Cu Chi Tunnel disaster.

Jan 9, 2013  -Visiting the infamous Chu chi tunnels turned out to be an epic fail today.  At 6 am, we were picked up by a large bus packed with younger tourists. Upon arrivig at the facility, we watched in horror as those same kids posed dramatically for pictures beside each Ho Chi MInh statue they came across.  One 19 yr old kiwi who was standing before HO CHI with grateful, tear glazed eyes announce,"dude, he is my idol" to his singlet wearing friend .   
The main attraction @ Cu Chi  are the small, impressive sniper traps which are hidden by grass and connected to the man made tunnels which lie underground on 3 different stories for over 200 kilometers.  The Viet Kong formally used them as an underground highway system in order to fight and hide from U.S. soldiers.  Presently, tourists from all over are allowed to play paintball with their friends nearby, eerily shoot bullets at cans, shop or crawl ino the previously used sniper holes for a quick photograph.  Massive lines of foreigners on desperate quests to document themselves climbing and popping out of sniper holes made me immediatly wince.   I realized that I too secretly yearned to follow the mob and take the "cliched" photo, knowing full well that doing  this would turn me into them..... Or, did just having this little "sub rosa" hidden within me mean that I AM THEM???? And if that's the case, how on earth will I make people finally accept me for who I am "pretending" to be??? 
 I ended up passing on it, and pitied the suffering my Facebook's photo album section would undergo as a result of it!!!!!!  David Sedaris wrote that, " All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints".  Our 

p.s.- Our Vietnamese tour guide must have either shotgunned three red bulls or just freebased cocaine 12 min prior to receiving a microphone on the bus, because he would not shut up.  No less than 70 times, my ears burned as he mispronounced and repeated the words ,"guerrilla soldier", (substituting the "g" with a "r" sound, and the "s" with a "w").
After continuously ranting at tourists ignorant refusal to feast upon, "dewishhhhusss dog meat", he serenaded us on the bus.....

Putting joe into awkward situations

favorite habit whilst engaging in conversations with other couples who ask me and my boo, " what will you two do for x-mas/ new years"?-::::::: I shrug my shoulders innocentlly before naively replying, " well joe for some reason is insistent that we go to an Indian restaurant for curry and then demands we rent some new indie film called TWO GIRLS ONE CUP, he says it is a great romantic comedy and a must see...i think it's got that Diane Kruger chick in it, I LOVE THE ROLES SHE PICKS, ALWAYS GREAT SELECTIVE ROLES RIGHT?".....(I've done this 7 times thus far, and one dude actually fist bumped my man after giving him the grossest nod of approval I've ever seen)..i have also started announcing to strangers that we are on vacation from our "7th semester in learning about aerial fitness"...... BORED ON BUSES.....

new years resolutions.... 2013

I'm already in the works of completing my ny resolution of ," deleting unknown / unnecessary people from my facebook friend list..". If you are under the age of 52 , havnt overcome a life threatening disease or had a caesarian section willfully without the use of medication (it is after all imperative that a child be born sober), please stop beginning posts with ," so far, in 2012 I've accomplished ..........." That being said, in 2013, i plan on 

- moving south Korea in order to buy a dog which I will name " kimchi".....(are you envisioning how perpetually scared, confused and alarmed The beast's life will be?? 

-pepper the term," pelvic mound" more frequently into my day to day conversations with strangers.

night riding in vietnam

Took what they advertised to be a 14 hour journey ( which turned into 18 hours) on our first double decker sleeper bus. The bunk beds were like little coffins/ capsules wherein you slid your legs into a plastic enclosure ..it would have suited dwarfs like myself, and all other Asians. (5'2 & under) perfectly...... Poor 6"" joe had to lay his legs on top of the enclosure because they were too long/ couldn't fit ( envision the scene when Cinderella's sister tries to shove her oversized foot into the glass slipper) while I may or may not have yelled at fellow loud drunk Russian passengers ( at 4 am) to ,"shut up", after sitting up in my bunk and asking them," what is wrong with you?!?" ..... Damn the ussr, everyone know the two things I hate most in this world are racists and Russians... Sometimes I wish I would have spent less time watching "Pretty Woman" on a perpetual loop at my Grandma's house as a 7 year old.  Considering that the first time my Step Mother asked me conversationally what I wanted to be when I grew up, I lazily replied , "a prostitute",  could have sent a message that MAYBEE IT WAS TIME FOR DADDY TO PUT ON CARTOONS  IN ORDER TO TURN ME BACK INTO A SMALL CHILD WHO WAS CAPABLE OF MAKING GREAT FIRST IMPRESSIONS?  Maybe I wouldn't be such a racist, if I had spent more time watching, "rocky and bullwinkle" DAAAAAAAAD???!!!!!!.  

- 3 days later, I had the pleasure of staring at a disco, blinking, neon nazi/ Tibetan good luck charm the last 16hours on a sleeping bus.   FYI- pretty sure the man seated across from me was a "lunger" and sharing our long distance bus journey in order to say goodby to his entire family. FaCT- he was ten min away from dying from acute tuberculoses, and deff carried a green plastic spittle bag, which he generously filled, emptied, and refilled after rest stops.... There was one tv on board, and after the driver took one look at my boyfriend ( for the sake of the story I will now refer to him plainly as " sly" ) and put on the film" the expendables". The driver's hype man then grabbed the girth of sly's arms and in obvious approval lifted his limbs high in the air for the remainder of the passengers to see while pointing at the screen). ... Tired !

No more russians needed in the viet kong

jan 3rd-
Mui ne , Vietnam is A beach town that should be named "Russia"..... Tackiness in abundance (gold chains and chest hair pot bellied men at public restaurants proudly wearing speedos, high heels on the beach and chicks in bandanas which match their neon thong bikinis ), all the vietnamese people/ taxi drivers speak only russian and I swear these cutthroat bitches are practically undressing and showing the shades of their aureola's to my beau on the main roads. ( I can't compete/ have had mustard stains on my Metallica shirt for 18 weeks). F- the USSR!!!! 

jan 4th
All the food in mui ne, Vietnam is ghastly!!! ( I blame this on Russia's main food group being the "potato". They have all migrated to mui ne and now have low expectations of all cuisine. Guarantee you, If this town had an influx of Italians instead, this shit wouldn't fly. Last night I ordered "grilled chicken". And got a lonely piece of pork drowning in mayonnaise that sat next to one boiled potato. Hungry. 

jan 6th 
I am officially over vietnam- people are becoming more and more primitive the further south I go.... Seriously just got caught by my boyfriend muttering w/ my eyes closed at the bus driver ," swerve and drive as fast as you want idiot, it will not make your tiny little vietnamese member grow any faster". FYI: at the rest stop, an obese vietnamese women seated inside the bus (gargantuan camel toe in tow) sat shrieking and pounding the glass window at her husband ( who was outside of the bus & seated at a far away table)... This is turning into a nightmare . No more nam , NO MORE !