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Donuts, Roadkill, and Sage Advice = Vacay Tri-fecta

By sam | Published July 7, 2011

The weather in Indiana is always a little crazy and unpredictable, and this year seems to be the year of monsoon rain. We’re living in the land of flooded cornfields and soggy socks, and we’ve been starting to feel a little down. A few weeks ago we had lost Artax to the swamps of sadness and were about ready to give in and let Gmork consume us. Thankfully, our own little luck dragon — Southwest Airlines — swooped in and carried us off to the sunny desert lands of Arizona and Nevada for a much-needed canyon adventure. Adding six great friends and an extended family crowd totaling something in the neighborhood of 25 people gave us a true vacation, Tharpie-style.

All that airplane travel — as well as the high-energy 80′s butt rock sing-along en route to the airport — left everyone in our party a little worn out and ready to turn in early when we reached sunny Las Vegas. We made up for it with a wild and crazy trip to Ronald’s Donuts early the next morning…yes, home of the world-famous vegan doughnut. Really, you can’t even tell. It was off the hook. People were smashing milk cartons together, dancing on the doughnut display cases, and shotgunning coffee one gallon at a time. I finally got everyone to calm down for this photo:

With donut hangovers coming on quick, we piled back into our 15-passenger van (dubbed “Consuela” by Shannon) and headed out on Route 66 to meet up with the rest of our hiking crew at the Roadkill Cafe in Seligman, AZ. The Roadkill food was great, and the wait staff had the mix of good service and small-town straightforward candidness we love: “Be careful with the bartenders here. They’ll try to usher you into the bar and get your tips before you’ve had a chance to sit down out here in the main part of the restaurant…and the bastards usually add 18% gratuity automatically for a big group like this! Out here in the restaurant…well, we go ahead and leave that off the bill so that what you give is up to you. <wink>”

We spent our last night before the big backpacking adventure to Havasupai Canyon (a side canyon of the world famous Grand Canyon) at the charming Supai Motel where the man who runs the motel will happily volunteer to wake up and make coffee and chit-chat any time his visitors suggest — even 3am! As it turned out, both he and we got a lucky weather break and were able to sleep in until 6am without risking heat exhaustion and dehydration on the trail. Our host had the coffee hot’n'ready at the appointed hour, and he served it up with lessons about the beautiful silence we should expect to find in the canyon and the proper perspective for taking in its ancient majesty. “If the canyon could talk, it would say to you, ‘Who is this? You are so young. I do not know your little baby species!’” Needless to say, the Supai Motel gets high marks on our scale of fun and interesting places to spend the night.

The Supai Motel has one of the sweetest signs on Route 66. Photo credit to Staci DeBolt.

Now feeling rested and well-fed, it was high time we did a little hiking…

Posted in Family, Fitness, Travel | Tagged Arizona, backpacking, Grand Canyon, Havasupai Tribe, hiking, Las Vegas | Comments Off

Squashing Bugs w/ Ruby-Debug via RVM

By sam | Published May 25, 2011

This is a computer geek post. Feel free to skip it if you read this blog for the travel tales.

I recently started a job with Sentry Data Systems doing a mix of things with more time spent doing Ruby development than anything else. This is a post I wrote for an internal company developer blog, but it seemed like something that might prove helpful to a broader audience. I’ve tried to edit and remove company-specific stuff, but this does assume a *nix environment.

Before coming to Sentry my bills were paid via Java and Objective C, but I liked a lot of what I was seeing in the Ruby language and developer community. The fact that SDS had quite a bit of Ruby development happening definitely played a role in attracting me to the job. Debugging it, however, has been a real chore for me until a couple weeks ago. I finally took the time to set up ruby-debug using RVM to manage my own ruby instances, and I’m really happy now.

You can be happy, too. Here’s how:

First, back up your .bash_profile file because the RVM installation might stomp all over it.

Install RVM:

bash < <(curl -s https://rvm.beginrescueend.com/install/rvm)

If the rvm install trashed your .bash_profile settings, fix ‘em. Just be sure to leave the following command that loads rvm into your shell.

[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source “$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm” # This loads RVM into a shell session.

