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My Time in Vietnam

  • Mori Bellorie
  • Sep 7, 2019
  • 4 min read

Hello! It has been quite a while since I last updated. To give a general update, I am officially in my last year (my fourth year) since the summer term due to the number of credits I had at that time. I thought I would be considered a fourth year during September but nope! At the moment, I'm kind of still figuring out what classes to take, so my schedule isn't set in stone yet. My goal is to graduate by June 2020!

For the past two weeks, I went on vacation to Vietnam. Initially I was against the idea of going because I had just finished my summer term and was desperate for some leisure time (no school + work + volunteer) before the final year of university. However, I did have a decent amount of fun. There were times where I did feel bored because the day was long and I had nothing else to do. I usually just sat in our uncle's cafe watching the customers or went to the back of my aunt's house to be with the cats (one tabby mom and one siamese son). But overall it was an ok trip.

It was nice to see my family again after 8 years (I didn't even think that I would see them ever again). It was different this time coming back though...my cousins were all either in university or working. I was surprised to see my young cousins entering their first year of university already. So I was left with my 2 uncles and aunts while all the "kids" were gone in the city since there's no universities in Go Cong, and not much job opportunities here for their professions at the moment. Eventually, my cousins will be opening up their own businesses in Go Cong since all of them do not like Saigon, and they all love living with family since its more fun and less lonely compared to Saigon. Life in Saigon was depressing for them. It's literally what I experience in Canada, so I am used to that life (and prefer it). My cousins, however, grew up surrounded by so much family. We have our three houses side by side so it's always fun everyday since you have all your other cousins (all the same age range) and your uncles and aunties. Going out at night (and day time too) is really fun. Everyone knows eachother in my area. If they don't know of you personally, they would know you as the child of so and so. Thats how close knit the area is. So I can understand why they prefer to live in Go Cong instead of living in a place like Saigon. Go Cong is slowly becoming more city-like though, but it still has some elements of a town/farmland still.

I did go on a 5 day + 4 night tour in the South-West region of Vietnam. I remember the places were Can Tho and the island of Phu Quoc. It was soo nice to stay at 4 star resorts and hotels, but I was not able to experience it that much because our tour guide gave us a jam packed schedule where we would be out of the hotel by 7 am (woke up at 5:30am to eat breakfast) and come back to the hotel around 9pm lmao. It was nice visiting different sites but the heat and food was tiresome to deal with. Because we were near the coast line and stayed on an island for a couple of days, we were stuck eating seafood based hotpot, seafood based sour soup, lots of veggies, fish, fish, AND MORE FISH. By the last day of our tour, our family was so fed up with seafood that we requested to eat at a BBQ buffet...only to be greeted with more seafood lol. Overall it tasted yummy though. I am so glad I never got tired of clams.

I was so sad by the time that tour ended, since my two cousins would have to leave for Saigon eventually. They managed to take a few days off for this tour! I took lots of nice photos...but I am so lazy to organize and upload them all. I hopefully will do it eventually.

One thing that I realized I took for granted from Canada was having a bath tub in the washroom. Washrooms in Vietnam (in my home area anyways) mainly consisted of one room with a tub of water and a toilet. You basically just shower in that room. It felt so nasty having to use the toilet because the floor would always be wet. My pet peeve? Someone would always forget to close the toilet lid before they showered, so you had to constantly wipe a wet toilet seat everytime you had to use the washroom. I also took for granted having an air conditioner...this was something I desperately needed in Vietnam. Fans just were not enough. Also, some washrooms in vietnam are not free to use. You find this out sometimes when you have already used the washroom. Toilet paper is not always provided. If it is, sometimes you have to pay for it. Some washrooms dont even have a tub of water to clean too. And the amount of mosquitoes...omg. Bugs become your best friends here because you literally encounter them everywhere.

I definitely did not miss the heat and the long days, but I miss my family and the cats. I hear that my family will be visiting again in 2 years so I am looking forward to seeing them again...but not looking forward to coming back to the country itself. Life here in general is just not for me. It's also saddening to realize that a lot of stuff can happen in these 2 years, and I really do hope that my cousins don't have their own families by then. It took me a while to realize that we were all adults now. I missed the times when we were all just elementary children. It was more fun.

Here is a photo of me and my relationship with the two cats!

This post ended kind of abruptedly because I got lazy to write, and it is pretty late. I am in the mood for some sims 4.

 
 
 

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