oops

Guess I abandoned my blog for a month and 10 days. It's just wrong. I can't believe I could have fallen so far. I will go hide my face in shame now.

But first...

I am in South Korea for now. Have been here for some number of week. I don't really remember. They all blur together. Not that Korea is boring. It's just hard to have a sense of the passage of time on the ship. I'm sure you've all experienced something similar.

I have a story to tell, but those involved in this event were quite embarrassed, so I will change their names...

One good friend of mine is from South Korea. I met him when we were both working at Camp Tejas, the summer of 2004. We'll call him Uykni. Since I am now in South Korea, I emailed him so that we could meet up one day and see each other again. Last Tuesday was a national holiday, so he came to the city the ship is now in, bringing with him his two friends, Nosaj (man) and H.Y. (lady).

They took me to all kinds of famous places in this city. They had never been to most of these places themselves, but found them on the internet. The most remarkable part of the day was lunch, which Nosaj insisted that I forget about, but which I intend to remember for the rest of my life. It wasn't what they were expecting, and they were embarrassed to have taken me to this place. That's mostly why I find it so amusing...

There is a very famous fish market in Busan. We walked through it and saw all kinds of sea food, most of which was alive. H.Y. often would ask me what the English name for different things were, but usually it was things I'd never seen before. Different ladies kept trying to get us to go into their shops for lunch. It was all in Korean, so I'm not really sure why, but we refused to go into several of the shops. But finally, one was deemed good enough.

Nosaj negotiated for our lunch, so we could have a better price. He also ordered. Once the waitress was gone, he told me that we were having eel. It was fine with me.

It took a long time to bring the eel out, though, which was odd. They bring it out and put it on a burner on the table, so it cooks in front of you. It shouldn't take very long to bring it out if they don't cook it first. Once she brought it, we realized what had taken so long.

She put the burner down and turned it on. Then she put the pan of eel on it. There were onions, some kind of bean, and pieces of eel, which were twitching. She had just killed, skinned, and chopped up the eel. She served us everything but the head.

It took forever for it to stop moving. H.Y. didn't think she'd be able to eat it. Nosaj begged me not to look at it. Uykni kept stirring it up, which agitated the already twitching eel pieces. I laughed, which may have made it even more embarrassing for them, but I couldn't help it. I told them it was my adventure.

my own saliva

This is a hilarious story. I don't know if it will be funny for you. It was funny for some people who weren't there when it happened, but they knew the people involved. You weren't there and don't know the people involved, so I'm not sure if you'll think it's funny. But I laughed so hard I was crying violently before I could recover. And I nearly peed my pants.

Andy, Cat, Daniel, and I were hanging out last night. Andy had brought some cake along with him. It was yummy chocolately goodness. In an effort to retain our vocabularies (something that's close to impossible on board, thus the need for practice), we were describing the way Andy was eating his piece of cake. Cat said that he was eating it "fluidly" or "with fluidity" or something like that. Daniel pointed out that the cake is actually a solid, not a liquid, and therefore fluidly is an inappropriate description for it. So she defended herself by saying that, as Andy was chewing, the cake was mixing with his saliva and becoming liquid. Andy was thoroughly disgusted by this, and said "Ugh! I'm eating my own saliva!" After the first round of laughter, Cat said that he was practically kissing himself (when she drinks after someone, she always says, "We're practically kissing!"). Andy was even more repulsed by himself then, saying, "That's even worse!"

Now every time we eat or drink, we face the fear of swallowing our own saliva. But it's a risk we are willing to take.

We are pretty sure that Andy himself didn't understand why we thought it was funny that he was disgusted with the fact that he was eating his own saliva. And that makes it even more enjoyable. :D

Another Outing

One great thing about going on outings with a lot of the ship’s company is that everyone takes pictures. We a network drive where we can share things with each other. So, a couple days after an outing, you can get on the drive and take everyone’s best pictures. It’s great because not everyone gets great pictures of everything, but when we share, we all win! Sorry, I know that’s cheesy, but I’m leaving it that way.


