last port -- ft lauderdale!

Ship time 2325 (EDT) our location is...
Latitude: 24 degrees 18.19' N
Longitude: 80 degrees 44.63' W
Course: 58 degrees

For those of you who tried to see us come through the Panama Canal -- I gather everything worked as we were passing through the Miraflores Locks, but later as we were navigating the Gatun Locks, the website was down. I think everyone on the ship had notified family and friends and perhaps this created some strain with the servers. In any case, I hope at least some of you got to see the first part of our passage. It was fascinating for us to observe the operation of the canal. I believe this is the last full voyage to go through the Panama Canal -- the cost for our ship to pass is about $125,000 so future trips will be planned differently, although there is one shorter trip this summer that will involve Panama.

I neglected to mention in my post on May 2, that we had a performance that day by the World Dance classes and their instructor Aniseh Burtner. It was a fantastic performance with dances representing many of the countries we had visited. At the end Aniseh surprised her students and the audience by performing a dance of appreciation to her students and others she has met. It was very moving for all of us who got to see it.

Once through the canal, we entered the Carribean and came up around the west tip of Cuba. We are now between Cuba and Florida and will be arriving in the morning. We will disembark for the last time in Ft Lauderdale and we have had a busy few days leading up to this. On Sunday evening after our Panama Canal transit we had the Ambassador's Ball, which involved a lovely dinner and lively dance. Monday morning John spent a couple of hours sitting in the Student Union passing back papers and exams and letting students know their grades. I started packing in earnest, since we had been told that our bags needed to be ready to be removed from our cabin by noon today, and John came to help with that once he finished meeting with students. We haven't made a lot of purchases, and spent some time getting rid of some of the things we had brought that we no longer need, so this went fairly smoothly. Semester at Sea has this down to a science and provided boxes in public areas marked for unneeded toiletries, office supplies, clothing and food. These items will be passed along to crew members or given to charity in Florida. With all of our things gone, our cabin now feels like more of a hotel room than the home we have had for the last four months. We had our bags ready to go by about 9:00 this morning.

Yesterday afternoon there was a concert by the Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble (MICE) led by our music professor Matthew Burtner (Aniseh's husband). This was followed by an awards ceremony recognizing students who were nominated by each of the professors for outstanding academic work and achievements.

At 10:30 this morning we had a convocation ceremony, complete with Pomp and Circumstance as students and professors walked in procession. We had words from the Executive and Academic Deans, a couple of faculty members, and some students, as well as a performance by the A Capella Choir. Again, a very moving occasion at which we all recognized how short our time on the ship is now. This afternoon there was a reception for faculty, staff and life long learners -- plenty of opportunities over the last couple of days to spend time wrapping things up.

And so we arrive in the morning in Ft Lauderdale, and friends and families will be meeting many of these students. Breakfast will be served very early and I expect the faculty and staff will be off the ship by 10:00 or 10:30. We will be going through customs on arrival, then John and I will head for a hotel for a couple of days before flying back to Calgary on Friday. I plan to do a couple more blog entries, perhaps including some photos, once we get better internet at the hotel. So stay tuned -- a little bit more to come!

panama canal schedule...

Currently 2145 central time on the ship and our location...
Latitude: 7 degrees 19.25' N
Longitude: 80 degrees 3.67' W
Course: 65 degrees

We will be transiting the Panama Canal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal tomorrow morning and we recently got the schedule for the transit which I will share with you so that you can watch online if you'd like to. John and I plan to be on the deck somewhere, but so will about 800 other people, so not guaranteeing you will be able to see us! As you may know, the locks actually fill with water and raise the ship to move it along the canal to artificial lakes, then another series of locks lower the ship again so that it enters the ocean on the other side at sea level. As one of our professors on board said today, it will be like being on a water bridge that takes us overland.

All times are Central Daylight Time in the schedule below. The following website will allow you to see the ship's passage on the internet http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

9:10am - 10:00am: Transit Miraflores Locks
10:50am - 11:30am: Transit Pedro Miguel Locks
12:45pm: Pass by Gamboa
2:45pm - 5:05pm: Transit Gatun Lock

last time to board the ship...

We left Puerto Quetzal (Latitude: 13 degrees 55.65' N, Longitude: 90 degrees 47.24' W) about an hour and a half ago. We will be transiting the Panama Canal in two days. It was quite emotional for many getting on the ship today as we realized this was our last time to board. The next time we get off, we will not be getting back on.

Guatemala was a great experience. Many people went to Antigua http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua_Guatemala expecting to stay for the day, and decided to spend the night. Others went for one night, and elected to spend two. Hearing them talk today, I wish we had gone, but we will have to add that to our list of things to do "next time". This often happens -- we are very happy with the things we decide to do, but when we hear others talk about what they did, we think maybe we should have done other things. Obviously, it's impossible to do everything!

I did hike Pacaya Volcano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacaya as planned and it could not have been a better day. There are three other volcanos visible approaching Pacaya: the Volcan de Agua http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volc%C3%A1n_de_Agua or Vocano of Water, the Volcan de Fuego http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volc%C3%A1n_de_Fuego or Volcano of Fire and Acatenango http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acatenango. Pacaya is quite near Antigua, although we did not go through the city to get there. There were about 25 people on this trip, a mix of students, faculty and family members -- the youngest two were 8 and 13 and I think I was the oldest.

We had a wonderful Guatemalan guide on this trip, Chickie. Our shipboard "daughter", Victoria was on this hike too. I'm not sure I have mentioned in the past that Victoria has an identical twin sister, Stephanie; she was also on the hike. I have included a photo -- Victoria is on the left, Stephanie on the right, and Stephanie's boyfriend, Patrick is in the background. Sorry I did not get one with Patrick more in the photo!
I didn't realize until much later that armed security guards had accompanied us from the ship, as they apparently did on all the SAS trips in Guatemala. They were in vehicles that followed the buses. I guess that people in Guatemala realized that if they expected to succeed in tourism, they needed to protect tourists from being robbed and assaulted, and now many of the tourist agencies provide protection as part of the package.

The bus drove us into the hills near the volcano to the start of the hike. For five quetzales (about 65 US cents) you can "rent" a hiking stick from one of the young Guatemalan boys in the area. Since I usually hike with two poles, and since I had read that it was better to have a hiking stick given the terrain, I rented one from a very persistent young man who introduced himself as Francisco. Our group set out, accompanied by other enterprising young men offering "taxis" (horses or donkeys to take you to the top) as well as by our armed guards (photo of one of the guards and a self-appointed "guide" whose name escapes me at the moment) and climbed for a little more than two hours to reach our destination. It was not an especially difficult hike for me in terms of the climb, although I was the slowest, but then I am used to hiking in the Rockies with people in their 60's and 70's (who are also faster than I am), not university aged people! There was one down slope that was very steep and covered with loose cinders and ash, and I found it difficult, although I think I could have skied it easily ;-) and the areas where we were climbing across solidified lava were challenging.

We were told that although hikes of Pacaya used to go to the cone, earthquakes in the past had changed the mountain so that it was no longer possible to go that way but that we would go toward one of the two additional cones that had been created. The original cone is now where steam escapes from the volcano, and lava can be seen flowing from other cones. When we reached the top of our climb, we did indeed feel heat from the rocks and see lava flowing. Students roasted marshmallows from the heat before we came back down a bit to eat the sack lunches provided by the tour agents. After lunch and just before we started our descent, we noticed that large amounts of lava were starting to flow from one of the lower cones, an amazing sight and one we had not expected to see. Here you can see photos of the smaller lava flow as well as the one we saw just before leaving.

We took just over an hour to come back down and left to come back to the ship shortly after that. We were all anxious to get back for showers -- I'm sure the ship's gray water contained lots of volcano ash last night! I was falling asleep and went to bed at 7:00pm and didn't wake until 7:30 this morning, although Victoria and Stephanie and some of the others got up this morning for a mountain biking trip! Ahhh youth!

Tomorrow is a study day with the last of the exams on Saturday. John and other faculty are busily grading in order to have everything in on time. The Abassadors Ball is on May 3, the same day as the Panama Canal transit. You can watch us pass through the Panama Canal -- the link is on the right side of this page.

