Panama Canal

I’m not sure any of us really grasped the scale of the canal itself before we saw it with our own eyes. The locking system that are basically compartments where water levels can be raised to elevate ships or lower them, was dreamed up by brilliant engineers over 100 years ago is amazing. The Panama Canal is a man-made canal which joins the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and is 51 miles with a series of 3 locks that raise ships 26 metres to the Gatun Lake. One then just continues south through a channel in the Gatun Lake for 32 miles to Gamboa, where the Culebra Cut begins. The Pedro Miguel locks then lower ships 9.4 metres to a lake which then takes you to the Miraflores Locks which again lowers ships 16 metres to sea level. There are 3 locks in total and the scenery around the Canal is beautiful with enormous palm trees and other tropical vegetation. Saw 2 crocodiles plus loads of birds. A wonderful Panamanian lecturer came on board and gave us a very history of the Canal and she pointed out various points of interest en route. It was a really great day. In the evening we had the Ambassador's Ball which was great fun and it was so nice to see all the students so elegantly dressed. We have a final cocktail party tomorrow night and then disembark on Wednesday after lunch.

Guatemala

Our final destination was Guatemala and we decided to visit Antigua where we stayed for 2 nights. We joined 15 students in a shared taxi which was somewhat hair-raising at times, but drove through pretty countryside with sugar cane fields and coffee plantations. Antigua sits in a valley of Guatemala and is overlooked by 3 spectacular Volcanoes (Agua Volcano is 3,765 meters high). From our hotel bedroom window we could see the other two volcanoes - "Acatenango" and the apparently always smoking, sometimes erupting, "Fuego". Antigua is a lovely well preserved colonial city with its cobbled streets,houses and hotels with huge courtyards. We saw many Mayan people who constitute a diverse range of the Native American people from Southern Mexico and North Central America. They all wear very colorfully costumes and sell their handmade products that honor their traditions. The Mayan women carry their babies in brightly colored papooses, and wear "Huipils" which are weaved blouses that have very complex brocaded patterns in beautiful colors. We visited one of the many markets in Antigua and went to a textile museum where we watched the Mayan women weaving on foot pedaled wooden looms. Our first night we went to a wonderful hotel for dinner. It had a huge courtyard which was filled with wonderful flowering tropical plants. During a great meal we were entertained by a marimba band after which 6 traditional dancers appeared wearing masks, antlers and highly decorated costumes and proceeded to perform the Mayan Holy Deer dance which entailed shaking rattles and very energetic dancing. All the diners were fascinated to see this dancing and I was somewhat aghast when one of the performers pulled me onto the dance floor to join them. The shaking of the rattle wasn't too taxing, but the actual dancing was exhausting but great fun. The following day we explored the town and as we walked towards La Merced which is a mustard colored church on a lively little square we saw a large procession of people celebrating a saint's day with a band, fireworks and a life-size statue of the Virgin Mary carried shoulder high on a platform. It was a fun 2-days in Guatemala and although we had all been warned about possible dangers especially in some of the rural areas, everyone had a great time and felt very safe.



Coffee Beans

Aloha Hawaii !!

To date, the MV Explorer has called at 14 different ports in 11 countries. We have one more stop to go and we will have circumnavigated the globe. Unbelievable!

Having docked in Honolulu we joined a wonderful bus tour around the island. (Hawaii is the most isolated land mass on the planet being 2,500 miles from any other land) Visited Diamond Head Crater where one gets a spectacular view of all the many beaches. Saw two hump-back whales
off the coastline of Makapuu Point. Stopped off at a rain forest at the top of Mt. Tantalus. Saw where Obama was born and where he graduated. Also saw where some of the very wealthy Americans have second homes on the island. Frangipani trees were everywhere. Many of the Hawaiian Leis are made from these wonderfully scented flowers. Glorious weather with the luxury of trade winds to cool things down. In the afternoon we took the local bus to Pearl Harbor where we were initially shown a very interesting film telling the story of the politics, the people and the attack on Pearl Harbor.We then took a short boat ride over to the Memorial. A visit to the USS Arizona Memorial is a very solemn and sobering experience, even for those who were not alive when the attack occurred (Me!). One is literally standing over a grave site where 1177 men lost their lives on December 7th 1941. 2390 men, women and children were killed - half of whom were on board the USS Arizona. This was the greatest loss of life in a single day by any ship in the US naval history. There are more than 900 men still entombed in the hull of the Arizona. One can still see several pieces of debris in the sea from the Arizona. The USS Arizona held approximately 1.5 million gallons of bunker oil. The ship apparently burned for 2½ days and currently the ship still leaks 2 quarts of oil each day. It was all quite eerie to see.