Install a fresh ruby 1.8.7 into rvm with:
```
rvm install 1.8.7
```
List the currently installed rubies:
```
rvm list
```
Switch from using the system ruby to your newly installed ruby 1.8.7:
```
rvm 1.8.7
```
Don’t do it now, but you can switch back to the system ruby with the following command:
```
rvm system
```
The ‘ruby’ command should now be pointing to your rvm ruby instead of /usr/bin/ruby (or wherever your system ruby is installed). Check it with the following:
```
which ruby
```
Install rubygems while working under your new rvm-installed ruby. The details for this vary from system to system, but the gist is that you get the version you want from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126 and then run the setup.rb ruby script.

Test your rubygems installation in irb:

irb
ruby-1.8.7-p334 :001> require 'rubygems'
 => true
ruby-1.8.7-p334 :002> exit

```
gem install ruby-debug
```

Add some default settings to .rdebugrc:

vim ~/.rdebugrc
&nbsp; set autolist
&nbsp; set autoeval
&nbsp; set autoreload

DONE!

Using the Debugger

To use the debugger, add the following to the top of whatever file you want to debug:

require 'ruby-debug'

Then, just add

debugger

to the line before you want execution to break.

You can do conditional breakpoints if you want:

debugger if x == 5

Start the debugger by using the ‘rdebug’ command in place of ‘ruby’:

rdebug scriptname.rb

If you want to pass in arguments to the file, put them after a “–”:

rdebug scriptname.rb -- -an_arg another_arg

Commands

Once you’re up and running with a break in the execution, here are some of the more useful commands:

help
```
h
```
next (step over)
```
n
```
step into
```
s
```
finish (step out)
```
fin
```
continue to next breakpoint
```
c
```
list the current line of code again
```
l=
```
quit
```
q
```

You can also type any ruby expression to have it be evaluated and printed out to your debugger console. Be careful because you can also change the current values or execute other arbitrary ruby code. Basically, you’ve got the power of irb right in the middle of your debugging…very nice but mildly dangerous.

Ahhh…that feels good. Now you can see what’s really going on with your spaghetti code mess without having to add a crap ton of print and puts statements.

Posted in Software Development | Tagged programming, ruby, software | Comments Off

A Eulogy for Claire Ellen (Jourdan) Green

By Shannon | Published March 6, 2011

August 9, 1943-February 20, 2011

Many of our friends and family know that my mom, Claire, died in February after six years of living with metastatic breast cancer. Her funeral was March 5, 2011, and I wanted to share the eulogy I gave (below) for those who could not be there to grieve with us. You can learn more about her life from her obituary, published in the Indianapolis Star on February 27 and March 4.My mom’s brother, Bill Jourdan, also shared a poem that had been read at his father’s funeral in 1977 and his mother’s funeral in 1981 called Gone from My Sight that I found very beautiful, especially after spending so much time on a ship last year. Yesterday was a lovely tribute to my mom, and I thank everyone who was there with us literally and also those who were there with us in their hearts. I already miss her so much! Now, my eulogy to her:

I’m sure those of you who have written a eulogy before know how difficult it is. How do you sum up the things you want people to remember about someone who was so close to you, and so important in your life? What about someone who gave you life? Of course we all have good and bad qualities—she knew mine and I knew hers. I’m not here to say that my mom didn’t frustrate me at times when it came to choices she made about her health, or that our relationship was always perfect. What I am here to say is that she was a beautiful person who made a positive impact on me and on this world.

I’m very thankful that Claire and Larry Green were determined to have a baby. They married in 1971 wanting lots of children, but it didn’t work out that way. Maybe going through so many miscarriages was one reason my mom disliked visiting the doctor so much. When they wrote “involuntary abortion” on her medical records, she demanded that they change the word to “miscarriage” even though it wasn’t the proper medical terminology for what had happened. But her sixth pregnancy was different: I was born one day before her due date and came out screaming and healthy. She would often tell me I haven’t changed a bit since then. Growing up, the number one item on my Christmas and birthday present lists was always “a baby brother or sister.” I wasn’t picky. Deemed “too old” to adopt in their mid-thirties, I had no way of understanding it was the one gift my parents wanted to give me most and never could.

