so tonite were getting our asses onto a 20 hr train down south to danang which might suck, just a little! at least we have hard sleepers this time. oh the things to get excited about nowadays. anyway on my last day in sapa, me and hui, this thai guy i met on my other trek, got up super early since theres nothing to do but go to bed early and get up early and went roaming to other villages all on our own. we walked to cat cat which is the village that's closest to sapa. its the most popular but unfortunately that means we were surrouneded by a mass of korean tourists who arrived via tour bus.
thankfully, by suggestion of one of the locals, we decided to saunter further away from sapa to the village of sin chai. this village was absolutely fabulous, absolutely zero tourists and we got to see how the people actually live. i think this village isnt particularly popular because most of the villagers arent decked out in traditional clothing but more like just....dirty clothing. the place was absolutely run amok with dusty ,snotty faced children who managed to somehow slightly tug at my completely un-maternal heart strings. we went into the schoolyard and i got a couple pictures of kids in class. more like half the kids were in class and the other half were outside playing with marbles or kicking the shit out of one another. oh children, how endearing. but overall i loved sin chai the most and we hitched a motorbike ride back which was quite interesting because for a portion of it we were winding up and down a pathway through the village (kinda felt like a dangerous mini roller coaster ride if you ask me) and then for most of it we were encompassed in a crazy fog.
by the way, the weather in sapa is intense. apparently a local saying is that sapa has all four seasons in one day and i quite agree. one moment its hot and sunny the next its fog you can barely see through, and then next its like a fucking monsoon complete with flooding in the streets.
so we arrived back in hanoi early yesterday morning and could only manage to get train tickets for tonite so weve just been chilling a whole bunch. well more like ive been eating non-stop, its very special. im on an intense carb-dairy-fat diet, its doing wonders for my physique. anyway me and linn got up early today, went shopping and now im back in the hostel and contemplating taking a nap...
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
strollin' through sapa solo
so john and the swedes are out climbing fansipan mountain (the tallest mountain in vietnam) for 3 days and all i can say is, im glad im not. a super dense mist and light rain has descended upon sapa and ive got a couple hours to kill before meeting someone for dinner so i thought id post something. well im having a fantastic time in sapa and being by myself, ive met tons of people (so no worries mom, i havent even had to eat a single meal alone) and just in general im having a blast!
well the overnite hard seat train was a total nitemare. attempting to sleep on a wooden bench is just as horrendous as one would think. actually it was worse and the only time i got a little bit of sleep was when linn slept on the floor and i could curl up semi-fetal position on the bench. anyway we arrived saturday morning and im at a nice hotel my adopted german dad from the hanoi hostel recommended and for $4/nite i get a tremendously great view of the mountains. (although i will say, i cannot actually recall the last time i had a hot shower. fuck.)
anyway, the first day everyone else rested up for their big mountain trek and in general, i dont need sleep so i just explored around sapa, took a nice little walk with a new zealander and just generally chilled out.
oh and i met this old man who gave us plum wine that he'd made himself and he really took joy in kicking everyone's ass at a wooden version of connect-four and chess:
and then yesterday, i went to the sunday market in bac ha (3 hours outside of sapa) which is where the flower h'mong come decked out to buy food, clothing, whatever. they had the most beautiful clothing that's just insanely colourful and of course, embroidered with lots of flowers. the women are just so beautiful that i went a little more camera happy than usual...
back in hanoi we met cedric, a swiss guy who's so madly in love with sapa he's been here a month, went to hanoi, detested it and immediately booked a train ticket back to sapa for the next nite. he showed me pictures of his best friend up here, vu, and ive just been running into her all over the place. shes black h'mong and they all wear beautiful clothing that the women dye using indigo.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5035791964463597426" />
this little flower h'mong girl was pretty feisty and running around like mad in her village in bac ha. i think she absolutely loves attention and so decided to climb into a tree and vogue for all the tourists. ok she didnt vogue, but she was lookin' good.
at nite, there's not much to do here cause the town literally shuts down at like...11 pm. as in everything's closed, the street lights turn off and the streets are deserted. i was out at one of the bars with a couple of guys i met up here and though the sign said "open until late" we got booted out by 12, and i was locked out of my hotel. so basically, ive been catching up on my sleep here.
today i went on a trek to 3 villages- vunh ho, lao ch'ai and ta' van. it was a lot of fun i had a guide who, though he could speak english, insisted on trying out my french skills since im canadian. i was also with a cute vietnamese married couple and a guy from thailand and we just ripped it up on our trek! ok we didnt really but we had lot of fun. we encountered quite a few black h'mong girls on the way, some wanting to sell us jewellery and some following us just for kicks. (by the way, some of these girls are the most ingenious salespeople on the planet. they know how to work it like no one else i swear. my first day i asked a girl if i could take her picture and she shoots back, "you buy from me, then you take a picture". or last nite i was walking around with this canadian guy and one girl was like "you buy from me for your girlfriend and your girlfriend kiss you long time!")
but this 12 yr old girl, mau, was adorable, didnt try to sell me anything and was with us for most of the day:
all day we were walking amongst magnificent rice fields. all the rice had just been harvested but it was still quite a sight. i felt very national geographic today. anyway im losing momentum so im just gonna post a whack of pictures now:
oh and i thought the clothing of the dzay people was very interesting because it resembles chinese clothing (since the proximity to china), but NEON. this lovely woman had a baby strapped to her back and invited us in for tea.
speaking of clothing, i just want to note that i have fully reinvigorated my wardrobe here in sapa, as you may have noticed in my pictures. nowadays i walk around wearing a netted bandana, a $1 t shirt with a map of sapa on it (that in fact, the locals also wear underneath their traditional garb, oh ho!), shawls, and drawstring linen pants. im so much hotter than i ever imagined i could be.
well the overnite hard seat train was a total nitemare. attempting to sleep on a wooden bench is just as horrendous as one would think. actually it was worse and the only time i got a little bit of sleep was when linn slept on the floor and i could curl up semi-fetal position on the bench. anyway we arrived saturday morning and im at a nice hotel my adopted german dad from the hanoi hostel recommended and for $4/nite i get a tremendously great view of the mountains. (although i will say, i cannot actually recall the last time i had a hot shower. fuck.)
