Phamerican Phairlines

No, I didn't not fly American, I flew Korean Air. The plane was quite comfy, and the flight attendants all looked exactly alike. Every sentence ended with "-nida." Adorbz. I wanted to give them all fans and have them giggle behind them in unison at all my jokes. I started the flight by reading the final two Astonishing X-Men graphic novels written by Whedon and penciled by Cassaday. I'll probably read the next two even though they are written by someone else. After that, I commenced a movie marathon.
1. I am Number Four. This was surprisingly captivating, mostly due to Quinn Fabray playing the female lead. I would recommend it if you are flying soon.
2. Blue Valentine. This was a beautifully told story about birth, growth, and death of a relationship between Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. I would definitely recommend this movie except not on a plane with little children running around. There is quite a bit of nudity and sexuality. HOT.
3. Country Strong. Yuck. This was the most convoluted story ever. It was like Inception except with bad acting, writing, directing, etc. Yuck.
4. Rango. I fell asleep. Also, I wish it were A Bug's Life.
5. Tarzan. Phil Collins duh.

After the 1000 hours of flight, I finally landed in Saigon where I was picked up by my mother, her cousin Cuong, and his driver. Apparently her uncle is a big deal in international shipping and they have a fortress in the middle of Saigon. It's pretty nice relative to the rest of the city.
Here is my room:


Look at this cute little girl. We refer to her as Boo.


After this short visit, we went to my dad's uncle's house. We ate balut, one of mel's favorite dishes. AKA boiled duck fetus, yum!

Later that day, we went over to my mom's sister's house where I finally met G-mama Pham. Well, that's not really her name, nor is it gangee, meemaw, or gran gran.
Here she is with some of the kids:


For dinner, we ate chicken, rice porridge, grilled venison, and some ginger pork. All incredibly fresh and delish.

I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night with this climbing on my neck...so I killed it. Come at me, bro.


At around 5 AM, a rooster crowed. I'm convinced it was Chanticleer from Rock-a-Doodle-Doo.

I hopped on a motorbike, popularly known in Vietnam as Xe Honda (vehicle Honda) with my Uncle Huy who took me, my sister, and our cousin to a coffee shop to have ca fe. Unfortunately, nobody was there who could translate so I was forced to use Vietnamese. I was pretty amazing. My uncle is a math teacher at the local high school. In his home, there was even a chalk board with some derivatives. He also grows these special flowering trees that are used mostly during Tet time. He sells them for about 1G each or rents them out. My Vietnamese got a little better so watch out Mel, no more English in our home. You're judgmental mother will be so proud the next time I see her. After coffee, he took me to buy some tizight loafers, and then we went to Pho 24. It's supposedly the most popular pho place in Nam. The beef was super fresh, the tripe was exceptional, and the rice noodles were much thicker than in the States. We did some more shopping after that and more coffeeing. When we got back to the house, my aunt already had a meal prepared for us. More of Mel's favorites:


Back to those Xe Hondas, that shizzz is crazy. Traffic laws...seem not to exist. Driving into oncoming traffic happens...a lot...and nobody seems to care. One important thing I noticed was that honking was a sign of safety as opposed to an act of aggression as in America. Which would bring me to a deeper, inciteful observation, but I can't get into that now cuz my sister reallly wants to email her bf.

JP OUT.