On a lighter note, the next day we spent on the beach at Waikiki. The boardwalk is full of very expensive shops and hotels. The beach,although quite narrow, has lovely white sands, crystal clear aquamarine color sea and is overlooked by Diamond Head Crater.We spent the whole day swimming in the sea, people watching, and enjoying seeing the many skillful surfers. We were amused to see one surfer who took his dog on the board with him - at one stage the surfer fell but the dog stayed on the board. Had a wonderful lunch at the Moana Hotel overlooking the ocean.This hotel was built in the late 19th century as the first hotel in Waikiki. In the center of the Hotel's courtyard there's an enormous Banyan tree. This tree was apparently seven feet tall when planted back in 1904 and now stands 75 feet high and spans 150 feet across the courtyard. There were huge bougainvillea bushes everywhere as well as other tropical plants.

We found the Hawaiian people very friendly with an interesting mix of cultures. Although the written Hawaiian language is based on English letters, there are only 8 consonants and five vowels. Honolulu has an excellent bus service and it's very cheap and easy to get around. Because we only had a 2-day stay in Hawaii we weren't able to get to see Kileaua Volcano on Hawaii's Big Island which has the world's most active volcano. We will have to be content with watching it on the TV Travel Channel.

Gus finished his lectures today and is now working on final exams. So this amazing voyage is nearing the end. Last night with had another "dark night" which is when all the ship's exterior lights are turned off so one gets a spectacular view of the thousands of stars. We arrive in Guatemala on Tuesday and will spend a night in Antigua which apparently is well worth a visit. We leave Guatemala on Thursday and travel through the Panama Canal onto Fort Lauderdale.





















Pearl Harbor

Springtime in Japan

Our Japanese visit began in Kobe which is a very cosmopolitan port city which was rocked by a disastrous earthquake back in 1995 causing over 5100 deaths. It is now a sprawling modern city with skyscrapers, monorails,wonderful shopping arcades and restaurants.

We decided to be adventurous (plus we were somewhat "templed-out" having seen so many shrines and temples) so we decided to explore Mount Rokko (931 meters). We took the cable car to the top. Wonderful view of the city and the plentiful cherry blossoms which were in full bloom.
We then decided to walk down. A possible mistake !! It took us 90 "long" minutes to climb down the mountain clambering over rocks, branches of trees etc. We were amazed to meet 2 mountain bikers en route who were literally flying over the bumpy terrain. Toward the end of our climb
down we met an elderly Japanese man who was watching us gingerly manoever our way down, and very graciously offered me his walking stick. (he was at least 80 but was obviously fitter than I was!) Our next day in Kobe we wandered around the city hoping to loosen our very stiff legs.

