The Wall of Flight

Jessica comes Tuesday night around midnight (all of my guests arrive at midnight...I need to train them better) and so my string of visitors is beginning. I think I am ready.

Here is the bedroom wall I told you about- I will refer to it as The Wall of Flight: on it are confirmation tickets for two people to Hue (Jessica and I are going to Central Vietnam over Thanksgiving to explore the food capital of the country), tickets for eight people to Hanoi for the Halong Bay cruise, etc, tickets for eight people to Danang to see Hoi An, tickets for eight people back to Ho Chi Minh City (my family's trip), tickets for two people to Jakarta (Sue is coming back in February and we are going to Java/Bali over Tet, and one ticket to Phuket, Thailand for the last weekend in January (Katherine found round trip tickets for $50, so we are giving Thailand another try...)

I took Katherine to my new favorite Haianese Chicken place - Singaporean food - last night. Over steamed chicken, barbecued pork and black peppercorn beef, our conversation turned in a very familiar direction: our lives are good here. The above-mentioned plans, the food that is so amazing and cheap, the personal hour and a half long home massage I have on the calendar for Monday night, the endless cheap movies and HBO series to watch on the roof, the fruit juices made for less than sixty cents, having clothes made, waking up to a market full of freshness every single morning, good friends to cook with, a friendly neighborhood, hair washes, pedicures, manicures, lying by the pool after school and on the weekends...

Yeah, we have been mourning the idea of leaving this place ever since we got here. We know we will never find another Saigon. That's what we talked about over our feast last night, the feast that ended up costing us about $5 total. I was so enamoured by it, I forgot to take a picture of the food. It was both beautiful and delicious.

I saw Nam today - the first time since he spied on me at school. I hardly ever pass him on the street anymore because a new road opened up for my journey to school and it takes me in the opposite direction. But I found Minh this morning to request Nam as Jessica's driver, and went to confirm it with Nam. It was good to see him; he had just gotten a hair cut and was wearing his classic blue driving shirt. We shook hands and communicated in our normal, inefficient manner. He is happy to have a purpose coming, so Jessica, hope you are ready.

Hope you are ready for hair washes and markets and great cheap food and clothes making and massages~