So we are going to be in Vietnam in the morning and I am just now starting my blog on Malaysia! I had a finance test today and I have spent every waking hour studying for it, so hopefully it paid off, I won’t know till after Vietnam. And we also have our next global studies test right after Vietnam… yay! On the bright side we actually gained an hour last night which was amazing and I got my laundry back! So now back to Malaysia, I’ll try to write as much as I can but I’m short on time.
Day 1:
I got up and went to breakfast and my Kuala Lumpur trip was supposed to meet in the union at 8:30 so that we could leave on a tender at 9. My roommate and some other friend were doing this trip as well so I was pretty excited. So we check in and find out because there are so many people they split us into two hotels and everyone I knew was in a different hotel. So I wasn’t too thrilled about that and then we ended up sitting in the union for almost 2 hours before the ship was cleared. We finally head down to the tender which would take us to land! The tenders we used are actually the lifeboats on the ship. So we got on the bus and our tour guide gave us the plan for the day and the four hour bus ride was really close to six but we would be stopping for lunch which would help break it up. Penang, where we were docked, is actually an island so the first thing we had to do was drive across a bridge, which is actually the third longest in the world at a length of 13.5 kilometers. So that was really cool. I fell asleep after this but when I woke up the scenery was so beautiful. There were beautiful green trees and mountains all around us.
We stopped for lunch at a really nice Chinese restaurant. They first brought out tea and soup and then they started bringing out all different huge plates of food for each table to share. It was all really good and fruit was for desert and I had some really good mango. We loaded back on the bus for the rest of the drive and I think we made one more stop before we got to KL where I bought some snacks. We got into the city and we got our first glimpse of the Petronas towers which was really exciting. I believe they are the highest twin towers in the world. We pulled up to our hotel which was across from the Times Square mall and right next to 7-11 and Starbucks. I found another girl who also wanted to go to the other hotel and we put our stuff in our room and went over to the Times Square mall to meet up with some people from the other hotel. From there we walked to the other hotel which wasn’t too far and decided to just take their bus to dinner.
The bus took us to the Sri Melayu Restaurant for dinner. There was a huge buffet with all different Malaysian food. I even tried durian which is a fruit that smells really bad. They actually had fake fruits on display because the real one would stink up the whole place. Supposedly it smells bad but tastes good, but I did not like it at all. Once we got our food there was a cultural show for about 45 minutes. I got back on the bus to my hotel for the night and just showered and went to bed.
Day 2:
I woke up and went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I had this chocolate cereal that they also had in India which is so good! After this I got on the bus for a tour of the city. The first stop was the Royal Palace. The King lives here, but he doesn’t really have a political power. The one power our guide told us about was the king’s ability to pardon someone. There are guards out front and they have a change of guards every half hour or hour, but it didn’t happen while we were there. We did get to take pictures next to them though. From here we went to the National Museum, but it was under construction so only one level was open. We still got to see some cool things there though. After this we went to the Lake Garden and National Monument. The National Monument was actually designed by the same person that did the one in the US. The monument was really beautiful and I was really glad we got to see it. We walked down to the garden from the monument and then got back on the bus. After this we went to a spot where we could all get out and get a good picture of the Petronas towers. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to go up in them, but we went to the KL tower next and got to go up and get a nice view of the city.
From here we went to the central market for lunch. This was another Chinese restaurant that was really good. I found Andi and Amy and we decided to stay at this market instead of going back to the hotel on the bus. We shopped around some and got some gelato, yum! From here we caught a cab to Chinatown. Everything was so cheap I could have spent hours there. I got a dress and some shirts and some other stuff I can’t remember. We went back to my hotel and got my things so I could just stay at their hotel and then we walked to theirs. The semester at sea group was going two hours away for dinner where there were fireflies, but we decided not to go because we didn’t want to go on the long drive and Andi and I don’t like seafood and that’s what the food was going to be. So we took a short nap and decided we had enough cultural food and we wanted pizza hut. So we asked the hotel where the nearest one was and they kind of laughed at us and pointed us in somewhat of the right direction. We passed more Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC, 7-11s and other places from back home on the way. The next day they were having the Formula 1 race so we passed a stage where they were going to have a concert. I was also in Durban South Africa when they were having the Formula 1, it’s following us! After our delicious pizza we walked back to the hotel and watched some American Idol that we found on TV. We ran into some other SASers that were going to this club called the Beach and went with them there for a little bit and then came back and went to bed.
