World Stories: 03/01/23

In this blog I will talk about our adventures with two mysterious viewers from our audience. These peoples’ names are Lauren and Shelbie. Lauren and Shelbie (or Pippen and Sam) are two best friends who befriended my mom through a university trip, which she and another teacher (Garret) led a few years back. They found a common interest in travel and dope stuff and because of that they quickly formed a tight friendship. These 24 and 25 year old ladies met us on our epic adventure for two week that flew by in their presence. They are both very pleasant to have as traveling companions.

One of the examples of the claim that I just made is that one of the days in our two weeks with them they took me on a trip! On that trip, we went to a museum, my favorite pizzeria ( the 4 p’s pizzeria ), a certain street, and a pretty good pho place. The day started out as a rainy and cloudy day, so we decided why not have some morning pho. FYI , for any reader who didn’t know, here is a link to what pho is https://www.recipetineats.com/vietnamese-pho-recipe/ . In that link is a pretty good idea of what pho is. The pho at the place that we went to was pretty good. After that, we went to a Vietnamese Women’s History Museum/ Vietnam War Museum. The museum was pretty cool! After the first floor, Lauren decided that she was going to take the place of my Mom and started quizzing to make sure that I remembered/paid attention to everything. So after every area I got the dreaded quiz. It was still fun though. Once we got done with that, we went to the 4 p’s pizzeria! At the pizzeria we got half of a margarita pizza and half of my favorite, the all powerful 5 CHEESE PIZZA! The 5 cheese pizza has the following cheeses: Blue, Camembert, Parmesan, Brie, and Mozzarella.

After we ate that delicious meal, we walked around for a few. On this walk we saw all of these little go-cart type things that had 3 wheels! There were tons of these 3 wheelers on a section of the road where the cars were not allowed to go. How this 3 wheeler worked is that the front wheel is controlled by the gas and brake peddles and the back 2 are small wheels like the ones on a shopping cart, so those two wheels could go any which way (forward, back, and sideways). These little go-cart type things were really fun and uncontrollable. It was super easy to go crazy in the way that you try to drift but end up in an uncontrollable donut! They were super fun, and after 20 minutes on them, we started heading back.

After that city, we went to a city named Sa Pa up in the mountains. We stayed in the outskirts of Sa Pa, so it was more like a small village in the mountains. To get there we had to ride a super long bus, but it was worth it because I watched my first star trek movie and I totally loved it!( I loved it so much that it has become my new show, since they do not have Big Bang Theory on Netflix in Japan.) In that part of Sa Pa, we stayed at this hostel, but it was more like a cluster of cabins on very close by pieces of property. It sounds rough, but the cabins ad property are actually really nice. Every morning we went to the outside common gathering place to have breakfast, and for me, to play with the dogs. On the lower half of the hill there was a garden and a sand pit, and on the upper half, there was a restaurant/fire pit area. We went to this common place every day after we got done with our day trip and hung out there.

One epic thing we did in Sa Pa was a day hike that a local named Mimi led. The hike was pretty cool. The reason why it was so cool is because we went up in the mountains (it was actually pretty sunny) and crossed streams, looked upon the rice paddies below, and explored waterfalls! It was an amazing hike.

Another epic thing that we did in Sa Pa was this temple up in the clouds that was super cold but pretty sick looking back on it. This huge temple built into the side of the mountain was secluded from the city, so you have take a 30 minute ski-lift up to it. After you got into the building, you have to exit the delightful warmth and go into the harsh, cloudy, cold outside. Once you were outside, you had to climb up about 1,500 stone steps! We were not dressed for this frigid weather in the clouds so we got super cold. Plus, this was all outside and unsheltered, so you had to face the strong wind. After we got done with that, we rode down on the ski-lift and that was really cool because you could see the valley from up above.

The last thing that we did was Ha Long Bay. Sorry for carrying out this blog so long; there’s just a lot to say. Ha Long Bay is a beautiful bay with a maze of wonderful karsts in it. https://www.visithalongbay.com/insight-guides/halong-bay-geology-how-halong-formed.html

When we were on a boat in the karsts we did wonderful activities such as kayaking, squid fishing, swimming, partying, and chilling. The karsts were a wonderful experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about a vacation.

Thank you readers for reading through this long blog. I hope everyone is well, and have a good rest of your day. -SilaG

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