How 'bout them Giants? (Aka Japan Day 3, Part 3)

All this and it was only 3:00 in the afternoon.  We got in line for tickets early (they start being sold at 3:30) to make sure we would get good seats.  And oh yes we got good seats.  But more on that later.  

    Then it was back to the dollar store so they could get some origami paper and to the ship to drop off our awesome science stuff.  We also changed into our baseball outfits we had bought and I broke out the face paint.  Finding a place to eat dinner was a challenge.  The places nearby had personal pizzas for $20 and the prices went up from there.  We found a tiny, French-ish style cafe with only $15 hamburgers so we ate there.  I ordered a hot dog and despite it's dodgy look, it was quite good.  Plus, there was a cat in the cafe.  So it was a good choice.

    Theeeeeeeen GAME TIME!  We knew our seats were good when we bought them, but we found out they were AMAZING once we got to the stadium.  I believe we were in the fifth row right near first base!  I don't think I have ever been that close outside of a Spring Training game!   It was so fun to be at such a familiar type of event in such a different setting.  I tried to note all the differences like how there were cheerleaders and bands at the games in Japan, they play for 10 innings (I think), and there are no garlic fries (sad face.)  One thing that was the same was that the Giants were playing!  (As the visiting team)  Same colors and everything!  And like their World Series Champ sister team in the States, they skunked the competition!  Hannah and Courtney were making fun of me because I cheered whenever either team got a hit or made a play.  

    I think it was around the third inning when it started raining, but it didn't really appear to be a problem.  It was warm enough that we were content to get completely soaking wet and still enjoy the game.  I got bored and started reading though...

Just kidding.  (That is a joke with my family so I just took the picture and then went back to game watching.)  We also had a really good conversation about spirituality and life changing experiences and philosophy and stuff.  Because of course that's what you do at a baseball game in Japan in the pouring rain.  

It was a very exciting evening that we ended with a hot chocolate party back on the ship.  :0)  I was a little giddy about being up past my usual sleep time and thought I would show them how street I am.  

   

Japan Day 3 (Part 2)

 I was bummed to be going back but also kind of excited to rest.  BUT THEN...Hannah and Courtney were heading out as I was coming in so I decided to join them.  I was so excited to hear that they were planning on going to the baseball game that night because I had really wanted to go.  

   My first order of business was to take full advantage of the huge hill I had just climbed up on the way to the port.  :0)

Next we went back to the street fair by the stadium for some photo ops and checking out the booths.  

That's my "I just spotted a cotton candy booth" face.

It seemed to be kind of like an Earth Day event I had gone to in DC a few years ago.  There was lots of information about recycling, safe water, tree planting, etc.  And there were some beautiful plants for sale.  I so wish I could have bought some, but they are not allowed on the ship.  Our favorite booth was the super science hippo one.  Or that's at least what we called it having no ability to read any of the posters that were up.  I think it mainly had to do with water sanitation.  Anyway, I looked at some dodgy critters under a microscope which made me nostalgic for biology lab.  I also had fun talking to a guy who loved science and travel.  Hannah and Courtney had to convince me that we would have a hard time being soul mates since we didn't really speak the same language.  Sigh.  :0P

   There was a science/craft project at the booth as well which somehow involved milk cartons and a story about water sanitation.  We weren't going to make one, but the people working the booth (including my would be soul mate) were so excited to show us how to make them, that we were roped in.  It was really fun trying and failing and then trying and succeeding to make our own.  Especially because the volunteers were giving us the directions in Japanese and we were asking them questions in English.  haha  I have discovered that even when you know the other person can't understand you, you still jabber away for some reason.  

  We finally finished our masterpieces and the volunteers took some photos of us and then explained in bits of English what the sanitation story was.  I filled in the gaps with my own parts of the story when I showed my roomie back on the ship.  (My parts mostly had to do with aliens and space salt.)  We also got to keep our own little super science hippos because of our enthusiasm.  So much fun to hang out with other science nerds!

   

Tibet to Shanghai

  Another long day of traveling.  I really don't know how I still continued to function at this point.  Traveling in a wheelchair in some of these airports was exceedingly difficult.  There were all of these rules that made no sense to me.  For example, I checked in for the first flight and was told to bring my wheelchair to the gate.  Then in security, the lady said I had to go back and check it and it would cost money.  The life long learners who "adopted" me were such a big help running back and forth through the airport so I could get to the flight on time.

  We had a several hour layover at one of the airports and that was another challenge.  Only one wheelchair was ordered for our group, but two of us needed one.  (One of the life long learners had gotten severe altitude sickness and was still recovering.)  I gave him the chair and told the lady pushing his chair that I needed one too.  That wee-otch looked me up and down, curled her lip, and haughtily walked away.  I was really mad.  I could tell she was judging me because of my age and she had no right to do that.  Plus she seemed like she had a giant stick up her butt even on a good day.  

