some local bars and clubs.

Day 3: We woke up early to catch our transportation to our catamaran. What a deal we found. The nine of us had a forty foot catamaran to ourselves, with a four person crew. The deal included lunch, drinks, snorkeling in coral reefs, visit to an island, bbq onboard, and transportation back to the ship, all for around $60 American.

We had a great day and I think we all agreed that Mauritius just makes you love life a little bit more. That and the beaches and water around the island are absolute paradise. We couldn’t have imagined a better day, it was relaxing, fun, and we got to see a lot of great things. Snorkeling in the coral reefs was amazing because the water was crystal clear and the reefs were filled with tropical fish. Oh, and the water was probably about 80 degrees. I really don’t miss York, ME water that much

Cape Town - The long one

More Africa pictures are up at http://picasaweb.google.com/ggallant1

The Explorer is docked at a bunker in Cape Town Harbor refueling before we depart for Mauritius. We were supposed to leave by this morning, however high winds kept us from moving to the bunker until early this morning. It takes the ship 7-8 hours to refuel.

South Africa is an incredible country filled with culture and beauty. Though its rocky history and the period of apartheid still leaves a very strong mark on the modern country, there is an overall feeling of hope and optimism for a “New Africa”. Cape Town is vigorously preparing for the World Cup in 2010. New buildings and roads are being constructed and the airport is being completely renovated. The event will certainly bring a lot of attention to the country and it will hopefully provide an economic boost not only to the rich, but also the poor who reside in the informal settlements known as townships. Much like Brazil, there is an enormous inequality in the distribution of wealth in South Africa. Whites own almost 90% of the land and hold most of the income. Despite this, there is a feeling of positivity that consumes most of the nation, both black and white. We spent 7 days in Cape Town and we could have spent 7 more, there is so much to do here and all we could do is try to fit as much as we could into the time we had here.

Day 1: Our plan was to go to Robben Island in the morning and hike Table Mountain in the afternoon to make it to the top by sunset. However, Robben Island tickets were sold out until after my safari, so that wasn’t happening. Slava and I bought tickets for Tuesday morning. We walked around the waterfront which is really modernized and touristy. We stopped into an internet café to put some pictures online and grabbed some lunch. We then started walking towards downtown Cape Town and spent the afternoon walking around there and also planning a trip to the winelands for Wednesday through a tourism office. We took a taxi to the base of Table Mountain arriving around 4pm with the hopes of hiking up. Unfortunately, the rangers thought that the weather would be changing for the worse very quickly and we would get stuck hiking in very windy and dangerous conditions. We were pretty disappointed and had to take the cable car to the top of mountain.

As can be seen in my pictures, the view from the top of the mountain was incredible. It was truly the most breath taking thing I have ever seen. You are able to see the whole cape: from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. After spending a little while at the top, we met up with some other SASers who were about to hike down and Slava and I decided to join them. The hike down was pretty rough and my knees took a beating that lasted a couple days after. That night a group of us went out to a game restaurant on the waterfront. I ate a dish of Ostrich, Springbok, and Kudu meat – Amazing! Slava and I finished the night by going to a local jazz club (SA is famous for its Jazz) and we met up with some of our staff and faculty members.

Day 2-4: For these three days I was on a Safari in the KwaZulu Natal province of the country. This area was the home of the infamous Zulu warriors and King Shaka. It is also home to the second largest game reserve in the country. A groups of 40 SASers took a 2 hour flight to Durban, followed by a 3 hour bus ride to our tree “chalets”. We went on an evening game drive as soon as we arrived, seeing lots of giraffe, impala, nyala, and wildebeest.

The next morning we got up at 5am for an all day game drive. We were incredibly lucky and go to see a plethora of animals. Though the lions and leopards eluded our view, we did get to see rhino, hyena, buffalo, elephant, zebra, warthog, kudu, and giraffe. Both our driver and our guide mentioned that we were very lucky to see so much in a day. We got to see three of the famous big five. We had a great dinner in the bush where we were accompanied by a group of native African singers.

On our last morning we took an early morning game drive in hopes of finding some lions, to no avail. We headed off for our 3 hour bus ride back to the airport around 8am.

