June 10, 2023 | Leave a comment you can’t spell ‘life’without ‘sticky rice’trust mei’m a certified english teacher —me, day 1921 Thailand 2023. new content: The Pot Of Golden Dipping Sauce At The End Of Rainbowed Rolls blog angkor finally ♡ vlog Monthly Mood: My Nails Era I’m in my nails era. They’ve been growing out for over two months. Mind you that this is a lifetime record. A moment in history. I get them filed into almonds for the first time. Vietnamese women always have their nails done. Make up is optional whilst a glossy gel job is vital. When I browse the beauty blog vortex for mani inspo, I am overcome with indecision. I stick to Western styles (didn’t mom call me a ‘banana’ that one time?) whereas here, a slightly transparent, dewy color studded with flashy jewels is all the rage. Vietnam 2023. Throughout my day I flick my claws against each other and attain a nirvanic satisfaction. These 10 mini canvases of painted keratin are a total handicap. They are the epitome example of Naomi Wolf’s thesis in The Beauty Myth. Opening beer cans and uncorking wine bottles are strategy puzzles. So is the application of Tiger Balm or surf zinc. Despite getting way under and in there with pretentious, all-natural soaps, how clean my nails truly are remains an enigma. Best taxi <3 May. Wow. It involved an unnecessary amount of juicy drama and anguish and sobbing for seemingly not much at all. Classico. In the first week I think it’s a good idea to try a visa run in Thailand and am soon vomiting my brains out in my guesthouse from a migraine from the dangerous heat that collects in the upper floors of every home. My friend and I get don’t calculate things right in the lounge and book it down the DMK terminal and reach our gate at the exact minute that it is to close and make it safely back into the comforting arms of Vietnam. I Take a Break with someone and still don’t know what the bloody hell happened. It seems like a success and utter failure at once (I often assign this attribute to the waves of life—”non-duality,” the gurus said). My heart gravitates towards the rationality and truth in polyamory but don’t know how many years it’ll be before I am ready and able to practice it in a healthy way. During that messy Break I thrive in my independence and join the early morning breakfast scene in my neighborhood, where sunrise smiles and 10-cent avos and dollar bowls of piping noodle soups in the year 2023 give me back my faith in humanity. day 192112 may 2023 vietnam is the real breakfast club.the streets are a bustle when the clock strikes 6. scooters pull over to grab styrofoam boxes of carbs and fish sauce. a line-up of juiced pennywort and sesame milks how else can we survive a long day of workin a country where the minimum wage is about 60 cents?* *more than our ivorian cocoa farmers make in an entire day I remember how to walk everywhere. I return to the volleyball net to see a whole new set of fresh faces. I release my fury into my serves and enjoy the pain of an over-inflated ball pounding my forearms. On occasion, a Russian man will set me and I give a sloppy tap to send the ball over the net. On good nights I attempt meditation by seven. I work hard. The gig as of late has been tutoring English online. Mainly fine-tuning the conversational fluency of very advanced speakers from around the world. Some students are in countries at war. They tell me about the alarms that went off that week because of drone attacks. They hurry into home shelters when missiles are aimed at their cities. reads, caffeination, bánh xèo gathering with homemade pineapple secret sauce avotoastpizza, bánh bèo, mì quảng es tu quảng, nem phần cuộn Chi, one of my friends from Saigon, visits me. We get along so well because we are both highly food-motivated. We chase down calories on foot in an oven of the non-AC world. In the final week of this fleeting month, the waves pick up and I ~get out there~ twice on very long boards. That’s the minor thing. The major thing at the end of May is Victor. Victor attended my middle school. Victor and I bused around the United States for math competitions throughout high school. Victor made this website in 2015. Victor made this crazy video that ruined One Republic for us in 2016. Victor is the first of my friends who I haven’t seen in five years that I see. Victor is one of the maybe two people in my life that is always there. In the 48 hours that Victor is in my city, he has showered me with the laptop and Lulus and Chacos and supplements that took up half his suitcase. He and his wife become smitten with my city’s bánh căn and I tell them about Hanoi’s bún chả and the rats I maybe saw running in the back of the bún chả spot when I went to wash my hands. We visit the temple that I had put off for the last five months. I am sad to see him go but also cannot comprehend that he was here. Also ‘nirvanic’ is absolutely not a word. obsessions mango sticky ricethai iced teaminimalist nail artalmond-shaped nailsgiant ice cubestaking myself on datesgimbapkimchee순두부찌개daissy coconut yogurtbrown sugar boba milk tea @ blu:m9’ hardboardsbánh xèo potlucksfresh mangoes6am breakfast commotionmargs73-cent drip coffees sipped from someone’s house-cafe hybrid currently reading: crying in h mart by michelle zauner Previous Monthly Mood: Clean Explore my full archive of Vietnam and Monthly Moods. Learn more about this round-the-world solo trip.