I passed out after I ended my blog last night…I was so
tired! I think it was around 1030
(reasonable bed time!) and I was down for the count until 6am – when I was WIDE
awake. Now why cant I be a morning
person at home? My bed is trrrrible
it
made this retched sound (somewhere between what sounded like the springs were
messed up to what sounded like whatever the bed was on was messed up). I felt bad because I woke Mom up..but she
thought I did it on purpose to wake her up since she was snoring! Anyway, we got up and fixed it…what a weird
bed! We flipped over both the wood part
AND the mattress..we are women of many talents!
We then went to breakfast (a mixture of toast, yogurt,
dragon fruit <my fav!>) and decided since we were up so early we might as
well head out. We have done all of the
tourist stuff and have explored most of the area but figured it was a good time
for a walk since it wouldn’t be too crowded or hot (yet).
We made our way down some streets I don’t THINK we have been
down before…but honestly they all look the same so who really knows! Some local (selling coconut milk) thought we
were lost (we weren’t) and was sweet and pointed us in the direction back to
the backpackers district (which was very nice) and next thing I know I turn around
and mom has a coconut in her hand! ROOKIE
MISTAKE! We have had coconut milk before
(neither of us like it) so I gave him a 20 (which is about $1).
He tried to sucker us for a 50, but we said
no, he laughed and we went on our way.
Mom says the guy has to make a living.
We ended up at a Westernish mall/grocery store (one we
frequent) to see what they had for toys – although it was VERY expensive, so we
settled on some snacks at the grocery store.
Mom ended up talking to this very sweet girl who wanted to practice her
English. She’s 24 and works for Vihaf (a
furniture company – headquarters in NYC) and would like to eventually work in
NYC but needs to improve her English (although she was pretty easy to
understand). The sad thing is – you
sometimes need to be careful who you talk to (more so in the parks) because some
do try to scam you (ask you to coffee..go to a place their friend owns and run
up the bill, etc). What’s really sad
about it is there really are NICE people who just want to practice their
English (like this girl) and I have had university students stop me before to
fill out homework (their homework being ask a native English speaker these
questions, etc) – but you never know. Anyway
it was nice to chat with her.
We came back to rest up a bit, shower, etc. because LONG WAS
COMING TO MEET US! Long and I met the
first year I was in Vietnam…as he gave myself (and a few other volunteers) a
tour of the city. We then went to his parent’s
house for dinner…and the rest…is history!
He continues to give tours for different companies in Saigon – yet still
manages to make time for us every time we are here!
He met us at our hotel and took us to one of his favorite
restaurants – where we ate SO MUCH FOOD!
Now, lets call a spade a spade – my mom and I love to eat. But holy moly was this a lot of food! It was so yummy – and what was so nice was we
really wouldn’t have been able to order it without him. We don’t do seafood, so everything he ordered
was without prawn, squid, etc. and it was all food we would eat every day if we
knew how to order it!
It was so nice to catch up over lunch and as we were getting
ready to be rolled out of there a couple (from Czech Republic) was trying to
order some food (to no avail) so we had to share Long for a bit while he helped
to translate their food order.
After a delicious lunch, we decided our time would be best
spent doing some shopping for the orphanage.
By now we tend to have a pretty good idea of what is needed and Long
takes us to the Chinatown market – as it’s a whole sale market (think
Costco/BJs). We took a cab to the bus
station and a bus down to Chinatown – where we shopped till we dropped!
We were able to buy Crocs for the kids (these seem to work
out really well for them as they are easy on easy off) face cloths (good for
wiping faces after meals) bath towels and toys (including two Rubik Cubes)!
Cant wait to bring it all to the orphanage tomorrow!
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