India

So I realize that it has been a month since my visit to India but I thought that I would try to post a few last blogs before arriving to San Diego on April 24th. It is unbelievable to me how fast these past few months have gone by, but I guess that’s what happens when you sail to a new foreign country every week.

So lets talk India. It was one of the most spectacular cultures I have ever been exposed to. The streets are crowded with women in colorful saris, families of 4 to 5 on a motorcycle, and yellow rickshaws. I saw several temples, some of which carved and chipped away from huge boulders. I was amazed by the Hinduism religion; it was so breathtaking to see these masses of people worshiping the temples while learning a bit about the background of the religion. I also had the opportunity to visit a rural village, where we were carted around the large village by a couple of bulls pulling a wooden flatbed on wheels. We toured people’s homes, the small school house, and the coconut plantation where we watched a man climb up the tree and cut us down fresh coconuts to drink and eat. We learned all about the production of rice and I even had the opportunity to roll up my pants and climb into the food deep water and mud of the rice patties and assisted the women in planting the rice! It was an amazing day and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to be exposed to the rural life of India.

While in India I did a service project where we went to one of the poorest schools in the Chennai area to play with the kids and learn a bit about the school systems. The school ranged from kindergarten to 12th grade. The children were so excited to talk with us, show us their work, sing to us, dance for us and ask us to sing and dance for them. Somehow, I was convinced in front of a classroom full of 6th grade kids to sing our national anthem while doing the robot. I apologize to everyone if now the youth of India thinks that Americans are by far the worst dancers and singers of the world.

I took a vegetarian cooking class where we learned how to cook Indian cuisine. It was so much fun and so fascinating to take a cooking class in a different culture. It was also interesting to learn what exactly it was that we had been eating the entire time in India.

On our last day in India we caught news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Once back on board the ship, we were told that we were able to stream the news, we all gathered and watched the unfortunate events unraveling. We were fortunate enough to continue to get the news and kept up with Japan as much as possible. For a few days after, SAS continued to say that our route and itinerary would not be changing, explaining that the ports we were intended to stop in were not affected by the tsunami. After the nuclear power plants began to become more of a threat then expected, SAS announced that we would no longer be going to Japan due the unsafe conditions. They gave us three options as to where we could possibly go, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. After many days of suspense of the upcoming mystery port, it was announced that we would now be traveling to Taiwan. There are mixed feelings and opinions towards the new port, although I think everyone is just disappointed that we will not have the opportunity to visit Japan. While I am sad that we will no longer be traveling to Japan, I feel that it would be overwhelming to try to travel there right now with all the devastation, I would much rather travel through Japan when I can travel freely and without feeling like a burden.

Now that we have already traveled to Taiwan, and yet another earthquake has hit Japan I think it was a smart call of SAS to change the itinerary, although I will make my way to Japan at some point in my life.