Day 3:
We woke up and got breakfast at the hotel and then walked over to the Times Square mall. The first thing we did was get some Starbucks. Then we looked around the mall for a while before we had to head back to the hotel. We went back and packed all out stuff for the trip back and got on the bus. Before we left KL we went to lunch at a restaurant in one of the hotels nearby. This was another Chinese place like the one from the first day, but the food wasn’t nearly as good. The best part was the fried rice. We got back on the buses to Penang and I slept most of the way. The process of tendering back to the ship was horrible. We had about 75 people on a tender with backpacks full of stuff and they always search you when you get back on the ship. So they were letting 10 on at a time and the rest of us were stuck waiting on the rocking tender. After about 30 minutes I finally got off and they weren’t serving dinner anymore, but they ended up making sandwiches for the people on our trip which was nice. After this we watched some CSI that someone bought in Chinatown and then went to bed.
Day 4:
We wanted to go to an internet café so we asked a taxi driver to take us one and he takes us to this mall which is pretty far away and it didn’t even end up having one. So we got some Starbucks again which was really good and then looked around for a camera for my friend Amy because hers had broke in Mauritius. We then stumbled across a movie theater and decided to see 27 dresses. It only cost $3 and it was nicer then any theater I had been to in the US. There is assigned seating so you pick out your seats when you buy the tickets. The movie was really good and it was nice to do something that reminded me of being back home. Next the mall had a Forever 21 so we had to check it out, but it was way more expensive than the ones in the US. We went to TGI Fridays for lunch and I got chicken fajitas which were amazing. We did some more shopping and then decided to find an actual internet café.
So we found another cab driver and he took us to this other shopping area and tells us there is an internet café right up these stairs. We started walking up them and it was a little creepy because there was no sign or anything. We walk in and there are a ton of locals on computers playing video games. So we went to see how much it was and we paid about 35 cents for 30 minutes of internet. We would have stayed longer but we had arranged for the cab driver to wait for us and take us back to the ship after. The internet was so fast which made me really happy, I could have stayed for hours. I wish I had my pictures to upload. Once time was up we went back to the ship. I showered and relaxed for a bit and then we went back out to this restaurant that was right where the tenders dropped us off. I had a little bit for dinner on the ship so I just ordered an appetizer and desert and they were both really good. After hanging out there for a while we got back on the ship and went to bed.
Day 5:
Megan and I planned to hang out this day so she wanted to bring her laptop to Starbucks and go on the internet for a while and then do some shopping. We caught the 9:30 tender and then asked a cab driver to take us to the closest Starbucks. We got there just as it was opening and I drank a frappaccino while Megan went on the internet because my laptop battery doesn’t work anymore so I left my computer on the ship. When she was done she was going to let me go on hers but so many people got online that the connection was too slow to do anything. From here we walked around this 6 story mall for what seemed like hours and didn’t really find anything. We weren’t sure where to find the type of stuff we were actually looking for. We ended up going to the McDonalds for lunch because the other food places did not look very good. We ended up finding an internet café up on the 6th or 7th floor of this mall, the malls in other countries are huge! So we went on for a little bit and then tried to go back and find pants that Megan had seen earlier and now wanted to get but we could not find them because the place was so big. Eventually we just went back to the ship and I just stayed on because I wanted to study for my Finance test.
Vietnam day 1!
