Shopping in Paris: http://www.francetravelplanner.com/go/paris/shop/index.html
Yoga in Paris & a Whole Lot More...peruse through David Lebowitz's site: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2006/12/yoga_in_paris.html
(that's all she wrote) I found that walking through the streets of Paris was the best way to find a gem... plus it really depends on your style or your want to be Paris style.
Eating! Yeah you know it! My sis and her son are visiting, Tien & Jimmy. Jimmy is a Chef in DC, the Executive Chef at Marvin. So we have been eating out each night that they are here. Although, unfortunately Jimmy forgot to make reservations at his top choices. With that said, we have had but one very fantastic meal. If you can, you must go to Chateaubriand - http://www.qype.co.uk/place/40676-Le-Chateaubriand-Paris: the menu changes daily and is Prix Fix. I can tell you that we loved every bite, which is saying a lot...because Jimmy is a snob, hates everything, and became an old man at the ripe age of 23 after cooking & living in Paris, Lyon, Italy, and Hawaii. Other People's Paris Sites/Suggestions: Simon's Dining Short List: http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/the-state-of-french-cuisine/sidebar/1 Laura's CookBlog, a Cooking Teacher: http://aworldinapan.blogspot.com/ Laura's Cooking Class Schedule: http://www.aworldinapan.com/calendar_of_classes.php
- I have been loving the time spent on my Yoga classes. I haven't been to Yoga in years, the return has been life changing. I go to two studios and am a frequent flyer :)
Ashtanga Paris: http://www.ashtangayogaparis.fr/ - This is a family run Yoga studio above their home. The studio is intimate, fits no more than 13 people, and has a Japanese flair. The 2 kids are adorable. Gerard is French but speaks English well enough. Because of the language barrier it's a little harder to get in to each position with 100% accuracy, so he will do some serious hands on manipulation. I prefer Hatha...
Centre de Yoga du Marais: http://www.yogamarais.com/dex.html - Michelle runs this small studio, fits no more than 17. Her and Chantal are expats from the US. They both are well versed in Yoga and are been patient with teaching. They will judge the class and decide whether to teach mainly in English or French. I love this place! Other People's Paris Sites/Suggestions: Yoga in Paris & a Whole Lot More...peruse through David Lebowitz's site: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2006/12/yoga_in_paris.html
Michelle's suggestions of Yoga books on her site: http://yogainparis.blogspot.com/2007/09/bibliography-of-recommended-reading.html
- Going out is fun, but you can do that at home with tons of friends. A block from my place is the Centre de Dance du Marias. You can view the webcam of the center: http://www.parisdanse.com/webcam.asp. At this very old very cool dance center, you can take Classical ballet to Dance Boxing and at any age or level. The rooms wreak of sweat, but you get used it to it quickly as you become a sweating mess yourself. Here I have been taking African dance with Anna. Anna is an older, early 50's, African momma. She has 3-4 live percussionist playing various drums and the xylophone. She only teaches in French, which is a little hard to shake your head to while trying to keep in step with the quick changing movements. Supposedly on my first day Anna yelled at me for some bad footing then complimented me on my good dancing. My response was to stare at her, because I had no idea she was talking to me. After class that day I made 3 new friends who speak English and gave me the low-down of what happened in class. Then we met with Anna at her favorite African foodie joint. Anna of course realized my non-French disability and laughed. She then bought us our coffees and everyone's meal in the joint. Anna has Un Bon Coeur, I will miss her dearly. (Hey Jen! - Maybe I can make it past the first round of trials for Stomp this time :)... ok... probably not)
Changing this shit up. Going to give you an entry for each of my favs to do in Paris. For this day you get the short shpeel about Walking.
My favs: Dance! Yoga - Namaste! Eating! Shopping! Walking - I have been walking/jogging/running all over Paris. My favorite run is along the Seine. While on a run I carry some Euros in case I find something cute or more importantly need a drink. Nothing is really that far, so I avoid the Metro and walk every where. I think I have actually lost a few pounds, given how much I eat it's a miracle. I have no suggestions on where to go, enjoy your discovery!
