Well hello there, long time no post! Once again, I’m so sorry I haven’t posted ANYTHING and ANYTHING. Here I go again though 
So, the last time I posted was before China (wow. so incredibly long ago it seems) and I’ve experienced so much between then and now; way too much to post. I’m not going to get into much detail, I’m essentially going to start off fresh.
Let’s start way back a long time ago when we were once in China… For the first two days, dad and I were brought around Shanghai by Fan and his family (a friend my dad met through Pstate). We were immersed in the Chinese cuisine (nothing like the “authentic” Chinese food we have back in the states) and a market called The Temple where we learned how to bargain. Mama also arrived the second day which was sooooo freakin’ exciting, I almost started crying!!! It was so unbelievable seeing her come out of the immigration doors, the month we were apart from each other was the longest we’d ever been apart. For the next four days after that, we traveled in Guilin and Yangshuo, which was breath taking and drop dead gorgeous; Guilin and Yangshuo house the Karst mountains, which inspires a lot of Chinese artwork. We went into a cave to see stalagmites, took a bike ride through the mountains to see the half moon crest and the 1,400 year old Bunyan tree, ate WAY too much food (it seemed that for 75% of the trip we were eating because SAS had set up the program, so every meal was planned out for us. The meals were served on a lazy suzan in front of you, where they’d bring out platters of food and of course you couldn’t resist eating everything!! I must have gained ten pounds by the time I got home :-p), shopped and bargained a ton at the world’s “largest” market (what largest refers to I have no idea, but it was pretty crazy big), went to a tea ceremony, took a chair lift up on top of a freezing cold mountain, then tobogganed back down, we saw the rice fields from the top of one of the mountains (there were villagse that were built on the side of this mountain, it was pretty incredible. We saw two out of the four different minority groups that lived in that area as well and had DELICIOUS bamboo rice), and saw a performance choreographed by the man who made the opening and closing performances for the Beijing olympics. Every night I went out with the group of students that was on our trip to experience the Chinese night life, that was a good time in itself
Once that mind blowing trip was over we headed to Hong Kong for a few days. The first day I went around with the Whites…we went to the flower market which smelled glorious!!!, then to the ladies market which had EVERYthing a woman could imagine. The day after that I went up the longest escalator in the world and got lost with a group of people (now when I say “got lost”, I don’t actually mean we got lost…we just didn’t have a destination and we were wandering and walking for a REALLY long time). We stumbled upon a really good restuarant though and then afterwards, Skye and I got pastries!
Then came Vietnam, which was our most recent stop! This was a blast and a half My mom and I went on the Mekong Delta for a night and saw some pretty amazing things…we saw how they make a living on the river (the floating market), how they make rice cakes, coconut candy, and rice, and how they filter the salt from the delta. There were some pretty eye opening experiences as well; one Vietnamese lady had never seen a black woman before and she was freaking out with laughter when she saw her…she compared her skin tone to the student and all. We also saw a little boy, probably around twelve years old, who was blatantly just playing with a gun. I’m not sure if it was loaded, but he was holding it and swinging it around. We also walked through a residential street, which I felt extremely uncomfortable on…not uncomfortable like I was unsafe, just that I felt intrusive and that we were rubbing it in their faces that we were from America :-/ When we got back to the bus from walking through the houses, I realized my tummy had tensed up… It was an eye opening experience and a great intro to what I’ll be experiencing tomorrow and for the next six days in India. There was also the little boy that we passed as we were walking on the street who decided to just whip it out and start peeing on a tree :-p We also went to a temple, ate delicious Vietnamese cuisine, got some of the best ice cream cones my mom and I have ever had, experienced Vietnamese traffic (motorcycles dodging you as you walk through the streets praying you don’t get hit…you’re better off NOT looking at the cars/buses/motorcycles coming at you), and I got two formal dresses made.
Sorry I haven’t been going into much detail about the ports, there’s just too much to catch up on!! We’re pulling into India tomorrow am at 8, I’m so psyched!! I’m going on a Hindu family visit with two of my teachers and then Dad and I are on a homestay for three nights. The first night we’re on a sleeper train, second night with a host family, then third night on a sleeper train once again. MY 18th BIRTHDAY IS TOMORROW!!! I can’t shut up about it…I’ve been reminding everyone about it probably every hour. I got a cake on the ship tonight, since we won’t be on the ship on the 12th and tomorrow night a bunch of us are going out to celebrate. The day of my birthday Dad and I are going to walk around Chennai and probably SHOP!! I’m pretty stoked for the homestay though, it’s probably going to be pretty eye opening and educating…I’ll be seeing lots on my train rides through the country.
Classes have been going really well and ship life has been out of this world incredible; what more can I ask for going from tanning right to class?! Mid terms have been going on and they still will be once we get back from India. I had to write a 5 page paper (it didn’t need to be that long, but I write novels every time I write essays) and do a marine bio midterm…I have another test when I get back for Child and Adolescent Develop. The weather has been spectacular, 85 degrees and sunny every day! One night we had a lightning storm and it was so gorgeous; I went out on the top deck to watch it all go down. I’m living and LOVING life and there’s still so much more to come!!!! The trip is halfway over though, but people HATE talking about it. We’re all just taking every day as it’s thrown at us!!!
Keep reading and I’ll keep updating! Love and miss you all <3
