karlyann

On the afternoon of April 4, 2008 six of my School Year Abroad classmates and I boarded one of two buses headed for the Western Academy of Beijing to participate in the first Asian delegation of the Global Issues Network Conference. I didn’t know that the next three days were to permanently change my life. The First Day “You not only can make a difference, you must make a difference.” -J. F. Rischard After a confusing and loud registration process where we received ‘Earth’s Hope’ T-shirts, bracelets, lime green tote bags, a program, an environmentally friendly water bottle, and a savvy and professional looking name tag, we were broken up in to two groups of almost 200 (there were 300 students attending the conference from, among other places, South Korea, Indonesia, Turkey, Singapore, Guangzhou and Hong ... read more

He stands there, obviously instructed not to move but finding this very hard to do. Every day a guard, a small man in a green-grey uniform, stands watching the entrance to my school. His hat doesn’t quite fit on his head - it’s a little small. If he turns his head too quickly it might fall off. Sometimes I hope it will, so I can see what he’s like when he isn’t the permanent statue fixed to his green stand. The stand is shaped like a wedding cake, two-tiered. Atop it stands the lone figure in a very standardized uniform. Maybe it’s one-size-fits-all. In any event, it doesn’t quite fit him - he looks like a little boy trying in vain to trudge around in his father’s shoes. This guard’s uniform is covered in straps, buttons, ... read more

Bandos Island Resort in the Maldives. It was absolutely beautiful! One of those few, untouched places. SCUBA diving was great, with a wide variety of fish. The only sharks were small back-tips, though. We did a night dive and got to see the plankton lights - if you've never done that you should; it's amazing!... read more

In Phuket we stayed at a little resort on the beach. We went to the FantaSea performance - which was kind of like a theme park with lots of shops and games, dinner, and then a performance with dancers and animals (a LOT of elephants...my favorite). It was interesting, I would definitely recommend it. We also went to a little farm and got a demonstration of how the monkeys work to get coconuts down from the trees. We got a chance to take a quick spin in a bullock cart, and visited a rubber farm. We visited Phi phi island, which was beautiful but swamped with tourists...there was also a Bollywood movie being shot there when we visited! We got a chance to ride elephants as well and explore some of the forest.... read more

We stayed in a small lodge in Kabini and went on safari for a long weekend... read more

Quick getaway from Bangalore to the beach of Goa - a lot of time to hang out and do nothing!... read more