i can feel my tan fading away

I'M BACK IN THE STATES.

Times I've had to catch myself from saying "oh my god" or "thank you" or "excuse me, miss" in Vietnamese: 4.

First words uttered upon landing in LAX: "I'm cold."

Earlier today, I was also craving a sua chua (translation: yogurt drink) while at Target and had to settle for a Yoplait Light yogurt drink instead. I think it was strawberry flavored or something. It was not the same.

Speaking of food, here's a list of the insane amount of food I ate on my last day in Hanoi: Hello Panda, European chocolates, a baguette with jam for breakfast, a yogurt drink with shot of expresso, bun cha for lunch (translation: pork meat in a bowl of nuc mam sauce served with cold rice noodles and vegetables), hua gua dam (translation: mixed fruits -- lychee, avocado, watermelon, jack fruit, dragon fruit, etc. -- with condensed milk in a cup that you add ice to), a baguette with pate for dinner, and bubble tea.

The Vietnamese roommates surprised me with how sentimental they all were, but I've since decided that the world needs more sappiness. Everyone had little bookies that they had people sign (like yearbooks!), so I quickly grabbed a notebook I used to use for Vietnamese class back in June and had people sign that. Iris, Trung, and Sam all gave me cards; VT told me to never feel alone, gave me a little fat cat for good luck, and came to the airport with us to say good-bye; Hoang held my hand as we walked back from bubble tea, sang "She Will Be Loved" with me around the lake -- changing the lyrics every now and then to, "And you will be loved" -- and blew kisses at me through the bus window as we were heading to the airport; Thu, my roommate, cried when I said good-bye; and so did Ha, Johnny's roommate, who came with us to the airport too and chased after Johnny for one last hug as we headed towards customs. The roommates all talked about working hard to be successful so that they can come to America and reunite with us one day, but it's sad to think about how long that might take in reality. (It's also weird to think that if/when they do come to the States, their children will be... me, the first generation Asian-American. And in many ways, I do feel like spending this past summer in Asia has helped me understand my parents a lots more and how they grew up.)

The flight back home was quite an ordeal. I was majorly confused by the service from Hanoi to Incheon, which was both lax and annoyingly persistant. My check-in bags were 22.5 and 26 kg, but the lady didn't say anything to me, despite the 23 kg weight limit. Asiana air service is cool, right? Wrong. The flight attendants during the actual flight kept waking me up for food (at midnight?!? I don't even remember what I ate; I think it was beef and rice or something like that), wine (both white and red, the lady made sure I knew), coffee, and to tell me to put my seat up (or rather, I got woken up by her putting my seat up suddenly). Basically that mean that by the time we got to Incheon airport in Korea, we were all deliriously, hilariously exhausted. I passed out for about 2 minutes of bliss on the padded seats in a waiting area (seats without arm rests are a traveler's best friend), but then got hustled along by the others in search of an information desk. We had a 13-hour layover in Korea, so we were determined to go into the city, even though Alex pointed out that we'd probably either get raped or robbed in our state of exhaustion/sleepiness/incoherence. We ended up getting tickets for a 5-hour long city tour of Seoul (it's an hour bus ride from the airport to the city) that included seeing the palace, a museum (that even had a section on food in our exhibit on Korean life -- that's Asia for you; we take our food seriously), a tourist shopping street (I got a handmade necklace there for 6000 wong), and lunch (bibimbap for me, which came in a clay pot).

Honestly, I have no clear recollection of the flight from Seoul to LA. I slept for about 10 of the 11 hours, waking up only for food (I had some beef and rice dish again that you wrapped in lettuce and then kim chi with rice) and then for about 30 minutes of "What Happened in Vegas" right before we landed. Overall, I was pretty impressed by the Korean facilities. The Incheon airport is really nice -- incredibly clean and orderly with lots of things to do in the airport -- and the plane itself was pretty comfortable, with little side thingies on your headrest (that let you rest your head on the side so that you wouldn't get those awful neck cramps), good food, and individual TV screens that let you select which movies you wanted to play when.

American airlines seriously need to take some tips from Asian ones because flying domestic on Northwest after flying international on Asiana was 1) a total, unorganized mess (I didn't even get to say good-bye in person to Johnny, Rosie, and Caroline because the whole, confusing ordeal at baggage claim got me separated from them all!) and 2) not at all as comfortable. I was stuck sitting bitchseat in the middle of a 3-person row and I'm pretty sure I tried to put my head on the shoulder of the girl sitting next to me, thinking in my dreamy, sleepy state that she was Yushen. Awkward.

