The Best Day

2012-07-19

Today was by far one of the best days that I have had here. I walked to work and yes I got the
same stares but I was not as bothered as I am typically. I got to work, and work was okay. I am
still trying to find my footing. I hope I find it soon. At lunch we went to a local place to eat. You
know a food is good and cheap when you have to go through many alleyways to get to it. So this
is what we did. However the food took a long long time. The reason as explained by one of our
Vietnamese counterpart is because it is the first day of the Lunar month.



After lunch Quan Anh, the real estate agent picked me up from the restaurant to look at some
places. The places we saw were alright. I wanted to get a two bedroom apartment but now I will
just get one bedroom, stay in there for six months and take my time and find a good one. Reason
being is that I am really really tired of staying in this hotel, I like to cook and eating out is getting
very very costly.

After that I came back to work and did more work. At 17h30, another real estate agent came to
pick me up so that we may look at other apartments. On my way there I filmed the crazy road
of Hanoi and the traffic. While in traffic a lot of people were staring at me, so I decided to start
filming as well. Then a guy who was staring saw me point the camera at him, he was so excited
that he decided to wave and gives me the peace sign. It was funny, I was laughing so hard, and I
hope I did not move the camera. The houses that were shown to me were way above my budget
and out of the area where I wanted to be. so for now I think I will sign with Quan Anh and get the
one that is close by my work colleague, I want to take a taxi with him and another colleague who
lives in the area but is currently in Canada to work. After looking at the place, the agent got me a
motorcycle taxi cab home as he lived in the Tay Ho area.

I was going to go up to my room and order some Italian food but I thought it would be best if I
go to Highway 4, a restaurant to eat as it is cheaper and also I saw a friendly face the last time
I was there. I was very happy that I went. The guy that I saw last time was there and he was
very happy to see me. Tomorrow I have Vietnamese class, so while waiting for the food I thought
I might brush up on my lesson but then the waiter came to me and decided to find out what I
was reading. He helped me with my pronunciation and greetings. He also taught me more
words. This went on for the whole dinner. After he indicated that we should talk more so that I
may improve my Vietnamese so that he can also improve his English.

I left the restaurant to go home. I received the same response, people looking at me and
signaling their friends to also take a look and laughing. I saw Antoinette, one of my colleagues
again. They said that they have just come from the movies. It cost 70,000 VND which is really
really cheap, around $4CDN. We spoke a bit and now I am in my hotel room.

The guy at the restaurant made my day I guess

I hope it continues to be like this