Happy Birthday, Sharla! I know you will be around for many more "big" ones!

tomorrow, guatemala!

Location at 2145 ship time...
Latitude: 14 degrees 17.8' N
Longitude: 93 degrees 48.3' W
Course: 106 degrees

Just watching "The Reader" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0976051/ on the loop -- I think it may be an illegal copy (seems to be pretty common here -- international waters and all that), but it is an exceptionally good movie. Not sure what it has to do with Guatemala, but excellent nonetheless.

We just had our logistical pre-port for Guatemala where we learned that information being distributed by the State Department concerning this stop is no worse than information being distributed by Australia for travellers to Detroit. Hmmmmm.

It does seem that with a little attention and caution Guatemala, like other ports we have visited, should be safe. John and I don't plan to do a lot there -- we arrive tomorrow morning at 8:00am and can leave the ship soon after that. There are shuttles to nearby beaches and shopping and we may do a bit of that tomorrow. On the 29th I will go off to hike the Pacaya Volcano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacaya with a volcanologist and others from SAS. We leave this port on the evening of the 30th.

Today while eating lunch on the back deck we spotted hundreds of small dolphins that were playing in the wake of the ship. They were jumping in and out of the water and keeping up with the ship -- it was quite a show! Some people saw sea turtles off the bow later this afternoon too.

Half of the finals are now over and people are starting to sort things to pack for home. In Tymitz Square, a central location on the ship, there is a huge pile of clothing that will be given away in Guatemala. We understand this will continue and there will be more clothing to give away when we arrive in Florida as people make room in their luggage for their souvenir purchases.

approaching guatemala...

At 2130 ship time, which is now the same as MDT, our location is...
Latitude: 16 degrees 46.8' N
Longitude: 103 degrees 6.7' W
Course: 105 degrees

We have just had our final cultural pre-port -- the one for Guatemala. It was done by two students who have traveled there on their own and I must say it was one of the best we have had. After looking at their photos, hearing the music and seeing the dance of this country, I am excited to arrive there on Tuesday morning.

We saw today that a public health emergency has been declared in the US because of the flu which seems to have started in Mexico. Just goes to show you don't need to leave home to live with risk! Everyone is healthy on the ship, although we are all wondering what kind of hoops we will be put through on our arrival in Ft Lauderdale given the flu situation. Hope you are all doing lots of handwashing!

It was a beautiful day today with calm seas and lovely blue skies. We talked at dinner about how we are starting to take beautiful sunrises and sunsets for granted.

and on and on...

Location at 2110 on Friday...
Latitude: 20 degrees 15.2' N
Longitude: 121 degrees 11.3' W
Course: 96 degrees

We will advance clocks one hour tonight and will be the same as PDT. Hard to believe we will be in our home time zone MDT in a couple of days when we change clocks on the 26th for Guatemala. John and I both got mixed up last night and moved our clocks forward, only to find this morning we had started our day an hour early! This was the last class day -- tomorrow is the Global Studies final and will be followed by a study day on the 26th and the first finals on the 27th. The biggest amount of John's work is done now, since his finals will be machine graded.

Guatemala actually looks like it will be the riskiest port we have had. We were reading the Department of State information http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1129.html today (you probably should not read this, Mom!) and I was re-thinking my volcano climb. Since it is a SAS trip with a travel agent that has been used many times, I think it will be fine and I am really looking forward to it. We will arrive in Puerto Quetzal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Quetzal on April 28 and my hike on Pacaya Volcano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacaya will be on the 29th.

We have had gray days since leaving Hawaii, and today there was lots of excitement in the faculty lounge when we saw a cargo ship and a few rays of sunshine all at the same time -- you could hear the buzz moving through the room. Funny how little it takes to satisfy! We are all hoping for more sun tomorrow. Temperatures have been in the mid 60's and we have not spent much time on the outside decks. It has been good reading weather though and I am enjoying my latest book.

moving along...

Only a couple of class days left, and not a lot to report, but I just wanted to let you know where we are at 2300 ship time:
Latitude: 21 degrees 47.2' N
Longitude: 138 degrees 53.6' W
Course: 93 degrees

Things were calmer today than yesterday, and all but a few people seem to be managing. No one even notices any more if someone else walks into them. John has experienced perceived motion while on land since our first port in Spain, to the point that he has not wanted to visit any sites that are very far off the ground. I had this feeling of motion in Honolulu for the first time, though I don't think mine was as severe as John's since it did not affect my confidence in tall buildings. John did some driving in Honolulu and I'm not sure I would have been comfortable behind the wheel myself. We hope this will not last long when we get home.

John has been marking papers and has his exams ready to go. There will be one set of exams before Guatemala and the second set will be after. We're seeing lots of students writing and studying and many professors we don't see at all as they remain in their cabins busily grading. I am starting to think about going through our stuff and getting rid of some things. I just donated our travel books to the field office, and we have some office supplies that we will probably not pack. There are clothes that we will leave as well, some that have been worn out in the laundry and others we just never want to see again!

leaving honolulu...

We have spent a lovely couple of days in Honolulu (Latitude: 21 degrees 18.5' N; Longitude: 157 degrees 52.0 W) with Clark. We left the port about an hour and a half ago, and have had rather rough sailing since. The only articles I can find about ship movement that are comprehensive are also very complicated and technical but I will provide the links anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacentric_height and http://www.seasickness.org/sea-sickness-on-a-cruise.html. Basically there is side to side movement called rolling, and front to back movement called pitching. These combine in various ways depending on currents and weather (it made me sort of sick just reading them -- or maybe it's our present movement), and can be offset a bit by stabilizers in the vessel. This ship does have stabilizers, but we have been told by some of the crew that sometimes the stabilizers are not used in order to allow us to move faster and save fuel. We were rolling quite a bit a few minutes ago and several things in the cabin went flying; I heard things falling above us as well in the Union. John has slept through this as usual, and it has calmed a bit now anyway. I was just starting this blog and threw my computer across the floor to catch other things, then had to re-boot and start over to make everything work again. We are moving at over 20 knots which is faster than we normally go, but the movement is not as bad now.

We arrived in Honolulu at 6:00am on Sunday, April 19th, and after an hour or so of misunderstandings around communication with various devices, we connected with Clark to learn that he was outside the terminal building. Security around ships in the US is about the same as with planes, so he could not get into the terminal area because the ship had not cleared. This took a couple of hours then John and I went down and were able to bring him on board since we had provided identifying information for him several days prior and his name went on a visitor manifest. I regret in all the confusion that I never got a photo of Clark on the ship -- what a blunder! He did manage to find a place to take a photo of John and me on the deck of the ship from the shore, but I don't have a copy of that photo yet. In any case it was wonderful to see him!

We had booked rooms at the Ilikai in Waikiki http://www.ilikaihotel.com/, where John has stayed a few times over the years and the family has stayed once before. We had been told in Global Studies the other day that Hawaii is really suffering from the current economic situation since they are so dependent on tourism. Many individuals have cancelled vacation plans recently, and several conferences have cancelled for the next two years which will have a large impact on the state. We found the Ilikai to have much lower service levels than we had experienced on previous trips, which was disappointing, but Clark found an article online late today [Article no longer available] that indicated there had been a foreclosure only last week -- no wonder no one is interested in giving good service! It is sad news indeed.

We did have a good visit in spite of the hotel issues. Clark and I had a long walk along Waikiki yesterday so that he could take some pictures, and today we rented a car and drove north through the center of the island to the north shore then back again. We didn't do the long route around because we were concerned about time, but we felt we had seen the best parts. Above all it was nice to have some time together. We had seen many of the other Oahu sights around Pearl Harbor and so on during our visit a few years ago.

On ship time was 6:00pm so John and I had to return the rental car and head toward the ship around 4:00pm, and Clark's flight was to leave at 9:00pm. He is planning to sleep on the plane and arrive on time for work in the morning. John is teaching in the morning too -- I am the only one who gets to sleep late!

This visit served to remind us how little time we have left on the ship. We will be in Guatemala in 7 days and during that time we have the last four teaching days of the semester, two study days and an exam day. We are in Guatemala for three days, then finish the semester after that with another study day and an exam day. It's hard to believe we are so close to being finished and heading home.

