Traffic

I am crossing the street with more confidence now. 

This is a woman and her daughter flagging down a bus and then walking in traffic to get to it because..... I don’t know if this is common but given that she wasn’t surprised I guess it is. 

We had a meeting today with the power company. The meeting was essentially us asking questions and them responding with who we should ask instead (almost always the People’s Committee). It was funny if you approach it the right way. They gave us gifts of coffee. Not just any coffee! They gave us life changing coffee. I know it is life changing because it says so on the bag. I don’t see how I can ever open the box when it makes such wonderful claims. 

I am currently in the last hotel room in HCMC. Failing to find a hotel room for my assistant I sent her back to Hanoi and will attempt to find my meetings tomorrow myself. Then I return to Hanoi too. 

This hotel room is more OTT than the last. Instead of two bedrooms I have three. Instead of one floor I have two. That is right, I have two floors in my hotel room. There is a note on the table, as there was in the last one, saying that city residents may not be in my room after 10 pm unless I can prove I’m married to them. This is unusual, this is the only hotel I’ve seen this note in. I’m guessing it is to fight prostitution or adultery? I’ll have to choose between two floors and three bedrooms tonight. 

Tonight there is someone singing in the city. No, really singing, like over some city-wide loudspeaker. They were the other day too. There is clearly some serious party going on somewhere. I’m so staid. I am such a suburbanite. (Translation:  please shut up. Stop honking too.)

My departure from my company is sudden, to me, but also to all the wonderful people I work with. Everyone knows how happy I’ve been so it is a bit of a shock. At least I’m leaving for new work, a positive reason. I have two lunch dates.