We then had one day of sailing up to Yokohama which is a far more attractive city with numerous parks filled with tulips, very attractive buildings. Early that morning we caught the bullet train up to Toyko where my nephew - Robert - met us. That train journey was amazing not only from the speed of the train, but it is so luxurious and literally glides along the rails. Robert works and lives in Toyko so was able to give us a wonderful tour of the city. We walked around the lovely parks surrounding the Emperior's Imperial Palace. Went to the 52nd floor of
the Mori Tower Building where the view is just spectacular.
We then visited Shibuyi which is like Time Square with highly decorated neon advertisements and giant video screens and thought to be the busiest pedestrian crossing in world - (think of Time Square and multiple the number of people by at least a thousand). There are 5 or 6 roads coming into the Square, all traffic stops at the same time, and pedestrians swarm across like ants! Before going out to dinner we went to Robert's apartment which has 2-bedrooms and a great view of the city. Having been offered a "luxurious" bath I was intrigued to see Robert push a button while sitting in the lounge, enquire what temperature I'd like the bath, then sit back with a drink until we heard the sound of a buzzer which indicated my bath was ready. The huge tub was filled with water and Robert explained that this was a "wet bathroom" which meant all the overflow bath water simply drained away. The adjacent shower was completely open and again the water just drained away from the floor.The separate toilet took some getting used to with 3 buttons offering gentle music, a bidet and a blow-dryer plus a lovely warm seat. Apparently Japan spends thousands of dollars on bathroom/toilet research. They are fastidious about hygiene - even if one orders a drink at a bar, a warm towel to wash one's hands is given out.

In the evening Robert took us to a theme restaurant called "Ninja". The entire restaurant is designed in the image of a ninja house, complete with secret passageways, drawbridges, waterfalls. Food is served by a “ninja” who also performs magic tricks for diners. It was a really fun experience. (Gus's appetizer arrived with a gush of steam created by dry ice on a shrimp filled grapefruit base with a Ninja sword through it.... very different!).Two of Gus's students were at another restaurant in Tokyo and sitting at the next table was John McCain who recognized the US accents and came over and talked to them and was very interested to learn about Semester at Sea. The following morning we took the bullet train back to Yokohama and had final look around before sailing that evening. The very first impression one gets of Japan is the gracious,polite, helpful people. Although one hears little or no English, the people go out of their way to help. We experienced several occasions when people stopped to help us. It's amazing how well one can communicate with one's hands. The other very immediate thing one notices in Japan is how beautifully dressed both men and women are. All the men wear very nice dark suits with white shirts & ties and the ladies wear beautifully tailored suits and high-heeled shoes.

We would have liked to have seen Mount Fuji but there just wasn't enough time - Japan is certainly a country worth visiting for its wonderful culture and gracious people.





Gus, Sue & Robert at restaurant













Gus's steaming grapefruit/shrimp appetizer, complete with sword!

Shanghai, China

People everywhere, endless Rolex Watch sellers and washing/laundry hanging from any and every possible line, pole or even branches of nearby trees - those will certainly be some of the memories of our 2-day visit to Shanghai. On every street corner someone is to trying to sell you a "genuine" (?) Rolex watch. One of the faculty bought 6 watches for $15.00 yesterday. According to our guide they're known as 7-day watches!
We enjoyed a city orientation tour - visited the Yu Gardens which is fully restored classical Chinese garden with lotus ponds, winding paths, canals, arched stone bridges and cobbled lanes. A very interesting, albeit touristy, visit. We then went to the Old Bazaar which is a maze of
curio and souvenier shops plus loads of open-air restaurants. After lunch we took a walk along the historic Shanghai Bund which is a seven mile long boulevard and gives one a fabulous view of all the enormous buildings overlooking the Huangpu river. It was interesting to see the various shapes and decorations on top of all the skycrapers - they ranged from flowers opening, to balls, spikes, and crenellations and are brightly lit up at night.

We then visited the Jade Buddha Temple which is an active temple with 70 resident working monks. We watched, and listened to 4 sets of monks worshipping/chanting. The temple was built between 1911 and 1918 in the style of the Song Dynasty, with symmetrical halls and courtyards,
upturned eaves, and bright yellow walls. Inside the centerpiece is a 1.9-meter-high white jade Buddha. The seated Buddha, encrusted with jewels, is said to weigh about one thousand kilograms.(We both sighed when we heard that we had yet another visit to a temple, but this one was really spectacular). We then did a tour of the Shanghai Museum where there are 120000 precious works of art including bronzes,ceramics, jades, and a wonderful display of Ming and Qing-dynasty furniture. It's divided up into ten sections and you could certainly spend all day looking at everything displayed.