Today I made my favorite Parisian meal, fresh steak frites with a beautiful Bordeaux. All ingredients were purchased on my block at Rambuteau and Rue du Temple.
I rented a 1 bedroom apartment in Paris for 5 weeks. A dream come true. Lucky for me my apartment is in Le Marais, secured in the heart of the city near great shops. You may have read a lot of stories or have been to the fantastic street markets of Paris. They do rule, but what is even better is my block. As each store on my block specializes in each food product; fruits & veggies, meat, fish, yummee bread, desserts, and fine wine... even videogames. So when I went online to secure an apartment, I friggin' lucked out! I'm just sayin'... You have to check out this block. If you come here at 6pm usually all the stores are open. Rambuteau is the street I speak of, you want start at Rue du Temple and head towards the George Pompidou, it's a block away. I don't kid.
Fresh fruit, veggies, spices, and meats makes a great meal and has inspired a little bit of writing. Here I am telling you, the Blogger screen and hopefully blog reader, about why I am in Paris.
Paris is another home for me, that's why I escaped to this beautiful city. I know it's sounds strange, because DC, NYC, Vail, and especially SF are my homes (yes, we all can have more than one place to call home if we travel enough). When I was une jeune fille, my mom had her first husband pay for trips for me to visit him and some of our family in France. So for 3 summers I would visit Paris, Toulouse, Nice, South Essex from ages 9 to 14 (-ish, I can't really remember the years/ages... it's close enough). If you read my previous blogs about Vietnam you would know that my Momz is Vietnamese. Her first husband is the same and is married to a French woman (now that is a long story). My (half-) siblings, 3 brothers 1 sister, are all birthed from this first husband, we can call him "Bo".
My first visit to Paris was with my Momz. We had a quick visit with Bo, stayed with her brother in Paris, then spent several weeks in Toulouse, Nice, and Madrid. My Aunt Ann lives in Toulouse with her family. She was my guardian in Vietnam and during our escape from the war. Ann is super genuine and a special lady. In her home, like my Uncle and Bo in Paris, Vietnamese and French are the languages of choice. Given my age during these visits, I had no idea what anyone was saying nor did I try to learn. So my French and Vietnamese is shit.
My second visit to Paris was solo. I flew by myself at the age of 12-ish and spent a lot of time with Bo in Paris. I remember glimpses of bouquets of croissants, bread, and cheese for breakfast with the French wife. What I do remember from that trip was that Bo drove me to Toulouse to stay with Ann for the rest of summer. In Toulouse at the awkward age of 12-ish, I was, well, awkward. Awkwardness is a bit of fun and disaster at once. Fun because, what do I care. I made friends, had cousins from Paris stay too, and the family took an RV to the south beaches of France. A disaster because my hips and legs are growing faster than my arms and torso. I'm like a Wolf puppy, growing too fast to understand what damage my tail and body can do. So I break everything I touch. My new size breaks the new swing sets, any kids toys, and takes the bike out to only land a handle bar streak along the brand new car. I suck, I know it, but what can I do... no one really understands my English.
My third trip to Paris started with my Sister, Tien. We spent a couple of weeks with Bo in Paris. Bo is ecstatic to have is daughter stay and we visit every stone (aka Tourist Attraction) in Paris. I have pictures to prove it, but they are boring and hiding in a box in a closet some where. I left my sister to fly to London and stay with a Junior High friend, Karen, in South Essex for a month. By my 14-ish self, I fly to London where Karen's father can pick me up. In South Essex, we cause a ruckus. (that too is another long story)
So to sum it up, Paris is another home. A place I am familiar with. A place for me to come to to relax and feel comfortable/safe. Today I am in Paris to write this story. I know it now. As I slowly write my history I will get to the point where I am today, slowly growing my hair back after shaving it off for a self-created fundraiser. The fundraiser was to help a family in need in SF that had gone through a tragic occurrence in their lives. (that's a whole entire novel)
Here in Paris, I have relearned how to relax and enjoy life in a different light. Don't worry, I'm still the hard working professional partier. But I'm also back to my holistic healing dancer chic too :)
The drive up to Dalat is full of fun windy roads overlooking vast Vietnamese jungles. While enjoying the scenery, my thoughts were of anguish for those foreign soldiers that had to scale unknown mountain forests, wade through damp mosquito filled rice fields, and eat and be eaten by rodents and snakes. OK, not the best thoughts, but those ideas were there and made me finally enjoy the bus for a heartbeat.
