Vietnam Part 5

After our stay in Ho Chi Minh, we set off for Nha Trang. We left super early in the morning. Soooo early! Like, we left the hotel at 4am. Ick.

Once we got to Nha Trang, we had to hightail it out of there so Jesi and dad would make it to their dive group in time. We got to the dive shop five minutes after the group had left (oh noes!) but, luckily, the owner was able to drive them down before the boat left.

While they went diving, I took all our bags to the hotel. I was super tired at this point and all I wanted to do was crash in an air conditioned room because although it was only 8am, it was already in the mid-80's. Much to my chagrin, the woman at the counter said that I couldn't check in until 3pm.

I'm afraid I wasn't very nice at this point.

It was about 8am, I was tired, hot, sweaty, and I was being told that I would have to wait for seven hours until I could get into the room. I gave her a good old American "WHAT THE HELL??!" look and repeated, "3pm?"

She apologised and asked what I wanted to do (what kind of question is that?) so I was honest. "I want to take a shower and go to sleep!" She kindly suggested that I could rest by the pool or in the cafe (which wasn't opened) but I said no, I'll just wait here in the lobby where there is air conditioning. She said she would keep tabs on the room to see when the current occupants checked out and get it cleaned right away. I could check with her at 11:30 to see if it was ready yet.

On top of being tired, I felt really stupid about how irritated I had been with the nice lady and I seriously felt like I was going to cry which was, again, aggravated by the feelings of stupidity. So I decided to walk around the area for a while to cool down (my brain, obviously, since it was FREAKING HOT!!). I picked a direction and walked, hoping to maybe find a little super market or convenience store for when we decided we wanted snacks.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So I went down another street.

Again, nothing.

By this time I was getting all sweaty and really thirsty so I decided to go on the opposite side of the hotel. A few blocks later I found a mall! With a food court, cinema, and four levels of blessed air conditioning.

It didn't open until 11am and it was only 9:30. Poop. So I went back to the hotel to sit and read in the lobby. I took off my flip flops and curled up on a couch to read. Made myself really comfy.

At 11:30 on the dot I went and checked with the lady and the room was ready! Thank you!! I was very happy. I took a shower and got in bed with all intentions of watching Torchwood on the BBC channel only to wake up when the front desk called to tell me Dad and Jesi were here and I needed to come down to bring them up (this was about 2:30pm).

Comfy Jen is comfy. Dad likes the air conditioning in the room to be really cold so Jesi and I usually wrapped up in the fluffy down comforters they had.



The view from the room was really nice. We had to balconies. You could see mountains...



And the beautiful beach. Sooo pretty.



While Jesi took a shower, Dad showed me all the cool pictures from their dive. Lotsa fishies.



Jesi, too.



After they were all clean (and Jesi realized she had burned pretty good... ouchies), we went to a market a bit like the Ben Tanh market in Ho Chi Minh. We pretty much just wandered. In our wanderings, we went through an entire section that sold only DRIED FISH. It smelled a bit funky.

This lady was selling baskets of dried fishies. Mmmm... tasty.



There were even dried sea horses! Apparently they are used for medicinal purposes. Interesting.



Once in the market we saw most of the usual things as well a few interesting ones. This guy had a turtle on his wall. Cool. Also, I'm not sure which way is up in this picture... I think I might have it upside down.



That night we went to dinner at a place that Dad had been to before. He was really excited to get his cheap lobster dinner. However, it was not to be. They brought out Jesi's dinner. Then, when she was almost finished, they brought out my dinner. Then, five minutes after I had finished, they brought out Dad's salad, quickly followed by his lobster.

Dad doesn't get mad often so when he does it's kind of intense. He refused the food and asked for the check. The ladies were really confused and kind of just stood there holding the food looking like deer caught in the headlights of a car. We sat for a while waiting for them to bring the check. Dad finally got fed up with waiting, grabbed the menu, added up what we had eaten, threw the money on the table and we left.

Gelato and oreos for dinner calmed made him happy again.

We had more fun the next day. We went to a pagoda on a hill! At the bottom of the hill was a Buddhist temple that we got to go in and see.



