Wednesday,July,21,2010

Sean was still in Cambodia today, but came in late tonight. Today was very long Anika and i and of course Terryn went to Minh Long in Binh Duong District. It was a really long drive!! because of traffic so it took about an hour to get there. Minh Long is a place where they make porcelain stuff, for example vases, dishes, and crazy figurines (the figurines had every thing disney, old t.v shows it was cool to see.) They were spectacular i was blown away! They also have an outlet that sell the small things but like half the price!!

As we enter the building it there is this huge fountain covered in porcelain Khoi fish that goes up 4 stories and hanging from the ceiling is ..... flamingos!! and i am just hanging (haha) with my buddies.
The dishes, vases and figurines and quite the spectacle. So many different designs and color. Some sets are so fancy I feel like I'm going to break them just by looking at them. Out side the building they have detailed scenes in bronze all over their boundary fence. It's spectacular! And of course... don't forget the tea set fountain.
All three of us. Yea!!

After we went to Minh Long we had to go get my passport. Yippee!!! It was not fun people cut in front of us and it was just bad and it took like an hour to get and the only thing good was that we got it and it was good with the visa.

After that mess we went to a mall to wait for Seans plane to land since didnt want to wait at the airport which was good cause Terryn and i burned off some energy by playing on the play toys at KFC and Jollibee. It was super fun!!! I know i am 13 and all but i havent played in a play toy since i was like 7 and the workers didnt even care which was good.

Okay there are so many KFCs here as there is like Wendys, McDonalds, and Arbys. Its crazy so to be somewhat Vietnamese i thought it would be fun to take a picture with this. Yupp good times good times.

Then we picked up Sean and headed home and now am going to sleep! Good Night!

Saturday,July,17,2010

Today we took a tour to go see Cao Dai Holysee and the Cu Chi Tunnels. It was awesome. We drove 2 hours to the city of Tay Ninh to go see the Cao Dai Holysee. The religion for this temple was Caodaism which is a mix of many different religion such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, as well as Geniism, an indigenous religion of Vietnam. We got to see some of their practices and some of their history.

This is a little section off to the side of the temple that they use.
We are allowed to take pictures outside of the temple so we took as many as we could.
Another one of us.
Sean and i.
Anika and Sean.
This is one of the many pillars inside the temple. I like this one cause the dragon is breathing wind.
The big altar at the end of the temple.
I dont know what these are for but i think they are cool decorations.
Another shot of the altar.
This picture was taken from the second floor.This is the whole inside of the temple.
Statues inside the temple.
They are getting ready for their practice.
They are in position.
Waiting for it to start.
This is what it looks like from the back of the room.
It started now and they are wearing different colors to represent what religion they follow but i dont remember what color stands for what but the white just means they follow Caodaism.

Okay so before we went inside the temple we had to use the bathroom so when we got there this is what we say...
amazing right and the were not very tall so you could see other people.It was kinda weird and awkward.
This is the symbol of their god/religion is.
OMG!!!! This is the very first mountain i have seen in Vietnam. We were all shocked there was one. and the tour guide said there are houses i think on the mountain and another temple.
These are rubber trees. They collect sap every morning from 4:30am to about 10:00am cause in the morning is when the trees have the sap i guess.
More rubber trees.

Next we went to Cu Chi Tunnels where they fought the Vietnam war and let me tell you after seeing what these people went through i am shocked at all went on and now know why some of our soldiers went crazy.
The Vietnamese people have many entrances to their tunnels and they had very small ones that only they could fit through and this our tour guide getting in and out of that entrance. I was shocked!!!
Our tour guide showing us their bamboo trap. You step on it and you are toast.
Sean and i looking down and were amazed at the spikes.
Me in shocked of how much that would hurt.
Another entrance but sean couldnt get in and that is not clay it is dirt.
Another entrance.
Yet another one. Our tour guide told us they had air holes so they could breathe but they were like rocks and you would have never realized. He also said they started out a village of 16,000 people but by the end of the war i believe it was 4,000 due to lack of oxygen in the tunnels.
Standing next to a tank that had its wheels completely off and Sean said it was the kind his dad use to drive.
Okay another secret entrance and Sean could not get his foot in normally but had to but in the angle .
They let us go into the tunnels and i barely made it out the first exit cause it too dark and small and i dont like small places but Sean and Anika did alot longer than i did. Our tour guide told us they made the tuneels bigger so tourists could get through. Hahahaha i thought it was funny.
Me calling for Sean and Anika cause we couldnt tell where they were cause the guide leading got out before us it was funny.
Anika coming up.
So small!!!!!!!
Okay so i thought this was funny cause they use manic ans but they are white like Americans so we were standing by soldiers that look like Americans.

I highly suggest that if you come to Vietnam take this tour it is fun and you get to learn more about the war. So check it out!!

Friday,July,16,2010

Today Anika and i went to China town. In China town we went to the Thien Hau Temple which was dedicated to Thien Hau, the lady of the sea. It was pretty cool on the outside we saw dragons and little figurines. I have no idea what religion it is at all.

Me standing in front of the temple.
Anika standing in front of the temple.
This is inside the temple i t was beautiful.
So much smoke well i guess it was incense smoke but still my kinda hurt.
Anika inside the temple.
This is the hanging incense it was pretty cool to see how they hanged them up.

We also went to another temple called the Quan Am Temple. It had these dragons on the pillars. It was epic.The religion is Buddhist.

Me acting like the dragon. hahahaha its mushu.
Anika standing in front of the dragon.
Inside the temple with the singing pillars(that was the weirdest thing ever)
Anika hanging out with the dragon in the sky.
More incenses.
Hanging out with the samurai.
Outside of the temple.
Some pond across the street of the temple.

From the temples we went to this park it was called 9 dragons park it was pretty cool.

Standing in front of the fountain but it was not on (sad).

Next we went to the Binh Tay market it is like the Binh Tahn market but not for tourists. It was really hot in there.
Bihn Tay Market outside.

We also had lunch in there it was okay and we also had smoothies. They were awesome!!
This random food that was really colorful so we took a picture of it.