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Feb 20, 2014 After exploring more of the nooks and crannies within the city of Hong Kong, I finally allotted one day to go to the famous statue of Buddha located on Lantau Island. Situated on top of a mountain, it’s the biggest statue of Buddha in the entire world. People from all over the world come to this statue to experience the sight. The adventure began after I arrived to Lantau where I boarded a cable car. The ride in this cable car took at least 25 minutes. We crossed over part of the ocean, endless trees in dense forests, and eventually the upper altitudes of the mountain terrain. As we rose in altitude, the cable car seemed to enter the clouds of the sky whereby we no longer could see anything in any direction except pure white. Curiously, it brought to mind the concept of crossing from life into death as if the cable car were like a journey across the river Styx. Then the clouds disappeared, the sun returned, and the Buddha arose from the mountainside. After exiting the cable car, I explored the small town consisting of mostly shops, restaurants, and other novelties. For example, on one side of the street one could stand and make a wish. Supposedly, this exact tree had been used by the real Buddha during some of his meditations. Believers claim that by wishing under this tree, one might be able to harness the energy of the real Buddha and create a specific reality. I wished for my stock to go up; I haven’t checked it for a long time, so I can’t validate or invalidate this Buddhist tradition. After making a wish, I checked out some of the shops. If you enjoy spiritual artifacts and objects, this place will blow your mind. Be warned that money will hemorrhage from your wallet(or purse). I’ve never seen so many Buddha figurines made of all sorts of material. I kept walking and spent some time looking at the Chinese guardian statues situated alongside the road leading to the big buddha. Finally I made me ascent up several steps until I reached the largest Buddha ever. Under the statue, one could buy still more buddha paraphernalia, bracelets, necklaces, etc. On top of the statue, you could pay to have dinner. I made my descent down the steps and walked along the “wisdom path.” It led through the wilderness to the famous Chinese architectural pillars. The buddhist monks live near this area as well. Next, I went back to town and visited the giant temple and had some lunch. Before leaving this enchanted place, I watched a 15 minute movie on the Buddha. I highly recommend this movie to anyone that visits the Buddha. The animated movie invited us into the life of the Buddha by having us move rooms in order to continue through the story. As we changed from one room to the next, we symbolized the transition from ignorance into enlightenment whereby the suffering of the self can be eliminated through the four teachings of the Buddha. To reduce the message down to the most basic form, Buddha claimed to teach only one thing: there is suffering and there is an end to suffering. The rooms were lit and decorated to suit the point being addressed. Our group put a cardboard piece of paper into a giant tree-like sculpture as a gesture of attaining a virtue so it seemed. The woman spoke to us in Chinese, so I could not understand exactly what this meant. The audio for the movie could be heard in any language, and we all got our own specific headset that suited our language capabilities. There were people from all over the world here. From far and wide, people travel here to experience the energy and the grandeur of this statue and the meaning it conveys. I should also add that there appeared to be a youth hostile near the wisdom patch where travelers can spend the night. If I would have known this in advance, I would’ve stayed. February 22, 2014 Today, I accomplished one of my main goals in taking this trip; my work schedule finally allowed me enough time to travel to Cu Chi, Vietnam to see the famous tunnels used by the guerilla fighters during the war. The tunnels surround the area close to Ho Chi Mihn (formerly Saigon) where the U.S military base used to be. For a couple years, the US military did not know these tunnels existed. One veteran on the tour told us that the tunnels apparently were dug out under the military base. Not only did I see the tunnels, but I also crawled through select ones that were available for us. I explored some of the others, but the openings were so small that I would have made myself visibly filthy trying to get inside. Also, a putrid smell seemed to be coming out of them at times. These openings were made to be small on purpose to keep out the American soldiers who were usually much larger than the Vietnamese guerillas. They say that nearly have of these guerilla fighters had malaria and all of them suffered from parasitic afflictions. Looking into these tunnels, and crawling through them, assured me that it would have been a gross way to exist. There were at least three different levels of these tunnels. Oxygen would be an issue too, so at times, soldiers were told not to move in order for their bodies not to consume too much oxygen. The openings into the jungle were concealed quite well. Even if one of these “doors” to the tunnel system would be discovered, the American soldiers would not be very apt to crawl into them for fear of getting lost. Usually, they would simply throw a grenade down the tunnel and be finished with it. This tactic did very little good in damaging the elaborate system of these tunnels. In addition to the tunnels, I came across several famous bamboo traps. I could not believe how they worked.. Imagine a large rectangle about four feet by eight feet situated on the grass. When any amount of weight pushed on this “rectangle” of grass, it rotated 360 degrees. Under this rectangular area down about 8 feet or so would be several enormous bamboo spikes. These traps usually did not kill American soldiers, but they would maim them and weaken the platoon by causing them to deal with a wounded man. The guerillas also had a system by which they communicated the location of these traps. Only the locals would be able to discern the markers on the trees nearby the traps. The most difficult aspect of the day had to do with the movie documentary we watched. It nearly resembled propaganda material, but it’s the movie that everyone still watches when they come to this historical site. The Americans were believed to be the invaders who started the animosity through massacring women and children in a bombing raid. Then the movie hails certain children who lived in these tunnels who presumable killed several Americans. The perspective of the movie obviously takes the point of view of the winners. Despite this, and whatever anyone believes about the ethics of this terrible war, these guerilla fighters clearly wanted to win and perceived the ordeal as their great attempt to liberate their country from an invading force. Then the coolest part of the day occurred as I arrived