Day 46

Sunday… and not weekend for me! When I’m ready I go with Xuan to Phò Lé to get the breakfast for everyone and when we’re back home we have breakfast together. The kids are in a good mood and Thach Thao asks Xuan to go to the zoo, lets see what happens. After a homemade coffee milk, it’s time to head to the nail salon.

In our way we stop at the Tous Les Jours Bakery to buy my lunch as Chi Lam went to the countryside and there’s no one to cook meals for me… ;) when I arrive to the nail salon everybody seems sleepy and I’ll learn the hard way that Sundays are very slow for business… so slow that I arrive to a point I need to go get my iPod in order to not fall asleep while practicing a new type of flower.

the nail salon

In Portugal we complain about our soap operas and TV shows and reality shows and whatever but that’s because you have never watched Vietnamese TV or Vietnamese soap operas: they’re always scream, crying, fighting, when they’re having dialogues they’re shouting and when they get hurt and complain they moan like if they’re in a porn which makes it even weirder than already is… anyway… 

I continue my practicing and at lunchtime they ask me if I wanna join them and I get my lunch and we eat all together. They are very surprised with my lunch as it’s pizza, bread with ham and melted cheese and a basil and cheese bread. When I finish I go get my camera and they all start laughing and the girls say I can’t take them pictures while they don’t put the make up on so they all get up and go get their cosmetics. 

the teachers

the teacher's assistant and the teacher

the art of gel making nails

I do a couple of photos including the group one and then the salon turns into a Fashion photo set with fans and models changing clothes and so many laughs that for the first time I felt they didn’t look at me like the foreigner but one of them. =)

the fab five!

photo shoot

the model

Around 4 pm Xuan shows up to pick me up as we’re going to see the dragons for the temple and having dinner with the guy who’s building them. At home I rest for a little bit while Xuan finishes a couple of things and takes a shower.

We go on our way towards district 7 and I can tell you this guy leaves really really really really far away, so far away that we get to a point we get lost and he has to come and get us. At his house we see the work he have already done and the sculptures are wonderful.

We’re ready and so it’s time to eat and we go to a barbeque place but not a barbeque like the one next to home. This place has at least hundred tables and there’s smoke everywhere ‘cause the food is cooked at the table. There are so many people that no one cares with the only tattooed “long nose” in the area and that made me feel good.

Xuan orders and doesn’t tell me what we’re going to eat which is ok for me as I’m ready to try any kind of food during this trip. The first dish comes to the table and after grilled it’s really good, it tastes to something I had never eat before and cannot explain… I ask Xuan what is it but she changes the subject very quickly, I start to get suspicious and every time I can I ask her what are we eating and she changes subject once more. Finally she tells me we’re eating goat’s breast, more known by tits, which is ok, not that weird, I thought it was something worst… then goat soup comes to the table and I eat a bowl of soup as my stomach is too full to something more than that.

It’s time to head home and the dragon guy takes us near district 5 so we can go home and like this we arrive much faster. In my bedroom Skype is ringing and I have almost all the family at the table: my grandparents, my parents and my 2 cousins, of course the cats were sleeping…

We talk for a long while, we laugh together and I promise my grandparents I’ll take them a Vietnamese guy and gal to massage them as souvenir. =) My dad shows me that he’s wearing the watch I gave him for father’s day and tells me he loves it very much… well it’s a Bulgari watch what’s not to like?! We say our goodbyes and I go for the shower, as I’m all smelling to smoke… hair washed, body washed and it’s time to jump into bed.

Night night peeps!

P.S. - continuing with my covers discovery, this one goes to my dad… a band I love with a music you like… =)