Final Day in Vietnam

After my tour of the city, I checked into my hotel, rested for a bit, then went out for supper. I stopped at some Italian joint where I was seated next to an American who had clearly spent a lot of time in Vietnam. He started talking to me, and I found out he'd been married to a Vietnamese woman (then divorced on good terms), and that he came to Vietnam every chance he got. We talked for a while and he ended up buying my meal, suite. Then I think I just walked around a bit before going back to the hotel.

The next day I tried to walk to the zoo that we had tried to visit on the tour. At the time, it had been closed for some reason until 2:00, and we didn't get a chance to go back before I decided I was done. It didn't seem to far from the hotel, so I figured I'd take the map and just walk there, since I had until 9:00 before I had to take a taxi to the airport. I am usually really good at reading maps, but for some reason I had a helluva time reading the Ho Chi Minh map. I think it was because the language was so foreign to me. Despite using the same letters (plus a lot of accents), the names were so odd to me, that I couldn't keep them in my head, from looking at the street sign to finding them on the map. Plus I couldn't tell which way was north, so even if I found the street corner I was on, for some reason, I could never figure out which direction I was facing. I was kicking myself for forgetting my compass in my suitcase back at the hotel. I've never had the occasion to use that compass in the woods or the desert, but I always need it when I'm in the city.

I never found the zoo, but I did do a little shopping, ate some crocodile (I've had crocodile before, though, and I swear this was just chicken), and ended up sitting in the park near my hotel, watching a lot of people playing this game that's like hackey sack, but with a sort of shuttlecock. I was approached by one, then two, then three, then four or five, young people wanting to practice their English. So I ended up spending about two and a half hours just chatting with them, in particular a college girl who is learning English and French, and I think Japanese, too. It's funny how many people I ended up talking to in that city in two days, knowing how antisocial I am.

Later I went to this random restaurant for a light supper, since I had eaten a late lunch, and ordered some soup. It took forever for it to come, I think because they made it from scratch, but it may have been the best soup I've ever had. The food in Vietnam is phenomenal. It was a cream of chicken soup.

Then I went home. I was quite disappointed with the flight. There was much less leg room, no personal tv screens, and the big screen either didn't have sound, or my sound system was broken. All they had was CNN, anyway. But it was a smooth and quick flight. I got to Incheon airport shortly before the five hour morning bus to Ulsan left, and got home in the early afternoon. I was glad to get back. Vietnam was good, but it still left me a bit wanting. Korea feels very comfortable to me now.