I'm not in a black hole...

...I'm in Cambodia. Back in Saigon on Monday evening. I took a TON of pictures, so much so that I had to buy a new memory card to accommodate them, so I'll be posting way more when I have reliable internet access.

K bye!

OMG I fed an elephant!

This morning I went to the zoo with Julia and Wallace, and it was a pleasant morning. I will put more photos up on Facebook as soon as it works again, but for now I shall just give you this:


Needless to say, I wanted to take her home and name her Fluffy.

Stuff from all over, and Vietnamese nightlife

The pictures in the post are slightly irrelevant to what I'm writing about. Just so you know.

First, a picture of some miniature pancakes that I made. One was shaped perfectly like a fishie. I was rather proud. And, of course, I ate it first.


I took a walk to the backpacker district to buy my boat ticket to Cambodia, and started thinking about the way nightlife works here. There are plenty of streets with shops on them, and giant markets where you can go and buy everything that you could possibly want, and yet...shopping happens mostly at night, out on the street.


For example, there is a street near my house called Nguyen Trai, which is lined mostly with clothing and shoe boutiques. These remain largely empty during the day. At night, these and other vendors spread out big tarps on the sidewalks and sell their wares--handbags, shoes, clothes, helmets, jewelry, wallets, belts, etc. And the street gets packed! On my walk back from getting my ticket, I had to a) walk in the street because the sidewalks were full (not an uncommon occurrence in this city) and b) be extra careful because people were cruising by on their motorbikes to check out the merchandise.

(This is an ox made of San Miguel cans, btw. It stands next to the Coke Castle pictured below.)

Moreover, in places like Ben Thanh Market, which is an ENORMOUS market that sells everything, the market itself closes at 5, but then all the vendors move their stuff outside to tents. That's when the market gets really busy, is when the shopping moves outside at night. I suppose this makes sense, if everyone is working or at school during the day; the only time they would be able to go shopping would be at night. I don't entirely understand why the markets don't just stay open later, but...maybe people just like buying stuff when it's "off the street" then when it's on a mannequin in a store window.

I'm usually too tired during the week to venture out and actually shop here. In general, shopping in this country is overwhelming and exhausting, simply because they don't really understand the concept of browsing. As soon as you approach a vendor, or walk into a store, you will have 3 or 4 salespeople bombarding you will "Hello! You want this? Or this? Or maybe this?" and if you even glance at something specifically they will be like "Oh, you like this?! We have it in a million colors and sizes! Here, try!" and I just want to run away.

One of these nights I'll muster up the energy to go out there and seriously check it out.

What Saigon smells like

Here is a list, made in my head while walking from place to place, of the things one can smell in the streets of Saigon:

exhaust
sewage
fish
barbecue
waffles
cigarettes
dirt

I will probably update this later, when another odor strikes me.

Chúc mừng năm mới!

That means "Happy New Year!" in Vietnamese, if you hadn't guessed.

I have no pictures from New Year's Eve or Day, really, because my camera has begun sucking batteries dry while it's off. Which gives me the lovely surprise of turning on my camera after putting in fresh batteries the night before and having it immediately turn itself off and greet me with a "please change batteries" message. Thank you, camera. I'm thinking of replacing it with a better one if I save up some money. We'll see...

So, I had a luxurious New Year's Eve, very low-key, drinking champagne and eating cheese and tapenade and scones with Julia and Emilie. For New Year's Day we went to a pool to swim and lay out, then had a late lunch (for me: steamed clams with lemongrass, and a North Vietnamese noodle soup with beef and herbs), followed by a nap. Feel completely relaxed, and do not want to go to work tomorrow, but will suck it up.

I hope everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable 2008, and I wish everyone an even better 2009. Happy New Year!

As Promised

From Sunday night:




L'haim, everyone!

The Holidays in 'Nam, continued...

Just sharing a few more photos to show how insane the Vietnamese get with Christmas decorations. This is Le Loi Street, which is one of the main streets in Ho Chi Minh City. All lit up, I would call it Vietnam's answer to the Champs-Élysée. Except that the Champs-Élysée is classy, and Le Loi looks like the Christmas spirit vomited all over it. I know this picture is blurry, but it shows both the lights and the traffic:


And this is Saigon Centre, which is a big mall on Le Loi. The square in front of it was filled with people taking pictures in front of the lights, as well as many Vietnamese Santas selling things like light-up tiaras, Santa hats, and other miscellaneous goodies.


It was pretty blinding, that's for sure. Also, I took a picture of my menorah yesterday, the last day of Hannukah (and yes, I realize that I'm spelling it different every time. Sue me.), but I can't be bothered to upload it yet. When I do, I'll post it.

