Tomorrow it's Manaus, Brazil!

It's been 4 days of class, one reading day, and Brazil day (today) since Dominica and we're already going to be arrive in Manaus, Brazil tomorrow! The Amazon is all we've seen for the past couple days and it's been smooth sailing (voyaging?) since then! We get to Manaus at 8am so it would be....2am Hawaii time I believe. Tomorrow I'm cruising around Manaus and doing all my shopping for Brazil. If I emailed you about what you want as a gift, and you want something from Brazil, email me and lmk! There are a couple of markets I heard are really great for handicrafts, wood crafts, and souvenirs. I'll be doing that all day and being a tourist! We'll see how we'll do getting around without knowing Portuguese! In the evening I'll be helping cook and eat a 4 course local meal! I'm super excited! I think we'll be making a local favorite, fish stew. I'll take lots of pictures and maybe get recipes! The next day I'll be doing a 3 day/2 night trip into the AMAZON! It's Amazon by Riverboat, so at night I'll be staying on a riverboat in hammock every night! We'll doing various things every day and night. You'll hear all about it more when I get back! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Miho

IN THE AMAZON RIVER!

Officially in the Amazon River! The water is very murky and greenish
brown...Not a great color, but it's the Amazon! =]

Miho

Busy, busy, busy! This is making up for the past few days...

I haven't written in a few days...yes yes I know, I'm sorry! I've been
pretty busy with trying to get class field trips figured out, catch up
on reading for class, work, and class itself! I'm finally starting to
get back in swing of things for school! Today is a great day, because we
enter the AMAZON RIVER! Yes, we cruise up the Amazon river to Manaus,
Brazil! I'm really excited because Brazil is just a few days away!
Apparently I heard from someone that we're the largest ship of our size
that can actually go up the Amazon river...not sure if that's true, but
thought I'd just put it out there.

Oh! Yesterday was an amazing day! We have "Reading Days" which are days
we're supposedly to catch up on reading for class (you would not believe
how much reading for each class!), but it's really a day to relax =P I
did do quite a bit of reading....while tanning on the pool deck. I also
went to work! So it was a pretty productive day I would say. Except
every time I was tanning, the rain clouds would like to come up (or I
guess we would sail up to it) and it would start raining 30-45 minutes
after I laid out! This happened 3 times...not even joking. I did get
pretty burnt though! If you know me, I don't get burnt very often, but
those 30-45 minutes of on and off clouds got me pretty red! I guess with
being on a ship with the water reflecting UV rays and also being right
at the equator does it to you! >_< You would not believe how many people
on the ship are red though....It's pretty bad. If you know the Semester
at Sea program it is mostly Caucasian dominant, so you see some pretty
bad tans in class and around the ship!

So since yesterday was a reading day, we have classes A and B today and
tomorrow. Yes, we have class on Saturdays and Sundays! The Reading Days,
Reflection Days, and Prep Days are used as spacers between long periods
before the next port. We have B classes tomorrow, then we have a "Brazil
Day" because the day after we get into Manaus. hahaha I love all the
holidays we have. It's pretty amazing! We technically only have 22 days
for each class so that would be 11 weeks of school at Manoa =P The class
field trips are supposed to make up for the short in class time though.
They say we have about a 13 week semester for SAS, which is fine
compared to the 16 weeks at Manoa! The crappy thing is I just found out
that my credits and also my grades go straight to my Manoa transcripts,
so I really can't goof off and it could be a semester where I could
boost my GPA! That's pretty much the update for everything that has been
going on. There's been many meetings and activities that we have to
attend or sometimes have a choice in attending so I've been pretty busy
other than class and work. I hardly find enough time to read for class.
Other than that, it's been really fun! =] I'll update again if I can see
us actually enter the Amazon! If not, you may not here from me till Manaus!

Miho

Dominica - Day 2! It's a day late I know....

