Vicarious travel for "Little Backpackers"
When I began planning for the Semester at Sea Spring 2017, I knew that I wanted to share my passion for exploration and adventure with young children. In this portion of the website I will be providing photo galleries and short videos sharing the experience of living on a boat for 4.5 months and learning about 1`1 countries in 100 days as we travel around the world.
Getting ready to live on a ship
The name of the ship is the M V Odyssey. It is owned by German company and Semester at Sea rents the ship. The ship has 8 decks or floors and has a pool, gym, 3 dining rooms, a library, classrooms and a small movie theater. It is easy to get confused about what is located on which floor when you first get on the ship, but soon we had it all figured out!
From Mexico to Our First Stop- Honolulu
It was exciting to start our voyage to Honolulu. We spent time on the boat meeting new people and starting our classes. We have classes every day of the week and we all have to take one class called "Global Studies". This class is important because it teaches us how to be citizens of the world and to begin to understand other people, their cultures and their history. Our first stop in Honolulu was only for 10 hours to refuel for the next leg of our voyage which was Hawaii to Japan. Even though the stop was short, we did our best to get off the ship and tour around Honolulu and the country side. Take a look at this video and see what we did in Hawaii!
Hello Japan!
It took us a very long time (12 days) to travel from Hawaii to Japan and we were all excited to see the port of Kobe Japan. Once we arrived in Kobe, many of us had trips planned to see destinations all over Japan like Kyoto, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and more. Some of the students even planned a trip to the north of Japan to go skiing while others made plans to go the the areas where hot springs are every where. Take a look at what I did on my trip from Kobe to Kyoto to Tokyo!
Shanghai's Food Tour
From Japan, we traveled to China through the China Sea and arrived in Shanghai, a city of 24 million people. It is three times as large as New York City.!! We just happened to arrive during the Chinese New Year. We also went to Shanghai Disney and to some very historic villages. So- you will be seeing some upcoming videos on these trips. One of my favorite things to do is to learn about what people eat in every country. So here if the first video in the China series of videos “Shanghai Food Tour.. eating like a local”.
“Migration” means moving from one place to another. Chinese New Year in China’s the largest migration of people in the world. Why? Because so many Chinese have chosen to move to the cities for jobs. When the holiday comes, they like to go home to see their family. So the busy cities become less busy and the villages become busier
Ho Chi Minh
We are ready for a new port and Ho Chi Minh City is great. Lots of things to do, to tasteand to see. Start out with this introduction video.
Feeding the elephants
We were excited and alittle scared to feed the elephants, but we got over it. They were very hungry and love to eat. We fed them pumpkin and banana trees
Splish, Splash
At the Green Hill Valley Elephant Conservation Project, we had a special treat. We got to give the elephants a bath. They actually LOVE taking a bath and they do it two (2) times per day!
POOP TO PAPER TO SEEDS
When you have a lot of elephants who eat a lot of food, you get a lot of poop. The Green Hill Valley Elephant Conservation Project has a solution- turn poop into paper and fertilizer to grow trees!
Cape Town, South Africa videos coming soon
Happy Feet was founded by Siviwe Mbinda in 2007. HIs goal was to keep the school children occupied with learning a dance called "gum boots" after school each day. They also have time to do their homework. Many people come to see the children dance and help support the work of the founder. All ages are welcome and everyone has fun.
Drifting in the ocean
One of the professors on our ship is an oceanographer. We are helping her by dropping off drifters with equipment that collects information about the ocean.
A Day hiking to a rural village in Myanmar
While we were in Myanmar, we hiked to a rural village and met some of the local people. We saw where they lived and where they raised their crops. Then, we came back to the city for a bike ride around the town and a trip to the local market.
A visit to an urban village in india
We traveled to Delhi and went to visit Bandwhari, an urban village. The students at the school there were very excited to see us. We spent the day in the classrooms and then, on the play ground. We also brought them some equipment for the playground. Then, we visited a women's project where they made cloth items that they sell for income.
From Myanmar to India
Scenes from the pagodas to the countryside to elephant preservation and on to Kochin India.