Cheers!

Shots from my holidays

Here is my homemade menorah, from a few nights ago. I put it in the foyer of our house, since everything is tiled and there's nothing that could catch on fire out there. Plus, it means people passing by can see it through our front gate.

For Christmas day "dinner," a few friends and I went to a big fancy hotel on the river for a Christmas brunch buffet. This was an absolute feast, complete with a million kinds of main dish (lobster, duck, goose, ham, steak, turkey, sushi, salmon, etc.), and unlimited wine. Needless to say, we started drinking champagne at about 11:30 a.m. and didn't stop until 6. However, we were eating a lot and frequently chasing down a tiny child, so we didn't really have the opportunity to eat or drink ourselves into oblivion. I think that this is a good thing.

Here is a shot of part of the buffet:


In dessertland, there was a little village made entirely of chocolate cake.


And the lobby had a gorgeous tree, which Wallace adored. That's her, in her new Christmas dress (you can't see the chocolate all over the front).


All in all, a great day. We stayed at the hotel for about 5 hours, eating and drinking and talking, then went to a restaurant nearby for happy hour, and continued our sparkling wine revelry. Around 7, I went with Julia and the Walrus back to their place to put the little one to bed, and Julia and I watched Hot Fuzz on HBO and finished a bottle of red wine that she had. It was great.

Unfortunately, today (Friday the 26th) I have work. I will do my best (or...almost my best) to be productive.

Hope all of you had wonderful holidays, spent with friends or family or both, surrounded by love. I'm sending you some from over here; hope it makes it all that distance.

Hugs and Kisses,

A

One of my very best friends in Vietnam

This is Bwoon. She's the puppy that lives across the alley from me. Her family keeps their front gate open frequently, and when she hears my keys she runs out to say hi and jump up on me. Then she zooms around in figure eights in the street before coming back to me to play. I must say, it's really nice to have someone who is always happy to see me.

In other news, I'm really exhausted and at a loss of things to write. So, hopefully I will be inspired later.

Eight Crazy Nights

I'm thinking of celebrating Hannukah this year. Is that weird? It probably is. All my life I've considered myself an atheist, and wrestled with the concept of faith, settling to call myself agnostic and not devote too much energy to the subject altogether.

In my family, we always did both Christmas and Hannukah in the most secular of ways--lighting the candles, having a tree, exchanging presents. This year, when I won't be seeing my family or most of my friends, or having a tree, I have this strong desire to light the menorah (if I can find one). I read an article recently that was written by a Jew working in Saigon about his experience being Jewish here. And he mentioned that for Hannukah, one of the main principles is that the menorah lights the night, and shows other wandering Jews that they are not alone. I really, really like this idea; I like the idea of putting candles in windows in general, but I like the idea that I would be doing something that Jews all over the world would be doing at (almost) the same time (time zones permitting, etc.). As much as I can say that I don't believe in God, I do like the idea of feeling like part of something bigger than me, of participating in something big. Especially since, while I've been making friends here, I still feel alone sometimes, and if lighting these candles can help alleviate that for me and possibly for others (granted, there aren't many windows in our house; I'll probably put it on the roof somewhere.), then I think it's worth doing.

There is a Chabad center in Saigon, and I've got their information. I'm going to see if they loan out menorahs, or sell them and Hannukah candles, or something. I'll see what they say.

[Update: I went to the Chabad after work, and--after a somewhat awkward conversation about my status or non-status as a Jew, and my desire to light the candles--was told that the Rabbi would email me when he gets back in town about picking up a menorah and some candles. So, success! They seemed really eager to have found a possible new Jew in town, so I felt kind of interroggated: Are you Jewish? Were you raised Jewish? Would you like to come to Shabbat services on Friday? So I kind of shuffled around the hard questions. I might go to the Hannukah party on Monday evening, for the lighting of the candles and a good Kosher meal. Because who doesn't like a good Kosher meal, eh? So we'll see how this little adventure goes.]

A photo from Mui Ne

Mui Ne, Rematch

Weekends in a row spent in Mui Ne: 2

Amount of mosquito repellent used: 0

Mosquito bites: 23ish. I keep discovering new ones.

Amount of sunburn from laying out by the pool/beach for a whole day: unsure

Seeing an 18-month-old's first time at the beach: priceless...She decided that the sand was horrible but the ocean was terrific. This called for some heavy lifting (of the baby) on Julia (the mom)'s part, since Wally wanted to feel the ocean but not the sand. Hilarious!

Haven't gotten photos yet from the girls (my camera was dead), but once I have them I'll put 'em up.