anyway, the first day everyone else rested up for their big mountain trek and in general, i dont need sleep so i just explored around sapa, took a nice little walk with a new zealander and just generally chilled out.
oh and i met this old man who gave us plum wine that he'd made himself and he really took joy in kicking everyone's ass at a wooden version of connect-four and chess:
and then yesterday, i went to the sunday market in bac ha (3 hours outside of sapa) which is where the flower h'mong come decked out to buy food, clothing, whatever. they had the most beautiful clothing that's just insanely colourful and of course, embroidered with lots of flowers. the women are just so beautiful that i went a little more camera happy than usual...
back in hanoi we met cedric, a swiss guy who's so madly in love with sapa he's been here a month, went to hanoi, detested it and immediately booked a train ticket back to sapa for the next nite. he showed me pictures of his best friend up here, vu, and ive just been running into her all over the place. shes black h'mong and they all wear beautiful clothing that the women dye using indigo.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5035791964463597426" />this little flower h'mong girl was pretty feisty and running around like mad in her village in bac ha. i think she absolutely loves attention and so decided to climb into a tree and vogue for all the tourists. ok she didnt vogue, but she was lookin' good.
at nite, there's not much to do here cause the town literally shuts down at like...11 pm. as in everything's closed, the street lights turn off and the streets are deserted. i was out at one of the bars with a couple of guys i met up here and though the sign said "open until late" we got booted out by 12, and i was locked out of my hotel. so basically, ive been catching up on my sleep here.
today i went on a trek to 3 villages- vunh ho, lao ch'ai and ta' van. it was a lot of fun i had a guide who, though he could speak english, insisted on trying out my french skills since im canadian. i was also with a cute vietnamese married couple and a guy from thailand and we just ripped it up on our trek! ok we didnt really but we had lot of fun. we encountered quite a few black h'mong girls on the way, some wanting to sell us jewellery and some following us just for kicks. (by the way, some of these girls are the most ingenious salespeople on the planet. they know how to work it like no one else i swear. my first day i asked a girl if i could take her picture and she shoots back, "you buy from me, then you take a picture". or last nite i was walking around with this canadian guy and one girl was like "you buy from me for your girlfriend and your girlfriend kiss you long time!")
but this 12 yr old girl, mau, was adorable, didnt try to sell me anything and was with us for most of the day:
all day we were walking amongst magnificent rice fields. all the rice had just been harvested but it was still quite a sight. i felt very national geographic today. anyway im losing momentum so im just gonna post a whack of pictures now:
oh and i thought the clothing of the dzay people was very interesting because it resembles chinese clothing (since the proximity to china), but NEON. this lovely woman had a baby strapped to her back and invited us in for tea.
speaking of clothing, i just want to note that i have fully reinvigorated my wardrobe here in sapa, as you may have noticed in my pictures. nowadays i walk around wearing a netted bandana, a $1 t shirt with a map of sapa on it (that in fact, the locals also wear underneath their traditional garb, oh ho!), shawls, and drawstring linen pants. im so much hotter than i ever imagined i could be.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
massive photo post: vietnam
ok so hip hip hooray, i got my camera screen fixed today! omg, that rhymed, im so bad ass. it was half the price i expected it to be and only took a couple of hours and now im at an internet cafe (at hanoi spirit house, pooge!) and i can finally take some time to upload some pictures!
this is from guangzhou but i just like it, the evolution of the chinese woman:
me and john mimicking a war statue/monument, cause were so very cool:
we're fucking millionaires (i love vietnamese money, you feel so rich tossing around 20,000 dong bills):
me posing eastern european calendar girl-style in front of a tank at the war museum:
daniel (aussie), john and ib playing around with their big canons at the museum:
mini, me and alexia (my fabulous hair stylist) scootin' around town:
we attempted to go out on a tourist outing during tet and everything was closed so we posed outside a closed door on the little island in the middle of the lake in the old quarter:
ed (irish who was my dedicated lap dancing pupil), john, filipp (german) and mini during our new years eve roof top party. words cannot fully describe what is taking place in this picture. its just...something else.:
this photo is slightly disturbing (not as much so as the one directly above, john disagrees) but thats us trying our very best to start off a tacky bikini party for new years. and to my ladies back home, how much are you lovin my blue eyeshadow?:
chilling with smoe locals as they strummed their guitars and sang beatles songs on the steps of the old st. joseph's cathedral near our hostel at like 4 am:
along the wooden walkway on the side of cat ba island to the boys' secluded hut hang out on the beach:
the 'huts'. john and mini got to share a little tent, john says it was a warm and fuzzy experience. warm and fuzzy from vodka. as in john broke a beer fridge that nite but adamantly denied it was him that broke it and instead tried to distract the beach police by claiming his bag had been stolen.:
me and my swedish sister linn on the roof of our boat:
so this is an example of the islands in ha long bay that we were trying so hard to describe in literary terms last nite. this one the captain told me is called 'turtle' island cause well, it looks like a turtle:
cruisin' ha long bay:
the good ship suckysucky boomboom! (i forget if i wrote it before but we got our 2 day, 1 nite boat, our 4 person crew, and all our wonderful meals for only $22US/person, fantastic:
inside the caves:
the workplace of our master chef aboard the boat. all that yummy food, without the aid of fresh water or electricity! amazing. and perplexing...:
the inside of our super posh cabin:
me with our boat crew!:
this is the murderous fatty monkey that john has decided to name "sumo sammy the banana nazi":
us clinging onto jagged rocks for dear life atop monkey mountain:
ok well ive had quite enough of this so now its time for some ice cream! and tomorrow nite we get on an overnite train to sapa but what kinda blows is that we just got our tickets today and all that's left are hard seat tickets so we'll be spending 10 hours sharing hard benches with the locals...