It was Day 2 in Dominica yesterday and it wasn't as amazing as the first
day, but it was great to see more of Dominica! In the morning, a lot of
people had field trips so I ended up just catching up on my sleep until
my field trip that afternoon. I had a field trip to Emerald Pool and
then river tubing down Layou River. Emerald Pool was AMAZING. I actually
posted a picture of it on Facebook when I first found out that we were
going to Dominica instead of Cuba. After Emerald pool we took a drive to
Layou River where we would go tubing. We tubed down the river and it was
alright, nothing special, and everyone kept on getting stuck on the
rocks and going straight to the walls or branches. For the money, it
wasn't completely worth it, but Emerald Pool did make it a lot better.
We got back to the ship at 5:30 and we had to be back on by 6. Me and a
couple other girls ran to the market right next to the port and bought a
few more things and then ran to the ship and we definitely made it on
time! If you don't make it on time you get "dock time" which is if you
are 15 minutes late, you get 2 hours of dock time. So for the next port,
when everybody can get off the ship you have to wait 2 hours after the
ship clears customs to leave the ship. So if you're late like 17 minutes
you have hours of dock time which is a lot especially if we're in the
country for only a day! So we made it and there was no line so we
weren't worried.

After dinner, I felt like working out so I finally worked out on the
ship for the first time! There was no one there because everyone just
got back on. Ashley went with me and while we were on the elliptical,
the ship starting leaving port, it was really weird, but it was cool to
see Dominican city lights getting farther and farther away. Ashley and I
did ab work on the deck and the stars were above us which was super cool
and we were feeling so good we even did free weights! =] Yeah you all
would be proud of me =P

Oh yeah! I found out two stupid students got kicked off ALREADY. One was
caught smoking in their cabin and the other had a random room check
while they were in Dominica and there was weed found. Soooo dumb! But
they got kicked off immediately and when you get kicked off SAS you have
to find your own way home from that port. And there are no international
airports in Dominica. So the students have to fly to Puerto Rico then to
the US from Dominica.

So overall, Dominica was wonderful! =] So green and beautiful!

Miho

Roseau, Dominica - Day 1

In our first port! Roseau, Dominica!! I've had an amazing first day and it's crazy how similar it looks to Hawaii! Ashley and I woke up early at 6 to see us come into Roseau and watch us dock. The sun was rising then and it kind of looks like the Big Island, but the houses are more colorful and they are VERY close together. After breakfast, and after we cleared customs, we we're able to get off, but I was on a tour for BumpiingTours at 9:30 with a bunch of other SAS students. So for $42 a person we went on a 6+ hour tour to 4 different places around Roseau! With our own personal guide that literally knew EVERYTHING. I think we had the best guide out of all 3 groups. Our guide, Kelvin (Calvin?) knew the history of Roseau, as well as how every herb and plant is used for medicinal or practice uses. He was telling us about how some plants are used for soap because they become sudsy when broken up and dipped in water. There is a chocolate tea that is apparently "better than Viagra." Those are not our words, he literally said that and when people advertised Chocolate tea they had the quote "better than Viagra." Hahahaha it was hilarious! He also showed us lemongrass, bayleaf, and many others. He would just tell Asher, our driver, to stop on our way somewhere and he would get out of the van and just pick it from the side of the road. I learned a lot about the history of Dominica as well! A lot of people don't know about it or have even heard about it. Btw, it's said "Doh-mee-ni-kah" The island is mostly Catholic (about 45-50%), the rest is Anglican and others. Dominica is independent (I can't remember the year >_< I'm terrible with years!). All students are required to wear full uniforms (and we think it sucks to wear uniform shirts for public school). Scientists in Roseau are actually testing a fruit that is in Dominica to be a possible cure for HIV/AIDs. Dominica has two med schools too! Dominica is also known for their longevity. People in Dominica live a lot longer than the average. There was a woman who passed away and she was 128! Currently, in Dominica, the oldest person is a 111 yr old woman! I believe it was because of their knowledge and use of organic food and use of herbs for medicinal uses. I learned a lot more, but I seriously can't remember right now cause I'm tired.