Adventures in Mui Ne

Last weekend I had to get out of the city, so I decided to brave the rain and go to the beach. It's about a 4 to 5 hour bus ride, which costs about $6 each way, and the hotel cost $15 a night, which is a bargain. I took the night bus on Friday and got there at 2 a.m. Friday night. Saturday I walked around the town, and then got a coffee and lounged at a beach cafe. Here is the main drag of Mui Ne, which is basically a series of hotels, resorts, restaurants, massage places, and souvenir stores. So, everything one could possible need, right?

Saturday afternoon I took a xe om to the major sights near the city. First, the fishing village:

Then the white sand dunes, which were incredible. They were so QUIET--even with the tourists, all you could hear was the wind. All the sound was absorbed by the sand. And I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually in the middle of the countryside in Vietnam, and not in, like, the Arabian desert.

Then we went to the red sand dunes, and even though there had been no sun all day I was given a glimpse of a sunset:

Beautiful. All in all, a relaxing weekend, spent wandering, lounging, and reading. For more photos, you can check out the Facebook album that I made.

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was enjoyable--I spent mine at a potluck with a small group of people, and it was nice. I am thankful for this adventure and opportunity, and for all of you. You are missed.

Saturday stroll

Yesterday, I decided that I needed to do something to get exercise, so after getting back from work at noon, napping for another hour or two, and watching some tv online, I headed out. Here, I made a map of my route:

I realize it's small, but maybe you can zoom in. So i just took one street that I think looks interesting and followed it until it ended, then kept going a bit. Passed a lot of cute boutiques, including this one, which is self-explanatory:


Kept walking until I got tired and hungry, turned around, and then stopped in Pham Ngu Lao, the backpacker district, where I found this:

Doner. Kebab. YES. Not quite like those in St.-Michel in Paris, and certainly not stuffed with french fries, but still highly satisfying.

And now it's Sunday, and I just got a luxurious 90-minute massage, and then went to a nice market and got fruits, veggies, eggs, and a black purse. All in all, a successful weekend.

I got a haircut...

...ok, so I got a couple of hairs cut (this joke's for you, Dad).

Ignoring the face that this picture was taken at 11:30 last night when I had just gotten back from seeing Bond and was exhausted. So it's not my prettiest.

I thought it would be a little expensive (relative to Vietnam, so like...5 dollars, maybe), especially because they did it twice--I asked for bangs and one guy cut them weird, and then another lady came over and was like, "I know what she wants" and redid it. And then they asked for--GASP--$1.50. This country is insane.

Anyway, hope you like it. It'll take some getting used to, for me, but I needed a change.

My day, thus far

Hello all, and happy Saturday. I've been feeling guilty about not blogging lately, but I also feel like I have very little interesting things to say. Maybe I'm just bored with myself. I'm not sure.

Here's what I did yesterday: went to work, where I was finding articles that Frederic Remington wrote in the 1800's and then transcribing them into word documents. Then I went home, chilled out a bit, then went to dinner and karaoke (yes, karaoke) with a bunch of Thi's coworkers. I was the only American there, and thus I was the only one who sang songs in English. Also, their song list had nothing more recent than Nirvana. My choices? "Bizarre Love Triangle," "S.O.S.," and "We Built This City." Yes. And no one else knew these songs.

On the way home someone tried to rob us again. Thi was driving, and I had stupidly forgotten to put my purse in the seat compartment of the bike, so I had it held tight on my shoulder. Some guys on a bike drove up, and the one on the back grabbed at my shoulder strap, but I was holding too tight for him to take it. There was this horrible moment where he's looking in my eyes, and I'm staring at him with as much hostility as I can muster, and then they drove off. I know I should have been more careful, that I was totally asking to be robbed, but it still sucks. It's hard to like people when there are some who just make me hate everyone; I really want to carry pepper spray or something, so that if someone tries something again I can spray them in the face. It just makes me so ANGRY, and it makes me feel helpless, since we weren't about to chase them (learned that one the hard way, when Thi got robbed and we crashed the bike), and it's not like the police do anything in this country except take bribes...What do you do, you know?

So that brought down the night. This morning I went over to Julia's and watched Wallace while she went to a dance class that she missed because the xe om driver didn't really read the address she showed him, so he ended up taking her to the completely wrong place. So we ranted about the incompetency of some of the people here--like, if you're going to drive people around for a living, shouldn't you know how to read or understand where they're going? He had no idea where he was going, but wasn't about to lose her business.

So, I played with the Walrus, and then came home and napped. Now I'm lazing about in my room.

Oh, and the picture is the view from Julia's floor, pre-rainstorm. Looks gloom-and-doomy, don't it?

Update on Bibliophilesque

I will be updating here soon, I promise. I've just updated my book blog, Bibliophilesque. Check it out.

