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Published: July 18th 2007
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Hello!
I finally made it. Well I made it here yesterday morning. It was a pretty comfortable flight. Nothing to complain of. The food was decent, but the selection of movies was better. I thought I would be scared out of my wits because of my phobia of flying, but I was sandwiched between my mom and my sister the whole entire time.
Aaron is right. When we were flying into Ho Chi Minh City, all I saw was green. Green green everywhere. That and the few occasions of brown indicating some river that I do not know the name of. It was beautiful flying in. The skies are bright and blue while the clouds were big gigantic puffballs of white - whiter than snow. Trang (my sister) and I start squirming in our seats. Can't wait to get out of the plane to explore the motherland!
First iffy encounter occurred at the Vietnamese Customs. When we left the plane, we had to stand in line. A looooong line just to file with the government any valuables that we brought to the country. Basically, if you don't slip money into your passport, you have to endure waiting
for them to enter your information a significant amount longer than if you slip them money. I was stubborn, so was my cousin and my sister, so we decide to NOT slip in money. My mom scolded us in line, saying "I put money in there!" Nope, we went ahead first. We did not want to succumb. My cousin's check was fine. "See mom, Anh Vuong is okay." UI step up next. The customs guy looks at me, looks down at the passport, types a little, sits and waits there a little, looks at me again. Asks me where am I going. I answer stupidly, "Vietnam?" He sends me back into line. Slap in the face! Haha. My mom kind of shoves me aside, with her fatty passport since her money was definitely sitting in there and takes care of the situation. In less than two minutes. Damn customs. I look around and all these other families are slipping money into their passports. They must make a lot of money-those employees. Oh wells.
Second shady encounter happened at the baggage claim. There was some strange and random man going around asking for a 'Mai'. Granted that that is my
mother's name, my aunt stepped in and shooed the guy away. He comes back 5 minutes later and asks again..."Is there a Mai in this party?" This time he points to Trang asking, "Are you Trang?" I give him this ugly look and tell him "khong!" "No!" Go away. What a creep.
Second mishap of the trip was losing two pieces of luggage. My uncle had lost his suitcase with clothes and his camcorder! My punk cousin lost his ONLY piece of luggage filled with his clothes. He was so smart to leave in there three ipod nanos that he had bought for his little sisters. Anyway....it all turned out well because we got a call today saying that the luggage has been found and is being sent over to my aunt's house in the city of Vung Tao.
Those two things did not make the start of our trip well, until we left the dang airport. I went outside first with my huge ass "winner" luggage (that's the brand) and voila! My dad was outside coming towards me. I have never been as happy to see him than then. Familiarity is good! At that same moment, I
meet relatives! Lots of relatives! There was no sign of my brother and my two other cousins that had left for Vietnam the same time my dad left, which was the day before.
I met my mom's brother, my dad's sister's husband, my cousins, etc. After being led out by my dad, everyone knew my name right away. Apparently my dad did make a big deal out of us kids. And apparently he did mention that I am the "good student." My relatives knew so much about me but I had very few information on them. My broken Vietnamese is hindering me from talking up a storm with my relatives to find out more about them. I feel kind of shy because I am afraid my Vietnamese will suck. But my relatives are so friendly that I think I will warm up to them more and more and not care about my inaptitude to sputter out Vietnamese fluently.
The weather here is not as bad as I thought it would be. It's actually pretty breezy. I definitely feel the humidity, but it's not as bad as I have felt before. No rain either. Weather channel dot com had
told me that it was supposed to rain and thunderstorms all throughout my stay. Not one boom in the sky. However, a few drops so far.
Anywho...we get to my aunt's home, and geez. It should be featured in cribs. She lives in a neighborhood that I would say almost compares to Beverly Hills or something. It's great. Very tall building too. But that's the nicest home that I will be staying in out of my family.
I get into the house and was inundated with more relatives! I got to meet Grandma!!!! Oh em gee! She is almost exactly like my mother. Very sweet demeanor and she was grabbing onto our arms. So happy to finally meet her grandchildren as we were ecstatic to finally meet our grandmother (mom's side). Meeting relatives and seeing the different personalities was definitely the best part of this trip so far.
I gotta cut this internet cafe soon. My dad's waiting for me. But right now, I am in the city of Qui Nhon. We are staying here and making our trek out to Binh Dinh (my mother's home) tomorrow morning. I don't think we're really far. So many crazy things happened between leaving my aunt's home at 5am this morning until we arrived in this city. I will get to see where my mom grew up and then after that, heading to Quang Ngai to see where my dad lives. I will have to tell more stories later.
So far though, I love this place!!!
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Dave
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So much info I don't know where to start.... I like your description of the sky.... "big gigantic" ... those clouds must be HUGE! And crazy about the customs people ... complete jerks. But they probably thought you were being sarcastic when you said "Vietnam," and sent you back into line to punish you for your independent anti-communist thought. So awesome about your grandma, nice picture of her too... She color coordinates very nicely with the benches there. How old is she btw?