VmarksTheSpot - Japan Journal

December 2003

Monday, Dec. 1, 2003 — Working with high school students

The Tokushima City ALTs went to Sally’s campus, Tokushima Municipal High School, today to work with students who intend to study or work abroad. You hear a lot about how high school students are really difficult to work with because they’re not particularly eager to do anything but the three students I worked with were quite sweet and fun.

It probably had to do largely with the fact that these students were very motivated to learn English. It was so refreshing to be able to have a conversation with them, since you can’t really do that at the junior-high level.

For the assignment, Noriko, Manami, Yuriko and I walked to the nearby Yoshino River. We were supposed to walk for half and hour and then come back and write a description of what we saw, and then the girls would present what we’d written. We spent most of the walk talking about their interests and my observations about Japan vs. America. I kept waiting for them to scribble down some observations but they didn’t even have paper with them.

We were the last group to return to the school but had no problem putting together a composition. The girls were a little hesitant at first to contribute any thoughts so I gently prodded them with questions about what we saw, smelled and heard. I was proud of my students when they gave their presentation. It was a good experience.

Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003 — Sick

I took the day off from school today. I wasn't feeling great and didn't really look forward to the 20-minute bike-ride to school. It occurred to me that this is the first time I've ever missed work because I didn't feel well. But the policy is different here, too, since my vacation days and sick days are separate.

I slept most of the day. Took a hot bath. It took me a bit to figure it out, just like the shower. Apparently I’m supposed to fill the bath with COLD water first. And then I turn on the gas, which heats the water like a pot on the stove … except there’s no visible fire. I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I figure out how to use one of my Japanese appliances while escaping any potential injury.

Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2003 — Japan, 1995

It is difficult to believe Kobe was devastated only eight years ago on Jan. 17, 1995 by what one consulting firm called one of the costliest natural disaster in history.

When I was in Kobe a few weeks ago, everything looked like a cohesive whole that had never been disturbed, only revamped and refurbished — not built from scratch. The Kobe earthquake left 5,500 dead and more than 26,000 people injured. The economic loss was estimated $200 billion. It was the largest earthquake to hit the country since 1923.

I’m reading Haruki Murakami’s Underground (I recently finished reading a book on ninjas!), which contains first-person accounts from people affected by the March 20, 1995 gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult. Both catastrophes that year forced the Japanese to reexamine themselves.

Murakami maintains the two events were “two of the gravest tragedies in Japan’s postwar history. It is no exaggeration to say that there was a marked change in the Japanese consciousness ‘before’ and ‘after’ these events. These twin catastrophes will remain embedded in our psyche as two milestones in our life as people.”

Later, in the same book, he wrote, “In some ways, the two events may be likened to the front and back of one massive explosion. Both were nightmarish eruptions beneath our feet — from underground — that threw all the latent contradictions and weak points of our society into frighteningly high relief. Japanese society proved all too defenseless against these sudden onslaughts. We were unable to see them coming and failed to prepare. Nor did we respond effectively.”

Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2003 — Hey Ya

All day, I keep hearing Outkast: “Shake it like a Polaroid picture…!”

You know, some of the people who live around my neighborhood sure have some gorgeous dogs. There’s this man who must live down the street from me who walks his golden retriever all the time near the station. The dog’s coat looks as soft as a cloud and just beckons to be petted. There’s also a woman who lives near one of my schools with an Afghan. I’ve never been fond of Afghans but can’t help but admire their regal carriage. I want a dog … !

Guess what temperature my apartment is in the mornings?

12 degrees Celsius. That, my friends, in Fahrenheit, is 53 degrees. Seriously, sometimes I really struggle with the notion that it’s only going to get colder. I hear it occasionally snows in parts of the prefecture in February. This is how I see it: The weather started to get cold in October. If it’s cold enough to snow in February than it’s probably cold in March, too. April is sakura (cherry-blossom) time, which is to say spring comes then.

That means for the six months of the year, it’s cold here.

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003 — Swindling students and hitting the jackpot

The third-years at Kokufu are working on what to say in a department store. It’d odd how they learn situational English like that rather than parts of speech. I was asked to play the role of the store clerk. The girls went first. As the girls tend to be much more straight-laced than the boys, this led me to follow the script almost verbatim. This all changed when it was the boys’ turn.

The way the “interview” worked is that each student would bring up a prop to use in the “sale,” usually some pens or some winter clothes. I ask, “How can I help you?” For kicks, I used American dollars as the currency and was ridiculously overcharging them to see if any would notice. Most of the girls were too busy trying to recall their memorized replies to pay any attention to the price.

Some of the more relaxed boys, however, reacted marvelously. Even if they didn’t know the correct English to use, they’d still get their point across. “Lower! Lower!” insisted one boy when I tried to charge him $10 for a pencil. Apparently, the kids know the exchange rate (currently a dismal 108 yen to 1 USD) so they knew when things were exorbitantly priced. I think I ended up “giving” that kid two pens for $5. Things got a lot more interesting to the class once I started to stray from the script. The boys were at ease enough to not panic and to actually try to listen to what I was saying and respond. Girls, when taken unawares, tend to more often get a “deer in the headlights” look when they are ambushed by unfamiliar English. The boys want to have a laugh and so stray from the script themselves to work their audience.

In other news: A couple weeks ago — that Friday night I went to Sally’s to make white chocolate and pistachio cookies — I had the good fortune of scoring four video tapes with American shows on them. Sally had gotten them from Melanie, a fellow Tokushima City ALT from Canada who is in the process of purging her apartment because she’s leaving at the end of her contract. But Sally also has satellite TV and confessed she’d probably never get around to watching the video tapes. I eagerly snapped them up, curious as to what shows I’d find on them.

At home, I popped a tape in and greedily began watching. It took me two weeks to get through all four tapes. And, oh, what lovely surprises there were.

First off, the tapes began at the beginning of this TV season. Very important. If I saw a show that needed to be seen in chronological order, I thus saw the season premiere first. This included “Miss Match” and “The Practice.” I also saw the season premiere for “Friends.” When the first scene came on, my jaw dropped. I’d totally FORGOTTEN about “Friends”!! It was as if the moment I boarded my plan to Japan, it was banished from my memory. I don’t think I’d thought about the show since I’d seen last season’s finale.

It’s a weird feeling, but it does bode well for fans anguishing over this, the show’s final season.

But BY FAR the BIGGEST coup of these four tapes was the season premiere of Alias, my lone HAVE-TO-SEE show. I have a friend and fellow Alias fanatic (shout out to CECELIA! ;-) who is kindly taping the series to mail over to me — but to stumble upon the spy show’s No. 1 episode (AND No. 2, it turned out!) ahead of schedule … ?!

It was like Christmas, baby, CHRISTMAS.

Ah, Alias, how I’ve missed your intrigues so. <hugs tape>

So, anyways, I went on and on to Sally about how grateful I was that she’d given me the tapes. She ended up mentioning my exuberance to Melanie. When I went to the weekly ALT meeting this afternoon, I was aghast to find Melanie cheerfully sitting with a big of 15 MORE tapes for me!! I felt like I'd won the lottery and it made me feel all giddy inside. Apparently Melanie has a super-taper who sends her three to four tapes a WEEK of shows. These 15 tapes are enough to last me at LEAST until the end of January. And then I can pass it on to other clamoring JETs and spread the joy.

These tapes have introduced me to popular shows I’ve never really watched before but find myself liking now. (I do continue to fast-forward through “The Osbournes” still, though, even though apparently Canadian TV subtitles the show in French.) The WB’s “Gilmore Girls” is pretty good (although not as good as the WB’s “Everwood,” which, sadly, is not on any of Melanie’s tapes …) though the characters talk really fast and are a bit unnaturally glib.

Then there’s “CSI.” I was never into this show before, but “CSI” has proven rather engrossing. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that three of the actors are pretty hot (NOT including Grissom, although you’ve got to admit he’s got a certain charisma). Now I understand why people in my citizens’ police academy class in Abilene kept on murmuring “CSI! CSI!” excitedly the day we learned about forensic methods.

And … now you know what a slave to TV I am.

Friday, Dec. 5, 2003 — 4-H Club, Japanese style, med school students

You’ll NEVER guess what I did today.

I went sweet-potato picking.

I have never actually harvested anything from the ground. I don’t really like getting dirty. I should have had an inkling of what mucky things awaited me when Ogasawara-sensei asked me to pull on rubber boots. She had invited me to go orange-picking with Kokufu’s special ed class the day before but I had to turn her down because I had class. But I didn’t have a class until third period today and so headed out with the students to a local farmer’s plot of land.

We went there by bike. I rode in the middle and struggled with keep up with the three boys in front of me. The kids in this class are, like, super healthy! They barely broke a sweat on the climb onto the overpass. Panting, I just kept thinking, “PLEASE let it be near … ! PLEASE let it be near … !” Thankfully, it was.

The plot of land was not big and had several types of vegetables growing on it. There, we met up with the special ed class at Kamona. We pulled on some gardening gloves and got started right away. While a handful of the Kamona kids worked on a patch of vegetables that I still have yet to identify, we went to the sweet-potato corner. First, we had to clear off all the greenery. This involved giving the kids sharp scythe-like tools to hack away at the vegetation. I was a bit leery at the idea of handing pre-teens sharp objects but the kids definitely seemed to know what they were doing. Others, like me, picked up the cut-down plants and carried them out of the way.

Once that was finished, we pulled out shovels and other digging tools and began to root in the ground for the sweet potatoes. They gave me a shovel to turn up the soil and aid the kids’ search. I had the unfortunate tendency of positioning my shovel so that they every time I shoved it into the ground, I sliced clean through a couple sweet potatoes, too. Eventually I abandoned the shoveling for the good of the sweet potatoes and hunkered down to search for them in the dirt instead.

Now, I don’t consider myself particularly girly, but I did get a little squeamish at times when my boots sank into the mud or when the kids unearthed an earthworm the circumference of my thumb. But the kids were harvesting vegetables with such gusto, I couldn’t stay squeamish long. Except I had a horribly runny nose and only two paltry tissues to deal with it. “Torture” is being stuck with a runny nose and not enough tissue.

I had to leave after an hour and a half to make it to third period. When I came back to my desk after class, I found on my desk two bags of dirt-encrusted sweet potatoes, a daikon (Japanese radish), three of the unidentified vegetable and enough mikan (mandarin oranges) to last me a month.

My first though: “Gosh … I barely know how to cook American vegetables, let alone JAPANESE vegetables … “

That night I met up with Ayaka, the Tokushima University medical school student I’d met on the weekend trip in Iya. The med school is right across the street from my neighborhood. Ayaka had invited me to a meeting of the med school’s English club. They were having an informal speech contest and she thought it’d be helpful to have a native speaker there.

There were 18 speeches. Members talked about their summer vacation. I was astonished by how many of them had gone abroad. I’d known the Japanese travel a lot, but this was concrete proof of that. Europe seemed to be the most popular destination. One girl, who didn’t speak Spanish, had gone to Spain. She made me want to go back to Spain again. Another had gone hiking in the Alps. He’d gotten lost while on the mountain and had to traverse down a really steep creek before finding the path again.

I gave a couple comments on the presentations but felt a little foolish. What was at issue wasn’t their English at all — they spoke really good English — but just the usual things about a speech, like eye contact, and conversational tone. But I really enjoyed meeting them and getting to know them. It’s not often I get to meet Japanese people my age who speak enough English to have a conversation.