Inside was a shrine. On either side were these giant candles. They were going to light the candles the next day in honor of a man who had self burned in protest of the U.S. presence in Vietnam during the war. The candles would burn for 15 days in his honor. Wow.



Then we hiked some stairs. Lots and lots of stairs.



Part way up the hill was a reclining Buddha. We stood and marveled at the statue a while before heading up (you guessed it!) MORE STAIRS! YES!!



We finally made it to the top. It was hot. HOT HOT HOT. We were all sweaty and gross by this point. Woof! But what a view!



Here's a view of the steps we climbed up. You can't see all of them because of the trees. I swear there were a lot of stairs.



This is what we climbed to see. It looked really cool up close. Very pretty.



Also, we saw a chicken. Day. Made.



After the pagoda, we decided to walk around town a bit. Dad had the taxi drop us off in front of the Novatel so we could walk the streets back to our own hotel. It was hot (have I mentioned it was hot? Cuz it really was) so we stopped in for some gelato. Mmmm... tasty.

And Jesi looks cute.



On our walk, we saw a monkey. That's right, folks. A monkey. Jesi had been talking all week about how cool it would be to see a monkey and here it was, leashed to a motorcycle and eating a lychee or something. Isn't it cute?



We also saw another chicken. Mom, this will never get old.



It finally came time to leave Nha Trang and head back to Ho Chi Minh so that we could eventually had back to Korea. The airlines bumped us up to business class. AWESOME! We got to sit in the little lounge with free snacks and stuff before the flight. This was one of the drinks offered in the business class lounge. Interesting.



The seats were awesome. Lots of leg and butt room. Really made me wish I was willing to lay down the extra $1,000 for business class on my way back to the States. That would be really cool... *sigh* I'm too cheap.

Here's Jesi and me enjoying our awesome seats.



At my request, we had Hard Rock Cafe for dinner once we were back in Ho Chi Minh. I wanted a REAL burger and fries. It was delicious. Though, perhaps not worth the stomachache (among other things) I had for the next day and a half. That'll teach me to eat a giant spicy hamburger after several months of little to no beef. Ugh.

Still, it was REALLY tasty.



Next up: "Jesi in Korea!" or "Why monsoon season is not the best time to visit your sister in Korea."

Vietnam Part 4

On our last day in Ho Chi Minh, we went to a water puppet show and dinner cruise. Before the show, Jesi kept trying to take pictures of us and I kept messing them up by making faces. Bwahahaha!!

Crossing my eyes...



Crossing my eyes while Jesi is in the picture...



A great face with all three of us in it...



Jesi was getting a little angry. I think it makes the pictures more interesting that way. ;)

After messing with Jesi's pictures, we went to the water puppet theater!

They had big versions of some of the puppets out front for you to take pictures with. Dad was taking this one so I behaved.



The water puppet show itself was really cool. They had this pool and the puppetteers stood behind the curtain in the water to operate their puppets. They told stories about catching frogs, coming back after placing first in the national exams, farming rice, etc.



My favorite one was the chicken dance. Well, I guess that it was the "phoenix dance," but all I could think of was, "chickens!!" I like it because they swim around each other for a while and then get all flirty. Then they put their heads together and go under water for a second. When they come back up an egg pops up to the surface!! THEY MADE A BABY CHICKEN!!! They swim around it for a while and then the egg hatches!! It's so cute! That was definitely my favorite part.

My computer is being stupid right now so the video of the chicken dance will have to wait until my computer doesn't hate me again. I should stop calling it stupid. It really is a wonderful little computer. *hugs* I'll try to post the video tomorrow.

After the show, we got onto a boat for dinner. The boat itself looked pretty cool.



Ah, look at us all cute and sitting at dinner. I didn't even cross my eyes this time. :) Man, my hair is freaking curly...



We went up and down a small section of the river and on our way back, we got a really nice view of the skyline.



And the next day we headed for Nha Trang!!

Vietnam: War Remnants Museum

We stayed in Ho Chi Minh from Monday through Friday. In that time, we also went to the War Remnants Museum which was a VERY interesting Experience. This was one of the places I really wanted to go to when I was here because I had heard really interesting things about it.

To give you a sense of what this museum was like, let me tell you that it used to be called the "Museum of American War Crimes." They changed the name because it was too negative and wasn't attracting as many people as they wanted. However, only the name was changed, not the contents of the museum.

