day o3 & o4

last night my grandfather showed me a totally ancient radio and alarm clock. they used to be my mum's like, 30 years ago. then he whipped out some certificates (awards and the like) of hers when she was in high school. they're so old! people have nice writing.

the radio still works apparently, my uncle just bought some batteries for it, and its making staticy sounds! i'm amazed, even by that. they were telling me that after my mum and my aunt left Vietnam, news was hard to come by, so they'd secretly listen to the BBC at night on that radio, to hear, i suppose if they survived or not. i can't believe they weren't allowed to listen to the radio! well international radio. sometimes i forget about the communists. who're now probably gonna delete my blog or something right? good, cos like i don't know how this whole striving to blog more thing is going. omg! words! real words on the radio. i have to go stare at how old it is, and be amazed some more. bye!

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this is a "mai" flower, it usually flowers around chinese new year time (late jan/early feb) but for some reason at least one plant at my grandfather's house flower suspiciously early/late whenever i visit. they joke its just for me (my vietnamese name is mai linh).

so that was yesterday, that was probably the highlight of my day. we had people over, so we didn't go anywhere and ate alot. i had/have no idea who they were. i just smiled alot and people seemed pleased that i could respond when they asked me if i understood vietnamese.

we also haven't really done much today either... apparently we're going out to dinner tonight or something. i spent most of the day playing yoshi touch and go on my sister's DS.

i also cracked the shits when my mum insisted on buying me a dress. we went to some shop like down the street, and i tried on a few things. they were nice enough, but i'm a bit scared. everything here is very flash. i couldn't buy work shoes because plain black shoes without a heel don't seem to exist. its gotta either have bows or flowers or sparkly bits. the clothing is kidna the same. its all frills and lace and BOWS and awkward bits that are comnpletely unnecessary. but you know, after awhile, you think maybe this isn't so bad. but only because the certain thing you're looking at happens to have slightly less bows/dots/sticky outty bits/glitter/sequins IN COMPARISON to everything else around. So uh, i'm probably gonna end up buying lots of things i won't actually ever wear when i look at it in comparison to my normal clothing.

So we were in an actual shop, as oppossed to a market, and i don't think they let you bargain in shops. well not this one. we tried the - "So, if i buy three dresses...how's that gonna work out?" It didn't. If it was any consolation though, the girl said that if anything ever broke, we could bring it back and they'd fix it for free. I wonder if they'd pay for the plane ticket as well? Cos in that case, totes bargain. Anyway, the point is, the dresses were nice but they weren't Ahh-mazing, and they were in the $45-$55 dollar range, each. And if you know me, you'll know that 98% of my clothing cost me less than $20, at most. i'm telling you i have a top that cost 50 cents. Its nice too. I wear it out. The other 2% was probably marked down from like $300, but i probably bought it for < $100. No joke. So, i didn't really want three $50 dresses. i didn't even want one. but for some reason, my mum really wanted to buy me a dress. i feel like she's trying to make up for something. but i don't think she is. This is Vietnam, the stuff is meant to be cheap! So my argument was, that i wouldn't even buy a dress for that much in Australia, and so why would i do that here? I think she said something about no one else having the same dress. But whatever. The other thing is...my wardrobe is insanely massive. Its probably double the size of a normal person's wardrobe... and i have alot trouble fitting my clothing in there (side note: we're moving, and i saw what was marked out to be wardrobe space, and holy crap, nothing is going to fit in there). So because of the excessive amounts of material goods i own, i probably shouldn't spend too much money on even more clothing. I think the fact that i really didn't want her to buy the dress made her want to buy it more. Reverse pyschology much?

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After dinner we drove in circles (literally), looking for some place that didn't exist. Or we'd been given the wrong address, either way. We'd given up, gotten out, and walked, heading for ice cream instead. Stopped outside Louis Vuitton, looked for my sister's bag, acted like tourists. Across the street, as we were leaving, there was a huge crash, and i watched as part of the Carvalle Hotel exploded and fell to the floor. We walked away and sat watching from a cafe across the street, while hundreds ran towards it to see what the commotion was all about. I watched as the police & ambulance arrived, as hundreds ran down the stairs, fleeing the hotel. I still don't know what it was (it was only an hour or so ago), but in this post 9/11 world, you know what my first thought was.

i'd like to add that i had the "grivil" ice cream, which was passionfruit ice cream in guava juice? it was weird.