Our last week in Vietnam, so we're getting things done & then it's time to go...
We're familiar enough with our place in Saigon & Vietnam in general to be comfortable here. Not "this is it, I'm moving here forever," but people & places are familiar to us & with seeing us. The coffee & smoothie stand outside our apartment, the local shops in our neighborhood, & local transit are all things we're used to now. All of that makes me feel some kind of way about not having a better grasp of Vietnamese. I am starting to get a better sense for the sounds of the language and why so much of it has escaped me earlier. I knew Vietnamese was a tonal language, now I'm starting to get what that means.
We finished our rabies vaccination series & now have lifetime protection. So we can now play with animals with impunity. We started the vaccination series against dengue that's not available in the US & I didn't even know existed until this week. We'll finish that in a couple months & I can stop fearing "bone-break fever" stopping me from visiting tropical places...
Our last museum visit was the Southern Women's History Museum. I
really liked it. It was a small museum, but I appreciate that the government has set aside space to acknowledge, share, and celebrate women's stories. I found it really moving and
encouraging, I took my time reading & kept Ellie waiting a long time (reversing our earlier experience at the War Remnants Museum).
Of course we went dancing
again, Ellie's new shoes aren't going to break themselves in. I'm still mildly shocked that English seems to be the language of swing dance here. Beyond the music, the organizers and dance instructors address everyone in English. There are a number
immigrants and travelers here, so I get it, but I really didn't expect it. Ellie was really social, chatting people up, asking questions, & learning their stories. She noticed more people say Saigon than Ho Chi Minh City & something about a North-South political
divide, now I'm wondering how the
post war reconciliation went... But not related to that at all, I DJ'd a blues set at the Saturday night dance! It was well attended
and I got lots of positive feedback. It was a great way to end my time dancing here.
Sadly, we never got the hang of shopping here. We did a little shopping at wet markets for produce and tofu, but were never comfortable trying to bargain across the language barrier or do enough comparison shopping between stores with listed prices to get a sense of what things could/should cost. In the end we split the difference buying a bunch of discount items from the convenience mart, before going to the nearby wet market. We eventually discovered a local supermarket, Co.opmart, which was lovely, but we didn't really need it by the time we found it.
Saigon is HUGE.
With a metro area 3 times the size of NYC. We took the Saigon Waterbus to do a cheap sunset river tour through the city. We saw enough to know that there's so much more of the city we haven't seen. I'd love to explore more...
After the
waterbus we went out to Japantown for sushi, which was
delicious, I have another dish I want to make myself someday. Shoutout to George for the tasty suggestion & SO many Vietnam recommendations! The restaurant is in a bit of a
red light district with lots of young women in makeup & mini dresses sitting around doorways waiting for business. The staff at a lot of massage places in Vietnam have approached us to offer "
footmassa-backmassa." These women barely even looked up from their phones at us
which makes me think they had nothing to offer the 2 of us. I wondered what would happen if I was alone...
Saw a jazz dance performance. FIRE! I was not prepared for how awesome it was. It was truly unexpected, thoroughly impressive
and we both really enjoyed it. The choreographer is going to be working with AO on a future production, which I can only hope will tour to somewhere I can see when it does. I expect that will be an amazing matchup. This show was a series of pieces about types of jazz movement through history. It spanned eras and musical genres, and was beautifully staged. They even integrated the costume changes into the show itself. I can't write enough good things about
.
For our final
outing we visited the Cu Chi tunnels to learn a bit more about the Vietnamese partisan resistance. It was informative, impressive, and sad. I learned that the partisans' rations were a lot of cassava and peanuts, which makes sense as those things grow
great in the tropics, but I haven't seen any cassava on restaurant menus or in markets in Vietnam. Is it just struggle food? I may have to look into that...
That might be the most I've ever written here. More later, bye!
KC
Labels: Vietnam