Day 5: The day started with our 8am trip to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners spent significant time. Though the island was very rich in history, I thought the tour itself was a little less than spectacular because we were left to view much of the island while aboard a bus. We were able to get off the bus at the prison and tour the inside halls. We were able to see the cell where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.

After returning to Cape Town, slava and I headed back to the ship for a quick lunch and headed off to the train station to catch our train to Stellenboch in the winelands. Upon arriving, we rented some bikes and started riding out of the town and into the country where all the wineries were located. Now, I’m no Lance Armstrong, but I thought I was in shape enough to ride a few miles. The cycling was really tough and the terrain was very hilly. We finally got to our destination, Simonsig, after an hour and a half of riding. Once there, we did a wine tasting and some of the wines were great. I wanted to ship some home but unfortunately the shipping costs were outrageous. We realized that we had only an hour to catch our train back to Cape Town, so we got back on our bikes to rush back into town. We rode about 8 miles total this day and my quads weren’t too happy about it.

After the train ride home we stopped and had an Ostrich burger before heading back to the ship for some much needed sleep.

Day 6: Today I spent the day with the Amy Biehl Foundation, which I wrote about in my last entry.

Day 7: I woke up early and headed to Green Market Square with Kyle to do some shopping. The morning was filled with haggling and bargaining and I ended up with some cool gifts and souvenirs. I also found some uniforms for the Bering Sea Pirates (future champions of the sea Olympics). We headed back to the ship around 11 and I spent the rest of the taking care of some things onboard. At on ship time, an African choral group boarded and sang for about a half hour, they were extremely talented.

Cape Town was a great port and is definitely a place I would like to return in the future, there is just so much to this place in terms of culture, sightseeing (or as SAS calls it, sightthinking) and history.

Cape Town, Part 1.5

I haven't had the time to write my full Cape Town entry yet, but it will be up probably on Friday or Saturday. Today, i spent the day with the Amy Biehl foundation. Amy Biehl was an American student killed in a township outside of Cape Town in 1993 during a anti-aparthied uprising. Her parents set up this NPO to continue on Amy's work of providing after school programs for poor children. As part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) (headed by Desmund Tutu), Amy's killers were granted amnesty and now actually work for the foundation. I thought this was a really interesting approach to the perpetrators of a murder, certainly something that would never take place in the USA. The TRC sought not to punish whites and other criminals for their apartheid crimes, but to condone reconciliation and amnesty to them in the interest of creating a united South Africa.

The Amy Biehl Foundation provides after school programs such as music classes, dance, drawing, singing and other fine arts programs that arent a part of regular school. We got the opportunity today to see the program in action at four different township schools. The kids were so excited to see us and to have their picture taken. They are all extremely talented in everthing they do. Unfortunately, the Foundation has had to downsize in recent years since they have lost some funding from the USA. I've never felt compelled to donate to anything in my life, but i would really love to be able to help out this organization sometime in the near future.

Here is a link to the foundation's website if anyone would like to check it out
http://www.amybiehl.org/

Cape Town Part 1

We just arrived in Cape Town this morning. The sunset coming up over table mountain was beautiful. Today, I am planning on hiking the mountain and exploring a bit of the Capt Town Waterfront. New pictures of Cape Town and Salvador are up.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ggallant1

Neptune Day, Comedy Night, Bridge Tour

Yesterday we celebrated Neptune day, though we crossed the equator before Brazil. The day started at about 7:30am when members of the crew came yelling and drumming through the halls waking everyone up. At 9:00, the student body made their way up to the 7th deck to pay our respects to King Neptune (Captain Jeremy). Here is the procedure for turning from a pollywog into shellback: 1. get fished guts dumped over your head. 2. jump into the pool, which is already filled with fish guts water. 3. get out of the pool and kiss two dead fish. 3. kiss king neptune’s ring. 4. be sworn a shellback.

From this point on a good percentage of the boat shaved their heads. Rumor was that we were closing in on the SAS record of 70 girls shaving their heads, im not sure if we broke it or not. Needless to say, the student body is now a bit different looking. For dinner, we got a feast of a barbeque for dinner. Man how I’ve missed me some ribs, burgers, dogs, corn on the cob and ice cream sundaes.

