Day 44: October 3, 2014

What a day! We had a makeup sociology class at 10am this morning, so I along with four other students took the bus to class. In class, we spent some time discussing Vietnamese and American weddings, which was pretty interesting. After class, Cate and I headed to the canteen to eat lunch where I had pork and rice with okra, soup, and a banana. This soup is served with every rice dish, and it consists of a salty broth that contains greens and a single piece of pork.

Then our day really began. With it being a Friday and class was over at 12:30, Cate and I decided to spend some time exploring and walk to Saigon Square. We began our journey through Ho Chi Minh City and as it started to lightly rain decided we should find a place to sit. We came across a chain coffee shop called The Coffee Bean and went in. Right as we ordered tea, it began to torrentially downpour outside. I had blueberry pomegranate black tea and we sat in some pretty comfy chairs until the rain subsided, which was about an hour later.

Just sipping some hot tea while it downpours.

We then decided to continue our journey. Along the way, we went into a lot of cool stores that lined the streets. I ended up buying a wallet made of a recycled feed bag for 30,000d since my other one was stolen when I was robbed. The lady told me that if I bought ten I would get one free, and I responded with "but I don't need 10!" Her reply? "They make good gifts."

We stopped in a lot of touristy stores just to look around but also stopped in a bookstore, where I bought some more postcards. Unlike the other ones I bought, these have pictures of life in Ho Chi Minh City and were much cheaper. I got 5 for the price of one of the other ones! We also passed an Auntie Anne's pretzel shop, so Cate decided to stop in and try it. She ordered cinnamon pretzel sticks, and although they were good I prefer the salty pretzel dipped in cheese.

Auntie Anne's in Vietnam. Tastes like the United States.

When we finally made it to Saigon Square, we walked around inside looking at all of the clothing. Saigon Square is basically a clothing marketplace where you can barter with the shop owners. It's so incredibly crowded it is insane. This was my third visit and I am finally not overwhelmed by everything. I'm also learning that it helps to go in the middle of the week and not on a weekend when there are more tourists. Most of the items for sale are knockoffs, and it can be kind of hard to find "Western" (aka bigger aka things that fit me) sizes. There was a pair of shorts I tried to buy, but when the lady said 160,000d was her final price I walked away. Sure, that's only 8 USD, but I really didn't want to spend that much on them. Will I be in shock when I return home or what?

When we were finally done shopping, Cate and I debated whether to take the bus or xe om back. I was ready to try and figure out what bus to get on, but then I noticed Cate was bartering with a xe om driver. We ended up both getting on the same xe om, me with a helmet, her without, and having the driver navigate the streets. Not that it really matters that she didn't have a helmet; the one I had didn't fit properly and was cheaply made anyway. I've decided that the helmets are just to make you feel safer, because if you crash or fall off a motorbike in this city you're going to get run over.

We successfully made it back to the dormitory for a grand total of 80,000d. Along the way, the xe om driver tried to talk to us but I couldn't really understand what he was saying, as well as asking us if we wanted to get coconuts or waffles. When he dropped us off, Cate got his phone number to call if we ever need a driver because he was pretty good at navigating three people (which is illegal, by the way) on a motorbike through the streets. It was pretty funny to look at people's faces as they watched us drive past them.

Back in the dorm, I got on the internet but nothing was loading. I learned recently that the reason the internet doesn't always work over here is because a cable was cut that connects Vietnam to the rest of the world. When I first heard this, I thought it was a metaphor, but it turns out that a cable was literally cut. Apparently these cables are in the ocean and it takes a while to fix them. Check out the article:         http://www.techinasia.com/aag-cable-cut-again/

There are very few people in the dorm tonight as half of the group is travelling, so Cate and I basically did everything together. She decided she wanted noodles, so we headed to the noodle lady. Turns out that one of the Vietnamese students we met at Survival Vietnamese was there, so we spent some time talking to him. There were also a table of Vietnamese students sitting next to us, and when he left they began to talk to us. There English wasn't nearly as good, but it was pretty interesting. We talked to them for a while (which included a lot of "what?") before we asked them if they knew where we could get sweet soup. They didn't understand what sweet soup was, and it somehow ended up as we wanted sticky rice, so they told us to meet them at the gate at 9pm.

When we met them, there were four Vietnamese students and two of us. We walked the streets until we came to the sticky rice place, but that wasn't what we wanted. We tried to explain again what sweet soup was but it did not work. I ended up calling Thao (bless her) and asked her to explain to them in Vietnamese what we wanted. Turns out she thought it was a taxi driver, and I explained that it was just some people we met when we were eating. She told me to be careful and I promised to explain the situation tomorrow.

Turns out that sweet soup is too far away to walk from, although Yen brought me to one within walking distance. So they took us back to the dormitory and we got mango smoothies and met up with some more of their friends. Now there were about eight of them and two of us. Their English ranged from pretty non-existent to almost as good as our partners'. It was a very funny event, and much of the time was spent listening to them translate English to Vietnamese and just laughing at the fact that it was so difficult to communicate. They tried to pay for our smoothies, but we insisted that we pay for our own. One guy was on our side and said "No! They pay." We are actually going to be meeting them again tomorrow night, and they will take us on their pedal bikes to get sweet soup. I just can't imagine anything like this happening in the United States, and my one goal this weekend was to hang out with more local people (it's even better that the people we met live in the dormitory), which is definitely happening. What makes it even funnier is that this story is best told to the other Loyola students. Only they truly understand when I say "So we met these students at the noodle stand next to the corn lady, and they took us to get smoothies from the smoothie lady."

Our new friends. Only in Vietnam!