Gobama, gobama, GO!

Went out last night to celebrate victory. And Irish pub called O'brien's (of course) was hosting a shindig for anyone looking to party. From there the housemates and I went to Pacharan, a tapas bar, to hang out a bit more and listen to their live music, which unfortunately consisted of covers of angsty songs, such as "What's Goin' On?" and "My Happy Ending." But was fun nonetheless.

Maraj and I got signs at the victory party:


And even Jan, who is usually very serious and cynical (especially about America), got excited about it:


I must say that I'm glad this whole election thing is over. I know that the campaign game never really stops, but now that a decision has been made I'm just looking forward to seeing what happens next.

The Club Scene, and other ramblings

It's a lazy Saturday afternoon, so I'm emptying some of my thoughts here. Hope they're interesting.

I've never been much of a "clubber," for many reasons. First, my stamina for staying up late in smoky rooms has never been very strong. Second, being 21 in Chicago is generally expensive, if you want to go out, since drinks are pricey, as are cabs home when you can't or don't want to take public transportation. Here, however, things are usually pretty cheap, and there are lots of choices on where to go, so I've been trying to go out more often.

When I first got here and was talking about the social scene in Ho Chi Minh City, I was told that there was a curfew, which was usually around midnight. I immediately interpreted this as some sort of morality issue--the government doesn't want large groups of drunken people up late partying all over town, so they shut it down early. (In my head, I was leaving the rampant prostitution out of the equation, simply because I hadn't thought about it much.) However, there are a few clubs and bars that stay open much later, and the way I understood this was that it's easier for the police to keep an eye on people if they're only in a few places than if they're all over. This, to me, made some sense.

Well, I was wrong. It turns out (surprise surprise!) to be all about money. The club owners/managers who pay off the police get to stay open longer. Those that don't get shut down at midnight and have cops staked out outside the doors giving random drug tests to exiting patrons. So it's a bit frustrating when you get to a club at 11:30 (normal party-starting time in the States), and promptly at midnight the music stops and all the lights come up.

Ah, corruption.

More fascinating to observe are the gender roles here. They are still fairly strict, albeit in a more passive-aggressive way than some other societies. It becomes apparent, for example, when seeing people smoke. In Vietnam, women don't smoke. Well, some do, but those that do are usually either foreigners or hookers--essentially, women who don't really care what the rest of society thinks of them. Smoking is seen as a male thing, and almost all the men here do it, and seeing a woman smoke makes the Vietnamese uncomfortable. I was talking to a girl that I met who is here teaching English, and she told me that her boss asked her not to smoke in front of the building because he did not want the students to see her smoking. Now, I could see forbidding anyone to smoke near a school because of health reasons, but here it is obviously not like this. The men could smoke in front, but the students might lose their respect for their female teacher if they saw her smoking, because only "loose women" do it. One of my coworkers smokes, and she always tries to do it somewhere secluded, because she always gets stared at and it makes her slightly uncomfortable.

I'm not making any judgments on these observances--I don't think it makes this society "good" or "bad" that the police take pay-offs (which I'm sure happens everywhere, in varying degrees) or that women aren't supposed to smoke. I am simply interested in seeing this new culture, and how it works differently from those that I am used to. It's opening my eyes.

To close, a photo of Chilli:
She kind of looks like she's doing the Thriller dance, doesn't she? That or "Backstreet's Back" (Alright!). Not sure.

Vote vote vote like a baby stoat!

Yes, I'm a weirdo, and the post title was totally ripped from a Cute Overload concept. Don't judge.

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning I finally decided to give up on ever receiving my official California ballot, the one that I ordered 3 weeks ago, and go in to the US Consulate and get an emergency one. They open at 8 a.m., so I notified my boss that I would be late and headed over there. Well, as all bureaucratic (it took me 3 tries to spell that correctly) offices go, I was there at 8 and they let me in, but the actually offices don't open until 8:30. Got my ballot, went over to work.

According to the consulate, I can go to the Fedex International office and they'll mail my ballot for free before October 29th...which is today. I told myself that after work yesterday I would go straight to Fedex to mail it, but then I left the emergency ballot on my desk at work, and cursed myself all the way home for being flakey.

Then I get home and find this on the coffee table.

The universe is telling me to vote. And, I could maybe vote twice now that I have two ballots. But I won't, and have given the emergency one (which is a write-in absentee ballot, allowing you only to vote for President, Senate, and House Rep) to Julia, so she can do her civic duty.

And today, for SURE, I am going after work to Fedex to mail this sucker in. If they won't let me do it for free, I'll make a stink. That, or I'll just pay. It's for a good cause.