Sea Olympics!!!!!

Yo yo yo!

Well we have been at sea for 8 days since we left Vietnam and tomorrow we will arrive in India!! A lot of stuff has happened in the last few days so I thought I would do a short little blog to say hey and tell you about it. I know Swine Week is going on so I want to give a special shout out to you all. As well as all the Henderson Hills teenagers and college kids going to either Ecuador or Arizona here in a couple days. You all are being used by God and it is awesome!! Be His hands and His feet and just let Him use you. I guarantee you that it will change your life. Just let go and LET GOD!! Love you all and praying for you!!

Dad – Yeah the lawyers would probably throw a fit if we tried to get that okayed in the States. Honestly it really isn’t that big a deal, just restrict it to people that know how to use a gun haha. Yeah my friends know I’m a big hunter/outdoors person (which has actually sparked some interesting debates with some of the vegetarians/tree huggers on the ship haha) but they were still surprised that I was so comfortable shooting/handling a gun. Don’t worry, riding an elephant is definitely on the “to-do” list. My best shot will probably be in South Africa because the safari place I am going to said that there is extra curricular stuff we can do in the afternoons if we are willing to pay for it. Haha yeah the great wall was sick…mom would have been very upset though. Oh well its over so she can’t get mad now!! Have in Ecuador pops! I am way jealous FYI!

Picture – The picture I chose is definitely of my Sea Olympics team! Mediterranean Sea babay!!!!! I’m over on the back right somewhere. My dad also informed me that you all can click on the pics to make them larger so from now on I will be uploading smaller pics to save some of my internet time so that the upload goes quicker. So I know it is a smaller pic but just click on it and it will be larger.

The ship was extremely dead after Vietnam because everyone was so exhausted. Looking back, from the first day in Japan to the last day in Vietnam we had experienced 3 countries in 3 weeks with 2 very short 48 breaks in between. No one wanted to waste any time in port so these 3 weeks were filled with little sleep, close to no breaks, and numerous stories and adventures. So needless to say that is finally caught up to everyone by the time we were done with Vietnam.

After 4 days of class, which was weird cause we hadn’t had that much class in one stretch since before Japan, we got to experience the best day on the ship so far. Not the best day in port, the best day on the ship! SEA OLYMPICS!!!!!! You all already know about the ship being divided into seas so those were our teams for the day. Each sea has a color (mine was green!!) and you wear that color all day and cheer on your team at events. When I say all day, I mean ALL DAY! The first event started at 9:30 and the last event didn’t end until around 6:30, and most of the time there were 2-3 events going on simultaneously all over the ship. Okay well luckily Henderson Hills has prepared me well, it was nothing compared to a week of rec. Main difference is that it was nonstop for like 10 hours which was exhausting in 95 degree heat but it was awesome!

Okay so my sea was AWESOME!!! We are the Mediterranean Sea…what what!! We actually did really well! We ended up getting 3rd overall (out of 10 seas) by a very small margin. We didn’t care though because we won in the Spirit Contest and the Singing SASers!! Yeah it would have been nice to win overall but the Singing SASers was the most anticipated event and we WON!! It was basically kind of like a music video/lip syncing show that each show put on. Our song was a thriller remix and our sea killed it! I wasn’t part of that event because I competed in 4 other events but the people that won it for us were awesome and our whole sea really showed up to support them!

From the very beginning at the opening ceremony our SEA established itself as the team to beat on the SPIRIT front. Our team was INSANE!! At the opening ceremony every team got a chance to do a cheer in front of the whole ceremony and ours was SICK!! Actually I need to back up first. For the past week our sea has been planning events and practices our skits excetra. People signed up to be in charge of things and it all started coming together. Well the day before we realized that no one had been putting together a chant. Someone mentioned it while we were chilling one night and I was like “Shoot that’s easy, I’ll make one up if no one else will.” (Again thank you Beach Week and Middle School Camp) So I remembered one that I had used a couple years ago at Beach Week and we altered it a little to fit the Mediterranean and told it to 3 of our teammates. Right before the opening ceremony we all met up to learn our chant and walk in together and the girls I had told the chant to were like “Hey guys Tyler made a chant.” So I told everyone the chant and they were like dude HECK yeah! So we walk in and sit down as a team. Once everyone was in the Union they started the Opening Ceremony. Each team had two captains who walked in with the team’s banner and then that team got to do their cheer. A lot of teams had really good spirit but didn’t really practice their cheer or it was just really basic. Well let’s just say when it was the Mediterranean’s turn we knocked their socks off. Our ENTIRE TEAM got into it! There wasn’t one person wearing green who didn’t participate and we carried the momentum with us all day.

Our team bonded in a BIG way! We constantly had an enormous presence at every game cheering on our team and whenever we had enough green members (remember our color was green) hanging around I would start screaming the cheer and everyone would just go nuts! People would try to compete with us but it would just motivate us to cheer louder and longer and we would overwhelming drown them out! Ahhhhhhhh it was awesome because our team was just SO solid!! We bonded so much, it was like we were all instantly best friends which was the coolest part for me. Since then we will see each other and be like “Yo Med!! Whatup?!” It was just really cool.

Sea Olympics was by far the best day we have had outside of port. No questions asked, everyone on the ship will tell you the same thing. It was cool because everyone really got into it. People were dressed in their sea colors all day so it was cool seeing like the different seas of color running around. It was gorgeous weather and everyone was just in the best mood. Ok then one of the best surprises came after the last event right before the Closing Ceremony. We got a good ole fashion American Bar-Be-Que out by the pool! They had all the hamburgers, pork ribs, baked beans, corn, and cake we could eat…and did we EAT!! I ate so much it was awesome!! Everyone was stacking their plates SO high! All that was missing was Apple Pie haha. As we were eating we got to see an awesome sunset and it was just the perfect ending. Everyone was still in their sea colors and sweaty but we had great food, better company, and a picture perfect sunset. Everyone was just chillaxing and it couldn’t have been better. It felt like a perfect summer, country barbeque! Perfection!

The Opening Ceremonies were at 9 p.m. and that is when we found out who won the events such as Synchronized Swimming, Singing SASers, Spirit, and Overall. Our sea went nuts when we found out we got 1st in Singing SASers and 3rd overall. But we went absolutely CRAZY when we found out we won spirit. We did our chant one last time and it was the best time of the whole day! Our team was AWESOME and I was on the best sea in my opinion! It was way fun getting to be super crazy and spirited all day. I almost lost my voice but I chugged so much water before bed that I somehow managed to keep it. Again I have to give credit to Henderson Hills youth camps every summer cause I am used to screaming for Rec lol.

Sea Olympics were awesome and everyone on the ship is upset that it was only one day. Everyone was just so chill! The past 3 days have been consumed by 2 midterms and recovering from the Sea Olympics (my entire body is sore from hoootin and hollerin and jumping around all day, so worth it though!!). Some other things that have happened in the past week since Vietnam includes seeing dolphins a couple times, passing the Nicabar Islands, doing a man overboard drill (them actually throw a dummy in the water, I wanted to volunteer but that didn’t really work out haha), seeing sea snakes, and witnessing numerous flying fish. I ate dinner with 3 professors the other night and it was really cool getting to talk to a teacher outside of class about everyday things like missing stuff back home or what a privilege it is to be on this adventure. Very cool experiences that just don’t happen back home with teachers. It really is a one-of-a-kind experience living with them on this ship. As I am sending this we are exactly half way around the world from Oklahoma, or at least we were before our 30 minute time change last night. That’s right, I said 30 minutes. India didn’t like the whole idea of their country being on 2 separate time zones so they made one time zone for their entire country and it is 30 minutes difference that the time zones on either side of it. I know it’s confusing and a little weird but it’s whatever. One more thing to add to the list of things I have done. Now I have been in a “half time zone” haha.

The following is a quote taken from a popular Casting Crowns song. Every time I hear this quote in the song I get chills. Think about it for a second. Take a minute to digest what it is saying. It is absolutely unbelievable and something that is forgotten far too often.

The bible was inscribed over a period of 2,000 years. In times of war and in days of peace. By Kings, Physicians, Tax Collectors, Farmers, Fishermen, Singers, and Shepherds. The marvel, is that a library so perfectly cohesive, could have been produced by such a diverse crowd over a period of time which staggers the imagination. Jesus is its Grand Subject, our good its design, and the Glory of God its end.

Chilling huh? Ahhhhhhhh God is so AMAZING!! Nothing even compares!! Hope you all enjoyed the blog!

Miss you all and have a great Spring Break!

T

Vietnam - Let's Do it Country Style

Greeting from somewhere in the Bay of Bengal,

How are you all?!? I hope you guys are doing awesome! We are currently approaching midterms here on the ship so everyone is pretty focused on school right now. I have done a pretty good job of keeping on top of my work so I found some time to write
this blog again.

Shout-out Comments – Nat – Girl that is so cool! It’s crazy thinking about such simple things in these new ways huh?!?! I love it!! Oh I know!!!...We are going to have to make so many panera runs when I get home to catch up on everything! Can’t wait girl! Haha and yeah I have actually been wearing a bandana a lot lately, it helps with the sweat in these humid countries lol, and I really like it I just rarely get to wear one except in the summer. But it is summer for us right now in terms of weather. Hasn’t gotten below 80 in the past 2 weeks and it is only getting warmer from here on out! Be jealous lol. You’re the best! Can’t wait to chill!! Kayla – Congrats on VR girl!! Glad you girls could make it happen!! Really?...I thought you like losing? Maybe I’m getting you confused because I could have sworn that you hated to win haha. Ohhhhh I see. Well I am not going to bungee jump in Africa anymore because I am doing too much there. But that’s okay because I can find somewhere else to do it eventually. I forgot you were doing Kanakuk, that is going to be SO awesome!! Hey I can’t wait for summer either! I’m pumped to go back to camps again! It’s gunna be awesome!! Your summer is going to be AWESOME!! Can’t wait to hear how God is going to use you!! Haha I love how you just said “pencil me in.” I’m not going to be that busy you dork!! Love ya friend!!