this is from guangzhou but i just like it, the evolution of the chinese woman:
me and john mimicking a war statue/monument, cause were so very cool:
we're fucking millionaires (i love vietnamese money, you feel so rich tossing around 20,000 dong bills):
me posing eastern european calendar girl-style in front of a tank at the war museum:
daniel (aussie), john and ib playing around with their big canons at the museum:
mini, me and alexia (my fabulous hair stylist) scootin' around town:
we attempted to go out on a tourist outing during tet and everything was closed so we posed outside a closed door on the little island in the middle of the lake in the old quarter:
ed (irish who was my dedicated lap dancing pupil), john, filipp (german) and mini during our new years eve roof top party. words cannot fully describe what is taking place in this picture. its just...something else.:
this photo is slightly disturbing (not as much so as the one directly above, john disagrees) but thats us trying our very best to start off a tacky bikini party for new years. and to my ladies back home, how much are you lovin my blue eyeshadow?:
chilling with smoe locals as they strummed their guitars and sang beatles songs on the steps of the old st. joseph's cathedral near our hostel at like 4 am:
along the wooden walkway on the side of cat ba island to the boys' secluded hut hang out on the beach:
the 'huts'. john and mini got to share a little tent, john says it was a warm and fuzzy experience. warm and fuzzy from vodka. as in john broke a beer fridge that nite but adamantly denied it was him that broke it and instead tried to distract the beach police by claiming his bag had been stolen.:
me and my swedish sister linn on the roof of our boat:
so this is an example of the islands in ha long bay that we were trying so hard to describe in literary terms last nite. this one the captain told me is called 'turtle' island cause well, it looks like a turtle:
cruisin' ha long bay:
the good ship suckysucky boomboom! (i forget if i wrote it before but we got our 2 day, 1 nite boat, our 4 person crew, and all our wonderful meals for only $22US/person, fantastic:
inside the caves:
the workplace of our master chef aboard the boat. all that yummy food, without the aid of fresh water or electricity! amazing. and perplexing...:
the inside of our super posh cabin:
me with our boat crew!:
this is the murderous fatty monkey that john has decided to name "sumo sammy the banana nazi":
us clinging onto jagged rocks for dear life atop monkey mountain:
ok well ive had quite enough of this so now its time for some ice cream! and tomorrow nite we get on an overnite train to sapa but what kinda blows is that we just got our tickets today and all that's left are hard seat tickets so we'll be spending 10 hours sharing hard benches with the locals...
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
ha long bay: magical islands and no electricity
so i'm in cat ba, ha long bay right now with johnny, linn, ib and mini (ireland). i apologize if this post isnt completely coherent cause im a little lethargic right now after eating an apple pancake and pringles for dinner....the first day we got here we rented what apparently are 'huts' which were more like little platforms raised on stilts with a straw roof over it and then you set up tents in them. however, me and linn soon pussied out and got a hotel room for the 2 of us since it was only $5us for the room. but anyway the huts were really cute, right on cat co 2 which is just a little beach that you get to by walking this long sketchy wooden....walkway i suppose it was suspended halfway up the cliffs of the island with rusty bars keeping you from falling off the side. anyway, the first day here was chill and me and linn got a mini girls nite in our little hotel room.
the next day we went on our own private boat which i believe john christened "suckysucky boomboom". the boat was a little sketch aka had a squat toilet that you flushed using sea water you drag up yourself with a bucket on a string and as it turned out, zero electricity, but i have no complaints cause i went out to go check it out and i ok'd it. in all honesty, me and ib went all over town trying to pick a tour since most people book their tours back in hanoi but since were ghetto fabulous, we just have to do things the absolute cheapest way, and basically i fell in love with the woman who was touting this particular tour. she was just so cute and seemingly trustworthy! anyway, i actually i quite loved our boat, it so adorable! (oh and i still cant post pictures im afraid. first off my camera screens still fucked so i dont even know if any of the pictures i took turned out, plus i dont have my USB cable which is back in hanoi. hopefully soon though, bear with me. hey but in the meantime, i have more time for actual written content so really, y'all should still be pleased cause it means i have to be all creative and using my brain and shit. ok, ive sidetracked enough...) AAAAANNNYYYYWAAAAYYYY...
the boat's adorable, just this wooden boat with a squat, an indoor cabin and a roof with tiny railings around it that you can sit on. our crew was fantastic as well, a 4 person family and the mother cooked the best food for us. all on a tiny little griddle or something in the back of the boat. so basically we cruised all around ha long bay which is just tons and tons of crazy looking tall mountainy islands all over the place. our captain told me theres 1,700 of these islands. some are massive, some just like rocks, but they all just protrude out of the water and i cant even describe it but it looks incredible (im ashamed cause i thought i was fantastic with imagery but i have failed myself and all of you). john says "ha long means rising dragon or sinking dragon or farting dragon... i forget. But all the mini islands look like giant rocky chicken mcnuggets" (ok he actually typed that. thats his first contribution to my blog, and thats all he has to say. he tells me to just put up pictures later.) anyway, its truly beautiful, go fucking google that shit if you cant wait!
so on the first day we just cruised around, anchored at a small little beach where the boys tried their hand at fishing with long sticks and john actually caught a little one. the beaches are fantastic, beige sand and little pieces of coral and shells piled up all along the shore. also there were a few mini caves we could crawl into. we also got to go into this really great big ass cave where we wandered around with a couple of candles. such caves were used as hospitals during the war. the stalagmites in the cave looked like "stony icicles of death" (john) and "crystal-y" (mini).
then as the sun was setting i think at like 6 pm, we realized, well fuck, we have no electricity! perhaps my heart skipped a beat, its hard to recall. but i did slip into a momentary phase of panic cause fuck, im an city girl! no electricity, who does that?! (ok, a lot of people, thats who.) so i got over it, we had some candles lit up and that was that. mini has little speakers so we plugged our ipods in and hung out on the roof with the 2 young guys in our crew. for sleep, we had a tarp draped over us and futons set all on top of the roof, how cozy. it was probably my earliest nite sleeping ever since how late can you really stay up in the dark with just a single candle. however, disaster strikes! super intense rainstorm at like 5 am, got all our shit wet and we had to run in from the roof in the dark and i end up curled up in a ball sleeping on 2 benches shoved together. luckily, all our electronic shit is still intact however my pants and hoodie are still wet so just now i had to buy $4 mens shorts which im currently rocking out in.
but we didnt let the rain get us down and today we got in our little wicker row boat and went through some underwater caves into a little lagoon with the good ol' captain. we also went to monkey island, home to 40 monkeys, where we got to meet and feed bananas to 3 monkeys and one of them, the big super fat rabid monkey, had a failed murder attempt on mini. when asked in an interview, mini says the monkey scared the shit out of him. i still thought they were kinda cute, despite big signs that say the monkeys might bite you. we climbed up these sharp jagged rocks up the mountain to check out the view and coming back down, i felt quite confident that i would fall to a rather dramatic death. however, i did not as you can tell by my uber long-winded post that ive got going on here right now.
i just want to note, that i had never been dirtier in my life, than on this boat. we had no fresh water other than a couple of bottles of water, no shower obviously, and we were just sticky with sea water and sea air. so now were back on cat ba island, freshly showered and i think we have a date with the 2 boys from our boat crew cause they wanna take us to the disco after seeing our mad dance moves up on the roof last nite. i mean, my mad dance moves.
the next day we went on our own private boat which i believe john christened "suckysucky boomboom". the boat was a little sketch aka had a squat toilet that you flushed using sea water you drag up yourself with a bucket on a string and as it turned out, zero electricity, but i have no complaints cause i went out to go check it out and i ok'd it. in all honesty, me and ib went all over town trying to pick a tour since most people book their tours back in hanoi but since were ghetto fabulous, we just have to do things the absolute cheapest way, and basically i fell in love with the woman who was touting this particular tour. she was just so cute and seemingly trustworthy! anyway, i actually i quite loved our boat, it so adorable! (oh and i still cant post pictures im afraid. first off my camera screens still fucked so i dont even know if any of the pictures i took turned out, plus i dont have my USB cable which is back in hanoi. hopefully soon though, bear with me. hey but in the meantime, i have more time for actual written content so really, y'all should still be pleased cause it means i have to be all creative and using my brain and shit. ok, ive sidetracked enough...) AAAAANNNYYYYWAAAAYYYY...
the boat's adorable, just this wooden boat with a squat, an indoor cabin and a roof with tiny railings around it that you can sit on. our crew was fantastic as well, a 4 person family and the mother cooked the best food for us. all on a tiny little griddle or something in the back of the boat. so basically we cruised all around ha long bay which is just tons and tons of crazy looking tall mountainy islands all over the place. our captain told me theres 1,700 of these islands. some are massive, some just like rocks, but they all just protrude out of the water and i cant even describe it but it looks incredible (im ashamed cause i thought i was fantastic with imagery but i have failed myself and all of you). john says "ha long means rising dragon or sinking dragon or farting dragon... i forget. But all the mini islands look like giant rocky chicken mcnuggets" (ok he actually typed that. thats his first contribution to my blog, and thats all he has to say. he tells me to just put up pictures later.) anyway, its truly beautiful, go fucking google that shit if you cant wait!
so on the first day we just cruised around, anchored at a small little beach where the boys tried their hand at fishing with long sticks and john actually caught a little one. the beaches are fantastic, beige sand and little pieces of coral and shells piled up all along the shore. also there were a few mini caves we could crawl into. we also got to go into this really great big ass cave where we wandered around with a couple of candles. such caves were used as hospitals during the war. the stalagmites in the cave looked like "stony icicles of death" (john) and "crystal-y" (mini).
then as the sun was setting i think at like 6 pm, we realized, well fuck, we have no electricity! perhaps my heart skipped a beat, its hard to recall. but i did slip into a momentary phase of panic cause fuck, im an city girl! no electricity, who does that?! (ok, a lot of people, thats who.) so i got over it, we had some candles lit up and that was that. mini has little speakers so we plugged our ipods in and hung out on the roof with the 2 young guys in our crew. for sleep, we had a tarp draped over us and futons set all on top of the roof, how cozy. it was probably my earliest nite sleeping ever since how late can you really stay up in the dark with just a single candle. however, disaster strikes! super intense rainstorm at like 5 am, got all our shit wet and we had to run in from the roof in the dark and i end up curled up in a ball sleeping on 2 benches shoved together. luckily, all our electronic shit is still intact however my pants and hoodie are still wet so just now i had to buy $4 mens shorts which im currently rocking out in.
but we didnt let the rain get us down and today we got in our little wicker row boat and went through some underwater caves into a little lagoon with the good ol' captain. we also went to monkey island, home to 40 monkeys, where we got to meet and feed bananas to 3 monkeys and one of them, the big super fat rabid monkey, had a failed murder attempt on mini. when asked in an interview, mini says the monkey scared the shit out of him. i still thought they were kinda cute, despite big signs that say the monkeys might bite you. we climbed up these sharp jagged rocks up the mountain to check out the view and coming back down, i felt quite confident that i would fall to a rather dramatic death. however, i did not as you can tell by my uber long-winded post that ive got going on here right now.
i just want to note, that i had never been dirtier in my life, than on this boat. we had no fresh water other than a couple of bottles of water, no shower obviously, and we were just sticky with sea water and sea air. so now were back on cat ba island, freshly showered and i think we have a date with the 2 boys from our boat crew cause they wanna take us to the disco after seeing our mad dance moves up on the roof last nite. i mean, my mad dance moves.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
hamburger holiday in hanoi
so i havent really had time to post anything new in almost a week but i dont even have a good excuse cause weve done absolutely shit all in hanoi. however, while doing nothing ive still managed to never have a free moment or get more than 4 hours of sleep per nite. of course i've been spending max time with my sister from a different (swedish) mother, linn (whom along with her boy ib we picked up on the side of the road as id mentioned earlier).