On Friday night, an open mike comedy night was held and Slava (my roommate) was one of the two performers. Everyone thought the night would be a disaster, but about 100 people showed up and found Slava hilarious. Both he and the other comic was great and the night was a surprising success.

On Thursday morning (I realize im going backwards in time now). I was lucky enough to get a tour of the bridge, these tours are a precious commodity here. We learned about the ships communication, navigation, and fire systems and got to take lots of pictures of the equipment and the view from the bridge. We also were able to take pictures sitting in the captains chair. Fun fact: when running full throttle on 2 engines, the MV Explorer burns $1000 of fuel an hour (this is when we are averaging 20 knots). When the ship is running on all four engines (30knots, the captain hasn’t done this yet) the engines burn $2000 of fuel each hour. And people wonder why this program is $20,000…..

We are about halfway to cape town as a write this and once there I will do my best to get pictures from both Brazil and the beginning of Africa up online.

Salvador Brazil

As I sit down to write this up, we are about an hour away from pulling out of Salvador. My time in Brazil has been absolutely amazing. I was fortunate enough to have seen both the rural side of life as well as urban life. For the first three days of our stay, I went on a SAS overnight trip to Praia do Forte, a small village about an hour and a half north of Salvador. When I returned to the city, I was able to catch the last couple days of Carnival; it was an experience that will be difficult to forget. Brazil was the first port that I witnessed extreme poverty. Though Brazil is the 16th richest country in the world, 2/3 of its population lives in poverty. For most, this means living in favelas – poor shanty neighborhoods without any amenities. The shacks are made of brick and whatever materials their inhabitants can get a hold of. The neighborhoods cover the majority of Salvador. Brazil also has a major problem with street violence; most young boys do not see their life make it past the age of 25. Check out the movie City of God for a great portrayal of urban life in Brazil. Because of the violence and crime in Brazil, the administration of SAS heeded many many warnings to us passengers. We were warned not to take digital cameras out into port and there was a strong possibility that we would be held up, robbed, or pick pocketed. Fortunately, I avoided any of these situations, but others weren’t so lucky. Because of not wanting to risk getting my camera stolen, I wasn’t able to get many pictures of Salvador or Carnival. I was able to get some from Praia do Forte and ill be trying to get those put up on my picassa album in Cape Town. Here is the day by day rundown of the last 5 days in Brazil.

Saturday: I got up at 6 to see the boat pull in to port. It was pretty hazy so it was hard to see the city. After docking, I passed through immigration on deck 7. I had to keep my passport on me for my trip, which was very nerve racking. If I lost it I wouldn’t have gotten to sail to South Africa and because of that would miss 20% of the academic part of the program and therefore would have been dismissed from Semester at Sea, not fun.
After getting my passport everyone went to the diplomatic briefing where the US consulate talked for a bit. I then met with the group for my Praia do Forte trip. I was pretty nervous for the trip because I didn’t know anyone going on it and had no idea if it would be worth the $600 I paid. The group included 7 SAS students, the conduct officer and his wife, and a professor and his family.
We got on a little bus/van and met our tour guide Eddie. He was the man and was with us for the whole three days. He was just so nice and helpful and had a great personality. On the drive we were able to see the favelas. Despite how poor the neighborhoods are, it is these neighborhoods that are the biggest part of carnival, they take every penny they make and pour it into creating costumes and floats for carnival, it’s their only passion in life. We also drove past the soccer stadium, it holds 90,000 people, but it’s limited to 70k because of new restrictions. As we got off into the country, we saw horses and cattle just roaming the hills. All the dirt here is bright red, like Arizona. In each town we passed through, the soccer field was always the nicest place, strange.
We got to Praia do forte around noon and checked into our hotel. The village seemed like a popular vacation destination for Brazilians. After checking into our hotel we went to the turtle project. It’s just a bunch of sea turtles in small pools, it was pretty interesting, but not that exciting. I took some cool pictures of the turtles. It seemed like they were always trying to stick their heads up out of the water and look at the people. We even saw some baby turtles that were just a week old and would fit in the palm of your hand. We then headed to lunch in the village. I won’t get into the meals that we had on the trip, but following the trend of Puerto Rico, they were delicious. I hate to say it, but there is a lot better food in the world than in America, so far anyway.
After lunch we headed to the beach where the water was very very warm. There were some Brazilians surfing there and one of them was able to do a headstand while surfing, I got a great picture of it. We headed back to the hotel for a bit, then off to a great dinner. We headed to bed pretty early.