We went through the botanical garden and everyone was amazed at the sausage tree and banyan tree. haha and we have that in KOHALA! lol The flora and fauna was really similar to Big Island and it made me miss home! It is totally weird to walk around and watch out the van, because it seriously feels like I'm driving on the way to Hilo. Oh! And the vans here and the Bahamas are way different! They have fold down seats in the aisles and sit about 15 people, so there is literally no extra room. We went to Champagne Reef and when you swim you swim through the coral reef there are bubbles coming from the reef that is caused by volcano. We then went to Titou Gorge which is where a part of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. Google it and you'll see how beautiful it is! My pictures definitely don't do it justice! Trafalgar Falls was the next stop  in which there are two huge waterfalls that are called Papa and Mama and below there are hot springs! So when we got there we went and played in the lake beneath the Mama waterfall and then jumped in the hot springs! The guide said that if you stay in the hot springs long enough "your skin will feel like a baby's bottom" and I think it worked! lol There were tiny waterfalls in the hot springs so you could just sit beneath it and have a massage! The whole experience could not have been so amazing without our tour guide. He definitely stopped at least a dozen times to show us cool little things! He could be a medicine man if he wanted to! It was all so amazing and today I TRULY realized what SAS alumni meant when they said that these 4 months will be the best times of your life! I was sitting at the base of the Mama Trafalgar waterfall and feeling like the luckiest person in the world to have this opportunity! In my head I was just thinking, "Wow, am I really here looking at this?!" the entire time today. I promised to myself that I will soak in EVERYTHING that I can! I feel like I have done it so far, but I'm so scared I'm gonna forget some things. I want to remember it as if it were a few minutes ago! We're all sad to leave Dominica tomorrow night, but then it's to the Amazon and Manaus, Brazil!

Miho

PS. I'm not posting pictures this time when I actually have wifi, because the wifi currently isn't the greatest.

Officially on our way!

As of last night at about 8pm EST we are FINALLY on our way! This means
that classes started today! I had cultural anthropology at 0800 and
gender and society at 1045! Not bad, I only have two classes a day,
because SAS runs on an A and B day schedule. Everyday we're at sea you
switch off and when you're in port you don't have classes. Both classes
seemed very interesting and I have professors from MIT and Cornell which
is such an amazing opportunity! I was done by noon and I ended starting
my first day of work as well! Only 2 hours and most of the time was
spent answering questions not even related to my position. I didn't get
much training either. Lynette, my supervisor, was just like answer
questions if you can, and if you can't, try and find the answer. I had
about 5 minutes of briefing which was just the just of what I'm supposed
to be doing.

After work, it was on to studying a little and playing catch up, because
apparently I was supposed to read before I came to my cultural
anthropology class! Then reading Labor of Love which is a book for my
Gender and Society class. It is a very interesting book and talks about
how a once female, now male, gave birth to a child and is legally
recognized as a male. I then went to dinner and sat with a group of
people who I only knew a couple people and boy did I sit with the wrong
group. The entire time we were eating, they spent talking about alcohol.
They're favorite kinds, which has the higher alcohol content, which they
should get from the bar just so they can get the drunkest they can on
the ship, getting drunk in Dominica and just getting a hotel to crash at
afterwards. People like that should not come on Semester at Sea. There
is no point traveling around the world if you won't remember it and to
spend your money on alcohol when you could be spending it on local
dishes is flat out stupid. I was quiet the entire time and left as soon
as I finished eating. This is why adults judge college students saying
they're always naive and irresponsible. >_< Ridiculous! But on a
happier note, in an hour there is going to be a pre-port briefing for
Dominica and a Explorer Seminar for "Documenting Your Voyage" which all
should be very interesting! Two more days and we'll be in Dominica and
ready to explore!

Miho

Friday, January 20th – Meetings? Fun!....NOT.

Day before classes and there are meetings all day today! =[ I'm even about to fall asleep! Since 9 this morning it's been non-stop meetings except for a break for lunch. It's now 1:30 and we have straight meetings till 5 =[ On a side note, we left Nassau!.....but we're coming back at 5:30. Hahaha We're coming back to pick up the 10 students left that have to come on board. Then we're FINALLY leaving Nassau! And we're apparently still getting to Dominica on time. Idk how, maybe we have booster jets or something. Which would make sense at where our money is going towards.

We're about to have meetings concerning health and safety, integreated learning, and faculty/student conferences. Then its' finally dinner then a learning symposium where I think I'm supposed to work and people can make new clubs and sign up for clubs. Not much happening today. So it's a short post =]

Miho

Thursday, January 19th – Everyone onboard?!

