Arrived!

Well, after many many issues along the way, I've made it! Literally, at each potential opportunity to stop me there was an issue, including while I was in LAX waiting to board, at my connection in Narita, at Customs/Immigration in HCMC... As a warning, if you are obtaining a visa prior to entry in VN, plz check your sticker to make sure there's a red stamp...TravelVisaPro somehow managed to omit that stamp so, needless to say, I was freaked out upon hearing that I didn't have the appropriate visa. Luckily it was only $10 to fix it right there so my worries were shortlived. Bags were circling round the carousel, swooped em up, and was greeted by Derek, Randy, Duyen (Derek's fiance), and Leeloo, their dog. A picture of the awesome Antoin Dobson sign for me is on Facebook, posted by Derek, and pics of inflight dinner and view of the neverending daylight outside my window follow:





We managed to cart all my bags back to Derek's place on Derek and Duyen's motorbikes, and quickly went out to grab a bite and alcoholic refreshment. In my jet lag, I failed to realize that we arrived to eat at around 1 a.m. and therefore ended up back at Derek's around 4:30. Head to pillow = out.

Woke up at 9 am to jackhammers pounding the wall we share with the house next door. A little Glee to wake us up was followed by some excellent Hue food at a restaurant tucked away next to Ben Thanh market. Pics of some of the food, although I apologize for not knowing what they are:



Lemongrass Clams



Shrimp jelly cake thingies...my favorite!!



Rice with Clams

After that, we ran around town running some errands: exchanging currencies, fixing my iPhone screen, buying shoes for the wedding and other festivities (that most definitely do not match any of the dresses I bought), and drinkin beer at a bar called M52 (apparently frequented by the Brits, NZers, Aussies, etc, as they show a lot of soccer on TV). We were obviously hungry again after all that, and grabbed an amazing bowl of pho (for less than a dollar apiece) at a little spot that Duyen used to live near:







I guess here are a couple other shots I got:







Randy and I are taking off on Monday for what's called an open bus tour, which goes up the coast to a handful of famous towns, including a couple beaches, and ending up in Hanoi, where we'll go to Ha Long Bay and do some deep water soloing (hopefully!). This tour is cool because it stops in certain cities, and you can choose to get on the next bus at the end of the day or stay and get on the next bus whenever you choose to leave. Hopefully we LOVE some of these places and want to stay a day or two...especially the BEACH towns :) We just have to get back to HCMC by the 17th when my parents fly in! Woooooooooooooo so much fun already, and I'm exhausted so I'm out.