  I made it in from the plane to security and asked again for a wheelchair.  The lady at security said there was only one in the whole airport.  I politely told her that I highly doubted that and I would be sitting beside her station until someone found me a chair.  There were many an annoyed look exchanged but I finally did get a chair.  I really hate being annoying like that, but sometimes I have no choice.  It's not like I could crawl through the airport (at least not without good kneepads).  

  We arrived back at the boat in the evening and had some time to take in the crazy awesome city lights.

Hong Kong to China

I guess the title is a little misleading considering I spend about two hours in Hong Kong before I flew off to Beijing, China.

I spent the morning packing for my China/Tibet trip and exploring the mall that was right off the ship with Andrea.  It was probably the fanciest mall I have ever and will ever visit!  There were all the name brands like Gucci and....um the other ones...for KIDS!  What kid needs a whole Gucci store to pick out clothes from?!?!  I don't think I bought anything other than some nasty KFC for lunch (it was the only thing I could afford! haha).

Then it was time to leave on my whirlwind trip around Tibet and China.  I started off almost missing the bus because I got behind struggling with my wheelchair on stairs.  Finally someone helped me and I made it to the bus just in time.  Whew!

I took some pictures as we drove through Hong Kong, but as most bus pictures tend to do, they didn't turn out very well.  There were many impressive bridges, buildings, and construction projects going on.

Airports in a wheelchair are always a challenge.  That kind of gets multiplied when I don't speak the language.  I got on the plane after a bit of minor complications.  I wasn't allowed to wheel my own wheelchair through the airport and the person who took over the wheelchair pushing was late.  STill, I got on the plane!  

And what a plane it was!  The thing was HUGE!  So huge that I could hardly tell when we took off or landed.  Each seat had it's own TV complete with movies, TV shows, and even games!  I watched a movie about a kid and a dolphin which was cute.  I would have certainly loved it when I was little!

We had a stop along the way, get off the plane and wait for it to be cleaned.  It was nice to stretch out legs and get some dodgy ice cream from one of the airport stores.  There were pea and corn flavored popsicles that no one was brave enough to try.  

The last flight was a short one and then we were in Beijing!  I was greeted off the plane with an airport wheelchair.  I was a little worried because I'm used to getting my own chair at this point, but they said I could go pick that up in baggage claim.  Whew.  

Although when I did pick it up in baggage claim, I saw that poor Benny (my wheelchair) was mangled.  :0(  There was no way that I could even sit in the chair, let alone get it to move.  I got very calm at that point which is a sign that I should be very stressed. 

It looked way worse in person.  

 The next four hours or so were spent banging my head against a brick wall.  Ok not really, but that was what it felt like. Things started off well.  The guy who wheeled me to baggage claim took me to an office for damaged baggage.  They started to fill out a damage report and then we started discussing (in a few words in English and hand gestures) what to do.  That was when the problem started.  They wanted me to take the broken wheelchair and get it fixed somewhere in the city and then drive the hour back and give them the receipt to get reimbursed.  This was not even remotely a possibility for me.  I was only in Beijing for a day and that day was booked with the tour.  They the offered to give me $70 and have me go.  That also wasn't a good option because I still wouldn't have a functional wheelchair.  I don't think people were understanding that this wasn't just a piece of luggage for me.  It was my freedom, my legs, my ability to participate in the tour.   Then they said that they couldn't do anything because there were no wheelchair repair places in China.  I stared at the guy who told me that with narrowed eyes and said, "So I'm the only one in China with a wheelchair?"  He laughed and walked away.  Then one of the group leaders and I sat in a room for a few hours going back and forth with the story changing and mostly being ignored.  We kept asking what we were waiting for and it was alway something different.  They were waiting for the manager, or the repair man, or...who knows. From the beginning I kept telling them that they probably could fix it there being an airport with lots of tools.  At around 9:00 they once again told me I had to wait another hour to find out how long I would wait after that for who knows what.  I basically got fed up at this point and told them that I was going home and they were going to get me a functional wheelchair.  One of the male guides translated this for me and poof! things started to happen.  If I were pessimistic I would say that the other leader/guide and I were being ignored because we were women.  They decided to let me rent a wheelchair for the next day and my male guide, who I got to know as Henry (the Awesome), would stay for whatever it was we were waiting past 10:00 for.  Turns out they were able to kind of repair it.  They put the seat on backwards and it doesn't fully open, but at least I got it back and I can sit in it without falling out now.  (I ended up getting it back the next night) But bloody hell that tested my patience!  Not to mention that everyone in my group was held up in a bus for hours waiting for me.  They finally got to leave about an hour before me and I took a bus all to myself back.  I think it is a testament to human nature that no one held that against me.

