Day Thirty

Well blog boys and girls, this will sadly be my last post. I am nearing hour 10 on my 15 hour flight from Hong Kong to Detroit (trust me, there have been several jokes as to how we ended up with Detroit as our first steps back onto US soil) and thought I would take this time to reflect on the last four weeks and what major takeaways I have had from each country. I have really loved blogging and it makes me happy to know that you are all still reading from your various corners of the world. It truly is a global society and I cannot believe that I have had this incredible opportunity to travel around Southeast Asia.

Looking wayyyy back to Singapore, it seems like forever ago that Virginia and I were hauling it through various airports just trying to get there. This was definitely the easiest city to get around by far and possibly the safest city on earth. It's worth reading up on Singapore's political system if you aren't familiar with it, they just had a reasonably groundbreaking election where although no power really changed hands, it sent a clear message to the ruling party to watch out and not get too complacent. This was definitely the country that I felt the most pressure from the government, for better or for worse. All in all Singapore was a beautiful city but intensely regulated and probably not somewhere I'd ever live. Just visit every now and again.

Borobudur after sunrise

Indonesia was next. Our experience in Sunda Kelapa and the Kota slums was really life changing for me. Understanding how people live and what types of backgrounds they come from is extremely fascinating to me and I feel that I leaned way more walking around that day than I ever did sitting in some executive boardroom. We would always talk about the amazing growth that these markets are seeing but I can’t help but think it’s a bit isolated and superficial when huge city centers are being built around the impoverished areas and just scooting them aside. Our weekend in Jogja tacked on to the end really made Indonesia come to life for many of us, specifically while watching the sunrise on Borobudur and interacting with local students. At this point in the trip I think we needed to get away from the city lights and see the real country for what it is. You cannot teach this stuff, you have to see it with your own two eyes and it’s amazing when you do.

watching a dance performance at the hotel

Vietnam was the country I was most waiting for. The company visits have all kind of blurred in my head but I will always remember everything we learned about the war during our brief stay. I'd like to be able to visit the north someday just to see the difference between the two that we were only exposed to through broad discussion. Crawling through the tunnels and walking on the same ground that so many soldiers before had was a weird feeling. I think we tend to get so detached from history that it starts to seem like a story and not a real life event that actually occurred and affected people around the world. Saigon was such a youthful, vibrant city and although Vietnam most certainly still has its problems, I would consider living here one day to try it out for a while.

 

And finally Hong Kong. I said it before and I’ll say it again, what a beautiful city. Our professor always said this might be his favorite city on earth and now I understand why. I didn’t even get to scratch the surface in seeing things around the islands so I will most certainly be back if not to work than simply to play for a while. There were so many things to do and see in and around Hong Kong that I don’t know how you couldn’t have a fantastic time. There was a part of me that thought while I was packing that I might just stay for a while. I mean why not? I don’t really have any solid reasons to come back to the United States so why not enjoy some time abroad? 

Me and Lena

At the end of our stay in Hong Kong we had a brief, makeshift commencement ceremony since technically this is the end of our careers at McIntire. It’s a weird feeling finally being done with school- graduating last year was hardly sentimental since I left most of my friends behind to graduate this year and I knew I still had one year left of school. It was almost like a preschool graduation or something sandwiched in-between the real events. They rattled off all of our names and we watched a slideshow of events from the past four weeks from both the China trip and the Southeast Asia trip. It definitely all started to get very real, very fast and I think frightened some people about what’s to come.

Rooms at last, me and Katrina

Our final event Saturday night was a cruise out to Lamma Island where we had an incredible seafood dinner on the water. We then came back to the main island for an evening of drinking and dancing until slowly one by one people peeled off and said their goodbyes as we were all off to our next stop starting early in the morning. Goodbyes are always tough, especially when they are chaotic and you are all just hanging out on a street in Hong Kong after four long weeks of travel. There were many tears and laughs and just utter chaos as people headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready to go. My group was supposed to leave at 9:10am but got delayed until 7:40pm which has now gotten us stranded stateside in Detroit of all places at the ever lovely Quality Inn.

final night

I did manage to fit in some quality entertainment on my plane ride, seeing as how I cannot sleep in public places. I started with ‘How do you know,’ which was decent, ‘Country Strong’ which I LOVED, tried to nap for an hour unsuccessfully, decided to watch ‘gone with the wind’ since I had never seen it and I had some serious time to kill, next I watched ‘wall street 1&2’, then ‘rabbit hole’, and finally the E! True Hollywood story on Katy Perry to round out the final hours in the sky. My seatmate spoke zero English and had a problem with staying upright in his chair which was really irritating the passenger on his other side. By the time we finally got here to Detroit, we were all so delirious and disastrous that we could barely drag our luggage through the airport. 

If I’ve learned anything on this trip, it’s to expect the unexpected. I have made so many wonderful friends traveling around Asia and I look forward to staying connected to all of them in the near and distant future. I don’t know what’s next for me yet, but I have never been so excited and refreshed to see where my world is headed next. Signing off - Becca