Sai Gon, May 26, 2001
Just ate a bowl of homemade mac & cheese with chopsticks. Grammy had been craving it for weeks and Di 10 finally remembered to get the ingredients to make it for her today. For all you dedicated lurkers, blogspot was down for several days because of their T1 service provider. Nothing political, you imaginative worriers.

On Wednesday of last week, I took my ticket back from the agency where I left it (a “branch” of the office in Virginia). The guy had it for 11 days and after 2 reminder calls, hadn’t done anything with it. So I made him give it back and went directly to ANA (my airline) to get my ticket confirmed. Thursday morning I stopped in their office and spoke only English, and the girl behind the counter punched in my seat request for early July. All seats on all flights to Washington are booked through August. My ticket expires on August first, so I asked for a flight to Tokyo and then I can wait for the Tokyo-DC leg of the trip. I have to go the roundabout way from Saigon to Singapore to Tokyo to DC since I got my ticket before ANA received permission for direct flights from Tokyo. Anyhow, after sending in my seat requests, I left ANA’s office and went to work. Only 3 hours later, I got a call that my seats are confirmed (through Tokyo). I love Japanese efficiency.

Today I wandered around town with a couple of my aunt’s friends, Cammy and Lieu. Walked all around town, and then we met with Di 10 to get foot massages. Very interesting kind of pain.

Rain is in full swing. When it storms like this, it’s called “bao” and it goes on all day long. Huge pellets of rain drum loudly against the rooftops. The kind of rain that takes only about four seconds to get completely soaked. I have no idea how people manage to get around on motorbikes (I saw one today carrying a refrigerator on the back seat, no strings attached!).

I’m so looking forward to being home, I wonder if I really want to come back. Though there is still much for me to discover (and a lot of traveling to do while in Asia), I really miss NY and the States and of course, family. When I get back, I want to eat a steak and cheese sandwich from Two Chefs and then the corn-on-the-cob from Havana in NY. Mmmm. I’m watching a cooking channel with my aunt and it’s dubbed in Vietnamese. They’re making white-chocolate rice krispie treats. I think I want a rice krispie treat when I get back, too. I don’t even like marshmallows!

Anyway, I’ll know when I get back, I suppose. A presto.