Instead of a sibling, my parents gave me the best childhood a kid could ask for. We read tons of great books together, visited the local library twice a week, went to the zoo and the bowling alley, had breakfast for dinner quite a lot, and played all kinds of games: UNO, Sorry!, Hungry, Hungry Hippos, Operation…and tons of card games. To fulfill my sibling envy, I watched a lot of Brady Bunch episodes. Mom even tolerated the addition of two imaginary siblings, Cindy and Bobby, when I was seven. They only existed for a few months, but she never complained, disciplined them when they misbehaved, and even set a place at the table for them whenever I remembered they were hungry, too.

She was also a behind the scenes person–always looking for ways to help and carefully avoiding the spotlight. She volunteered at church doing small but important things that she was never recognized for and that very few people even knew about: putting together church bulletins or organizing a Christmas gift giving tree for a local charity. She always volunteered for my teachers and made herself available to babysit when other moms and dads were in a pinch. She loved working at a local Montessori preschool and also supported my dad’s business by doing all the bookkeeping for free. She volunteered for the PTA throughout my K-12 years and was the first to buy the $20 in cookies I was required to sell for fundraisers so I wouldn’t have to go door to door to ask people for money, which she knew I hated. She made sure I had plenty of nice clothes, a clean and lovely home to bring friends to visit, and all the cereal and milk I needed, for there was a time when I would eat nothing else. She was the consummate nurturer, born to be the great, fabulous mommy she was.

My mom was not a helicopter parent–she let me choose my own friends, my own course schedules throughout my school years, and my own activities. She and my dad made it easy for me to own up to a mistake. She encouraged me to solve my own problems and was on my side when I didn’t know if I could do it alone. She believed in me and taught me that I have all the potential I need to do whatever I want in life. She was an excellent writer and had a way with words. If I ever write something I’m proud of, it’s not because of my teachers. It’s because of her.

And what a fabulous mother-in-law she was! Sam was dear to her heart–the son she never had. She often told him that if she could have had a son, she would have wanted him to be just like Sam. He called her mom. This thrilled her. I would like to publicly thank Sam now for all that he did to make my mom’s life better. Try as my dad and I might, there were many times when only his touch or his words could coax her out of bed, get her to take her medicine or do her physical therapy, or help her to see the need for a treatment. She absolutely adored him, and more importantly, she felt adored by him. Thanks, Sam. I love you.

But if I had to sum up my mom’s best quality in two words, they would be excellent listener. Desmond Tutu calls it “the gift of presence.” She always said that I am her legacy, but I think that’s only part of the truth. Her legacy includes the people here and many people who preceded her in death, all of whom at one time or another used her as a sounding board and got through whatever problem they were dealing with thanks to her quiet understanding. She also gave sound advice, but only when asked. Always the loyal and true friend, she kept her word and was there for people when they needed her most. She loved all of us, she loved life, and she loved God. Of all the women in the world, I’m so glad she was my mom. I’m only sorry that I am the only one who knows the exquisite privilege of growing up as her child.

Posted in Family | Tagged Claire Green, eulogy, Gone from My Sight poem, obituary | 1 Comment

Icepocalypse

By sam | Published February 9, 2011

Being back in Indiana is, weatherly speaking, a long way from Central America and the Panama Canal. We got iced in for a few days last week and had a lot of good laughs with family and friends sitting around the fire, watching movies, and playing Angry Birds (Shannon is a pig-smashing fiend). Most of the city was shut down with a couple inches of ice on everything, so it was a nice little staycation for everyone except Sam — sometimes working from home isn’t as awesome as he usually makes it out to be!

The city may have been shut down, but Twitter never sleeps. Our friend, @TotallyJeffCPA started a round mischief with this little gem from a few neighborhoods away: “This stuff is so awesome to run and slide in. No joke, go try it! Get a good running start and just let nature and gravity take control.” Sam and his brother Peter took Jeff’s advice immediately. Thanks to the slight hill, they didn’t even need a running start:

Icepocalypse 1 from Sam and Shannon Bloomquist on Vimeo.

Sam captured his run on a very shaky first-person HandCam:

Icepocalypse 2 from Sam and Shannon Bloomquist on Vimeo.

Brothers will be brothers, so Pete upped the ante by heading to the bigger hill.

