I'm Home!

HELLO FRIENDS! It feels like such a long time since we've chatted. Hello, hello, hello!!! I hope y'all have been well and that the words have been flowing!

I had an absolutely incredible time in Vietnam.

The original purpose for my visit was that my husband's cousin was getting married! But my mother-in-law and aunt-in-law (??? lolol) decided we'd take the opportunity to make a whole trip of it, including a little visit to Thailand, too.

The wedding itself was beautiful.

(Despite not having nor ever wanting a wedding for myself, I'm a longtime fan of other people's weddings. I can't wait for my brother's next year! I love a good wedding bahaha.)

It was so fun getting to see the various traditions, like the placement of the jewelry by the mother of the groom, the ao dais, the fruit trays shaped like dragons. The phrase "Một, Hai, Ba, Dzô!" will forever be burned into my brain. Getting to soak up all the splendor and fun and ease of family and longtime friends was such a joy.

We stayed with family our whole trip -- minus the short excursion to Thailand -- and even though I couldn't understand much (if any, lol) Vietnamese, my MIL was an excellent translator.

It also helped to remind me just how much communication is nonverbal, too. I never felt left out or confused for long. The family quickly learned my love of dessert and every time a cousin or auntie would come over, you know what they'd have? A new dessert for me! Bahaha. I felt loved and doted upon despite meeting most everyone for the first time.

And I got to see my husband's grandma again! We've had her dog, Thor, for about five months now, and I think he'll be staying with us permanently. I'd missed her so much so it was wonderful getting to hang with her again.

Before I left, I think I mentioned Book Street:

There was a main Book Street in Saigon, but there were other Book Streets all over! If you found one small bookstore, you were often guaranteed to find another (and another and another). Even cooler, these often had shops from small publishers, too!

I bought myself a copy of The Little Prince (a book I'm trying to collect from each country I visit, in that country's language), but also, look what I found!!

Y'all know I'm such a Winnie the Pooh fan, and absolutely squealed when I found this.

Another favorite: the coffee!! In downtown HCMC, they have a whole building called The Cafe Apartment, home to a dozen little coffee shops:

I got an egg coffee both the times I tried the cafes there (which is delicious and incredibly filling).

But I think my favorite was just walking up to any of the little stands near the family home and getting a cafe sua da (a strong iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk). Oooooooooh it was so good. Everywhere! The coffee was incredible.

At the risk of this post running far too long, I want to quickly add that I've been converted to a morning, breakfast soup person. All the pho, all the banh canh. Everything was so delicious and fresh and my stomach and IBS were shockingly fine for this part of the trip?! (Not so much in Thailand, lol, but the food was delicious there too!)

I truly believe I've never eaten so well, for so many days straight, in my life. Every day was a new culinary adventure. Although I think all my favorite meals were the home cooked ones (of course).

Other tourist highlights include a road trip to the floating markets in Can Tho, crying at the War Remnants Museum, the craft brewery trail, and the marvel of scooter traffic and learning to confidently cross the roads.

Now I was told before the trip that I couldn't possibly prepare myself for the heat, and you know what? The family was so right. The heat is oppressive. And we didn't even visit during the hottest season. So while I couldn't truly prepare for it, I do highly recommend an umbrella, a neck fan, and a refillable water bottle. I needed all of those and still struggled.

This is true for Thailand too, where I was in the picture above!

We only had enough time for a few days in Bangkok, but definitely made the most of it! My aunt-in-law is Thai and so we once again had someone who spoke the language. I've traveled a lot of places without knowing the language, but it's really special to have someone in the group be able to communicate, and also to see her reminisce about foods, customs, and memories from her adolescence in Thailand.

On our first day out, we stumbled across this little museum just before a torrential rainstorm. It had an incredible replica of Bangkok, and one of the people there told Auntie that it was really only an eighth of the city:

The Chatuchak Market (world's largest weekend market) was overwhelming, but I adored all the little pop-up night markets we stumbled upon! I think we got a smoothie or bought fresh fruit at each one, and they were always delicious.

Though my favorite part was visiting several temples (and seeing the temple cats at Wat Pho):

And of course, I had to pick up another copy of The Little Prince before we left!

The only phrase I really managed to learn and use regularly was kap khun ka, meaning thank you. So the ending changes (ka for women, krap for men, basically) but my Auntie told me that within the lesbian community in Thailand, they'll often use krap. There's lots of people that play with the ending, depending on what they want to convey about their identity.

Isn't language so cool?? I knew I had to tell y'all so we could geek out about it together. I'm sure there are other languages where people have chosen to do the same.

The journey back home to Texas was supposed to take a total of about twenty hours between the various flights, layover, and airport rigamarole. I'd been challenged to do a "how many words can I write on my extra long flight" kind of video and was gamely up to the task!

I'd brought my husband's iPad, copy/pasted some outlines onto the Pages app, and managed to write the entirety of the first three hour flight to Taiwan. On our second flight, I managed to work for about the first hour.

And then I passed out. I slept for ELEVEN HOURS straight.

The second flight was only fourteen hours long! ("Only.")

At the time, I thought it was awesome. (I mean, it's still pretty awesome, as someone who's usually incapable of sleeping on planes.)

But also I think it might have been an early warning sign that I would get sick. This probably isn't a surprise, given I also got sick after a trip in January. But this one has taken me out for about a week now. I've been home, but basically one with the bed. My days have been spent continuing the trend of sleeping eleven plus hours at a time, and then napping for an additional four or five each day.

I have however filled my waking hours with some entertainment, namely The Residence, White Lotus season 3, and listening to Emma R. Alban's historical-ish queer romances. I'd DEFINITELY recommend The Residence if you haven't watched it already. I thought it was such a blast and it's inspired me to watch each of the shows/movies referenced as episode titles. (Which means I'm only a year and a half behind on watching The Fall of the House of Usher, but it was indeed incredible. Gave me crazy dreams during my marathon sleeping sessions though!)

All that to say, my well is FULL. I have so many story ideas, little nuggets I want to put into some already crafted outlines, and I just got the first bit of beta feedback on A Closet Full of Cauldrons in my email (EEEK). My mind is willing and ready to create, but it's my body that's still catching up on things.

My hope for this week is I'll be able to stay awake during the day (lol) and ease myself back into sitting at my desk and getting to work. This post was the start! :)

I hope y'all have an incredible week. I'll be back soon with an experiment poll and the update to our Crafts & Drafts book club for the year! :) Let me know how y'all have been and if you have anything you've watched/read recently that you want to rave about!

Thanks y'all and happy writing!