“Dreaming of the Osaka sun…. Dreaming, of when the morning comes”

I simply cannot wait to wake up under the Japan sun.
But for now we’re once again in the middle of the Pacific ocean… and I really can’t complain. Instead of being bored like I thought I’ve actually not had enough time to do everything! It’s crazy how much there is happening on the ship at all times…. Every day there’s either yoga, aerobics, zumba, meditation, salsa, etc etc plus different “seminars” like origami making or learning Chinese, and the endless planning and researching we have to do for traveling. Luckily schoolwork seems to be the least priority even of the professors, who would rather have us learn from interactions and activities and experiences. I wish all school was like this.
Also, fun fact: last night I went to sleep on Tuesday, February 2nd, and a few hours later woke up on Thursday, February 4th. No Wednesday for us! I still don’t fully understand how the International Dateline works but yesterday we crossed it at about 1:30pm and apparently we didn’t exist in any time. So anyhow even though we lost yesterday, the good news is that we get 24 extra hours of sleep which happen about every other night. So that’s nice :)
Well I totally forgot that I never updated this about Hawaii… I guess it’s been 6 days since leaving but I feel like I’ve done nothing but write about it. I have about 4 other journals for my classes plus my own journal so it’s hard to remember where I’ve written what! Anyway, I’m sure you can guess that it was an amazing time. A bunch of us slept out on the deck the night before we reached Hilo, and woke up around 4am to see the city lights as we finally came in! Allyn and I didn’t really have expectations or a plan for the day so we just ran off the ship and decided to explore the town. We rode the public bus around to a black sand beach where I saw a sea turtle hanging out in a tide pool! Then we got a ride with some crazy lady named Theresa to downtown Hilo. I don’t really know what I expected Hilo to be but it wasn’t whatever I expected. And I loved it! It’s not a huge built-up city and it’s a little run down, but it has such a cool vibe and it’s all about the locals. We were stopped so many times and asked if we were from the “floating school” and all the locals were so fascinated by it. I think we must have been the only tourists in the whole city so they all knew about us.
We wandered around town for a while and wanted to eat where all the locals go, so someone recommended this Hawaiian fast food place… which is not at all like our fast food. Allyn got this typical Hawaiian “bowl” that consisted of rice on the bottom, then a hamburger, an over-easy egg, and gravy on top of it all. It was quite interesting….
After exploring for a while and talking to so many friendly people we took the necessary bus ride to Walmart… where we literally spent about 2 hours and saw at least 60 SAS kids. But we came out of it with Pocahontas and a little chocolate so I’d say it was a success.
The next morning Allyn and our friends Haley and Becca decided to get a ride to Akaka falls… which is absolutely beautiful and I wish I could post a picture! We then rode back downtown and learned how to standup paddleboard in the bay. It was so much fun and easier than I expected. This guy’s two sons took us out and we paddled over to a bridge and jumped off a few times. It was a gorgeous day and it felt so nice to be in the water after staring at it for 10 days. We paddled out into the bay which was a little choppy…. we had a couple entertaining falls but overall it was pretty successful. At one point we were just paddling along and really enjoying the moment and allyn goes, “wow, this is what you guys get to do every day… what a life” and in my head I was like yeah, this is such a beautiful place and we’re having so much fun…. And one of the guys just looks at us and goes “you guys are traveling the world on a boat….” And we were like Oh yeahhh.. It’s funny how we just forget about how lucky we are sometimes because it all just seems ridiculous and unreal.
Hilo was definitely an experience that I didn’t expect, but I really enjoyed their culture and friendliness and how it wasn’t just a big tourist city.
Honolulu was completely the opposite, but I loved my time there just as much! The city is beautiful and wayyy bigger than I expected it to be… I felt like I could be in Hollywood or Las Vegas. I wish I knew where exactly you had lived Grandma- I’m sure it looks completely different now. The first morning some of us rode the bus to Pearl Harbor, which was pretty incredible to see. Then Allyn, Lawrence (our neighbor!) and I decided to make the epic journey on the bus to Hanauma Bay. Waiting for buses and having to transfer took a while, but we finally made it and it was absolutely stunning and worth the trip. We grabbed some snorkel gear and literally ran into the water and found ourselves in the middle of a coral reef filled with colorful fish and sea turtles! It was so neat to swim so close to the turtles and fish. This might possibly have been the prettiest beach I’ve ever been to… and once again I wish I could post my pictures. I’ll find a way somehow. So we spent the rest of the day there until the park closed, and rode the bus back to Waikiki where we walked along the beach and ate at this really nice hotel restaurant where our waiter told us that half of the things on the menu sucked. I thought our dinners were delicious. We spent the rest of the night hanging out on the beach with a bunch of SAS kids. And eventually made it back to the ship.
Our last day in Honolulu we spent surfing, laying on the beach, and savoring real fresh food before leaving it again for 10 days. Surfing was of course awesome… 5 of us took lessons from an old toothless guy named Mad-dog (and I’m really glad I took lessons because the waves are totally different than in NC!) and I got up on every wave!! The waves break really far out so it was awesome to have a long ride in. We had to paddle a long ways down the beach and then out to where the waves break so it was definitely more of an arm workout than I’ve ever had. I felt that for about 4 days after. Anywho the lessons were for sure worth it and put me in a fantastic mood for the rest of the day (not that I wouldn’t be otherwise). We walked down the beach in Waikiki and found some of our friends laying out so we soaked in the sun for a while, swam in the turquoise ocean, and then went out to eat our last fresh meal. Me and Allyn split a deliciously fresh salad with curried chicken and a mahi mahi taco spinach wrap, which I know sounds dumb but it was heaven to us. I really just miss fresh food and fresh fruit…. I’m really not a picky eater but the food in our dining hall just has this old smell to it.. and nothing is ever fresh. AND we can’t bring fruit on the ship! But I’ll stop complaining.
So as you could expect Hawaii was an amazing time….. a nice relaxing “weekend” and break from our hard life at sea…. =P After remembering what land was like I was pretty reluctant to get back on the ship knowing we had an even longer trip to Japan. The funny thing is though my body never adjusted back to being on land…. I was constantly rocking and swaying back and forth.
Surprisingly the days back at sea have been flying by, and like I said I don’t even have enough time to do everything! Tonight we were rushing through Japan guidebooks and Wikipedia-ing everything we could…. This is definitely going to be an adventure like I’ve never had before and trying to meet up with people in a huge city like Tokyo will be interesting. I’ve honestly never thought of Japan as a place I’d love to travel to but the more I think about it, the more we talk about it, and the more I realize that we’re almost there makes me SO excited. I sometimes just get random moments in the middle of nowhere where I just start freaking out in my head with excitement. Once again, it’s just not real! And basically before Japan we have to have all of China figured out because we only have 1 day on the ship in between! And after China….. it’s just going to be like bang bang bang with every country.. it’s hard to even believe it. I really wish I could better express my thoughts on here but I can hardly express them in my head.
I know there’s a ton I forgot to write about and a ton more that my pictures could tell you, but I promise to update while in Japan or right after. The photography club is trying to get a photo-blog linked to the SAS site where you can see all our best pictures so I’ll post a link to that as soon as it happens. Sooooo, I was going to say goodbye in Japanese but all I’ve learned so far is Konichiwa, which is not goodbye. I’ll be fluent when I get back though.
So goodbye finally America, hello world :)

-Michele
PS.. Good news- I am no longer an orphan! I now have a shipboard family and my mother is the lady with the worst Southern accent who is the speaker on all the ship announcements. Buttt we have family dinners every now and then and she got our family a huge platter of fresh cookies. So I like her!