BACK IN THE USA: HILO, HAWAII

I decided it was finally time to update the look of my blog. I've been waiting for blogger to create a template that allowed users to post bigger photos, and here it is. Our crazy ride on Semester at Sea is coming to an end. In three days we will be docking in San Diego and returning to our regular existences. That's not entirely true. Julie will be heading back to school at George Mason, but I got a job for the summer in Fiji and New Zealand. I also bought a new camera that will be waiting for me back in Portland. More on that soon.

MY FAVORITE: JAPAN

I love Japan. It is a place I could settle down. It is also a place I feel I could learn a lot from. The only two drawbacks are the Portland-like weather and the high cost of living. Everything else; from the general aesthetic, to the food, to the religion, seem perfect to me. Hopefully we will get back here again soon.

WATCH OUT FOR CHINA!

VIETNAM: I LOVE YOU BETTER BEFORE

The world has officially gotten less interesting. Vietnam was one of my favorite ports back in 2006 because it was chaotic and lawless. Now street vendors have been replaced by fancy watch stores, and the old mind boggling traffic is controlled by stop lights. It's also not the bargain it used to be. A massage at our hotel in Hue would have cost around $80 for a hour, more than one would cost back home. Six years ago it would have cost around $5. I suppose it's good for Vietnam that they now live more comfortable, albeit less interesting existences. But the one thought that kept coming back to me in our time there was, "We can't all live like we do in the US". This is not selfishness, but rather pragmatism. The world simply can't support billions of people consuming resources at our rate. Whoops!