On the mountain road we stopped for "ka", the Vietnamese quick saying for "bathroom". The hole was owned by a family that lived on the side of the road selling persimmons, and just persimmons. Their daughter was about 3, shy but letting me take photos of her.
We had a cute girl at about the same age on our bus. From the photos you can tell her attire is slightly different than the mountain girl. They were both super cute!
About twenty minutes later we come to another stop, Datanla. This was the coolest most fantastical place! It rules, hands down. At first glance it seems like a cheesy place with a single cheesy roller coaster ride. In reality, and if you give the people in front of you plenty of space, this ride is the best I've ever been on! It's just you (and your friend/lover if you want) sliding down a railed ride with your own brake to control the speed. While you ride you pass beautiful gardens and foliage. It can be a super fast glimpse of the scenery if you so desire. See my start of the ride down the hill with Tony behind me.
At the end of the ride there is a place to eat, drink, dance (they had music when we landed) and a gorgeous waterfall. To get back up the hill you take a ride back! Like I said, "This ride rules!"
Soon after Datanla we arrive at Dalat. Dalat is much like San Franicso with it's fog layer, cool breezes, and homes on hills. The people seem more laid back and enjoying life more than Hanoi & Saigon...or maybe I just was enjoying Dalat more than the other cities. Dalat is also my Momz favority city of Vietnam. She reserved an apartment in Dalat for 5 weeks after Tony & I left. There she gets to chillax and be with her peeps.
To get the essence of Dalat, I took a series of photos from my hip, literally. This way the people are not posing for photoshots or hiding from the camera. These are my favorite pictures of Vietnam, enjoy!
By now we have made our friends on our bus and they invite us out for drinks. We meet them at a restaurant for a bite and drink then off to go dancing. Now this was precious! This discotheque had live music, a band with a variety of singers that would perform Vietnamese and American/British songs. The dancing was 'different'. Everyone seemed to be dancing the cha cha cha. Some men wore heels...
(Yeah I know, I'm trying to fix the quality of the video)
I did join in when our friends pushed me on the dance floor. Luckily the music changed to some Latina booty shaking sounds. I'm not afraid to dance, shoot I studied dance for 3 years in school, and I'm not afraid to make more people join me on the dance floor. Bring it!
During the entire 13 hour drive from Saigon to Nha Trang the sun was beaming down on Vietnam. Our first sunny day in over a week. When the bus stopped for lunch in a quaint beach town, we ate over-looking the water then relaxed with a beer under a palapa. The bus schedule only allowed 10 minutes to soak up the sun and scenery. Turns out we are only half way to Nha Trang, a beach city.
Nha Trang is nearly as noisy, and definitely as bustling, as Hanoi. Unfortunately for us, the only full day we spent in Nha Trang was a full day of rain. That left a few options, we chose to enjoy the food, have a drink, and go to a spa. The bus did some other tourist run, which we chose to skip.
