Sunday, September 14, 2008

Random Observations

- A lot of the toilets are made so that you stand with your feet on either side of the bowl and squat. I haven't had the pleasure of using one yet. Should be a treat.


- I just realized yesterday that there are none of those stupid chirping nextel walkie-talkies in Hanoi. That alone makes moving here worth consideration.

- This country is full of beautiful women... beautiful women that I can't talk to.

- I've learned to love bats and lizards. Every night they come out and start eating the mosquitoes that would otherwise give me malaria, or ebola, or the croup or whatever, and I say, "Go get 'em little guys!"


- The ice cream here sucks. Granted, I haven't eaten it all yet, but so far - bleh.

- The coke is great. Real sugar instead of corn syrup. Delicious.

- The coke floats? They're ok.


- You know why Asian people are thin? Because they don't eat so damn much.

- In the US, little kids have shoes that light up with flashing red lights. Here, they have something similar, but instead of flashing lights they squeek like little dog toys with each step. If you put a jack russell terrier in the right preschool playground, you might actual get to watch its brain melt and dribble out its ears.

- But, there aren't any crazy, annoying, wound-up little dogs here. There are little dogs, but they are all very mellow and sweet. I guess they know that there is a direct correlation between how annoying they are and how tasty they look. (Actually, I think the people make a distinction between pet dogs and edible dogs, but I'm not sure how that works.)

-The Vietnamese wear helmets when riding motorbikes, but I see someone crash about once a week, and none of them manage to keep their helmets on. In fact, I've seen them fly off in the wind.

- We have the idea in the west that capitalism means freedom, and communism means the opposite. True, you don't get to vote for your leaders here unless you're a party member, and the government can spy on you (Actually, since Bush that's true in the US too.) but you can smoke a Cuban cigar in a bar, you can skateboard in the park (Go ahead, do a sick kick-flip. Comrade Lenin doesn't mind!)...


...and you can eat french fries with chopsticks.


And you can do this...




3 comments:

Seth said...

I have to make a correction about the ice cream for the sake of journalistic integrity. There is good ice cream here. Fanny ice cream. I stopped at Fanny ice cream the other night with some new volunteer teachers and had a scoop of coconut. It was delicious. And Fanny ice cream, just like the national currency, comes with a thousand opportunities for bad jokes.

Anonymous said...

Is there no way you can ask one of these women out for a Coke Float?
Just say "Fanny Float?"
It's universal.
-ravin

Crazypants said...

I have to admit, I haven't eaten ice cream since our bad bout of sundae poisoning in chicago. and i am a little hurt that you are off in vietnam, sampling the ice cream wares, willy nilly.
But I'll forgive you, it's almost your birthday.
love you.