The Migrant's Revival!

Hopefully to stay! I haven't been dutifully writing in my blog as of late. After my last blog when I first arrived in Hong Kong I dissappeared suddenly. I didn't die, I didn't get into accident, nor did I lose any interest in writing. The main reason I haven't been updating is that I've been adapting to life in Hong Kong and keeping myself busy with the activities over there. Ok, I won't lie there have been times I've been dead bored sitting at home and doing of all things watching old dragonball movies! YES DRAGONBALL MOVIES! Talk about naturalizing!

Hong Kong has been an amazing place to live in! I can be as frugal as I want and as big of a spender as I want, though I've tended to be the former lately. Every week I buy myself some "ding ding". Do you know what "ding ding" is? It's the microwavable meals. They have all kinds here, from curry chicken to pork chop cutlet to shanghainese noodles. They call is ding ding because thats the sound a microwave makes when its ready. I've also bought some udon noodles and yakisoba. I've never really lived "on my own" before but I think this is a good start to it all. My room mate is awesome and we get along real well. I live in a residence called Hall Swire which is known for their hall pride. Though I don't share the same "hall pride" as most non-locals don't I do share a pride for being part of the 8th floor. This is attributed to a great bunch of guys that have a great time together. The locals integrate us in everything we do and I've become a sort of ombuds person for them, communicating and translating between the locals and non-locals. We have a considerable amount of non-locals on our floor and we all get along real well. I've also got a great group of friends I've made here and am currently on a trip with them.

SO WHERE IN THE WORLD AM I WRITING FROM!?

I'm in Saigon, Vietnam with a bunch of my friends I've made in HKU. We are on a tour of Indochina and are having a blast. We left Hong Kong early on friday morning to Macau by ferry at 730am. We flew from Macau to Saigon by Viva Macau Airline. The flight cost me $80 US! That is a freakin amazing amount! We landed in Saigon and were picked up by our hotel. Our hotel is in the heart of the backpacker district and there are loads of shops and restaurants here. Most of them try to gyp you but we're a group of scheming bargainers. On our first day we booked our bus to Phnom Penh and went for lunch at a restaurant that served Pho and iced coffee. Ice coffee in Vietnam is like drinking liquid coke! I love that shit! We explored the Ben Thanh market and bargained our ass off for some cargo shorts. I got 2 pairs for $14! My room mate is an amazing bargainer and I talked the salespeople down with him. We went for dinner at a Hue Bun noodle place and that was a bit of a chaotic situation. The service was kinda poor and the food was not bad - in my opinion. But many of the people I were travelling were complaining and tried to fight for a %20 discount that was apparently promised to us. I ended up paying the difference because I didn't want to cause any problems. I think we just all have to understand that this is an asian country and things work very differently here. I'm use to the lack of service but owing 150 000 Viet Dong was like $10 in total for all 11 of us which is nothing! We went back home to drink a whole bunch of cheap beers we got here for less then 50 cents a can.

Saturday, today, we woke up early and had breakfast at a Pho place where we chose the ingredient we wanted. It was 15 000 Dongs which is less than a dollar canadian. It was one of the most satisfying meal I've had so far, not because it's cheap but because the broth and noodles were so good! We went to a tailor shop as some of my friends wanted to get suits. I helped them choose some material out and they were measured. We went to get a buffet lunch at a five star hotel after that and it was only $15! They have smoked salmon, vietnamese spring rolls and many other local cuisine plus alot of western dishes and a huge dessert section! It was an amazing lunch and took alot out of me trying to keep thing IN MY STOMACH! We went to the reunification palace after by taxi and were totally gyped by the cabbie as we agreed to a $3 USD ride but the other half of our group only paid $1 for their ride!

The reunification palace is one of the most interesting attractions here in Saigon. It recounts the events that led to Vietnam war and the role the Americans play. To be exact the criminal role in international affairs they played. Not that this museum is a subtle propaganda to the Vietnam government regime but there were slants in the quotes and captions. To be honest I tended to agree with the vietnamese sides after reading the attrocities brought upon them by American warfare.
We made our way to a cafe to grab a drink and re-energize ourselves. We went for a shady massage parlour for a full body massage, but the massage was actually very good and they cracked every joint in my body for only $6. I headed back to the hotel and took a nap. We went to a BBQ restaurant near our hotel tonight and the marinated meats were soo amazing. It was almost like Korean BBQ where we bbq'd our own food. We had alot of beers as they were offering buy one get one free beers. Now I sit here recounting this amazing trip so far.

I will post pictures up soon and stay tuned! SE Asia is an amazing region of this world and I hope I can depict all my experiences to you as descriptively possible. For now, "chào từ biệt ai, chia tay ai"