The picture I chose for this blog is of me on my Mekong Delta Trip. Read below for more information on the delta itself. I chose this picture because I kinda got in trouble for taking it. We were walking along with our tour guide when she stopped in the middle of the bridge to tell us about the boats and life using the river below as a highway through the islands. Well, all I could think about was what a sweet pic it would be if I was up on the railing of the bridge with the trees and river in the background (and you have to admit it is a cool pic, right doc?). So B.B. and me waited for the tour guide to continue and casually hung back, I climbed up real quick while she took the pic of me. Well right when I climbed up I heard the tour guide yelp, apparently she had turned around and saw me. She didn’t really care because I mean Quinnie was tight, but Stacey, the SAS sponsor on the trip wasn’t exactly thrilled. She was like, what if you had fallen? What would your parents say? I was like “Well my dad would have been taking the picture and my mom would have been yelling at him not me.” Those of you who know my family know this to be true. It happened in Spain exactly like that actually, except that is was Court, Me, AND my dad. Stacey didn’t exactly believe me but she ended up not caring. This was my same tour leader from my China trip so she kinda expected me to be doing the crazy stuff. So that is the story behind this picture.

Okay so I told you guys about my first 2 days in Vietnam. Now let me tell you about the rest of my time! On day 3 I went on an SAS trip to a Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi tunnel system. The day started with a bus ride about 2 hours outside the city for our first stop at the biggest Cao Dai Temple in Vietnam. On the way we were given information on daily life in Vietnam, cultural customs, and tips for tourists by our tour guide, Quinnie. We also passed an old U.S. airbase from the Vietnam War, referred to as the American War by the Vietnamese. The airbase is now used as an airport and the new international terminal was finished just 3 years ago. I should also mention that this day trip included parents that had come on the parent portion of the SAS trip to Vietnam. For those of you that don’t know, every semester, SAS does a parent program where they pick a country and offer a special trip for parents to go on. They are there by themselves for a couple days and then they meet the ship and get to hang out with their kids for a couple days and do things with them. So that was cool getting to meet some of my friends’ parents. Candace’s mom was on our tunnel trip and it was cool getting to know her. Just added a different element to this specific trip.

At the Cao Dai temple we were given about 45 minutes to walk around the grounds and experience the culture that was so evident around us. The temple grounds consisted of a couple acres and there was a significant amount of people there on the specific day we were there. It was a weekend so our tour guide explained that since people didn’t have to work, it was common for the temple to be crowded on the weekends.
After touring the grounds, we got the rare privilege of witnessing a Cao Dai service. It was cool seeing how a different religion held a service and the customs associated with the gathering. The temple had a wrap-around balcony and that is the only area tourists were allowed to be. The floor was reserved for the members of what I would call a clergy and then the participants in the service. We got to see the lighting of the incense, the traditional chanting, and the procedures the participants went through. It was cool but I couldn’t help thinking what they must have thought about so many foreigners observing them from a vantage point for a 30 minute service, and it wasn’t just SAS kids, there was a significant number of European tour groups there as well.

After the service we took a short bus ride to lunch at a traditional Vietnamese restaurant. Our meal was in a second story open-air room in the only restaurant near the Cao Dai Temple that was big enough to accommodate tour groups. It was a nice family style coursed meal that was absolutely delicious! The food is just so good I can’t even describe it!! I was sitting with Andrew, Che Che, and one of the Chinese Professors from the ship. It was cool because Che Che is from Nigeria and then the professor lives in China so we had some really cool cultural discussions. We were asking him all these questions about China and he was very curious about our homes and family lives etc. Definitely a great experience!

Then for the highlight of the day, the Cu Chi tunnels!! This was what I was looking forward to the most in Vietnam and the first thing that I signed up for on the ship! Cu Chi was an area in Vietnam that contained the most significant portion of the Vietcong tunnel system. This area was never controlled by American forces due to the persistence and cunning of the local Vietnamese in the area. Our guide told us that 30 years ago after the war there were no trees left because of the B-52 bombing runs and you wouldn’t even know it today. It is dense, thick jungle that you can’t see into. They said it is getting back to what it was like before and during the war. It was eerie walking through the jungle and knowing that literally where I was walking people had died. We walked through varying stations above ground and they showed us a number of things preserved from the war. There is an American tank that has been left where it was destroyed, it was hit by a delayed mine and destroyed by Vietcong. We were allowed to get up close and see the burn marks and AK-47 holes in the weaker parts of the armor. I got the shakes pretty bad because I mean the Americans in the tank literally died right there. After the tank we were able to see the crater left by a B-52 bomb. Okay stinking huge crater, the grass has grown back and there are trees around it, but the crater is just the way it was 30 years ago. It’s crazy seeing the end result like that man. Crazy. After the crater we saw replications of homemade traps used by the Vietcong in the jungle to maim enemy soldiers and make their progress difficult. Basically like the stuff you saw in Rambo, literally. They sharpened bamboo and put them in pits and made swinging traps and stuff.

After the above ground stuff we go to explore the underground section…the tunnels themselves. So we got to crawl through these tunnels, and I mean literally crawl, for about 100 meters is what they told us. Okay I was so dirty! My friend Andrew and I were the tallest two on the tour and we were scrunched so small working our way through these holes. Some of the people in our group really freaked out about halfway through because it was close to pitch black and the most claustrophobic space I have personally ever been in. You wouldn’t have made it mom, your claustrophobia would have kicked in quick! So after we do it they were like “You thought those were pretty small huh? Well those are the tunnels we enlarged for tourists, here are the real ones.” I was like WHAT?!?! You call that enlarged?! So they showed us the real sized holes and they weren’t kidding, it was a tiny little entrance! We got to take turns trying to fit in, don’t worry I made it, but my legs were bent in like 4 different directions trying to cram down into this little bitty space in the ground. After our crawl through the tunnels we got to see a replica of what the underground kitchen looked like and then the air holes they used to ventilate the entire tunnel system. They did a really good job of disguising them above ground too, it was impressive.

Ok so then my guide turned around and was like “Hey, so who wants to shoot an AK-47.” I was like “Does a bear crap in the woods?!?! Yes I want to shoot an AK!!!” He was like ok well come over here and we have a shooting range set up. We walked through the jungle and sure enough they had a shooting range set up for people that wanted to pay to shoot guns used in the Vietnam War. They had AKs, Thompsons, an M-60 (freaking huge mounted gun), and then M-16s. The M-60 would have been sweet but I mean c’mon…how often do you get to shoot an AK in Nam?!?!?!!?! Ahhhhhhh I was pumped! It was like “Here Tyler, come shoot a gun for fun at some targets.” Uhhhh “Yes please!!” I wasn’t the only one either. About 8 people in our group paid to shoot the AK. I paid for my clip and walked down to the range. I was one of the last people to go and it was entertaining watching some of the kids shoot a gun for the first time. When it was my turn I walked up to the guy in charge and handed him my clip (they were very picky about safety measures which was cool because I would have done the same thing with a bunch of tourists.) The guns were mounted to a cinder block type barricade so we couldn’t fully pick them up but you could still aim them at the targets and get a little range of movement. Kind of a bummer but I can still totally understand why they do it that way. They guy turned off the safety and motioned for me to step forward and started to show me the proper way to hold the gun. I say started because he didn’t really get the chance to finish cause I just walked up, picked it up like any other rifle, and took aim. I got a feel for her with my first three shots then put the rest of the clip into the target on fully auto. Dude it was a rush! Oh and you would have been pround pops, I missed the target once. Hit it 9 out of 10 times at 100 yds. I stepped back and was like “Ahhhh that was awesome!!” Then I turned around and some of the SAS kids were staring at me. I was like “What?” They said they were just really surprised that I was so comfortable with a gun. It was weird because the Vietnamese dudes were pretty surprised too. My friend Natalie was taking pictures for me and she was cracking up after because the way she described it: the guy was absolutely shocked that I knew what I was doing. She said that he was like getting ready to help me when he saw me walk up and it was clear I knew what I was doing, then she said he just stepped back. It’s weird that something that I didn’t even think twice about, other people were shocked about. I still think it is so cool learning about differing points of view not only across the countries we visit, but also just between people from different states in the U.S. It’s okay “Cause I am who I am, that’s the man I’m gunna be!” I still can’t believe I shot an AK in Vietnam!! Crazy!!!!!

After experiencing the different aspects of the Cu Chi tunnel area we loaded up the buses for our ride back to Ho Chi Minh City. We got back to the ship pretty late and I was like, “Food time!” I ran into Bridget and Ali (B.B.) as they were getting back from a different trip and we decided to head out to eat together! We walked out of the port area and found 3 of the motorcycle guys I told you all about last time. We gave each of them 2 bucks and they took us right to the front door of the restaurant we wanted. Those “motorbikes” or “motos” as they were called were so fun! It was a great way to see the city, especially at night! Probably not very safe tho lol. Oh well, already did it mom, can’t get mad!! Haha love you! We ate at this Vietnamese restaurant that I forgot the name of, and enjoyed yet another good meal. (I bet you guys are getting sick of me saying that but I can’t help it lol…it’s that awesome!) I ate some sort of meal that I think was a type of Pho but with like every possible type of meat in it and a lot of veggies…that’s right, I’m still eating those veggies. I know you all don’t believe me because I hate things that are green, but what can I say, I’m broadening my horizons haha. Although you will still be happy to hear that I am constantly wearing Crimson and Cream and Texas Still Sucks! Guess somethings just don’t change no matter where you are in the world. After dinner we walked around the city for awhile before calling it a night and heading back to the ship to get ready for the next day.

Day 4 in Vietnam was my trip to the Mekong Delta! With the exception of The Great Wall, this was by far my favorite day on SAS so far!! It was incredible! Our day started with an 8 a.m. departure (pretty normal for SAS day trips). One thing that was cool was that I had the same tour guide as the day before…Quinnie!! So that was cool because we had talked on one of the bus rides the day before and so it was nice having a familiar tour guide. The first stop on our way out of Ho Chi Minh City was to a Buddhist Temple. It was pretty much like any other Buddhist temple so I won’t go into detail there but the one unique feature about this temple grounds was this huge Buddha statue next to the temple. The most entertaining part was the fact that for some reason the architects/sculptors decided to give him a GIANT butt. Like HUGE booty. I thought it was entertaining and we all had a nice laugh when we first drove up.

