Would You Like Some Breast With That Chicken?

(PICTURE: Chicken and breasts.)

While waiting for Au and Hieu one night for dinner, Huyen and I parked on a small side street. We were already hungry but soon become starving because of the delicious BBQ smells blowing our way from a grill on the corner. The grill appeared to be connected to a small restaurant which Huyen and I decided we'd go back to the next night.


(PICTURE: Those two girls are about 2% of the waitresses wearing low cut shirts.)

The next night we rode up to the restaurant only to discover that it wasn't quite the small BBQ place that we had thought it was. In fact, it turned out to be the Vietnamese version of Hooters. As soon as we walked into the place it because obvious that there were no female customers. Equally obvious was that there were no male waiters; all the waiters were very good looking girls with quiet large/enhanced breasts.

Before sitting down, I went to use the toilet. After going to the bathroom I was shocked to see a bathroom attendant who proceeded to turn on the faucet for me, put soap in my hands and then towel them off. For this service I was obliged to tip him 5,000 VND. If there's one thing you should know about me it's that this goes against nearly everything I stand for. I HATE BATHROOM ATTENDANTS. There I said it. I f-ing hate some guy getting up in my business in the place that I do my business. As soon as I walked out I was shown to my table. Huyen had gone to the bathroom too which gave me a moment to access the situation. It also gave a whole bunch of girls a moment to come up to me and try and get me to buy a lot of overly priced imported beer; I said no to the Fosters.

When Huyen came back from the bathroom I asked her if she wanted to stay because I wanted to leave. However, Huyen thought the place was fine and that we should give it a shot. Here's a couple of memories I'll take away from night:

1. The cooks came out and killed a HUGE snake right next to our table.
2. Once the girls realized they shouldn't shove their boobs in my face, we basically got about 1/1000th of the service that every other table had.
3. The chicken was just decent...but was about five times the price of any chicken I've had in Vietnam.
4. Upon leaving, the motorbike parking lot attendant wouldn't get off my bike until I gave him a tip. This was only the second time I've ever had to tip a motorbike guy in Vietnam.

Overall, it was the worst and most expensive meal we had during our stay in HCMC. That said, it's also the only meal we look back on and laugh about.

Approved!

(PICTURE: Huyen with her sealed medical folder.)

Thirty one hours after taking her physical exam, Huyen was able to pick up her results. Thankfully there were no problems which meant we were officially good to go for the final visa interview.

One interesting thing, which in my opinion makes it blog worthy, is that the results were in a sealed envelope which we were not allowed to open. To me there is something pretty strange about not being able to see your own medical results especially since at this point you've already passed the exam. Put this on the list as thing #405 that I find weird about the immigration process.

Eating Giant Larva

(PICTURE: Lunch.)


(PICTURE: The sign in front of Phi's dad's shop.)

While still waiting for the results of Huyen's physical, we thought the best thing to do would be to eat giant rare "palm cocoon" larva things. Long story short, Sebastian befriended a girl named Phi whose father owns a restaurant in Saigon that serves this very rare treat. This food is so rare that their total stock for the year is about three hundred larva.


(PICTURE: One third of the harvest. That's Phi on the right.)

Furthermore, only three restaurants in HCMC serve this food and only one in Hanoi. Phi told us that they aren't even sure where the larvas come from because the people who harvest it in the jungle keep it a secret. Supposedly the larva was eaten by the king to "keep his many wives happy." Yeah, it's larva Viagra...except that Thuy told us many parents bring their children to eat it because it's very healthy for kids.


(PICTURE: My wife serving me giant larva. Delicious.)

The price for one larva was 45,000 VND, or about $2.50. It definitely tasted better than it looked which isn't saying much. Huyen and I both ate one which was probably about ten times braver than climbing the wall the day before.

Rock Climbing

(PICTURE: I only got chalk the second time I went. And please stop staring at my short, fat fingers!)

With Huyen's arm only slightly hurting from her vaccinations the day before, I thought it was a good idea to go rock climbing. I figured that her handicap would be a great opportunity for me to show my physical superiority. I mean I didn't tie Peter Cullen for senior athlete for nothing!

(PICTURE: Can you say wedgie?!)

I had heard about the rock climbing wall from my friend Sebastian's blog a week earlier. The wall ended up being right down the street from Hien's house so she took us over. The wall was sixteen meters high (52.5 feet) but seemed much higher. When I was much younger (I think thirteen) I had gone rock climbing a few times at summer camp. It had literally been about seventeen years since the last time I strapped on a harness but it felt like much more than that. I agreed to go first (when you're married "agree" means your wife tells you to go first) and quickly started to climb the wall. A few thoughts immediately went through my head:
1. There was a sign in the rock climbing office that said you had to take a safety course before climbing. Why hadn't I taken a safety course?

2. Why if I've been exercising for a year straight do my arms and legs feel like jelly?

3. Don't look down. I thought of this one after I looked down.

I made it to the top in about six minutes. Hien told me that it was quite fast so that gave me a boost of self-I'm-not-too-old-confidence for the day. After I went, it was Huyen's turn.


(PICTURE: Huyen putting on the harness while also harnessing the power of Livingston football from her t-shirt.)

