Asia-How I spent my summer-Part1

KbikeKbike Registered Users Posts: 52 Big grins
edited December 27, 2006 in Journeys
How I spent my summer; Or why would anyone want to tour Southeast Asia in the Summer?

Part 1
This summer I spent 65 days on a voyage sailing across the Pacific Ocean from San Diego to Southeast Asia on the Semester at Sea ship, the USS Explorer. We visited 8 ports in Southeast Asia with 285 college students. The 8 countries were Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong/China, South Korea, and Japan. We left San Diego on June 17th and arrived in Taiwan on July 5th . You don’t realize just how big the Pacific Ocean is until you sail across it. The Explorer is a cruise ship converted to a floating college campus with 9 classrooms, a computer lab, a library, and a union auditorium. In the fall and spring semesters the ship sails around the world, but the shorter summer session only allows for sailing to one area and back. Generally the fall and spring semester has 600-650 students, so we had a relative easy and relaxed time with 285 students, and 50 senior adult passengers, 17 faculty, 30 staff, 20 family members, and 173 crew members.
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Kate and I both applied for positions on-board Semester at Sea, but one of the positions had been eliminated by the time Kate had been selected, so I had to go as a passenger. I am always willing to make sacrifices!

This is the Union, the general meeting place and the biggest room on the ship.
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This is the 10,000 volume library.
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This is the computer lab.
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This is the video control room in the Union where all events are video taped and distributed on one of the closed circuit channels.
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The port stays were 3 to 5 days long, with the option of organized tours of 1 to 5 days, or traveling on your own.
Our first stop was for a day in Honolulu to give the students break from classes.
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The first stop for Asia was Keelung, Taiwan. This is our ship the USS Explorer docked in Keelung.
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The night market was great for eating and shopping.
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Smoked chicken parts.
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Our first tour was a long day trip to the Taroko Gorge in the Taroko National Park on the east central side of Taiwan.
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Monk at the top of the mountain.
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The worlds tallest building, Taipei 101 was covered in clouds, so the view wasn’t to good, but I did see this motorcycle parking lot from the 88th floor.
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Singapore;
After a 3 day sail from Taiwan we arrive in Singapore. On the city tour we stopped at the Orchid Gardens.
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Next stop was Little India.
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Hindu shrine
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For lunch we had Fishhead Curry.
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Apartment complex in downtown Singapore. Notice the laundry on sticks hanging form the windows.
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