at the greatly anticipated gun range. They had all kinds of weapons used in the war at this range including the M-30 and M-60 fully automatic machine guns. I ended up renting the M-30 fully auto and squeezed off several rounds into the cliff. Then I rented an M-16. All I can say is that I will remember this experience for the rest of my life. I could not believe how easy it is to use these weapons even without any training whatsoever. A Vietnamese military guard stood nearby as I shot these guns. I could barely contain myself and kept saying, “Wow, this is cool!” I can’t help but wonder if he was thinking, “....And this is why they lost the war.” Feb 24, 2014 Today I took a trip into Vangtau, Vietnam with my friends Lisa, Brent, and Yung(casino worker). We learned something about how to cross a street in Vietnam. Crosswalks don’t really mean anything here. If you wish to cross a busy highway, you must follow these guidelines: 1. close your eyes. 2. begin walking at a slow pace. 3. Do not for the love of Jove change your walking pace. The hundreds and hundreds of motorcyclists exhibit great skill in their driving capacities, but they use your pace to judge where to move. In other words, nobody stops for pedestrians, they simply dodge you as you walk. We enjoyed an authentic Vietnamese coffee consisting of a glass with ice and a separate container with hot strong coffee and condensed milk. After pouring this into the glass with ice, heaven emerges. This method of having coffee had been instituted by the French and taught to the Vietnamese people while they were colonized. In addition to the wonderful coffee, the French taught the Vietnamese to appreciate the color yellow. Yellow apparently represents power to the French. I cannot tell you enough that this coffee is the best! I will buy it everyday that I am in Vietnam for now until I leave! We had our coffee at the most luxurious restaurant in Vangtau. My meal cost $15. At home, this same meal would’ve been at least twice as much. My buddy Yung invited his Vietnamese girlfriend to attend lunch with us, and she brought her Uncle and Aunt. The uncle apparently had been a refugee of the Vietnam war. His parents took him to Australia where he grew up. He told me stories of the war, and we enjoyed our conversation together. He also advised us to rent a motor bike and to check out the “big mountain.” I’d like to do that next time immediately after I have another wonderful Vietnamese coffee. March 10, 2014 Things have been sketchy onboard the ship over the past few weeks. We’ve had multiple cases of G.I. sickness upstairs with the guests. This translates into extraneous measures to rid the vessel of the virus. On one occasion, I actually had to go upstairs and assist a housecleaning guy (named Sanzia) to clean deck 9 and 10 using a wheeled apparatus that dispenses a cleaning agent. It resembled a vacuum cleaner other than the fact that the hose sprayed a substance outward rather than sucking in materials. One another day, I had “handwashing duty.” This entailed sitting down by the sick where crew members enter the mess hall while enforcing the rule that everyone must wash their hands before eating. One another day, I went upstairs to help fold napkins. I’m not sure why this had anything to do with G.I. Nevertheless, crew members have very little freedom during this OPP level two condition. While the life onboard the ship has posed vast limitations and inconvenient restrictions on our living conditions, we’ve made up for it off the ship. My buddies from the band accompanied me to the famous city of Pattaya, Thailand. The city earned it’s notoriety through the walking street district where one will experience a reality never before seen. The country of Thailand has never engaged in war. They believe in peace and harmony between humans and that the meaning of life has much to do with finding a happy place and enjoying the fleeting experience of mortal life. While they practice Buddhism (the main religion), they also embrace their sensuality. This definitely characterizes the sights as one walks down the famous “walking street” district. Bars, music, women, and men dressed as women cover the streets. For a nominal fee, a visiter can observe the renown ping pong shows where talented ladies fire projectiles from their body cavities with precision to the point that one can hold a balloon as she pops it by shooting a dart at a distance of around 50 feet away. The menu gets a bit interesting here as well. In addition to the regular thai dishes and chain McDonalds present in every city around the world, one will find a few “delicacies.” We came upon a street cook selling scorpions, roaches, grasshoppers, crickets, and frogs. I will confess that I ended up eating a fried grasshopper. The other guys actually ate scorpions and pretty much everything the guy had for sale. The grasshopper didn’t taste bad. It tasted crispy and had the flavor of a typical fried piece of food, but the consistency still resembled an insect. I didn’t really enjoy it, but the other guys seemed to like most of it. They said it makes good “beer food.” Yes, I have all of this on video for anyone interested in watching this smorgasbord of exquisite culinary options. My buddies Brent and Adam actually split the cost of a hotel while here in Pattaya. Since the ship would be overnighting here, we decided to hit the town hard all night and then crash in our room. The price for a room in this very nice hotel approximated $75. We were glad to have it after several beers, grasshoppers, and scorpions into the evening. The music onboard the ship has been interesting and mostly satisfying. I had my first experience leading the band yesterday. The bandmaster and horn players took the night off and left us (rhythm section) to cover a set upstairs in the lounge. In addition to playing most of the melodies and leads, I also introduced the songs into the microphone. This really appeals to me. I like playing lead, and it seemed that the other guys also liked me playing lead too. The first song we played was “Georgia on my mind.” We basically rocked it out, and probably overdid it volume-wise. I ended up having the band play one of my own original songs in the style of a cha cha. People actually got up and starting dancing which I found to be promising. In regard to my original music that I continue to write, I ended up winning a contest onboard the ship around Valentines day. The contest had to do with “words describing love.” I submitted a song of mine which the entire human resource department unanimously voted as the winner of the prize. They have promised me dinner for two upstairs in one of the specialty restaurants on one condition; they want me to record the song so they can hear the music too. I’m still working on getting this to them, but it should be pretty easy. I’m more interested in how people seem to be reacting to my own music that I’ve composed. Maybe I won’t always have to be backing up headliners as I’ve done out here in these show bands/orchestras.