We awoke to a fabulous blue-sky morning, and had breakfast out on the 6th Deck Garden Lounge, our last chance to say goodbye to the predominantly Filipino dining room crew who were going home for four months after eight months at sea. Many of them have small children at home, a testament to both how much they like working with the Semester at Sea program, and how dedicated they are to their work. They are incredible, and I’d guess that both Perry and Darwin probably knew the names of 75% of the 600 passengers on board. ISE’s service provider, V-Ships, staffs the entire ship even though the MV Explorer is actually owned by the program, purchased back in 2004. Most crew work 8 months on, 4 months off, and work a rotating 4-hours on, 4-hours off shift, though officers work every other 4 months. Dozens and dozens of crew remain below the 2nd deck (the lowest publicly-accessible floor) for the entire voyage, and we only rarely might catch a glimpse of them catching some R&R while in port, or during muster (lifeboat) drills.
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| Guilin Airport |
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| Not sure what some of that stuff is… |
We continued through the market, where people were eating and shopping, with much of the foodstuffs laid out on counters along the walkway. As in many of the countries we’d visited, every 5 meters or so were items that I cannot even fathom the source of, including one of apparent mammalian origin, a ‘terminal’ organ of which might have once been featured as an appetizer on that awful show from years ago, ‘Fear Factor’. All I can say is: Yuck, with a capital “Y”.
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| Pour hot water on this little guy, and he shot it out the front. |
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| The beautiful limestone street, curb and sidewalk. |
Our hotel was located adjacent to Rong Hu, a park with a smallish lake, interconnected to the moats that meander through the town. I walked to the west end, and was surprised to find a lock, elevating small tourist boats approximately 5 meters to the level of the lake and canal system. The trees were lit with colorful lights everywhere, though I realized it might be time to turn in when the lights went out at about 11:30pm. I walked back to the hotel, and I noticed an older man walking with a young girl, perhaps 12 to 14 years old, and—assuming he was her father—wondered if it was normal for kids in China to be out so late. Stopping to take another image of a lakeside sitting area, I became aware that she had walked up behind me, and was sitting, alone, on the benches a few meters from me. As I turned to leave, I tried to peripherally glance around to see where the older man had gone, but saw no sign of him. Being acutely aware of the fact that I was a foreigner in a land where I didn’t really know how things worked, I walked down the now-darkened lane along the lake, puzzled by the 90-second experience. As I neared the end of the lane, an electric scooter whizzed silently by, the man on the front, the girl riding on the back; they turned a corner and disappeared.
Weird. But, I had to acknowledge the possibility that I was indeed the weird one, the foreigner walking around a city alone at nearly midnight, not really knowing what to expect, nor able to understand what I was seeing.
