I included Christmas in the title of my last blog, but I realized today walking around I didn't say anything about it hahahaha. Places all over Saigon are putting up Christmas stuff for the holidays. At first it was Diamond Plaza and the Vincom centre as the only people who can afford anything in there are westerns, everyday Vietnamese can't afford to buy anything from there. Now Christmas items are being strung up everywhere. Last night I noticed a local theatre is working on doing "A Christmas Carol" through December. I thought Vietnam was a Buddhist country but according to the CIA World Fact Book 20% of people in Vietnam practice religion and of that 9% is Buddhist and 7% is Catholic which is a shock to me as there's more pagoda's than catholic churches. I did assume Saigon would have a higher catholic population than Hanoi as catholics fearing government backlash in 1954 moved down to South Vietnam, while communists were to move up north. I think by now we know how that ends up haha. Anyways it still feels weird to me, being 34 degrees outside and seeing snowmen, ice, snowflakes etc.
It seems the earlier I try to wake up at, the later I get out of bed. I set my alarm for 7am, trying to get up early so that I'd be tired at night and maybe get into a good sleeping routine, get up earlier and get to do more before the 5pm rain. Speaking of rain last Tuesday when I trekked across town we didn't get any rain. Today is Tuesday and we didn't get any rain either! Considering it's the dry season now, it hasn't been dry and the people don't like it. It's like us getting snow in mid to late April, it's wrong! haha I had my breakfast and had no idea what I should do today. I decided to find the place with the sample pack of Marlboro smokes which came in the Vietnam War C-rations, US soldier's meals. It's called an accessory pack but it's little things troops needed, toilet paper, matches, gum, etc. Smokes were like Kinder Eggs where you never had a clue what kind you'd get but the range was Marlboros, Kools, Camels, Lucky Strikes, Winstons, Pall Malls, Salems, Chesterfields and Kents. The cigarette companies got to send trial packs to 500,000 soldiers, get them addicted and gain that many customers. Seems like the ones that thrived were Marlboros and Camels. I have no idea why but the stereotype is that black guys either smoked Kools or Camels and I know Camels are marketed towards African Americans but I don't know about Kools. On the Dave Chapelle show there was a game show with non-black contestants and had to answer questions on Black people. When asked "Why do black people like menthol cigarettes?" someone said "I don't know" and that was correct! Nobody knows why but apparently they do! Anyways regardless of race, you'd swap smokes with your buddies or up the ante and get in on some pound cake or sliced peaches with syrup haha. If you didn't smoke, and with the stresses of combat and a stress reducer in every day's supply of rations I imagine there weren't many non-smokers, you'd still get smokes, but you can hoard them up and trade them for better food, in case you got lima beans or almost any situation where money is required haha.
I bought a pack of Marlboros and they're actually a pack of ten, but still small and slim. I asked the lady and pointed to the sample pack. She went to get me a new pack but I didn't want it. She told me the box is empty and I told her it's okay, I want to buy empty box. She gave me a funny look and tried to sell me a normal pack. I told her I know they're empty and I want to buy this box, how much? She was confused haha and I had to pull out my last attempt for her to understand. I'm dinkydau. I buy this *grab the box* how much dong?" She died laughing haha and I joined her. I told her that I'm crazy and I want this empty box haha. I got it for $1USD haha and happily went on my way.
I was on Nguyen Hue street, and this is how most streets are suppose to work in Saigon, plus it's beautiful with palm trees and plant life dividing up lanes. There is two sets of lanes in the middle for cars, just like our streets at home. Two lanes going one way, two lanes going the other way. Then there's a curb blocking the outside of those lanes. There's two smaller lanes outside each set of car lanes and these are for moto's only. Altogether there's 8 lanes, 4 in the middle with cars, four on the outside for motos and the cars aren't allowed in the moto lanes as they won't fit, and motos can't get into the car lanes as there's no point, cars are slow and big. Honest to god this is how every street should be in the city, and one major road near my area, Tran Hung Dao, which I cross like twice a day is set up like this, but it's chaos. The moto lanes are just used as turning lanes or if there's too many moto's in the in the car lanes and it's faster to use the moto lanes. Crossing the eight lanes on Nguyen Hue street is easy, as it's two at a time. Tran Hung Dao on the other hand is chaos and a steady sea of motos. Too bad there isn't police to enforce the roads haha. Anyways I crossed Nguyen Hue because there was a snow storm in the window of a hotel. Alright fine it was styrofoam balls being blown around by a fan, but I had to check it out while I sweat it out in the 34 degree sun. I checked out a local street market to see if they had cases of water and they didn't. They did have the small 24 pack cases but I didn't want them as I'd go through three a day and have a crapload of garbage (yes here it's sadly garbage). Iè... wait... dammit, lost the ability to use apostrophes. I'm (yes!)happy with my 1.5L bottle.
Oh! I also went to a bookstore to look for grease pencils. Here bookstores have stationaries too but no such luck. I bought two Vietnamese books though. The first is a little kid's baby book but I figure it would be good to get my feet wet and it looked funny. I also picked up a North Vietnamese troops walking up a mountain, so I figure it's American War related. It's more advanced but big font and 200 pages and it's on something I'd be interested in so why not? Altogether my bill was $2.50CDN haha. Books are cheap here! I got home and had some time to kill before dinner so I played my tunnel rat game. I honestly might buy it just for fun. I loved the Viet Cong video games because of the tunnel rat action, and now they won't work on Vista or Windows 7. The other reason is that the reviews have been so bad for it, I kinda wanna find out how bad. My version I downloaded for free is in Russian, so I can't read any of the game menu screens or understand a damn word my guy says. It's funny though and from the reviews the character you play is crazy. One minute he's against the war and the next he screams DIE DIE DIE!!!!!!!!!! so I think it would be more funny if I understood it. He sometimes has flashbacks to his childhood and speaks every time you pick up a set of US dog tags, or rip off an enemy's ear for your collection back at base. The other cool thing is that you get to kill women as they are armed and Viet Cong as well! The one thing that's retarded is there's wire boobytraps where it's a grenade and a string of wire. If you hit the wire it pulls the pin out of the grenade and boom! They force you to disarm the grenade, which in real life isn't hard, but in the game it is. What they didn't think about though was... CUT THE WIRE and keep walking! The wire doesn't make it explode unless it's a falling grenade with the pin out. I still don't know how to disarm them so sadly I still have to walk through the wire I should be able to cut, but no, that's not hi tech enough.
I had a chicken quesadilla for dinner and it was alright, but a bit expensive, I went to Lotteria for ice cream since it's only $.75 instead of $3 at a restaurant considering I'm broke haha. I came back here, wrote this and probably watch a movie before bed. No point in saying what I'm doing tomorrow as I have no clue! Take care.
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