This is the central sculpture of the Peace Park. He’s 10 meters high, which I think is like 33 feet. Everything about him is symbolic, and I have a picture of the sign describing all the symbolism, but I don’t feel like typing it all out right now or finding that picture to put on here. You can google it.

This is me and my beautiful roomie by the peace fountain. The water shoots out in the shape of a dove, but you have to be above it to tell.

You’ve probably heard of origami, and probably made something in origami at some time or another. The most classic, traditional origami figure in Japan is the crane. All the colorful streamers in this picture are made from stringing together hundreds of origami cranes. They are a symbol for peace. There are many symbols for peace in Japan.

Most parts of the A-bomb Museum, we weren’t allowed to take pictures, but there was a row of paintings in the hallway that we were allowed to take pictures of. Here is one. I wanted to buy some postcards of the museum. I thought I could get a multipack that had pictures of the museum itself, some different exhibits, maybe one of the mushroom cloud. But the postcards were all very gruesome. I’m pretty sure one of them was of this painting. In the end, I just didn’t think I’d want to send people postcards with pictures of people burning alive and things like that, so I didn’t get any. (Just in case it isn’t clear, the white part in the mushroom cloud is just the camera flash, not part of the painting.)

At the martyr shrine, Kris, Cat, and I were so proud to be the first of our group to see the chapel. Most people didn’t even realize it was part of the shrine till they saw us standing where we are in this picture. They all called up to us asking how to get up there. We told them it was a secret and magic. Eventually some of them made it up there, though.

A beautiful rose ice cream cone. It only costs 100 yen, that’s like 80 cents! Totally worth it. Delicious, cheap, and beautiful, what more could you ask for?

nagasaki

I went on an outing yesterday to Nagasaki. When I noticed how close we'd be to it while we're in Fukuoka, I wanted to go, if only to be able to say that I've been somewhere an atomic bomb was dropped, especially since I've been to Los Alamos, where the bomb was developed, and the museum there.
The day started early-meeting on the quayside to load buses at 6:45 am. Nagasaki's only around 60 miles away, or something like that, but it took more than 2 hours to get there. Seems like we stopped every 20 minutes.
First, we went to the Peace Park. It is built on the ruins of a prison, the closest public building to the hypocenter of the bomb. All that remains from the prison are the bottom few inches of the walls. There is one main statue symbolizing the threat of nuclear weapons and the need and efforts for world peace. Many countries have donated statues and sculptures for the park. There is one from St. Paul, MN, a sister city to Nagasaki.
Then we went to the main attraction, the A-bomb Museum. There was a lot about the effects of the bomb-physically what would happen to people. They described effects of the heat, effects of radiation. They had some rubble recovered from the city after the bomb: glass bottles melted together, coins melted together, metal stairways twisted up, clothes stained by blood. The initial flash of the bomb bleached things, and left images where other objects blocked the light. There was one picture of a wall with the shadow of a person and a ladder burned into it by the flash. There was one melted glass bottle that had a human hand bone fused into it. The museum focused a lot on the children (both the survivors and those killed by the bomb). There were pictures of small charred corpses. There was also one part that focused on steps taken worldwide to prevent nuclear warfare in the future. Nowhere in the entire museum did they mention any reason for the bombing. It was just "this is what happened." There was no why. It could give someone the impression that the maniacal Americans just dropped the bomb to kill children (and monks, I remember something about monks). One wall had a timeline of events leading up to the bombing. They mention dates that it was decided to develop it and the allies deciding to use it. But even there it doesn't mention that anything was done by Japan to provoke this. It also doesn't say, "We didn't do anything that would make them want to bomb us." But that's to be expected. I expected it at least. They can't get away with saying that it was done for no reason, but they prefer to forget the bad guys of that period in their past. We learned that a lot of countries don't require grade school kids to study history. I tend to not retain most things I've learned in history class, but even I know something about what happened back then and why, and many people of other nationalities that went with us to the museum yesterday don't.
After that, we went to a shrine built in memory of 26 Christians who were martyred at some point in time. Cat, Kris, and I spent most of the time in the chapel at the shrine. It was so peaceful. 6 of them were European missionaries and 20 were Japanese Christians. They were crucified in 1597. There is a museum there, but we didn't go into it because we spent all our time in the chapel.
We also went to a church-the oldest in Japan. But you have to pay to get in and we didn't want to, so we shopped for souvenirs, all of which were too expensive to buy, and went into another church with beautiful stained glass (which was free since it was actually a church and not a tourist attraction). A couple from Georgetown, TX, had signed the guest book! It was exciting for me. I got to say, "Hey! I used to live there!"
After that we drove up a mountain to a park overlooking the city and then went back to the ship.
I'm very glad to have gone and to have seen the A-bomb Museum and the Peace Park. That was the best. Also, outside the museum was an ice cream vendor. She put the ice cream in the cones using a type of spatula. She added small layers of ice cream at a time, creating a rose out of the ice cream. It was more icy than creamy, a lot like home-made ice cream, but more beautiful.

