plane, day o1

So we're on the plane there now. It really gets to me, my sister's reasons for not wanting to go are SO different from mine. She thinks she's above this. Better than this, better than everyone and the way they live. It's too hot, I don't want to sleep there. Do we have to stay? That hotel's only 3 stars? I can't comprehend why it doesn't make her grateful for what she's got. That this is her family, and they (have to) live like this every day? It makes me appreciate how lucky i am, to have what i have. She however, thinks she deserves everything she has and only wants more. She keeps talking about how excited she is to go back home, because of all the presents she's gonna get (Guitar hero world tour, 4 new perfumes, some other stuff i cant' remember) and i just want to slap her.

this is darwin airport. Pauline says: can we go duty free shopping? i'm so excited, buy me stuff!

I don't think she feels connected to Vietnam at all, but it means alot to me. Even before I'd ever been there, it was where my parents grew up; the setting for their childhood stories. I don't know much about the country's actual history, but i know where my mum went to school, which beach they used to holiday at , how my grandfather once owned the entire laneway they live in in now. How the three story house on the corner of that laneway was the one they lived in. How my mum had the entire third floor to herself at some point. These are her memories, but they're almost mine too.

My mum was my age when she left all of that. Left everything, with literally the clothes on her back etc. There's a ring she still wears that survived attack by Thai pirates, deserted islands with no food, etc. So i was talking to my mum about this the other day, and i was all like "I can't believe you were my age, I don't know anything about anything! I haven't lived! You had to grow up and stuff" and she was like "Well until then, I hadn't known anything either. My parents took care of everything." and then i wanted to cry. Because what i was trying to get at was, please stop being so overprotective and let me do stuff.

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Day 1.

Things consumed:
- more petrol than necessary - Pauline didn't wanna walk. She prefers air conditioned taxis.
- hu tieu nam vang
- chao tom
- some other noodle-y soupy thing that we don't seem to have in australia
- coconut juice
- nem nuong

mind you, its only what? 4pm here? i need to start taking more photos, but my camera was running out of batteries.

say hello to the powerlines. everything here seems really unsafe, but everyone seems to get by just fine.

Places we acted like tourists:
- Saigon market where i bought pretty scarves and my sister searched for good fake bags, which i don't think actually exist here.
- Actual tourist places, where we attempted to book flights/tours to Hong Kong, still don't know how that's going. Probably not at all. Alot of these seem to be take a number wait your turn type things, that don't actually work. One place, accused us of not listening carefully enough when they skipped our number. In reality someone apparently pressed the wrong button or something. Rude. It was kinda hilarious though, because it took 20 minutes of sitting there to realise that after the vietnamese number, they actually read the numbers out in english. I'd totally win at their job.
- Chloe, Marc Jacobs and Gucci. Why? ask my sister.

the gucci store is insane. these places make my heart hurt.

Mosquito bite count: zero. surprising. spoke too soon, lets make that 1

Also, had a surprise visit from my aunt, who's a nun and lives an hour or 2 away. First time in ages all the girls in my mum's family had been together. My mum keeps saying, all the birds are flying back to the nest. We're just missing my uncle, who's in Vietnam atm, but visiting his in-laws.

So i'm gonna try to post about it, but probably actually wont. no expectations yeah?