I am just getting on now to post this and we have already arrived in Vietnam. Unfortunately I have an FDP for my finance class which will be four hours on the ship listening to some guy talk about the business conditions of Vietnam and it won’t be over till 5pm! The city is about 8 kilometers away so they have set up a bus shuttle service for us. I woke up at 6:45 to watch the ship go up the Saigon River which was really neat. I got breakfast and went back to sleep until we arrived and it was time for the diplomatic briefing. We had about six different US government officials talk to us. One woman really stuck out to me because she had actually escaped Vietnam when she was 7 years old after the Vietnam War and was one of the “boat people”. Her family and a group of about 20 people got on a little boat to try and make it to Hong Kong or Thailand I think it was and they had brought food and water for only 3 days. On the first day the first engine on the boat broke and on the end of the second day the other engine broke too. They ran out of food in the three days and ended up drifting for about two weeks. It rained one day and they were able to get a little bit of water and then they shaved off wood from the front of the boat to steam the ocean water just enough to moisten their lips. Eventually they saw land which happened to be the Philippines. She lived there for a year before someone sponsored her family to come to the US. Now 27 years later she is back working in the new Vietnam. Anyway I just thought it was a really interesting story and there is more I can’t remember. The ship got cleared at about 11 and everyone is rushing to get off so I won’t have a chance to set foot in Vietnam before my 1pm FDP unless I get off and right back on, so I am going to post this get lunch on the ship and head to the Union and maybe I will be able to do something after. I will update when we leave Vietnam hopefully!
Also they updated the whole semester at sea website so the link I gave earlier to tell you how to send me mail has changed so here is the new one, but at this point I think you can only send to Hawaii or Costa Rica. I would still love mail though!!
http://www.semesteratsea.org/voyages/current-voyage/staying-in-touch.php
Day 1:
I got up and went to breakfast and my Kuala Lumpur trip was supposed to meet in the union at 8:30 so that we could leave on a tender at 9. My roommate and some other friend were doing this trip as well so I was pretty excited. So we check in and find out because there are so many people they split us into two hotels and everyone I knew was in a different hotel. So I wasn’t too thrilled about that and then we ended up sitting in the union for almost 2 hours before the ship was cleared. We finally head down to the tender which would take us to land! The tenders we used are actually the lifeboats on the ship. So we got on the bus and our tour guide gave us the plan for the day and the four hour bus ride was really close to six but we would be stopping for lunch which would help break it up. Penang, where we were docked, is actually an island so the first thing we had to do was drive across a bridge, which is actually the third longest in the world at a length of 13.5 kilometers. So that was really cool. I fell asleep after this but when I woke up the scenery was so beautiful. There were beautiful green trees and mountains all around us.
We stopped for lunch at a really nice Chinese restaurant. They first brought out tea and soup and then they started bringing out all different huge plates of food for each table to share. It was all really good and fruit was for desert and I had some really good mango. We loaded back on the bus for the rest of the drive and I think we made one more stop before we got to KL where I bought some snacks. We got into the city and we got our first glimpse of the Petronas towers which was really exciting. I believe they are the highest twin towers in the world. We pulled up to our hotel which was across from the Times Square mall and right next to 7-11 and Starbucks. I found another girl who also wanted to go to the other hotel and we put our stuff in our room and went over to the Times Square mall to meet up with some people from the other hotel. From there we walked to the other hotel which wasn’t too far and decided to just take their bus to dinner.
The bus took us to the Sri Melayu Restaurant for dinner. There was a huge buffet with all different Malaysian food. I even tried durian which is a fruit that smells really bad. They actually had fake fruits on display because the real one would stink up the whole place. Supposedly it smells bad but tastes good, but I did not like it at all. Once we got our food there was a cultural show for about 45 minutes. I got back on the bus to my hotel for the night and just showered and went to bed.