In the evening we went to the Shanghai Center Theater and watched an amazing acrobat show. It was incredible. We have seen acrobatic shows before but this was the best. The show has been performed all over the world - it's a combination of traditional Chinese acrobatics with
modern performance techniques and great dancing.

What we didn't witness were the millions of Chinese in the sweat shops and struggling to survive in the rural areas. However, there was a lot of evidence of amazing growth and development and our brief trip to Shanghai was very interesting and enjoyable. There was certainly a drop in temperatures after steamy Saigon but it was great to be able to walk around comfortably. We are now en route to Kobe (Japan). Before we arrive in each country we have very interesting talks from inter-port lecturers. The 2 Japanese lecturers this morning wore wonderful colored kimonos and gave us very useful info and tips on the very different culture we will find in Japan.




Anyone for lunch ?

Pictured at a sidewalk restaurant

Fabulous Hong Kong !

Hong Kong itself is divided into four main areas – Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories plus the Outlying Islands. We arrived in Kowloon in glorious sunshine and after a walk along the famous Nathan Road which is packed with little shops, we took the Star Ferry across to Hong Kong Island. The Star Ferry service operates four lines across Victoria Harbour and has been in operation for over 120 years, providing a panoramic view of Hong Kong's skyline for its 53,000 daily passengers. It's incredibly cheap and a fun way to travel. There are also loads of tunnels and overhead passes and the traffic, albeit plentiful, runs very smoothly. Amazing selection of cars (Maserati's, Mercedes, BMW's) most of which are chauffeured driven. People in the business areas are very well dressed in suits and ties and the women wear very expensive looking oufits.

The height of some of the skyscrapers is just amazing (the International Finance Center is 88 storeys high - 1,362 ft tall) We took a walk around three of the lower floors which are filled with very upmarket restaurants and shops, plus enormous water features and flowering plants) Helicopters are continuously flying over the bay dropping off businessmen at their various offices.

Our SA friends collected us and we firstly went to Aberdeen which is on the south shore of Hong Kong where we had tea at the Boat Club. I had been in Aberdeen over 30 years ago and remembered it to full of boat people living and working on junks. These have since been flushed
out and very luxurious yachts and motorboats are there now. There's also a floating seafood restaurant which is very popular.Our friends then took us for a lovely drive around the area - fabulous views of the many various bays and islands (as well as the Kowloon peninsula there are over 236 islands surrounding Hong Kong which are very popular and easily accessible) We then went to their lovely townhouse in the New Territories area which is more of a peaceful rural area in Hong Kong, as opposed to the incredibly hectic area of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula.
The New Territories is a very picturesque with loads of trees and certainly a much slower pace of life. It's very easily accessible to get down to a very nice little beach. In the evening we all went down to the local village of Sai Kung which has a number of restaurants and bars. The blocks of apartments in some areas are amazing - just thousand upon thousand of enormous blocks. I think the first impression one gets of Hong Kong is the number of people - they're just like "ants" - everywhere. The streets are packed and most have brightly colored advertising signs strung across the roads.We were dropped off at the Stanley Market the following morning.This market was great fun - full of small stalls selling anything from goldfish to flowers to every article of clothing one could imagine. It attracts all the locals who buy
their daily fresh fruits and vegetables. After a good look around we returned to Kowloon on the top of a double decker bus which was a very interesting 30 minute ride through spectacular scenery.

Hong Kong's education system roughly follows the system in England, although at the higher education levels, both English and American systems exist. The medium of instruction is mainly spoken Cantonese, written Chinese and English. The city's transit system, MTR, has 150
stations and serves 3.4 million people a day. We discovered it to be amazing - very fast and clean and relatively easy to understand.

Our last evening we found a wonderful restaurant overlooking the harbor after which we walked up to the The Peninsula Hotel which is rated as "one of the world's legendary grand hotels". Gosh, it was like stepping into another world - wonderful furnishings, high very ornate ceilings, fabulous, enormous flower arrangements. We sat in the lounge beneath the neo-classical arches and had coffee while listening to a great string quartet who were performing in the minstrels gallery. The hotel has a fleet of signature Rolls-Royces, which can be hired by guests plus a helipad for those arriving by helicopter. (We walked !!) All too soon it was time to leave Hong Kong - we could have spent much longer as it is a fascinating very vibrant place to visit. We are now en route to Shanghai.

