Dear Missers and Well Wishers,

R.I.P. Helia Erickson. My great grandma of 105, the queen of the north, I’m sure you will take care of everyone in the next life just as good as you did in this one. Thanks for being a true inspiration of the human spirit and being a source of strength and compassion for all to admire.

https://mail.stthomas.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.legacy.com/StarTribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory%26PersonId=17477813

I think my desire to explore and be different stems from her side more than anyone elses. The fact that she played baseball and went to college which was something girls weren’t supposed to do. I am the same way in that if I am supposed to spend my college years drinking away and partying, I’d rather be running marathons and traversing the world in a way that isn’t the same as anyone else. That’s what brings me happiness, is being able to strike off on my own in a whole new direction and find a new sort of happiness. I hope I can do that for the rest of my life.




Stepping off the young MV explorer, I entered the wonderful place of Kobe, Japan. My first idea was natural, head to the much rumored insane baseball games. My spirits for the game were quickly dampered by the lingering seattlesque rain and the game was officially cancelled. After this I proceeded to have one of the most interesting SAS experiences yet. After taking the subway back to the station I decided to pick a temple on the map, throw the map away and make my way there on my own. It was truly a fascinating experience to just get lost in an unknown country where you can’t read anything and have no idea where you are going. It was nice to be on my own and away from any groups for a day because anywhere I wanted to go, I could just walk into without discussing it with anyone or worry about losing anyone. I found out a couple things on my journey to get lost, one was Japan truly is the mecca for all that is video games. There are playstations 2’s in all the internet café’s and the arcades are all on a grand multiplayer scale where people will spend a lot of time and money on these ‘brain builders’. After wondering into several golf shops I found my beloved temple. It happened to be a historic landmark with tickets and stuff so I happily observed the end of my quest and then headed out to dinner with some friends. Dinner was always an interesting experience in Japan because we always ate next to the nicest people would explain the entire menu to us and give us some of their food and share some drinks.

The second day I was off on my last official Semester at Sea sanctioned excursion. Our long bus ride to the town of Nara began with visting a…. TEMPLE!! It was cool, but even more beautiful was the fact that our guide told us that once a year that cherry blossom trees go into full bloom for 5 days and we happened to arrive in their prime. They were very beautiful and by the end of our trip you could tell they were starting to wilt. But for a while that tree’s were littered in pink dots and it was quite beautiful and quite cold. We also found Deer park, where deer would roam freely amongst the people and they were very fat and well fed and I continued to feed their addiction to cookies, bread and even paper. After this we proceeded to our wonderful ryokan which is a Japanese traditional style in and you have to where a robe everywhere you go and no shoes which I really enjoyed. The room’s were a hallway, a bathroom and then futons for sleeping! As I made my way to the bathroom I discovered the greatest invention of all time… Heated Toilet Seats. It almost makes a trip to the bathroom exciting. This was joined by such toilet accessories as the butt washer and water noise maker for potentially embarrassing situations and it came fully equipped with a volume control button. After a cross legged dinner, I made my way to the public bath. As is tradition I proceeded to the male only section and got out of my clothes and was prepared to wash up when much to my surprise an 80 year old woman was currently occupying the bath. I closed the door and came back a couple hours later. The bath was actually excruciatingly hot but at the same time felt incredibly nice. After such a relxing evening it was off to bed.

After exploring some more temples in Kyoto which all blend together (and have been since burma) we headed back to Kobe for another interesting dinner experience. I finally got to a sushi restaurant. After a very delicious meal, we were notified that once a year they have baby eel at this restaurant and they gave me a small bowl full of baby eels which were still SWIMMING and very much alive and told us it was custom to take it as a shot. After feeling like a contestant on Fear Factor, I decided to give it the ol’ college try and it was actually sorta tasty albeit squirmy.




The rest of my time was spent going to another cancelled baseball game and going to several Sake factories and exploring the shopping district of Kobe I just continued to walk around with some of my friends. It was on this trip I realized that out of all these great places we’ve seen in the world, it’s this circumstance of being in college and traveling with friends that truly made semester at sea a unique experience. It’s like the old saying, it’s not what you see but who you see it with. We had an absolutely amazing time bowling, doing Karokee (in private rooms with just our group) and I truly found it to be one of the best ports I have been to. Everything about Japan’s geographical setup says it should be at a complete disadavantage in terms of space, limited resources no countries linked to it. However Japan in some ways is more technologically advanced than the U.S. and also it was A LOT cleaner, and the people were very kind, the geisha’s were very beautiful. It’s strange that Japan has come so far in a short time because while the US was starting off in the 1800’s Japan was still settling domestic disputes with Shoguns. Japan is also the first country that doesn’t accept US dollars because they are very proud of their yen and really strive for excellence. I was very impressed with the countries ability to function. It was weird being in Japan seeing that it’s the only organized country to make an offensive strike against the United States since the colonial days. However they welcomed the US as friends and we were treated amazingly well everywhere we went. The memory of Japan will stay with me for a long time and its definitely a place I will return to someday just to see the behemoth that is Tokyo. After a magical experience I am sad to say that we have now begun the long journey home (14 days, ugh cabin fever and rough seas to account for as well) classes were cancelled the day after japan due to rough seas which makes up for me missing the one snow day in Minnesota. Everyone can expect a special friendly blog after our stop in Hawaii and then a blog when I hit my basement in Plymouth, MN. Until then, thanks again to Hank for another fantastic letter in Japan and all his letters really kept me smiling and were wonderful to receive. Thanks to Grace and Jenna for more awesome postcards and I hope this blog has been fun. We also had a charity auction on the ship where I took place in getting a bottle of merlot, a group of 10 friends for a week in a cottage on the coast of England, a 2-10 day photography expedition (may or may not be for someone depending on schedules) and we bought for 21 dollars a piece our very own table at lunch and dinner. Their were many tempting items including a week long hunting/fishing trip in south Africa. But I made sure my friends were included in all my thing and considering that all my things altogether are less than some of the SAS sanctioned trips like to the amazon (so its less that 1250) I thought it sounded like fun and hopefully we will have some great fun! Time to begin studying for final exam…