Asia Day!

Asia Day!

I'm on my way home from Hiroshima, but the post about Japan will have to wait for another day when I have a real keyboard instead of the one on my blackberry.
Instead, I decided I'd write a little post about Asia Day. Asia Day is a day for anyone on ship to give small talks or demonstrations if she feels she has something relevant to the day.
The first part of my day was a talk given by professor Zimmerman. She has been to the majority of the ports because her family traveled on SAS in spring 2007. I found out a lot of good information such as how far the ports are from the city centers.
After her talk I went to an Ikebana workshop. Ikebana is Japanese flower arranging. The workshop was given by Shelley Galloway, a life long learner. (Mom & Dad: she's the one who was so nice at the Sheraton and was answering everyone's questions about the trip) Apparently she is a member of one of the schools and was going into Tokyo for some of the classes. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. There are specific angles the flowers have to be at and they have to be separated and stuff. But I did get two compliments on it as I was carrying it down to my room :)
Then there was an amazing talk put on by the Chinese students. They each had a talent and showed us traditional dancing, opera, painting, Kong Fu, and fashion. They put it all together themselves and it was great! But it also made me feel grossly inadequate. All those talents plus they speak fluent English and mandarin (and some speak cantonese!) I can barely speak spanish. And don't really have a talent :(
I had a long break after that and then went to dinner. It was a Japanese meal and was horrible. I tried a little of it all and the only thing I ate was the chicken. Even the fried rice was bad.
I also went to spiritual dance, which Jill, Christine, and Justin convinced me to try. If you'd like details for what that is, email me, because I'm not going to write them here because don't know who's reading this =)
We also had preport, which just tells us about the culture and useful info to know for port like where the closest post office and ATM are.
I'll write about Japan later. All I can say is that for it being a place I couldn't have cared less about I absolutely LOVE it here.
Love,
Courtney
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry