Truth is, today I began work at 8am. Finished at 9:30am. I don't start again until 4:30pm so that is a whole 7 hours to fill. The plan was initially to head into town and do a spot of shopping. As I was happily bopping along to Nicki Minaj while getting stuff together to go out, I heard the rain hitting the roof pretty heavily. I look out to see torrential downpour coupled with sunshine. I also realise it's kinda cold. So I put on the thermal socks and declared Friday 2nd September a duvet day (not including those 4 hours I have to work today).
New Zealand daytime telly is terrible. It's all infomercials. They have Jeremy Kyle but they save those relocation shows for prime time, you see. I don't particularly want to watch Jezza, there are some reasons I don't miss England. So my duvet day has been spent on the laptop and I decided to catch up a little bit with the blog.
Remember all those posts from when I was in Asia? Well, the stuff I wrote about is only a fraction of the things that went down while there. And while I was updating the entries with pictures I kept remembering things that happened while I was there that I had failed to mention. So today is your lucky day, it's story time, my friend!
While in Asia we saw some a lot of animals wandering about. When we went to Big Buddha, we saw a random cow going about it's business. I don't know why it amused me so much, but it did.
I told you about the park next to our hostel in Nanning, right? The one were the men play some board game and kids run around in onesies with holes in the back, their bare bottoms on show to the world so they can go potty whenever/wherever they please. I forgot to mention it's also the dentist office.
If I learnt anything from my International Marketing class, it's that you gotta be careful what you name your product. There will be some idiot who will find the name of your product funny. I mean, c'mon China, do you seriously think 'Classy Kiss' is a good name for your dairy product?
We all recognise Lays. It's like the foreign Walkers, only not as good. In China they have crazy flavours like Blueberry. Yeah, blueberry crisps. Kinda wish I had bought them.
Supermarket shopping China was good fun. It was total pot luck. Some items would have an English description but most of the time you had to just guess by the pictures, which was quite difficult when it came to buying vegetarian noodles. A conversation Sarah and I would often have is "Is that picture some kind of seafood or vegetable?". Poor Sarah had to stick to plain noodles. We did pretty well with the shopping in China. Nothing was too inedible, except the melon we bought. Or what we thought was melon. The fruit had already been cut up and the colour and texture looked like melon. When we came to eat it, it did not smell like melon and definitely did not taste like melon. It smelt/tasted like vomit. No word of a lie.
This is Anna and Eva with the Pineapple man. It was day one in Hanoi. The girls had managed to haggle Pineapple man down to 2,000 for a bag pineapple. It was all agreed and he prepared the pineapple for them. Eva gives the guy a 20,000 dong note. Pineapple man puts it in his shirt pocket and ignores us as we stand there waiting for change. Eva begins arguing with the guy and he refuses to give change no matter how many times she says "too much". The next bit happened pretty quick, but Eva puts down the pineapple, puts her hand into Pineapple man's pocket, takes out her 20,000 and runs. We follow swiftly behind hoping Pineapple man isn't going to hunt us down. And that is why Eva is my haggling hero.
As I was saying, in Asia we saw a lot of animals just wandering the streets. There were dogs everywhere in Vietnam. It was quite nice to see that mostly they looked well taken care of. I guess the ones they don't eat they treat well. Anyway, we meet this little guy in Hoi An. Introducing Fat Dog.
We couldn't stop laughing about the dog. It was cute and I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the dog as it couldn't really move.
When we were in Hoi An we stayed at a hotel a little bit out of town and would get the free shuttle from the hotel's shop. Every time we got there, the woman who sold me the jacket I had made was there and would love to talk to us. I think she was called Ti, but my memory is bad. She wanted to know everything about our lives. About boys. We asked questions about her life and the differences between us was shocking. Her dream was to travel to South Korea to see snow. And go to Thailand for the beaches.
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| At One Tree Hill in the jacket Ti's uncle made. |
Ti worked all day, every day at the family's shop. She explained how she had to work in the shop because her sewing skills were not good enough to make the garments. She thought she would never leave the job, not unless she got married. But she didn't have much confidence in finding a husband, she said her family weren't rich enough. It was eye opening to hear about her ambitions and her way of life and how she felt about it. Made me grateful for the millions of options I have which mean I can do anything I want.
So, remember the post I wrote while in Hue where I promised to tell you about my sleepwalking? And then never did? Well this is how it went down. As far as I can remember. (It's really not that interesting).
Basically I wake up and it's pitch black. I must explain I was having a somewhat bad dream prior to this. And I don't know where I am. I jump straight out bed and start feeling around in the dark. Unfortunately in my sleep induced state I can't quite remember what I said, but it was something along the lines of "WHERE AM I? I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM". i.e. I'm freaking out. Big style. I finally wake up/remember where I am to the giggling to the girls in my room. That's right I was staying in a dorm. I realise that I was sleep walking, tell the room so and just got back into bed. Luckily the girls that Sarah and I were sharing a room with were some of the loveliest girls we met on our travels! (Photo from Kerry-I like this picture because it looks like I have a tan!)
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