Current location, 2250 ship time...
Latitude: 21 degrees 24.3' N
Longitude: 157 degrees 1.9' W
Course: 69 degrees

We advance clocks one hour tonight, making our time 5 hours behind EDT, 4 hours behind CDT, 3 hours behind MDT and 2 hours behind PDT.

albatross, rainbows and sunset...

Ship time is currently 2310 although we will be advancing one hour tonight. Our current location...
Latitude: 27 degrees 25.09' N
Longitude: 178 degrees 29.90' WEST! (we crossed the date line around 1830 at about 28 degrees latitude)
Course: 121 degrees

We will be passing south of Midway Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Atoll or http://www.midwayisland.com/ shortly -- Latitude there is 28 degrees 12' N and Longitude is 177 degrees 21' W.

Today has been a very exciting day at sea. It was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and we have albatrosses following in our wake waiting to see what the boat churns up in the way of food. These are smaller birds than were seen by some near South Africa, but are still quite large with a wingspan of seven feet. There are two types, Laysan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laysan_Albatross and black-footed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-footed_Albatross, and we have seen both. There were a dozen or so off the stern today and this is one of the many times I wished I had invested in a better camera for this trip, but I did get a bit of video below.

A little later this afternoon I was in our cabin looking out the window and could see nearby a storm with some interesting clouds. I went to the port side deck near us to have a closer look and take some photos, and as I watched, rainbows began to appear. The photo is not nearly as beautiful as the sight was, but maybe you can get the idea. There was a double rainbow that changed as the ship moved through. At one point the bottom one arced all the way across the sky, but I could not capture it on our camera.

Once the rainbows faded I walked to the starboard side of the ship where I knew I could see the sunset. A fellow traveller was there with her camera and mentioned that she was still trying to see a "green flash" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash at one of our sunsets. I had never heard of this phenomenon and asked her about it. She gave me a brief explanation. Later she and I were at another event where someone else on the ship said that she had seen the green flash tonight. I guess I will have to look for it now!

Tonight my friend Maggie Thomas performed with several of the drama students in the play "The Persians" by Aeschylus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persians. When I had talked with her earlier today Maggie seemed quite anxious about whether they were ready to perform, but I was quite impressed tonight with all the performances. An action-packed day -- time for bed!

tulips in yokohama, beauty on the ship...

Current ship time is just after midnight on Wednesday, April 15 and our location is...

Latitude: 30 degrees 41.21' N
Longitude:175 degrees 24.30' E
Course: 122 degrees

As you can see, we still have not crossed the date line, but the ship date is set as if we had. Seas have calmed considerably and we are steadily making our way to Hawaii.

I was organizing photos and want to share some from Yokohama of these beautiful tulips. We had a dinner tonight in the "special" dining room with our shipboard family, so we also have a photo from that event. It was great to have a break from the usual ship food and to be able to dress up for dinner, but the best part was having time to catch up with everyone and exchange stories of our experiences since we last got together. I am so happy that John and I have had an opportunity to get to know Jane, Monica, Sarah and Victoria and enrich our own journey by sharing parts of theirs. The tulips are
very lovely, but they don't hold a candle to the beauty of these four young women.

rockin' and rollin'

Ship time is April 12, 2230 hours. Our current location...
Latitude: 33 degrees 21.63' N
Longitude: 161 degrees 50.84' E
Course: 103 degrees

As you can see, we have not reached the International Date Line yet, but we have changed the date nonetheless. We have had very heavy seas today, and they seem worse tonight. We have been told that this rough weather will likely last through tomorrow morning, and that we should make sure things are secured in our cabins. Since dinner I have been very queasy, so I will keep this short and go to bed shortly and hopefully find some relief. John is sleeping through it as usual.

If you check the website http://www.oceanweather.com/data/ and click on Western Region under North Pacific on the left side of the page, you can get some information about the weather. I don't know whether I feel better or worse since I located this page, but it does not look like it will last lots longer (ever the optimist!).

time and location...

It is 2210 ship time on Easter Sunday, April 12 (the first of two Easters) as I start this...
Latitude: 34 degrees 20.28' N
Longitude: 155 degrees 3.05' E
Course: 100 degrees

The International Date Line is at 180 degrees longitude and we will reach it in a few hours. Currently we are 15 hours ahead of EDT, 16 hours ahead of CDT, 17 hours ahead of MDT, 18 hours ahead of PDT. Once we cross the date line, we will be behind everyone -- 9 hours behind EDT, 8 hours behind CDT, 7 hours behind MDT, 6 hours behind PDT, until April 15 when we advance another hour closer to each time zone. We are definitely moving closer to home!

Seas coming out of Yokohama were quite calm, and although there is a fair bit more motion today, it is either not as bad as the Atlantic crossing, or we have become better sailors. I did see a few seasick patches behind people's ears today, but not many. The constant rocking and the time changes of the last couple of days caused me to be very sleepy today, but I will be happy if it does not get any worse than this.

We have a Dean's Memo that comes out each day we are at sea, and it usually contains an article called "From the Crow's Nest" with some interesting facts about sea travel, birds, geography and so on. Yesterday's explained the concept of a "great circle", the shortest distance between two points on a sphere's surface. This explains why sometimes the shortest distance requires moving in a direction that is not intuitive. There is a website http://gc.kls2.com/ where you can enter the airport codes for Yokohama and Honolulu (YOK-HNL) in the first box and see the route we are taking. For those of you who like to explore these things there are other variables you can play with on that page as well.

Now that we have several days at sea and the trip is drawing to a close, students are very involved in writing papers and preparing for exams. Professors are marking assignments and putting the exams together. There are only 10 class days left and the remaining days are study days or exam days. The two stops we have left are only two days each, and people are starting to anticipate and talk about how they think they will feel at the end of the journey.

yokohama...

We arrived this morning in Yokohama and were greeted by about 40 people, some of whom were our own students who had travelled independently from Kobe. The fellow in red in the photo walked up and down the pathway waving his US and Japanese flags and shouting "Welcome to Yokohama". Those are three of our students standing to his left.

I expected Yokohama to be much more industrial, but the port area is quite nice and John and I got off the ship to find a place to have coffee. In the end we decided not to spend the short time we have here looking for the area where I was born. Research I have done had shown that the nearby town, called Irumagawa, is now called Sayama, in the Saitama Prefecture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayama,_Saitama. The base is now Iruma Air Base in Iruma, Saitama, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iruma,_Saitama and is run by the Japanese. Other sites I had found indicated it would be impossible to get on the base. I also spoke to our interport lecturer, a professor at university near here, and she was familiar with the area. She thought it would not be hard to get to, but wasn't sure that we would see anything there. She was born near there in 1952, a couple of years after I was. I enjoyed very much talking with her on the ship.

So, John and I decided to get a hotel in the area to have a bit of a break from the ship. We have a good view of the bay from our hotel room and can see the Explorer below. We also found that there were a couple of giant -- HUGE -- spiders in the port area below. There was fire and lots of noise, and we decided this was some sort of Japanese monster movie being filmed. However I did a search and found the following website http://pinktentacle.com/2009/04/giant-robot-spider-in-yokohama-pics-video/ that has a film of these mechanical spiders and explains that they will be used in celebrating the 150 year anniversary of the opening of Yokohama as a port. The place looks a fair bit different than it did even 60 years ago, right Mom?

We will be leaving tomorrow evening for the long sail to Hawaii. Great news -- Clark will be meeting us in Honolulu! It will be wonderful to see him on the 19th and 20th while we are in port there.

cherry blossom time!

When we got back to the ship after our Beijing trip we had one day in Shanghai (location Longitude: 31 degrees 14.85' N, Longitude: 121 degrees 29.55' E) before we left for Kobe, Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe. John had a field trip for his classes that last day (Friday, April 3), and I took a long walk downtown from the port. I was tired from Beijing and didn't feel any great need or desire to do more than that. The port area in Shanghai is nicer than most, so walking was perfect. We left for Kobe that evening and took two days to get here, so arrived yesterday (Monday, April 6, although it was still Sunday for most of you). So our current Kobe location is Latitude: 34 degrees 40.81' N, Longitude: 135 degrees 12.21'E, although we are sailing in about half an hour.