After touring the grounds for about 30 minutes we headed to the main attraction…The Mekong Delta. The delta is located at the mouth of the Mekong River and is composed of a number of small islands. To get to the islands we were loaded onto these little boats and crossed the river amid the massive amount of river traffic. The reason this was so stinking cool for me was the fact that it was like the country side of Vietnam. Don’t get me wrong there were still plenty of people but it was a simpler, more rural style of living and it was awesome! The people were so friendly, there were kids running around with dogs and chickens, and we got to see SO many cool aspects of their daily lives. As we were touring the islands (we went to 3 of them) I really couldn’t help but thinking about Nicaragua and Mexico and the striking similarities. I actually was mentioning it to Ali and one of the girls in our group overheard me and was like “Oh my gosh I was thinking the same thing!” She had been to Nicaragua about 2 years ago and she felt like she was back there too. Weird how two countries on literally opposite sides of the world can be so amazingly similar!

Our day consisted of fruit tasting, tea drinking (delicious by the way), witnessing the process of making Coconut Candy, sampling the candy, a horse drawn buggy ride, seeing water buffalo, holding a python, taking a smaller boat ride on the many estuaries, and an amazing lunch. Oh and of course my little picture taking incident that I mentioned earlier haha. Again I could write a paragraph or more about each one of these activities but there just isn’t time for that so I will just tell you some of small bits and pieces. I spent the majority of the time with Alyssa, B.B., Christina, and Jamy. Adam was on the trip but he was on a different bus so we weren’t ever together. The lunch was really, really cool personally because they took an entire Elephant-Ear Fish (about 2 really big Large Mouth Bass for a reference), fried it, then put it on a stake in the middle of our table. I was like “Hecks to the Yes” but some of the people at my table were not thrilled at all. One of the girls was a vegetarian and another didn’t eat fish. Fine with me because I got to eat their portions!!!! I ate so much fish it was awesome! Like a good ole fish fry in the jungle! The little boat ride was an experience because it was only 4 of us and we were literally being paddled down the river with giant trees cowering over the water. It was like a scene from a movie…SOOOO cool!! The snake was of course cool, and again really funny because some people did NOT like snakes and kept so far away. All the food was good except for this one type of fruit, but we tried like 8 different kinds so I mean not liking 1 is ok. We were all just amazed at the amount of things we got to do. We all thought we were just going to be walking around the islands; we had no clue all the little bonus activities we were going to be privileged enough to participate in. It was by far the 2nd Best Day I have had on this trip yet (#1 being the Great Wall, I mean that’s just going to be hard to beat lol). I was just mad I didn’t have my cowboy hat! But it’s all good, I still Rocked it Country Style!!

After experiencing life on the delta and seeing in my opinion the better half of Vietnamese life, we took our boat back across the river and loaded the buses for our return to Ho Chi Minh City. We got back to the ship and relaxed for a little bit before heading out for our last night in Vietnam. The group I was with for the night was Kevin, Bridget, B.B., Stephen, Aaron and myself. We all wanted to have PHO again because it was just so good. We went to a restaurant called Pho 24 which serves only different Pho dishes and it was incredible!! I had the Chicken Pho because I had only had beef up to that point and it was delicious! Great meal and again for less than $5, everything was SO cheap in Vietnam it was awesome! After dinner our group split up and it ended up being Steven, B.B., and me. We explored some of the night markets, met 2 Australians who were taking a break and doing some traveling (very very cool people that were fun to talk to for a little while), met an 8 year old Vietnamese girl who spoke perfect English and came up to us because she liked Steven’s shirt, took a Moto Ride throughout the city (almost got hit by a bus, but no worries it missed me by like 2 inches (not exaggerating) which is more than enough room), checked out some cheap DVD’s, and then ended the night by finding a cheap Gelato place. It was actually really good Gelato!! After gelato we walked back through the city and slowly made our way back to the ship.

My last day in Vietnam was relatively short. I slept in a little bit (not too much, I mean I was in Vietnam, can’t be wasting time!!) then headed to an internet café for a little bit to do some more research for some of our future ports. I walked to the internet café and then walked back so it encompassed the majority of my morning because I had to be back to the ship around noon to grab some lunch and then I had an FDP at 1 for my American Government class. For those of you that forgot, an FDP is a Faculty Directed Practicum that is just a trip led by a teacher that relates to class work. Kind of like a Field Trip for college students. Our trip was about Sustainable Development in Vietnam and consisted of a visit to a college in Ho Chi Minh City that specializes in Economic Development with a focus on Sustainability. We listened to a short lecture by the President of the School and one of their teachers before getting a chance to interact with some of the students and ask/answer questions for about an hour. The students were brilliant and we were privileged to get to spend time with them. It was cool cause they were our age and it was nice getting to interact with them. After receiving a short tour of the campus, we loaded back onto the shuttle and arrived at the ship just in time for on-ship time.

My time in Vietnam was much shorter than I would have liked. I definitely did NOT want to leave! I am sad just writing this because I want to go back so bad!! Yesterday we made a stop at an off-shore filling station off the coast of Singapore to refuel the ship because apparently we didn’t do that in Vietnam. The station we were at was at the mouth of the Strait of Mallacca which is what we are sailing through right now. If you have been watching CNN, apparently there has been recent pirate/terrorist activity in the area and there was an active threat on ships in the area. The ship staff tried to keep it quiet, but word eventually got out and we all knew about it. We had our own military gun boat escort all day and into the night as we refueled and began our journey up the straight toward India. So apparently we were in a little bit of a “hot-spot” yesterday but it’s all good now, nothing to worry about. (Bet my parents are loving reading this part haha) Oh well just one more thing to add to the list of situations I have been in and experienced.

The Sea Olympics are tomorrow and then I have a mid-term the next morning so the next 24 hours I will be extremely busy so your all’s prayers are felt and much appreciated!! I love you guys and I hope everything is going well!!

T

Vietnam - Walk with Confidence

Whatup everybody?!?!?!

So Vietnam was so awesome! I honestly don’t even know where to start haha.

So I will take the easy way out and do some shout outs to you guys first! Kayla – Well I’m glad that I could entertain you from so far away…I do my best lol. Sorry but this guy isn’t a McPhearson, he is a MaCasland so I don’t think that is what you are interested in, my bad. Dang you sound like you are having a majorly jam packed semester. You are crazy girl! Hey I want to go bungee jumping just as much as you, but there isn’t really much I can do about it right now because I am on a boat with really expensive internet, so why don’t you take advantage of free internet and find us something to do this summer lol. You know I’m down…just tell me when and where!! Gahhhh that is so cool about Big Weekend, you and Chris are making me very jealous right now. Yeah I gotta give you all something to look forward to this summer, and it won’t all fit in the blogs (I already feel like I write too much). Can’t wait to chill this summer, speaking of, what are your plans for the summer?!?! Love ya girl!! Nat-Attack – Haha don’t worry about me chica! We heard about the earthquakes and tsunami but it didn’t affect us at all. Although the seas are pretty calm and boring right now so we could use some waves to liven things up lol. Thanks for your concern though! I guess you probably shouldn’t read about some of the stuff I have been doing because safe isn’t the best word I would use to describe some of my adventures haha. Miss ya girl, can’t wait to catch up!! Chris – Dude you crack me up, I laughed out loud in the middle of the computer lab when I read your comments. Heck yes about the Mulan thing!! Kevin and I were actually talking about that when we were hiking up the steps on one part cause we felt like hooks were all the sudden gunna come flying over the wall. Dude I am sooooooo jealous of you getting to be a part of Big Weekend! I would totally prefer it to be at the church instead of the Wellness Center…just like the good ole days! That’s awesome that you had my bro in your group! That is a solid group of boys and they definitely got the best leader if you were in charge of them. I wish I could have been there to see the youth leading worship in big church. We were seeing that more and more this summer and I think it will do only good things for the church as a whole. Those kids have a passion for worshipping Christ and it is very contagious! Again I am jealous of you going on the Mission Trip, you are gunna have a blast bro! God is gunna use you in crazy ways man, I have already seen Him do it through you and He isn’t done yet! Love you bro! Oh and no landmines for me, so I’m all good lol!

The most important shout out of this blog goes to my favorite bro!! Happy Birthday Daniel!!!!!!!! For those of you that don’t know, my brother turned 15 on March 2nd, so yesterday I think. Don’t really know what day it is back home, or here for that matter. So if you see him tell him Happy Birthday! Love you brother and I am sad I couldn’t come see you for your B-Day!! Hope it was great and make sure Mom and Dad treat you to a nice dinner, although I’m sure they already did by the time you are reading this haha. Hope all is well my man!!

The picture I chose was from one of the nights in Vietnam after dinner when we were walking around the city taking a round-a-bout way back to the ship. It was just Ali, Bridget, and me that night and this was just a random pic we took while walking back to the ship. Bridget is on the far left, I’m in the middle, and then Ali (or B.B.) is on the right, or more like the front of the picture.

When Americans hear something about the country Vietnam, the first thing that pops into our heads is “Oh yeah we fought a war with them a little while ago.” While this is true, it is sad that this is the prominent thought process held by Americans. Vietnam is an absolutely amazing country and it is extremely hard to believe that this major city was once reduced to nothing as a result of the war. I walked through forests that 30 years ago contained no trees and now it is so thick you can’t even walk through all the vegetation and growth. Probably the most shocking thing to me was the Vietnamese attitude toward Americans. They were so welcoming to us and you would never know that any hostilities had ever happened between our two countries. People smiled and waved at us, they called us friends after talking for only a couple seconds; it was incredible to see such acceptance when they have every right in the world to hate us. Seeing what Vietnam has overcome and accomplished in the last 20 years is mind-boggling and something that has truly changed my outlook on not only Vietnam, but other countries and people groups that I have previously held a bias about. I will no longer solely think of Vietnam as a country that we fought in a war and is our enemy. No, from now on I will remember the people I met and their determination, friendship, hospitality, and optimism exemplified in the way they live their lives.

