sg account of 1st jan 2007 n vietnam account of 13 n 14 dec 2006

1st jan 2007:

Did house painting for my family today.
Yup, tat's how i spent my new year day. Painting. Lucky thing i've done some painting in vietnam, so have kinda been trained up..haha..

13 dec 2006, Wednesday:

Was kinda excited n nervous for my first trip out. Din really miss my parents at tat point. But feel a great sense of freedom.hhahaa.. =D

Took a budget airline n it's my n many other of my friends first time taking such airline. Saw a pretty good-looking air steward there..hahha.. xp

The plane flew off late n ended up touching down in Bangkok airport late. One of my friends needed to apply for visa in the airport. As a result,all of us were like rushing like mad. We almost could not get on the flight in Bangkok. But after much persuasion with the counter staff, the plane was willing to wait for all of us.

It was like an Amazing Race in Bangkok airport for us. We were running from one point to another inside the checkpoint, juz to get onto the flight. Carrying our hand-carried luggage, we ran across the whole row of duty-free shops inside the checkpoint. Simply had no time to stop n look around. But kept running as fast as we could. Lucky thing i wore the right kind of shoes for this trip sia. haha..

Amazing Race Bangkok. hhaaa..simply an interesting incident to kick off the trip. haha..!!

Reached Ha Noi airport at last. And realised that the airport was pretty small. Brought my winter jacket along cos i thought it'll be very cold, like what i've experienced in china last year. And my friends were joking tat I was as if I am going to Korea. hahaa..The weather was actually not very cold, juz windy. hhaa..air-con temperature. haha..

Finally reached a hotel after an one-hr bus ride. By that time, all of us were totally shagged out by all the tension in Bangkok airport. Still we needed to attend a de-brief before we could rest. Ate the first bowl of Pho there. Initially find it nice.

*Pho (pronounced like "fur") is a very famous vietnamese soup noodle which only consists of noodles n beef/chicken meat. *

14 dec 2006, Thursday:

Ate chicken pho for breakfast in hotel. Pretty nice. =)

My friends first experienced the traffic crossing today. There was simply no strict obligations of traffic rules. Despite the existence of traffic lights, ppl will juz ride their vehicles as when as they like. They will not stop when the traffic lights turn red. So basically we the pedestrians needed to cross the road, watching out for the incoming motorists. The road is completely filled with many motorcycles. One of my friends was so shocked by the hectic flow of traffic tat he stood there at the roadside for a moment, completely stunned, not knowing how to cross the road. hahaa...We laughed when my friend narrated tat incident. It was real funny la..haha..

So on our way for dinner, i tasted my first experience crossing the road. Basically the key to cross the road is to stay calm and never run across the road. Always walk calmly n slowly, while looking out for the incoming motorists. Me din feel scare at all while crossing the road. But find it pretty cool to do such "legal jay-walking". hahaha...

Simply no traffic obligations. It's simply a mutual obligation between the motorists and the pedestrians..hhaa..

Did packing of health care kits in the evening. And this is when our "production line" first started. We were basically rushing to pack kits catered for about 1000 kids. Boxes were deficient to keep the kits, n the kits filled almost flooded one of my friends' room. hahha.. =p But we had a great time packing them, joking and laughing along the process.

Debrief at the end of the day. And will be visiting some Agent Orange victims in Hong Duc Humanitarian Centre the next day.