    Such an early day! A short 6.5 hours later (at 6am), I was up and getting ready to go and eat breakfast! The food doesn't seem bad on the ship, but I noticed not a lot of rice on board =/ I'm making up for with bread and butter. After breakfast, we had a short briefing about who we're going with and what we're doing during check-ins. I worked outside on the docks and getting students check-in bags ready, giving their name tags, and telling them their cabin number. It was great meeting most of the students that I'll be seeing for the next 4 months and then seeing the people I've been hanging out with all week in Nassau and Senor Frogs. I worked from 7am till noon and I was thinking it was going to be all day, but I'm glad we got let out at noon so we could go and eat lunch. I met my new roommate! Her name is Ashley and I actually met her at the Wyndham resort! So I'm glad I already knew her!

I tried to take a nap after that, but "The Voice" came on a couple of times with announcements. "The Voice" is the speaker system that is heard throughout the ship, especially in every room. I unsuccessfully tried to sleep for about an hour and then had to wake up at about 4pm to do a life boat drill! We had to change to long pants, long sleeve shirts, shoes, hats, and of course life vests! It was a whole drill and it was funny to see everyone with their life jackets, but it was a very serious drill because of what just happened in Italy with the cruise ship there. After a good hour for it, I went with Jessey guys to go and eat dinner, then we walked around the ship because some people still haven't seen it.

Oh yeah! I found out that we're actually leaving port wayyyy later than we're supposed to. There are 13 students that haven't gotten their Brazil visa (because of Pinnacle of course). So we were supposed to leave at 5pm EST January 19^th, but now we're leaving at noon EST January 20^th to accommodate for the students that are going to be flying in from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau once they get their passports and visas back. The one thing I was worried about for a while was if we were going to still be able to get to Dominica on time and they said we will. I'm excited or Dominica because I do have an independent trip planned the very first day we get there!

Miho

Wednesday, January 18th - Boarding the ship!

Today’s the day! Work study students board the MV Explorer to get settle and get ready to work check-ins the next day for all 600 students. Chelle and I finally slept in (until 9!) and got decent amount of sleep. We checked out and we were going to go to the Towne hotel to keep our baggage there until 1:30pm (about when we can board). We got to the hotel and they said we couldn’t bring it in because there were soo many bags already there. Apparently everyone else had the same idea as us. Chelle, Rafael, Eric, and I are standing outside the Towne hotel with 2 or 3 bags each with backpacks. We wanted to keep it at the Towne so that we can walk around at this straw market downtown in Nassau. We decided that some of us will go and walk around the straw market, while some of us stayed with the bags on the sidewalk of the Towne. Chelle, Eric, and I walked down to the straw market and this is a place where it’s probably the international market place in Kona. Lots of tourist items! Just walking right inside, people start talking to you and keep saying, “What do you wanna see honey? I got good price today. I’ll give you good price.” Every time you walk by someone’s little station, there are people talking to you and if you look at one thing in their station, they ask you if you want to see it. It was pretty overwhelming that everyone just kept on asking you and asking you. Also, Chelle was looking to buy a cultural item and this one lady was saying she’ll give her a good price, so we noticed you definitely have the haggle. She went from about $30 to $18. So not bad and its hard to tell what is the right price. You just have to ry and get it as low as you can. Sometimes the sellers will be a little irritated and mad because you say such a low price, but you have to learn to be a little numb to it, because you really don’t know if you’re getting a good price for the item. I didn’t buy anything because I didn’t see many things I liked except for wooden figurines. A lot of the things were rasta colored and I can get those things in Hawaii if I wanted to. I think it was just too touristy for me, but I’ve finally decided what to collect from each country! I’m going to get postcards from each country because it has the picture of what the country is famous for. Such as, the Bahamas is Atlantis. I’m also gonna collect bracelets from every country! I didn’t get one for the Bahamas though because there were so many rasta colored ones and ones that were really familiar to Hawaii.

At about 1:30pm, we lugged our bags from the taxi to the ship and finalllyy boarded the MV Explorer! My cabin number is 3313 and I’m pretty much at the very front of the ship on Deck 3. My room is pretty small and it’s actually for 4 people, but I have no idea how they would fit that any people! My roommate wasn’t there because she wasn’t work study. It is bunk bed style with two beds on the floor and above both beds there are fold down beds. Our bathroom is TINY! Our shower is literally triangle shaped and when I showered you had to move the shower head away and then move it back when you wanted to use it. There is minimal storage space but there are 4 closets to accommodate all 4 people. I picked the bottom right bunk when looking at the room from the front door.