I am going to tell you all about Vietnam a little differently than the other countries. It was so stinking cool! I don’t know where to begin. Don’t get me wrong, China and Japan were awesome, but Vietnam was a different kind of sweet!! Instead of huge cities with everything in English and subways and shopping malls, Vietnam was the total opposite. It was still big and all but definitely on a different scale; the closest thing I can compare it to is Managua, Nicaragua. The city was formatted like a big city but with very few huge building and the majority of the shops were just little holes in the wall, literally. Much more the kind of city I like to hangout in. I was getting pretty tired of the big cities and Vietnam was just so much more my style. The people were amazing, the kids were running around outside and would say hi to you, and the layout was just so much simpler. Oh and the weather. Every day in Vietnam the temperature peaked around 95 degrees Fahrenheit and then dropped to a comfortable 80ish at night. It was nice change for me after China and Japan. Some people complained about the temperature a lot but they didn’t really have good reasons, they were just being babies if you ask me. Don’t know about you all in Oklahoma but I have an awesome tan going right now (didn’t burn thanks to my Indian blood) and have been wearing shorts, t-shirts, and cut off shirts for a little over a week now, and it’s only gunna get better!! Nothing but tropics and warm weather from here on out!

One interesting thing about Vietnam was the unique smells we would encounter as we moved through the city. In some areas there was a lot of people selling stuff right on the street corner. Everything from sea snake in a fish tank to exotic fruits to coffee. Now imagine all of those smells in 3 stalls lined up touching each other and your sense of smell is in for a serious shock. Then there are the Mekong River and Saigon River which give off their own interesting smells. Again just another very unique aspect of Vietnam. One of the coolest places I stumbled upon in Ho Chi Minh City was this little district under an overpass that was a poorer part of the city but at the same time so much more interesting. I was by myself at the time because I didn’t want to shop with everyone else so I just walked off. I stumbled upon the district and oddly enough I felt more at home walking through it than in the touristy parts of the city. The people were all smiling and laughing; there were kids, dogs, and chickens running around everywhere (although I doubt the chicken knew that the kids would probably be eating it the next day lol). Oh and hammocks!!! They were everywhere! Wherever there was a stall, there was usually a hammock that the owner would chillax in while he/she waited for their next customer to come by.

The preferred modes of transportation in Vietnam are mopeds and motorcycles; actually preferred isn’t really a good word. I mean, they are preferred, but it’s more like a necessity in some ways. Literally the only other things on the street are buses, trucks for transporting cargo that is too big for the motorcycles, and then the very rare care (one of my tour guides said that only the people that work for the major car companies are the people with cars). Okay so when you cross the streets it is absolute chaos! There are no traffic lights and the flow of traffic is unlike anything I have ever seen anywhere else in the world. Sure there are lines on the road but they are more of guidelines than really meaning anything. There are also “crosswalks” but because there are no traffic lights there isn’t ever a time when you can just walk across while the cars are stopped. So, the saying goes “When you cross the street, walk with confidence!” Two key words in that phrase: “walk” and “confidence.” You literally just start walking (not running or jogging, walking) and the traffic will weave around you based on your pace. The confidence is just the process of getting past the mental block in your head of, “oh crap I’m walking into a death trap.” I personally thought it was kinda fun because I mean you never know what could have happened. The American diplomats that came on board for pre-port also told us that the #1 accident or incident that occurs to visiting Americans is getting hit or clipped by buses or motorcycles. I thought it was cool because it made walking around the city that much more interesting and we all got really good at just walking and hoping that everyone was paying attention and wouldn’t hit us lol.

Ok so the food in Vietnam was incredible!! There was only one thing that I didn’t like and that was this papaya drink thing but everything else I tried was awesome! The dish that is most popular in Vietnam is called Pho and it is basically broth with noodles, chicken or beef, and then some random vegetables depending on the place you are eating. They had Pho restaurants and then you also had people selling Pho from a cart on the street corner. Like I said just picture Mexico or Nicaragua and you have a pretty good idea of some of the people selling food on the sidewalks. Oh gosh the food was amazing! Everything from the street fair to the fresh fruits was just so good! I even tried Vietnamese pizza which was interesting, oh and they have a Vietnamese style yogurt place that was basically just like Orangetree but with different flavors and topping so we tried that just to say we did. Little taste of home, but not really because the food was so different on some many levels lol. I was talking with one of my buddies on one of our day trips and we both mentioned how half of the stuff we were eating we would never even think about eating in the states, mainly because we have so many options that we know we like and are comfortable with. Well you all are in for a shock because I told myself in January that I would try everything cultural that I could get my hands on; and I HAVE! You all are gunna flip when you see the pictures of all the vegetables I have eaten (I have taken a picture of every meal I have eaten in port, and every snack) and then the weird stuff I told you about in China. Now there wasn’t anything too too extreme like in China, except for this one thing I had but just to spite Kayla I will make you guys wait for the pictures and story for the summer haha. Oh and I still haven’t gotten sick thanks to my little buddy Pepto, although I probably just jinxed myself haha. With the temperature we were CONSTANTLY drinking water although we had to be careful because the tap water is NOT sanitary. Even the locals don’t drink it cause it will make them sick. There was just too much pollution in the rivers where they get their water supply from.
My first two days in Vietnam were completely random so I am just going to tell you all about them in one fail swoop and try to give you a rough idea of everything that I did, saw, and experienced in a short 48 hours. This will no doubt be impossible because I have about 200 little stories I could tell you and there is just no way I can do that sufficiently in this blog. So again, just wait for this summer when I have pictures and hours of stories to tell you all!

So the first day we arrived in port, we spent the morning going through our normal customs routine and receiving a diplomatic briefing, which was actually very informative and brief because the girl from the U.S. consulate in Vietnam had a friend do Semester at Sea and he had told her what we wanted to hear and didn’t want to hear which made it more enjoyable lol. We got off the ship around noon and started walking into the city. One of the big things to do in Vietnam is get a custom suit made so some of the guys I was with wanted to do that first. No way did I want a suit, I mean hello do you know who you are reading about?!? Me buy a suit…YEAH RIGHT haha!!

The rest of the day was spent walking around the city and experiencing the different areas of the city the way a Vietnamese local would experience it. We took a taxi at one point, rode a rickshaw at one point, and then definitely took a ride with some locals on the motorcycles or “motos” as they are referred to in Vietnam. The moto rides were definitely an experience cause you were just weaving in and out of traffic, in the wrong lane and the right lane, it was just crazy! But they were so cheap and it was way quicker than a bus or taxi so we actually used them a couple times. Despite the occasional use of moto, we spent the vast majority of our time just walking. Yeah sure it was hot but we didn’t care, we were in Vietnam!! We saw the touristy sections of the city with the famous landmarks and markets, then at one point I went off by myself and experienced the poorer sections of the city near the docks and that was really cool to be able to experience that. Oh, and Wes if you are reading this, I got hit on by a Vietnamese woman as a was walking down the street. Just waved and kept walking but I still thought that would make you laugh.

We visited the Vietnam War Remnants museum which was eye opening because we got to see the Vietnamese side of the story. It was a touching experience and one I will not soon forget. The museum had a lot of artifacts and even simulation prison systems used by the Americans and South Vietnamese that really open your eyes to the way in which the war was fought and handled. Just a very interesting opportunity to get to hear a drastically different perspective on something that I have grown up hearing a one-sided story. We also spent some time visiting Reunification Palace which is very significant to the Vietnamese people because it signifies the unification of the country after the war and the beginning of a new era in their history. The palace has been left exactly how it was in the late 60’s/early 70’s so when you walk into it, it is like you are walking back in time. Some other sights that we visited were the Notre Dame cathedral located in Vietnam, the Opera House, the Central Post Office of Vietnam, and of course the giant market in the middle of the city, the Ben Thanh Market. Located in a central area of District 1 of Vietnam, this market is the main market of Ho Chi Minh City. They sold everything from food to silk clothing, all types of souvenirs, and ripped DVDs. Vietnam is known for its pirated movies and TV shows, and they were abundant in the market. The market catered to tourists and Vietnamese alike so it wasn’t too touristy but at the same time it wasn’t an authentic, Vietnamese only market. All of the stuff was really cheap though, and if you know how to barter you could get stuff at an amazing price!!

One night while walking alone through the streets of Vietnam, the words from a Jeremy Camp song came to mind. Don’t ask me why or what prompted it, but all of the sudden I could not get the following lyrics out of my head: “All my life, I have seen, where You’ve taken me, beyond all I have hoped, and there’s more left unseen. There’s not much, I can do, to repay all You’ve done, so I give my hands to use. This is my desire, this is my return. This is my desire, to be used by YOU.” In the little more than a month that I have been on Semester at Sea, I have experience people, places, and things in ways that I never even considered back in the United States. God is teaching me new and exciting things each and every day and it is absolutely incredible. I am learning to be mindful of other people’s opinions (students on the boat, teachers, and the people we interact with in these countries) despite the fact that I may or may not agree with them. I am experiencing different viewpoints from these countries that are halfway around the world and realizing that we aren’t too different and have way more in common than people think. God has taken me places I never dreamed I would go; He has shown me things in a different light, the most prominent being that His children are scattered throughout the country and every person on the planet was created and loved by Him. This is also true in the United States, especially in Oklahoma. Look around today, every person you come into contact with was created by God. Who are we to judge them, reject them, or ignore them? We are called to love them like Christ loves them. Unconditionally and without reserve. I challenge you to think about that as you go through your daily routine. Love, Accept, just like Christ has done for you. God is absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to see what he has in store next.

I know this blog was a little different than previous ones, but I just loved Vietnam so much I had so many random things to tell you all. What I wrote doesn’t give Vietnam and my experiences there justice, but I will be able to make up for that this summer. This is only my first Vietnam post and I will tell you all about the other half of my time in a second blog that I will post here in the next couple of days.

I hope you guys are doing awesome! I’m praying for each one of you!

T

Hong Kong - Farewell China

Hello again!

Guess I am just gunna post a bunch at once (gotta take advantage of that free wifi ya know?!)