Sunday: We got up early at 7 and had breakfast at the hotel and got picked up in this big 4x4 jeep vehicle and we knew we were in for an adventure. We had another guide named Eric to lead this part of the trip. We rode in the 4x4 for about a half hour and through a little dirt road village. We walked down to a river where there were 3 person canoes waiting for us. We canoed for about an hour down the river, stopping to swim along the way. We started passing these huge sand dunes and began see the coast. We brought our canoes ashore and walked over a sandbar and all of a sudden we were on a pristine beach. We went swimming for a while, then got back into the canoes and paddled further down the river where the truck was waiting for us. We headed back to Praia do forte for lunch and showers.
We then headed to castle de torra (I think that’s it) a castle built in 1551 by a very rich landowner. It was mostly built buy slaves and took 27 years to build because the rock was imported from Portugal. It was pretty awesome and we got to walk all around inside. The slave trade in Brazil was much much worse that it was in the US and Brazil imported over 4 million slaves from Africa.
Next, we drove further on and got out of the truck for a hike through the rain forest, we got to see spider monkeys, hummingbirds, all sorts of different trees that Eric told us about and also ran into some fire ants (OUCH!!! I got bit on the leg once). Part of the trail was flooded and we had to wade through this area, everyone was pretty scared but Eddie assured us (jokingly) that there were only small crocodiles in the water. We finally exited the trail after about an hour and a half of walking/wading and got back on the truck. We took a drive through some terribly poor villages, rural versions of the favelas. We saw families bathing and washing their clothes in the water and living off the land the best they could. It was a really devastating thing to see. We did, however, run into a mini carnival celebration where people were dressed up as a TV crew and proceeded to run down our truck and pretended to interview us. We headed back to the hotel for showers. The power went out and was out for about 3 hours. We walked to dinner in the dark, and began ordering in the dark as well before the electricity came back. After dinner we headed to bed as there was another early day ahead of us.

Monday: After breakfast, we took a 4x4 ride through this really thick brush a little ways from PDF. The soil was thick beach sand and the road was really narrow. I thought for sure that we were going to get stuck in the sand, but our driver was very capable and got us through all of it. We got out to look at some of the plants; some very interesting cacti and flowers. The truck then dropped us off a little further down the path and we walked through a mangrove. We ended up at some sand flats that were covered in crabs. JR (our conduct officer) put one in his mouth. We got to another river and all got into a huge 12 person Indian canoe. We paddled down river, stopping to swim. We ended up at the mouth of the river where there was a very popular Brazilian beach. We got out here and back onto the truck for the drive back to PDF to head back to Salvador.
That night I met up with some friends who had been in Salvador the last couple days and we headed out to a Brazilian steakhouse. I know I said I wouldn’t talk about food anymore, but i've never had so much delicious red meat in my life. We had a great time at the restaurant and for $25 American I think I ate enough for the next week. After returning to the ship, I headed out to Pelirihno (Old Salvador) with Kyle and Laura hoping to get a little taste of Carnival. We were a bit too late, however, and not much was going on. We came back to the ship around midnight.

Tuesday: Kyle and I went to the market in the morning to pick up some souvenirs. It was my first try at bargaining and it went fairly well, I managed to talk most of the retailers down to half of what they originally asked. Kyle had a SAS trip planned before noon so we headed back to the ship. It seemed everyone was off on trips for the day so I ended up spending the afternoon resting and relaxing.
After dinner onboard the ship, a group of four of us headed Barra, the oldest and most popular location for Carnival. The night was amazing. For anyone that doesn’t know what Carnival is, think mardi gras combined with Woodstock on wheels. Huge trailer trucks stuffed with sound equipment and a band on top crawl through the streets while 2 million people dance around them throughout the night. The music is high energy and non stop. I had a great time.