In a word, very anti-American. Understandable, I suppose, given who owns the museum.

Jesi asked which was true: what they teach in America or what they teach in Vietnam. My dad told her somewhere in between. I am under no illusions that American soldiers were celebrated in every town they entered in Vietnam, but I also do not think that the Vietcong were as celebrated as the museum made them out to be either. That's about all I can say about the Vietnam War because my U.S. History class only ever made it trough WWII before the end of the year so our coverage of the Korean and Vietnam wars was limited to what I learned reading "The Things They Carried" in my Post-modern American Literature class.

These were some of the things we saw at the museum that I found interesting.

These were Tiger Cages made of metal frames wrapped in barbed wire. A small cage would hold up to three prisoners. It was hard to tell which side they were saying used the Tiger Cages, but I imagine it was both sides.



There was a yard filled with captured tanks and airplanes, mostly American.



This was a propaganda poster telling farmers to treat stranded American pilots nicely.



This was one portion I thought was really interesting. There was a wall talking about how Fidel Castro openly supported Vietnam and told the United States to leave Vietnam. There were inspirational pictures of Castro holding banners with quotes about Vietnam. My thought was, "Yeah... we should listen to what FIDEL CASTRO has to say about it." Heavy sarcasm, in case you didn't hear it. I might not know much about the Vietnam War, but if my friend Mindy's mom (who ran away from Cuba with her family when she was ten years old) is to be believed, then Castro's regime was DEFINITELY not about fuzzy bunnies and kittens.

So, I guess what I'm saying is people who put Fidel Castro as a referral on their resume don't get many points from me.



There was a section hung with art from children. I'm not sure what this picture was all about, but the visuals are slightly disturbing.



There was a section about Agent Orange as well. I had honestly only heard about Agent Orange only briefly before going to this museum. All I knew about it was that it was a toxic weapon used by the United States. I had no idea how devastating is was. Not only was it terrible in its destructive power, but it continues to affect children born from parents who were infected with it by eating fish or drinking water from contaminated water sources.

These are some before and after pictures of an area that was hit with Agent Orange.



Overall, the museum was very solemn and thought provoking. I had heard from lots of people that Americans who go there usually leave with a bad taste in their mouth, but I'm very glad that we were able to visit it. I would highly recommend visiting the museum if you are ever in Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam Part 2

Wow, the last few weeks have been really busy with the trip to Vietnam, Jesi visiting for a week, and then this week starting up the new achievement test at work (the DRAMA!!). In spite of being busy, I have had lots of fun as well. I'll start it off by telling you a little bit more about our trip to Vietnam.

Dad worked every day so Jesi and I were pretty much left to our own devices during the day time. We would get up early and eat breakfast with Dad before getting ready to head out for the day. We saw some pretty cool stuff while we were out.

Shopping

We, of course, love shopping so Ben Tan market was a big hit.



There was TONS of stuff there! The only thing we didn't like was how grabby some of the people were. I literally had people grabbing my arms trying to pull me in to look at their stuff. That was a little freaky. You can't really browse the shops without being "attacked by service" as I like to say. I understand that they really want you to buy stuff, but I don't really respond to people following me around telling me about how great every little item is that my eyes fall on.

Of course, I still BOUGHT stuff. DUH! I bought a pair of really cute wooden wedges that the lady put together right there for me. Cool!



They had fruit galore and among them was the infamous durian fruit. Never heard of durian? Well! Let me enlighten you. IT STINKS. Literally, stinks. Like, open sewer kind of stink. I don't get it. From what I understand, they are very sweet and delicious. Yum! Unfortunately, you have to get past the smell of porta potty to enjoy them. They were nearing the end of durian season so they didn't smell as bad as they might have, but every once in a while you would get a whiff. Whew!!



I love the row upon row of random treats in this shot. I have no idea how they are supposed to get to any of those things on the shelves because those bags are right against it!