Tony & I happened upon Crazy Kim's bar. A bar that promotes non-pedophilia. Here check it out for yourself:
Crazy Kim's holds classes at the bar during the day to mainly teach English, bar, spa and computer skills to the children of Nha Trang. Fundamentally the cause is good, but the promotion against pedophilia is done in an odd fashion. As the menu begins with it's heart wrenching story then also offers Blow Jobs for 60K Dong (that's less than $2). Yes, yes, it is a drink they are offering. Although in all my bar attendance (trust me I'm an Honor Student when it comes to attendance at bars around the globe) I have never seen a drink menu with a Blow Job nor a Pink Pussy nor any of these shots... maybe the Baby Guiness...
They even have Spa Packages:
Tony & I chose to enjoy a drink, no shots thank you. While sipping in the drink and environment, we met a couple of new friends. Cute kids selling stuff to us (when I say "cute" I don't mean... oh never mind).
I bought a book, The Girl in the Picture, the Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War. A great book to read before arriving to Vietnam. It turned out that the book I purchased was a copy, which made it inexpensive and slightly off. The pages are thinner, the text is gray instead of black, and sometimes the text slants on a page. The book cover looks like the real published book, except the Penguin Putnam logo is skewed. I had no idea it was copy until I was back on the bus heading to Dalat...
The Saigon Tourist bus is one way not to travel Vietnam, unless you are fluent in Vietnamese and like torture. I think my Momz loves torture with the hellish tour guide talking most of the way, telling us what to eat, where to sleep, when to get on a bus and when to get off. Personally, I like to travel on my time, or a fair group decision. When I drove with my (ex-)boyfriend to Costa Rica in 2000, we camped the entire way with pit stops at some beautiful little towns and beaches along the countryside. (When I say 'countryside' I'm referring to the following countries: Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.) On this bus we traveled from Saigon to Nha Trang to Dalat and back to Saigon, a 5 day excursion with over 30 hours on the bus. View Larger Map
We made some friends at the back of the bus (more stories in my Dalat entry). During last 10 hour road trip, I force fed a bottle of thick Vietnamese wine to ensure all in the back were loving it.
I was able to capture a Vietnamese version of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall while taping the scenery. Enjoy:
That's right, I was born in Saigon not Ho Chi Minh City. Back when I crawled the streets the neighbors would think I was some dog they could have for dinner, but this baby knew how to slip through their fingers fast! I was out of Vietnam by 7 months and heading to the States. I suppose International traveling was always a part of me. OK....focus...
Tony, Momz, and I flew to Vietnam from Hanoi, a 2.5 hour flight. On our way to the hotel we quickly passed my at infancy Vietcong home. It still stands, but is now a business on a main strip. Shoot, I know I should have stopped the cab, gone in, or at least asked my Momz more about it. It just doesn't work that way with Asian Momz, if they don't want to get into it they drive right on by.
We semi-settled in a hotel, Thien Xuen, near the mega market. It's the tourist trap market, locals don't shop there. Supposedly it is pricey, for us the goods are definitely affordable, plus everything you ever want is in one spot. Peruse through these photos and catch a glimpse of some market fare:
Saigon is slightly less noisy than Hanoi. Tony & I decided that the honking is at a minimum, where the driver's are only saying, "I'm making a left." with a single honk. In Hanoi all the drivers like to announce their breathing with a toot.
I forgot to mention it, but I'm sure you already know, the food is fantastic every where we have been so far. I love Vietnamese food. Eat it! Actually, except for the Saigon Tourist bus stop foods. That story is coming up!
It takes about 5 hours to drive from Hanoi to Halong Bay with one stop to pee in a hole and grab a popsicle. You could shop at this stop to buy some trinket or an entire painting or maybe some mung bean candy. But when you are hungover, a popsicle or 12 would be nice. The hole to pee in and whatever you may have to do, well, that's just nasty. In Nam, the rest stops have normal toilets if you are lucky, otherwise you are dealing with a hole, a large bucket of water, and a plastic pale to scoop that water into your hole to 'flush'. Even worse are the rest stops that only have 1 of those hole stalls, the rest are only for #1 and you have to basically pee on the ground and wash it aside. Lesson learned quickly, bring your own wipes and get ready for squatting. Anyway...
