Monday, November 15, 2004

hellloooo. haha. i'm back frm vietnam!! yay! haha.
people lived simply and it was like s'pore in the past. night falls when it is 6pm and the morning starts early. u can hear the marketplace at 4am and u'll think that they are ready for a battle. vietnam was old fashioned in many aspects of life. they had motorcycles and bicycles instead of cars. those who had cars are those who are very rich. their dressing sense is so far apart frm here. many of them wore their traditional clothes to work. they work long hours just to live simply.
for the no-so-rich people, they just need $80 a mth to live a luxurious life. imagine tat. just $80. amazing isnt it? in s'pore we need a few hundred dollars to live in luxury. in vietnam, things are cheap and affordable. such as shoes and bags and everyday necessities. one thing tat they complete well with the market is the handphones. they have the latest models and the handphone is launched at the same time as in s'pore. students do not own any handphone until they go off for work thn will they start having one.
ok. enough of introduction. i shall describe the best day i had there.
on the second day when i was there, my dad brought us to a one day tour of the outskirts of the city. where the war took place. the american war. when it fought against vietnam. the vietnamese built a tunnel underground when before the american war, the french war took place, to hide their weapons and the women and children. in the american war, it is used to hide only the weapons, bombs and bullets. soldiers must crawl through the small, stuffyhole to get their guns and bombs. it was really small. i went in with my dad and bro. we crawled through it. it was dark and stuffy. wat's more, there are three levels of underground tunnel. we only went till the second level. going down was steep and cold. going up was tough. we had to use our arm strength to push ourselves up. when we finally finished climbing the tunnel, we were sweating and panting like a dog. haha. oh yeah. the tunnel is also called the cu chi tunnel.
aft tat, we went to visit a temple also known as cao dai temple. it consist of buddhism, catholics and confusionism. it is all combined into one so whatever public hols they have, they'll celebrate. they pray at 6 hr intervals. 6am, 12pm, 6pm and at 12am. it is a colourful temple. took some pictures of it. really nice.
thn we had lunch. we were given one small stack of rice papers and a big plate of vegetables and carrots and cucumbers and fish. we were supposed to place the veggie onto the rice paper and followed aft is the cucumbers, carrots and fish and roll it up. thn we must dip it into fish sauce and eat it like how we eat popiah here. haha. was really nice. healthy and delicious. haha. i tried the peppermint veggie leaf and it was estopendo [excellent - it is a spanish word i learnt ages ago]. i can feel the peppermint taste on my tongue and thn it spreads all over my mouth.
after eating we went shopping. everything was cheap like i said. but there's a prob. there are many zeros on the note. it was very diff to count. i was a millionaire thn. haha. if u convert it into S$, it is only $100. haha. bought 2 pair of shoes and a bag.
yeah. tat was thn. it was hard to adjust to living there for 4 days. but now, i'm glad i'm back in s'pore. it is much better here. haha.
looks like i'm gonna get a dress for the wedding dinner. hmm. i have to find a day to get it.
ok, up till here. pretty long aye?
haha.
tu du luu

emacity
8:37 PM

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