Spring is here!
May 8, 2009
So happy it’s springtime! These were taken at my house and at my Grandpa’s, both in Plantsville, CT.
Vietnam in Pictures
These are the rest of the pictures from my trip to Vietnam. We were so busy, and I didn’t always have access to a computer, so the last week of photos are all going up together now. =)
Saturday- January 3
Today we are hanging out at the house and relaxing. It’s nice to stay in and not have plans; we’ve been busy.
Tomorrow night (Sunday) Nam and I are going to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City- everyone calls it Saigon) to stay at his cousins apartment because the next morning at 6am we are flying up to Da Nang in central Vietnam. Saigon is about a 2 hour drive from Vung Tau so it’s easier to stay overnight in the city since we have such an early flight out. The flight will be 1 hour. I guess we are doing a 3-day tour of central Vietnam so we will see a couple different cities, including Hue and Phong Nha. I thought we were staying in Hoi An, but plans changed. I guess I won’t be getting any clothes custom-made, which is what Hoi An is known to do-within 1 day! (Malia, next time you go to Vietnam I want to come with you!)
I think this will be fun though; I guess we will see the bridge that separated the north from the south, and a king’s palace, and a couple of temples. We’ll have a hotel room in Hue, I believe. I have the itinerary here but it’s in Vietnamese. Once we meet with our tour group in Saigon before the flight we’ll be with them the whole time. There is supposed to be an English translator in our group so hopefully we can understand. This will be interesting, lol.
I converted 100 US Dollars into Vietnamese money and got 1,700,000 dongs!! (that’s what they call their money) Nam’s dad said that will go a long way. I won’t need more than that; He said I might not even spend $50.
January 2, 2009
Today we had breakfast at the house and then went to a little island town called Long Son which is off the coast of Vung Tau. We ate at a floating restaurant where they catch oysters and other seafood. It took about an hour to get there from the house, and we had to take a boat to get to the restaurant on the water. It was really neat; I kayaked and jet skied today! We hung out at the floating restaurant for a few hours. Some people napped on hammocks, and some of us played poker (we play poker a lot.) Later when we got back to Vung Tau, I went back to the salon with Amy, Nam’s aunt, to get our hair finished. We had to have the straightening product in our hair again. This time it just took 1 hour and now I should have permanently straight hair for 6-9 months. =) Nam’s uncle, whose house I’m staying at, owns a big restaurant next to the house. They cater wedding receptions, and tonight there was a wedding going on so we sat in and got to see the party and eat the food they were eating. It was neat to see a traditional Vietnamese wedding reception.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! Tonight we hung out in Vung Tau and ate outside on a boardwalk along the beach. There was this vendor on the street that weighs you and takes your height and birthdate and gives you a fortune and it was really funny! It said for career I should be in a design/creative field, for personality it said I’m independant and will travel a lot, and for love it said I charm many guys! lol. The city was crazy because of New Years, just a lot of music and people. After we ate we came back to the house where the older cousins, Nam, Tiny, and I played poker with 2 of the uncles. They had poker chips and then we started playing with money. It was fun.
Vietnam!
My first few days in Vietnam have been really busy but really fun! We’ve had really long days. The house we’re staying at is really nice, off of the main street but right in the city of Vung Tau. It’s a city, but a beach city so it is pretty relaxed and has lots of palm trees. It’s really humid here! We basically just sweat all day and come in and take showers every few hours lol.
The first day we woke up early, got breakfast, and hung out in Vung Tau which is the town that I’m staying in. We hung out at the beach and just relaxed and then Nam, Tiny (Tin is Nam’s brother but we call him Tiny), and I slept a lot since we were so tired from the flight. The best part of the day was taking these little motor bikes around the city! Nam’s cousins and uncle drove and we sat behind them…You’ll see in the pictures!
The next day we woke up at 4:30am and started our trip to a little town where Nam’s mom grew up, called My Tho. It took about 4 hours to get there. It was south of Saigon (Ho Chi Min City). We also drove to a small village in the Mekong Delta where her grandparents used to live. It was really interesting to see such a rural village; it was the first time since being here I really felt like I was in a third world country. I didn’t take that many pictures of it because I felt awkward. We stayed in a hotel over night in Can Tho, which is a pretty big and lively city, and the next day we saw some floating markets (people sell fruit, and other products on boats in the river since a lot of these people live along the river and take boats to get everywhere), fruit plantations, and just rural life in Vietnam.
Today I woke up in Vung Tau at the house and went out for breakfast with the family and then went to 3 different temples that are along the water. The architecture is really different, and very typical to asian style as you’ll see in the pictures.
I’m getting really used to the food here. It’s really good. We order a bunch of dishes and we all pick what we want off of the dishes, so no one orders one meal for themselves; we all share. We eat meat like chicken and pork and beef with rice or noodles, vegetables, and soups, and with a lot of herbs. I’ve been eating seafood like shrimp, fish, sting ray; I even tried sushi today and it was good! It was just a light flavor. The seafood here is really good because it’s so fresh, it didn’t seem like seafood at all. Oh yeah, and I tried mouse! It tasted like chicken!
Today I went with Nam’s aunt to get my hair chemically straightened! She was going to the salon to get hers done and invited me to go along. It cost about $30 and I got a little trim too. So my hair should be straight for 6-9 months! Back in the US it would cost about $500 to get my hair professionally straightened! It took so long, about 4 hours to get it done! There was a boy there who was working, helping out the hairdressers by holding pieces of my hair when they needed him to. He only knew a few words in English but I figured out he was 21. We were playing a game on Nam’s ipod together, and he beat the entire game in about 2 minutes. I had been playing that for a few days and was halfway through! When I walked into the hair salon everyone in the salon came over to look at me and my hair; I don’t think they see hair like mine that often. They were all smiling at me and saying things I didn’t understand. They were really nice and friendly. Everyone here is so friendly and they smile at me in the streets! I see a few tourists around now and then but not too many. In Can Tho where we stayed in the hotel last night I saw a few groups of backpackers that were either American or European, I couldn’t tell.
Now we are going out to get dinner, so I will post pictures later tonight! I found out that Vietnam is 12 hours ahead of home, so its about 6am back home. =) Miss everyone!
Vietnam in 1 Week!
Hi Everyone. I wanted to thank everyone who read and left comments on my blog while I was in Europe this summer. It made blogging a much more fun experience! I am also announcing that I am leaving for Vietnam in 1 week! I leave the day after Christmas and will be starting off the new year in Vietnam! I have my visa set and my passport of course, and I got a Hepatitis A shot a few weeks ago. I will be in Vietnam for 2 weeks.
I will be staying with Nam’s family in a beach town near Ho Chi Minh City called Vung Tau, in Southern Vietnam. I will stay in Nam’s uncle’s home along with Nam and his parents. The second week just Nam and I will travel up to Hoi An which is also on the coast, but in the center of the country. It’s supposed to be very quaint with French influences from when France occupied the city. I believe Nam and I will be on a tour a lot of our time in Hoi An, learning about the history and architecture of the city. We will not have time to go all the way up to the north of Vietnam so I will be saving that for the next time!
I have been very lucky to learn a little Vietnamese culture from Nam’s family who I have been staying with near Boston off and on throughout the fall. His parents left Vietnam in 1979 to start new lives here in the U.S., and the Vietnamese culture is a very big part of their everyday lives here. I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about the food, language, and the customs of Vietnam, and I am very grateful they are taking me along with them to visit their home!
