cabinet meeting room

cinema room

the banquet room

credentials presentation room

vice presidents' reception room

president's bedroom during wartime. his actual bedroom looks nicer la definitely

super huge cake mixer! haha

all nicely pruned :)

notre dame cathedral, built in 1835 if i'm not wrong.

next is the central post office which was rather busy.

the exterior. i noticed that a lot of their buildings has the vietnam flag planted on top of it.

the interior, where you can see a huge picture of ho chi minh at the end.

the telephone booths look quite cool la and they're all air-conditioned :D

oh another thing i learnt was that the government universities in vietnam has very low fees. according to my tour guide, the one that he went to, he had to pay only 100 dollars a year! but it's super competitive. and the standard of private unis are just as good but you have to have $$$ to get in ah.
also, in vietnam, it's alr super dark by 6 pm.

city hall.

and the exciting thing that night was the way the vietnamese celebrated their win over laos in soccer if i'm not wrong. whoa, they were like screaming and zooming around the city with their motorbikes! and waving the flag around. the SEA Games is a big thing for them ah. it was a really riot-ish atmosphere. but like you don't get that in singapore, so it was interesting.

selling flags for the crowd.

haha, i shld try doing that in singapore and see the response, considering how we did win the bronze medal for SEA Games football after so many years.
oh and while we were there, vietnam also had a match against singapore. we had to act like we were from malaysia or sth la, haha, funny.

riot atmosphere

woohoo, adrenaline rush!

but it was noise pollution i think. luckily we could sleep at night even though we the sound could be heard quite a bit from our hotel.

so that's it for the first day :)

+ anuar zain! @ 10:04 PM

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okay, feeling a lot better now. shall continue.

i observed the people in ho chi minh and it's like most of them sell anything they can for a living. there were a lot of roadside stalls or even people carrying a lot of things around. a lot of these sellers were women. it's kinda hard for them cause it's like everyone's selling and no one's buying.


and oh ya, the traffic is so bad that the tour guide told us, "you should experience the feeling of crossing the road here"
and vietnam cars have the driver seat on the left side, which means they follow that of france, UK and england. so their slowest lane is the one on the most right hand side of the road.


then we reached our hotel! this is the lobby.
have to take out our shoes and use the slippers provided to go to our rooms.

and there's no lift! so we had to climb like many flights of stairs. haha


next we had our lunch, me and my bro mostly ate indian food over there cause its all halal.
walking through the narrow alley to the indian restaurant.

next we headed down to the war remnants museum.
got a lot of weaponry and stuff. here are some pictures.




there were a lot of pictures inside the museum as well as captions. me and my bro figured out that it's very propaganda-ish and one-sided as it all pictured US as the mean one. probably to arouse nationalist sentiments as well.

then we headed down to the prisoner of war cell where they showed how many vietnamese prisoners were tortured using horrific measures.

and i learnt from the tour guide that the people in the north and south of vietnam don't really like each other. people in NV think that those in the south are lazy. meanwhile, people in SV think that those in the north only know how to talk but no actions. most of the politicians are from the north you see. so while, vietnam was reunified years ago, not the same could be said for its people. kind of the same for east and west germany.

next stop was the independence palace which was renamed the reunification palace when north and south vietnam reunified. The president of South used to live there but now the president lives in Hanoi which is the new capital of Vietnam.


okay, continue next time yeah.

+ anuar zain! @ 7:02 AM

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okay, i don't know where to start.

1st day:

at the budget terminal, my brother asked me what i wanted to get from this trip. when i gave him my answer, he was like, "dang, i thought you would say to spend more time with me or sth." hahaha, too bad.

and there were these two kids playing scrabble! wah, complete with the timer, dictionary, paper and all. so semangat!
this participant thought me and my brother are only one year apart when we are like four years apart?! oh no, either he looks younger or i look older.

at the vietnam airport, my brother took the wrong luggage eh! then still happily waiting there for me to come. i kinda freaked out but still managed to find mine la.
and a lot of the vietnam people thought me and my brother are from malaysia. and that we're husband and wife! haha, common misconception.


the next thing that struck me about ho chi minh city was the sagging electrical cables. it's like all over the place.

and the dominant form of transport there is motorcycle. i think it's because it's cheap, convenient and so easy to get a motorbike license (1 lesson plus 1 test). yup. but the traffic is pretty bad cause there's so many motorbikes!

most of the people riding motorbikes wear masks or anything to cover their noses and mouth cause the air is quite polluted there.

and interesting thing is that people there don't follow traffic rules since it was only implemented four years ago and it's kinda been a way of life for them. and there's like honking 24/7! quite irritating la but we slowly got used to it.

okay, i feel too weak to continue. been having a fever since morning. shall continue later or tmr maybe.