Vietnam

Our first day in Ho Chi Minh city (formerly known as Saigon) we visited the History Museum which documents the evolution of Vietnam's various cultures which was very interesting. We then watched a water puppet performance which dates back to the 11th century. The puppets are made out of wood and then lacquered. The shows are performed in a waist-deep pool. A large rod supports the puppet under the water and is used by the puppeteers to control them. Thus the puppets appear to be moving over the water. It was fun and very different. Apparently when the rice fields would flood, the villagers would entertain each other using this form of puppet play. Ho Chi Minh is much more cosmopolitan than the rest of the country, with 5-star hotels and very expensive shops and lovely parks. The sidewalks and streets are full of people and vendors selling and making all sorts of things. The two very first impressions one gets is the tremendous heat and humidity - perspiration literally drips off one. The second is the number of motorcycles (4 million of them ! The average cost of a motorcycle is $3000 so a relatively cheap means of transport). It's very common to see a family of 4 on one bike. They wear smog masks over their mouths, usually wear sunglasses and then their helmets - very strange when first seen. We had been warned about trying to cross a road among the sea of motorcylists. It's really
one of those things which you have to experience to understand. As mentioned, there are 4 million motorcylces in Saigon and one sees very few cars and buses. There are very few traffic lights so the key to cross a road is to walk slowly and consistently so the motorcycles can weave
around you. Quite a hair-raising experience at first. There are literally thousands of tailors who can make a made-to-measure outfit in 24 hours or less. One of our staff members here had her silk wedding dress made within a 24 hour period. I had a dress made but was slightly aghast when being measured to be told I was "XL" size. However the fully lined dress is great and cost $25.

We spent the following day in the Mekong Delta which is the region in Southeast Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of tributaries. The canal network was built for the cultivation of rice, fish, soybeans, maize, peanuts and tobacco. It was a very interesting 2-hour drive and having been taken to the other side of the river by boat we visited a traditional farmer's home and fruit orchard where we sampled some of the exotic tropical fruits. We were then taken for a ride in a wooden canoe - not much in the way of birdlife but a fun ride.

Many faculty and students flew to Cambodia where they visited the Killing Fields and saw the mass graves of more than 17000 men, women and children. Their only crime being that they were educated. Photographs of these genocidal events line the walls of former school rooms. All
very gruesome and depressing. We visited the War Atrocities Museum where there were tanks, helicopters, planes and arms on display. It is certainly not for the feint hearted. The full horrors of armed conflict are there on the walls for everyone to see. I don't think any of us were aware as to just how barbaric it actually was. Agent Orange was the nickname given to the herbicide used by the Americans to clear the forestation that provided cover to the the Viet Cong fighters. Containing Dioxin, one of the the deadliest chemicals known to man, the herbicide caused untold suffering to the hundreds of thousands of people that came into contact with it. Nearly 11 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed on North Vietnam during the conflict. Many died of cancer, many were born with deformities. Really horrific!

We visited several excellent restaurants. Vietnamese food is bland in comparison to Thai and Indian food. The first restaurant we visited was on the 14th floor of a hotel which gave us a wonderful view of the city. When our meal arrived the waitress demonstrated how we should eat - e.g. firstly place lettuce onto a sheet of rice paper, followed by the noodles, followed by the meat or fish. This is then wrapped up and ends up looking like a spring roll. Finally one can dip this into various sauces (soy etc.)

Our visit to Vietnam was certainly incredibly interesting. We were just amazed at what a modern prosperous city Saigon is. There are new buildings, enormous new bridges all being erected everywhere. It is a very clean city despite the number of people. We didn't see any beggars and everyone was friendly and helpful. When we first arrived there were traditional Vietnamese dressed ladies dancing for us holding a large banner welcoming "Semester at Sea".


Modern electricity distribution ?















Gus & 2 waitresses














Vietnamese Street Vendor