Wednesday: After sleeping in, a group of us headed out to the market and to Pelirhino and got to see Sao Francisco, a famous church built in the 1700s. Its inside is completely crusted in gold leaf. We spent a while admiring the church and all of the artifacts that were housed in it. We spent the rest of the day just walking around, made some phone calls back to the states. (Mom and dad you really need to stay off the phone, it’s always busy)

Anyway, this entry is far too long. We have 8 days at sea until South Africa. I’m looking forward to our lectures from Archbishop Desmond Tutu enroute.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

 

Day 1: Slava and I got up really early to catch the ship pulling into San Juan harbor along with the sunrise. To see the sun rise up over Old San Juan was beautiful. At then entrance of the harbor stands El Morro, an almost 500 year old fort built to defend Puerto Rico from pirates and other invaders. Around 8:30am, shortly after the ship had docked, the governor of Puerto Rico boarded the ship and addressed the entire student body. He welcomed us to Puerto Rico and gave us some background on the island. Accompanying the governor was a rather large crew of cameramen, reporters, and photographers from all the news agencies on the island, including Univision and Telemundo. This was a first for Semester at Sea, to be greeted by the governor. We then had to wait our turns in going through immigration. Within the first couple hours of the morning I was able to use my cell phone to call my parents and Emily. It was a nice luxury to have normal cell service the three days we were here.

    After going through customs, a few of us made the 35 minute walk into old San Juan, walking along the coastline, what a sight. We passed fort San Cristobal and the capitol building (looked like a mini version of Congress in DC). We spent the morning walking around, checking out some shops. We got to El Morro and spent a good amount of time exploring the fort, the place is amazing and offers some great views. We met some other SASers for lunch at a local Puerto Rican restaurant where we tried some local food and it was great. Apparently this restaurant was the birthplace of the pina colada, so a couple of the people we were with tried those out. We then went to Pigeon Park where, who woulda guessed it, but there were a ton of pigeons. Some people went so far as to hold corn in their open hands and the thousands of pigeons engulfed these brave souls. I wasn't about to partake, though it was a pretty absurd sight. We then headed back to the ship because I was signed up for the Bioluminescent Bay trip that was to leave at 4:30pm.

    A Bioluminescent Bay is a natural phenomenon that takes place in only 6 places in the world, 3 of which are in Puerto Rico. We kayaked into the bay and noticed that our paddles begin glowing green in the water. Some people went swimming and their entire bodies glowed green. The trip was awesome.

    That night we wanted to go out and see some San Juan nightlife, however because there wasn't any on a Wednesday night, we ended up with the rest of SAS at Senor Frogs, so much for seeing some of the culture…..

 

Day 2: Short and simple: we went out to a beach called Ocean Park and rented some surf boards and attempted (key word attempted) to go surfing. It wasn't a successful endeavor. We hung out on the beach where I burnt my back quite badly in a strange pattern due to some not so thorough sun screen applying. We headed back to the ship around 2 and found that the McDonalds across the street from the ship had free internet, I took the time to upload the pics from my previous entry. I went out to Old San Juan again to get some souvenirs and came back for an early night.

 

Day 3: Our original intentions were to go to El Yunque (the rain forest) on our own, however we found out that doing so might not be the best idea because of unreliable public transportation. Instead, we filled some empty spots on the SAS trip to El Yunque and Luquillo Beach. Hiking in the rain forest was incredible; we got to go swimming at some waterfalls where the water was so clean and pure, just like the oxygen intense air in the whole forest. After a hike of probably 2 miles, we got on the busses and ate at a local restaurant. Once again the food was amazing; Puerto Ricans sure know how to cook. We then went off to Luquillo Beach, one of the best beaches on the island. In short, this place just looked like a post card: a sandy beach with palm trees and blue water, with the mountains of the rain forest in the background. It was beautiful. After a few hours we headed back to the ship. I took one last trip into Old San Juan for some last minute things and boarded the ship for good.

