black market shoplifter.
well, about this time last year i was boarding a flight to my homeland of Vietnam. Southern Vietnam. just outside of Saigon or Ho Chi Minh city as the books would have you believe. i havent felt a need to post it, but as i went through it today i wanted to share some of it with you. whoever you are.
this is from day 1.
june 29th is stricken from the record. i was in flight and missed the day completely. sitting for 11 hours in the hong kong intl airport was an adventure in itself. if youve never been, ill describe it as a city in itself. any kind of shopping youd like, most kinds of food youd like. obviously, the main flavor is chinese. i had a bowl of wonton soup for breakfast, then several plates of dim sum for lunch. quite tasty i must say, but surprisingly more expensive than back home in the states. my layover was a ridiculous 11 hours. from 0520 to 1620. yeesh. luckily a few of the restaurants were 24 hour so i wasnt left to starve in the modern terminal. free wifi wherever i wanted but few outlets to plug into. this laptop is a beast so i usually have to stay tethered to an outlet. no problemo. so after a grueling day of watching people hurry to make their connections and shift changes, i finally board the plane to the homeland. Saigon. or Ho Chi Minh city as you new era socialists like to refer to it. 2 hours time from liftoff to disembarkment of the plane. i was then told to fill out the necessary customs/immigration paperwork. one problem, i didnt know the address of my destination. whoops. a quick flick of the wrist and 10usd clamped in the passport and im off. but since i had such a long layover, my luggage was first in line to get on the plane. but last in line to be tossed around. inside the terminal, was warm, but manageable. but as soon as i stepped out of the door, into the outside air, it was a different story. it felt like stepping into a sauna. literally. i can deal with sweltering heat, but the massive wall of humidity was pretty wild. 28 hours travel time later and im a bit tired, moody and i just wanna lay down. thankfully the taxi had a spankin AC system so the 3 hour trek from SGN to Long Hai was quite nice. even had a ferry jump in between. oh, it started pouring rain too. not like the bit we get in So Cal, real rain. like small water balloons pelting you. after a quick stop to get some french rolls, my request, we hit the road home. i get here, come through the door, fire up the AC in my room and konk out.
this is from when my friend morgan arrives in the home land.
finding morgans straggly build in an airport full of small asian people isnt difficult. he reunites himself with his luggage and we hop in the car and make our way to dinner with my uncle and aunt. dinner consisted of ostrich, snail, and other various meats and potatoes. nice restaurant, sitting under a straw covered awning and its storming all around us. all in good spirits and we start drinking beers. my uncle is in some crap mood and he wants to force our driver into cutting his vacation with family short to take us somewhere. im not having that. according to mom he was trying to get me drunk so i would be on his side. if anyone knows how i get when im drunk, thats not gonna be the case. so i squash that theory quickly. but he still insists. mom uses morgan as the excuse so we dont go. that works.
recap of a few days lost.
after picking up morgan we went over to vung tau and had a whole beach to ourselves and just kinda floated in the water and swam around. my aunt who works for saigon petro met us for lunch at this little restaurant by the water. good food, had nice french fries oddly enough. after we hung out with her we went into saigon and checked into our hotel right in the middle of downtown. my aunt that we just had lunch with set us up with the info for that place. great price, and it was nice and clean. greatly enough, there was internet. mom and dad crashed in their room so me and mo cleaned up and went out. we found a tex mex bbq joint opened by some texan expat a couple blocks over, and then we stopped in at this irish pub to have a couple rounds. we get back to the hotel for a minute to rearrange some flight info. then go bar hoppin. i get pretty hammered off of whiskey and beers. we end up at this crazy club called the factory. the music is so loud i can barely think. we call it a night after that and stumble back to the hotel through dark alleys and sketchy sidewalks.
the next day we wake up, have breakfast with mom and dad downstairs. b-fast consisted of 2 bowls of pho and some strong ass coffee. after that we get on our feet and head out the door into the downtown heat. mom and dad takes us to the tax shopping center, where morgan catches his first glimpse of crazy asian shopping. at this point i had been feeling like shit so we had to stop off at the hotel so i could regroup. we get back out and its sweltering. we make our way around the knockoff mall, and then to this other high end shopping plaza. we snake our way through and find this german brew house. figuring itd be a safe bet to eat there. one bit of advice, get the buffet. the food we ordered ala carte was junk. that night we figure there are more than enough bars to keep bar hopping. we end up at this place called bernies. nice atmosphere we decide to come back up for breakfast the next morning.