Answered comments in one of the other ones I am posting with this one.

Picture – this picture is of me atop Victoria’s Peak looking out over the entire city of Hong Kong on a decently clear night (rarity for China). It was our last evening in China and it was the perfect ending to a truly amazing country.

Well my time in China ended almost as abruptly as it began. Day 7 in China (6th day of our SAS adventure, February 22nd) consisted of an early wakeup call at our hotel 3:45 a.m. to be exact. That was an experience getting to see 100 people, most of which you haven’t known for longer than a week, fresh out of bed. Definitely saw some people’s true colors during the whole process of loading the bus, leaving the bus, going through customs, clearing immigration, and boarding the plane. I thought it was fine at the airport, definitely one of the easier customs at an airport, and there was no line to wait in. Some people however (the morning grouches) were not happy to do anything and just complained the whole time, personally I don’t see what there was to complain about; we were in China and had just had quite possibly the best 6 days anyone could ever hope to have in a foreign country. How could we be unhappy?!?!? It just didn’t make sense to me.

The plane ride to Hong Kong lasted 4.5 hours and the majority of our SAS group slept. I only managed to get an hour of shut eye and spent the remainder of the flight listening to music and reflecting on my journey. Sitting on the ship 3 days later I still can’t believe some of the things I got to experience! I truly had an adventure of a lifetime inside of an experience of a lifetime (Semester at Sea). How did I get to lucky? What did I do to deserve this? I kept making spiritual parallels with the worldly opportunity I had just been given and the spiritual opportunity I was given some 2000 years ago. God gave us the ultimate gift, He gave up his one and only son to die on the cross as payment for our sins, sins we have already committed and sins we have yet to commit. Again I ask…how did we get so lucky? What did we do to deserve this? The simply answer…nothing. We are completely undeserving.

Upon arriving at Hong Kong it was about a 1 hour bus ride to the ship where it took another hour for the ship security to screen all of our bags and allow us to board. By this time it was 1 p.m. and Jeremy, Kevin, and I decided to unpack, change out of the clothes we had been wearing for 3 days, and regroup around 3:30 to go out and see stuff. We were told that some must see places in and around Hong Kong were the markets in the temple district and Victoria’s Peak, so that is what we decided to do. We headed to the temple markets which have absolutely nothing to do with a temple, the street they are on is simple called Temple Street. There was a ladies market, a flower market, a goldfish market, a food market, and an everything market. We walked up and down the vendor lined street for about 3 hours taking in the sights and smells. I personally didn’t buy anything but a soda because we had already loaded up on souvenirs in Beijing and I didn’t want to spend any more money in China that I had to. Oh let me tell you about the Hong Kong subway. Ok so it was crazy crowded!! We were told in pre-port that this would be an issue in Hong Kong and you will never believe what they told us to do. They literally told us to shove people aside to get onto the subway train or you wouldn’t make it in. I had experienced some pretty packed subways in Russia before but this was different. It wasn’t so much that people couldn’t fit but that people would step into the subway and just kinda stop. Apparently the Chinese push each other too so it isn’t considered rude or inappropriate, simply something you have to do. Luckily it was just the 3 of us so we didn’t have to worry about leaving anyone and it wasn’t too big of an issue because the 3 of us were taller than most of the Chinese so we could muscle our way in pretty easy. Just another way of experiencing Chinese culture I guess lol.

After seeing the extent of the various markets we hopped back on the subway to return to the port area in search of dinner before hopping on the ferry to Victoria’s peak. The port terminal that our ship was docked at just happened to be the biggest 21st Century shopping mall in Hong Kong. They had all the major stores that you would expect to find in any mall in America (over 1,000 stores in all). Honestly I looked at a registry and except for regional stores back in Oklahoma there wasn’t one main store that I could name that wasn’t in this mall. Well we just so happened to an American burger joint. The three of us had all had our fair share of authentic Chinese food for the past 6 days so we were craving something different and we couldn’t have asked for anything better. They even had A&W Rootbeer…only my favorite Rootbeer!!! Ahhhhhh I can still taste that bacon, cheeseburger. SO worth it!

With full stomachs we headed to the end of the terminal/mall to the ferry dock and loaded up for our trip across the harbor. The boat ride took all of 6 minutes and we were on Hong Kong Island. Our ship was docked on Knowloon island, which is still Hong Kong, all the islands are just separated by the bays. From the Ferry Dock on Hong Kong Island we hopped on a bus which took us to the cable car station at the bottom of Victoria’s Peak which we rode straight up (literally almost a vertical incline) to the top. Everyone who knows about Hong Kong will tell you to go up Victoria’s Peak at night and they definitely know what they are talking about. It was INCREDIBLE!! You can see the ENTIRE city lit up! We could even see our ship sitting across the harbor gleaming in the night. Then you could walk around on top of the building overlook and look to the south and see ships coming into the harbor and ships sailing out to sea. It was awesome. The pictures I took don’t quite give the view the respect it deserves but I mean what can I say, I just can’t live up to the standards my Dad has imposed on me in the picture taking category, so I apologize if this picture isn't up to snuff pops. Haha oh well I have moved on. We chilled on top of the mountain for awhile just taking it all in before making our way back down the cable car, hopping back on the bus, taking the ferry across the bay, and walking through the mall to our ship. Jeremy decided to stay out later and went his own way at the bottom of the peak when Kevin and I hopped on the bus. By the time both of us returned to the ship is was nearly midnight and we were both about ready to drop like a sack of potatoes. 7 days in China, 6 of which were on a non-stop SAS trip including a 3:45 wake up that morning had finally taken its toll on the 2 of us. It was the best night of sleep I have had on Semester at Sea yet!!

My last day in China was honestly very uneventful. I slept until about 1030, I thought I had set an alarm but honestly I might have turned it off and rolled over because I was so tired I just don’t remember. There really wasn’t much left to do in the city of Hong Kong itself unless you wanted to shop or go outside of the city which I didn’t have a whole lot of time for before on-ship time. So I decided to take advantage of the free wifi in the mall/terminal our ship was docked at. This was the point where I uploaded my first two China blogs. After starting the China blogging process, I did some major research on some of the other ports I am visiting here in the next 2 months because I had access to the good travel sights and not just wikitravel. Before you knew it I had accomplished everything I needed to online and it was rapidly approaching time for me to be on the ship. I re-boarded the ship and said goodbye to China from the back decks of the ship, taking in the lights of Hong Kong harbor one last time.

As I have finished writing about my China travels I am currently in my next port…VIETNAM!! It was only a short 2 day sail and after 1 A day of classes and 1 B day of classes we woke up in Ho Chi Minh City!! Crazy huh?!? I stepped out of one world and into another in the blink of an eye it seems like. I still can’t believe all of this is happening so fast! Well I’m off to explore Vietnam, enjoy the three blogs I just uploaded, sorry again for not being as thorough with some things as some of you might like. If you have any questions about specific things that I might not have mentioned (sorry everything seems to kind of mesh together when I have written so much about China) just make a comment about it on the most recent blog post and I will try my best to address it in the next blog.

Love you and praying for you all!!!

T

“Lord I wanna feel with your heart……see the world through Your eyes.” – Casting Crowns

The Great Wall...Nough Said

Hey again!

I know I just posted another blog simultaneously but I am trying to take advantage of as much free internet as I can because it is expensive on the ship! This blog is about the greatest day I had in China so I felt it was necessary to dedicate an entire post to it.

I responded to comments on the other Beijing blog that I posted right before this one at the same time so no point in doing it again.

The picture I chose is me on the wall and there is a story behind it but I explained it in detail below so I will just let you read it.

Okay so our final day in Beijing (Day 6 in China, Day 5 of the trip, February 21st, and my dad’s Birthday!!) was my most memorable day on the trip so far!!! We woke up early as usual for breakfast at the hotel before loading up the buses and heading outside the city. Our first stop of the day was at the Beijing International Kungfu School!! It was crazy!! The students at this school focus on learning the art of Kungfu. To pay for their schooling, they put on demonstrations and even act as stunt doubles/extras in Hollywood movies. The campus was a simple dormitory building, a courtyard used for training and exercise, and two smaller demonstration building used for performances and competitions. We weren’t exactly given a tour of the facilities but we kind of got one because we had to walk through the courtyard to get to the demonstration building where the students put on a private demonstration for us. Yeah we got to see a Kungfu Demonstration!! Kungfu is widely known as a martial arts form but not many people are aware of the artistic nature behind the skill. Our demonstration was composed of 5+ segments. It’s hard to describe exactly what they were doing but it involved a lot of flips, kicks, jabs, and rolls. It was SICK!! The coolest part in my opinion was watching them do the session where they broke a lot of stuff. To name a few: one guy broke an iron plate on his forehead and another snapped a wooden pole in half with his adams apple. With his ADAMS APPLE?!!?!?! If you don’t believe the last one (I wouldn’t either if someone told me so I don’t blame you) I have a video to prove it. After the demonstration we were allowed to hang out with the monks and take pictures as well as get a small lesson in simple moves that we could practice. Some of the pics we took were sick because the monks would like act like they were kicking us or poses where they jumped over us. Definitely a cool experience to see them perform, and then get a chance to interact with them.

From the school we headed out of town a ways and stopped at lunch at a local restaurant that was located in a greenhouse. It was a little weird eating in a greenhouse and something I never thought that I would do personally. The lunch was the normal family style Chinese cuisine but for some reason we all really like the rice at this place. Don’t know what it was but the rice was just really good! They also gave us this pork dish with peanuts, let me just tell you it was hotter than anything I have ever had before. Nothing in Mexico compared to this stuff. My sinuses cleared up so fast! Then none of us could get the taste out of our mouth lol. My friend Allison and me where two of the first people to try it, so everyone got a good laugh when we started freaking out and chugging water. I mentioned earlier that the Chinese serve a lot of vegetables with their meals. Well you all would be very proud of me, I branched out and ate a good majority of the vegetables. It was a big joke because I bet I ate more green vegetables in the past 8 days than I ate all last year. Haha oh well…when in China, do as the Chinese do!!