i've also met plenty of people at our hostel, mostly facilitated by the fact that so far pretty much my entire hanoi experience is comprised of chilling in either the hostel lobby or up on the rooftop bar. so ive got my swedish counterpart and ive got alexia from melbourne who gave me a fabulous haircut up on the roof just the day after we met. we had to search the city for a pair of scissors to cut my hair with and finally ended up getting a pair from a hardware store. a little dodgy? nahhhhh. the next day linn cut one of my t-shirts into a tank top so you just know im super stylin' nowadays. oh and on top of the new 'do and clothes, i lost my sunglasses in nanning (fucking nanning, i hate that hell hole) and just replaced them with ridiculously hot faux chanel ones complete with big tacky gold plastic interlocking Cs on the sides. and i suppose my irish chauffeur 'mini' would like a shout out since i get toted around on the back of his scooter. oh yes, ive been on the backs of plenty of scooters and motorcycles by now and though at first it seems a little freaky since traffic is pretty insane, you figure well if 4 year old kids can stand on the back of one just holding onto their daddy's shoulders or chicks in skirts can ride side-saddle on them, i better be able to do that shit too.
its rather sad to admit we've done hardly anything but we try! it's just that almost everything is fucking closed for tet (happy chinese new year by the way.) however we have done a few touristy type things. we went to the military museum where me and linn got to pose calendar girl style with tanks and fighter planes (those pictures will be up as soon as i can figure out how...) a whole slew of us from the hostel also went to see the water puppet show one nite which isnt as horrendous as one might expect. i rather enjoyed it, along with the giant mass of white seniors who arrived and left on tour buses that filled the rest of the audience. alright i honestly dont even remember what the hell we've been doing...in all seriousness, id say ive just been drinking and going out. happy hour at our hostel kicks off at 5 pm and away we go. one nite i 'accidentally' stepped on a glass table and broke it with my bare foot, resulting in generous amounts of bloodshed. a nice german boy has been playing doctor to me so its nice and bandaged.
on chinese new years eve we had a big bbq and me and linn decided to get decked out in our bikinis and put on sick amounts of bright blue eye shadow (the end result: cheap hooker chic) in an attempt to get a beach party going. (to my ladies back at home in canada, you'd all love linn too. seriously, sister from a different mother!)no other girls wanted to participate. there was a big fireworks display on at the lake and we sat so close i got some burning fireworks remnants in my eye. we couldnt get into a club that nite (well in all fairness, i was wearing linn's red track pants rolled up, flip flops, and still rockin' the eye shadow) but we did end up on the steps of a church chilling with some vietnamese who were singing and playing beatles songs on their guitars. i also got my first taste of vietnamese moonshine from a giant plastic jug.
anyway im a little choked today cause i broke my camera screen so i gotta figure out how i can get that shit fixed. and today im just tired and a little bored but we're finally leaving hanoi tomorrow for ha long bay (we couldnt leave because apparently tet = no buses or trains). oh and as for the title of this post, its cause we get to eat some yummy burgers at our hostel bbqs. however, there are no mcdonalds here which is quite a tragedy for me...
i've also met plenty of people at our hostel, mostly facilitated by the fact that so far pretty much my entire hanoi experience is comprised of chilling in either the hostel lobby or up on the rooftop bar. so ive got my swedish counterpart and ive got alexia from melbourne who gave me a fabulous haircut up on the roof just the day after we met. we had to search the city for a pair of scissors to cut my hair with and finally ended up getting a pair from a hardware store. a little dodgy? nahhhhh. the next day linn cut one of my t-shirts into a tank top so you just know im super stylin' nowadays. oh and on top of the new 'do and clothes, i lost my sunglasses in nanning (fucking nanning, i hate that hell hole) and just replaced them with ridiculously hot faux chanel ones complete with big tacky gold plastic interlocking Cs on the sides. and i suppose my irish chauffeur 'mini' would like a shout out since i get toted around on the back of his scooter. oh yes, ive been on the backs of plenty of scooters and motorcycles by now and though at first it seems a little freaky since traffic is pretty insane, you figure well if 4 year old kids can stand on the back of one just holding onto their daddy's shoulders or chicks in skirts can ride side-saddle on them, i better be able to do that shit too.
its rather sad to admit we've done hardly anything but we try! it's just that almost everything is fucking closed for tet (happy chinese new year by the way.) however we have done a few touristy type things. we went to the military museum where me and linn got to pose calendar girl style with tanks and fighter planes (those pictures will be up as soon as i can figure out how...) a whole slew of us from the hostel also went to see the water puppet show one nite which isnt as horrendous as one might expect. i rather enjoyed it, along with the giant mass of white seniors who arrived and left on tour buses that filled the rest of the audience. alright i honestly dont even remember what the hell we've been doing...in all seriousness, id say ive just been drinking and going out. happy hour at our hostel kicks off at 5 pm and away we go. one nite i 'accidentally' stepped on a glass table and broke it with my bare foot, resulting in generous amounts of bloodshed. a nice german boy has been playing doctor to me so its nice and bandaged.
on chinese new years eve we had a big bbq and me and linn decided to get decked out in our bikinis and put on sick amounts of bright blue eye shadow (the end result: cheap hooker chic) in an attempt to get a beach party going. (to my ladies back at home in canada, you'd all love linn too. seriously, sister from a different mother!)no other girls wanted to participate. there was a big fireworks display on at the lake and we sat so close i got some burning fireworks remnants in my eye. we couldnt get into a club that nite (well in all fairness, i was wearing linn's red track pants rolled up, flip flops, and still rockin' the eye shadow) but we did end up on the steps of a church chilling with some vietnamese who were singing and playing beatles songs on their guitars. i also got my first taste of vietnamese moonshine from a giant plastic jug.
anyway im a little choked today cause i broke my camera screen so i gotta figure out how i can get that shit fixed. and today im just tired and a little bored but we're finally leaving hanoi tomorrow for ha long bay (we couldnt leave because apparently tet = no buses or trains). oh and as for the title of this post, its cause we get to eat some yummy burgers at our hostel bbqs. however, there are no mcdonalds here which is quite a tragedy for me...
