Vietnamese noodles and Bah Bah Bah equates to Pizza burps

The day started at 4:30 am, when Maggie and I both stirred awake due to jet lag. It seemed to be happening to everyone, so we all gathered and went hunting for our breakfast at around 7:00 am. Life for Saigonese Vietnamese seems to run from 5 am to 10 pm. Luckily we didn’t have to venture far outside the confines of the university gates to find a Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwich) stand. Man, was this the best breakfast I think I have ever had, not even kidding. Lily was the first to order and got a baguette (made with rice flower) filled with mayonnaise, pickled vegetables, basil, cucumbers, some interesting spicy soy sauce, baby bell cheese, and a fried egg. Actually sounds rather disgusting but it was a flavor explosion. We were standing, stuffing our faces, when we realized that no one else, meaning Vietnamese people, were eating standing up. So we found some little miniature stools (which everyone sits on in the sidewalks to eat) and sat. And ate our miniature feast. We supplemented it with some Vietnamese ice coffee, which is extremely strong coffee with a generous amount of sweetened condensed milk on the bottom. The coffee was so strong it almost tasted alcoholic.


Later we had our orientation. We walked around HCMC and went to the market. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. It’s at the beginnings of the backpacker’s section of the city, i.e. tourist/white westerners central, and thus we are targets for their business. The market was especially draining. The vendors will come up and touch you and say “Miss nice shirt for you? Very nice, many colors…” Over and over. We walked through the covered alleys and every single vendor would grab and say “Miss, miss…” It was actually hard. I am not the kind of person to shut people out or say no to people. I want to be polite. But if you are polite and show more interest in talking to them they will pull you over and show you more and you just dig yourself deeper and deeper. I hated saying no because I knew that they need my money more than I actually need it. But its not like I can buy everything from every single Vietnamese woman/man who approaches. We were eating lunch and like 15 counterfeit Ray Ban sunglass vendors walked by and asked each of us to buy. So I have learned how to smile and say "không."

We walked, we got some noodles for lunch, some sugar cane juice, some beer (called “Bah Bah Bah”, meaning 333), some strawberry Fanta, and I bought some undies. Actually, one pair. In the biggest size they had. By US standards I am a skinny girl, not stick skinny, but, you know, thin. By Vietnamese standards I am giantess. I got XL which just fit me. Made me feel great. At least they didn’t say I was fat.

I will write more but I am exhausted


Ok, 6:54 in the am now, so Im good. Last night we went for our orientation dinner to meet our Vietnamese "buddies" and also ate a traditional Vietnamese meal, family style, as they always do (which is great). We had some sort of sour chopped up salad on rice cakes, chicken (with the heads), snail patties, a sort of fried salad with shrimp, another sour chopped up salad with pork, and then fish, rice and crab soup as the main course. Dessert was pineapple, watermelon and other fruit with this mixture of salt and chili pepper to go on it. It was all very interesting... my favorites were the snail patty, which tasted sort of like a leaf covered meat ball although the texture was a bit off, and the fish was great. My favorite part of the whole meal however was talking with the Vietnamese students, who are our age. I sat next to My who is really peppy and outgoing, we talked about Britney Spears and I explained the sexual connotation of "if-you-seek-amy." She's so cute, I can’t wait to spend more time with her. She also likes to dance and when she asked me how I like to dance in America I jumped up and down, waved my arms and my head and she was so happy. I also met a girl Vân who is also very sweet-- she reminds me of a Vietnamese Aiko (a very good thing). She had a nice temperment and was easy to talk to. On the other side of me was Huu Anh, who was very smiley guy, shorter than I and probably a size -2. I'll just have to get used to being a giantess. Anyhow he was very sweet and we talked a lot, and would get me food whenever a new dish was brought to the table. He told me that I hold my chopsticks very funny and showed me how to do it. I'll still have my training wheels a while, Maggie and I are going to do some conditioning to strengthen out chopstick grip. Pho, the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup, is the best way to do this, which we will probably be eating every day, so I have high hopes of becoming chopstick master. I also met Quyên, who I didn't get to talk much to, but she loves the color red and is also great.
The one thing thus far that has thrown me off about living here is my sustainable habits. In the US I purposely try to not buy containers that aren’t recyclable, I don’t buy bottled water ever, I try not to eat meat, I recycle any paper I have, I unplug appliances, you know. But here I can’t even think about the first four things on that list. If you get street food, which is what I can see myself living off, they come in Styrofoam or plastic containers that, well, can’t be recycled. Also, there are no recycling bins, and I felt a little bit naïve inquiring about that. Alice, one of our Vietnamese CET people, said that often people go through the trash for them, but not necessarily as much anymore because of inflation. Also I naturally can only recycle paper by reusing it. The meat here is local, naturally, and the food too, so that’s cool. But basically I have to through that whole environmentally conscious side of me out the window for the next 4 months, which is very, very hard. I practically shiver whenever I have to throw a can or bottle in the garbage. It’ll be ok though. They Vietnamese seem to use and re-use everything, very little goes to waste.

This is going to be a great term, Vietnam is a great place.