breakfast ended up being pretty good. english breakfast - banger, beans, tomatoes, eggs, and some bacon with a side of toast. filled up on that and hit the road back to long hai. our normal drivers were out, so we had to call in a back up. weird little dude is all i gotta say.
this is from day 1.
june 29th is stricken from the record. i was in flight and missed the day completely. sitting for 11 hours in the hong kong intl airport was an adventure in itself. if youve never been, ill describe it as a city in itself. any kind of shopping youd like, most kinds of food youd like. obviously, the main flavor is chinese. i had a bowl of wonton soup for breakfast, then several plates of dim sum for lunch. quite tasty i must say, but surprisingly more expensive than back home in the states. my layover was a ridiculous 11 hours. from 0520 to 1620. yeesh. luckily a few of the restaurants were 24 hour so i wasnt left to starve in the modern terminal. free wifi wherever i wanted but few outlets to plug into. this laptop is a beast so i usually have to stay tethered to an outlet. no problemo. so after a grueling day of watching people hurry to make their connections and shift changes, i finally board the plane to the homeland. Saigon. or Ho Chi Minh city as you new era socialists like to refer to it. 2 hours time from liftoff to disembarkment of the plane. i was then told to fill out the necessary customs/immigration paperwork. one problem, i didnt know the address of my destination. whoops. a quick flick of the wrist and 10usd clamped in the passport and im off. but since i had such a long layover, my luggage was first in line to get on the plane. but last in line to be tossed around. inside the terminal, was warm, but manageable. but as soon as i stepped out of the door, into the outside air, it was a different story. it felt like stepping into a sauna. literally. i can deal with sweltering heat, but the massive wall of humidity was pretty wild. 28 hours travel time later and im a bit tired, moody and i just wanna lay down. thankfully the taxi had a spankin AC system so the 3 hour trek from SGN to Long Hai was quite nice. even had a ferry jump in between. oh, it started pouring rain too. not like the bit we get in So Cal, real rain. like small water balloons pelting you. after a quick stop to get some french rolls, my request, we hit the road home. i get here, come through the door, fire up the AC in my room and konk out.
this is from when my friend morgan arrives in the home land.
finding morgans straggly build in an airport full of small asian people isnt difficult. he reunites himself with his luggage and we hop in the car and make our way to dinner with my uncle and aunt. dinner consisted of ostrich, snail, and other various meats and potatoes. nice restaurant, sitting under a straw covered awning and its storming all around us. all in good spirits and we start drinking beers. my uncle is in some crap mood and he wants to force our driver into cutting his vacation with family short to take us somewhere. im not having that. according to mom he was trying to get me drunk so i would be on his side. if anyone knows how i get when im drunk, thats not gonna be the case. so i squash that theory quickly. but he still insists. mom uses morgan as the excuse so we dont go. that works.
recap of a few days lost.
after picking up morgan we went over to vung tau and had a whole beach to ourselves and just kinda floated in the water and swam around. my aunt who works for saigon petro met us for lunch at this little restaurant by the water. good food, had nice french fries oddly enough. after we hung out with her we went into saigon and checked into our hotel right in the middle of downtown. my aunt that we just had lunch with set us up with the info for that place. great price, and it was nice and clean. greatly enough, there was internet. mom and dad crashed in their room so me and mo cleaned up and went out. we found a tex mex bbq joint opened by some texan expat a couple blocks over, and then we stopped in at this irish pub to have a couple rounds. we get back to the hotel for a minute to rearrange some flight info. then go bar hoppin. i get pretty hammered off of whiskey and beers. we end up at this crazy club called the factory. the music is so loud i can barely think. we call it a night after that and stumble back to the hotel through dark alleys and sketchy sidewalks.
the next day we wake up, have breakfast with mom and dad downstairs. b-fast consisted of 2 bowls of pho and some strong ass coffee. after that we get on our feet and head out the door into the downtown heat. mom and dad takes us to the tax shopping center, where morgan catches his first glimpse of crazy asian shopping. at this point i had been feeling like shit so we had to stop off at the hotel so i could regroup. we get back out and its sweltering. we make our way around the knockoff mall, and then to this other high end shopping plaza. we snake our way through and find this german brew house. figuring itd be a safe bet to eat there. one bit of advice, get the buffet. the food we ordered ala carte was junk. that night we figure there are more than enough bars to keep bar hopping. we end up at this place called bernies. nice atmosphere we decide to come back up for breakfast the next morning.
breakfast ended up being pretty good. english breakfast - banger, beans, tomatoes, eggs, and some bacon with a side of toast. filled up on that and hit the road back to long hai. our normal drivers were out, so we had to call in a back up. weird little dude is all i gotta say.