noodle quest 2006

Hello readers… I want to begin this post firstly by thanking all of you for keeping up with the noodlequest- i so appreciate your interest. Secondly, I want to say that in truth, i have litttle idea who is reading this blog as many of you do so anonymously. I will now post a bit of an e-mail i received from my wise and insightful sister elyse; “your website creates this illusion that i am talking to you. i check it every single day, and have read every entry and every comment since you
started, but i realize that that doesn’t mean that you know! or that it’s two-ways, for that matter.” then, most importantl;y she writes; “i’ll make a point to write you emails from now on!” But of course, no pressure or anything. A good handful of people have written me and i thank all of them. Additionally, I would like to publicly thank my father and my cousin Joelle for the abundance of e-mails they have sent my way.
on other notes: the final clothes tallies are in! I bought: 2 cotton dresses, 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of loungey pants, 2 tank tops, 1 t-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, 1 crazy dress that the people at reaching out designed for me from this dope apron, and 1 super cool silk suit, because like, i’m a grown up now. additionally i bought a whole mess of gifts (maybe 8-10?) so my shopping spree was not completely selfish. i spent about 200 american beans so it was not a total pocket dent but definitely a unique (read: will not happen again until chiang mai, thailand) experience.
tonight we will get on a bus to dalat at 6pm which will get us in town at about 7am. long ride. today we will mail our stuff home. in addition to sending my purchases home i will also be sending some clothes that i brought. my pack is significantly smaller and i am very happy about it. i will send my stuff by seamail which takes 3 months! i very much hope the boat does not sink.
what a surprise, i am hungry. the food that i crave lately includes these garlick water spinach that is in abundance here and of course fried rice with eggs and spring rolls. jessie has invaded the juice realm of the menu and her life has really improved for the better. we decided that it was time to get our brains juicing a bit so jess and i have each picked a topic that we are going to investigate through photographs and interviews. hers is jobs. mine is vegetables. i am really excited because Dalat is like the veegatble capital of vietnam. i don’t really know what this means, but i am so glad anyway. bye bye.

1. vietnamese people are so effusive- everysingle person in this country expresses their love to me with rough slaps on the side, face, arm and some tugging and pulling. i, in turn, return the favor.
2. so many vietnamse people have bandages on the outside sides of both their eyes. seriously, what is this about?
3. i think one of the things that makes me most furious, sad, intolerant, is dishonesty.
4. VERY IMPORTANT! a new link under “my links” to a super dope shop called “reaching out” which is based in hoi an but features work from disabled artists from all over vietnam. there are classes and a workshop in the store as well as an art gallery and a shop. it is a fair trade store so the money gets filtered back into the hands of the artists and prices are fixed (un-true in every other facet of viet life) so they are assured fare wages. the products are truly beautiful and unique. Mr Binh, the owner of the store took some pics of jess and i sporting some products that might be displayed on the site in a bit. check it out!

after two very lengthy distinct and interesting conversations with two very different young women today i have resolved my temporary apathy to the street vendors and well everyone else who wants to sell me something. Through talking with Bee, ... [Continue reading this entry]

aaaaaaagh! this morning i brushed my teeth with tap water and then freaked out for a few minutes but i am still alive and this happened a few hours ago, so probably i will keep on living. today we ... [Continue reading this entry]

i am still f-ing here. unbelievably, we went shopping again today. i can't really explain how this makes me feel in printed word as the only way my pain can accurately be expressed is through violent howls and ... [Continue reading this entry]

hello friends, good news... JESSIE LIVES! yesterday she was feeling a bit woozy in the morning but somehow had it in her to do a 12 hour day of shopping and today seems completely healed. i really hope this ... [Continue reading this entry]

wooooooooooow! it is raining so hard right now it seems like the sky can not possibly be strong enough to hold up these rain clouds. i mean, the sound of the rain hitting the ground- it's almost like shots ... [Continue reading this entry]

hellllllllo! we took the nighttrain which was very cool and arrived in hoi an at around 11:30 in the morning. since then we have been eating delicious food and shopping our brains out. so much so, in fact, ... [Continue reading this entry]

haaaaaaahahahahha! so it turns out that pho chai in a tone (indascernably) different to me, means "i will burn everything down!" hahahah no wonder that dude was so pissed. i couldn't understand why "vegetarian noodles" would be so offensive ... [Continue reading this entry]

there is one vietnamese channel that as far as i can tell, only shows skits of small children (lip) singing and dancing in costume and at other times shows montages of bird pictures with soft silly grocery store music accompanying ... [Continue reading this entry]