Week 3: starting to miss LA a little bit. Just a little bit!

Ugh what a horrible week. On Thursday a bunch of us went to Thai Express (where Tam and I ate last time) to have dinner, and I ended up ordering 2 meals since the portions were fucking small. After devouring my yellow curry I decided to order an extra prawn omelet just to fill my stomach up. I also had a glass of not-too-sweet Thai tea and 2 scoops of coconut ice cream with some bites of fried banana (oh god that ice cream and fried banana were to DIE FOR. They were better than orgasm, literally). Anyway, I don't know whether it was the quality of food or quantity of food, but later that night I went to bed with a big tummy ache. It continued throughout the night, but it wasn't enough to make me want to use the toilet. Then morning came and I totally had to run, and my intestines felt like they were ready to burst. I had to skip class since my upper belly was still excruciatingly painful and I didn't want to go anywhere. I was feeling quite okay later that afternoon as I went on the class fieldtrip to The Manor (see below), with off-and-on intestine pains that didn't bother me too much. I was fine till the next day, when I had to run two more times. But after that till as of now (Sunday afternoon), my stomach has been fairly quiet.

I've also begun doing most of my own laundry by hand, since the cleaning personel isn't very trustworthy. I do a small batch twice or thrice a week, and each time it takes about an hour to do. Hella waste of time! It's also kind of physically demanding, since I either have to bend my back to scrub the clothes or squat. Fuck, how did people do this back then when there were no washing machines?

I hella miss them days when I didn't have rupturing intestines or explosive diarrhea or bend-over stomach pains or have to wash clothes by hand. Having such severe stomach problems made me miss LA, where my first-world stomach is fit for, and where there are machines that clean for you. And of course I miss my parents and friends there too. God someone please come visit me here so we can share this misery!

Irregardless, this week had been really fun too! On Tuesday we all went to Hanoi Opera House to watch/listen to the Vietnamese symphony orchestra. We were hooked up with free tickets paid for by eap, so it was hella amazing. Since I didn't have any formal or semi-formal clothes to wear (who knew I was gonna need them here!?), on Monday night I went to the Korean store to buy a semi-formal dress shirt for VND 180000 (about USD 10). It looks pretty good and the quality should be ok.

The opera house was pretty small inside, but it was nevertheless very pretty. The symphony was pretty good too. The conductor was a Spanish dude and the soloist was a Vietnamese dude who looked very handsome in the program and from the second-floor balcony, but not so much in person. Either way, we all had fun enjoying the music and taking pictures in the glamorous opera house. After that we all went to an american restaurant called Al Fresco's (or something) to eat a giant late dinner.

Group photo in front of the Opera House! Everyone looks so nice

The symphony

The inside was really pretty

There's the Vietnamese soloist in the center with the funky-looking shirt

Our fieldtrip this week was to The Manor, a living/shopping headquarters that is exclusively for rich shit-fuckers. It's basically one of those completely gated and isolated "communities" where inhabitants are monitored and outsiders are prohibited from entering, multiple security guards stand around and make sure everyone is following the rules, and built according to western styles, such as bright uni-color towers, palm trees, swimming pools, etc. No reference to local culture or characteristics whatsoever. We came here for the fieldtrip since we were discussing urban development and what that means for public space and traditional street and collective lifestyles.

The Manor's exclusionary policies (no outsiders, no photos, inhabitants must get permission to have guests over) as well as its "paid privacy" measures make the entire "community" deserted, quiet, and (to me) oppressive. There was no one roaming the courtyards or deserted roads, a few customers at the KFC and coffee shop and Korean convenience store, and barely anyone shopping at the large bougie-ass department store. It made me kind of depressed to see such large areas that were supposed to be for socializing, laughing, and enjoying free time, but were instead used to regulate the daily activities of people. I have a lot more to say about this in my class blog, please take a look if you're interested! http://tacnguyen.blogspot.com.

Main entrance to The Manor. For more pictures go to my class blog! http://tacnguyen.blogspot.com

Saturday was Chau's birthday, so we all went to celebrate. Gerard reserved seats for us in this really delicious street restaurant with typical Vietnamese dishes. Since I was still recovering from my gut-tearing diarrhea, I only had one bowl of rice (which I mixed with canh chua, or sour soup, so it becomes porridge and easy on the stomach) and a few bites of the other food, like this vegetable that was just like Chinese watercress (my favorite vegetable), shrimp, and pork. Then the cake Thuy Vy ordered arrived and we all sang happy birthday and devoured that delicious cake.

Yum. Too bad my stomach didn't allow me to enjoy the most of it

Group photo! There's the birthday girl in the middle!

After the joyous occasion, I and four others decided to go to Vincom Tower to watch another movie. We watched The Proposal, which was actually quite good! I was nonchalant about it since that was the best movie out of a list of unappealing ones, but it ended up being decent. I definitely recommend it! And Ryan Reynolds is a fucking hottie. That's a plus.

Week 3 is ovah! Next weekend we're going to HA LONG BAY!!! Woot! More on that next week. We each had to pay VND 900000 (about USD 52) for this trip, so it better be worth it.