We left Hawai'i (to be said like a local) a couple of days ago, and we are now four days away from stepping foot in Japan (and therefore yummy snacks and food).
Sorry that it's been awhile since I've updated, but I swear I've never been so busy in my entire life. There always seems to be something to do. Hence why my Hawai'i update is coming a bit late. But let's start from the beginning…
The ship was in Hawai'i for a couple hours before we even got the chance to get off the ship. We had to go through immigration, which individually didn't last that long, but for 1,000 passengers took quite a while. Emily and I met up with a girl named Dehana right when we were going to get off the ship, and we both had the same itinerary, which included trying to find a luau, as well as a trip to Target/Walmart to get some last minute items before we leave the U.S for 3 months.
We ended up grabbing a taxi and sharing it with some other SAS students, and the driver somehow convinced us to go to Rainbow Falls, although we all originally wanted to be dropped off downtown. He said that downtown was downhill from Rainbow Falls, and it would therefore be easier to walk downhill to downtown than it would be to walk uphill from town to the falls.
Rainbow Falls was pretty awesome! Although I think that my time in Iceland made it hard for me, because honestly, I've seen cooler waterfalls. But still, being in Hilo was awesome. I think SAS chose Hilo because a) it's more cultural than the more touristy islands, and b) I'm pretty sure Honolulu hates SAS from the students who decided to leave a bad reputation in their wake.
We took a couple pictures at the falls and talked to some locals who were making hats, bowls, and other items out of coconut leaves. They were pretty amazing! But we didn't know if we could take them back on the ship with all the custom rules. All three of us ended up walking downtown, but Hilo doesn't have any sidewalks, so we were pretty much walking in the road. It was great for awhile, there were no cars and we were just kind of leisurely walking around and enjoying the fact that we were on land and in Hilo.
As a sidenote: land sickness is a real thing. After being used to constantly moving, being on still ground was just as much of an adjustment was it was first getting on the ship.
While we were in the middle of walking down to town, a lady in a truck pulled up and asked where we were going. This was one of the locals who was making stuff out of coconut leaves back at the falls. Turns out she was heading to the same place as we were, and she told us to get in the back of the truck. We all kind of stared at each other for a couple seconds, and then all of a sudden we were in the back of her truck. I guess in the couple of seconds we were looking at each other we figured that this lady seemed sane enough, and we were in Hawai'i, so we just went with it.
It was hands down the best thing about Hawai'i. It wasn't anything that we planned or prepared for, but it was an adventure in itself. Sorry parentals, I know you're probably a little freaked out, but look! I'm on the ship on my way to Japan in one piece! :)
After that we just ended up walking around downtown and getting the best shaved ice I've ever had in my entire life. I have a lot of pictures of that shaved ice. It had ice-cream in the middle, I'm pretty sure there were some beans in there somewhere, and cream on top. FAB-U-LOUS. YUM YUM YUM.
Dehana split from us and Emily and I caught the local bus to head to Target. Turns out all the R.D's and the Dean of Students were all on that bus headed to target. Emily and I were looking at a map, making sure that we knew how to get back when I looked up and…get ready for this…saw someone that I went to high school with! Alannah Hunsely! I'm not even kidding right now. I'm in Hilo, aka one of the smallest Hawai'ian cities, and I see someone from small-town Blaine! It was the craziest thing. All the R.D's started to freak out.
We spent a good couple hours at Target and then ended up calling cab to bring all our stuff to the ship. I am now stocked up on granola bars, ginger ale (for rougher seas), and snacks. Although once we get to Japan our entire cabin is going to be full with Japanese snacks. I already told my roommate, and I think we came to an agreement that that was ok.
While we were in Target, I was looking at something (I don't even remember what it was), but I wasn't sure if I would be able to bring it back on to the ship. I was just kind of kidding when I said "Semester at Sea people, where are you?" when all of a sudden I hear Craig (the Dean of Student's voice) say "What do you need?". Now, I wish that I could attach a clip of his voice, but it was legit one of the funniest things that will probably happen on this voyage. Classy.
I don't want to give an entire play by play, but I should also mention that for dinner I had the best coconut shrimp I've ever had in my entire life. I'm thinking that I might start to attach some pictures, but I know that that takes data storage, so maybe I'll just save them all for when I get home. I don't want you guys to know/see everything before I get home!
The second day wasn't as eventful. We tried to find a beach, but that was an epic fail. We ended up at a construction site. So I don't need to say anything more about that. We ended up back downtown and went to the farmers market.
That pretty much sums out Hilo. I guess I should also mention that about 200 SAS students decided that they should party in Hilo. We can all guess how that ended. One of the hotel managers said that they've never seen anything like it in the 30 years they've been in the hotel business. I'm pretty sure some people are going to be kicked out of the program when we get to Japan. Unfortunate, but hopefully people will start to get serious about this voyage.
The last couple of days have consisted of enjoying the sun and saying hi to Desmond Tutu when we walks by me.
No big deal.
I also had my first dinner with my extended family on the ship last night. It was quite the big deal. I signed up for this program at the involvement symposium, where I get grouped with some students and either faculty or lifelong learners, and they become our family while on board. The list of participants came out the other day, and my name wasn't on the list! They said that there were too many people so they just had to randomly select students. I just ended up emailing everybody under the sun until I finally got placed with a family.
My "parents" names are Tom and Linda Cunningham, and there are also about 7 other students who are in my "family". I believe that two of their kids have done SAS in the past, and if I heard correctly, their son is involved in some sort of water treatment thing in Nicaragua.
Today was the first "study day" of the voyage. I did plan on doing some work, but it was a joke because we had to fill out immigration forms for all the countries we're going to. That lasted about 2 hours or more. So our "study day" aka relaxation day wasn't either of those things because professors decided to assign some extra work and the Deans decided that this would be a great time to pile on immigration forms. I know that they need to be done, but whoaaa. For a nano second I wished that we were going to less countries. Just kidding. I would never wish that.
I also went to the worship service that was being held last night. We're going to have them every Sunday at sea. A guy named Wade that I've met is the one running it all, and it seems like it's going to be a great environment. I'm so happy to be building this community on board the ship. I can already tell that I'm going to miss is terribly when I'm gone, but now is not the time to think about that.
Anyway, sorry if this post is a little random, but honestly making it into multiple blog posts just didn't seem like a great idea. I'll try to keep up on my blog, but days at sea are busy and sometimes not interesting enough to blog about. I'll definitely try to do a post after each country though.
Thanks for reading, and if there's anything in particular that anyone wants to know or hear more about, let me know!
P.S. my roommate had lunch with Desmond Tutu and the Captain today. And Desmond Tutu made the staff get them ice-cream. To say I'm jealous is an understatement.
P.S.S. Ronald, Emily, and I (and probably a couple of other people) are going to have a Hunger Games movie night tonight! We can't show it on a projector in a classroom, because that would violate copy right laws, so crowding around computer is going to be fun. We'll see how this goes. Apparently there is a girl who brought her own projector and is sort of running an underground movie viewing thing on the ship. Maybe we'll try to track her down. There's also an underground snack exchange going on on the ship. It's kind of hilarious the stuff that is going down on here.
No comments:
Post a Comment