Icepocalypse 3 from Sam and Shannon Bloomquist on Vimeo.

Foreseeing the bruised tailbones that inevitably result after prolonged brotherly competition on the icy slopes, the girls decided it was time to break out the sleds.

Icepocalypse 4 from Sam and Shannon Bloomquist on Vimeo.

Thanks for the fun, Mother Nature.

P.S. Hoosiers are ready for spring any time you and Groundhog Phil feel like delivering it.

Posted in Family | Tagged ice, sledding | Comments Off

131 Days Later

By Shannon | Published January 7, 2011

It’s official: we’ve just arrived back in the U.S. of A. In some ways it’s hard to believe that we really have been all the way around the world. It would have been really tough to do this without the support and encouragement of so many of our fabulous friends and family back home, and we’re very grateful. Thanks for sticking with us, caring for our pets, and sending so many thoughtful e-mails, notes, cards, blog comments and other little goodies as we sailed for 131 days from Norfolk to Canada to Europe and through the Prime Meridian and the Equator simultaneously on our way down the coast of Africa to India to East Asia to Hawaii to San Diego to Latin America and through the Panama Canal ending in Fort Lauderdale for a grand total of 29,338 nautical miles. We don’t yet know how this experience will ultimately impact our lives, but finding out will be our next great adventure, and we’re excited about it.

Between Vietnam and the end of our semester voyage, many of you noticed that our blogging fell a little behind. This happened, in part, because right after our visit to China, Sam was invited to give an address at the S@S commencement/convocation ceremony to take place on December 12–the day before we arrived in San Diego–the day before the students and most of the staff and faculty said goodbye and disembarked. The emotional time leading up to that day was filled with Japan, final exams, end-of-semester events, and a whirlwind of activities and responsibilities, so all spare time we would have spent blogging was instead spent pondering and preparing what to say. We really do write these entries as a team, and it’s difficult for either one of us to keep things going when one of us gets too busy to help. So, the blog suffered. Thanks for not unsubscribing, and thanks for encouraging us to get caught back up.

So it happened that on 12/12/10, Sam was honored to address the shipboard community along with a hilariously poignant and insightful student named Aaron Kalb, a righteously intelligent and witty poet and faculty member named Steve Cushman, and member of the Elders and inspiration to all, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Our friend Holly captured Sam’s speech on her flip video camera. Better than anything else we could post here, it encompasses our thoughts and feelings about the voyage and the phenomenal people we met, so we’ve decided to close out our F10 S@S blog posts with it. Thanks again for your support and encouragement as we lived the dream for a few months’ time. Many great poets and songwriters remind us that beginnings are born from endings. We are excited for the new beginning that awaits us on land, but thanks to thehollyroo82′s video skillz, we can always remember our Semester at Sea ending just like this:

Posted in Travel | Tagged commencement, F10, Fall 2010, Sam Bloomquist, SaS, Semester at Sea, speech | 1 Comment

Fiascoes in Paradise

By sam | Published January 4, 2011

The semester ended on December 13, but we remained on the ship to work in the library and the lab during a three week Enrichment Voyage through the Panama Canal. The Latin American itinerary is nearly identical to the voyage we did in 2009, so we spent lots of time reuniting with old friends from voyages past, relaxing on the beach, and trying to process the experiences from last semester.

One notable exception to our beach bum lifestyle this time around was an overnight visit to Antiqua, Guatemala. We were able to get a fabulous room at Casa Santo Domingo, a converted monestary turned hotel and art museum, for an exceptionally good price. It was absolutely breathtaking, and the only place we’ve ever stayed that even comes close to matching these exquisite accommodations is the Addo Elephant Reserve on our South African safari.

The last time we visited Latin America, many people wanted to know about our favorite port. We couldn’t give any sort of straight answer because all the countries are so unique, and we had memorable and moving experiences in each of them. This time we’re going to come right out and state our preference: Guatemala–Antigua, specifically. If you’re thinking about a vacation to Central America, think about this charming little city. It’s nestled in a valley between two volcanoes, so the views are breathtaking. The people are friendly, the food is delicious, the shopping is superb, the Spanish is immersive, and the colonial architecture offsets the natural beauty of the landscape in ways that surprise and delight. You can’t do much better. Also, if any of you are thinking about a destination wedding, think about Casa Santo Domingo, and please think about inviting us.