Getting to your Junk boat is like a bad audition. Everyone is waiting in some un-uniformed line trying to get in and are nervous about what boat they are about to embark on. Thankfully, we had my Momz. She knows how to make sure we are being sought after. Even so, we had to wait about 30 minutes to get ushered through the gate and on to the skinny path to our boat. As we passed the junky Junks, we were pleasantly surprised to see our boat have real plants, a nice mini deck, and a wet towelette for our arrival. The girl that was passing out the individual towelettes became my Momz new project. Get her married to Tony.
After 2 days, my Momz was unsuccessful in having a shotgun wedding on the Junk. Although we did capture some touching moments with the girl and Tony talking in the breeze on the deck. Damn you Ding Dong get those photos up!!!
Without Dinger's photo loading handy work, I don't have much to show you. Except these of us... you can kind of see the background... kind of.
While cruising on the Junk you pass some junk in the water, from plastic bags to someone's red purse. The sails are for show, and the boat runs on gas. There are about 50 Junks out there at once... I wasn't really counting...All the boats have to follow a similar path to 'preserve' the natural surroundings. Even so, I saw 1 bird, just one. Oh and a rat, I definitely saw a rat on one of the islands, the one with a little beach (which you have to pay to access) and a pagoda on top of it's peak. Dinger, Tony, and I climbed to the top in the sweltering humidity. The view was amazing, but it was also where I saw the rat.
Prior to the beach we hiked through the Luray Caverns of Halong Bay. Which is enormous. I was picturing an invisible piano played by Rowan Atkinson sans all the other tourists. Our tour guide's English was good, much better than any of my second languages (yes, I have more than 1 second language). His English and history just wasn't good enough to listen to though. So I tried to run astray, he would catch up to me, so I gave in and listened, "here you have a turtle! the stone make a turtle. this is good luck. throw money and rub head."
Don't ask.
That night on the Junk was epic. Our boat didn't have enough bedrooms for all of the guests, which meant that Tony had to stay on another boat. Which really meant we had, not just one, but TWO extra boats to play with. Fun! Both were named White Dolphin, and both were luxurious. The newest one, featured in the said link, was celebrating it's first night on the Bay. That meant free Remy's on ice for Tony (and us if we wanted them) and for us to chill in the super yummy top deck while listening to the owner and crew party it up karaoke style downstairs. Finally, no honking, no moving, no bad history, and no match-making for Tony.
The owner of the White Dolphin is some lead in the Communist regime. It showed. He eventually kicked us out of his party after playing the drink, don't drink with me game. I could tell he didn't like the look of me or the fact that I squint without speaking Vietnamese. He said something strange to Tony too like, "I would talk to you but you don't understand me." Tony replied in Vietnamese, "I can understand everything you say, just talk to me directly."
Drama. The Cong are still strong about cultural purification. The whole country is filled with pure Vietnamese, that is Chinese now Vietnamese. I'm not trying to even go there...
In the morning, ladies on row boats filled with wet, dried, wet, and redried junk food products for you to purchase. They try to rape you on the prices, since you are on a boat in the Bay. We lucked out with our boat's cuisine. The meals were tasty with a variety of seafood for each meal. Yum.
Once we landed we were heading back to Hanoi, and this time we are in a 5 star hotel. Proper. The Hanoi Sheraton is where we said, "Goodbye!" to Dinger and Cakes after a long hot shower. We missed them instantly. I drew them on the bar's pool sign up board to have them with us still.
In my drawing, Dinger has his camera around his neck and Cakes has the Mental Midget necklace around hers. She was the ultimate Mental Midget on the team and wore it most of the cruise. Wonder why? Here's a good video for reference:
If you arrive in Hanoi any time before 10pm, you are welcomed with honking. Lots of honking. Most of the noise is produced by the hundreds of scooters plaguing the streets. I think the city hires most of them to drive around to look like they have a destination. Watch this video taken from our taxi catching a girl fixing her hair and then capturing the onset of scooters desperately wanting to run into us. While you watch, imagine crossing the street on foot, slowly, ever so carefully to avoid being hit.