Outings

While we're here in Taiwan, we're trying to go on as many outings as possible. One of the most awesome outings I went on was a great adventure, but so spontaneous that I didn't have my camera with me to document it. We explored and went places that we weren't sure if we were allowed to go. We got as close to the statue of liberty as we could. It sits atop a building that looks as if it will fall apart at any moment. We also went up in the tallest building in Keelung, which is only 33 floors high, and we only got to the 32nd. The tallest building in the world is in Taipei, which is about 45 minutes away. It's the Taipei 101, 101 floors. I haven't been, but I know the viewing level is around the 85th floor, though there are rumors that you can go to the 92nd. They never let you to the real top of these kind of buildings, I learned that in Chicago.

And now for the adventures I did document. All the info girls went out for dinner Sunday night to celebrate Kaylee because it was her last day with us. Caz had been to a restaurant earlier and decided we could all go there since it was close and reasonably priced. She said that the sign said "Family Steakhouse" on it, and it was the only sign in that area with English writing so it stood out. We couldn't find it. We asked people if they knew where it was and they had no idea what we were talking about. We finally did get to it, though. Turns out, the sign actually says "Familp Steakhouse." Maybe that's what the confusion was...

But my favorite part of the Familp Steakhouse was not the fact that they use a p instead of a y. It was the open/closed sign. The open side:

The closed side:

At least, I assume it was something like an open/closed sign. It was in the front window. We think it's a good business plan. Either you're running the business or you're drinking tea. What else is there in life that's worth doing? ;)

The next day, I went out again, in search of an adventure. There is a hill nearby with temples on top, which we can see from the ship. So, we went out to find out. We did find it, and a Martyr's Shrine. The Martyr's Shrine had lots of dragons on top of it, which are way cool! I love these dragons!

To get to these temples, you have to be very dedicated. There are tons of stairs. So after a brief rest at the shrine to recover, we continued up the stairs to the temple. It is beautiful!

Adventure in Taiwan

Our adventure begins at Taiwan's Great Wall. Nothing like the Great Wall of China, as far as I can tell (I've never been to China). There is a paved trail that took us to a suspension bridge. Crossing the bridge was fun, but afterwards, the real work began. After the bridge, there is a trail, which is made of logs that are sometimes a walkway and sometimes more like a ladder, that runs along the ridge of some mountains. Small mountains, but steep. The trail was, by far, the most physically demanding part of my Taiwan adventure.




My dad taught me that, when hiking in the mountains, the biggest rule of survival is "Nobody falls-nobody dies." I didn't fall. Other people weren't so careful...


The next part of the adventure wasn't so exciting. (We really couldn't take much more excitement after the Great Wall, but we wanted it anyway.) We roamed the nearest town, looking for some kind of excitement. We didn't find any, though, just a 7-11, and it was probably better that way.


I learned, though, that you really don't have to go very far to find adventure or excitement. It can be found even in my own cabin. Here I am, sitting in my bunk, minding my own business, and I come this close to being skewered by wooden chopsticks.


