6.30 am and the alarm clock starts ringing, I turn it off and roll to
the other side of the bed. I stay there more 15 minutes and then get up and do
my usual routine: choose what to wear, shower, get dressed, brush my teeth and
get ready to take Thach Thao and Phuc to school. Today, once more, I have to
stop Phuc to run to the motorbike while it’s in the middle of the street. He
starts crying but I really don’t mind as if a motorbike comes and hits him then
he cries with a reason and when I stop him there’s no reason to cry. Xuan and
me leave them at the school and then go for breakfast at Lady Bulldog.
After breakfast we go for Highlands coffee shop for our beverage of
choice; of course the waiter already knows us and we don’t need to order
anymore, he just makes the 2 sign and goes inside to prepare our order.
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In the
meantime, at the table next to us there’s a lady with a girl seating and this
lady starts to chit-chat with Xuan and looking to me and you know, the usual,
or at least it was what I thought until Xuan starts to translate what she’s
saying.
This lady tells us the story of her life, which is quite interesting.
She’s from Hanoi, has 4 sons and 1 daughter, 2 of them live in California,
another in the UK and the other son in Australia, the daughter lives here in
Vietnam and is a pageant queen. The lady has 71 years old and does yoga for the
past 14 years and she also plays golf and the piano. What made me notice her
was the fact she was very well dressed, make up on and she seemed a very
easy-going granny and she was! In fact she says she gets herself produced so
her children know everything is ok with her and don’t need to worry. She
continues talking and tells me she has 2 dogs, she loves very much, she’s very
rich and spends her money on her and her dogs as she doesn’t need the money
when she dies. She also tell us that she only spends 2 months in Vietnam, the
other 10 she spends them travelling and visiting her sons… what a good life! =)
She’s a lovely lady and likes me very much, likes my tattoos, my piercing and
my white skin and when we’re ready to leave, she gives her number to Xuan so we
can go for a coffee one of these days.
When we leave the coffee shop we have to go to the container place
again because the furniture will be delivered and Xuan wants to check if
everything is ok. We do again the same long ride crossing all over town and
Saigon Bridge again, we go by the awful truck road with many holes and, by the
way, trucks and we arrive to the warehouse. When we arrive there, the view is a
little bit frustrating. Half of the furniture is only protected with plastic
foil and not even everything, guess they forgot the chair legs and all the
other legs around, including everything from the bed. Of course Xuan gets upset
and when the 2nd truck with the missing furniture arrives she calls
to the people in the store and tells them she wants the work well done: no
chair legs unprotected, no sofa legs or anything unprotected. I get a little
bit surprised because the shop where Carlos and Xuan bought the furniture is a
good shop with name around Vietnam and it’s strange that they don’t know how to
protect furniture to be shipped. And the worst part is that they don’t think at
all! I start screaming when I see them pulling some parts of the bed around the
concrete floor and risking it. I know it’s not my things but c’mon! Lets think
for a second: concrete floor + wood + pulling = risks in the wood
Anyway, after a while we leave and head home for lunch and it’s very
funny because I don’t know how to eat fish with chopsticks and Chi Lam is so
worried with that that asks Xuan if she should do something else for me. I
don’t want to give work to no one so I tell Xuan I’ll try to eat it and that’s
it… but it’s not! Chi Lam does me a fried egg so I can eat it with the rice
while trying the fish with the chopsticks (please don’t tell anyone that I was
eating boiled fish – something else I really can’t stand like uncooked bananas,
grapes, broccoli and cauliflower).
After lunch we go check the doors and the windows for the temple and
on our way we stop at a shop to buy plastic foil and bubble wrapping plastic as
the guy who’s doing the doors and windows is someone who never had a big order
like this and never ever had to shipped anything to anywhere and Xuan wants to
help the guy. At the shop I’m not allowed to take my helmet, my sunglasses
neither my mask, just in case they want to do a special price for a long nose…
=) after buying what we need and agreed with the guy where to deliver it we go
on our way…
While driving, the sky turns dark grey and after 3 minutes it starts
raining and for the first time I’m riding a motorbike under heavy rain, so
heavy Xuan has to stop to buy us rain ponchos. Hehehehe If I was making fun of
the people I saw wearing them the last time that was raining, today I’m one of
them and I have to say it’s an experience, a nice one! Of course no photos were
taken because of the heavy rain… continuing our rainy journey we go to the
warehouse where the windows and stores are and I have to say they’re amazingly
beautiful. My mouth is open and doesn’t want to close down! I also have to say
that to arrive there we passed by houses next to a water course that smelled
really really bad, in fact when looking at the water, it’s black with so much
garbage and dirt, and also by a road with so many deep holes that even putting
my knees next to my chest I got my feet wet. At this time, of course my mouth
and nose were really closed!
When we finish with the windows and the doors it’s already late to
pick up Thach Thao and Phuc so we head home to get a photo of Xuan’s dad and
head to the touristy road. There we pick some jackets from the dry cleaning and
then Xuan goes to order a painting of her dad.
At home, I go for some nail art practicing until dinner and at dinner,
Chi Lam made beef only for me. We eat at the same time as the kids and of
course it’s a healthy mess with jokes, playing and a couple of cries in the
middle. After dinner, Xuan and me stay talking a little bit in the kitchen and
only around 9 pm I go upstairs and continue my nail art. Then when I finish is
time for my nightly shower and my other ritual: TV show, which, in fact,
doesn’t happen as I fall asleep as soon as I touch the bed.
Night night everyone, don’t let the bedbugs bite!
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