Our shipboard daughter Monica's birthday is today so we celebrated on the way to Kobe since everyone had plans in port. It was a fun celebration with our shipboard family. Our next get together will be a "special occasion dinner" on April 14 when we can go to a room attached to the cafeteria and be dressed up and waited on and have champagne. I think we are all looking forward to that for a change to the routine!

When we got to Kobe yesterday, after the usual diplomatic briefing (where we learned to our shock that 7 Eleven in Japan is actually a bank as well as a convenience store), we had the most elaborate immigration and customs procedure yet -- it required that all 1000 people on the ship collect passports and forms from the purser and have a face to face meeting with immigration people who took photos and fingerprints and who used dogs to check backpacks, etc. Needless to say it took a fair bit of time. People who had SAS port trips planned went first and then the rest of us, faculty and staff before students. John and I went through then came back on the ship for lunch before heading out for the nearby light rail train into Kobe. We walked around the city a bit then returned to the ship. It's hard to believe this city was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1995 that killed over 4000 people and left more than 200,000 homeless. (It is now 2300 ship time and engines have just started up and we are starting to move.)

Today we had a trip to Kyoto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto with a group from the ship and enjoyed peak cherry blossom time. The trees are very beautiful right now and the weather was perfect with very blue skies and moderate temperatures. The day was packed with visits to structures and gardens. It took about an hour and a half on a bus to get to Kyoto from Kobe, and we went first with our guide Rumi to Nijo Castle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijo_Castle where we toured the palaces and observed the art in the rooms. We then walked through the garden and enjoyed the cherry trees in bloom.

Our second stop in Kyoto was the Kinkaku-ji Temple or Rokuan-ji Temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkaku-ji, also known as the Golden Pavilion Temple because of the fact that the top two levels of the building are covered in gold leaf. We did not go into the temple, but did enjoy the beautiful pond, garden and cherry trees. There was a gray heron in the pond, and a good sized turtle sunning himself on a rock. We had box lunches from the ship which we stopped to eat in Muruayama park http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maruyama_Park (be sure to see the "Information about Muruayama park" link on this site for some nice photos). The views were very nice and we enjoyed our lunch and the birds in the area.


After lunch we went to a Shinto shrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto_shrine known as Heian Jingu Shrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heian_Jing%C5%AB. The garden there is also beautiful with cherry blossoms. Our final stop was at the Buddhist Kiyomizu-dera Temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera. John and I were both feeling "templed-out" by that time and did not make the climb to the top of the hill to visit this one, although people reported that it was beautiful. We headed back to the ship and Rumi taught us a Japanese folk song "Sakura, Sakura" about the cherry blossoms which we sang on the way back. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakura_(folk_song) and note the link to the melody on that page.

As mentioned above, we are now on our way to Yokohama and should be there the morning of April 9. As most of you reading this know, I was born in Japan. John and I are going to try to find the former Air Force Base where I was born after we reach Yokohama. From what I have found out this may not be that easy to do, but some of the travel people who are working with SAS will do what they can to help.

beijing continued...

On Wednesday, April 1, we went to the Great Wall and to Olympic venues, and I wrote about those trips on that date. There were a couple of other highlights on Wednesday that I want to mention. One is that in the elevator in the hotel that morning, there were a number of young girls that were high school age. As they chatted, my roommate asked them where they were from and it turned out that they were from Canmore, Alberta! One of the fun things about travel is realizing how small the world can be. I talked with them for awhile -- they were thrilled to meet someone from so close to home, and so was I. While our group had walked around the day before, the Chinese people were quite taken with the people in our group who had very blonde (and usually long) hair. Some of the older women would approach and stroke the hair and want to have their picture taken with these people. They also liked being photographed with very tall people. The girls from Canmore were blonde and tall, so we warned them that this would likely happen to them too. I never saw them again while we were there -- they had said they were on a school trip.

Also of note on Wednesday was that our trip leader, one of the academics from Semester at Sea, approached our guide privately and told him that she understood that he might not be able to respond, but she wanted to know if he felt he could comment on the events in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago. He replied that he would comment, but that he could not do it publicly or on the microphone on the bus. He then spoke quietly to those of us within earshot and discussed the fact that he was quite young when the events took place and that the local news showed only a group of students killing a policeman and reported something over 200 people killed when rioting took place. As he got older and more curious he found ways to get information (many internet sites are blocked in China) that had been distributed to the rest of the world by journalists who were present and who managed to get other stories and pictures out. He recognizes that the Chinese people did not get the whole story, but stops short of saying his government was wrong to stop the students. He points out the number of changes that took place after the events of 1989, and of course he is not wrong.

Our last day in Beijing was Thursday, April 2. During the four days we were there Spring had come to Beijing. Leaves had opened on the willow trees, and forsythia was in bloom. We continued our heavy schedule after breakfast, visiting the YongHeGong Lama Temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonghe_Temple or http://www.kinabaloo.com/yonghegong.html. It is a temple and monastery of Tibetan Buddhism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Buddhism and apparently if you arrive at the right time (we did not), you can see 130 monks meditating. Any other time many other visitors can be seen meditating, praying, lighting incense or just wandering around looking. There are several buildings and each hall contains several gold Buddhas and other relics. One contains an 18 meter tall gold painted Buddha made from a single white sandalwood tree.

After another great lunch at a local restaurant, we went to see the Summer Palace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace where we had a walk around the grounds and a dragon boat ride on Kunming Lake. We never cease to be amazed at ourselves when we jump at the chance for a boat ride after all the time we spend on the ship! It was quite windy and cool that day, and we enjoyed watching old men flying kites on the Seventeen-Arch Bridge.

Following our visit to the Summer Palace it was time to make our way to the airport for our flight to Shanghai where we would join the ship which had sailed from Hong Kong in our absence. In the bus 0ur trip leader asked Andy if he could give the students some information on the Cultural Revolution in China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution and he did spend some time discussing this with the students. We aren't sure why, but he also had decided to share the information about Tiananmen Square that he had discussed with some of us the previous day. After the discussion our trip leader asked the students to respect the fact that Andy would not be able to publicly address these issues and to make sure the conversation about it stayed on the bus. I believe this willingness of our guide to share his thoughts, his clear love for his city and his country, and his dedication to making sure we had an exceptional experience in China made the differencebetween our trip and the ones that others had in Beijing. I wish everyone could have felt what we did as we came back. Andy's final gift to us was a song -- the only American song, he said, that he knew all the words. This may come under the category of "you had to be there", but we were very moved by his efforts. I could not record the whole thing, but hope you enjoy the attached short video.

back in beijing...

We continue to make our way to Kobe, Japan with our current location at 2105 Sunday night ship time...
Latitude: 32 degrees 33.63' N
Longitude: 133 degrees 41.33' E
Course: 60 degrees

A group of 38 of us (2 faculty, 1 staff, 2 "tagalongs" [me and one other], 2 tagalong teenagers, and 31 students) left for Beijing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing by first boarding a bus to the airport in Hong Kong at 6:00am on Monday, March 30, and catching an Air China flight. Going from Hong Kong to anywhere in China is considered an international flight, so we had to clear customs in addition to the usual security checks and so on. The Hong Kong airport is quite nice, with free internet and lots of shops and food places. I had the impression that most things run on time -- our three hour flight did and the experience was very pleasant. We even got breakfast, something that does not happen on North American flights any more! The airport in Beijing is pretty spectacular too.

We were met in Beijing by our tour guide, Andy, who we later learned is 29 years old and who has a University degree in English. We went first to a nice restaurant for lunch and sampled some of the local dishes. It was a good meal and we went then to the Temple of Heaven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven, a Taoist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism structure built in the 15th and 16th centuries. On our
walk to the main building, we passed many people of all ages, engaged in leisure activities: games, playing musical instruments, dancing, singing. One young couple was having wedding photographs shot. The attached video is one of the larger group activities we witnessed. After an hour or so walking around the grounds, we returned to the bus and went to our hotel for check-in. My roommate was our assistant librarian on the ship, a young woman from Alabama.