The headache was intense after a few hours of listening to the traffic communicate in honks. Hanoi is not the place to relax. It is a wonderful town to explore...with a plastic bag on your head. Yes, I said a plastic bag. Ding Dong thought to cheer my spirits by walking the streets with a balloon tied to his wrist and a black plastic bag worn as a hat on his head. We already usurped a plastic string, that would be used to tie a box, and made it our "Mental Midget" necklace, a sort of trophy for saying or doing something stupid. So this Vietnam Team of freaks walked the streets on our second night to get a drink. It was hilarious. If Dinger ever loads his videos and pictures I would show you some beautiful proof. At any rate, we were out. We walked straight into a gay bar and to the back to find a place to stand/dance. Dinger is attacked by a girl pawing for the balloon, which of course he gave to her. She runs back all excited to tell her entourage of gay men and lands the balloon right on a fan...POP! I point at Dinger's head. Dinger understood. Give the girl the plastic bag, blow it up first to replace the helium balloon! Intelligence is here! Hilarious. She loved it. Her entourage adores her and us. We dance, drink and Tony semi-translates. Plus we scored a Fag-Hag and her crew! Yippee! My kind of crowd.
Soon after the bar shuts so we have to move on to a club, on an old boat, off a rickety peer-like walking bridge. The music is pretty tight, the bar and dance floor is packed, but the Hag says it's going to shut and didn't want to pay to go in. Us Americans, we just walk in. I still can't figure out if there was supposed to be a cover, but we just strolled right in. We lost our new friends in the process, which was the saddest part of our trip. We closed that place and were definitely loaded from drinking. Time to go home, except Tony had other plans. Given that he was the only person on the team that speaks Vietnamese, we were stuck with what he communicated to our taxi driver. Trust me, I fought his desire to move on to the next club. Thankfully, I lost. We ended up at the Hanoi Sheraton, the location of a discotheque. As the cab pulls up, Tony hops out and goes straight in the club. We watch a couple of Vietnamese LA-style chics in tight little dresses go in as well. Us, we look like derelicts. (Yeah, yeah... there was a plastic bag on someone's head earlier, doesn't mean we are derels.) So, as Tony, our friend and translator, is gone inside. We walk around to the outside where a beautiful garden awaits us...and a security guard. No worries, we don't look the part but we are good people nothing to show in our bags except... Cakes forgot she had a nearly empty bottle of whiskey in her bag! Doh! That's OK we toss it aside and enjoy the scenery. Shoot, we go inside and enjoy a little more. Crap, I love it so much I get us a room for when we return from Halong Bay. The entire place is well Air Conditioned, the floor sparkles, and someone bought us french fries just because they heard us drunkards wanting some french fries...desperately. I had to get a room! This was heaven after the honks, sweating, and nearly 3 star hotel we called home. We had to hang out in the hotel lobby and play with our Dong. Not Ding Dong, well him too, but our money. The exchange rate from USD to Vietnamese Dong is 1 to 36,000. So we are millionaires. I have so much Dong that Dinger wants to throw it every where. Again, he needs to give up the goods and share some footage.
After causing enough ruckus, we finally returned to Splendid Star. Our newly built dive hotel, I don't recommend it. At Splendid Star, the rooms were quiet (which is a plus) with leaking showers and a charming family in their 30's that run it. The family members are good at making sure you welcomed to their hotel, family, and home. The free breakfast is not the best, although it is nice to sit downstairs to meet other travelers. The Sister of the family hooked us up with our 2 day excursion on a Junk boat in Halong Bay. Our hungover adventure awaits us...