Antigua, of course, wasn’t our only adventure. Here’s a brief run-through of a few of our more memorable experiences.

In Nicaragua, the kids were just as cute as the last time we visited, and Sam had a ball trying to think up games on the beach that he could explain using only very limited Espanol.

We transited the canal again and took screenshots with the live webcam on pancanal.com while we went through.

Transiting the Panama Canal – Miraflores Locks from Sam and Shannon Bloomquist on Vimeo.

In Roatan, we went on our first official open water scuba diving adventure since being certified at an Indiana rock quarry earlier in 2010. Our friend Courtney bought us to a great little dive shop called Tyll’s Dive. They cut us a really good deal since we work on the ship, and we really like them a lot. We dove a site called Turtle Crossing where we were lucky enough to see several sea turtles as well as an eel, barracuda, crab, and lionfish. Tyll’s Dive has a motto–Fiascoes in Paradise–which helps Roatan to remain one of our favorite Caribbean ports along with Guatemala. We hope to head back for a longer visit someday.

On the Caribbean side of Guatemala, we hired a boat with a bunch of fellow staffers and toured the Jurassic Park-esque Rio Dulce Canyon. We’ve really become accustomed to life on the water, and we’ll miss the pelicans, ibis, and magnificent frigate birds (Sam, especially, because he’s a birder at heart) in a major way when we return home.

Perhaps the best part of this trip was having a few friends from Indy along. Sam’s former co-worker Steve came along with his wonderful family. Having them here was a nice touch of home just when we needed it, and we had a blast goofing around with our fellow Hoosiers and exploring Central America together.

Posted in Travel | Tagged beach, Belize, Central America, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama Canal, Roatán, SaS, Semester at Sea | Comments Off

Hanging Loose in Hawaii, Brah

By sam | Published January 3, 2011

Our last port of call during our Semester at Sea was Hawaii, and it was bittersweet. Sweet because Hawaii is beautiful and fun (and so are our new friends); bitter to think about the end of the voyage–an ending that must happen and that will bring new beginnings for all of us, but also an ending that feels very sad because none of us will ever be all together in this place at this time again. We decided to use our time to learn a little about the history and culture of the islands, relax and reflect on our voyage, and log some QT with a few of our new BFFs before they split up and scattered to Chicago, Colorado, South Africa, and Virginia.

Our friend Stephanie led a half-day SaS trip to Pearl Harbor and the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. We were once more saddened by the toll of war as we learned about the Japanese surprise attack and the misinterpreted radar data that led US military officials to believe the Japanese planes were US planes coming back from an exercise in California. We saw video and photos of the devastation, and we took a ferry over to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial–one of the simplest and yet most beautiful monuments that we have ever seen. We also remembered the stories relayed by fellow shipmates who visited Hiroshima in Japan. Because we were in Honolulu just a few days before the anniversary of the attack, a number of Pearl Harbor veterans were there to talk with visitors about the “day that will live on in infamy” and to share their memories.

For the last few days of the voyage we rented a car and drove all around the big island with our friends. We did all the usual things you’d expect to do in an island paradise:

Visit Wal-Mart to buy snacks for a party on the ship and also to buy our shipboard family some holiday/goodbye treats. (Besides, we hadn’t seen a Wally World in 4 months–give us a break!)

Wal-Mart turned out to be even more culturally sweet than we expected because we learned that in Hawaii, Salvation Army volunteers play ukeleles instead of ringing bells.

Admire the plethora of rainbows.

Look at Jodi’s waterfalls.

Watch surfers.

Be the photographer chronicling some goofy girl-time in the back seat.

Splash around with sea turtles.

Eat, swill, and chill like true DudeBros.

Play in a volcano.

Write secret messages with lava rocks.

And last but certainly not least, get a hang loose from Santa.

Merry Christmas and Aloha (both a little late)!

Posted in Travel | Tagged animals, Hawaii, nature, SaS, Semester at Sea | Comments Off

The Land of the Rising Sun

By sam | Published December 30, 2010

There are a number of things we saw and did in Japan that didn’t really fit in that last post, so here are a few more pics for your enjoyment.

