One Week Until The Pryors Leave For Vietnam

Dedicated Coverage Begins Now! I vaguely remember this feeling. It’s warm and chilling simultaneously. You don’t know whether you’re scared of being nervous, or nervous about being scared. It’s a long journey, and even though I’ve made it once before, I’m not actually feeling these emotions for myself as much as I am for my family. I might be move nervous than they are about it. They’ve never met Hang’s family before, and even though they don’t have the fortune of being able to meet her uncle and grandfather (sadly, they’ve passed away), I think they’ll find wonderful family in a previously unexpected place. I think they’ll also find “family” having an entirely new meaning as well. Last time I traveled to Vietnam, it was the first time I had ever flown in an airplane. Since the initial trip, I’ve been on a plane well over a dozen times. To compare my thoughts this time in comparison to last time, let’s take a look at what I said before:

I have no idea what to expect, since literally everything that happens will be new to me, including the airport security, and flying in general. Most people would be a bit surprised to read that I’ve never flown before. Never even been inside an airplane even. No helicopters or hot air balloons. I’ve never shot myself out of a cannon, or tied 1,300 balloons to my house and floated to South America. The closest I’ve been to flying, is jumping really high on a trampoline.

This paragraph of emotion probably applies to every person in my family coming with me, at least to an extent. My parents, brothers, and my grandmother all have no idea what to expect. They have their preconceived expectations, which I already told them weren’t totally accurate, and they have their excitement and bewilderment. I imagine it’s a similar feeling to what a small child gets when they’re about to get on a roller coaster for the first time. They know other people did it, and had a good time… but it’s still uncertain. The journey remains unexperienced themselves, untouched. It’s a mystery to the child until their parents finally get them on. They don’t go alone, but they feel more comfortable as long as a parent is there. On this trip, I get to play the role of the parent in that scenario… having been the only person (aside from Hang, of course) that has experienced the country before, and can answer (some) questions they have as we fly, walk around, buy things, and try not to get killed by scooters. I predict that some of my favorite moments will be their reactions to the traffic, and the food. The traffic, will be feelings of confusion, amazement, and then more confusion. The food: I believe, they’ll find it wonderful, although not everything perhaps. We’ll stay away from street food, since it’ll almost certainly give us stomach aches. We’ll likely visit the rubber tree farm that Hang’s father owns. You just don’t see that kind of thing in America. We’ll also have some fun on the beaches. Vietnam has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and the one we’re gonna be checking out is ranked as one of the best beaches by the Travel Channel, Da Nang. Should be awesome to get away from winter and soak up some hot sun in the middle of December. Be jealous… be very jealous. Flight leaves 3:30pm on Friday the 13th. Oh goodie! 🙂

How Can I Get Stories and Updates On This Trip?

Of course, if you want updates on this trip, including some exclusive looks at the country and its people, you’ll have to LIKE THIS PAGE ON FACEBOOK, FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER OR GOOGLE+ and follow the blog here for more stories. [caption id="attachment_3474" align="aligncenter" width="460"] You’ll find it at the top of the sidebar, under all of the social sharing buttons below each post, and on the footer of every single page![/caption] There’s also an email subscription option, which you can see and sign up for. It will give you one email per day, with a daily digest of everything that was published on that day, in case you missed anything, or you found yourself too busy to check. In the event that I don’t write anything, or make a video (which happens quite often actually), you simply won’t receive any emails at all on that day. The emails go out on or after 6:00pm eastern time, and if I publish something after 6:00pm, that content would be found in the following day’s email. Take advantage of that. Seriously…. please? [caption id="attachment_3485" align="aligncenter" width="401"] If you want, simply click “Get Notifications” and you’ll get a little blip in Facebook whenever something new from me is available.[/caption] If you’re already following me on Facebook, you can make sure you don’t miss a single thing ever posted by selecting “Get Notifications” when you hover over the Like button on the Facebook page. You’ll never miss anything if you do that, guaranteed. [charliead]

WE ARE HAVING A GIVEAWAY TO CELEBRATE THE EVENT, AND TO PROMOTE THE SITE AND PAGE FOR UPDATES!

If you are interested, I’m hosting a giveaway event on my Facebook page and Twitter account to celebrate the event, and to help promote the site. Details about this will be explained in a video in the very near future, so keep tuned in and check back often for details on that. Also… for those of you who already “Like” the page, there is a quick update and ‘call to action’ of sorts that I also released today that I would be super grateful if you watched. It talks about the reasons behind a decision I made recently, and how that decision has backfired a tad in terms of my stories and videos not appearing for you guys. PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO HERE, or watch it within the embed of post below.  

Your Turn

For the vast majority of this trip, “new” stuff is being experienced. What are some things you’d like to know and find out about while we’re there? We’ll take your comments and read your questions, and try and answer them as best as we can down in the comments below!]]>