Emma learned that the adventure involved in crossing bridges is not in the fact that you could fall off of them, but the fact that trolls tend to live under them. You can see, she's very frightened, but aren't those the cutest trolls you've ever seen?


The good news is, after all these adventures, all the excitement, all the life threatening experiences we have, we can always come together for a nice cup of tea. mmmm, boy. What a way to end the day!



Another great thing about adventures in Taiwan is the signage. Check it out:



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Rachel

taiwan

I think I haven't written the whole time I've been in Taiwan. I don't have internet access, so I can never actually look at my blog. I just email in my posts.

About being in Taiwan:
I'm becoming an expert at using chopsticks, and I'm trying to learn to speak Chinese. I had this theory that if I stare at Chinese words long enough the language will eventually become clear to me. There will be a sudden moment of breakthrough. I will go from looking at symbols that mean nothing to me, to reading and speaking Chinese fluently. So far, it's not working out for me. I've been at it almost a month. So far all I can say is what people have taught me: hello, how are you, thank you, my name is Rachel, Doulos (it's something different in Chinese).

Next week I'm going to see Taiwan's Great Wall. I've never seen the Great Wall of China, so I can't compare the two. As far as size goes, Taiwan's wall is probably less great. But, as far as "wow, this is great!" goes, it could be more great. But, being that I will have only seen Taiwan's, I may never know...

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Rachel

It seems like it's been a while since I put any pictures up here. So here's a photo diary of what I've been doing lately:

First of all, Christmas came! Finally! I got three packages on the same day. One was a birthday party in a box, complete with party horns, plates, activity book, paints, and a movie to watch (all built around the theme Disney's Little Mermaid). Of course there were presents also. The other two were Christmas presents. Here I am with one such present. I love Texas! Look at my goofy, crooked, happy grin!



My alterego-Speckles the Clown-was born in the Philippines. I don't think there's any explanation for this picture besides that...



I went to one of the malls claiming the title "Biggest Mall in Asia." I'd believe it with this one, it was ginormous. It has this giant globe in front of it, too, which is what I'm holding in this picture. All the continents and islands are grey, except for the Philippines, which are black.




Ferdinand Magellan is creditted with bringing Christianity to the Philippines. What you see behind me in this picture is a cross encasing what is known as Magellan's Cross, which he set up in this exact location. It's the oldest historical thing in Cebu, maybe in the Philippines, can't remember...

guapas

In Cebu, pretty girls are called "guapas." As in most Asian cultures, pale skin is desirable, so they call all white girls guapas. And they stare at us a lot. And they tell us over and over again how beautiful they think we are. We're kind of used like a sideshow attraction sometimes. One lady told us that the guys would see us at some program or event and say "The guapas are there! The guapas are there!" and then they'd want to come to the thing. And then they hear the gospel, all because they wanted to come stare at the white girls. It's annoying sometimes, but I see that God can use it.

This story is not about God using us so much as it is about men staring at us and making us laugh. We have on the Doulos what we call the Sundeck. It's above the Boat Deck where the lifeboats and bookshop are, and it's open, so that you can go there and get some sun (thus the name). Today Kris (who is American but of Dutch heritage) and I were sitting on the Sundeck, leaning against the railing. We could see the people walking past to go to the bookshop. One of the men walking past happened to glance upwards, and he saw us. I didn't see him at first, I was reading a book and not paying attention. But Kris saw him and he was making eyes at her. He continued walking while looking up at us and trying to flirt. He was doing well with that for a while. But those sneaky lifeboats...sometimes they just jump out in front of you! He walked straight into my lifeboat (that's lifeboat 6, the biggest one on Doulos, we call it the Life Ship), dropped his shades and phone, the phone fell apart, and he was feeling really dumb. That's when I noticed him, when he ran into the lifeboat. We laughed, a lot. So did the security guard who was guarding the entrance to the bookshop. Maybe that'll teach him to stop staring at pretty girls.

