Nam's diaries: Day 47

It’s 6.30 am and I know it because the alarm clock is ringing but I feel so sleep that I turn it off and stay in bed a little while more. At 7 am I really need to get up so I go for the shower and I get dressed. I hear the kids and Xuan but when I arrive downstairs to go with them, Xuan had already left to leave the kids in school. When she’s back she tells me she didn’t call me as she knew I had gone to bed late yesterday and wanted to let me rest, sweet Xuan! =)

We go for breakfast at the lady next to home and then we go to get the Thach Thao’s passport pics and she looks so lovely. It’s time to go to the nail salon so in the way there we stop at Tous Les Jours Bakery to buy my lunch, Chi Lam isn’t back yet, and there we go.

When I arrive to the salon only the girls are there and they say hi to me with a sleepy smile in their faces. I need a cà phê sữa đá so I ask the girls if they want one and my gestures they understand I wanna go out buy it and tell me to wait, they grab the phone and order one for me. Cà phê sữa đá being delivered… wow! Feeling a VIP =)

It’s time to start practice and today I have a hard job in front of me. The drawing I have to practice is just a wave with two colors and it seems simple but if you don’t know how to work with your wrist you’ll never make it, as I learnt later that day… I spend the whole morning practicing and the whole afternoon and I have a big headache. Don’t know if it’s the nail polish or if the loud music they’re listening: Vietnamese electro – and I can tell you it’s not nice, there is only boom tcha boom boom tcha boom and your head starts to feel like a drum… now I understand what my parents suffered when I had a phase I’d hear trance music from dawn ‘til dusk. Sorry mum and dad!

Around 3 pm my head can’t take it anymore and I can’t concentrate so I stop and go watch a girl having French gel manicure and there’s so many tricks you can’t believe it. Xuan come spick me up with Phuc and we head home. My head is still buzzing so when we arrive I just lay down to be interrupted by ideas that come to me about nails. I get up and go put my ideas to practice and the headache comes again…

I go back to lay down and when I’m just there laying down Thach Thao comes to my room and wants to know if I’m ok, the gesture is so sweet that I ask her if she wants to watch a movie, of course she says yes and jumps to my bed. Phuc comes right after and the 3 of us start watching Happy Feet 2.

I know it’s time for dinner when Xuan shows up at the door and tells me we should go, we leave the kids watching the movie and we head to the barbeque place. Today there are chicken cutlets and they’re delicious as always. The sauce goes trough my fingers when I grab the chicken leg and I just want to lick it all… this is paradise!

After dinner we go to the painting store because Xuan wants to have a couple of paintings made but when we arrive there the owner is not there. As the store is in the middle of the touristy street we go for a walk before going home. The Vietnamese girls in the bars seem very young and you know what they’re doing there: trying to find a eastern husband to take them out of here… everywhere is full of tourists drinking, eating and in the background loud music, we even pass by a bar where they’re playing MC Hammer’s Can’t Touch This…