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
VIETNAM
ok so this post might not make total sense cause im just rapid-fire typing away but that's cause we've finally arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam and i'm about to go roam around the old quarter for a bit! i apologize for the lack of pictures in this post but hopefully my expert usage of the english knowledge will evoke such powerful imagery that you will not even notice the lack of actual photos.
so from hong kong we went into guangzhou and we proceeded to go directly from the metro to this island called shamian and it was so fabulous because our "hostel" was super pimp and more like a hotel and what was super fab was it had a tv with english tv channels including MTV. that means i got to see music videos again and i was seriously overcome with joy. i had an intense mtv/animal documentaries/countdown of movie songs marathon that nite. we also had dinner at a super cute outdoor restaurant that was strung up with lights in the trees and everything.
we only left our little island when we left the city but what was most noteworthy about shamian is that it's where all the white americans go to adopt chinese babies so everywhere you go you just see whities toting around their new babies. it made for quite an interesting sight. god i loved our little island, cut off from the real guangzhou.
from guangzhou, we took a 14 hour train into nanning. i hate nanning. this is the city that's famous for eating DOGS. john made a fuss over how he thinks people that bitch and moan about their travels on their blogs are retarded but i dont care, i hate nanning. we arrived maybe 6 am and the city itself is quite boring and just very urban and crowded. but the real thing that put me off was our 'hotel'. i use that word loosely cause it was seriously the sickest and dodgiest place we've stayed at so far. it was right next to the train station and the bathroom was like 1 metre x 0.5 metre and it had a shower OVER the squat toilet. note 2 things about that sentence: shower OVER the toilet, + SQUAT toilet. you had to stand straddling the toilet during your shower.
i wanted to cry just a little. actually a lot.
also, this 'hotel' had hourly rates, so you know what that means! even standing NEAR my bed, i felt like id catch at least 3 different types of STDs. also hookers kept calling our room. this was the first nite where i was like, "yup, im sure glad i brought along that sleeping sheet!" i didn't even sleep with my little moo cow because i didnt want to subject him to that kinda environment.
anyway today we got up nice and early, left our hellish hotel and hopped a train into a town right near the vietnam border. we got a ride in a little tarp-covered metal cart attached to a motorcycle to the border and from there we got in a car, then picked up a cute swedish couple on the side of the road (i instantly developed a craving for ikea meatballs and told them so)and hitched a ride in a van into hanoi. and now the four of us are staying at a fabulous aussie-run hostel in the old quarter and i had the best shower of my entire life. well more like compared to nanning, it was the best shower in the universe. right now im staying with the swedish girl in the all girl dorm called the 'nunnery' but tomorrow nite i'll get put into the mixed dorm which i actually prefer. but anyway, im very impressed with my speed typing cause ive managed to type all this in an incredibly short time span! well im off, until i have tales from vietnam to tell.
so from hong kong we went into guangzhou and we proceeded to go directly from the metro to this island called shamian and it was so fabulous because our "hostel" was super pimp and more like a hotel and what was super fab was it had a tv with english tv channels including MTV. that means i got to see music videos again and i was seriously overcome with joy. i had an intense mtv/animal documentaries/countdown of movie songs marathon that nite. we also had dinner at a super cute outdoor restaurant that was strung up with lights in the trees and everything.
we only left our little island when we left the city but what was most noteworthy about shamian is that it's where all the white americans go to adopt chinese babies so everywhere you go you just see whities toting around their new babies. it made for quite an interesting sight. god i loved our little island, cut off from the real guangzhou.
from guangzhou, we took a 14 hour train into nanning. i hate nanning. this is the city that's famous for eating DOGS. john made a fuss over how he thinks people that bitch and moan about their travels on their blogs are retarded but i dont care, i hate nanning. we arrived maybe 6 am and the city itself is quite boring and just very urban and crowded. but the real thing that put me off was our 'hotel'. i use that word loosely cause it was seriously the sickest and dodgiest place we've stayed at so far. it was right next to the train station and the bathroom was like 1 metre x 0.5 metre and it had a shower OVER the squat toilet. note 2 things about that sentence: shower OVER the toilet, + SQUAT toilet. you had to stand straddling the toilet during your shower.
i wanted to cry just a little. actually a lot.
also, this 'hotel' had hourly rates, so you know what that means! even standing NEAR my bed, i felt like id catch at least 3 different types of STDs. also hookers kept calling our room. this was the first nite where i was like, "yup, im sure glad i brought along that sleeping sheet!" i didn't even sleep with my little moo cow because i didnt want to subject him to that kinda environment.
anyway today we got up nice and early, left our hellish hotel and hopped a train into a town right near the vietnam border. we got a ride in a little tarp-covered metal cart attached to a motorcycle to the border and from there we got in a car, then picked up a cute swedish couple on the side of the road (i instantly developed a craving for ikea meatballs and told them so)and hitched a ride in a van into hanoi. and now the four of us are staying at a fabulous aussie-run hostel in the old quarter and i had the best shower of my entire life. well more like compared to nanning, it was the best shower in the universe. right now im staying with the swedish girl in the all girl dorm called the 'nunnery' but tomorrow nite i'll get put into the mixed dorm which i actually prefer. but anyway, im very impressed with my speed typing cause ive managed to type all this in an incredibly short time span! well im off, until i have tales from vietnam to tell.