We all ate dinner, and some of us got off the ship and went to the Towne hotel to catch up on blogs and emails. I got back about 10:30pm and went to go and finish unpacking but shortly thereafter, got over it and threw everything in a small drawer under my bed… I’ll get to it later =P

Miho

Snorkeling with SHARKS!

Yes, yes, I snorkeled with sharks! Day 3 in the Bahamas and with our Wyndham Resort deal, we get a free excursion. Chelle, Ariel, Rafael, Eric and I decided to do the snorkeling deal! We took about a 45 minute drive from the Wyndham to the Southwest side of Nassau. It was a bumpy road, but we got to see a lot of Nassay that way! We went with a company called Stuart's Cove. We take a boat ride to 3 different diving spots. The first one is of a plane wreck in the ocean from a movie set. I believe the movie was one of the Jaws movies. I just can't remember exactly which one >_< Near it there were coral reefs and tons of fish! They looked like the fish from Hawaii so nothing too amazing. The second one was a spot with more coral reefs and there was one fish that was supppperr colorful. I couldn't get a good picture of it though. I was really excited to use my waterproof camera for this trip and I got some pretty amazing pictures (below). The third spot we were in very deep ocean and the company lowered a bait box 30 ft below the boat and we hung onto a buoy line and watching the sharks below. i didn't notice it till later but Ariel said there was a shark swimming behind us but kind of far! I probably would've freaked out if I had seen it. There was one fish that was swimming right by us; pretty much grazing us. It looked really creepy and you'll see it in a picture below. Ariel and I were freaking out and even let go of the line a little bit because it was right by our face! The sharks below were pretty cool and I'm glad I got in the water! We were all saying how we're so amazed that we're here and sad to leave tomorrow. The Bahamas has been amazing to us and it's just on to the next place which is DOMINICA! =] Happy traveling!

Atlantis for the day!

First of all, I got to the Bahamas safe and sound! With a little craziness with my connecting flight from Alaska Airlines to BahamasAir, but good thing BahamasAir is pretty lax about being late. I feel like they waited for everyone to get to the plane. I got to Nassau at about 11am their time and I get there to see Chelle, Suse, and Jessey! They got in at 9am (the time I was supposed to get in) and I was supposed to go with them over to the hotels, but they waited for me! For TWO HOURS! So grateful to have already be surrounded by nice people that I haven’t even met yet! Chelle and I went to the Wyndham resort and Suse and Jessey went to the Towne hotel. The taxi ride there was interesting. Crazed college students just being amazed at everything we see! There were some parts that reminded me of Hawaii because of the beach being right there next to the road with tons of palm and coconut trees.

After Chelle and I checked in to our amazing room with ocean view, queen beds, and flat screen tv, we crashed out for a good 4 hours. Then Senor Frogs we went! Semester at Sea’s reunion voyage was at Senor Frogs too because it’s close to the docks. Once they found out that all 6 of us were going on Semester at Sea, they all started freaking out (probably more because of the alcohol) and telling us we would have the most amazing trip of our life and that it’ll change us forever. We all started to get really nervous and anxious because about 7 people came up to us and started giving us all kinds of advice. It was a good night and we also met a lot of SAS students for our own voyage and we made a lot of connections of names from Facebook to the people that were standing right in front of us.

The next day it was finally The Atlantis! Thank you Kaiser ‘Ohana for giving us this wonderful gift! Chelle, Suse, Jessey, and I used the free passes! Ariel, a girl we met just that morning, has always dreamed of going to the Atlantis, so she ended up getting a pass too! The architecture of the Atlantis was amazing! Soo much detail went into the whole resort it was pretty crazy! We went through "The Dig" which is the aquarium part and it was crazy how big some of the fish were and there was a touch tank! Water slides? AMAZING! We went on every single slide and it took forever to go on every single one. We kept on finding more and more slides everywhere we turned. There was a slide that you were on a innertube and at the very end you go through the shark tank all around you. Atlantis was overall  AMAZING. I would love to go back there one day! It was an incredible day and it couldn't have been more perfect!

Sorry I forgot to rotate the pics and was too lazy to upload it again.

Miho