The best waffles money can buy are found at a restaurant called Honeybee inside the mall at the Kyoto train station (calorie counting not recommended during your visit).

It impressed us how the shoguns and emperors of Japan could balance ornate extravagance with elegant minimalism in all aspects of design.

Autumn is our favorite season, but we jumped right from summer-like heat in Vietnam to icy winter in Beijing and Shanghai. We were very thankful to find fall in Japan. Kyoto was especially gorgeous during the full moon festival, and we’d love to go back and spend more time there someday.

We met a number of cutesy harajuku and anime characters in addition to future fashionistas walking and shopping in Tokyo.

Sam started working on a pouty face he calls “baby steel”. Is modeling a career he could fall back on if the computer programming job market tanks? You be the judge.

Our friend and fellow traveler Sarah Bogard led by example. Her father taught her to love sushi when she was a very small child, and she passed on to us her enthusiasm for fresh sushi from the Tokyo fish market. We ate some weird stuff that day, but Sarah, a faculty member on the ship, is smart. She didn’t tell us what we were tasting until after it was down the hatch, and we didn’t ask. Thanks for the lesson, Sarita-san!

We washed down the raw fish with delicious green tea.

Finally, we learned that good karaoke is more about spirit than vocal abilities.

Posted in Travel | Tagged Japan, SaS, Semester at Sea | Comments Off

Japan: the Not-Quite-Final Frontier

By sam | Published December 28, 2010

Geeky confession: we both really enjoy watching old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Okay, now that we’ve got that out in the open, we can talk about Japan. One of the things we like about TNG is how the voyagers on the Enterprise visit civilizations on other planets that are often more advanced than the civilizations on Earth. They usually have one or two major environmental attributes that caused them to evolve very differently. We realize that Eastern thought is a huge part of Western thought and that the far East is not given enough credit by Western minds for this. We would not have evolved at all had it not been for Japan and China. Even with all the things America has in common with our Eastern friends–love of family, beauty, and history–for us, visiting Japan as an American traveler helped us understand the true meaning of the word “foreign” better than any other place on our itinerary.

We admit it: navigating Japan felt completely bizarre to our western minds. In some areas of Japan, blocks are named and streets are not. Structures are numbered in the order in which they were built instead of sequentially as one progresses along a street. To top it all off, the language barrier was greater in Japan than in any of our other ports of call, so asking for directions proved difficult. Considering all these factors, it’s not surprising that we found ourselves wandering back ‘n forth around several Japanese cities (Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, and Yokohama) spending an hour or so looking for destinations that were only supposed to be ten minutes away on foot.

In Osaka, we stayed at a capsule hotel. On one floor women were allowed to sleep: the rest of the hotel was for men. We each got a locker to store our backpacks. Inside, we found cool cotton kimonos and some funky little rubber slippers. The slippers covered about half of Sam’s size 13 feet (surprise!). We didn’t know it at the time, but the experience of sleeping in a rack of tiny capsules was actually just a taste of things to come: we are currently living in a tiny converted crew cabin with bunk beds for three weeks as we continue working on the ship during a highly popular (and oversold) Enrichment Voyage.

Sleeping in the equivalent of an oversized dresser drawer feels strange enough, but perhaps the most alien experience of all was the bathing ritual of the Japanese onsen. Having grown up in a family of six and having spent a number of years getting ready for the day at the local YMCA after working out, Sam is no stranger to a lack of privacy. Still, even the curtain-free showers of the Y are insufficient preparation for the experience of soaking in a series of tubs for a couple of hours with a bunch of naked Japanese businessmen. Was it odd and uncomfortable at first? Damn straight. But if nothing else, Semester at Sea teaches us to let go of as many preconceived notions as we can. Go with it, and Japanese bathing turns out to be pretty relaxing. It’s also worth the time it takes…and that’s coming from a guy who typically gets showered, dressed and ready for the day in 10 minutes or less.