Later that evening we went out for a Peking duck dinner. We had duck in all ways you can imagine and it was very good, although I found that I was quite tired from the traveling and earlier activities of the day. We returned to the hotel and I think most of us had an early night.

On Tuesday morning we were up fairly early for a buffet breakfast in the hotel since we were to be back on the bus by 9:00am. The hotel was full of tourists from all over, and we all sat at very large round tables with people we didn't know. People seemed very intent on eating breakfast and there was little talking going on. It was all very efficient and we made it to the bus in good time.

Our first visit on this day was to Tiananmen Square http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square. This year is the 20th anniversary of what much of the world calls the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and what the Chinese call the Tiananmen Square Event or the June Fourth Incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989ki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989. Our guide spoke of the structure of the Square, and of the fact that it is the largest city square in the world, but said nothing of the "Event", something that many of us found disturbing, but not surprising. It was quite cool outside on this day and a number of the students bought hats (see photo) from the street vendors at the Square. These vendors were selling all kinds of junk and chased around after us trying to bargain with us. We are all getting pretty good at saying no (since this has happened everywhere we have travelled), but they did not give up easily -- perhaps because so many bought hats. Mao watches with waving hands were popular items too, even though these students are too young to have any memory of Chairman Mao waving in front of the cameras.

From Tiananmen Square, we went to the Forbidden City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City, walking in through the Meridian Gate. We used electronic headsets with technology that could detect where you were and deliver the appropriate dialogue, which made it very convenient for everyone to move through this massive site at his or her own pace. We spent a little more than two hours there, but you could easily spend days seeing everything. It was sobering to see military training exercises among buildings called "The Hall of Supreme Harmony" and "The Hall of Earthly Tranquility". The movie "The Last Emperor" had run on the loop on the cabin tv's the week before so the area inside the walls looked very familiar. I am happy to have had the experience of being there and seeing it first hand -- it is a magnificent place.

After lunch at another nice restaurant, we were treated to trishaw (variation on the rickshaw where, instead of a two wheeled seat being pulled by a person walking or running ahead, the unit is attached to a cycle so that the whole thing has three wheels) rides through Hutong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong lanes and a visit to one of the courtyard homes. Our group visited a family who had eight people in three generations living together with the courtyard in the center. We had an opportunity to talk to the woman who was in the middle generation and to see the kitchen, a couple of bedrooms, and her artist husband's work area. After a little more than an hour in this area, we went to the Bell Tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Gulou_and_Zhonglou and walked up some steep and deep stairs to the top where we could see the huge bronze bell contained in it. It was quite cold and windy by that time, so we didn't stay long and went downstairs to a tea shop where we had a tea tasting with pomp and ceremony. It was a lovely place to get warm!

Once at the hotel, we were on our own for the evening, and my roommate and one of the students and I decided to go in search of western food. The only place we could find within walking distance was MacDonalds, which I never eat at home, but which I found was absolutely perfect that evening!

backtracking... hong kong

Current location at 2320 ship's time...
Latitude: 30 degrees 57.56' N
Longitude: 128 degrees 19.75' E
Course: 90 degrees

We are making our way to Kobe, Japan from Shanghai, and will advance our clocks one hour tonight. This makes us 13 hours ahead of EDT, 14 hours ahead of CDT, 15 hours ahead of MDT, and 16 hours ahead of PDT. After Japan we will cross the International Date Line, experiencing April 12 (Easter Sunday) twice, and then we will be behind all of you.

Going back a week, we arrived in Hong Kong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong on March 29 at our usual arrival time of 8:00am. If you have been reading, you have already seen the Google Earth photo that I posted, which shows our ship docked in Hong Kong at the Ocean Terminal and attached by a walkway to the Harbour City shopping mall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbour_City_(Hong_Kong). We had our diplomatic briefing shortly after arrival, and for the first time the consulate officials were very positive and talked about how safe we would be in Hong Kong and China. One of the speakers had a niece on the ship -- perhaps that was why, but in fact it is quite safe, clean and orderly.

I only had one day in Hong Kong, and John and I used it to take a City Orientation tour. The day was cloudy and chilly, although not raining. (Temperatures were in the 50's, but our previous stops had been so hot that this seemed cold to us.) We got on a bus with several of our fellow travellers and left the terminal heading to Hong Kong Island via an underground tunnel. We had a guide who was very good and who entertained us throughout the trip. Once on the other side of Victoria Harbour, we got into sampan boats to tour the harbour. The harbour is surrounded by high rises that house some of the 7 million people that live here. It used to be that the harbour was filled with boats on which people lived as well, but these numbers have dropped in recent years and we were told that now only about 100 people live on the boats. And although there are lots of junk boats, there are a fair number of upscale cabin cruisers and speedboats too.

From the harbour we went to The Peak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Peak, http://www.thepeak.com.hk/en/home.asp where in spite of the clouds and fog we had beautiful views of buildings and the harbour, including one of the MV Explorer. There we ate the box lunches that had been provided by the ship's kitchen crew, and wandered around before heading down on the funicular tram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicular.

At the bottom we made our way to St John's (Anglican) Cathedral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Cathedral,_Hong_Kong. It was undergoing construction and we saw scaffolding made of bamboo. Our guide told us that in some construction projects they have tried to move to steel scaffolding, but that so many of the construction workers are used to the bamboo that the accident rate increased and many projects are still using bamboo. Construction is very tidy -- where it is taking place the building is wrapped in green cloth of some kind which is held in place by the bamboo. We also saw legislative and court buildings in this area.

We walked around the Cathedral area then went into a shopping district to look around, although not much was open on Sunday afternoon. There is an HSBC bank in this area where a number of Filipino domestic workers gather to socialize on Sundays -- we saw thousands gathered there.

We went on to the Man Mo Temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Mo_Temple built to worship Man, the god of literature, and Mo, the god of war. There was a nearby coffee shop where many of us went for a hot drink after this visit then headed back to the ship. John and I went out that night to a restaurant in the attached mall, a nice change from ship food.

Tomorrow I will update on the Beijing trip, which I found excellent, but which I am learning left others disappointed. There were several different trips and I expect that our guide made the difference for us.

warning: self-indulgent posting ahead...

Here is a photo of me at the top of the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutianyu. I had to take the picture myself, because I was the only one on our trip who made it all the way to the top! I had a great time doing the hike and felt wonderful afterward. Now I am in training for climbing a live volcano in Guatemala in a few weeks!

I am tired tonight so heading off to bed soon. We leave Beijing tomorrow, but for me this has been one of the best days of the trip. In addition to the Wall, we went to Olympic Green, the site of many of the venues of the 2008 Summer Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics#Venues. The weather, which has been quite cool and very windy, cooperated, and you can see we had a lovely blue sky with sun and no wind. Our guide, Andy, has been unbelievably good and the trip leader and her husband and I went for dinner with him tonight. I want to say more about him in the blog, but will do so at another time. I also will go back and write about Hong Kong and the rest of our stay in Beijing later -- there is much to say.

News from John: he slept through a life boat drill last night as the ship left for Shanghai, and the 150 people that were left on the ship (most came to Beijing) had a nice dinner with the captain. I think he is probably lucky to have been able to participate in the dinner after missing the drill!

a photo to share...

I am up way too late considering I am leaving very early for Beijing, but I was playing around with Google Earth and plugged in our current coordinates in Hong Kong. It was exciting to see that the satellite photo that came up is so recent that our ship was there with the refueling vessel alongside. There are two ships in the photo -- ours is the blue one, and the white one behind us is still there tonight. If you double click the photo you will get a larger image.

We did have a City Orientation tour today. More on that when I get to Beijing.

fish and birds and farewells...

Many times during this trip we have seen birds of various kinds and we have the opportunity to learn a little about them from people who know more than we do. Once before we had red footed boobies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-footed_Booby flying along the ship, and today we learned that the ones that we had seen were the brown morph. Today we saw several of the white morph variety. These birds move along the ship because of the sea creatures that are stirred up as our ship passes through the water. Some types of birds are known to stay to the bow of the ship and others tend to follow along the stern -- it depends on what they want to eat. There were dozens today right outside our window and they were chasing the flying fish. It was fun to watch them swoop and dive and occasionally catch a fish in flight.

