naipon na lang

a lot has happened since my last post --- both personally and work-wise.

ive been tossed around doing stuff that i havent had the joy of posting anything. ayan naipon tuloy. ill probably keep adding to this until ive exhausted everything.... LONG POST!

MCEA
i spent the whole week last week working on the MCEA entry.

thanks you to ena, carla, mayet and elaine for all the help... 4000 words is a struggle if you've been used to working on your brevity... nightmare.

friday was bad... wanted to do a lot of stuff before leaving for vietnam: buy shoes and jeans (i have 3 pairs of jeans.. thats it), go to the parlor.. etc.

worked on that entry until late friday night (i think 930 na kami natapos ni carla), needless to say i wasnt even able to do ANYTHING on my list (plus i got my period pa)! so i was in a really bad mood that night... stuff going on personally and stuff going on at work are thigns you dont want happening at the same time.. at least i dont think im built that way...

VIETNAM
so i got home and proctrastinated kasi i really wasnt in the mood to leave anymore. eventually i started to pack my stuff around midnight and finished around 130am. woke up at 4 (we were supposed to meet at kaye's house at 4!) and got to the airport ok.

vietnam was a blast! mainit lang talaga sobra. bargaining for stuff was really fun. haha. ive never felt more kuripot in my life! its liberating!

city tour
as always, city tour muna.. i figured this is the fastest way to see the city and strategize where to go. nothing fantastic... i guess i was too busy hating the heat.

first impressions of ho chi minh city:
they weren't kidding when they said there are more motorcycles and bicycles than there are cars! super konti lang ng traffic lights and crossing the street is fun... kasi you get to dodge the motorists and not be too afraid of how injured you will get. hahaha.

it was hard trying to understand their english kasi they lose some letters... like sixty is sikty... five is faaaay.. but you get used to it a bit.

the city is cleaner than i imagined... cleaner that i expected. :) people are nice... very asian... but there are still people who try to take advantage: rue those cyclo drivers... shame on them for charging VD100,000 (Php330) for a 5-minute ride, when we agreed on $1 (VD15,000)! well i hope it fed their families well.

shopping at ben thahn market
a lot of cheap bags and shoes here... the girls here at the office hoarded all the shoes and bags they can... nakakatuwa. we will probably end up wearing the same shoes here. haha.

this market is much like our divisoria.. it has everything (well, almost). but its very organized... all bags and textiles in one section, dry goods in another, metal stuffs in another, retail clothes in a separate are, food an others in their own sections. cool!

we were all millionaires when we got there ($100 = VD1,583,000).. now we're all looking forward to payday! hahaha. ironic. good thing i computed for the exchange rate ng vietnam dong to peso.. so deciding if its expensive or not became faster. plus, i had a great shopping partner... thanks pau!

fanny's ice cream
good food wasnt easy to find.. but we got good ice cream at fanny's. its near our hotel and its not too expensive (approx. VD39,000... Php130.00). they had really nice presentations on their menu.. although sa sobrang init, hindi mo rin ma-appreciate ng matagal kasi natutunaw. :p

cu chi tunnel
this was really a one of a kind experience. i expect all of us will write about this in our blogs... kakaiba talaga.

these tunnels are amazing. im tamad to explain the history of it all, but in a nutshell, its where the vietcongs lived to hide from the americans (3 levels, complete with kitchen, hospitals and stuff)... the tour included showing the 'boody' traps they made, the REALLY small entrances to the tunenls, and stuffs. so anyway, the main attraction was getting to go inside part of the actual tunnels!

let's just put it this way. now i know what i feels like to be buried. the tunnels were really small... if you start to panic it can get really hard to breathe. you kinda have to know what you're getting into to get yourself mentally prepared for it... its dark, they've installed red lights inside but that dont help much once someone's ass covers it. haha. its kinda hard to breathe.. but maybe that was just cause i was breathing too hard... and its kinda hot.. but that was probably because a bunch of us was inside.

but it was some experience! to imagine people LIVING there... i have no idea how they did it.

if you're going to ho chi minh, you HAVE to go see these tunnels!!!!

more shopping around ho chi minh
you can really just walk around and buy stuff off the stores around the district... just make sure you try to get it at half the price. as long as the store doesnt have a sign that says 'fixed price' you can give bargaining a shot. good thing dala ko havaianas ko. i dont think i would have survived with anything else! mainit kasi so dusa sa feet to be in rubber shoes all the time... for me, at least...

so that's been most of the kwento from vietnam.. i had fun even if i was super bad trip the night before we left. feel free to check out my yahoo photos for pictures of the trip!