Finally, the entire Japanese culture is extremely polite. This, too, felt foreign. It’s not that all Americans are rude, it’s just that being in a country where manners are prized made us realize how used we are to people doing insignificant but also inconsiderate things like cutting in line or answering cell phones during meals with friends. Case in point: in Japan, whenever we handed our credit card to a cashier to ring up a purchase, it was received carefully with both hands. We were given at least a couple courteous bows, and our card was returned to us in the same manner, with many bows and humble smiles of gratitude for the purchase. We never heard a cell phone ring in public, despite an abundance of mobile phones everywhere we went. This includes on the sidewalk, on the train, in the mall, and in restaurants.

Six days in a country isn’t long enough to fully understand all the manners and etiquette of a place, but the experiences we had made us feel comfortable and welcome while we were there. That’s a good feeling, and it’s one that doesn’t get lost in translation. Japan made us want to pay it forward. The respect and honor shown to us as human beings made us focus on responding to others in as polite and kind a manner as possible. We evolved differently, and we appreciate the that. Domo arigato, Japan.

Posted in Travel | Tagged culture, Japan, SaS, Semester at Sea | Comments Off

Shia Shia, Bullshia

By sam | Published December 23, 2010

The most often repeated lesson we’ve learned while sailing around the world is that people are extremely nice to travelers. Sure, some of them are hoping you’ll be willing to pay for some of their wares, but even in those cases they seem to also enjoy the simple act of making you smile – even when you don’t buy anything. It’s really quite extraordinary. For that reason, the most important phrase you can learn in any foreign language is thank you. The language barrier in China was a little stronger than in the ports leading up to it, but thankfully, saying thank you in Mandarin is not too tough. You just say xie xie with a neutral tone. Clear? Maybe not. Here is how it was explained to us by Marco, our Great Wall guide:

Say shit shit, but drop the ‘t’ and extend the i a little so it sounds more like shia shia–more Snoop Dogg than Garth Brooks, mind you. That’s all there is to it. You’re welcome is similar. It’s búkèqi, but if you lay back, take another sip of gin-’n-juice and say the word “bullshit” in your best gangsta drawl, you’ll be right on the money. Said properly, it should sound something like boo-shia.

In China we found plenty of opportunities to use our Mandarin linguistic skillz, as there was much that made us feel thankful.

The crazy pace of going around the world in 109 days sometimes causes people to forget to stop and celebrate the moment. Hong Kong malls reminded us. Shia shia.

The people in HK taught us that fashion really is king, especially when it comes to footwear. Shia shia.

On the mainland, we led a Semester at Sea hiking trip to the Great Wall with 68 students, faculty, staff, and lifelong learners. Standing atop the Wall and trying to take in the beauty and the history and the fact that we were in China on the opposite side of the world was a real “pinch me” sort of moment…not the first of the trip but definitely one of the most poignant. We learned from our guides that the story about being able to see the Great Wall with the naked eye from space is a complete falsehood, but learning that in no way diminishes the structure’s grandeur. It’s so big and so long that only 15 people have ever hiked it start to finish. When you consider that China is home to a couple billion people…well, more people have climbed Everest. Enough said.

Our second day of hiking was on a slightly more touristy part of the wall, and there were many vendors selling panda hats. Our ears were freezing, so we were more than happy to buy them. Shia shia for the warmth (and cuteness).

The actual hiking on the Wall did end up being pretty strenuous. Our guide, Marco, was worried that we would strain ourselves or sprain something, so he insisted that we join him in a round of group calisthenics every morning before we headed onto the wall. Shia shia for looking out for us, Comrade Marco.

Warming Up to Hike the Great Wall from Sam and Shannon Bloomquist on Vimeo.

The hotel where we stayed had extra blankets, a.k.a. “sheet covers” in the closet. Same same. Shia shia for the laugh.

After a few days of tough hiking, we spent a little time in the cities. The economic might of China is manifested in its skylines. If you’re reading this from the United States and have children, now would be a good time to enroll them in Mandarin classes. Enroll yourself too, while you’re at it. Shia shia for the wakeup call.

On our last day in China we took an elevator ride up to the top of the World Financial Center and looked out at Shanghai from the world’s tallest observation deck on the 110th floor. Shia shia for the magnificent view.

Shia shia, China, for welcoming us into your world and making it feel like our world, too.

Posted in Travel | Tagged China, Great Wall, hiking, SaS, Semester at Sea | Comments Off