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Oh, shit. What’s going to happen now? Was this the right thing to do? Inside, I struggle. Making my last round of goodbyes I look at the faces of the people I’ve got to know so well and feel confused. Am I sad? Maybe glad? What do I feel thinking that I won’t be coming here tomorrow. After 6 years and a one month, after giving my best years to this place, I don’t know anything else. What’s it like not to come to work everyday? What’s it like not to have huge responsibilities – projects to run, meetings to attend, phone calls to make, asses to kiss, political wars to fight.
I’m tired, really tired. It took me a long …

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I’ve found this interesting article about the “Cost of living” in different cities around the world. I know that Saigon is expensive, and so is Hanoi, but it was interesting to find them at the top of the list ranking #29 and #36. Even more amusing was the city to be exactly in between them ranking #33, while far behind - at #67 is where I’m headed to.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/11/pf/costofliving/

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A later addition - if I already mentioned lists, seeing them open in internet cafes and taking a look, then here is another one I saw this morning :

Top 100 Asia Pacific Universities - http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_TopAsia.htm
notice rank #6 (Really?! Whaoo…)

Top 500 World Universities (1-100) - http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm
notice rank #78 (Not too bad, …

It wasn’t till just a while ago that I didn't like reading travel books, but now that I've been traveling for so long - I find them hilarious. Reading the following phrase on Emily Barr’s sarcastic “Back Pack” about psycho-traveling around in South-east Asia had me smiling, remembering back on my first arrival at Hanoi (which is the real capital, and not Saigon – which she writes about): “Vietnam is disgusting. At least, this quarter of its capital is. I keep thinking it’s a joke; I keep expecting to turn a corner and find the real Vietnam, the one everyone else has been to. The interesting one in the guidebooks. The one where I walk around like a model, …

In the last week or so, waiting for my Aussie VISA while Jessy is back to working from 07:00am to 07:00pm, I’ve been doing absolutely nothing. My main activities range between sleeping, watching movies on a rented DVD (40000dong for one day, 5000dong for a movie), sitting on the internet, eating, reading books and wandering around aimlessly. Sometimes, at night, Jes and I might head for a good restaurant or a music show, but nothing too exotic. As dull as this might get, weird things happen to me every once in a while.

I was in a middle of yet another messenger chat with some of my bored acquaintances when I felt a hand over my pants. I looked …

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Stomach was sending “don’t forget me signals” again - becoming annoyingly hard to ignore. “Are you up for dinner tonight?” I suggested. “Hmm… sure. I have an idea, I don’t know if you’d like it but you said you like to try new things”. Remembering back on my latest culinary attempts with Jessy has made me skeptical of how much I really enjoy ‘new things’. Every attempt was indeed interesting and at times even delicious but has always shaken my body up in shock. Korean, Malaysian Japanese and even Thai – which I thought I knew something about after 2 month in Thailand – were difficult for me to deal with, shooting hot spices up my throat to trigger my …

This just in… fiLination.blogspot.com has just learned that for the past month a rush of Israeli travelers in Vietnam has been overcrowding the Hai Au Hotel in the small town of Hoi An. Our Hoi An correspondent – Tam, the alleged wife of the fiLination news media corporation owner, has informed that never before has the hotel sustained such a heavy load from such a small country. Suggestions as so the cause of this bizarre phenomena are all attributed to some small hotel recommendation written by one fiLi in a popular Israeli site called Lametayel.“It was the best recommendation for a hotel we ever read, so we had to take a look. Once we came here, there was no turning …