Tôi đang ở Việt Nam

I'M IN VIETNAM!
Day 1: CROSSING THE STREET
and this is why:

the traffic here makes Taipei look humane. People drive the wrong way, there are NO traffic lights. it's chaos and recipe for disaster for sure. The buildings here are french inspired but even though they try to aim for a degree of elegance i feel like I am in the slummest of slums. what is really most saddening of all and makes me want to spill my pockets for this country is the fact that the currency rate is 1 US dollar to 20,000 Viet dollars. TWENTY. THOUSAND. Tonights dinner was a million dollars, one could easily spend a trillion in one day. i'm no economics major but talk about inflation, right?

also, there are a decent amount of wai guo ren here but i feel like the locals still find us extremely exotic. I was standing on the sidewalk with my sister and i look over to find a guy taking a picture of us. and everyone stares at us.

people here seriously sit on the sidewalks in plastic stools and sell all sorts of stuff. the most interesting thing i saw being sold today was um.. drumroll please.. snails. My mom and uncle were about to eat them but fortunately there were no more stools. We had grilled fish for dinner and then later on I had some pho. I take back what i said about pho before, it's good.

also, it is so great seeing my family. really weird to think it's been six months. it feels like nothing has changed.