Friday, February 9, 2007
leavin' our HK home...
so we've been in hong kong since january 25th and we're finally packing our shit up and leaving tomorrow. we're busing into guangzhou and the next day we're taking a train into nanning. and from there we finally head outta china and into our next stop, vietnam! we've been in hong kong forever but according to my family, it's still not quite long enough. well i'm pretty sure we've seen everything that hk has to offer and we've been on every single MTR (metro) line except the one to the airport so you know, that ain't bad.
ok side note here, i wanna give a big shout out to everyone who's been leaving me comments on this here blog, i get super pumped when i see i've gotten one! (oh the things one gets excited over when they're away from home...) and so....don't just take, give back! as in...if you're reading this and not leaving me super awesome comments, then you should seriously at least THINK long and hard about posting something. i mean, i pour my blood, sweat and tears into this blog. but no pressure! (ok no, there's a lot of pressure. do it.)
aaaanyway, right after my last post we went out for dinner with the cousins that i grew up with in vancouver and then we went BOWLING. i love bowling and who'd have thought id be bowling on my trip to asia. i'm gonna seriously miss my family over here!
then yesterday we went over to lamma island where i got to see my very first wind turbine (i was seriously interested) and then i lay on the beach and fell asleep. i'm looking forward to many more beach days. and then today's our last full day in HK and it's kinda stressful (but knowing me i get stressed over nothing so that's not saying much) cause we have to pack, clean and whatever. i just spent an hour at the fucking post office trying to mail shit out and then was so flustered that i went out and bought a box of ice cream drumsticks and proceeded to come home, eat and drip chocolate over my one clean shirt that's not still wet from the laundry. (doing laundry sucks in china. we've been attempting to dry our jeans for who knows how many hours now and i had to go out to eat lunch in wet shorts. sick.)
so i still gotta pack and figure out how to burn my kajillion pictures that i've taken so far onto disks to send home but unfortch, everything on this computer is in chinese which i cannot read so i will probably either a) punch a hole through the screen after trying for 30 min or b) give up after 2 minutes and eat candy. ok... i just attempted the task and honestly, i dont even wanna try anymore and it's only been like 30 seconds and it's already given me a slight headache. fuck. oh and by the way, because little piggy the doggie poops in the kitchen, the apartment smells like a giant steaming pile of dog poop right now. yum! i'm gonna go eat a chinese raisin bun...
ok so now im just harsh procrastinating and i'm gonna upload and post a couple of the videos that we took in hong kong. they're entertaining for us at least...(oh and again, damn you youtube for drastically decreasing the quality and sound of our superb videos)
us at cheung chau (?) island, my first beach in asia.
in the middle of an intersection (seriously, we really know how to capture those special moments on video)
celebrating macho john's birthday at disneyland: the disney parade
alright well somehow it's already after 6 pm here...and the only thing we haven't done in hong kong is watch the laser show they've got shooting out of the buildings at nite, so off we go now!
ok side note here, i wanna give a big shout out to everyone who's been leaving me comments on this here blog, i get super pumped when i see i've gotten one! (oh the things one gets excited over when they're away from home...) and so....don't just take, give back! as in...if you're reading this and not leaving me super awesome comments, then you should seriously at least THINK long and hard about posting something. i mean, i pour my blood, sweat and tears into this blog. but no pressure! (ok no, there's a lot of pressure. do it.)
aaaanyway, right after my last post we went out for dinner with the cousins that i grew up with in vancouver and then we went BOWLING. i love bowling and who'd have thought id be bowling on my trip to asia. i'm gonna seriously miss my family over here!
then yesterday we went over to lamma island where i got to see my very first wind turbine (i was seriously interested) and then i lay on the beach and fell asleep. i'm looking forward to many more beach days. and then today's our last full day in HK and it's kinda stressful (but knowing me i get stressed over nothing so that's not saying much) cause we have to pack, clean and whatever. i just spent an hour at the fucking post office trying to mail shit out and then was so flustered that i went out and bought a box of ice cream drumsticks and proceeded to come home, eat and drip chocolate over my one clean shirt that's not still wet from the laundry. (doing laundry sucks in china. we've been attempting to dry our jeans for who knows how many hours now and i had to go out to eat lunch in wet shorts. sick.)
so i still gotta pack and figure out how to burn my kajillion pictures that i've taken so far onto disks to send home but unfortch, everything on this computer is in chinese which i cannot read so i will probably either a) punch a hole through the screen after trying for 30 min or b) give up after 2 minutes and eat candy. ok... i just attempted the task and honestly, i dont even wanna try anymore and it's only been like 30 seconds and it's already given me a slight headache. fuck. oh and by the way, because little piggy the doggie poops in the kitchen, the apartment smells like a giant steaming pile of dog poop right now. yum! i'm gonna go eat a chinese raisin bun...
ok so now im just harsh procrastinating and i'm gonna upload and post a couple of the videos that we took in hong kong. they're entertaining for us at least...(oh and again, damn you youtube for drastically decreasing the quality and sound of our superb videos)
us at cheung chau (?) island, my first beach in asia.
in the middle of an intersection (seriously, we really know how to capture those special moments on video)
celebrating macho john's birthday at disneyland: the disney parade
alright well somehow it's already after 6 pm here...and the only thing we haven't done in hong kong is watch the laser show they've got shooting out of the buildings at nite, so off we go now!
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
my REAL motherland: hong kong & macau
argh, i just accidentally deleted my entire post right when i was almost done! so now i have to start all over again but i'll do it anyway. it's just gonna be a little bit half-assed now. i'm just minorly devestated. i might shed a tear or two.
well before i start i have to put up this picture cause i find it hilarious. it's of a bus stop near my big cousin's house. i mean, why have a bench when you can just line up a slew of different chairs?
oh and i wanna let y'all know that my cantonese is getting killer good! ok i exaggerate. but i'm more fluent than ive ever been in my entire life and i'm really impressed with myself! i'm all in touch with my linguistic roots and shit. if i stayed longer i might turn even more honger. i'm already saying stuff like "ok-la!" anyway...
so last week my cousin pat took a day off work cause him and john wanted to go hiking. as many of you know, hiking + diana = incompatible, disasterous, ridiculous, etc. so we went hiking over a bunch of mountains on lantau island. OVER mountains.
that would involve moving uphill and well, my lungs and legs really only enjoy horizontal mobility. i kinda thought i was going to die. however it was alright in the end cause we ended up in a cool fishing village called tai o that had stilt houses.
also on lantau island is a giant bronze buddha. i think they promote it as the world's largest outdoor, seated, bronze buddha, to be precise:
me high-fiving good ol' buddha:
a short walk from the buddha is the "path of wisdom". john and pat looking super wise.
on the weekend, one of my uncles took us to the fisherman's wharf and i gotta say, they got some crazy looking seafood over here. it's nothing like steveston (the fisherman's wharf in richmond) that we've got going on back home.
