My New Port

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Tonight they made an announcement that the entire shipboard community should come to the Union at 7 to hear where we are going instead of Japan. We are now going to Taiwan! The Philippines and South Korea were the other options, but because of radiation and political/religious unrest, SAS thought the safest place to go would be Taiwan. We were all sort of bummed because I think we were all looking forward to Japan. But I keep telling myself that this is a natural disaster and there is nothing I can do about it. I’m happy that they are just letting us go somewhere else in Asia that is safe. So I will be going there after Shanghai for four days. The only real negative problem with going to Taiwan is that we all need visas. Americans on the ship will have no problems they said, but they are going to try their best to see if the Chinese students can get them. My poor international friends….some of them keep getting stuck on the ship because they can’t get their visas to go through.

If anyone knows of some stuff to do there, or someone I can email to learn what to do and where to stay, that would be amazing (my SAS email is: [e-mail]). Just remember that if I write you back, the time zone difference is almost a day at this point, so expect a delay.

Tonight is also the first night that we get to change our clocks back one hour! I’m trying to cherish this moment, because after Taiwan and Hawaii, we have to start gaining an hour every night for about a week and half ugh! Not to mention that that week and a half is finals week!

Doing homework and studying is getting really hard at this point. With only 5 weeks left in the trip and the fact that we are traveling somewhere new every week, I’m starting to get stressed out. I think I took a 4 hour nap today… ghezzz! It’s okay though, I’ll somehow get through all of it….

So, just wanted to spread the news! Other than that, pre-port is tomorrow night, and then I will be in Vietnam for 5 days. I think the first day I will stay in Ho Chi Minh and then I’m going on a 3 day trip to Ha Long Bay, and then back to Ho Chi Minh for the rest of the trip.

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