My Last Day In Vietnam! The Time Has Come To Return To My Normal Mundane Life!

Well, this is it. It’s been a wonderful ride, and an unforgettable experience. The time has past by fairly quickly, and now my bags are packed and ready to go back to the United States. It was my last day in Vietnam. It will be another exceptionally long series of flights to get back to Chicago, Illinois. I’ll be arriving at O’hare International Airport around 8:20am local time, where I’ll make my way into the city to meet, for the first time, a Facebook friend I’ve been communicating with. He lives in Chicago already, and I’ll be turning over the agenda to him for a few hours, until the 5:20pm bus to Grand Rapids, MI. I should arrive in Grand Rapids around 10:50pm, although you and I both know busses tend to be a bit behind schedule more than they are early.

For me, this is simply an irreplaceable experience. I cannot truly describe how much better I know, and understand Hang. The things she does, says, and strives for in her life, all make a little more sense. From the foods she eats (and doesn’t eat), to how she keeps her things, to how she treats people… they all make so much more sense, and I know and love her even more for it. We’ve been through so much on this trip, and the memories will be carried with us for years to come. Stories will be told in the future, and you can be I’ll be returning to see more when I can. From navigating the ridiculous traffic throughout the city night after night, to eating with her family all around the country, to flying to Bali and seeing the unique cultures of Asia’s history, to shopping and bargaining with people that I can’t even understand, my journey into Southeast Asia has truly been an eye-opening experience. It really makes me see just how different the world really is on the other side, and amazingly enough, makes me really appreciate what I actually have going for me in America. No more do I feel it’s justified to complain about the smallest of things (even though the small things really didn’t make me complain openly much anyways). Granted, they do have a ton of rich people in Ho Chi Minh City that can probably get whatever they want, but the vast majority of people get paid about $2 or less per day when they work a 6 hour shift… so yeah, I’ll shut up now. So were the most memorable moments in the trip? – Well, as you can imagine, there are a LOT of things to consider and cover. I will say that most of my favorite moments here in Vietnam, and in Indonesia even, are things I haven’t gotten the chance to write about yet. Some of the things I have though, in my list of awesomeness anyways, include: seeing the Bali countryside, taking a look into the rubber tree farms, and the many times I got to sit down and chill with various members of Hang’s Family. The times I haven’t told you about, such as showing you bits of Jakarta, Indonesia, and about the weekend we all took up north to Nha Trang, and the beautiful beach that was up there. More on that will come eventually, when I get to writing about it all. Probably one of the most surprising things about Vietnamese culture, which I haven’t completely disclosed to you all yet, is how the Vietnamese deal with the act of marriage, and the ceremonies that go along with them. Believe it or not, I haven’t even blogged half of it yet! I’ll still be working on more content right here long after I get back to my normal mundane life as a film student in Grand Rapids. I’ll try my best to keep them as in order as possible, but if they aren’t.. well, you won’t know the difference anyways. [charliead]]]>