HELLO FROM VIETNAM!!
it's still sooo hard for me to believe that i'm in vietnam--for vacation-->eek!!
i left korea on wednesday with whitney, and after endless hours of flights, a superlong layover, and seeing a crazy man get detained by security in nanning [china], we finally arrived in ho chi minh city [aka saigon] thursday morning around 3.
it seems so surreal [to me] to be in vietnam!! a year ago, as i sat in class learning about the vietnam war--and doing thousand of hours of research about it--i honestly never imagined that i would actually be here experiencing vietnam and the history that this country has. as i stepped out of the airport into the warm night air, i felt like i had not only flown to a different country, but a different period of time. i feel like i've flown about 35 years back in time...this is the way i imagine saigon looked during the height of the vietnam war...
today, whitney and i went on a tour of the cu chi tunnels, which the north vietnamese used to sneak in to saigon during the war. our tour started with a propaganda documentary made by the communists in 1968. [you don't even have to use your imagination to know the kinds of things this film was saying...i lost count of how many times they used the phrase "the american enemy"] after seeing this film, whitney and i decided it would be best to say that we were from canada, if anyone asked...turns out, we were the only americans on the tour, but people did believe we were from canada, luckily... after watching the propaganda film, we were able to tour the area...we saw all of the traps that the viet cong had set to capture americans--we saw at least ten different types of traps that were used, and our guide proudly told us stories about all of the americans that had died from falling in to the traps. we were also able to go down in to the tunnels, at which point my claustrophobia kicked in and i literally freaked out. the tunnels are SOOOO small and dark--i had to crawl on my hand and knees, and i was still bumping my head on the ceiling!! it's hard to imagine how the viet cong lived and fought down there for so long!! it was interesting to hear about this history from a vietnamese point of view--so different from the american point of view that i'm used to hearing in class. i guess it just goes to show that there are two sides to every story...and maybe both are biased in their own way [not that i'm a fan of the "america sucks" point of view...]
yesterday, whitney and i explored the areas of ho chi minh city surrounding our hotel, and we made a few observations. first, we couldn't help but notice the amount of moterbikes/mopeds in this city--our tour guide today said that there are close to 4 million!! you can literally see hundreds [or maybe more] on the road at any given time...and they all drive super crazy, i will never complain about the drivers in korea again!! also, there are communist flags everywhere--i'm talking red with a straight up sickle and hammer on it. and there are huge portraits of ho chi minh proudly displayed everywhere.
last night, we went to dinner at...pizza hut. and i have to say, pizza hut in vietnam FREAKING ROCKS!! there are several reasons why pizza hut in vietnam is superior to all other pizza huts in the world:
1.) they played BigBang [not even the pizza hut in bupyeong plays BigBang...at least, not that i've heard]
2.) a "large" [medium, if we're talking american sizes] pizza cost a whopping $7...for real. and sodas were $1. heckyess.
3.) the pizza was freaking delicious, like best pizza i've ever had. ever. we're talking better than american pizza hut.
this morning, whitney and i saw ninjas practicing ninja-ish things in the street. [we watched from the safety of our hotel room.] i know they were ninjas because of two reasons:
1.) they were wearing all black.
2.) they were practicing synchronized moves, like jump kicks and roundhouse kicks.
so clearly there's no other explanation for this odd behavior; they were obviously ninjas. duh.
i suppose that this is all for now...later, i suppose that whitney and i will go out and explore the city [aka look for the hard rock cafe haha]. but, i promise to update more later [my new year's resolution was to actually update my blog, since obviously i suck at that...and also to learn korean.]
until next time,
~m~
No comments:
Post a Comment