We learned a couple of days ago that we will be saying goodbye to about 40 of our crew when they leave us in Hong Kong to return for a few months to their families. Many of these folks are people we never see -- engineers or maintenance people from the engine room, or butchers and bakers in the kitchen, but two of the fellows who are leaving have been very good to us, so we went to see them today to say farewell. It's sad to see them go, but we have to be happy for them that they are returning to their families. Today was also our cabin steward Linda's birthday so we helped her to celebrate a little and contributed along with others on our deck to a cake she could share with her friends in the crew.

We passed through the Paracel Islands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracel_Islands today. They have a long history of disputes over ownership. Ship's time is currently 2215 and our location is:
Latitude: 19 degrees 53.3' N
Longitude: 113 degrees 6.9' E
Course: 30 degrees

We should arrive in Hong Kong in just under 10 hours. We participated in Earth Hour on the ship along with much of the rest of the world by turning off most of the lights, including the outside ones. I have to say it did give me pause to think about traveling at 22 knots on a nearly moonless night with no lights!

mekong delta trip and leaving vietnam...

Current location at 2315 ship time...

Latitude: 12 degrees 53.0' N

Longitude: 109 degrees 59.4' E

Course: 20 degrees

We are advancing clocks one hour tonight so we will be 12 hours ahead of EDT, 13 hours ahead of CDT, 14 hours ahead of MDT, and 15 hours ahead of PDT.

We continued to enjoy our time in Vietnam, and I did go to the Mekong River Delta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong_River_Delta on Wednesday. About 80 of us left Ho Chi Minh City by bus at 8:00am and it was already very hot and humid. We encountered the same heavy traffic as we traveled south of the city for two hours. We headed through Lang An Province http://www.wompom.ca/vietnam/vnprovinc808.htm and stopped about an hour into the trip at Ben Luc district to visit a Cao Dai Temple and a local market. Cao Dai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Dai is a relatively new religion, established in 1926. The Cao Dai temples look very similar to one another and are quite beautiful. The nearby market was very busy and full of colorful fruits and vegetables, but we had to walk quickly through the fish and meat on such a hot day. I had to laugh at the number of students who decided they would be vegetarians for lunch when our guide took a count right after the visit to the market!

We drove into Tien Giang Province http://www.wompom.ca/vietnam/vnprovinc810.htm and on to the city of My Tho. There we boarded covered wooden boats to tour the Mekong River and the four islands in the center of it: Tan Long (Dragon), Quy (Tortoise), Phung (Phoenix), and Thoi Son (Unicorn). The Mekong River begins in Tibet and flows through China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before entering Vietnam, forming the delta and emptying into the South China Sea. The Delta area is beautiful with palm and tropical fruit trees. We left the covered boats and had an opportunity to sample the fruits from the area -- jack fruit, pineapple, mango, grapefruit and others. We then moved into canoe type boats that were paddled by local island dwellers through some of the canals that flow through the delta. The channel where we entered our boat was very narrow and muddy at low tide, and I was reminded of Humphrey Bogart pulling the African Queen along -- I didn't think we'd ever get out of there! Fortunately our rowers (one pictured above) had more experience than I had confidence. The heat was sweltering, so it was a relief when we finally got along the channel enough to get a nice breeze. We did see many of the places where the river people live up on the banks. It's not surprising that the main occupation in this fertile area is agriculture, and that it is a big rice producing area.

We had a very nice lunch featuring local cuisine -- lots of rice, vegetables and fish, then went to other boats to continue the tour of the area. We visited a place where they make coconut candy from the water coconuts in the area and had an opportunity to shop before returning to the buses for the ride back to the ship.

We had thought we were leaving Vietnam last night, not realizing that we had to wait for high tide in order to make the long trip back down the Saigon River and back to the South China Sea. We left this morning at 6:00am and should arrive in Hong Kong day after tomorrow on Sunday morning. Happy Birthday, Martha!

the cu chi tunnels

We left by bus at 7:00am yesterday going northwest of Ho Chi Minh City to the Cu Chi Tunnels. I included the wiki link in the last blog, but the Vietnamese have set up a site at http://www.cuchitunnel.org.vn/index.php. The drive was most interesting in terms of moving through the traffic. The little video that is attached was taken from the bus window -- you can see that we are not moving very fast, but the motorbikes are progressing well. Note that some of them move up to the sidewalk to get around the slower traffic. I suppose a few years ago these would have been bicycles.

It took about an hour and a half to travel the 70 kilometers to the site of the tunnels. Our guide, Jimmy, gave us some information about the tunnels on the way, then once we arrived we hiked down a path through trees and brush to a model of a tunnel opening. Jimmy picked one of the smaller young women in the crowd and invited her to step into this opening so that we could see how really small it was -- it was of a size to accommodate the small Vietnamese people, but not the larger American soldiers who were enemies of the Viet Cong. This was a model of the real openings, because the real tunnel openings in the area have been enlarged in order to accommodate the bigger people who come to view them now. We moved on to see samples of the sorts of booby traps that were set up around the area and sometimes inside the tunnels in case the enemy got too close. These were the sort of traps the Vietnamese had used for hunting in other times and involved lots of sharpened bamboo. Pretty gruesome. There were many samples of underground rooms -- meeting rooms, hospitals, eating areas and so on. And we had the opportunity to experience the tunnels for ourselves by climbing down into them. I did go into one of the shallower ones, climbing down about 3 meters, then moving along the tunnel until the ceiling became so low I would have had to crawl and where it was getting quite dark. At that point I decided it would not be a good idea to go further, and I turned around and came out again.

The tunnels are certainly a testament to the patience and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people. A few of the tunnels originated with the French occupation, but many more miles of tunnels were added during the war with the Americans. We were told that four people would work on a tunnel at a time -- some to dig, some to carry dirt in baskets, some to run to dump the dirt into the nearby Saigon River. This area was heavily bombed during the war and there are still a couple of large B52 bomb craters, but most of those are gone since the bombing had destroyed the trees and erosion filled the craters. Until a few of the students went into the craters it was hard to appreciate how big they are, since all of the vegetation has returned. At the end of the tour we were shown a film that had been distributed in the 60's by the Viet Cong to the South Vietnamese people. It was very interesting to see the messages people were receiving.

Current relations between the US and Vietnam are very good, of course. Although there was a lot of talk from a few professors about the war in the days before arrival, these students are actually two generations away from this war. The tunnel trip did give a feel for some of what happened during those years, but as the guide said, the Vietnamese people feel that the past is the past, and now they love Americans and are very happy they come to Vietnam (and happy Americans spend so much money here!). What we have seen of the country is very beautiful. The city is very green with lovely plazas and parks, and it is also very clean and well kept.

Following the tunnel trip John and I decided to spend a couple of days at a nice hotel in the city. This has given us a chance to have a bit of a break from the ship, use faster internet, and be closer to things in Ho Chi Minh City. It has been very warm here -- in the mid 90's and above (sorry, Calgary!), but we move slowly and take lots of breaks. We will return to the ship tomorrow. I will be doing a Mekong Delta trip, so will write on that in the next couple of days.

ho chi minh city...

Early this morning we left the South China Sea and sailed up the Saigon River, arriving in Ho Chi Minh City at 0800. It is always exciting to arrive in a port, but this morning was extra special because a parent trip was planned for Vietnam, and some of the parents had come to meet their students and go on with them to Cambodia. We had our usual diplomatic briefing, picked up our passports and landing cards and were on our way. John and I were on a City Orientation tour with several others from the ship and it was very enjoyable, although the weather was very hot and it was best to stay out of direct sun. As we have found in the other Asian countries, the traffic is fascinating. We had been instructed that if we need to cross a street, it is best to start slowly and walk deliberately without ever stopping once you start. If you stop or go backward, you confuse the drivers who will avoid you if your behavior is predictable. Fortunately we did not need to walk across any streets today. In HCMC most of the drivers are on motorbikes. There are few traffic lights and it does all seem to work. Traffic is very crowded, but not very fast and people are always in control.