One of the guys in the club had been in an exchange program while in high school and spent a year in LUBBOCK of all places! I chatted with him for a while and asked him if he’d ever gone to Abilene. Turns out he’d visited Abilene Christian University for math tournaments! He’d been to Austin for State UIL! You have no idea what a relief it is to talk about Texas with someone who knows what they’re talking about. We discussed pick-ups and Mexican food.

The club president invited me back to their meetings in the spring semester. I’m excited and eager to get to know the members better — a lot of them live around my neighborhood, and it’ll be nice to get to know people who live near me. Most of the ALTs live at least 20 minutes away.

Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003 — Ho, ho, ho

A fellow ALT asked if I’d work at a kids’ Christmas party today. Why not? I didn’t realize the kids would be so young — about 4 years old — but that just meant getting to hang out with a new set of kids. Now I’ve worked with kids ages 4 to 18. Just expanding the ol’ repertoire.

The Christmas party took place at a community center and had been organized by the ALT’s English teacher. It was extremely well organized. Sally, James, Jane and me were helpers. The activities took place in both English and Japanese. The kids suck up new English words at an astonishing rate.

In the beginning, we first had the kids help decorate the room. Then we played a game before splitting them up into two groups. One group did Christmas carols, which James and Jane led, and Sally and I took the other group and make Santa Clauses out of paper. This involved the children using copious amounts glue and wiping much of it onto the tables where they were working. I’d also escort the kids to the restroom to get them to wash their hands. There weren’t any towels and the girls would look to me wondering how to dry their hands. I motioned for them to wipe off their hands on their clothes. Heh heh. Not exactly the most proper idea, but it works, right? The kids just got more confused when I told them to do that.

After that, we ate lunch. In the space between that and story time, we ran around the room playing the kids. One boy in particular attached himself to my leg. Awww! That’s what my cousins do! It made me all nostalgic and warm and mushy inside.

Following story time was a visit from Santa played by a local college lecturer, Kevin Miller. I hear he hails from Austin but didn’t get a chance to confirm this. Finally we gave the kids some Christmas goodies and sent them on their way.

I had biked to Sally’s to get a ride to the community center. After we were dropped off, I went to an outdoors store down the street from her apartment and got myself a money belt for my trip to Vietnam. I find it amusing that the money belt was made in Vietnam. Then I made the half-hour bike ride back to my apartment in the biting wind.

Monday, Dec. 8, 2003 — Countdown

I find it extremely difficult to comprehend that in less than a week and a half, I’ll be in Vietnam.

Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2003 — Making mochi

So of course having picked all those sweet potatoes, it would only be logical to make them into mochi, Japanese sweet rice cakes.

Ogasawara-sensei, Okamura-sensei, the students and me piled into the kitchen classroom with a tub-full of sweet potatoes this afternoon. We all donned aprons. The kids have to wear these cafeteria-lady hats and a cotton covering over their mouth, the same kind you saw on TV on people in China when SARS was going around. All the students wear these accessories when preparing their classroom for lunch and fetching the food.

First, we peeled the sweet potatoes. I was rather astonished by how well the peelers worked. They’re really simple — flimsy almost — but get the job done quickly and without any severed fingers. A friend of a friend had recently cut off the tip of his finger accidentally while using a potato peeler, so I was somewhat leery of this task but managed to do it without so much as a nick.

The sweet potatoes, which are a vivid fuschia on the outside before they’re peeled and white on the inside, are cut into chunks and then steamed. They turn yellow when they’re steamed. Then we mash them. I thought the circumstances were rather funny because I LOVE mashed potatoes and here I was in a room full of SWEET mashed potatoes … so similar, yet sooo different. The teachers added some rice flour and sugar into the mashed potatoes. It was all mixed together to a dough-like consistency.

Separately, we’d prepared a bunch of small balls of red bean paste. If you’ve eaten East-Asian sweets before, you’ve probably eaten red bean paste. We then wrapped each bean-paste ball in a covering of the sweet-potato paste. Then we rolled the mochi around in some sort of nutty powder, perhaps almond powder. And that’s it. No baking. Just sweet potatoes and red bean paste.

I got to keep the 13 mochi that I’d made. As much as I like sweets, I reach my limit pretty quickly in Japan because I’m always getting sweets as gifts. So I gave away 11 mochi to my fellow teachers and ate two. I think one mochi was my limit, but they were pretty good.

Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003 — Ikebana

Tonight was flower-arranging night at Kurohashi-sensei’s class. “Ikebana” means “flower arrangement.” “Kado” also means “the art of flower arrangement.” First I did calligraphy — I learned the kanji for “America” (which, for unknown reasons, translates to “rice country”).

Kurohashi-sensei gave Sally and me some “ink” for the stamps we’d carved for ourselves. The ink used for these kinds of stamps is actually putty-like in consistency. They’re lipstick-waxy with, oddly enough, bits of straw mixed in. We learned that the brighter the color — the more vividly orange it is — the more expensive the “ink.”

Afterward, we moved into the back room and made a New Year’s flower arrangement out of these beautiful Gerber daisies. I put a paper crane and a New Year’s sign in my arrangement. I somehow managed to bring mine home by bicycle without too badly scarring the flowers.

Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003 — Watari-sensei’s birthday

Oh, I ended up giving away my bagful of vegetables today. I just wasn’t going to be able to figure out how to cook them AND finish eating them before my trip.

After having tried to sustain two Japanese classes a week, I think I will be dropping my Tuesday classes. It’s just too advanced for me and I feel like I’m guessing all the time whenever I’m answering the teacher. Also, that opens my Tuesdays to go to the English club at the medical school! (Which is much closer to where I live, too ;-)

But I continue to enjoy my Thursday lessons with Watari-sensei, a retired English teacher, at TOPIA. He has a good sense of humor (which can be difficult to find because of cultural and language differences) and the class is really laid back and small. Today was our last lesson of the year for him and he wanted us to go eat afterward. Unbeknownst to him, we’d already planned on taking him out to eat because it’d been his birthday that week. One of the ALTs with whom he works with often, Stephanie, showed up at the end of the lesson with a birthday cake. Then we all went to a nearby izakaya to eat. An izakaya is a traditional Japanese type of restaurant where food is served in small portions and you share it with the rest of your group. It’s very dim-sum in nature, but without the waitresses pushing carts of food around.

At the izakaya, we’d planned to pay for dinner. But Watari-sensei sneakily left the table without our noticing — we’d thought he was headed toward the restroom. The next thing he knew he was furtively trying to pay the cashier. That’s when we all swarmed him and the cashier, insisting that we pay for the meal. I think we may have scared the cashier, all these foreigners babbling in English.

Watari-sensei finally conceded but suggested we to go to karaoke and insisted he pay for that. We went to the same karaoke place we’d gone for my school district’s welcome party, the one where the sho-cho had gotten really drunk and been uncomfortably fascinated with one of the ALTs. But this time we had a much better time. Let’s see, I tried Cake’s “The Distance,” and Lisa Loeb’s, “I Do.” Watari-sensei sang, too, some enka. Enka are traditional Japanese songs.

I need to learn a Japanese song so as to wow my Japanese colleagues when next I go to karaoke.

Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003 — No haiku for Vivi

I had planned to go to a haiku workshop today. It was going to take place at a local temple. I had been led to believe that there’d be some English translation but discovered that wasn’t the case.

There was a talk at the beginning of the workshop about haiku and sharing some examples. It was in Japanese. One of the organizers sat near Sally and me and tried falteringly to explain but that’s when one of the attendees, I think a college student, jumped in and began translating. Since the university student was better at it than the lady, she insisted he do the translating. I felt bad because he hadn’t come here to interpret for us, he’d come to do to the haiku workshop. A lot of speaking passed without any translation at all.

Finally, when the speaker stopped talking and sent us out onto the temple grounds in search of inspiration for our haiku, Sally and I pleaded ignorance of the Japanese language and left.

Having found myself with more time than I’d expected, I went in search of a backpack for my Vietnam trip. The backpack I have already is one from my college days and too small for toting two-weeks’ worth of stuff, I thought. Not that I’ll be carrying around two weeks’ worth of clothes or anything …

I found a nice-sized blue backpack in a small store near Tokushima Station. It took me a long time to decide on it. I was torn between the blue backpack and a cream-and-green backpack — not because of aesthetics (although I must say, I thought the cream-and-green one prettier) but because of pockets. I really liked the cream-and-green backpack because it had a wealth of pockets, which I figured would help me organize my stuff better. It was also a Hang Ten backpack, a brand name popular with my Taiwanese friends. (Actually, the Taiwanese brand name didn’t have that much of a draw for me, although I did like the cute logo — two foot prints)

The blue backpack, unfortunately, was from a skateboarding company of some sort with a bad word for a brand name. Let’s just say it means “an unpleasant lady.” But I figure that could be a plus to ward off English-speaking would-be thieves, right … ? As much as I liked the Hang Ten backpack’s many pockets, I figured the blue backpack’s lack of pockets (it only has two) would be better because then I just need to lock up the one main pocket when I leave my backpack. Decisions, decisions.

It was exciting to bring the bag home. I figure I’ll be using it on more than one excursion abroad.

Sunday, Dec. 14, 2003 — Furikomi, Part I

The banking system here is both quite appealing and maddening. Much like life in Japan in general.

I recently found out that the JETs in Nagano organize a yearly ski trip for fellow JETs across the country. As swooping through the snow in Japan was high on my “must-do-while-in-Japan” list, I immediately got all excited about the prospect. I plan on snowboarding — for the first time ever!

Anyways, once I emailed the Nagano JETs, I received an invoice and the information to make a bank transfer to pay for my trip. Since Japan is a cash-based society, you don’t just whip out your credit card when making payments like this. Instead, you transfer money from your bank account.

You can do a bank transfer, called “furikomi,” at an ATM. ATMs, by the way, close at 7 p.m. Also, if you make a financial transaction after bank hours — banks close at an exasperating 3 p.m. — you’re charged a banking fee, even if you’re using your bank’s ATM.

I had already done one furikomi to pay for my Vietnam visa but had gone to a bank and asked for a clerk to help me. I wanted to send my money this weekend and banks aren’t open on weekends. First I tried Friday by myself. I got as far as the list of banks to which I could send my money. I tried again Saturday. Still no luck.

So today I asked Ayaka, a Japanese friend who lives near me, to come with me. That would solve the problem right, someone who could read Japanese? No. She, too, was stumped when we got to the list of banks since we couldn’t find the bank I was supposed to send. Booo. I slumped back home and made a batch of chocolate-chip and pecan cookies.

Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 — Furikomi, Part II

Growing increasingly frantic — my ski trip money was due today — I emailed my supervisor about my problem. I sent her the furikomi information and asked if she could do the furikomi herself for me, since she has my banking information. She called me at school to tell me that she’d need my bank card. So I had to ask to get off work early and left at 2 p.m.

I got to the board of education office at about 2:45 p.m. The bank was closing soon, so we rushed downstairs. A bank clerk pushed the buttons for me at the ATM. She made it look so EASY. It turns out that when the list of banks appeared, I was supposed to push this one button that lets me enter what kind of bank I wanted. I tried my best to memorize the steps — I really wish I could do these things on my own — but know next time I’ll need help, too. Oh well. I’m just relieved I sent my furikomi in on time.