MACAU:
we just got back from macau last nite and i loved macau! it was crazy cause we saw my big gangster-looking uncle for lunch the day before we left and when he found out we didn't have a place to stay at yet, he decided "you're staying at my sister-in-law's". then it was, "i'll take you there". then "i'll come with you for one day". and finally it was "i'm coming for both days and bringing along your cousin whom youve never met". and so it was, we ended up staying at a pimp 2-floor penthouse on the island of taipa. no complaints from me! i think my uncle really enjoyed playing tour guide and i got to see everything.
even though macau's only 1 hour away by turbojet ferry, it's very different from hong kong. it's turning all las vegas with its giant casinos (they have a wynn and a venetian is being constructed. god i wanna go to vegas again!)but what i really liked was the portugese architecture:
i also really liked the portugese food! macau was an on-going food-fest. my uncle took us to a bunch of restaurants that my grandpa used to take him, my mom and the other kids to. this is the super yummy portugese baked chicken from one of my grandpa's favourite restaurants.
this is one of the homes my mommy used to live in! my uncle was doing some serious strolling down memory lane with our trip to macau. a whole lotta "and i used to hold your mom's hand and walk around this park when she was 3! only 3! she was tiny!"
me eating my very first portugese egg tart. i think my mom dreams about these:
this is the catholic church my mom used to go to. i'm zero religious but i still found this church beautiful. the security guard there fancied me so i got a mini tour and got to take as many pictures as i want. yeeeeeee haw.
the famous "facade" of a church called the ruins of st. paul. all that's left of the church after it burned down is the front of it.
we went to hac sa (black sand) beach and well whaddya know, it's got black sand! (this is where my uncle would say "and this is where your grandpa used to go swimming!", "this is where we camped as kids!") i actually thought it was really cool. i mean, fuck, the sand is black!
we also went up the macau tower which i think is 60-something floors and you get a nice 360 view of everything.
this is a-ma temple where we got to witness/almost go deaf from a massive string of fireworks being lit up. apparently it's supposed to bring prosperity so perhaps i should go get me some fireworks. of course, it's not like im working...anyway, i really liked these insence coils that they had everywhere.
and so macau was a total whirlwind and it was fabulous. and today i went to chill at my big cousin's jade shop for a few hours.
he gave me a pretty purple "doughnut" jade so i'm a happy little girl. oh and my little nephew just called so now i'm off to eat more with my cousins!
well before i start i have to put up this picture cause i find it hilarious. it's of a bus stop near my big cousin's house. i mean, why have a bench when you can just line up a slew of different chairs?
oh and i wanna let y'all know that my cantonese is getting killer good! ok i exaggerate. but i'm more fluent than ive ever been in my entire life and i'm really impressed with myself! i'm all in touch with my linguistic roots and shit. if i stayed longer i might turn even more honger. i'm already saying stuff like "ok-la!" anyway...
so last week my cousin pat took a day off work cause him and john wanted to go hiking. as many of you know, hiking + diana = incompatible, disasterous, ridiculous, etc. so we went hiking over a bunch of mountains on lantau island. OVER mountains.
that would involve moving uphill and well, my lungs and legs really only enjoy horizontal mobility. i kinda thought i was going to die. however it was alright in the end cause we ended up in a cool fishing village called tai o that had stilt houses.
also on lantau island is a giant bronze buddha. i think they promote it as the world's largest outdoor, seated, bronze buddha, to be precise:
me high-fiving good ol' buddha:
a short walk from the buddha is the "path of wisdom". john and pat looking super wise.
on the weekend, one of my uncles took us to the fisherman's wharf and i gotta say, they got some crazy looking seafood over here. it's nothing like steveston (the fisherman's wharf in richmond) that we've got going on back home.
MACAU:
we just got back from macau last nite and i loved macau! it was crazy cause we saw my big gangster-looking uncle for lunch the day before we left and when he found out we didn't have a place to stay at yet, he decided "you're staying at my sister-in-law's". then it was, "i'll take you there". then "i'll come with you for one day". and finally it was "i'm coming for both days and bringing along your cousin whom youve never met". and so it was, we ended up staying at a pimp 2-floor penthouse on the island of taipa. no complaints from me! i think my uncle really enjoyed playing tour guide and i got to see everything.
even though macau's only 1 hour away by turbojet ferry, it's very different from hong kong. it's turning all las vegas with its giant casinos (they have a wynn and a venetian is being constructed. god i wanna go to vegas again!)but what i really liked was the portugese architecture:
i also really liked the portugese food! macau was an on-going food-fest. my uncle took us to a bunch of restaurants that my grandpa used to take him, my mom and the other kids to. this is the super yummy portugese baked chicken from one of my grandpa's favourite restaurants.
this is one of the homes my mommy used to live in! my uncle was doing some serious strolling down memory lane with our trip to macau. a whole lotta "and i used to hold your mom's hand and walk around this park when she was 3! only 3! she was tiny!"
me eating my very first portugese egg tart. i think my mom dreams about these:
this is the catholic church my mom used to go to. i'm zero religious but i still found this church beautiful. the security guard there fancied me so i got a mini tour and got to take as many pictures as i want. yeeeeeee haw.
the famous "facade" of a church called the ruins of st. paul. all that's left of the church after it burned down is the front of it.
we went to hac sa (black sand) beach and well whaddya know, it's got black sand! (this is where my uncle would say "and this is where your grandpa used to go swimming!", "this is where we camped as kids!") i actually thought it was really cool. i mean, fuck, the sand is black!
we also went up the macau tower which i think is 60-something floors and you get a nice 360 view of everything.
this is a-ma temple where we got to witness/almost go deaf from a massive string of fireworks being lit up. apparently it's supposed to bring prosperity so perhaps i should go get me some fireworks. of course, it's not like im working...anyway, i really liked these insence coils that they had everywhere.
and so macau was a total whirlwind and it was fabulous. and today i went to chill at my big cousin's jade shop for a few hours.
he gave me a pretty purple "doughnut" jade so i'm a happy little girl. oh and my little nephew just called so now i'm off to eat more with my cousins!
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