After lunch it was time for the highlight of the day. THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!!
Ahhhhhh I don’t even know where to start?!?! It was indescribable! The section of the wall that we went to was the Mutianyu Great Wall. For this section you have to take a gondola from the parking lot up to the wall because this is a section that is nestled into the mountains. Getting to explore this mountainous section of the wall was special for a couple reasons. First, the views were incredible. I love being in the mountains and then to be standing on the GREAT WALL of China and seeing it winding between mountain peaks and disappearing in both directions was just surreal. Second, there were no other tourists around. This section isn’t the most easily accessible section and far enough away from Beijing that not many foreign tourists visit the spot. Besides some Chinese tourists it was basically just our SAS group and the wall. We hiked along 8 stations of the wall (a station is the section between 2 guard towers) and took more photos than any of us know what to do with.

Okay mom don’t read the next part cause it might upset you. Haha just kidding…kinda. So the guard towers that I just mentioned were situated along the walls at intervals but there was no way to get to the top of them because the ladders had been removed. Well I really wanted to get on top of one! Soooooo, Jeremy and I noticed that there weren’t any signs saying we couldn’t climb on the wall, and there was no police or “wall guards” (I mean it is a pretty big wall, it would take a lot of cops to guard) so we were like, “Let’s climb it!” If you climbed up on the side of the actual wall, which was easy, then you could walk across the side and get over to the tower where we found a foot-hold to propel ourselves up high enough to grip the edge and climb on top. The only dangerous part was that if you slipped you feel off the wall and about 70+ feet to the mountain side below. Oh well we made it and it was AWESOME!!! We got some really sweet pics, including the picture that I did for this blog post. The reason I like this picture so much is because it is very similar to a pic I took outside Barcelona a couple summer ago (except for the fact that The Great Wall is WAY cooler!!!). You can kind of tell but I am standing on the edge of the wall in a little nook, but the edge none the less, with a straight drop behind me. Sorry mom…kinda lol. Well we had been ahead of most of the SAS group so when they saw us up on the tower a lot of people decided they wanted to do it too. That’s right…trend setta baby!!! The views were sweet from on top of the tower and it was awesome getting to chill up there for a little bit. Getting down from the tower was a little hairy but we all made it down safe and sound for the most part (couple people scraped themselves up but nothing serious) and continued hiking around.

Gahhhhhhh I still can’t believe I got to experience the Great Wall!! A year ago I had no clue I would get the opportunity to go on Semester at Sea, let alone see the Great Wall! A couple of us were talking about it as we were walking along and it was so weird thinking that we were actually there. We were actually walking on the Great Wall of China!! After 2 hours of hiking around it was time to head back down to the base of the mountain to do a little market shopping before boarding the buses. I mentioned that we used a gondola to get up, but to get down we got to ride in little single person toboggans on a steel track! Okay that was fun…all you have is a hand break and using it is optional. Yeah I didn’t use mine except for when I came flying around a corner and Jeremy, who was in front of me, had stopped because there was a slow Chinese family making their way down in front of us. Yeah I didn’t stop in time and plowed into Jeremy but we just laughed and kept going. The toboggan was just another random surprise that none of us knew about that was so sweet!!

The bus ride back to Beijing was a little over 1.5 hours so a lot of people slept (not me, how could I sleep after seeing THE Great Wall?!?!). Our last dinner of the trip was at a local restaurant that was similar to everywhere else we had been. But the real finale to the trip was after dinner. Our last activity as a group was to specially attend an authentic Chinese Acrobatic show. The show was held in a theater much like you would expect to watch a Broadway show in. Okay these acrobats made the Kungfu dudes (which were wicked sweet) look lame. They were doing things that were amazing!! A couple of people in our SAS group had seen Cirque De So Le before and they said it didn’t even compare to what we all saw. They said that these acrobats made the Cirque De So Le people look like amateurs. I personally don’t know about that but because I haven’t seen Cirque De So Le, but all I know it that whatever I saw was outstanding. We were all sitting on the edge of our seats the whole time just waiting to see what they would do next. It was the perfect ending to the best SAS trip we could have ever asked for!!

Looking at the Great Wall, I couldn’t help but think about my tower and source of protection…Jesus Christ. Compared to Christ, even something as Immense and Incredible as the Great Wall is reduced to nothing. The protection provided by the Great Wall pales in comparison to the protection provided by our Lord and Savior. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” Proverbs 18:10. “Jesus, Jesus, you are my tower Lord. Jesus, Jesus, the rock I stand on. Jesus, Jesus, there is no other name, like Your name…there is no other name, like Your name…ohhhhh Looorrrddddd and, I am weak, but, YOU are strong, and, I know I must learn to wait on YOU!!!” Brad Kilman. Christ will never leave us nor forsake us and His power is second to no one.

Love you guys and hope all is well back home!

T

Beijing - Where to Begin...

Yo Yo Yo!!

How are you all?!?! I know I am posting these super fast but I am getting the chance to use free internet so I figured I would just load all the China blogs that I have typed in the past 2 days. After this it will slow down for awhile because I will be living it up in Vietnam. Enjoy!

Shout Out Comments – JT – Haha yeah I got really lucky and got to see a ton in China! That market was crazy cool and they were really good with their English. It’s weird to think that we probably bartered with some of the same people haha. Yeah I am actually uploading these blogs from a hotel business center in Vietnam while waiting for the War Museum across the street to open. I already love Vietnam and can’t wait to spend the next 5 days here taking in the culture. Vietnam is beautiful and the people are awesome!

The picture I chose for this section of the blog is of Kara and I in front of the famous gate separating Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Square (read on for a better description). You can see the famous picture of Mao Zedong in the background. Kara and I were in front of this little dragon/lion figure (it is over my left shoulder, kinda looks like it is biting me actually) so we decided to give our best impersonation attempt. Got some weird looks from people but it’s whatever! Not like we will ever see those people again right lol.

Hope you all enjoyed the first couple China blogs. As I start to write about the rest of my journey I am overwhelmed by the fact that I have no clue where to begin. Guess I will just start writing and see what happens so here goes nothing!

Alright so day 3 of my China tour trip (overall it was day 4 in China and February 19th). The morning consisted solely of transferring to the airport in our buses and taking a 1.5 hour flight to Beijing. All three groups were together on the same flight this time so that vast majority of the plane was all the SASers traveling in a huge group. We flew with a different airline this time but the experience was pretty much the same. The cabin crew was excellent and the food was even better! They definitely blow the American airline companies out of the water as far as good food being served. Upon arrival in Beijing we were transferred by buses (still in the same 3 groups as in Xi’an…Bus C for life!!) to our hotel for the duration of our stay, the Courtyard Marriot Hotel. On the way to our hotel we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. Very similar to all the other Chinese meals up to this point: family style food (lots of it), chopsticks only, and your basic meats and vegetables.

After eating our group meal we proceeded to the hotel to drop off our suitcases (wait didn’t have suitcases, basically just our backpacks lol) then we had the rest of the day to do as we wanted. This was the only part of our China SAS trip that we had as free time and they chose to give it to us at the beginning of Beijing so that if there was anything specific we wanted to see we could do it first. The group I ended up hanging out with for the remainder of the day was Kevin, Jeremy, Jose (my roommate for the 3 nights in Beijing), and Gabby. So the five of us took off as soon as we could because by the time we got to the hotel it was already close to 3 and we wanted as much time as we could while we had freedom. For the first couple hours we wandered around the city trying to make our way to the local market district. This was actually quite entertaining because we definitely got lost. Jeremy was the one who “knew where we were going” but this didn’t turn out to be true. Somehow we ended up at Tiananmen Square which was where we were going the next day so we didn’t want to waste time viewing it when it was built into our tour later on. We also ran into another group of 3 girls (Stephanie, Lauren, and forgot the 3rd girl’s name) who were trying to make their way to the same spot we were. We spent time trying to find someone who spoke English to give us directions and ended up finding a group of tourists from Iran who took some time to point out the right direction. They told us to go south of the Square for about half a mile and then head east and we would run into it. So off we went, blindly following some random tour guide’s advice and hoping that Jeremy would get us there. Kevin and I were convinced that we needed to head north despite what the tour guide said but our advice fell on deaf ears. Well I don’t know what kind of tour guide this guy was or if he was just a major rookie but he sent us in the totally opposite direction. We walked for about a mile and a half in the wrong direction before realizing that Kevin and I had been right all along. It actually ended up being quite funny and we had found some random shops to head into on the way so we didn’t really care but it was fun giving Jeremy and Jose crap the rest of the night and bragging that we (Kevin and I) had been right. At this point it was getting close to 6 so we decided to take a taxi to where we wanted to go instead of backtracking what we had just walked.

We ended up at the right place somehow after a taxi ride (split into 2 groups of 4) that included us passing the exact same spot we were at Tian’an men Square which gave us more ammo to hassle Jeremy with lol. Okay this night market was so legit!! There was a giant avenue that was closed to traffic. On one side there was a 21st Century mall with all your high dollar stores then on the other side it was like a totally different world with all these little allies filled with street vendors selling everything from fake hand bags to every type of street-fair-food imaginable. We headed for the vendors because that was just way more appealing to all of us. Okay the food was dirt cheap so we decided to try all sorts of things. I tried the Chinese version of a Gyro (nothing compared to a Gyro in the Muslim quarter in Spain), some basic pork buns which were INCREDIBLE, these candy coated strawberries which were like little drops of heaven on a skewer stick, then for the best item of the night…SCORPION ON A STICK!!! Alright I definitely had to try that, I mean how many chances do you get to try scorpion on a stick?!?! The scorpions on a stick came with 4 on one skewer for like $1.50 which was perfect because I wanted one, Kevin, Jeremy, and the other girl whose name I forgot wanted one; which was a perfect 4! Oh and I should also mention that the scorpions are alive and squirming on the stick and then when you pay for it they fry them in front of you and season them with something. So that was cool seeing them squirm and then eating them 2 minutes later. No one wanted to be the first one to try it so I was like shoot I’ll do it! So I did and it wasn’t bad at all, definitely had worse things before lol. With the seasoning and it being fried it was nothing we couldn’t handle. Jeremy and Kevin did fine with theirs too but the one girl struggled. She did not like it at all!! I actually have a video of all 4 of us eating it for all you doubters back home; just made sure I would have proof! Sampling the street food was awesome; I’m actually surprised it didn’t get sick the next day because they were like legit back alley street fair vendors. Oh well I guess Pepto really does work!