Even better, I was able to use that opportunity — being at the bank, with my supervisor with me — to get traveler’s checks for my trip to Vietnam.

The ski trip will be fun but exhausting. Here’s the plan: Take an overnight bus that leaves at 11:50 p.m. to Nagano. Arrive at the ski resort in the morning. Snowboard all day. Spend the night in Nagano. Snowboard the next day. Take an overnight bus back to Tokushima. Arrive in Tokushima the next morning. Take the day off, as unable to work that day due to exhaustion.

Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2003 — The shame of it all

Not speaking Japanese or at least not speaking more Japanese than I do makes me feel so helpless and, well, DUMB sometimes. I know that’s silly but the feeling of not being able to communicate is infuriating. I study at school almost every day for a period or two. But when a teacher is being sociable and comments on what I’m doing, I’m left speechless. I don’t know what to say. Most of the time I don’t even know what they’re saying. It makes me feel so embarrassed. I wonder if the teachers are thinking to themselves, “Gosh, she’s been studying so much and she still can’t say anything … ?”

Argh, the shame of it all.

Yesterday I needed to make call to my supervisor, Takeuchi-sensei, to discuss my banking. I’d never dialed from a school phone before and so just dialed the seven-digit number not realizing I have to push a button to get out of the school first. The phone rang and a man picked up. I asked for Takeuchi-sensei. He started to say some stuff and I started to get kinda panicky. “Takeuchi-sensei isn’t there?” I said in my measly Japanese. I wondered why the voice on the other end of the line sounded so familiar.

The next thing I know, I hear the principal calling for Takeuchi-sensei. We have a male teacher here with the same last name as my supervisor. I sprinted across the teacher’s room to the other end to explain what’d happened to my principal. The teacher was looking at me askance. I apologized. The principal, who speaks excellent English, realized it’d been a misunderstanding and laughed it off. After dialing my supervisor correctly, I slunk back to my desk.

Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003 — Check back in a month

I leave for Vietnam tomorrow and I won’t be updating the site until I return. That is, IF I return. Just kidding! I fully intend on chronicling my Vietnamese escapades once I get over the malaria and the SARS. In the meantime, e-mail me, as Internet cafes are quite multitudinous in Vietnam. I’m back in Japan on Jan. 6. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I’m out.

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003 — Vacation to Vietnam, Day 1

My mood grew stormier with every passing, precious minute. Our bus left at 11:25 a.m. from Tokushima Station. My two friends and I had agreed to meet at the station 11 a.m. The time was coming up on 11:10 a.m. and neither of my friends were anywhere to be found.

Even if I wasn’t a control freak and had a normal tolerance for tardiness, I’m pretty sure I would have still been worked up.

I paced back and forth between the inside of the station, where I’d expected to meet them, and the outside entrance of the station, where I expected them to saunter up any time now. I was nervous and tired. Sleep had escaped me the past few days. Anxiety had even prevented me from luxuriating in the rare opportunity of waking up late this weekday morning.

I’d woken up and eaten leftovers for breakfast in an attempt to clear my fridge. I biked to the 24-hour grocery store down the street and bought some pencil lead. (My friends later questioned the need for something so random. I told them I take my writing utensils very seriously.)

My backpack, I filled to the brim. Clothes, which I’d whittled down to an absolute minimum, only took up a portion of the backpack. I threw in a book and pack of playing cards for downtime. I also needed my Lonely Planet guidebook and Rough Guide phrase book. I wrapped my sun block, first-aid spray, first-aid kit and bug spray in a plastic bag and tucked them inside, too. Important papers — and copies of them — I kept in a sturdy plastic folder. I slid in a small flashlight in case, of all things, we had a power outage.

I’d even run to the electronics store just as it opened at 10 a.m. I grabbed some AA batteries for my camera and then headed straight to the camera section in search of a 256 MB memory card. I was worried my current lone memory card wouldn’t be enough. I could burn the files onto a CD to clear up my memory card but I didn’t know how accessible that kind of equipment would be in Vietnam.

Normally I get quite tense when I have to interact with Japanese people because of my tenuous grasp of the language. But on this day I was on a mission and nothing was going to stop me. There was no time, NO TIME! I marched right up to a sales person and asked where they kept the memory cards. In Japanese! I was so proud of myself. The salesman showed me the cards and I picked the one I wanted. I can’t believe I dropped so much money on such a tiny thing so easily, though. It’s amazing what you’re willing to pay when you want something RIGHT NOW.

I came back home, got my stuff together and then headed to the bus stop. I’ve started using the bus a lot more. My school district gave me all these bus tickets to go to Kokufu but I never use them because I just don’t like having to wait for the bus (plus, I have this deep-seated fear I’ll take the wrong bus and end up who knows where, completely late for school). So I have begun using the bus tickets to take the bus downtown. The ride down is free (and always, ALWAYS goes to Tokushima Station) and I take the train back (again, because I have been too lazy to figure out which bus to take back) for $2. The buses come pretty often and the bus stop is right in front of the 24-hour grocery store.

So I’d gotten to the station at 11 a.m., just as planned. Sally and Chanda finally sauntered up at 11:10 a.m. I thought darkly to myself this wasn’t an auspicious beginning to our trip — my first with friends and without family.

Sally and Chanda had met at 10 a.m. to go the bank and get traveler’s checks. I’d gotten my own earlier in the week. Apparently it’d taken a really long time to get the checks and they hadn’t realized how much time had passed until I told them what time it was. Plus, they’d thought the bus didn’t come until 12:30 p.m. I was pretty wound up by then because we’d cut it so close, at least in my eyes. I worried that this was a sign of things to come.

But once we clambered aboard our bus to Kansai International Airport in Osaka, things went much smoother and on schedule and my mood improved. We arrived at the airport a little past 2 p.m (Which means if you come visit me, you too, will be taking a 2.5-hour bus to Tokushima). We ate at an Italian place and walked around waiting for our check-in time to arrive. Chanda and Sally checked their luggage but I kept my backpack with me so I’d have stuff to do. While loitering at the gate, I bought some Japanese sweets for my mom’s friend, who would be picking us up at the airport in Saigon.

Our flight was booked with Vietnam Airlines but the airline apparently had some sort of joint-operating agreement with Japan Airlines. Our staff and our plane all came from JAL. It was a very luxurious ride, even in economy class. Sally and Chanda sat on the side by the window. I got an aisle seat in the middle section but somehow lucked out and got all three seats in the middle to myself. Sweeeet. The flight was not full at all.

My favorite part of the flight was how each seat had a little TV monitor on the headrest in front. You could play games, monitor the flight’s progress and watch movies. It was great because you could watch movies at your own pace and not have to wait for an in-flight movie. I watched Tomb Raider 2 (which didn’t have many redeeming qualities beyond getting to admire Angelina Jolie and listen to the Scottish accent of the hot guy in the movie), part of Uptown Girls (Brittany Murphy hurt my eyes) and most of Pirates of the Caribbean (thus getting to admire Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom again).

I would have liked to lay out across the three seats and gone to sleep — that’s a rare luxury on a plane — but wanted to take advantage of the movies and didn’t want to mess up my sleep schedule.

The flight lasted five hours. Long, but not unbearably so. But as time crept by I started to realize a problem. A MATH problem, so it took a bit to figure out. Our flight left at 6 p.m., Japan time. There’s a two-hour difference between Japan and Vietnam. The itinerary from our travel agent had said we’d arrive at 3 p.m. in Vietnam, which is what I’d told my mother, which is what she’d told her friend.

But when the plane took off, the pilot announced it was 4 p.m. in Vietnam.

I got this awful, sinking feeling in my stomach. We wouldn’t arrive until 9:30 p.m. local time! But I couldn’t do anything about it. Always a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling. I really, REALLY don’t like it when people have to wait for me and I particularly am driven insane by the notion of people waiting for me at the wrong time … !

The moment we stepped off the plane, in that brief space of exposure to the outside air between the plane and the walkway to the airport, the warmth and humidity hit me. It even smelled like Vietnam. I was here, and my heart was beating a million miles a minute. I slightly dreaded what lie ahead, not just because of our lateness, but because we were actually in Vietnam. It’s different when you go to the country of your heritage. It’s not just a vacation, it’s a passage of self-discovery.

At immigration, all three of us had a nerve-wracking experience. I had steeled myself for the worst because my parents, who were practically beside themselves with worry that I had come to Vietnam, had warned me of bribes and corrupt government officials and lawlessness.

Chanda accidentally went into the line for native Vietnamese and Asians, so the immigration officials were all suspicious. Chanda finished first and fled onward to get away as far away from her ill-tempered agent as possible. Sally got all these probing questions from her agent: “Have you got a boyfriend?” “Where are you staying?” Creepy.

Mine glanced at my passport and asked me in Vietnamese if I spoke Vietnamese. As I wanted to be as American as possible, I said, “No.” But, DUH, if I answered the question, OBVIOUSLY I understood Vietnamese. SO STUPID. The agent looked at me dubiously and repeated the question in English, “Do you speak Vietnamese?” I said, “Very little.” He stared at me a bit more and went back to processing my passport. I tried to look bored and indifferent. I know my parents are always anxious when they have to go to through the airport in Vietnam, so that made me anxious, too.

We collected our baggage with a minimum of fuss and finally walked out into the reception area where people are picked up. Its edges were lined with hopeful-looking people eager to welcome people off the plane. None of them were Di Thuan, the family friend with whom my mom had arranged to pick us up at the airport. Even though I didn’t quite remember what Di Thuan looked like from the photo my mom had e-mailed me, no seemed to be looking for us. We were a pretty obvious group, with Sally and her blond hair. People kept looking at us, though. I cringed. The staring had begun.

After waiting for half an hour, we finally decided to call Di Thuan. This took quite a bit of hasty mental preparation on my part. But the lady manning the telephone booth was quite helpful — I had this utter fear of scornful looks in Vietnam — and I was able to get the hotel name from Di Thuan. The amount of Vietnamese I was able to dredge up amazed me.

Di Thuan was horribly relieved to hear we’d come in. She’d waited for hours at the airport calling my name for fear she didn’t recognize me. I felt awful but couldn’t find the words to make much of an apology.

A very persistent taxi driver had been hanging around us the entire time. By then we just wanted to go to the hotel. I asked if he knew where it was. He said yes. WHAT a CROCK. We loaded into the car and soon found out what a complete liar he’d been.

To find the hotel, he stopped the car a good seven times to ask for directions. Every time, he would say obsequiously, “I’m sorry,” before getting out of the car. Two of those times he disappeared entirely from view when he went into a building to ask. Other times, he asked fellow taxi drivers. Finally, I made him call Di Thuan and ask for directions.

We arrived at the hotel at about 11 p.m. The taxi driver asked for 150,000 Vietnamese dong. I gave him a $10 bill. It seemed awfully pricey, especially considering he’d been so ridiculously lost but at that point, I didn’t care. I just wanted to dump my stuff and go to sleep. Which I did.

Review

• Jorge Komiya from A’cross Travel (our travel agency) in Osaka: thumbs down. Mr. Komiya gets a big thumbs-down for giving us the wrong arrival time to Vietnam.