When I finally got to the hotel I was SO happy to see Andrea was there with her group too!  I had been really calm throughout the whole thing, and then I relaxed and melted a bit.  She gave me a big hug and commiserated on my crazy evening.  My luck continued to get better when I got to my room and found that it was REALLY nice and I had a great roommate.

It was a cozy place to sleep and recharge.  :0)

Vietnam (Last Day)

My last day in Vietnam was really intense.  I spent the morning at the big city market and the afternoon at the War Remnants Museum.  Both were intense in very different ways though.  The market was busy and fun and it was quite a challenge to navigate the narrow spaces in between booths with my wheelchair.  The War Museum was so tragic it was hard for me to get my head around the pictures I was seeing.

First, the market.  I went to an ATM first thing to get some money and the machine was a little dodgy.  I'm definitely going to have to keep checking my bank account to make sure all the money (all like hundred dollars of it haha) is still there.  I went off on my own in my wheelchair which was an adventure.  People at the market were really curious about me.  They would find one of their friends who spoke English and ask me questions about why I used the chair.  Once I had a whole row of people completely captivated at my silly attempts to explain a stroke using really simple english words.  I don't know if I fully got the point across, but it was still fun/uncomfortable.  :0)  I was able to get lots of birthday and Christmakkah presents for people at the market in between awkwardly squeezing through the isles.  I met a guy who was my age and we talked for a bit about TV shows and school.  It was really fun!  

 

You'd be surprised what can be accessible when you are incredibly stubborn.  haha

I was getting hungry so I decided to get some street food.  I had heard about the popular street food item that was a sandwich made from a french roll and Vietnamese recipe filling.  A little combination left over from French colonialism.  I bough the large sandwich for only $1 and couldn't wait to try it.  It was fairly good, but had a strange gritty texture.  I still continued to munch on it.  Then my guide came over and I hesitantly asked what was in the sandwich.  Turns out it was pig skin.  Ewe.  I still ate a few more bites, but I wasn't nearly as enthused after that.  

Luckily, we got to eat at a restaurant soon after that.  The food was pretty ok, but better than pig skin.  :0P  There was some interesting fruit as well.  I don't really know what any of these were called, but they all tasted good.  

Those citrus fruit slices may look just like an orange but they were about three times bigger than any orange slice I have ever seen.

The short bus ride to the War Remnants Museum was rather somber.  I think many of us were scared of what we were about to see.  It was uncomfortable because the museum was made to focus on what the Vietnamese civilians had to go through because of the war.  

The ground floor kind of eased us into the really sad stuff.  It was mostly focusing on all the different countries who opposed the war (including protestors in the U.S.  There were lots of picketing sign pictures as well as draft burning pictures and anti-war propaganda posters.  

The second and third floor had photo collections reflecting different aspects of the war.  In the interest of time because I am so far behind from the blog I'm going to quote directly from wikipedia, "Other exhibits include graphic photographs, accompanied by short copy in English, Vietnamese and Japanese, covering the effects of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliant sprays, the use of napalmand phosphorus bombs, and atrocities such as the My Lai massacre. Curiosities include a guillotine used by the French and the South Vietnamese to execute prisoners, last in 1960, and three jars of preserved human fetuses deformed by exposure to dioxin."  I know, your opinion of me just decreased by at least 30%.  But if you saw my to do list you would understand.  :0P

Before and after agent orange and bombing.  

   The pictures were incredibly graphic and horrifying.  I had a hard time comprehending that humans did this to each other.  And I was only seeing one side of the war.  There were pictures of hysterical children, bodies in several pieces, and medics futilely trying to revive fallen soldiers.  One particularly chilling photo explained in the captain that the photographer died just seconds after it was taken due to a bomb dropping right behind him.  There was a whole other group of people who also suffered greatly and a whole other side of the war not shown in the museum (for obvious reasons).  I can't imagine anyone could walk through that museum and come out being pro-war.  I won't soon forget what I saw and learned there.

   I saved one exhibit on the ground floor for last because I knew I would need to end with some hope after being thoroughly depressed.  The section was a room full of paintings done by schoolchildren showing what they thought represented peace.  :0)  

   BAck on the ship I met up with some friends and we spent our last dong on some trinkets being sold right off the ship.  

The ship put on a spectacular BBQ for us so we could enjoy the Ho Chi Minh skyline as we cruised out of the port.