Spring 2015 - Day 25 and 26
Both of these sea days are a blur of blogging, classes, sleeping, and planning for China. But mostly blogging.
Here are the important things to know though:
- My photoessays went over well. My concepts were strong and my photos were pretty good. My only critique was that I had too many eye level photos and that I wrote to much. Although the latter was a class critique and Amber said she liked all the information.
- Jessi and I were assigned to different busses for our trip to Beijing. Not cool. But then we found out that because we were on different busses we would have completely different itineraries with different flights and different hotels. REALLY not ok. We went to the field office desk to complain and she basically said, "Its not a big deal, you will make new friends." Which I guess is true but it is still so annoying because we planned it this way on purpose. SO ANGRY. We made her promise to make sure we were together for the Taj Mahal trip because Jessi's birthday is during it. We don't think we will be split up for it because the trip is smaller.
- In all my classes we reflected on Japan and prepared for China, it was chaotic and felt very incomplete.
- I made it to the gym both days. I had to do elliptical because one of the treadmills is broken. Not cool.
- I found out that there is a high risk of malaria in Cambodia but I only brought enough drugs for India. Hopefully the clinic has more or else I might die from malaria.
- Jessi and I discovered there is a huge zoo in Shanghai that has Pandas so that is what we are doing the first day.
- On day 26 we had pizza and smoothies with our family. Mama Shelley ordered the pizzas ahead of time and Jessi and I helped out by standing up on deck 7 in the cold and waiting for the Pizzas. One of our sisters, Amy's, birthday is on the 3rd so we had cake and it was pretty great. It was a great dinner, we all talked about what we did in Japan. Our ship-brother, Jason, got stranded on the streets of Kyoto by some SASers and almost spent the night sleeping in a temple until another group of SASers saved him. He also saw a guy get hit by a car and was the only one to help him. His time in Japan was quite turbulent.
- Mama Shelley gave us all Valentines day cards and lollypops because she won't be on the ship for Valentines day. She is leaving us in Hong Kong to travel a little with her husband and is rejoining us in Singapore.
- We had cultural pre-port and logistical pre-port all in one. We will not have face to face immigration but will have a thermal scan when we get off the ship and will have our passports checked every time we get on and off the ship. But we will definitely be getting stamps!
- We can't drink the water in China, so back to pre-dosing pepto bismol! The doctor talked all about travelers diarrhea and it was almost as funny as when Dr. Dave did it.
- Also, the smog is so bad in China that we are encouraged to wear face masks.
- Besides the water there are not that many health risks in China, but we finally got the "don't touch wild animals, you might get rabies" talk.
- There are some scams in China, a major one being that someone will become your friend and share drinks with you and then stick you with a huge bill that you are forced to pay. Also, pedestrians do not have the right of way like they do in Japan. In Japan you could just walk right across the street and they would stop for you, don't do that in China.
- My mom and I scheduled a time and emailed back and forth so that she could do my Disney Internship applications for me. I worked on my cover letters all day and took them to the writing center. I am applying for 3 and am super nervous about making the phone interviews work. Everyone cross your fingers.
- I blogged in every spare moment I had, it took forever. I am so glad I finished before we got to China or else it wouldn't have backed up an insane amount and I never would have caught up.
Tomorrow is the zoo and after that I am headed for Beijing. This is crazy, it feels like we were just in Japan. Oh wait, we were!