Friday, Dec. 19, 2003 — Venturing into Saigon (Day 2)

The phone rang at 8:30 a.m. Bleary-eyed, I picked it up. The lady at the front desk downstairs told me a woman was waiting for me. I knew it was Di Thuan, who had gone to high school with my mom and with whom my mom still keeps in close touch. To make up for my mussed hair and sleepy eyes, I changed into my cargoes and a blouse.

Downstairs, a bright-eyed Di Thuan further impressed upon me how worried she and my family had been by my absence yesterday. Apparently my parents had frantically called three times in that space of time between my supposed arrival and my actual arrival. To quell any wayward ideas I might have had about how to spend the morning, Di Thuan sternly told me I needed to e-mail home to reconfirm as soon as possible that I was, indeed, not sitting in a Vietnamese jail or even still in Japan. I told her I would and asked her to come back at 9:30 a.m. because my friends were still sleeping.

When we reconvened an hour later, Di Thuan brought us to a tiny eating place across the street for some bun bo hue, basically noodles and beef. I glanced furtively up and down the street. This was my first real exposure to Saigon on this trip and I wondered how it would compare with my memories from nine years ago when I’d last been here. The streets were as dusty as I remembered, and the open-air atmosphere with neighbors lounging in their doorways remained.

My self-consciousness returned. I knew it was obvious I was a foreigner but also Vietnamese. I moved uneasily, aware of the people watching us.

At the eating place, I tried to explain to Di Thuan that Sally and Chanda didn’t eat meat. I only succeeded in confusing her. Luckily, Di Thuan had invited her son’s English teacher along. Apparently the English teacher lived in the next building over to her. The English teacher explained Sally and Chanda’s preferences and Di Thuan ordered two bowls of noodles sans meat for them.

Sally, Chanda and I had vowed to eat as safely as possible while in Vietnam to stave the inevitable onslaught of digestive ailments. This resolution was quickly destroyed by our first meal in Vietnam. I asked for soybean milk thinking it would come out of a can like it did in the United States. But, silly me, in Vietnam everything is fresh! I got soybean milk full of soybeans ... soybeans mixed with TAP water, that germ-filled bane of travelers. I didn’t eat any of the leafy vegetables — I never do with my noodles — that accompanied our meal, but Sally and Chanda did even as they wryly pointed out the dangers of not knowing how well-washed the vegetables were.

Next, Di Thuan introduced me to the neighbors: “Use the phone at this store if you need to call me. The lady who owns the store is my friend.” “If you need anything and I’m not home, go to this family. The daughter speaks English.” (I saw the daughter, who was so slight and petite the first words out of my mouth were: “How old are you?” She was 21. She looked all of 14.)

Then Di Thuan brought us across the street to her apartment. We walked several flights of stairs before getting to her home. There, we met her 16-year-old son Bi, who’d been studying. We chatted for a while. Di Thuan teasingly called her son, “pretty” but then laughed when she realized she meant to say, “handsome.” Bi, appalled, blushed and looked away when we joined in her laughter.

Per Di Thuan’s orders, I used her computer to e-mail home and let my parents know I was okay.

For our first sight-seeing adventure, Di Thuan trundled us into a big taxi to Ben Thanh market. I had warned my friends how overwhelming I’d found Saigon on my last trip and as the taxi honked its way through the throngs, I was reminded once again. The crush of people, bicycles, cyclos, cars and the ubiquitous motorbikes hemmed us in. I flinched as I watched how close they came to the car and how the traffic lanes were more suggestions than clearly delineated divisions of movement.

Ben Thanh, I found out, was a huge indoor market with just about everything you’d need to get by in Saigon except for furniture and motorbikes. Food, fabric, shoes, ready-made clothes, household supplies, household decorations and other bric-a-brac filled the aisles.

I had resolved not to get anything right away — we had a lot more traveling to go, and I would have to carry anything I bought — but as with all my resolutions, that, too, fell by the wayside. The three of us bought fabric to make ao dai, traditional Vietnamese dresses. I picked an intriguing, flowy fabric that looked green from one angle and gold from another.

Bi giggled when Chanda asked whether she should get black pants with her dress rather than pants of a lighter color. Bi said he’d only seen old woman wear black pants. Chanda and Sally also bought some ready-made clothes. Di Thuan made me get some sandals, as I’d only brought the beat-up pair of sneakers I was wearing and Saigon had proved to be warmer than I’d expected.

To my surprise, I found a pair that I liked. The vendor asked for 100,000 dong. Di Thuan demanded a price of 40,000 dong. The bargaining had begun. They tussled back and forth before Di Thuan, unhappy with the price, muttered, “Walk away. Just walk away,” a typically sure-fire way to score a lower price. I ended up getting the sandals for 60,000 VND. At an exchange rate of about 15,000 VND for $1, those shoes cost me a whole $4.

We ate lunch at a food stand inside the market before going to a branch bank and exchanging some of our traveler’s checks for U.S. dollars. Di Thuan knew of a place that offered a better exchange rate for U.S. dollars than the bank’s, so we saved our money for that place instead. I was surprised how careful the ladies at the counter were in authenticating our signatures. In addition to watching us sign the checks, they also matched our signatures with our passports’. In Japan, the clerks hadn’t even told me to sign my traveler’s checks in the first place.

Afterward, the six of us somehow managed to squeeze into a taxi and go to a wholesale market elsewhere. We left Ben Thanh market, which had this important-looking statue of a man on a horse out front. I later discovered the statue was of Tran Nguyen Hai, who holds the prestigious distinction of being the first person in Vietnam to use carrier pigeons.

At the wholesale market, the aisles were so narrow sometimes there was only room enough for one person to squeeze through at time, although this didn’t stop people from shoving their way past. I was shocked by all the TOUCHING that had gone on since I’d arrived. Japanese people are very big about their personal space and rarely touch each other. In Vietnam, I found people putting their hands on my face (usually older women), tugging at my arm (Di Thuan) and shoving me aside so I’d get out of their way (older women again).

Since the wholesale market was so crowded, we didn’t stay long. We returned to Di Thuan’s, where we visited the seamstresses at the ground floor of her apartment building. We gave them the fabric for our ao dai, they measured us and promised they’d be done by tomorrow evening. Di Thuan directed us to go to our hotel down the street and rest and take a nap, which I did, amused by how much of my mom’s role she’d taken over. Sally and Chanda went drawing, which they said attracted a lot of curious looks from the people around them.

Once I’d had my rest, the three of us headed out for a walk around the neighborhood. The Lonely Planet guide told us we were staying, coincidentally, in the backpacker district of Saigon, which explained the multitudes of foreigners everywhere we went. As I have spent the past five months in a place with few foreigners, most of whom I know, it was a bit of shock to see so many foreigners here. I kept muttering to myself and to my friends, “Gaijin! Over there!” I can only imagine what I’ll be like when I go back home …

We ended up running into Di. She told us to meet her back at the hotel. There, she told me to hop onto her motorbike and for Sally and Chanda to climb into a taxi with Bi. We went to a commercial area of Saigon, where she dropped us off at an impressively modern, upscale shopping mall, before leaving to bring Bi to one of his many lessons.

The three of us walked around before settling on a Vietnamese restaurant with relatively exorbitant prices. The fact was made evidence when we walked in and found only foreigners inside. The waiter and waitress who served us I found largely lacking in customer service skills. We sat on the third floor and were the last ones to leave. Even though the restaurant was still open, I heard the waitress come up, spot us, and mutter, “They’re STILL here?” at the waiter in Vietnamese. When we made the mistake of asking the waiter if we could split the bill, I saw the waitress standing off to the side, rolling her eyes in disgust. But the restaurant’s fried bananas were scrumptious.

We took a taxi back to the hotel. After the bad experience we’d had with the taxi driver before, I wondered what this ride would be like. The driver was actually quite kind and earnest. When I asked how much the ride was, he replied, “Whatever you want,” since we’d gotten lost on the way back.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I suspect it had something to do with the six cups of tea I’d drank that day.

Review

• Saokim Pte, authorized money changer in Saigon — Thumbs up. This money-exchange place was just around the corner and had a better exchange rate than the bank. They were very efficient. You handed them a $100 bill and they handed over the wad of Vietnamese money. Just to be sure I counted the bill and both times there were no problems. (69B Nguyen Cu Trinh, P. Nguyen Cu Trinh, Q1, 83-72455)

Saturday, Dec. 20, 2003 — Family friends (Day 3)

Di Thuan met us again for breakfast, this time knowing we wouldn’t be ready until hours after most self-respecting Saigon residents had been up. She came by at 9:30 a.m. and brought us to a pho place for breakfast. I had pho thai. I had been craving pho thai for some time now.

As I slowly slurped up the noodles and thin slices of tender beef that had just been cooked by the hot broth, I came to realize something. The dish didn’t taste as astoundingly good as I’d remembered. My mom could make better. I realized that maybe it hadn’t been Vietnamese food I’d missed. It’d been my mom’s cooking that I missed.

I’d already gotten a good idea of the amount of drama and effort involved in interacting with someone who has a native language and culture than you. This was all amply illustrated in the next few hours.

During breakfast, I approached Di Thuan with the request of looking for a travel agency with which we could arrange a two-day tour of the Mekong Delta to the south. When we told her where we wanted to go — Can Tho, the heart of the Mekong Delta — she gaped at us. Too far, she insisted. I wondered what she thought of us going to Hanoi in the north (and much, much further away), which we had to get to because that’s where our flight back to Osaka would be.

Di Thuan relented, though, and said she’d help us. We tried a travel agency that was right around the corner that advertised trips to the Mekong. Unfortunately, it didn’t have any tours that went where we wanted. They had one that went to Can Tho, but it was part of a four-day tour.

My friends and I weren’t sure what we were going to do. Di Thuan, worried too, brought us to the family that lived across the street with the 21-year-old daughter who could speak English to have the matter better explained to her. Her son’s English teacher was working today and unavailable.

We told them we wanted to go to Can Tho in the south for two days and then to Mui Ne beach northeast of Saigon. Pretty soon, we had the mom, dad and Di Thuan strongly opposed to the idea. The dad wanted us to wait a day for him to hire the services of a professional guide and driver that would bring us all the way to Hanoi. When we mentioned the possibility of getting around by train all of them immediately nixed the idea, saying even they wouldn’t consider using the train. I was seriously puzzled; the guidebook had said although pickpockets were a problem, the trains were a reliable mode of transport.

I grew more frustrated by the minute. I didn’t want to be disrespectful nor unappreciative of their help and concern but it was exasperating finding all of our ideas shut down. Everything was too dangerous, too far, too undoable. Surely getting around Vietnam couldn’t be that hard. But I knew it didn’t help that we didn’t have an itinerary of any sort organized yet. We were playing things by ear.

Finally we looked into the guidebook and found a travel agency that came highly recommended, Sinhbalo Adventures. The 21-year-old daughter called the agency and found the travel agent could speak English. I took over and asked her about the possibility of going to the Mekong tomorrow morning. She said it could be done, but would have to be done as a customized tour because they didn’t have any group tours. The cost was pricey, but we didn’t have any other option since we were so specific in our needs. We told her we’d think about it.

We decided to take the tour. Di Thuan called a taxi for us because our sight-seeing agenda of the day involved going to Cho Lon, the big Chinese-style market. She instructed the taxi driver, who pulled up in the newest car I’d seen yet for a taxi, to take us to the travel agency and then to Cho Lon.