Jesi was OBSESSED with these nasty looking things. She really wanted one. Luckily, it probably wouldn't make it through customs so we didn't have to deal with a freaky scorpion cobra ginseng bottle hanging around the hotel giving me nightmares. *shudder*



I saw this shirt and thought of my friend Mindy who designs websites so she knows a lot about design and stuff. I thought this was funny because, really? Write Helvetica on a shirt and it's not even Helvetica? I laughed. Then I cried a little because I could tell that it wasn't in Helvetica... I'm such a nerd.



Somehow, in spite of the 90 degree weather with, like, 80% humidity we managed to look totally adorable. Go us. Also, a day did not pass where I was told that I was white. Why yes. I am. Apparently Vietnamese really like white skin because people were constantly pointing it out. Jesi got all burnt so she didn't get as many white comments.



Fun Foods

We ate out one night at a traditional Vietnamese restaurant with Dad's team from work. It was really neat seeing all the people that Dad works with when he is in Vietnam. They were a really fun group of people. :)



We had some good food when we were there. First the waiter set out these peppers. Dad decided to try and impress his team by eating one. Jesi followed suit. Haha! Suckers! Dad totally cried. Jesi remained strong and just got really red.



We had these wrap... things that had rice and shrimp in them. The leaves are what they use to make horseradish with. It had a little bite to them. I lost control of mine about half-way through and it fell apart. Just as well... I really don't like shrimp. :/



This one was cool. It was morning glory greens! Like, the FLOWERS! It was super yummy. Tasted a bit like a mix between collard greens and spinach. Dad was disappointed that there weren't any flowers in it because he said they are really tasty.



Also, I ate snails. It was actually snail ground up and mixed with pork. It tasted good but... the snail parts were chewy.



Here's us all in front of the restaurant. Good times. :)



We also had dinner another night with some of Dad's other friends from work. We went to a pho restaurant. I had never had pho before so I was all excited to try it because Jesi and Dad always talk about how tasty it is.



It was super yummy! Occasionally I would get a big bite of cilantro which was gross, but overall YUM! For some reason, though, I COULD NOT finish my bowl! It was like the never ending bowl of pho!! I was dying! I finally gave up and it looked barely half gone. *cry* It really WAS delicious!



As we were reading the menu, we discovered something: there is the EXACT SAME RESTAURANT in Beaverton! Looking at the address, we realized that this was the Vietnamese restaurant that I used to work next to when I worked at the beauty supply store. Holy crap!! What a small world. By the way, their garbage really smelled bad, just so you know.



That same night, we saw the coolest little stand. They had dried squid hanging at the top and then bowls of water with various clams and snails in them just waiting for you to ask for them to be cooked up for a late night snack. Cool!



Spa

One day we went to the spa which was awesome. We got manicures and pedicures with bright blue nail polish. Fancy!

We also got hour longback, shoulder, neck, and head massages. I had never before had a real massage before. It was soooo good!! They even used hot rocks which sounds really dumb but feels reeeeeaaally good. And the whole thing (mani-pedis and hour long massages) cost less than $50 each! It was great.



Opera House

Not much of a story here. Just a pretty building. We had gone to the mall that day and Jesi wanted to walk around outside for a while to see what there was. So we walked a little and saw this really beautiful opera house.



As we were taking pictures, the couple in the bottom right of this picture spotted us and asked us to take their picture.



Then they took our picture! How nice. :)



The City

Going around town, we got some pretty nice shots of Ho Chi Minh. It is a very busy city!

Here is what we would see of the city from our hotel window.



A random shot while we were walking around.



THE MOTORCYCLES. There are more motorcycles than cars there. Seriously, they were EVERYWHERE. We were in the middle of the intersection here and these guys were just trying to go around us any way they could!



We were SURROUNDED!



I like this one. You can really see how many motorcycles and scooters there really are. They go all the way back, in between all the cars, knee to knee, wheel to wheel. So many!!



Random Pictures

Here are just a few random pictures from our trip that I really like.

On our first night in town we ate at a Thai restaurant. While there we saw this picture and heck if it doesn't look like my friend Anna's long lost sister! I think she's the princess of Norway or something...



We are such dorks...Jesi's nick name is Chicky and she bought TONS of chicky stuff on her trip. These are the two from Vietnam.

Well, that's it for now. I have a lot more to show you from Vietnam including our trip to the War Remnants Museum and Na Trang. Stay tuned til next time! :)