A long sigh of relief

Ahhhh... a developed city. (KL)

First an update of how I wrapped up Vietnam. For one, spending the 4th of July in Hanoi seemed... well, almost un-American in a way, what with their lack of Shiner Bock beer, fireworks, and burgers the size of my head. None-the-less I spend the day as any good ex-pat should: cooking spring rolls in the morning, and drinking cheap beer with some Vietnamese kids at night. (I half way tried looking around for some Americans, but unfortunately most foreigners in Vietnam are NOT from the US. Go figure.) I didn't really do much the previous 4 days other than relax in Sapa and attempt to transfer that relaxation to Hanoi (to no avail).

The best story I had from Hanoi came when I went to my favorite (cheapest) smoothie place the middle of one hot afternoon. The 60 year old guy running the join was super friendly, and after a few broken English exchanges we came to the topic of where I'm from. "Texas", I replied. He leaned back, thought for a second or two, then answered "Ahhhhhh.... TESAS!!!" while making a cowboy riding a horse pose. I've noticed that when Asians do that, they aren't poking fun, they're actually really interested in the whole cowboy thing. He then proceeded to ask about the spiky things on cowboy boots (spurs). We talked about it, he drew pictures... it was nice. But the funniest part came when he was trying to explain to his friend why we use spurs when riding horses. I hadn't laughed that hard in months before seeing this older Vietnamese guy making a 'cowboy-kicking-horse-with-spur' motion. Needless to say, we struck a bond that day... me and Van. (I don't know what his name really was, but I've concluded that all Vietnamese are named some combination of Nguyen, Van, Thuy, or Phuong.)

On to Malaysia and the sign of relief. I can't tell you how much of a welcome change Kuala Lumpur has been. A temperature drop, lack of motorbike horns, crosswalks, English, and generally very polite people have made KL one of my favorite places to date. Honestly though, this place is more commercialized/developed than many US cities. (you know, a working public transit system, shopping, etc.) I've been staying with my couchsurfing host, a college prof, in the west part of the city. After a couple of days doing Malay stuff (shopping, movies, eating), he's asked me to speak to his class of 72 students about American materialism. I wasn't even aware America had a problem with consuming (although I simply MUST have that new iPhone, Wii, and Lexus E-Class...) Hopefully those business communications classes I took in college will come in handy.

Lastly for this post, I can't believe I'm actually headed back home in 3 weeks. Time's been flying by. (Every time I feel like I wrote a blog post yesterday... I check and it's been a week) In some ways I feel like I'm ready for my triumphant return to the states... in other ways I feel like another change is afoot. Viewers(readers), I'll keep you updated.

Ta ta for now.


Note: amazing Indian food WILL stay with you for the following 8 hours. Fair warning.