Day 2:
I woke up and went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I had this chocolate cereal that they also had in India which is so good! After this I got on the bus for a tour of the city. The first stop was the Royal Palace. The King lives here, but he doesn’t really have a political power. The one power our guide told us about was the king’s ability to pardon someone. There are guards out front and they have a change of guards every half hour or hour, but it didn’t happen while we were there. We did get to take pictures next to them though. From here we went to the National Museum, but it was under construction so only one level was open. We still got to see some cool things there though. After this we went to the Lake Garden and National Monument. The National Monument was actually designed by the same person that did the one in the US. The monument was really beautiful and I was really glad we got to see it. We walked down to the garden from the monument and then got back on the bus. After this we went to a spot where we could all get out and get a good picture of the Petronas towers. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to go up in them, but we went to the KL tower next and got to go up and get a nice view of the city.
From here we went to the central market for lunch. This was another Chinese restaurant that was really good. I found Andi and Amy and we decided to stay at this market instead of going back to the hotel on the bus. We shopped around some and got some gelato, yum! From here we caught a cab to Chinatown. Everything was so cheap I could have spent hours there. I got a dress and some shirts and some other stuff I can’t remember. We went back to my hotel and got my things so I could just stay at their hotel and then we walked to theirs. The semester at sea group was going two hours away for dinner where there were fireflies, but we decided not to go because we didn’t want to go on the long drive and Andi and I don’t like seafood and that’s what the food was going to be. So we took a short nap and decided we had enough cultural food and we wanted pizza hut. So we asked the hotel where the nearest one was and they kind of laughed at us and pointed us in somewhat of the right direction. We passed more Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC, 7-11s and other places from back home on the way. The next day they were having the Formula 1 race so we passed a stage where they were going to have a concert. I was also in Durban South Africa when they were having the Formula 1, it’s following us! After our delicious pizza we walked back to the hotel and watched some American Idol that we found on TV. We ran into some other SASers that were going to this club called the Beach and went with them there for a little bit and then came back and went to bed.
Day 3:
We woke up and got breakfast at the hotel and then walked over to the Times Square mall. The first thing we did was get some Starbucks. Then we looked around the mall for a while before we had to head back to the hotel. We went back and packed all out stuff for the trip back and got on the bus. Before we left KL we went to lunch at a restaurant in one of the hotels nearby. This was another Chinese place like the one from the first day, but the food wasn’t nearly as good. The best part was the fried rice. We got back on the buses to Penang and I slept most of the way. The process of tendering back to the ship was horrible. We had about 75 people on a tender with backpacks full of stuff and they always search you when you get back on the ship. So they were letting 10 on at a time and the rest of us were stuck waiting on the rocking tender. After about 30 minutes I finally got off and they weren’t serving dinner anymore, but they ended up making sandwiches for the people on our trip which was nice. After this we watched some CSI that someone bought in Chinatown and then went to bed.
Day 4:
We wanted to go to an internet café so we asked a taxi driver to take us one and he takes us to this mall which is pretty far away and it didn’t even end up having one. So we got some Starbucks again which was really good and then looked around for a camera for my friend Amy because hers had broke in Mauritius. We then stumbled across a movie theater and decided to see 27 dresses. It only cost $3 and it was nicer then any theater I had been to in the US. There is assigned seating so you pick out your seats when you buy the tickets. The movie was really good and it was nice to do something that reminded me of being back home. Next the mall had a Forever 21 so we had to check it out, but it was way more expensive than the ones in the US. We went to TGI Fridays for lunch and I got chicken fajitas which were amazing. We did some more shopping and then decided to find an actual internet café.