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Rachel

thabo

On the ship, if you don't already have a significant other when you join, you aren't allowed to have one until you've been with the organization (on the ship or off) for a full year. Many people on board had 6 months of training in South Africa before joining. So, even though they've been on the ship only as long as me, they can already get SP (that's Social Permission). So, as I work at the Info Desk and people all treat me as their personal secretary, this guy Thabo and I have a running gag that I am his secretary, scheduling important meetings for him and such. He is able to get SP starting this month. So he asked me in January to start making a list for him of potential ladies he could get SP with. As I am his secretary, that apparently is in my job description. I'm a good employee so I willingly agreed to do this for him.

(This next part may not seem to go with the story, but stay with me here) There are several places on the ship where you can take things you don't want anymore. Toiletries go to the Blue Cupboard; clothes, accesories, housewares go to Charlie; and books go to the Staff Lounge. As they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. I have found many treasures in these places. A couple of months ago, I was in the Staff Lounge, looking for any interesting books to read. I came across a book called "Cooking for One." I thought, 'That's the most depressing book I've ever seen! But I may have a use for it sometime...'

Then Thabo asked me to find him someone to get SP with, and I knew what I had to do. Rather than making him a list of ladies he can get SP with (though every time one of the girls who went to South Africa training mentions that they can get SP now, I let them know that Thabo's on the market now) I am going to give him the depressing book! Being that the 14th of February is generally accepted as a day to celebrate love, I'm going to give it to him then. And tell him, "Thabo, since I can't find you anyone to get SP with, it may be a while before you get a wife, but until then, here's something that should help you out!"

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Rachel

my new favorite game

I was wrong about the girl who we told we were eating Jackalope. Turns out, she believed us the whole time. She went to a drama practice and they had to start out by telling something about themselves. She told them that as a child she had pet rabbits and now she's eaten rabbits. They asked where? when? And she told them that it was on the ship just a few days before. They didn't remember eating rabbit, though. So later she went and asked the cheif steward and he told her that it was actually chicken. I nearly died laughing when she told me all this. I didn't really think that she believed us the whole time. But, she did...

That's not my new favorite game, though. Cat and I just moved from our old cabin, where we had 2 other cabinmates, to a new cabin, where it's just the 2 of us. It's a beautiful clean little cabin where we can get a full night's sleep. We discovered yesterday, just before our second night in our new cabin, that there's a small gap in the corner where two of the walls come together. It's by the head of my bunk, and on the other side of the wall is the head of one of our best friend's (Kris) bunk. It's just big enough to pass papers through. We already knew that we could talk to her, because the walls are thin, but now, we can pass secret notes! It's so much fun. I don't know why. She passed us a poem last night:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I would write more
But my brain hurts
So I'll let it sleep
And also my new roommate
Thinks I'm crazy
Because I talk to the walls

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Rachel

jackalope

One of the most amusing things about living with people from different countries, especially if they don't know a lot about the US, is that they'll believe just about anything you tell them! Last night we had something Swedish for dinner, the menu called it "Flying Jackob." We had never heard of that before, but we figured it must be similar to a Jackalope. Throughout dinner, we talked about how great it was to eat Jackalope again, and all that. The Australian and Brit who were eating with us played along, though they hadn't actually heard of Jackalope (until that Pixar short "Boundin" came out-there's a Jackalope in it). We described to them what Jackalopes are, and then a German girl sat down with us. So we went through the explanation again.
She said, "I thought this was chicken!"
And we said, "No, no, it's jackalope. Look at the menu-they just spelled it wrong!"
I thought she was going to start crying when she said, "It's like a rabbit, right? I don't want to eat a rabbit!"
"Too late," we said, "You already started eating it, may as well finish it now."
I think she figured out in the end that we weren't actually eating jackalope, but she did believe us for a while. I'm not sure what she believes about Jackalopes though.

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Rachel

Merry Christmas!

Well, folks, I think I've successfully survived my first holidays away from home.