The taxi driver ended up being one of the nicest I would meet in Vietnam. I sat in front and Chanda and Sally, in the back. He chatted with me on the way, not in the typical small talk of other taxi drivers to distract you from the fact they have idea where they’re going, but in way that seemed genuine. He even gently gave me some Vietnamese grammar lessons. Apparently I’d been using a verb incorrectly.

He dropped us off at the travel agency and said he’d wait. At Sinhbalo, we arranged for a private tour, which would bring us back to Saigon. We asked if there was a way to get from Saigon to Mui Ne. The travel agent, who spoke excellent English, told us a bus was available. But she could also arrange for our driver to simply take us from Saigon to Mui Ne. We decided on that option. I had my eye glued to Mui Ne. Once we got there, we’d figure out the rest.

We forked over the money (our biggest single expense of the trip) — that’s what we got for not getting our act together beforehand — and took the taxi to Cho Lon. The driver seemed honestly concerned for us. He told me to only speak Vietnamese so they wouldn’t know I was foreign, and to keep a firm grip on my bag. He offered to pick us up at a designated time, but we declined because we had no idea where we’d be. He gave us his card and with his cell in case we needed a ride later.

Cho Lon, if possible, was even more cramped than the wholesale market from the day before. It was really hot and dirty and crowded. People were forever coming up behind us with shipments of products and we’d have to step aside to let them pass. I got pushed around some more. I couldn’t bring myself to take my camera out and take pictures.

We walked all the way to the back of the market, where it opened to ramshackle homes that looked like they were about to collapse. It was probably the poorest neighborhood we’d seen so far. I think Chanda and Sally may have been a bit shocked by the dilapidation. They had known Vietnam was a third-world country but walking beneath the tattered canvas awning that covered parts of the market and seeing the flies on the exposed meat sitting on blocks for sale may have still come as a surprise.

Eventually we left the market and walked around the neighborhood. For whatever reason, the glare of the light seemed harsher here, the streets redder with dust and the businesses less tourist-friendly. There weren’t many shops that offered things of interest. We wandered around a pagoda and then searched for a place to eat.

We passed up several restaurants empty of any customers before settling on a bustling corner restaurant. The guidebook had told us if a restaurant was empty, there was probably a reason. The taxi driver knew exactly where to take us, a refreshing change.

While the others took a walk, I did some e-mailing at an Internet place down the street from our hotel. There were several urgent e-mails from my family from two days before when I’d arrived to Vietnam late. My sister had even jokingly posted a picture of me on her Xanga, saying, “If you see this girl, tell her to call home right away!” She’d gone so far as to draw a stick figure of me looking very confused, to which she added a caption, “She might look like this.”

My mom had e-mailed me that two of her high school teachers wanted me to come visit them. I had met them nine years ago but didn’t remember much of them beyond the fact that one is tall and quiet and the other is short and talkative. They lived together and had kept in close touch with my mom.

I met up with Di Thuan at her apartment for dinner, some traditional Vietnamese food of catfish, green beans and rice. I hadn’t eaten that particular dish in ages and it tasted great. A little dash of TLC really DOES make all the difference!

Di Thuan already knew I was supposed to visit the teachers. She had to go pick up her son and drop him off at another tutor, but I was going with her so she could drop me off at the teachers’ home afterward. Whereas the motorbike I’d had with her the day before had been quite pleasant, this one was rather scary. There were sudden stops and close calls all while she maneuvered (quite skillfully) only inches away from other motorists. She laughed when I made strangled sounds of alarm in the back of my throat.

We picked up Bi from one tutor and then the three of us headed to his next tutor. Three people on a motorbike isn’t so an unusual a sight. I’d seen entire families with babies whizzing down the street on a single motorbike. Di Thuan stopped at a roadside stand with some sweets. I got some sort of warm sweet bean paste. She kept pressing her son to practice his English with me. He’d blush and look away. Poor kid. I’d be just as disinclined to talk, too.

The high school teachers, on the other hand, were very happy to talk. I was nervous meeting them but ended up having such a lovely time. They did the face-touching thing, where they raised a hand to my face as if to study it. They said I had the look of my mom in me but wouldn’t have recognized me from the last time we’d met. Probably because I’d been wearing glasses and braces back then.

After having to wade through cultural and language differences, it was nice to be able to relax in their company. The shorter teacher’s English was excellent, which made it easier for me to throw in English words when I didn’t know how to say it in Vietnamese.

They were so curious about my life, what’d I’d done and what I wanted to do. Their wholehearted support of my trip and vocation was endearing and uplifting. They weren’t worried about what I planned to do in Vietnam and I found comfort and relief in that. They were happy I’d be getting to see so many things. In that short conversation, I even learned more about my family and my roots.

Regretfully, I had to go soon after. We were getting an early start the next morning to the Mekong. The teachers said they would have liked to have spent more time with me, gone to eat out, but they understood our schedule. I appreciated that.

I went back to the hotel and slept soundly. I’d made sure to limit my tea consumption that day.

Review

• SinhBalo Adventures in Saigon — Thumbs up. Excellent but very expensive service. Also highly recommended by Lonely Planet. For a private two-day Mekong Delta tour for three people, as well as a private driver from Saigon to Mui Ne, we paid $115 each including lodging and three meals. But having a private driver and guide meant lodging and transportation were arranged ahead of time, a very organized tour and we never had to wait around for others. (283/20 Pham Ngu Lao Street D1, 84-8-836-7682, www.sinhbalo.com, sinhbalo@hcm.vnn.vn.

• Hotel Phuoc Loc in Saigon — Thumbs up. This was the family-run hotel where we stayed while in Saigon. The staff was accommodating but left us to our own. The rooms were spare but basically at that we were just looking for a bed and a bathroom. And the price was more than reasonable: $12 total for three people per night. (19B Cao Ba Nha St., Nguyen Cu Trinh Ward, District 1, 92-02778)

• Mr. A. Thanh with S. Taxi in Saigon — Thumbs up. Mr. Thanh was such a friendly, helpful taxi driver. He honestly seemed concerned with our welfare when he dropped us off at the very busy, pickpocket-prone Chinese Market. He also seemed like an honest man who didn’t rip us off with the fare. His car number is S900. (325 Ho Van Hue- Phuong 2 – Quan Tan Binh, 8457583, s-taxi@hcm.vnn.vn)

Sunday, Dec. 21, 2003 — Down in the delta (Day 4)

I’m glad I brought along my handy-dandy Radio Shack electronic organizer, because it contains both a calculator and alarm clock that proved handy.

We woke at 6:30 a.m. and went in search of Di Thuan an hour later to say thank you and good-bye before we left. She was no where to be found at her apartment. A neighbor told us Di Thuan was yelling for us down on the street below. We convened down there and went to the hotel, where we took pictures together. We paid for the hotel, which was family-run. We’d had a spacious room with two big beds, hot water and air conditioning for $12 total a night. Sweeeeet.

The driver and guide from Sinhbalo Adventures arrived. While Di Thuan was preoccupied speaking with them — she was no doubt telling them to take good care of us — Chanda and I ambushed Bi. I had tried to payback Di Thuan the night before for all the taxis she’d paid for us. She’s refused. I had meant to try again this morning but when we found Bi by himself, it was too good an opportunity.

Chanda and I gave Bi the money. I muttered something like, “My mom will be really mad at me if I don’t pay back your mom!” and Chanda added something equally inane: “Yeah, and I’m scared of her mom!”

Bi looked like the cornered prey he was. First, he looked dazed. Then, slowly, as he realized what he’d done and the trouble he probably would be in for accepting the money, he looked stricken. We felt guilty, but in my mind, my mom’s anger overrode his mom’s anger.

We said our goodbyes and began driving away in the van. As it pulled away, all three of us turned around and watched Bi pull the money out of his pocket and give it to his mom. Then his mom looked at our van. We half-expected her to chase us down, waving the money in her hand, but she didn’t. We were too far away.

The guide introduced himself and the driver. He chatted with us on and off but it was hard to understand his English sometimes. Just like in Japan, you learn to question some things until you’re clear on what’s being said and you learn to let other things pass to save yourself the trouble.

I was eager to go on the tour because I’d never been to the Mekong Delta before and because I’d get to see a lot along the way from the vantage of our car. If anything, the roads were dustier and in worse repair. Our driver was quite competent, which basically meant he kept us alive. This involved lots of swerving and honking. In America, we honk when we’re angry. In Japan, people honk to say, “Thanks,” most times. In Vietnam, people honk to warn you that they’re nearby and to watch out. This means listening to a pretty much constant barrage of, “Honk, HONK, honk, HONK HONK HONK, etc.” Then there’s always the sanity-fraying, “Honk honk HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNK.”

We stopped at a restaurant along the way for a few minutes’ pit-stop. The restaurant included a sizable garden with caged animals, some snakes and monkeys. I spotted one cage with two adult monkeys and a tiny monkey in the corner. Intrigued, I got closer, hoping to take a picture of the baby monkey. Yes, you probably know where this is going.

I held the camera up and the next thing I knew, something sharp and forceful scraped across the side of my head, ripping off my sunglasses and flinging them to the ground. I put the camera down and found myself face-to-face with a pair of very scary-looking primates. I stumbled away rapidly, my heart beating like a drum. I rubbed the side of my face, where the monkey’s fingers had brushed.

I am SO gonna get rabies, I thought to myself.

Having been mauled by a monkey, I stayed a considerable distance away. Chanda and Sally returned from the restroom and to my horror, I discovered the baby monkey was somehow able to get in and out of its cage with ease. To my dismay, the two of them then proceeded to let the monkey climb all over them! I half-expected it to sink its ferocious baby teeth into them at any point, or for its parents to break free of their cages and attack us for messing with their deceptively cute progeny.

We arrived in the town of Cai Be for our boat tour. We got a whole open-air tour boat to ourselves. In addition to showing us around the town by boat, our guide brought us to see rice paper, rice cakes and coconut candy were made. I wondered if these had been legitimate operations before the tour companies became popular or if these places were simply manufactured for tourists to see.

Lunch took place at a restaurant on an island. Dessert was two plates of fruits I hadn’t eaten in a long time, especially fresh. Sally and Chanda hadn’t eaten some of the fruits ever before.

After eating, we got to go in a shallow-bottom boat that had to be rowed. Then we returned to the boat and had some coconut juice. I’m not too keen on coconut in the first place. The juice was okay.

We finally returned to shore, where the driver met us with the van. We took a ferry across the river and continued on to Can Tho, where we planned to spend the night. At the hotel, our room had three beds and a balcony. It was probably one of the best hotels we stayed at simply because we each got our own beds and the hot water worked. I was particularly happy to have a shower in which I could stand up.

The three of us indulged in some downtime. I wrote in my journal while Sally and Chanda drew from the balcony. For dinner, we went walking along the waterfront. Sally was traumatized to see people chopping off the whiskers on still-alive catfish at the market.

Considering the cost of the tour, we had considered going to a cheap streetside restaurant for a dinner but inevitably we didn’t want to venture that far out of our comfort zone. We went to the restaurant recommended by our guide. It was chock-full of foreigners, no doubt attracted their by their guides, too.

I wasn’t particularly hungry and so ordered French fries. For dessert, I got banana flambé. I didn’t realize “flambé” didn’t mean “fried.” It means “doused in alcohol and set on fire.” I gingerly tried a bite. The taste of rice wine made me gag, so I mournfully handed my dessert over to Chanda. I could have ordered more, but the alcohol had throttled away my appetite.