 

Overall, Puerto Rico was a great port, the people were very friendly and I think I crammed as much into three days as I could. Some of my Spanish began coming back to me as it has been stored deep inside my brain for about four years of not using it. Next up is seven days at sea enroute to Salvador, Brazil. In the middle of this we will be crossing the equator. That's all for now, sorry for the length.

Some Pictures

Blog update to come tomorrow, San Juan has been great. Here are some pictures of Nassau, my first day on the MV Explorer, and the first day of Puerto Rico.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ggallant1/

Nassau and Embarkation

My parents and I arrived in Nassau around 4:30pm on Thursday evening, the weather there is very humid and around 80. On Friday and evening I met up with Slava and eventually the other two kids from Babson, Isiah and Nicole. For the three days we had in the Bahamas, we were able to relax and I also met probably 20 or 25 kids that were going on SAS between my hotel, the Atlantis, and the hotel where the other Babson kids were staying. The Atlantis is an amazing place with the world's largest open air marine habitat. There are over 70,000 sea creatures in the many aquariums and tanks. Among them are barracudas, sharks, stingrays, tarpin, and many other tropical fish. In one aquarium, there is a HUGE man-a-ray, which probably measures 12-15 feet across.

Overall, the time in the Bahamas was great and a good vacation with my parents. It was also good to meet some people that were going on SAS. I did have the oncoming of a cold while I was there, which scared me because I didn't want to get sick when I got on the ship, but I think it is starting to clear up.

Finally, on Sunday morning, I took my bags down to Prince George Wharf and stood in the REALLY long line to board the MV Explorer. After being in line for about an hour, our bags got checked and searched through and our passports were taken in exchange for our Explorer ID cards. We then went through a metal detector at the top of the gangway and boarded the ship. We went through some initial procedures (similar to the first day of college) and found our cabin #4044. We have an inside room (no window) on the top deck that houses students, we are also in the middle of the ship, which means that we will feel the rocking of the ship the least. Me and Slava unpacked and set up the room, its really nice, and though its close quarters, we have storage space for everything, its pretty nice. We had some lunch out on deck and took a little tour of the ship. This place is amazing, after looking at pictures for a year of this place, I finally got to see it for myself and its indescribably nice. Around 1:45 my parents boarded the ship to visit. I gave them a tour and they were pretty blown away just as I was. At 3:00 there was a small welcome reception for the parents and the Captain and other top ranking people were introduced and proceeded to ensure the safety and great experience that we would have. After saying goodbye to my parents, the rest of the day was filled with lifeboat drills, and some orientation that lasted until about 10pm. We decided to go to bed relatively early and I was surprised with a phone call from Emily, it was great to hear her voice. The ship pulled away from Nassau around 5pm to a full pier of waving parents.

Today is filled all day with orientation activities and meetings, and classes begin tomorrow. Just one day of classes until we get to Puerto Rico. Hopefully, I will get to internet café while im there and be able to make another entry and upload some pictures from the Bahamas and Puerto Rico.

Almost there...

The days are starting to wind down before I leave thursday morning from Boston. I will be heading down to nassau with my parents and we will be there for a few days before the ship leaves on Sunday evening. The past couple days have been filled with packing and last minute errands (bank, target, etc). My bags are just about ready to go and the excitement and nervousness is still building. I have been planning for this trip for over a year and its finally right around the corner.

On sunday, I had dinner with my parents, grandparents and my aunt and uncle, it was good to see them and spend time with them before i leave for three and a half months.

I said goodbye to my roomates last night, I have to say i'll miss the luxurious living that is South 014. Tomorrow I will be heading back to Babson one more time to take Emily out to dinner and say our goodbyes, that will be very hard on the both of us as we have had this day in the back of our minds for a long time.

Next update will probably be when I am aboard the M/V Explorer on this coming Sunday.

Intro

This will be my blog for the Semester at Sea Spring 2007 voyage. Here i hope to keep family and friends updated on my travels and experiences. For more information on the Semester at Sea program, checkout www.semesteratsea.com