After our experience travelling through the various vendors it was closer to 8 and we were ready for dinner because we had all just snacked on the various small vendor foods. The three girls that had met us at the square earlier went and did their own thing because they weren’t hungry enough to eat dinner yet. We headed back out onto the avenue in search of a restaurant. Nothing was close by and eventually we settled on McDonalds because there were no legit restaurants anywhere close and Jeremy and I wanted to try a Chinese Big Mac to compare it to an American one. Honestly I didn’t think there was much of a difference except that the American Big Mac is definitely greasier. Jeremy swears that the Chinese Big Mac was better so I mean who really knows. Another bonus was the fact that the Olympics were on so we were able to enjoy some Women’s Snowboard Super-pipe while we ate which was nice cause it was a sport that was actually fun to watch, unlike curling that always seemed to be on at the hotels. It was nice having an American meal after 4 straight days of Chinese food and everyone enjoyed their meal. Afterwards we walked around the hotel a little more, found a nice tea shop where Jeremy bought some tea (I found cheap loose leaf tea the day before so I had already bought my bag of tea for China). Then Gabby got a Starbucks cause of course there was one of those in the mall. By the time we left the mall and walked around the city for a little longer, it had gotten pretty chilly so we grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel. We hung out for another hour or two in the hotel before calling it a night.

Day 5 in China (4 of the trip, February 20th) was jam-packed with sights to see and things to do. Breakfast was served in our hotel like every other morning and then we loaded the buses for transportation to our first stop of the day – Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City! I was really excited for this because whenever you see pictures of Beijing or hear about people going to Beijing you hear about the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The Square was huge!! We found out that it is the largest public square in the world. It is famous because on the north end is where Mao Zedong gave his famous speech founding the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. We spent about an hour getting a tour of the square, a history lesson from our tour guide Jason, and then taking pictures with all our friends in front of the famous gate on the north end.

After the tour of the square, which was mainly spent walking across it, we entered the Forbidden City through the Rostrum (Tiananmen Gate) which is the big building connecting the north side of Tiananmen Square to the south end of the Forbidden City that has the giant picture of Mao Zedong on it. The Forbidden City was created in 1420 by Emperor Yongle and was home to 24 emperors after him. The entire complex consists of 8,706 rooms all within 170 acres that are surrounded by walls more than 30 feet high and within a 160 foot moat. The Forbidden City is split into an inner courtyard (where the emperor used to stay) and the outer courtyard which was for public events, guests, and the governmental leaders at the time. No one has lived in the Forbidden City since 1924 and its purpose now is a cultural landmark open to tourists and interested Chinese visitors. Like I said the city is situated on 160 acres so it took us awhile to cross from the south end to the north end while constantly stopping for pictures and explanations of the purpose behind certain building and/or structures. After 2+ hours of taking in the Forbidden City we exited through the north gate and walked a little ways to our buses that were parked down the street.

The next part of our day was truly as treat for everyone. We were split up into small groups of about 15 people and taken to individual families to experience a customary meal that would be served to visiting family and friends. It was awesome to get to see the inside of an average Chinese household, meet the family, and experience the famous Chinese hospitality firsthand. Before the meal we were given a private lesson on how to make Chinese dumplings (Jiaozi) by hand like the Chinese people have been doing for decades. The lady was very patient with us despite our inability to do it right; eventually we finished our lesson and were served all sorts of veggies and then the dumplings! They made us SO much food!! Chinese custom is to always make more food than is necessary to show that you are capable of being hospitable and providing enough food to satisfy your guests. It was very different from the customs of countries like Mexico where leaving food on the table is a sign of disrespect so it was a unique experience to me and I was privileged to have gotten the opportunity. The family also had a talking bird hanging above their doorway that would say “knee-how” (hello) back to you if you said it to him. That was also entertaining because the bird spoke more Chinese than all of us haha.

After spending time with our individual families and eating more dumplings than I could count, we were met by a fleet of Trishaw for a Trishaw tour of Hutong, a narrow network of lanes created by closely built quadrangular homes. The Trishaws were much like what you would find in New York City with a bicycle that was attached to a little carriage that could hold 2 people. We all paired up and went for our little tour of Hutong area. Mom it wasn’t quite as crazy as our ride through NYC as we didn’t have to dodge taxis, just other trishaws that our friends were in. My driver was named MAO and he was legit! I was riding with Ali and we would cheer and stuff and he would cut the other trishaws off and pass them if they went to slow. It was fun riding around and saying “knee-how” to the people as we drove by. It was cool seeing a more relaxed area of the city with fewer people and no traffic because the streets were too narrow for cars. Our trishaw tour was followed by a short stop at a local silk factory. Alright the silk factory was the biggest waste of time EVER and was totally unnecessary. It was just a modern tourist trap where they gave us a short 10 min talk on the process of getting silk and what they do with it; then they expect you to buy stuff at the store like scarves and blankets that were ridiculously overpriced. I think only one person bought something and it was a life-long learner so that doesn’t count. No one really enjoyed it and we were all ready to leave as soon as we got there lol.

The last stop of the day for our group was the Beijing 2008 Olympic Village. Alright that was way cooler than I thought it would be! I was looking forward to it but once we got there and were staring at the Bird’s Nest, Torch Tower, and the Bubble Aquatics Centre it really hit me where I was!! We got to walk down the streets where the marathons were held leading into the Bird’s Nest for the finish line. We weren’t given a tour of the village but simply got free time to explore the Bird’s Nest and surrounding area. The Bubble Aquatics Centre where Phelps won all his medals was undergoing renovation at the time so we weren’t allowed to tour the inside. Definitely a bummer but at least we still got to see. Ok so the Bird’s Nest was incredible!! We weren’t allowed to go on the floor because there was a winter festival going on and it would have cost a lot of money to go onto the floor which was covered with fake snow for the kids. So a group of us did the next best thing…we went all the way up to the far corner of the building on the top row to get some sweet pics! It was quite a hike up there but well worth it!! The architecture of the building is insane and it was just cool to know that so many Olympic events were held in the building, especially the amazing opening ceremonies with all the lights and drums. Very, very cool and we were all stoked to see the Bird’s Nest in its entirety. Just something about being there were so many people were a year and a half ago and imagining what they saw and the excitement in the air, it was so tight!!

Following our time at the Olympic Village, we loaded up and headed to our dinner location. This night we got the privilege of enjoying a traditional Beijing dinner…the Beijing Duck Dinner. We were taken to the Tangyuan Restaurant which specializes in preparing this duck. The customary way to cook this duck consists of slow roasting the duck in an oven at a certain temperature for a certain length of time in order to get the outside crispy but the inside extremely tender. I really like duck so I thoroughly enjoyed the dinner. Some people at our table weren’t too crazy about the duck meat which was fine because Chris and I did like it so we ate all the leftovers. The chef also was standing in the middle of the room constantly carving more strips off the duck to disperse among the tables. That was cool too because we got to see the entire duck before he started carving it, not really anything new to me cause I am around dead ducks all the time but it was cool to see their method of cooking and serving the duck. Much different than we do it at the ranch, but tasty nonetheless. Although I will definitely stay with the way we do back in Oklahoma pops. Nothing like a good marinade, so says the good Doc himself! Oh and I won’t go into detail right now, but there was also an incident between me and a waitress due to a language barrier but I will save that one for this summer. Just ask me about it when you see me if you wanna know. Dinner went late and afterwards I decided to call it a night after briefly chilling with some people in the hotel when we got back.

Well I just wrote 5 pages about 2 days in China and I feel like I didn’t do it justice. I could write so much more about what I talked about and then there are probably over 100 smaller stories that I could spout off but that would take FOREVER!! So this will just have to do for now I guess. Hope you all enjoyed it!

In Joshua 1:8-9 it says “For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Wherever I go. Even in China, surrounded by over 1 billion people, God never left my side. Little, insignificant me. God was with me. How flipping crazy is that?!?! One in a sea of many and God never took his eyes off of what I was doing. This truth is so incredible to think about, yet something that we so easily take for granted as we go through our daily lives. Think of how differently we would lead our lives if we dwelt on the fact that Christ was always right by our side? I guarantee you that it would make a difference! A drastic difference! Think about it, I know I did when I was overwhelmed by the mass of people everywhere in China.

Miss you all and hope everything is going great! Love you guys!!

T

Xi'an - I'm so Excited, I Just Can't Hide It!

Hello again!

Guess I was able to post this a lot quicker than I thought haha. I’m taking advantage of some free wifi in Hong Kong. I’m actually posting this at the same time as the one before it so if you are reading this one before the first China one I would recommend going back one blog so that everything makes sense. The Shanghai blog is the first China blog and you will be able to find it by just going back one blog.

No point in Comment Shout-Outs because I answered the previous ones in the Shanghai blog that I just posted and no one has had time to comment yet lol.
The picture I chose for Xi’an is of me standing in front of the terra cotta warriors!! It was the highlight and main attraction in Xi’an so I definitely wanted to make it my pic! You can read more about the warriors below so I won’t ruin it. But yeah it was SICK!!

So Day 2 in China (February 17) was the beginning of my 6 Day/5 Night SAS trip to Xi’an and Beijing. Everyone on the trip was required to meet in the Union at 830 am to acquire our itineraries and check in. Once everyone was there they split us into 3 groups alphabetically and these were the groups we would be with for the rest of the trip as far as being assigned to a tour guide and bus. I was in the 3rd group…the one and only group C! We actually had a really bomb group and I am glad I was in Group C! We loaded up in the buses and headed to the airport. On the bus my friend Ali started singing “I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it,” which was true for everyone so we made that our motto for the beginning of the trip. Groups A and B were both on the noon flight to Xi’an while Group C was on the 1 pm flight to Xi’an an hour later. Some people in our group complained about this because their friends were on the other flight but I was the opposite and was excited because then we didn’t have to keep track of as many people; and we had assigned seats anyway so it’s not like you could choose to sit by your friends. I really like to travel so it was exciting flying on a Chinese airline for the first time and seeing their way of doing things on the plane. Honestly the plane was the exact same, the majority of stuff was in English; the only major difference was the food and beverage service. The Chinese know how to do it man, their airplane food was bomb!! It was actually real food and I didn’t hear anyone in our group complain.