We first visited the Thien Hau Pagoda located in HCMC's Chinatown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thien_Hau_Temple,_Ho_Chi_Minh_City. This temple is dedicated to Thien Hau, a goddess of the sea, known in China as Mazu. Thien Hau is said to ride the ocean on a mat and travel in the clouds wherever she wants, allowing her to help people in trouble on the high seas. Strangely there are worshippers gathered, lighting incense even as tourists wander through. The incense takes all forms including giant spirals of it that are mounted overhead and that will drop ashes on you if you aren't careful.

There are a variety of religions in Vietnam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Vietnam. Later in the trip we visited Notre Dame Cathedral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saigon_Notre-Dame_Basilica, which we were told is modeled after the one in Paris, although I found it difficult to see the similarities.

Following the temple visit we had a wonderful Vietnamese lunch at Maxim's Restaurant. If you have never had lotus root, you should give it a try! I wonder if we can even get that in North America?

We also stopped at Reunification Palace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunification_Palace, the symbol of the South Vietnamese government until April 30, 1975 when communist tanks crashed through the gates to take over what had been the Presidential Palace. The living quarters and presentation rooms are ornate, but the basement has a network of tunnels and old telephone, teletype and radio equipment as well as map rooms that are interesting as well. Much of the war planning took place in the dreary offices in this basement.

Although there was one more stop to the History Museum that included a water puppet show, John and I were pretty zapped by the heat, and decided to wander off on our own to a little coffee shop where we had some iced Vietnamese coffee. We were refreshed after that break then came back on the bus with everyone else. A bit later we got together with our friends Maggie and George for a very nice supper at a restaurant alongside the ship. I have a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu_Chi_Tunnels starting early in the morning, so I will sign off for now.

attention ship's company!

It happens once or twice a week and it starts with an announcement from one of the officers: "Attention ship's company! Attention ship's company! For exercise! For exercise! For exercise!" And what follows is some sort of practice drill for the crew. It might be a "code blue" in one of the cabins, or a "code bravo" in a hallway. Yesterday it was a "man overboard, starboard" drill. When we heard it, I knew this would be an interesting one to watch if I could get close enough. So I went out on the lifeboat deck on the starboard side and the crew was assembling from all over the ship, including the kitchen. They were carrying rescue equipment and a stretcher and all headed for the same area on Deck 5 near the lifeboats. All the while the ship was executing a 180 degree turn, generating a large wake, and our new heading was west as the crew searched for the "man" that had gone overboard, a florescent orange "body" that had been thrown in the water before the announcement.

It took less than ten minutes for the ship to reverse course, and another few minutes to locate the "man". During this maneuvering a small lifeboat was being prepared for launch and as soon as the "man" was located, the lifeboat was ready. In the photo you can see the crew in the lifeboat picking up the "man" who went overboard. With the rescue complete, the ship again reversed course and we resumed our eastbound travel. The entire operation took less than half an hour. I was very impressed!

our very talented crew...

There are nearly 200 crew aboard the MV Explorer. There are electricians, plumbers, carpenters, people who work in the engine room and around the decks, waiters in the dining rooms, cooks, receptionists, bookkeepers, people who do our laundry, room stewards, the officers -- I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but we really don't have to lift a finger to look after ourselves because these folks do everything for us. I'm not sure how I will make the adjustment when we get back home. We have come to know many of them over the last several weeks, especially Linda who looks after our cabin, and the guys in the dining room (and they are all guys). Tonight we were treated to a talent show that the crew put together and it was a great time!

I took a bunch of photos and video and am going to try to put some of it up, though it is late now so will not try it tonight. Some of our crew are really very talented performers and it was wonderful to see this side of them and to get to know them better outside their uniforms -- singers and songwriters, dancers, comedians, jugglers and on and on. I was impressed most by the themes of learning, seeing the world, and change of self that were part of their performances, and their obvious understanding of the mission of Semester at Sea and their own roles in making this the best possible experience for students and the rest of us. Indeed they come from all over the world themselves (34 countries!), and many of them have left families behind because they are better able to provide for them by leaving their own countries for the work they do on this ship.

Current location at 0055 ship time:
Latitude: 8 degrees 37.4' N
Longitude: 103 degrees 51.4' E
Course: 141 degrees

on the way to vietnam...

We left Thailand about 2 hours ago and are now moving toward Vietnam. We should be there in two days, which does not leave a lot of time for two full days of classes and all the pre-port sessions for Ho Chi Minh City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_City. Academics we have talked with in the last few days are feeling like John is -- there is not much time left to cover everything in classes and get ready for exams. Hard to believe it is already that time. John started putting his finals together today and others have started as well. Students are still working on assignments and papers and it sounds like they aren't thinking about exams yet. They also have a number of port activities they are trying to manage, since they have a few for each of their classes that they must work in.

We have the usual movies displaying on the tv for the next port. I just finished watching "Heaven & Earth" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107096/, a 1993 Oliver Stone film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Hiep Thi Le. It was very well done and is based on the true story "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" written by Le Ly Hayslip and Jay Wurts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Heaven_and_Earth_Changed_Places, and the sequel "Child of War, Woman of Peace" by Le Ly Hayslip and her son James Hayslip http://www.amazon.com/Child-War-Woman-Peace-Hayslip/dp/0385471475.

Our current location at 2215 ship time:
Latitude: 12 degrees 43.7' N
Longitude: 100 degrees 43.8' E
Course: 175 degrees

elephants!

Today we boarded a bus at the ship around 1:00pm and went to the Pattaya Elephant Village http://www.elephant-village-pattaya.com/index.html. There we learned about Asian elephants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Elephant. Clouds and light rain kept the upper 90's heat that we have been experiencing at bay and it was quite pleasant. Elephant keeper Phairat Chaiyakham and his staff look after 32 former working elephants who are no longer able to work and who cannot be released because their habitat is rapidly disappearing. Elephants require so much food that many of them are now finding their way into the cities in order to look for something to eat. They can wander into markets and create chaos. Elephant Village shelters these animals and allows close interaction with groups like ours in order to help pay the cost of feeding them.

We were introduced to many of the elephants and fed them bananas, then some of our group bathed with them as you can see in the photo. We were treated to demonstrations of the type of logging work they have done and how they were trained. One of them had worked in a circus, but at about 25 years of age now has cataracts and is retired. Elephants live to be 80 years of age or more and usually die because they no longer have teeth and cannot eat the thousands of pounds of food they need daily to survive. In this sanctuary there are 29 females and 3 males and there are attempts to breed them, with limited success.

We each had the opportunity to ride the elephants with the masters. I did ride one and enjoyed the experience very much. We had several children from the ship in our group and it was great fun to watch them with these magical creatures!

John and I had spent some time in Pattaya on Monday. It is an interesting area with beautiful beaches. There are definitely remnants of the days when the city served as an R&R destination for American troops serving in Asia, although much of that has been cleaned up to make this a more attractive tourist destination. One cannot find the ancient buildings and artifacts that make Bangkok so appealing, but the crowds and traffic of Bangkok are not there either.

in laem chabang...

Current location...
Latitude: 13 degrees 3.3' N
Longitude: 100 degrees 54.2' E

We arrived at 8:00 this morning to the cleanest and most orderly port we have seen so far! The port at Laem Chabang is not even 20 years old, and since it is so far from Bangkok it has much clearer air than many of the ports we have experienced. John and I watched a container ship being simultaneously unloaded and loaded today -- something we have been unable to view until now. It was fascinating.

We did not have the usual diplomatic briefing today since it was Sunday and the port is so far from the US Embassy. Immigration did arrive and it was about 11:00am when the ship cleared and we were allowed to disembark. The people who had trips today went off first, for the two hour bus ride to the airport and flights to Phuket in the south and Luang Prabang in Laos. Since John and I didn't have anything scheduled we had a slow morning and left the ship around 1:00pm. We got a cab and went to a mall not far from the port. There was not much there, and what was there was very western, so not much of note to share, except that we did give in to our urge to visit the first Starbucks we have seen since leaving the Bahamas!