So we found another cab driver and he took us to this other shopping area and tells us there is an internet café right up these stairs. We started walking up them and it was a little creepy because there was no sign or anything. We walk in and there are a ton of locals on computers playing video games. So we went to see how much it was and we paid about 35 cents for 30 minutes of internet. We would have stayed longer but we had arranged for the cab driver to wait for us and take us back to the ship after. The internet was so fast which made me really happy, I could have stayed for hours. I wish I had my pictures to upload. Once time was up we went back to the ship. I showered and relaxed for a bit and then we went back out to this restaurant that was right where the tenders dropped us off. I had a little bit for dinner on the ship so I just ordered an appetizer and desert and they were both really good. After hanging out there for a while we got back on the ship and went to bed.
Day 5:
Megan and I planned to hang out this day so she wanted to bring her laptop to Starbucks and go on the internet for a while and then do some shopping. We caught the 9:30 tender and then asked a cab driver to take us to the closest Starbucks. We got there just as it was opening and I drank a frappaccino while Megan went on the internet because my laptop battery doesn’t work anymore so I left my computer on the ship. When she was done she was going to let me go on hers but so many people got online that the connection was too slow to do anything. From here we walked around this 6 story mall for what seemed like hours and didn’t really find anything. We weren’t sure where to find the type of stuff we were actually looking for. We ended up going to the McDonalds for lunch because the other food places did not look very good. We ended up finding an internet café up on the 6th or 7th floor of this mall, the malls in other countries are huge! So we went on for a little bit and then tried to go back and find pants that Megan had seen earlier and now wanted to get but we could not find them because the place was so big. Eventually we just went back to the ship and I just stayed on because I wanted to study for my Finance test.
Vietnam day 1!
I am just getting on now to post this and we have already arrived in Vietnam. Unfortunately I have an FDP for my finance class which will be four hours on the ship listening to some guy talk about the business conditions of Vietnam and it won’t be over till 5pm! The city is about 8 kilometers away so they have set up a bus shuttle service for us. I woke up at 6:45 to watch the ship go up the Saigon River which was really neat. I got breakfast and went back to sleep until we arrived and it was time for the diplomatic briefing. We had about six different US government officials talk to us. One woman really stuck out to me because she had actually escaped Vietnam when she was 7 years old after the Vietnam War and was one of the “boat people”. Her family and a group of about 20 people got on a little boat to try and make it to Hong Kong or Thailand I think it was and they had brought food and water for only 3 days. On the first day the first engine on the boat broke and on the end of the second day the other engine broke too. They ran out of food in the three days and ended up drifting for about two weeks. It rained one day and they were able to get a little bit of water and then they shaved off wood from the front of the boat to steam the ocean water just enough to moisten their lips. Eventually they saw land which happened to be the Philippines. She lived there for a year before someone sponsored her family to come to the US. Now 27 years later she is back working in the new Vietnam. Anyway I just thought it was a really interesting story and there is more I can’t remember. The ship got cleared at about 11 and everyone is rushing to get off so I won’t have a chance to set foot in Vietnam before my 1pm FDP unless I get off and right back on, so I am going to post this get lunch on the ship and head to the Union and maybe I will be able to do something after. I will update when we leave Vietnam hopefully!
Also they updated the whole semester at sea website so the link I gave earlier to tell you how to send me mail has changed so here is the new one, but at this point I think you can only send to Hawaii or Costa Rica. I would still love mail though!!
http://www.semesteratsea.org/voyages/current-voyage/staying-in-touch.php
2 comments:
The story of the woman who left Vietnam at the age of seven was most interesting. People will go to any lengths to find freedom. Yet, here in the U.S.,so many just take it for granted.
Can't help but comment on your on-going report of food. Seems to be a major topic.
What more exciting and pleasant experiences await you as you continue with your adventure thoough Semester at Sea. I am sure there will be many.
Love,
Grandma Neveux
I work with several assemblers who have simular stories of escaping Vietnam. Not all of the stories have happy endings. We are very fortunate to be born here. I can't wait to share this portion of your blog with them! Joan will enjoy hearing about your travels in Milaysia! Thank you so much for working so hard at keeping your blog updated. I sure miss you and I am incredibly proud of you!
Love forever,
Mom
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