In 1974 I was born in Saigon, Vietnam, before the city was renamed to Ho Chi Minh. Seven months later my family fled to the Philippines to a refugee camp then on to US to settle outside of Washington, DC. My father was a retired Colonel of the US Army, born in Puerto Rico with Basque parents, and an employee of the US embassy in Saigon. This made him able to relatively easily evacuate our family and relatives from the Cong. My mother was working at the Embassy where she met my father. Her family was from North Vietnam. She went to school in Saigon at the only "Finishing School", which was closed by the Communist in 1975.
When I was 2 years old, my father was diagnosed with ALS or better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, and the disease of which Stephen Hawking suffers. Two years later he passed away, leaving me and his adopted four children to my mother. The four kids are my mothers children from her first marriage, and to me they are my three brothers and my sister. We grew up Vietnamese but spoke broken English at home. Leaving me looking ever so slightly different than my Vietnamese family. My other Vietnamese relatives and family friends would say strange things to me over the years like:
"Oh, you so big!" - referring to by bone structure, height, and perhaps booty (depending on what age we are talking about here folks). "Diep Waaaaaaaah!" - That's phonetic Vietnamese. Which I always thought meant, "Jesus Christ!" or something of the like, since every time I heard it there were big eyes and a loud "Waaaaaaaah!" at the end. I'll tell you the true meaning in a couple of paragraphs :) "You not Vietnamese!" - Um, yeah. Just because I don't speak your language doesn't mean my heritage isn't Vietnamese. I just can't wait to meet more Basque people and see what they have to say. "You no speak Vietnamese? Ooooooh." - Oh boy.
At any rate, this trip to Vietnam was my first return to the Mother Land. So why not go with my mother? I did.
That is, with her and my good old friend TRoam from DC. Lucky for me, TRoam is super laid-back, friendly, fun, and fluent in Vietnamese. Yippee! More cheers for more friends, Yippee! Cause DingDong & Cakes came too! Hurray! Dinger & Cakes were only there for the first 4 days but it was hellah fun. Did I say, "hella"? Oi. It's Team Vietnam, The Mental Midget Parade (definition comes later).
I cheer for the Team as they helped me cope with my mother on the trip. She's Asian and a Mom, that makes her special and especially hard to cope with for 2 weeks. Those that have an Asian Mom know what I'm talking about, everyone else either have read Joy Luck Club or should.
Moving on... We toured Hanoi, Halong Bay, Saigon, Nga Trang, and Dalat. I'll have an entry for each and the 'interesting' Saigon Tourist tour bus ride. Interesting... Diep Waaaaaaaaaah! Ok, "Diep Waaaaaaah!" does not mean "Oh good Lordee". It means "She so cute!" Really I'm not narcissistic.
Thanks to a week's worth of true R&R, yoga, and chats with friends, I am finally motivated to write. First order of business is to complete my bloggery of my trip to Vietnam. While those photos, hilarious videos, and scripting is occurring please enjoy a little bit of wig-ery thanks to my Skype video conversation with Seth. Meow!
I have a hunch many of you have lots to say and read around the election, so I'll keep this short. Thank you for your vote for Obama! I know you did or either you can't vote for one reason or another, or you wouldn't be reading my blog! Yeah for making history!!
This election turned another corner on history.... WTF... Yes on 8? Why? Why did we fall into a pattern of hate and fear? Do tell. I'm so pissed that I'm going to talk about another subject....
I'm bald, in Paris, on a very extended vacation, making history. Why bald? Then you haven't read my last entry. Go to www.katheegoesbald.blogspot.com Updating of that blog comes tomorrow after I'm a little less fuming. Why Paris? I love this city. I speak little to no French, but I plan to use my 5 weeks here to write. To write the beginning of a book and to write in this blog. Extended vacation? 3.5 months off of work. I have been professional party-er and YouTuber for the past year and I'm tired! Drained. Time to rejuvenate and give thanks to all my friends and all the people I've met in my life. Making history? I was offered a full-time job from Google/YouTube while on vacation in Vietnam, which makes me the first non-graduate to be offer a job by Google. History baby. And about Vietnam...
