Besides that, much has happened. My parents arrived the day before Randy and I flew in to HCMC (Saturday), so we've been hanging out with them, going to fancy restaurants and shopping. Yesterday was my brother and Duyen's engagement party, which was interesting/crazy. Unfortunately I wasn't really able to snap too many shots, due to not having a clue when I was supposed to be included in the ceremonies.
It started out at 7 am, Randy and I were sleeping in the living room and there was a knock on the door. It was my mom and dad, and we were still sleeping. No fun. I got up begrudgingly and got dressed. People were showing up and we were still getting ready, taking showers, brushing teeth, and I wasn't even awake yet. Ugh. So we got ready, Derek's groomsmen arrived and we started the ceremonial events. It involved six ceremonial baskets that had to exchange hands from my mom to each of the groomsmen. Then they had to carry the baskets into a van which carried us to Duyen's house. We arrived at her house at about 8:45, and apparently we had to wait until 9 to walk out to take the baskets to her house. Her house was on a pretty major street so the guys had to dodge traffic a little, but they got across the street where the bridesmaids were waiting to accept the baskets. After that everyone went upstairs, and the families went into their altar room where the engagement ceremony took place. My lucky dad, he was unaware that he was going to have to say things in the ceremony, but fortunately our translator pretty much fed him lines of what to say...along the lines of "our family thanks you for allowing our son the opportunity to have a relationship with your daughter"...quite interesting. Also interestingly, engagement parties are typically held about a year before the wedding, and this one was only about 5 days before.
Anyway, after the ceremony we went downstairs to mingle and then we all walked down to a restaurant that I guess specializes in engagement parties. On the main wall, there was a neon heart with my brother and Duyen's names in it, and there was karaoke all set up. I ended up sitting with Randy and the rest of the groomsmen, and we immediately broke into the Heineken's that were put on the table. We ate a six-course meal and afterwards, lots of Vietnamese family members and friends of the family would come up to our table with beers, fill our cups, and make us chug our whole beer. We did this about six times over the course of the day, all the while karaoke was going on in the background. One of Derek's groomsmen, Ciaran, was the first of the English speakers to sing a song, Lionel Richie's Hello. It was a huge hit, with one of Duyen's friends going up to dance with him. He didn't even know her! It was hilarious and awesome. Derek sang a song too, which was a huge hit, of course, as the groom, and then a little later he forced me to sing Open Arms, which I hammed up in rare form. SO embarassing. Luckily, as I looked at my mom and dad, they were both holding up video cameras and iphones preserving my performance, so I'm crossing my fingers that I go viral on youtube soon. Anyway, there was more karaoke, more adult bevri, and it turned out to be way more of a party than any of us expected. It was all over before 2, and we headed back to Derek's house to rest for a little while. We grabbed some Mongolian food for dinner back in town, and then went back to Derek's house for the rest of the evening.
This morning, we were able to sleep in for the first time in a few days. We got lunch at a fancy Vietnamese place, and then went shopping.
We went to Saigon Square and I was able to bargain for four new pairs of RayBan Wayfarers for $3 each, in some AWESOME new colors. I got a normal one in a sort of cheetah tortoise shell color, then a light pea green, burnt orange, and one in royal blue. I was very excited to have haggled my way down from VND150.000 to VND60.000 each ($7.50 to $3)!
Anyway, after shopping, we went to a fancy mall with an awesome food court...It had Carls Jr and Popeyes...guess where we went!??! All I'll say is that they had really crappy baguettes instead of biscuits, but the mashed potatoes were almost spot on. The fried chicken was quite wonderful as well :)
This bakery had some pretty amazing stuff:
Okay, I don't think I'm capable of doing any more recap...It's exhausting! Tomorrow we head to Cambodia, Siem Reap to be specific. We leave HCMC at 11:40 and will be there for three days. Then we return for the wedding ceremony on Friday, and the wedding reception on Saturday. So much!!
Gnite all <3
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