Reflections of day 1 to day 18

fireboat into kobe

I decided to place my reflections here instead of email-less complicated at these internet cafes...

Dear friends & family~

We arrived in Kobe yesterday and 0800 and by the time all of the festivities were completed, my friend Debbie and I were able to get off the ship and head into downtown for a bit of getting away from it all, getting our feet on the ground and making our first trip to find money, stamps and a place to eat!

During this time and in the past 24 hours, I have begun my decompression process of the first 19 days on the ship from Ensenada, Mexico to Kobe, Japan. Although we had a day in Hawaii, it really has been as if I have been on a campus with 800 people, closed in together with no escape or downtime to think through, process and re-group again…that is both the beauty of Semester At Sea and sometimes the crazy intensity of the voyage of discovery. In the long run, this is what makes Semester At Sea and this journey so darn memorable…and the memories have already begun!

I hope many of you have been following and enjoying my blog, as this has been the place for me to highlight the happenings on the ship. I hope to also keep my travel journal going similarly on there, although this may be a bit more challenging as we start popping in and out of countries here in the next couple of weeks. My next few trips will be incredible-we leave Japan on Saturday and we are only at sea for 2 days and boom in China the following Tuesday. I am heading up to Guilin for almost the entire time we are in China: we port in Qindao and are only there for 2 days-the ship then sails to Hong Kong for 2 days and then in Hong Kong for an additional 2 days~ during this time, the majority of the ship community will be traveling to all parts of China-clearly most folks will be at the Great Wall., but I will be experiencing a “natural environment” wonderof the world-can’t wait to see this in real person~ I have only seen these gum drop mountains in pictures. We are then on the ship for 3 days and boom in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. There I am headed up to Cambodia for all but 1 day of our stay which is another 6 days…and so the second 17 days of my journey around the world will be gone quickly! We then have a break on the ship of 5 days before we arrive in Myanmar! After 5 days there, we will only have 2 days on the ship and then India. Another long stretch then happens to Adibiya, Egypt…I will stop there, but you see this all adds to the amazing intensity of it all…

So, I have learned to take it day by day, enjoying the gems of folks I am meeting, the amazing moments of learning and connection I am experiencing and being present as much as I can to the fact that I get to do this amazing trip!

We are presently just about to dismiss our first student from this amazing adventure though, which has put a big damper on my day today. He is an amazing human being and although I have only had a brief conversation with him, he brought with him a serious drug addiction issue and did not get himself the proper help prior to putting himself into this somewhat “pressure cooker” environment. The fortunate part is that he was able to share with us his problems early on and had this somewhat safe environment for both us and him to realize that this is just not going to be the best situation for him to be in! He needs to go home, get himself into some rehab and pull his life back together again. His fat
her was notified the day before yesterday and is 10 minutes from the ship now who will escort him home. It really is so sad…and a second student is pretty close to being #2 with a very serious alcohol addiction. The ship is a small picture of what is on every campus across America, but added pressure with the trip and intensity I spoke of earlier, it really brings out these addictions into the limelight~ surely no place to hide here on this small ship! So, we will see…but first things first though~ we need to deal with him tonight and the next fellow later tonight!

Well, enough for today and this leg of the journey. I see my aunt and uncle tomorrow for the day and dinner with them tomorrow night-looking forward to catching up with them. We then climb Mt Roco on Friday, a little Kereoke that evening and who knows what Saturday will bring!

Thank you again to those who have dropped me a line here and there-I cannot tell you how much this keeps me grounded in who I am in the rest of my life-cause things can get pretty skewed out here-love hearing what you are doing day to day at home~ as someone said in a note today, “it just seems so mundane to talk about my measly existence as I read about your worldly travels”…but I gotta tell ya, it helps me “normalize” my mundane crazy world on this ship!
Love you all~ ro

here are some reflective picture from Kobe... fresh tofu at dinner

haruki @ dinner & 1st stop-post office
sake tradition of pouring for others!

temple in kobe