I got back from 2 weeks of being on an A-team (a ministry team that stays off the ship for the durarion of time that the ship is in a port) and it was Thanksgiving. We had big plans for celebrating. But, it didn't work out. Then we replanned and it didn't work out again. I spent Thanksgiving Day taping paper to the floor, in preparation for drydock. It was pretty much the worst Thanksgiving of my life, but it's also the first time in my life to not be able to have Thanksgiving dinner and family discussions on thankfulness and getting totally annoyed by my relatives and all that.

Then, I was off the ship for another 2 weeks, another A-team, during drydock. I got back from that about a week before my birthday. After the big let-down of Thanksgiving, I was anticipating the worst. But, actually, my birthday was pretty good. My K-group (onboard family) had dinner with me, with chocolate cake and rainbow ice cream. And we arrived in the Philippines that day. There were about 6 birthday cards waiting for me in the mail container. So I got multiple birthday cards in the mail, on my birthday, for probably the first time in my life. Entering my mid-twenties was a bit traumatic though.

A week later was Christmas. We had celebration on board for about half the day Christmas Eve and all day Christmas Day. I think they plan a lot for us so that we don't have so much time to think about what we're missing at home. Again, because Thanksgiving was so terrible, Christmas didn't seem so bad to me. The annual picture of the ship's company is taken on Christmas day:



And here I've zoomed in on me and some of my closest friends:




Here I am with my cabinmates, three of them actually live with me and the one on the left just pretends to:

a two

I was in a library today. A big library. It has a coffee shop in it. It was a 15 minute walk from where I'm living to the library, and after that walk and a couple hours of reading magazines and studying Swahili, I was pretty thirsty. I already had lots of coffee today, but I thought maybe I could get something else to drink. So I went over to the coffee shop. There in the little refrigerated part, they had Coke, Diet Coke, and what's this? It wasn't a One, but it looked like, maybe, could it be? Yes, it was a Two! I thought, when I leave Singapore, I could be going to the jungle, then I'll be in the Philippines. I haven't seen Ones or Twos since I left Texas (actually, I have a vague memory that I might have seen some Twos somewhere, but I can't think where, so I'll assume it was a dream). I doubt they have them in the jungle or Philippines. So, even though it was $3.20 (that's Singaporean dollars-$1.50 to $1 US) I bought it. It was beautiful. IBC rootbeer. What could be better? Only IBC cream soda, of course. Just wanted to share my joy...

a strange feeling

On the voyage from Cambodia to Singapore, I sat out on the deck for a while. It was my longest voyage yet, and my first voyage out of the Bay of Thailand. In the Bay, I could usually see other ships and sometimes islands on the horizon. But, in the South China Sea that day, I looked around and there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just a ship with 4 main decks slighly larger than a football field, surrounded by blue. Hardly any waves, smooth water, empty sky. It was weird. A little unnerving. The world could have come to an end, and we wouldn't know. I think it would be like that if you were floating out in space. Except, depending on how far out you were, you might be able to see the world coming to an end.

Cambodia

There's me on the voyage from Bangkok to Cambodia, with the end of the world in the background. The water was so blue! It was beautiful compared to the muddy river we'd been living in in Bangkok for a month.


Ok, don't get any crazy ideas. I don't remember the last time I was up in time for sunrise. I didn't actually see this, but the picture was so great, I thought I'd post it anyways. Our first glimpse of Cambodia.


This is Doulos in Cambodia. Isn't it tropical and exotic and beautiful? I live here, by the way.


This is me working at the info desk. The Cambodians welcomed us with floral wreaths/crowns for the ladies and scarves for the men. My uniform for work looks much prettier when I wear the scarf that goes with it, but I wasn't wearing it that day.