Chanda wanted to continue walking around the city some more. I thought wistfully of my mosquito spray back at the hotel. I’d neglected to spray it on before leaving for our walk and consequently, I’d been bitten several times. I could practically feel the malaria setting in.

Sally and I decided to call it a day and return to the hotel. We found our guide and flirting with the hotel staff upon our arrival. Chanda returned sometime after that saying she’d gotten lost and ended up in a tightly packed residential area. She’d showed a woman the hotel’s business card, but the women had offered no help. Chanda started to get nervous because she had no idea where she was, but she ended spotting a familiar road and finding her way back.

Review

• Asia Hotel in Can Tho — Thumbs up. Clean and spacious room with a balcony. Breakfast included. Near the riverfront. (91 Chau Van Liem, 84-71-812-800, asiahotel@hcm.vnn.vn)

Monday, Dec. 22, 2003 — In the Mekong, Day 5

We woke at 6 a.m. in order to be able to get downstairs by 7 a.m. for breakfast. I don’t know why it felt easier to wake up earlier than I usually do — I typically wake up at 6:30 a.m. for school — but I suspect it had to do with the fact it I looked forward to the day not to mention I was also in the role of “the responsible one.” I would always wake up first and then Chanda and Sally.

Chanda and I headed downstairs first to get breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Sally didn’t feel well and sequestered herself in the bathroom. The stomach ailments had begun.

For breakfast, I ordered bread, butter and jam, and pineapple juice. A popular breakfast here in Vietnam is a baguette and Laughing Cow cheese. Yummm … I get hungry just thinking about it. It’s such a simple breakfast but it’s so delicious. I tried the strawberry jam but it was super-sweet, so I just ate my French bread with the cheese. Sally came down 20 minutes later not looking well.

We loaded into the van with the guide and our driver drove us to a nearby stopping point. We got out and walked to a river dock where a boat picked us up. First we visited a floating market, the equivalent of a grocery store on the water. We slowly drifted through a veritable forest of ships and boats and we watched as money and food and merchandise of all kinds exchanged hands.

Our guide took us through a narrow river inlet where we watched as people ventured out of their homes to wash their dishes and clothes in the river. I tried imagining what it would be like living out here and wondered about plumbing and electrical needs. It was just too inaka (Japanese for “way out in the middle of no where”) for me. And it was warm. Comfortably warm, but then again, it was the dead of winter. I dreaded the thought of how balmy it must get here in the summer.

Afterward we glided through a second floating market. The tour took about an hour in a half and included our guide handing us a platter of more fresh fruit. When we reached the dock, we were taken to a restaurant by means of a motorbike pulling a small carriage. At the restaurant, they gave us — surprise, surprise — more fresh fruit. Our guide, Thanh, pointed out the string music that was being performed live at the restaurant. The music of the Mekong is very sad, he said, because it was composed by women whose husbands were far away.

We began the drive back to Saigon. Sally slept most of the way. Our guide kept looking at her worriedly. He said if she didn’t get better, he would get medicine for her soon. At about 2 p.m. we stopped at the restaurant of the attacking monkeys. We ate lunch at a table with a view of the river.

Once we returned to our van, I sat in the middle seat for the first time. Usually I’d sat on the side to avoid the sun on the other side. I discovered that when you sit in the middle seat you get a clear view of the numerous near-misses that occur on the road. It was slightly stomach-turning.

We arrived in Saigon ahead of schedule. The driver returned to where Di Thuan lived because the seamstresses from whom we’d ordered our ao dai worked in a space at the bottom of her apartment building. We half-expected to find our dresses in a plastic bag stuffed with the money we’d slipped Di Thuan by way of her son, since she’d been so adamant on not accepting it.

Instead we found Di Thuan, the dear maternal person that she is, had left us a bag of tiny oranges to tide us over until we got a real meal. We had a few minutes and so each of us tried on our dresses. The seamstresses pulled a curtain closed in the corner of the room for me and Chanda to change. While we were changing I began helping Chanda with the innumerable buttons ao dai have. That’s when one of the seamstresses pulled aside the curtain to see how we were doing. She began helping Chanda. It felt too weird to be standing there without my pants with a stranger in a corner open in full view of the street, so I abruptly stopped and said, “I’m gonna put my pants on.” Chanda started to laugh.

All three of us pulled on our ao dai. I heard one of the seamstresses say mine looked the best before she got a look at Sally’s red and white dress and Chanda’s sky-blue and white dress. Then the seamstress amended her statement to say all three looked good.

Di Thuan stuck her head in and said bye to us. We bundled into our van, sans guide, at about 4:30 p.m. I watched the homes and churches (so many churches!) and their many Christmas lights fly by. Our driver took it easy on the horn, thank goodness, but it was still nerve wracking to see how close we came to other motorists and people. People also like to drive in the wrong lane for extended periods of time if it gets them where they wanna go faster.

We passed through Phan Thiet and finally got to Mui Ne and8 p.m. It was dark and I didn’t any bearings of where I was and where the beach was. I stressed about finding a reasonably priced hotel. The driver brought us to a hotel listed in Lonely Planet’s budget hotel list. The place had bungalows and Internet access but alas, was full. I fretted that all the others would be, too.

The driver tried another place down the road called Ngoc Suong. I was frantic to find a place so as not to keep the driver — he’d been driving since 10:30 a.m. I jumped out of the van and asked the hotel staff who greeted us how much as room was. They said they’d charge $30 a night, down from $33. Both Chanda and Sally seemed disinclined to stay since our Saigon hotel had been only $12 a night. Chanda and I checked out the room. It was tiny. Barely enough room for three single beds and the accompanying furniture: a desk, mini-bar and armoire.

Not wanting to have to check out other hotels, I bulled both Sally and Chanda into getting the room anyway. Then I felt bad about it. But eventually they both said they were happy with the room so that eased my guilt.

We were told the beach was right behind the hotel. I wondered how pretty the beach would be but couldn’t see much beyond the immediate waves because it was dark. Exhausted, the three of us went to bed without any dinner. I heard the pounding of the surf throughout the night but, unused to the sound, I kept thinking in my sleep that it was raining.

Review

• Nha May Loan in Saigon — Thumbs up. These were the ladies who made our ao dai. The tailoring cost about $12. They made them quickly and, when we arrived to pick them up, made alternations lightning-fast. (9 Cao Ba Nha – Quan 1, 92-00582)

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003 — Lounging on Mui Ne beach, Day 6

I woke at 8 a.m. and immediately went outside to check out our digs. I found the hotel to be quiet and lovely. The beach, though not as breath-taking as Nha Trang’s crystal clear waters, was still quite nice. Better yet, the sand and surf were practically outside our room, just a stroll away.

My stomach was feeling the worse for wear. I ordered banana pancakes for breakfast, which I ate on the wooden porch attached to our room. The pancakes, disappointingly, were kind of gross.

I spent the morning on the beach. The waves were quite strong and shoved me this way and that but it was such an incredible feeling, being able to cavort in the water in a swimsuit when less than a week before I’d been wearing four layers’ worth of clothes!

Eventually some Vietnam women offering “tying,” a form of hair removal, and massages came around. I declined their services but chatted with them. The older women flat out told me in Vietnamese that Vietnamese people are prettier than Japanese people in front of Chanda while she jovially swatted Chanda on the leg.

After getting my fill of the water, I read for a while on the beach. That, too, proved immensely pleasant. How long had it been since I’d been outside with the sun and warmth on my face? Nevertheless, I went in at 11 a.m. to avoid any possibility of getting sunburned.

Chanda and Sally made fun of me for many things on the trip but one of them was for my zealous use of sunblock and my wariness when it came to sun exposure. I’d put on two layers of sunblock before I’d go to the beach and even then, I’d reply an hour or two layer. “Do I look sunburned to you?” I’d anxiously ask them if I’d been in the sun for any measure of time, to which I’d get the withering reply, “I don’t think you can burn.”

I walked along the beach with Chanda for a little. We met Matt, a Canadian wind-surfing instructor who worked at the outdoor store next door. It was so weird to find all these hotels and cafes and places around us that were mentioned by name in the Lonely Planet. It’s so accurate!

We made our way to the Hanh Café across the street for lunch. I wasn’t hungry — my stomach was, as the Brits say, still dodgy. I ate ice cream instead. I ate a lot of ice cream on this trip simply because I could and because it was warm enough to do so.

The Hanh Café also doubles as a travel agency. We talked to the travel agent and discovered there was an open tour bus available from Dalat to Hanoi. It went through all the cities we’d intended on visiting on our trip. Chanda and Sally balked, though, at the price and driving time involved. We decided to wait until tomorrow to book the bus tickets.

While at the café, we asked for a motorbike tour to Mui Ne’s famous sand dunes. The drivers took us to the town itself — our hotel was situated just outside the town on a lone 22-km street that ran along the beach and was populated predominantly with hotels and restaurants — first to see its harbor, littered with a myriad of fishing boats. We moved on to the Fairy Spring, which slithers through unusual sand and rock formations. I didn’t see the so-called spring itself, but I did see formations that brought to mind Bryce Canyon in Utah.

Last, we went to the sand dunes. A flock of children ran to greet us as we got off the motorbikes. They were peddling these plastic sheets you could use to slide down the sand dunes, which evoked images of a mini-Sahara in Vietnam. It gave me a headache to listen to these kids bicker with one another as they fought to get a sale but I was amazed at their English. It was sad to see them have to pander to tourists, though.

Once my motorbike driver learned I spoke Vietnamese, he started chatting with me. That all fine and good until he started pressuring me to take another motorbike tour the next day. I told him we didn’t know what we wanted to do yet but he kept pressing the point, even saying they’d wait for us the next morning. It was a frustrating and stressful situation to be in because I couldn’t understand everything he was saying, nor could I find the words to fully express myself. When our tour came to an end, I told the drivers they didn’t have to wait for us the next morning.

We returned to our hotel room. I abruptly realized I felt really ill. Not enough to throw up, but my head was throbbing and I was terribly cold. Chanda didn’t feel so well, either. Both of us crawled into bed at 7 p.m. and intermittently tossed, turned and slept until 8 a.m. At one point in the night while both of us were awake, we tried to pinpoint what meal exactly been our downfall. We also contemplated our travel plans after Mui Ne. Sally was adamant about not traveling on Christmas day but I was impatient to move on because we had so many other places on our itinerary.

Sally stayed out for several hours because by then, she had gotten over the worst of her digestive ailments. She got dinner and chatted at an Internet café with her boyfriend for two hours.

Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2004 — Christmas Eve: Sick, Day 7

When I woke up today, I didn’t feel Christmassy at all. I read a bit on the porch but still felt week and so returned to my bed soon after. I was going to spend Christmas in bed.

I managed to drag myself out mid-morning to go with Chanda and Sally to arrange two more nights at the hotel as well as to buy bus tickets on to Hanoi.

We tried to bargain down the price of the hotel room further but they wouldn’t budge. We relented since really, that only meant $10 a night for each of us and our hotel was in a convenient spot near cheap restaurants, Internet cafes and the travel agency.