Things I've had to readjust to upon returning to America:
- how wonderfully clean and modern the bathrooms are
- how intense the water pressure in my bathroom is
- how large and thick toilet paper, kleenex, towels, etc. are
- how heavy metal utensils are
- how quiet the traffic is
- how inefficient NOT jaywalking is
- how large supermarkets are
- how refreshingly not invasive salespeople are
- how clean everything everywhere is
- how conversational strangers are
- how quickly everyone speaks English
- how many chocolate products there are
- how many cars there are
- how orderly traffic is
- how large personal space bubbles are
- how big and tall everyone is
- how few Asians there are in my town
- no longer having wet towelettes at every meal
- dry heat
- my cell phone's ring tone

You'll probably notice that the first few things on the above list were all bathroom-related. Let's just say I'm probably still psychologically recovering from our trip into the Central Region. (There were toilets in pure darkness, toilets that were just holes, toilets that were just holes and needed to be manually flush, toilets that were just holes on moving trains, toilets that weren't even holes in the ground but were actually changing rooms, meaning that you'd have to pee on the floor [...I didn't actually use those...], you get the idea.)

In other news, jet lag is a bitch. I woke up at around 6:45 am today, saw the school bus go by my window, wondered why summer school was going so late, and then realized first that it was still only Tuesday in this time zone and second that schools here have already started. Insanity. I spent my first day back home running errands and also picked up both a new, unlined, 240-page Moleskin journal (to replace my old journal that's now completely filled, thanks to this summer) and the Quick & Easy Vietnamese Home Cooking for Everyone cookbook, which -- after flipping through the pictures and the index -- I've decided has all my favorite dishes, except for hua gua dam.

My goal for this summer is officially to successfully make nem (translation: spring rolls). Asia Mart, here I come.

i'm scared my cosmo magazine is going to scandalize my vietnamese roommate tomorrow

I'VE ARRIVED IN HANOI!

[Quick culture shock moment: turning on blogger and finding it entirely in Vietnamese. Ahh!]

The trip here was quite an ordeal. There were seven of us total, including me, and our flight out of LAX to Seoul got canceled because of “mechanical” problems. Something about our plane's wheel falling off during the last landing? Of course, we didn't actually hear what was going on, but instead two Harvard guys that we had befriended in the airport informed us that the announcer guy was telling the people going to Vietnam to go see him. Thanks, Harvard guys.

We ended up taking a flight five hours later than planned and arrived in Seoul at around 1 am. I slept about 10 of the 14 hours of the flight, so it wasn’t that bad. When we got to Seoul airport, we found out that we had to spend the night in the transit hotel connected to the airport (small scare where the guy thought that they had skipped my name when booking the rooms, but my ticket had actually just fallen under the table), and the rooms were pretty nice. Actually, it's a really sweet airport in general; it takes up an entire island, and since all the transportation had closed by the the time we arrived, we ended up just wandering the airport for a couple of hours (...taking pictures...) and then played Hearts in my room until we decided to try and get at least an hour of sleep before our morning flight. The airline gave us all vouchers for food, so I got a cute little Korean breakfast sandwich and salad set with coffee. Thumbs up, Korea.

[Another note about air traveling: Asian airlines are SO MUCH NICER than American ones. Not only do you each get your own little TV screen and much more food (normally, there's an Asian and a Western option), but they also come around with coffee or tea about every 30 minutes.]

When we finally, finally arrived in Hanoi, my first impression, honestly, was that it was a lot like the Bahamas: hot and humid, with lots of palm trees and colonial-influenced architecture. After about five minutes on the bus though, the traffic and the landscape started to resemble more of Shanghai than Spring Break '08 (...except with a lot less people and not that many skyscrapers). It's also a lot cleaner than I expected.

Anyway, my room is adorable and on the top floor of the guesthouse (which is like a hotel -- there's laundry service, they clean our rooms, etc.), and it comes complete with a tea set and a balcony. We're actually essentially taking up the entire hotel with our group, and there's also apparently a group from Princeton in Hanoi that we're likely going to be meeting up with at some point during the summer (I think the fourth of July was mentioned). I picked the window bed since my roommate isn’t here yet and, not going to lie, the "wet bathroom" thing is going to take some getting used to. I also opened up my suitcase to find a nasty surprise: apparently my aerosol cans of sunblock and my tub of body lotion EXPLODED while on the plane, covering my other bottles with a thin layer of grime. How pleasant.

So far, we've had a group meeting for orientation, a delicious dinner, and then a group of us went on a night-time impromptu walk around the area. Our directors told us about how it's common for same sex people to hold hands, but that a guy and a girl holding hands means "serious commitment" -- but that it's also not uncommon to see lovebirds intertwined in dark little corners of the city/the park. They weren't kidding.

It was drizzling outside a bit and incredibly humid, but otherwise it was pretty nice. We actually have a lot of freedom to go around and explore as we choose. The city closes down a lot earlier than I expected though, and we have an 11 pm curfew for the hotel. Most clubs/bars close by midnight at the latest, and a girl on the plane said that a common custom is to go out to dinner and then just stay out for the night, which I guess makes sense too because breakfast every day is from 7-9 am. Which means I have to get up at 7 tomorrow morning to meet the 8 am group breakfast time. Eek.

Good night!