your mom

This story might not actually be that funny to you, but to my friends and me, it's hilarious!! I mean, when this happened, we laughed for about 7 minutes. I was laughing so hard I started crying. Now, with that build up, I'll tell the story, and it won't be nearly as funny to you, but I'll tell it anyways.
Kris (a girl from Minnesota) and I have started kind of a game. If someone uses an adjective, let's use sweet for example, then Kris says "your face is sweet" and I say "your mom's sweet." It's really catching on.
The other night, we were sailing, and the satellite was down, so there was nothing for me to do at work. Cat (my cabinmate from England, my favorite person on the ship) and Caleb (a crazy guy from Canada. Imagine my cousin DJ 20 years old and from Canada, and you've got Caleb.) were keeping me company, because I had to sit at the info desk even though there was no work. I don't remember the exact conversation, because it's not as important as the ending, which I do remember. I'll do my best to remake the conversation for you, though, using x and y, because I don't remember what they were actually talking about:
Caleb: x is like y
Cat: x and y aren't the same
Caleb: I know, that's why I said they're LIKE each other, not they ARE each other
Cat: You North Americans say like all the time, whether you mean exactly or similar. You say like as much as you breathe
Caleb: Brits don't say like, I bet you don't breathe either
Cat: Your face doesn't breathe
Caleb: Your mom doesn't breathe
I don't know why, but it was one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
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One more thing: as I was typing this, Cat called to tell me she lost The Game, which means I've just lost The Game. The object of The Game is to forget about The Game. If you remember you're playing The Game, then you're not forgetting about it, and you lose The Game. When you lose, you have to announce it to whoever's around you (which, for me right now, is my blog). If they're already playing, they also lose. If they aren't playing yet, you have to explain it, so they can be playing. You start playing again as soon as you forget about The Game.
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Rachel

moooorin stations

"Attention all deckies, please report to your moooorin stations now."

That announcement means we're fixin to leave Bangkok! (I love sailing-have I mentioned that before?) But you can't say "report to mooring stations" like you normally talk, you have to say it in a Scottish accent, roll the r and drop the g, and I think you also add an extra o or two. The officer who generally makes that announcement is from Scotland. And everyone loves to immitate him saying "moooorin stations".

The sad thing is, once again, I'm working when we leave port. (I was working when we left Sattahip, too.) Here in Bangkok, we're in a river, so I think it would be pretty awesome to see how they get us turned around to leave. I saw some pictures that someone took the other day of a big ship turning around, but I was working when that happened, too, so I didn't see it. Man, this life on a boat would be so sweet if it weren't for working. I guess that's why cruises are so popular...

hi mom!

I think I've probably been on TV in Thailand. It's not as exciting as I thought it would be to be on TV. Maybe because no one watching will know me. I mean I could say "Hi mom!" to the camera, but Mom won't see. There may be some people I've met on my ministry days (aka E-days) who will recognize me, but I can't shout out to them, because I don't remember their names. There's a camera right in front of me right now. One of the Thai-speaking volunteers is giving a tour to some people from the press, and talking about the Info Desk. Now the press are standing in front of me too...And they're taking a picture, maybe I'll be in the newspaper too. I'm like a celebrity or something. I hope I don't have anything weird on my face. There's not a mirror in here, so I can't check. I should get a mirror for the Info Desk. I wish I knew Thai so I could know what Noi said about me when she was talking to the news camera. Since last week, we've had TONS of news crews come through the ship. I think there's at least one every day. Oh, and, last week, some Thai teen heart-throbs came for a Doulos tour. I saw them. Also kind of anti-climactic, since I don't watch Thai teen soap-operas. I see a piece of candy. Think I'll eat it. I'll write more later.

Life-raft Training

The importance of this skill is, if the life raft inflates and winds up being upside down, you have to flip it over or else the 25 the raft is made to support will die of exposure. So you have to pull yourself on top of the raft, keep in mind you'll be wearing long sleeves and pants (to keep you from getting hypothermia) and a life jacket, which is extremely bulky. Then you flip the raft over and you're everyone's hero, because they can now all get in the raft and not die.
first, i finally got up on the raft, and was trying to help gameeda get up too. two other girls got into the pool to help her as well.
then, they pushed and i pulled, and gameeda got on the raft too! then we both collapsed and tried to convince the instructor that we could survive on the upside down raft well enough, and we didn't need to flip it over.
but he didn't agree with us, so we flipped it.

Hope you like my story. Later!

Rachel