We are planning a trip tomorrow to Pattaya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattaya which is about 30 km south of the port, leaving around 10:00am. I'm not sure why there are no ferries from here to Bangkok, but it seems to me that would be a much more sensible way to travel than the crowded roads. There is a skytrain in Bangkok that should make travel within the city easier, but you have to get there first. Some of our briefings from people who have lived in Bangkok indicated that vehicle travel is faster than in India with less horn, and the only rule seems to be that any empty space must be filled. The jury is still out on whether we will try to make that trip.

arriving in thailand shortly...

Our current location at 2220 ship time:
Latitude: 10 degrees 29.4' N
Longitude: 101 degrees 39.4' E
Course: 344 degrees

In a few hours we will arrive in Laem Chabang, Thailand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laem_Chabang. Laem Chabang is our port of entry; Bangkok is an hour and a half to two hours away.

While bunkering in Singapore, our music professor, Matthew, had arranged an international "drive-by" concert with the National University of Singapore. No one was allowed off the ship, but everyone could participate using computers. While I downloaded the software, I did not download one file that would have allowed me to participate too, however I did observe, and it was fun to watch. This was picked up by a local Singapore radio station. Matthew has done some interesting things with technology in music. Yesterday's activities are written in today's "official" SAS blog at http://semesteratsea-spring2009.blogspot.com/ and you can see Matthew's website at http://www.burtner.net.

If you would like to see some great photos of this voyage by our staff photographer, John Weakley, check out [Sorry - Photos no longer available]. It's hard to believe, but yesterday was the mid-point of the journey since picking up the students in Nassau. We have only 25 sea days and 27 port days left.

bunkering in singapore...

I think I may want to move to this island and manage this lighthouse.

Today we reached Singapore for re-fueling. Location...
Latitude: 1 degree 10.8' N
Longitude: 103 degrees 37.2 E

We arrived about 7:00am and never went into the city. We were met by a ship carrying fuel and were anchored out in the harbor most of the day. We could see the city of Singapore through cloud, fog and smog and also islands in the area. This is a very busy shipping area, so there were many other ships around as well.

The fact that the sun was behind cloud kept the temperatures fairly cool. I went out on the top deck to take some photos after we had finished re-fueling and had started on our way and was stunned by the amount of wind there was at the bow of the ship. I thought I would be blown off the ship -- seriously! I managed to get back in with the help of some of the crew who were doing some cleaning in the area. We went around the islands at the tip of Singapore and have now started up the east coast of Thailand. We will be there day after tomorrow and have just had our cultural pre-port presentation by one of the faculty who lived there for a period of time. Our current location at 2100 ship time...
Latitude: 2 degrees 17.03' N
Longitude: 104 degrees 40.55' E
Course: 0 degrees

our stay in chennai...

It's hard to believe a whole week has gone by since the last writing! Our stay in India was most interesting and as we had been told, India is a country of contrasts. While Chennai is a very dirty city, people are very clean with beautiful colorful clothing. There is stark poverty, and there are areas of great wealth. There is dense crowding and noise, yet many of the people seem able to find quiet and serenity in the middle of it.

Following the diplomatic briefing the morning of our arrival, March 5, John had a yoga demonstration scheduled for his students and that took place on the ship. I was able to see only part of it since I was getting ready for my "Art of Living" trip. John also had a City Orientation trip later that day, and by that time we had left. Our bus loaded at 11:30am and left the harbor with 7 boys, 21 girls, a faculty member (Marquisa) and I. We were questioned by the armed harbor guards about the number of males and females on the bus and our excellent guide, Sushila, told us that security in the area has been greatly increased since the bombing in Mumbai. We certainly found this to be true -- there were armed guards around the ship and to go in or out we had to show shore passes and ID. We felt well looked after.

We headed for Mamallapuram, also known as Mahabalipuram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabalipuram. Mamallapuram is a World Heritage Site because of the ancient monuments and temples there. Under the Pallava dynasty in the 4th - 9th centuries, the art of temple construction was redefined and moved from the use of wood to carving from rock. I was most impressed with the cave temple with its carved bas-reliefs that tell the story of The Descent of the Ganga http://www.anand.to/india/ganga.html. There is a sample in the photo and if you look closely you can see two of the goats that live near this temple climbing around the back legs of the elephant on the right. We also saw the Five Rathas from the 7th - 8th centuries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancha_Rathas and the Shore Temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shore_Temple. We learned that this shoreline was affected by the tsunami in 2004 and we passed through a couple of fishing villages where people are living in dwellings on the beach constructed of palm leaves. We also learned that Madras Harbor, now known as Chennai Harbor, was bombed by the Japanese four months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

We went then to DakshinaChitra village http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakshinchitra which I mentioned in my last posting. There we got room assignments and our schedule, then settled in our rooms, which were comfortable although very basic. Marquisa and I shared a room. Most of the women students had six in a room, but it was clear from the schedule we would not be spending that much time in the rooms anyway. We had our first meditation session that evening, met our teacher, Veda Chakra, and learned some of the breathing techniques that would be used in the sessions. Afterward we had a traditional meal served on banana leaves and eaten with our fingers. We had been told that we would be eating vegetarian meals during our stay -- the food was delicious. We went to bed after that and I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow!

Friday morning we were up for hot chocolate at 6:30am, and our first session started at 7:00am. We did some stretches and a few yoga movements and learned more about breathing. We had breakfast at 8:30am then continued with the sessions -- a total of about 8 hours that day, four in the morning and four in the afternoon, on breathing and meditation. There was no air conditioning and temperatures were in the mid-90's in the middle of the day, so we had a break during the hottest part and were able to tour the village and walk through the market. The buildings are designed to let air flow through and at about 4:00pm the temperature starts to cool and a breeze makes things very comfortable. After supper on that second night we had a story teller who came to entertain us. We had learned some stories of the Hindu gods and goddesses on the ship during our Global Studies and cultural pre-port, but there are so many and an endless supply of stories to tell. We all went to bed pleasantly tired from the work we had done that day.

On Saturday morning we had much the same schedule as we had on Friday. This was our last day and there were lots of activities in our classes in the afternoon, mainly games designed to teach life lessons. There was also lots of singing and dancing with a group of Veda's friends. During a break in the middle of the day there was a palm reader and many of the students had their palms read. This was very entertaining for everyone! We ended the day with a final meal together and got back to the ship at about 10:00pm, exhausted. Students were thrilled to have a real shower for the first time in days.

John and I went shopping on Sunday after negotiating a good price with a cab driver. He dropped us at the Taj Hotel and we walked up an alley to the mall. We didn't spend a huge amount of time there since there was not much we wanted to buy, but we did run into a number of the students I had spent the last few days with and it was good to see them all. We went to the Taj for lunch then and it was nice to eat some good western food. We returned to the ship in one of the motorized rickshaws, not realizing that these vehicles are not allowed into the harbor gates, so we had a long walk in high heat to get back to the ship. Chennai is quite dirty with black ash or something in the air. It's hard to think about what you might be breathing. We always have to conserve water while in port since the ship can only produce water while moving, but we sure felt that we needed to clean up after that walk!

Traffic in Chennai reminds me of skiing -- you are responsible for everyone in front of you and you sort of ignore what is going on behind you. It is very important to have a working horn as that is how you signal your location. During a shopping trip on Monday, the last day of our stay, I was in one of the little three wheeled motorized rickshaws with four of my shipmates and my arm was brushed by the handlebar of the motorcycle next to us! Drivers chat with each other through open windows while driving down the road at full speed. I was very impressed by the judgement and reaction time of drivers who manage to share the road -- bicycles, motorcycles (sometimes carrying entire families), rickshaws (both motor and cycle driven), cars, SUV's and oxcarts pulled by sacred cows! Even the pedestrians get into the act. We had been told if we needed to cross a street, find a local and cross with them. I just avoided any street crossings.

We are now on our way to Singapore for bunkering. No one will be allowed off the ship there, but we should be in Thailand on March 15. We have made adjustments in time over the last couple of days, and you have implemented Daylight Savings time, so we are now 11 hours ahead of EDT, 12 hours ahead of CDT, 13 hours ahead of MDT and 14 hours ahead of PDT. We are passing through the area of the earthquake that started the tsunami on Boxing Day in 2004 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake. But we aren't worried about it. Really.

Current location...

Latitude: 6 degrees 35.59' N

Longitude: 96 degrees 9.65' E

Course: 112 degrees