+ anuar zain! @ 6:27 PM

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hope everyone's been doing fine these few days :)

VIETNAM.TRIP.WAS.AWESOME!
the tour group me and my bro went with consisted of one of the nicest people ever. even though some of them are much older than me, can still converse with them pretty easily :) and i think it's true that guys who finish ns are very gentleman. like the guys in my tour group, they really took care of the girls ah. and it was fun listening to all the jokes made. plus the tour guide also very funny and nice!

plus i learnt A LOT of stuff about vietnam. even more than from my notes i think, heh. their culture, their history, politics etc. it was really an enriching trip. shall blog about my day-to-day experience soon (so my blog will be quite boring ah).

and of course, i definitely need to thank abg shahiddin for signing me up for this trip. and for always making sure i was safe. and all the small sacrifices he made for me during the trip (lending his shoulder for me to sleep on, carrying stuff for me, making me use the toilet first etc). i love and respect you more than i did before :)

and oh yes, before that was outing with hasfakitadee! shall blog abt that some other day too.

interesting muhammad ali quotes on refusing to fight in the vietnam war.
"I Ain't Got No Quarrel With The VietCong...No VietCong Ever Called Me Nigger"
"No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder kill and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slavemasters over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when such evil injustice must come to an end."

+ anuar zain! @ 11:48 AM

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this will be my last blog post before i come back on the 16th from vietnam. don't sms/call me on the 11th onwards cause i'll be up up and away!

so again, the past few days have been pretty fun :)
i'm so lazy to finish packing ah.
and monday, i took the H1N1 jab. i started tearing on the way to the clinic! haha, so embarrassing. i was so scared ah. and i think i whined a bit too much cause the doctor asked me how old i was after the jab. but aiyah not pain lah. (like real!)

tuesday morning spent on jogging, then badminton then skipping with safa. shamini joined us later though.

apparently safa was too busy camwhoring that she didn't bother about us. haha




tuesday night spent with the same people + isa! hope he had a safe trip back to vietnam :)



today was cycling with baohui! i had a blast laughing at her! hahahaha. oh man, it was so nice talking and laughing with her after such a long time. and tmr will be with hasfakitadee gang. rest of hols will be spent with my other loved ones. can't wait :)

my cute niece! (from hazwani's fb)

pretty niece and handsome nephew! now staying in london. (from kak elies' blog)

outdated pics- jogging with cousins!



+ anuar zain! @ 8:13 PM

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friday was simply an awesome day.
started off with following 2nd elder bro to expo sale. found coffee bean(took awhile actually but oh man, it was worth it!) :D

the toblerone cheesecake is srsly delicious :)

unfortunately, it started to rain REALLY HEAVILY and we had to rush home on my brother's bike since he had to do his friday prayers. so we got totally drenched and i was freezing by the time we reached home. my bro had it worse la since i was wearing his waterproof jacket(so sweet right, he sacrifice for me eh). but oh yeah, it was exciting! having a shower from expo all the way home!
me being utterly drenched! but i'm smiling coz it's probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

then changed and headed to balithai orchard for seniors' ml farewell! miss my gang man and yup, had fun :) thank you juniors and cikgu artina for the food! had to stuff myself with the fried egg tofu since i didn't want it to go to waste. and sometimes ah, i think i talk too much. haiz.

rasy holding my pink camera cover and safa with all her accessories!

president sharah handing down presents :) i like the present!

vice-president saiful. so sad me and rasyiqah didn't manage to execute our secret plan :P


cikgu artina! we talked to her about quite a lot of stuff including marriage stuff. HAHA

my dear ex-exco members :) sad hazi couldn't join us ah.

group photo!

i talked to syikin and nikita a few days ago. felt really gooood. like this warm feeling y'know.
woke up at 6.30 am to follow parents go jogging and ntuc. and i realised that the only person that can make my dad really laugh is my mom. awwww. my parents sweet couple ah.

&& went to watch new moon today with cousins! kinda boring for me. but nvm la, at least get to bond a bit with my cousins :) then ate lunch with siblings. yay, it's been a long time since the five of us ate together. and we were all laughing at when-we-were-small stories <3

i'm still scared to donate blood. my elder sister persuaded me to go ah but no-no for now. funny thing is, she also can't donate her blood! cause apparently her vein is smaller than the needle. a bit umm -__________-"
someone sang this to me: and tonight will be the night that i will make you fall. over again, until you get baluku(this part went a bit out of tune la) but still HAHAHAHA. i can't reveal who sadly.

if you've read until here, i salute you man.

+ anuar zain! @ 6:38 PM

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yesterday, there was this newspaper article with this headline staring at me: "Forgetful? Maybe you're not interested." hahaha, what an apt article for me to be reading.

oh and outing yesterday with people who just ended their a levels. congrats! at orchard and plaza sing. and yes, i shall declare that i'm bored of orchard and plaza sing! been gg there countless times alr :(




considering how animated shamini was, i wonder if that's her hand flying around :P



it was raining ah and poor safa had to carry the wet umbrellas :(

:)

+ anuar zain! @ 7:18 AM

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