Notes from Vietnam #2

June 19 #1

Hi again!

Thank goodness for Zeb's laptop and how kind he is to let people use it...

Originally most of our group was going to use this afternoon off to go to a war memorial museum, but I'm fairly certain that everyone decided against it and we're all just going to chill and maybe have a few beers (I'm all for just good ol' tea, myself).

We have the discovered the wonders of the room air-conditioning which makes everything much better, and I took a shower about half an hour ago and washed my hair and it feels BRILLIANT!

Also, squat toilets are terrifying.

I've gotten bitten by two mosquitoes already, but since we're not in a malaria zone, I should be okay. We're going to a water puppet show in about an hour and a half that should be very fun. Tomorrow we're going to the Canadian Embassy and doing a few other things, though I can't entirely remember what, but I do know that we're going to meet a few middle-class Vietnamese people that we get to interview, which should be interesting!

The traffic here is INSANE! People are always honking their horns, to let people know that they're coming, and they do it CONSTANTLY, and drive everywhere, including throughout the tiny little markets! We went to the Temple of Literature, which is a school that was built in 1076 by Confucius to educate students into mandarins.

Zeb, Leslie, Ben and I went out and got water, and Leslie and I stopped on the street because there was a tiny, itsy bitsy little kitten there... it was no more than four weeks old, definitely too young to leave it's mother, but it was owned by a woman in one of the shops and was tied to a post with about half a foot of string. It was orange and yellow striped, and positively adorable and hungry, and we just sat there and cooed and cried over it and how adorable it was and how it wasn't getting enough food, the poor thing! I wanted to take it with me. Poor little kitten!

You know, it's funny... I can clearly tell that I'm in a different country, and it's all remarkably fascinating, but yet... I'm not going, "wow!" I mean, I'm going, "this is all very cool!" and take pictures, but I just keep thinking, "Hmm, when do I get home?" It's not a honeymoon stage for me right now, I have to say.

The most money that I've spent so far has been on water. (Man, they have weird money here... it's called 'dong'. In the words of Jason, "I just can't take any currency that's called 'dong' seriously.")

I realise that all my paragraphs have been kind of all over the place, but... meh. Heh. I should go now, I suppose. I can't begin to tell you just how awesome this air conditioning is... *cue Hallelujah chorus*

Lots of love! I'll phone you when I can!

-Trista


June 19 # 2

Oh! Something else really interesting!

This just started, so I thought I'd say it - our tour guide and teachers pointed out to us a few speakers as we were walking throughout the Old Quarter. It turns out that there is how people listen to news from the government, I believe it is! It just started right now. Since lots of people don't have time when they come home to watch television or listen to the radio, that's how they get their news.

Anyways, bye!

Love you!

-Trista