Huyen strapped on the harness, put some powder on her hands (which the guy forgot to give me!) and started climbing the wall like Spiderwoman. Before I knew it, Huyen had reached the top:



I gotta say, I'm really proud of my wife. Climbing this wall is a pretty good metaphor for the whole visa process. At first it looked daunting but little by little it can be accomplished. On top of that, like going to America, Huyen was absolutely courageous.

Health Check

(PICTURE: Huyen after her medical test.)

I'm not scared of hospitals or medical centers...but I am scared of sitting next to people who are coughing up a lung especially when there is a large "Tuberculosis Test Room" sign about two feet from me. To make this hypochondriac even more paranoid, I kid you not, upon arriving home from the medical center, there was an article on the cover page of cnn.com about Tuberculosis being highly contagious and one of the largest killers of people in the world. Oh, the ends I go to to get my wife into America. Oh yeah, this post is about Huyen and not me....

Huyen needed to get her health check done before her visa interview. The Visa Medical Department was located in the back of a hospital in District 5 of Ho Chi Minh City. Upon entering the room, I had a slight case of deja vu from the day before -- the room was filled with people holding identical USA forms as us. Huyen had made a reservation for her check and was the sixth person to be seen that morning. The health check took about thirty minutes (I was counting the seconds as the person next to me kept coughing in my general direction). After Huyen finished her health check both of us became nervous because of two things all the other potential future American citizens told her. Those things were:

1. They were all taking their tests MONTHS ahead of their final interview. In fact, they were very surprised Huyen was doing hers just a few days before her final interview since they said if there's a problem she would need treatment before the interview. Although Huyen finished her health check, she was told that she wouldn't know if she passed until the next day. I'm not sure how these people were about to do this months before their interview since we were told just two weeks before ours about our date; I chalk this up to the Hanoi bias.

2. EVERY PERSON EXCEPT US had an immigration lawyer helping them. Huyen and I had gone through the whole process without a lawyer. However, this only made me slightly nervous since we had someone better than a lawyer advising us -- my friend Steve Song. As mentioned a couple of times on the blog, Steve had gone through this process with his wife Rushana the year before. Our situation was slightly different than Steve's but his advice was huge from start to finish.

Once we left the hospital we had twenty four hours to wait and see if Huyen was in tip top shape. We did what anyone in this situation would do, we went rock climbing...

Vaccinations

Before the final interview, Huyen had to do a couple of medical related tasks to comply with immigration policy. The first task was to get a bunch of vaccinations. Like the visa interview, these vaccines can only be given in HCMC. The US has a contract with a vaccination center and tells you that no other places vaccines will be accepted. To me, this seems pretty ridiculous especially since some of the vaccines require a second shot! This means if you're applying from Hanoi, you've got to fly back to HCMC a month later just to get stuck with a needle that you could get stuck with in Hanoi at an internationally recognized hospital with doctors -- some of whom are American -- that have been trained and certified in America. But heck, I'm sure I'm not the first person to complain about a US policy.

I will say this though, the vaccination center in HCMC was very efficient and even recommended to Huyen some other vaccinations that she should probably get (yeah, yeah, they make more money that way). Huyen and I had discussed her getting some additional vaccines for our travels/big move so this has put my mind to rest a little bit. The most interesting thing about the vaccination center though was to see how many people were planning on emigrating to America. Every single person at the center had the same American paperwork that we had. I would estimate that in the hour that we were there, there were probably fifty people getting their American vaccines.

After a few pricks in Huyen's arm, we were finished and ready to go. Vaccinations done with, there was just one final step before the big visa interview...

Taxi Driver From Hell

(PICTURE: This is how our driver learned to drive.)

I think all of us have had an experience in a taxi cab in which we feel like we're going to die. Frankly there's a lot of horrible taxi drivers out there who clearly deal with the boredom of their job by taking unnecessary risks while driving. A few months ago Huyen and I had one such driver. The guy drove like a maniac and I feared for my life throughout the cab ride (Huyen didn't because she was asleep the whole ride except when I made her put her seat belt on). I'm not kidding, I was really petrified in the cab and would have told him to stop the car if it wasn't midnight and we weren't on a highway with no chance of getting another cab. Still, we should have gotten out of the cab and walked to where we were going because I was that scared.

Well, last month Huyen and I had an early flight to HCMC, where we were going for our final visa interview. Our flight was at 7AM which meant we got picked up at our apartment at 5AM by a taxi we had ordered the night before. After getting in the cab, Huyen said to me, "This is the same driver we had the other time." "That other time," being the night I thought we were gonna die. So here was the dilemma: Do we get out of the cab and try to get another at 5AM, risking possibly missing our flight? Or do we keep our fingers crossed and hope he's been prescribed chill pills since the last time we drove with him?

We decided to stay in the cab and it was clearly a mistake. Why? Because our cab driver FELL ASLEEP IN THE MIDDLE OF A BUSY INTERSECTION! Thank god he took his foot off the gas because we came to a slow stop rather than plowing into another car or giant truck. Between us yelling at the driver and the surround sound honking, our Cabbie woke up. He was clearly startled although he denied falling asleep. He did though immediately pull over and get an ice tea. We should have gotten out of the cab then and there but it was still 5:15AM and we most likely wouldn't have gotten another cab in time to check in at the airport. Thankfully there was no incident after this because the driver clearly shat his pants and woke up.

After arriving at the airport, Huyen and I both sort of laughed it off and agreed that hopefully that would be the worst part of our trip to HCMC.