Sally wasn’t sure about the bus schedule but entrusted Chanda and me to figure it out. Chanda said that she wished the agent had told us the day before that another bus would be needed to get from Mui Ne to Dalat. I said the agent probably had misunderstood. Chanda said she felt like every where we went, we were getting ripped off. I said $30 for a bus ticket that would take us across two-thirds of the country wasn’t so bad a price.

I returned to the hotel to sleep some more. Sally and Chanda went walking. When they returned, Chanda told me she’d gotten her face shaved (you heard right) and eyebrows plucked at a beauty salon down the street. Both of them had also gotten massages.

I roused myself at 2:30 p.m. and found I felt moderately better. While Sally and Chanda were beautifying their bodies, I went to the Internet café across the way and e-mailed home for an hour. In addition to not feeling well, I had a particularly painful case of homesickness. The Internet connection was dial-up, which, after months of broadband service, felt antiquated and excruciatingly slow. I came home and added up how much money I’d spent thus far: nearly $300.

Chanda dropped by the hotel room and invited me to visit a beach resort down the street that had English language books and magazines. I walked with her and we chatted briefly with Matt on our way there. At the beach resort (and I use that term lightly), I found a copy of John Grisham’s The Brethren, which I tried to read for a while (and determine whether I’d read it before) while lounging on some beach chairs.

When it started to get cool, I returned to the hotel and cleaned up for dinner. I felt a little tired already by then. We went to eat at a different café. I got a hamburger on a crusty bun. I wanted to order French fries but thought twice about it and decide a burger was all I’d be able to handle. It was the first substantial amount of solid food I’d eaten in 36 hours. I didn’t finish my burger.

At dinner, Sally was sleepy and Chanda could tell I was wilting, too. She refused to let us give in to such weakness. We discussed our schedule for the upcoming days. It gave me a headache. Both Sally and Chanda refused to travel on New Year’s Day. Finally we came to a compromise of sorts — we would stay in Mui Ne until after Christmas Day — and then Chanda made us share our favorite Christmas memories. I spoke of a Christmas ski trip my family made some years back in which our van got mired in the snow on Christmas day and we were rescued by passersby who got out of their cars to help push and pull us out of the embankment.

Finally Chanda “let” me return to the hotel room to get some more sleep before the Christmas party later that night to which our hotel had invited us. Sally and Chanda went to go get some drinks. They returned to get me at 11:30 p.m. The hotel had put together a little shindig in their dining alcove complete with food, alcohol and very loud music.

I spent Christmas Eve with the hotel staff, a French man and a couple from England and Finland. I was miserable. What was doing here on this beach? I needed to be home with my family! I missed the clamor of my cousins and my mom’s delicious food. I’d already given up on Vietnamese food cheering me up; I’d realized with time that it was really simply my mom’s food I missed so I was just eating a lot of western-style food instead. I missed listen to my sisters poke fun at me and I missed my bed and I missed my parents. What was I DOING here?!

The male staff kept trying to talk with me and I was in no mood to chat. I had neither the inclination nor the energy to expend on bilingual communication. The hotel manager, who was just a year older than me, was trying to tell me about his career aspirations but I didn’t understand the words he was using. He tried to switch to English but I STILL didn’t understand. It was maddening. Sally and Chanda danced and the hotel staff giggled and danced with them. One of the staffers tried to get me to drink but I just passed on my cup to Sally. Finally he relented, saying knowingly to Sally and Chanda, “She’s Vietnamese,” as in, “Vietnamese women don’t drink.”

Finally, at 1 a.m. I retired to back to bed. I couldn’t sleep until 2 a.m., when the pulsing dance music finally stopped. I hoped things would be better the next day.

Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2003 — Christmas Day: Still on the beach, Day 8

I rose at 7:30 a.m. feeling better. I actually wanted to get out of bed this morning whereas the day before I’d been loathe to leave my horizontal position. I went out to the beach in the morning, read a little, swam a little. I could get used to this, I thought.

We went to the restaurant next door for lunch. The waiter was probably one of the least helpful waiters we had on the entire trip. His expression was all scrunched up as though he loathed us, and his job. I ordered a hot dog and got a peculiar-tasting sausage in French bread. The music playing at the open-air restaurant was reminiscent Cowboy Bebop (what? what you don’t KNOW that anime?!): jazzy, eccentric and easy-going.

Sally and Chanda took me to the beauty salon down the street for a haircut — my first in five months. Actually it was a trim. It cost all of $2. Chanda got a facial. I went to the Internet café for some more e-mail time. before returning to the hotel, showering and paying the bill. The hotel staff jokingly gave me the receipt, saying I should keep it as a souvenir. Yeah, a souvenir of one of our most expensive charges on the entire trip.

Dinner took place at the Moon Café down the street. We returned to the hotel for a last night, packed and went to bed. That was my Christmas Day.

Review

Ngoc Suong Hotel Marina in Mui Ne — Thumbs up. The rooms are tiny — they’re just meant for two people, not three — and the price a little steep ($30-$33 a night), but it is, after all, beachside hotel. The staff are very accommodating and friendly. The hotel itself seems well-maintained and relatively new. (94 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, 062-847-515, ngocsuong@hcm.fpt.vn)

Friday, Dec. 26, 2003 — Onward to Dalat, Day 9

The bus was supposed to pick us up at our hotel at 7 a.m. Chanda and I ate a quick breakfast of French bread, Laughing Cow cheese, yogurt, orange juice and a little fruit. At 7:35 a.m. the bus finally rolled around. It didn’t even have the Hanh Café’s logo on it; it had the logo of a different café. It was our introduction to the hazy, crazy, shady thing that is the tourism industry in Vietnam.

As we rumbled along on the bus, which was populated solely with foreigners, I thought: I won’t be able to handle this if ALL the buses are like this. It was cramped and hot, without air conditioning, and you felt every — and there were many — bump in the road. The driver used his horn constantly. CONSTANTLY. I sat next to a German girl who had been in Vietnam for four weeks. She told me she didn’t know if she and her friends would make it to Hanoi “because it was so far away.” I struggled remember the name of Stuttgart, the lone German city I remember driving through during my family’s vacation to Europe two summers ago. She looked at me dubiously … Suuuure you went through Germany …

To my right sat a big English guy who had been to India and had been traveling for several months. He fell asleep and kept bumping into me. I fell asleep and kept bumping into the German girl.

We finally got into Dalat at about 1:30 p.m. The scenery had changed vastly by then. We had gone from the palm-shaded sandiness of the beach to gently rolling mountains topped by evergreens. The air was noticeably cooler and I pulled my sweatshirt on. It was no longer sweltering in the bus.

The bus pulled into a hotel driveway. It was the first time we were exposed to how the tour buses work: Rather than drop you off in the middle of town or near a major area of interest to tourists, they bring you to a hotel. Presumably, they get a cut if some of the passengers decide to stay at the hotel. Sally was peeved we’d been taken to a hotel but we ended up taking a room anyway, not knowing how many other hotels were nearby nor whether the city center was within walking distance.

The top floor of the hotel was a restaurant. The waitress seemed to eager to please and to get to know us better. I think she acted as the cook, too. When we entered the restaurant, aside from one foreigner who was chatting with her, we were the only ones there. The restaurant had a nice view of Dalat. When we ordered our food, the waitress went into the kitchen and we saw her making our dishes before bringing them out. She asked our names and our room number when we left, which I thought was unusual.

We wanted a quick motorbike tour of the city since we’d be leaving the next morning. Specifically, we wanted a tour of the city the fabled “Easy Riders” of Lonely Planet glory. We got these three other guys instead. “What did you expect? Big man on big Harley?” asked Lee, who seemed to be the giggly leader of the group. It was too bizarre. He was accompanied by a serious young man who’d majored in literature and another who favored telling slightly lecherous stories. They brought us to see a waterfall, pagoda, cable car ride and a “Crazy House.”

After the whirlwind tour, they dropped us off at the market. We walked around. I got chocolate milk and “chocolate cake” (really, plain cake with chocolate syrup) at a restaurant nearby. Sally and Chanda got soybean milk at this street stand. While we were sitting at the stand’s tables, a creepy old woman walked up to us and slowly held a hand out, begging for money. We ignored her — by now, we were inured to beggars and vendors — but she just stood there, staring at us, her boney hand waiting. Finally she left.

The three of us walked back to the hotel. On the way I spotted a hat shop with a baseball cap that read, “Houston,” in big, white embroidered letters. I don’t know what possessed me — maybe it was missing home, maybe it was my fear of unexpected, sunblock-less exposure to the sun — but I HAD to have that hat. The vendor told me is was 30,000 dong. I didn’t even bargain, just whipped the money out.

At the hotel, Chanda left to go in search of more gifts for her voluminous circle of family and friends. I took a shower and then Sally did but suddenly there was no hot water left anymore. Furious, she marched out of the room downstairs wearing nothing but a towel to demand that they fix it immediately. I could only imagine what the reaction was downstairs at the front desk. The helpful waitress accompanied Sally back up and flipped the switch (which I hadn’t touched) for the hot water.

I went to sleep at 9:30 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 27, 2003 — A stopover in Nha Trang, Day 10

That morning, we caught a taxi to our bus stop. To our relief, this bus was much better than the bus we’d taken to get to Dalat. Although it was still not charter-bus quality (even now, I wonder if there is such a thing in Vietnam) it was still marked improvement in atmosphere and capacity.

Halfway through, the bus stopped at a restaurant in the middle of no where for lunch. The weather was overcast, the first time we’d had a cloudy morning. I checked out the restrooms there. Squatting toilets. At least the ones in Japan are attached to a plumbing system. This was basically a hole in the ground.

We arrived to light rain in Nha Trang at about 1 p.m. It was the first time since coming to Japan that we’d gotten rainy weather. The three of us praised each other for wisely having decided ahead of time not to dawdle in Nha Trang, a beach town, because December is its rainy season. We did, however have a couple of hours to kill before catching an overnight bus to Hoi An. Sally and Chanda went to the beach to draw. I headed to an Internet café. I met them an hour later. Sally complained she’d gotten little drawing done because they’d been interrupted by a steady parade of locals curious about them and what they were doing.

There was an open air restaurant nearby, and we headed there to get a snack and drinks before the long bus ride. Three women peddling handmade bracelets, anklets and necklaces got 70,000 dong out of me. I was impressed with their business savvy alone, let along their product, how first a pair targeted us and, when they were satisfied we’d bought enough, the third came along promising an even bigger discount.

Before returning to the bus, we bought some snacks to tide us over. Sally and Chanda went into a bag store, where Sally bought a beautiful crimson fabric bag with wooden handles. I bought some Choco Pies (just like I had when I’d first arrived in Tokyo; good ol’ Choco Pies) and Laughing Cow cheese.

We boarded the bus, which was alarmingly dingy and smelly. There, we met Dan, an English teacher based in Nagoya, Japan. He recognized us for the JETs we were. Dan told us stories about being hit on by gay men and being threatened by double-crossing motorbike drivers.

It was difficult falling asleep on the bus, although we were lucky enough to have gotten two seats each to ourselves. At the half-way point, the bus suddenly stopped in Qui Nhon. An American man climbed aboard to explain it was a lunch stop. He encouraged us to at least check out some turtles. It was all very disorienting. In the middle of no where, there was an American guy working for a Vietnamese travel agency?