Something you all should know, this was a 6 day/5 night trip and we were all only allowed to bring carry-ons. On all SAS overnight trips you are only allowed carry-ons so that we don’t run the risk of losing bags in transit and being slowed down at the airport. This of course did not sit well with some of the girls, because they were limited to either a backpack or small duffel, and then their purses. Haha it was really funny to see what some people considered priorities for a 6 day China trip, definitely had people from all ends of the spectrum as far as what was packed. I didn’t think it was that bad, but Mike Wall prepared me for this 3 years ago when we all just had a carry-on for the Nicaragua mission trip. Thank you Senor! And of course we had people who didn’t like flying but you always do in big groups.

The flight lasted 2.5 hours and was uneventful for the most part. No one really slept because we were all so stoked about the awesome trip we were starting!! At the Xi’an airport we met up with our tour guides and headed to our respected buses. The first stop of the day was to the Tang Dynasty Art Museum where we received personalized lessons in the art of Chinese calligraphy. Okay I didn’t expect it to be easy or anything but calligraphy is NOT easy. It took me 15 minutes just to get one symbol to where it didn’t look like a baby wrote it (Daryl I’m pretty sure Logan could do this stuff better than me haha). We were told it takes years of constantly writing the language to perfect it. The cool part was that there are only 8 basic strokes that are combined in various ways to make all the symbols; what they don’t tell you is that 5 of those 8 strokes are ridiculously hard. It was really cool getting a calligraphy lesson and a nice little surprise to start our trip off with.

After the art museum and calligraphy lesson we headed to our first meal of the trip. Every meal on this trip was included in the prepaid price and they were all much better than any of us could have hoped for. This first dinner was a Dim sum dinner at De Fa Chang. Okay so De Fa Chang’s is the most famous dumpling restaurant in all of Xi’an and is a multiple story restaurant. We met up with the other 2 groups and sat down to enjoy our meal. We didn’t get to order anything but our drinks and literally as soon as we sat down food was brought to us and placed in front of us. In China all the meals are family style except for the Westernized restaurants so the food is just placed on platters in the center of the table. Our dinner consisted of 18 different types of dumplings with fillings ranging from duck to pork to veggies. I every dumpling I tried which was 17 of them (I gave my buddy my vegetarian one for his spicy chicken one). It’s amazing how unique the different ones were and how awesome they all tasted!

The restaurant was located in the center of the inner city of Xi’an (Xi’an is formatted exactly like Jerusalem with an inner and outer city separated by a wall) and it was crazy! Like I said previously it was the end of Chinese New Year so they were people everywhere. Fireworks were going off like every other minute and the coolest part was the lanterns. They were all over the place, just floating up into the air with the little flame inside. It was like we walked into a movie, I can’t even describe was it was like to see the sky lit up with fireworks, building lights, and hundreds of lanterns. How did we get so lucky? We didn’t expect any of this and it was just good timing that it all happened when we were there. Crazy huh?!?! We had the option of returning to the hotel with the buses or heading out on our own and finding our own way back. I headed off with a group of people to wander around the inner city while the festivities were going on for about an hour then we headed back to the hotel to call it a night. We stayed the night in the Xi’an Jianguo Hotel which was insanely nice and none of us really expected to be staying in such a nice hotel. I fell asleep to the sweet sound of fireworks which is something that was quite alright with me even though some people weren’t okay with it the next morning haha.

Day 2 in Xi’an (February 18th) was packed with stuff. Like I said earlier there is no way I can describe everything in as much detail as I want to but I will do my best. We ate breakfast at our hotel then headed out bright and early to start our day. The first stop was the Xi’an city wall that separated the outer and inner city. We were given free time to hike around, take pictures, and climb one of the bell towers that was used as a guard tower back when the city wall protected the city. There was also this really cool bell we were allowed to ring with the old wooden pendulum that you swung into it. That was cool cause the bell was really loud and it was cool cause it was still mounted on the wall! We were only there for about 45 minutes so we didn’t have too much time to really walk along the wall but we were all able to see enough of it to get a feel for the history and significance behind the wall.

After the Xi’an wall, we headed to the Muslim district of the city to see the Great Mosque and Old Bazaar areas. The district was nestled into a corner of the city and it was weird going from the busy city streets to this religious area within just 25 yards. The Mosque was situated behind the Bazaar and was comprised of rectangular courtyards lined up in a row. Each courtyard contained some sort of wooden or stone alter/statue in the middle with buildings lining the sides and gates separating the courtyards. After touring the Mosque grounds we headed through the old Bazaar area on our way back to the buses. The Bazaar was lined with vendors trying to sell all kinds of stuff. We had some free time to shop around and see what we could find and then try to barter for a lower price. It was really cold in Xi’an that day so a lot of people were buying fake name brand gloves for extremely cheap and warm, fur-lined hats to wear around. The atmosphere was fun because we were with all 100 SAS kids and adults from the trip and everyone was bartering and trying to get the best deal.

Once everyone was assembled back at the buses we made our way out of Xi’an an hour or so to a restaurant on the way to our next destination. The lunch was another traditional family style setting but the food was totally different. Pork and chicken are the main meats served in China and are accompanied with various forms of vegetables, and of course, RICE! I have never been a real big fan of sticky rice but I sure am a fan of Chinese sticky rice! It was so good! Oh and did I mention that we ate every meal with chopsticks?!?! Yeah there is no such thing as western silverware at the places we went to. It took awhile to get good enough to pick up some of the stuff but after 8 days of chopstick usage I can honestly say that I can now eat a meal using only chopsticks! The best part of this specific meal was these potato lumps that were glazed with honey, and not just a hint of honey, like a legit honey coat over them. SOOOOOOO TASTY!!

Everyone was full and satisfied heading back to the buses as we made our way to the highlight of Xi’an…THE TERRA COTTA WARRIORS!! Ok they were indescribable! I don’t even know where to start. Basically everything you have ever heard about them is true. For those of you who don’t know, the Terra Cotta Warriors were constructed by the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty (no relation to Jimmy, sorry man haha), Qin Shi Huangdi. They were buried with him in order to protect him after death as well guard his tomb. The estimated 8,000 terra cotta soldiers are a testament to his power and megalomania. Each figure is the same height and every face is constructed completely unique. Our guide told us that if a carver made the features of any face even remotely similar the carver would be killed on the spot. The warriors were discovered by peasants in 1974 while trying to dig a well. In the main and most impressive vault (Pit 1), the majority of the warriors has been uncovered and remains in their typical battle formation in 11 columns comprised of officers, soldiers holding spears and swords, and others steering horse-drawn chariots. The pit is huge! My best guess is around 7-9 football fields lined up like hotdogs (which by the way sounds amazing right now), and a building has been built around it to protect the warriors from Mother Nature. In addition to Pit 1, there is also Pits 2 and 3 which are at different stages of excavations and then a 4 building called the treasure room which has smaller artifacts that were discovered intact with the warriors. Including two bronze chariots consisting of 4 horses each and unique chariot styles. It’s crazy that these were just discovered only 36 years ago?!?! Considered by many to be the “8th Wonder of the World,” it was truly a treat to get to experience these warriors and view them in person. I don’t really know what else to say about the warriors except WOW, I still can’t believe I actually saw them a couple days ago. It’s insane!!!! I will be able to go into more detail in person when I see you all and have pictures but for now hopefully this gives you an idea.

After spending a couple hours taking in the warriors and everything associated with them, we headed out into a small village for a visit to one of the Xi’an Orphanages. The orphanage was very nice compared to some places I have visited and the kids actually had beds with sheets and blankets as well as indoor plumbing in each building. This specific orphanage is currently home to around 100 orphans whose parents are either in prison or who abandoned them at an early age. Two young boys that I met had been found last year around New Years by a police man on the street. The boys were abandoned by their parents and their names and ages are unknown. The best guess by the orphanage is that one is around 6 and the other around 3. It was heart-breaking to see these kids who were simply left by their parents. Just makes you appreciate what we have and the amazing parents God blessed us with. We were giving a tour of the orphanage and then they put on a little show for us. It was really cool to see these little kids excited that we were there. The hardest part was the language barrier. I have dealt with language barriers in Mexico before and usually sign language was enough to get by. Man not with these kids, I have never had such a hard time trying to communicate simple things. It was difficult and frustrating but eventually it got easier.

We had to leave the orphanage shortly after arrival which was lame, we all wanted to stay with the kids! The drive back to Xi’an took around an hour and a half and most people either slept or listened to music. Tonight’s dinner just happened to be the Tang Dynasty Dinner Show. The meal was first and was a 7 course meal served in a Westernized fashion with our own individual plates. Okay this was the best food I have eaten since I left Oklahoma. We had everything from soup to duck to some sort of really tender beef. It was sooooooo good. After enjoying a more relaxed dinner and chilling with traditional Chinese string music playing on the stage, the show really started. The performance consisted of Chang’an music and dance with originated in China’s Tang Dynasty over 1000 years ago. The show was rich with tradition and truly unique to China. It was Crazy Cool and just another example of something cool that none of us expected 2 months ago when we signed up for this trip. The dinner and show lasted around 2.5 hours and afterwards most people decided to just chill at the hotel because we were all beat from walking around all day and seeing everything. It was also nice cause we got to catch bits and pieces of the Olympics in the hotel which made a lot of people extremely happy lol. And this concluded my second day in Xi’an.

I know I could have said more and was really vague in some points but I promise I will explain more this summer when I see you all. If there are any specific questions you want answered just comment and I will do my best to answer it in one of the next blogs.

Love you guys and wish you were all here with me!!

T

“The greatest and best man in the world must say, ‘By the grace of God I am, what I am,’ but God says absolutely…‘I am that I am.’” - Matthew Henry