the streets are littered with hundreds of malnourished bodies. amputees sloppily supporting the weight of their frail bodies with rusty crutches. unclean mothers dressed in rags with their arms wrapped around their naked babies. small dirty hands stretch toward full pockets, hoping to fill empty stomaches. in bare-feet and scant clothing children ( Read more... )

Korea is a crazy place where apartment buildings sprout out of the ground like so many clusters of weeds, not wildflowers. Prostitution is condoned here and to facilitate it "love hotels" offer their invitations for a nice stay and a quick lay. Things are very busy and fast-paced hence McDonald's and Pizza Hut. Everyone and everything is brightly ( Read more... )

She arrived in a brown cloak covered in cat hair, and left in the same. How it means the world to me that she traveled around the world to see me. How it hurt when she left and I was forced to retire to my cold and vacant room. Despondent and chilled, the room mirrored my emotions. I cried uncontrollably for about an hour, mindlessly ripping open ( Read more... )

The shops of Hanoi are festively decorated with twinkling strings of multi-colored lights lining the windows, spray-painted snow flakes and fake trees trembling with cheap plastic ornaments. Men hold long sticks upon which dangle stiff and tacky pointed red hats. Small children in pajamas resembling a Santa costume parade about the streets, jumping ( Read more... )

Today the substantial relationships that I formed have suddenly been disrupted as quickly as they were formed. These friendships that were forged out of necessity and loneliness somehow turned out so perfectly. When you are forced to befriend people you probably would never happen to come across in normal situations, you don't expect to click with ( Read more... )

What could be better than riding home in a $3 cab and chatting with the taxi driver in Vietnamese the whole way home while your friend hangs her head out the window and vomits?
Not much I tell you. Not much.

Things have been happy and sad lately and I think that these ambiguous feelings are here for a temporary stay. The weather is really beautiful lately and I am content just sitting in my room with the window open and music playing, my hands fondling yarn and my mind hoping that I can somehow find a way to undo my latest mistake ( Read more... )

The difference was immediate and unsettling. The hustle and bustle was more metropolitan that I expected it to be. The broad and brightly colored streets of Saigon posed quite a contrast to the rues I am accustomed to in Hanoi. A lot of cars and big buildings symbolizing what the people want, but what I don’t want them to give away. There were ( Read more... )

At the expense of sounding both arrogant and perverse, I will speak of my random experience at a cafebar in Bun Ma Thuot. So I approach the bar to ask for a napkin because I heard that the squatter does not have toilet paper, which is very very much the norm here and I should be smart enough to carry tp with me, but I'm not. So I don't yet know how ( Read more... )

It's Halloween and typing this entry is going to be my form of celebration this year. I'm dressed up in a tee-shirt and linen pants and sneakers and I am playing the part of an American student studying abroad in Vietnam ( Read more... )