Groggily I got up and followed Chanda outside. We spent the break talking with Brad, the American. Brad hailed from Colorado and was suffering from severe culture shock. He was starving for the English language. It turned out he’d only been working in Qui Nhon for 10 days. Nor was he working for the travel agency; he was working as an English teacher through the café where we had stopped, which was owned by a New Zealander named Barbara. I got the feeling Barbara was the only native-English speaker in the area.

Brad had come to Qui Nhon because apparently his dad had come through there in the Vietnam War or something like that. He’d decided to stay because he’d “fallen in love with the people.” This was a bit hard to believe considering in the same breath, he said he hated the culture. But he was talking Vietnamese lessons and had already learned the different accent marks, although his accent was terrible. While he was chatting with us, he greeted some Vietnamese men playing pool in the room behind us. They laughed uproariously at him.

It was funny listening to Brad speak about being the only white man in the area, how people would stare and follow him and want to know what he ate for lunch. There are no secrets when you’re the only foreigner in the area, especially when you look so different. Sally had definitely been a similar ordeal in Japan. But at least we’d had an extensive support group at our disposal as well as a lot of information thrown our way before we’d even stepped foot in Japan. Brad had none of that, and seemed to be a bit ravenous for English-language company, even if he did most of the talking.

When it was time to leave, we bid Brad good luck. I wonder if he’s still in Qui Nhon.

Review

• Barbara’s in Qui Nhon — Thumbs up. Barbara is a friendly New Zealander who runs a café and tour agency. She has scrumptious muffins that are small in size but a welcome surprise for someone who hasn’t seen proper muffins in quite some time. (492 An Duong Vuong, 056-846992, nzbarb@yahoo.com)

Sunday, Dec. 28, 2003 — Opening our wallets in Hoi An, Day 11

The bus pulled into a Hoi An hotel at 5:30 a.m. A hotel employee boarded the bus and plugged his place of employment Sally, who wanted to stay at a “nice” hotel because of the bus trip, was seriously incensed and in a really bad mood that the bus company had played this trick on us again. But we had no other options: It was barely dawn, and we had no idea where we were in relation to places we wanted to go in the city once we were better rested.

So we took a room at the hotel, which turned out to be not so bad anyway, and fell asleep again. We woke at 9 a.m. and an hour later, headed out in search of Hoi An’s “Old Town,” a section preserved historic buildings with Chinese and Japanese influences. The city was the first place in south Vietnam where the Chinese settled. These Japanese also used Hoi An for trade, although they stopped coming in 1637 when Japan segregated itself from the outside world.

Before we took even a few steps, Sally and Chanda pulled into the first seamstress shop next to the hotel. They ordered tops made, and the seamstress promised to have them ready by the evening. Hio An is known for its shops that provide tailor-made clothing.

At the “Old Town,” I found the buildings lovely but, like all of Vietnam, quite dilapidated. But the street was converted into this wonderfully quaint row of local businesses: art galleries, souvenir shops, restaurants and most of all, tailors.

The shops immediately sucked us in. I Chanda bought $45 in silver jewelry. The shop’s owners saw my Houston hat and, after some chatting, I discerned that their parents lived in Clear Lake. The husband drove Chanda on his motorbike to a hotel nearby to process her credit card. Before she was driven away, we exchanged looks that said, “Well, if Chanda doesn’t come back, Vivi will know that last people she was with.”

Sally bought four pairs of shoes — three flip flops and a pair of clogs — made to order. She picked the fabric. The flip flops were $2 each. I didn’t mean to buy anything but ended up getting a set of four painted scenes of Vietnam for $14. I spotted a mannequin sporting a dress with colors and a cut that I liked. I went in a bargained the price down to $20 from $25 with Chanda’s help (“C’mon, I saw a better price at the other store…”) I picked a gold and red fabric for the top and white pants. As if I’m EVER going to have an opportunity to wear something like that.

We walked further down and came across a leather shoe shop. Chanda ordered red boots. While they were taking her order, we listened to a couple yell at the store staff for quoting different prices.

Sally saw a show with wooden souvenirs. She fled after paying what must have been a criminally low price for a box since the vendor was so cross.

We ran into Dan, who tagged along. Sally went into a store and ordered a strappy top and pinstripe pants. We went into a restaurant across the street to order drinks. After that, the market beckoned. Chanda bought some Communist T-shirts and Sally, some snake wine with a preserved snake inside.

Further down the street, Sally bought some ready-made sandals. We stumbled upon a tailor shop with some really cool clothes. Even the seamstress herself, with her clothes and hair cut, looked cool. I fell in love with one of the outfits and ordered one for myself. Chanda liked the style of one of the outfits and so ordered a red suit.

Brimming with our many orders, we returned to the hotel trying to mentally tally the price tag and the appointments we’d made for later that night. On the way back, Sally and Chanda picked up their tops and Sally ordered another set of pants made from the same seamstress.

Our night went like this:

• 7:30 p.m. — I picked up my red-gold mandarin-style dress but found the pants too long. They said they’d fix it and to come back later. Sally went to pick up her shoes but finds one pair isn’t ready.

• 8 p.m. — Sally got her pinstripe pants and blue top.

• 8:30 p.m. — I returned for my re-hemmed pants. Sally returned for her last pair of shoes

• 9 p.m. — Chanda’s jewelry, which she’d had shortened and adjusted, was ready.

• 10 p.m. — I collected my red-and-black outfit but Chanda’s red suit wasn’t ready. The seamstress said she’d drop it off the next day at 6:30 a.m. in time for us to catch our morning bus to Hue.

Because Sally didn’t need to go to the last appointment, she caught a motorbike home. She could have walked home from the Old Town, but, well, we didn’t want to risk it, given her sense of direction. I was worried that the motorbike driver might not know where the hotel was located and end up dropping her off at someone completely different. Sally would be completely traumatized if that happened. But all went well; once Chanda and I were done getting our goodies, we walked back to the hotel and found Sally there.

Review

• Uyên Design in Hoi An — Thumbs up. This seamstress shop sells what I thought were pretty hip, pretty clothes. They had a quick turnaround, and got my clothes out by that night. (09 Tran Phu Street, 0510-862165, cuadaihotel@dng.vnn.vn)

• My My Cloth Shop in Hoi An — Thumbs down. This seamstress shop made me a mandarin-style dress. It turned out to be a little too small on top, although I realized this after the fact. Also, the ladies who made the dress seemed very disinterested in their task and only seemed to look at me when they needed my money. (164 Tran Phu Street, 0510-863816)

Monday, Dec. 29, 2003 — Heading to Hue, Day 12

As promised, both Chanda’s red boots and red suit arrived on schedule the next morning. While we waited for the bus to come get us at 8 a.m., Chanda and I went to a food stand to get breakfast — a baguette and Laughing Cow cheese for a mere 4,000 dong. I love this breakfast.

We stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Sally bought some Tiger Balm, some sort of cure-all, from a table-to-table vendor and Chanda traded 150 yen for what the lady told us was an “old Vietnamese coin.” I have my doubts as to its authenticity but we all agreed the old lady was quite slick about the whole deal.

The bus arrived in Hue at about 2 p.m. It stopped at the Hanh Café to let two travel agency people climb aboard. By then the three of us had come to accept the bus’ practice of bringing us directly to a hotel. But others weren’t so complacent. When the bus started to roll away from the café to bring us to a hotel, several passengers protested, saying they wanted to get off right there. They shouted loudly at the driver to stop. The travel agency people and increasingly unsure of themselves. A couple people managed to get off the bus, which impressed me considering how determined this travel agency is to get us to their hotels.

One Australian guy climbed back on to get something but the bus started rolling again. He rolled his eyes in disgust and said, “Stop the bus. I don’t want to be on the bus.” The tour agency people looked somewhat threatened by the revolting foreigners but managed a dogged, “We take you to hotel.” The Aussie made a noise of disgust and muttered an expletive before yelling at the bus driver to stop. He got off.

The hotel looked like it was still under renovation. Our room unfortunately happened to be directly in the construction area, which means sometimes we had to find alternate ways of getting to the lobby because our stairway was blocked by construction workers. In addition, we had to take the precaution of locking our door while we were in the hotel room because random people kept opening our door.

In the afternoon, we went to a café/travel agency to arrange a tour for the next day. But we realized we needed to exchange some money before we did this. The travel agent was so kind as to walk us all the way down the street to the bank to make sure we found it! Afterward, we arranged for an all-day tour of Hue for the next day as well as hotel reservations in Hanoi. Chanda, needing a break from us and also worried about the safety of the road between Hue and Hanoi, also got a train ticket. Sally and I opted to use our bus ticket. We figured we might as well, seeing as how we’d bought ours long ago.

Finding ourselves with some time to kill, we went in search of an Internet café. We found one that only charged 50 dong a minute, which meant paying the equivalent of 20 cents for an hour of Internet. While I checked my email and the latest news, some young monks took their seats at the computers beside mine. The monk next to me typed quite quickly as he used Yahoo Messenger. It felt humorously incongruous and I wanted to take a picture but didn’t want to invade his privacy like that.

Sally and Chanda left to wander. After spending an hour and a half on the computer, I met them back at the hotel. We ate at the French restaurant beside our hotel, which was populated by foreigners and the occasional Vietnamese guide. I ordered fries and a sandwich. But the consumption of grease and the smoke in the restaurant cumulated abruptly and drastically in my system and I began to feel ill. I made a hasty retreat to the room before something dire happened.

Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2003 — Perusing the Perfume River in Hue, Day 13

We woke at 6:30 a.m. in order to be at the Mandarin Café, the travel agency, by 7:30 a.m. At 8 a.m., we were told a follow a kid walking his bike to the river. It all felt a little suspect but apparently that’s the way people do business in Vietnam, on the darker side of shady.

They had us board a “dragonboat,” something Sally had been extremely excited about. It turned out to be a

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December 2003

Monday, Dec. 1, 2003 — Working with high school students

Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003 — Sick

Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2003 — Japan, 1995

Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2003 — Hey Ya

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003 — Swindling students and hitting the jackpot

Friday, Dec. 5, 2003 — 4-H Club, Japanese style, med school students

Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003 — Ho, ho, ho

Monday, Dec. 8, 2003 — Countdown

Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2003 — Making mochi

Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003 — Ikebana

Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003 — Watari-sensei’s birthday

Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003 — No haiku for Vivi

Sunday, Dec. 14, 2003 — Furikomi, Part I

Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 — Furikomi, Part II

Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2003 — The shame of it all

Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003 — Check back in a month

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003 — Vacation to Vietnam, Day 1

Review

Friday, Dec. 19, 2003 — Venturing into Saigon (Day 2)

Review

Saturday, Dec. 20, 2003 — Family friends (Day 3)

Review

Sunday, Dec. 21, 2003 — Down in the delta (Day 4)

Review

Monday, Dec. 22, 2003 — In the Mekong, Day 5

Review

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003 — Lounging on Mui Ne beach, Day 6

Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2004 — Christmas Eve: Sick, Day 7

Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2003 — Christmas Day: Still on the beach, Day 8

Review

Friday, Dec. 26, 2003 — Onward to Dalat, Day 9

Saturday, Dec. 27, 2003 — A stopover in Nha Trang, Day 10

Review

Sunday, Dec. 28, 2003 — Opening our wallets in Hoi An, Day 11

Review

Monday, Dec. 29, 2003 — Heading to Hue, Day 12

Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2003 — Perusing the Perfume River in Hue, Day 13

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