I think I might be mildly allergic to alcohol (or mildly intolerant)

Because when I drink, aside from the Asian blush, I also get mildly itchy and feel kinda swollen. And apparently no one else in the family has experienced this, from what I gather. I guess I’ll backtrack and start from the beginning, though I don’t think I’ll start with the flight. Theresa pretty much covered that part. I think. It’s hard to tell because we can’t view our blog from Vietnam, but can post just fine. After we landed and got out of the airport, we went to the apartment building we would be staying in while we are in Saigon. Our family knows the owners, so it’s easier to stay at the apartments rather than looking for a hotel. Once we got to the apartments and settled in, my cousins and I (and Evan) pretty much passed out, around 5 in the afternoon (5 in the morning central time). My cousins and Evan somehow slept until 5 the next morning, while I woke up around 12 or 1 and didn’t go back to sleep until 3, after having downloaded some books to read. It’s okay, I like my gift better, anyway! The gift for my sister, which I accidentally opened. The next morning, I also got up at 5, and my aunt on my dad’s side, Co Hoa, was visiting from the country with her oldest daughter, who goes to a university in Saigon. They had an ao dai and a suit for my parents, which I think my parents had asked to be made for them. Co Hoa also had a jacket made for me, using measurements they had taken while I was in Vietnam last year; this surprised me, as I didn’t expect to be receiving anything and just thought I would be giving them the candy and medicine my parents had sent with me to give to her family. I was pretty touched, especially when my cousin gave me two small boxes that were gifts for my sister and me, from her two younger sisters. We had spent an extended amount of time with them last year, compared to all the other places we had visited. After my aunt left to return to her home in the country, my cousins and I were all left to do whatever we wanted. We spent a good 2 or 3 hours just sitting around, getting caught up with things we’d missed during our flight to VN, as well as looking for tourist-y things to do in the city. We eventually decided on a war memorial museum, which we went to after lunch. The lunch was kinda disappointing, since the items Theresa and I had first wanted were not available. The three of us (Theresa, Evan, and me) ended up ordering the same thing, at the suggestion of the waiter. I think he was tired of waiting for us to look through the menu. The war museum was pretty interesting, but also was rather draining. As Theresa told me last night, for many of the pictures, you end up thinking of something like, “This could’ve been my mom or dad,” and for the photos showing the aftermath of agent orange, “This could’ve been me.” There were 3 floors in the museum, and after eavesdropping on a tour guide when we first entered, we went to the 3rd floor to start. That was where the majority of the photos were, and most of them had a caption. Even after picking and choosing captions to read, getting through that exhibit took a really long time. Personally, after leaving that exhibit, I didn’t have much interest in looking at the rest of the museum, probably because the rest was more historical, and not so personal. By this time, we were pretty exhausted from the walking around and lingering jetlag, so we took a taxi back to our apartment and “took a nap” around 5. My cousins got up earlier than I did and went to have some coffee with a third cousin of ours, but I chose to sleep longer and didn’t wake up until 9, after they had gotten back and woken me up to go eat dinner. This part of our day was kinda a bust. Apparently, the address we had gotten from the internet for the restaurant was completely wrong, and actually had two different streets in the name. The taxi driver took us to both streets, but we suspect that he took us in a huge circle when driving us to the second street. Saigon is separated into districts, and the place we ended up at was in the same district as our apartment. We found a barbecue place on the street to eat at, but only Theresa and I ate, as Evan and Quan were both full from meals earlier in the day. Theresa and I were both pretty surprised at how good the food was. It was sort of in the style of a Korean barbecue, where they bring you a plate of seasoned, raw meat, and you grill the meat yourself on the pot of coals. Oh, we also had some beer, which, as I stated at the beginning of the blog, affected me a lot. I suspect that part of it was due to being in a novel context, where the same amount of a drug (alcohol) as one had in their normal setting affects them much more when partaking of the drug in a new context. Or so my neuroscience knowledge tells me. In any case, 2 was enough to give me a good buzz and make me sleep at 12 once we got back. We had 2 plates of bbq, one plate of pork, and another plate of goat meat. Both were delicious, and I’m hoping we go back there to eat before leaving VN. The place we ate at had two dogs and two kittens, and it was really hard for me to not call them over to pet them. I probably would have, if it weren’t for Theresa, who said not to because they could have rabies. So I made myself content with taking pictures of them, though I only got pictures of the kittens, and not the puppies. So, I hear the plan for today is that we cousins are allowed to go about the city and do our own thing again, so we’re going to the Reunification Palace, and possibly another place if we have time. Quan is spending time with family on his dad’s side, but will be back in time to eat dinner and then go to the place we had planned to eat dinner at yesterday. Tomorrow, we’re leaving for another city, but will be back in Saigon on Tuesday. Thinking about it now, 3 weeks does really seem short. Having an apartment just for the cousins (rather than having to share with the adults) and being able to do things on our own definitely makes this trip more enjoyable than last summer’s. Seriously, Teresa, I think you’re missing out. I don’t even think it’s as hot as it was last year — the temperature the last few days has been mid-80’s, though still really humid. TL;DR? Well, whatever. Most of my posts are like this, anyway. SO GET USED TO IT. (Copy pasta’d from cousin’s blog, will add pictures later)