The Journey Begins

Starting Saturday morning off with little sleep, due to excitement and the frigid air in towers, made me realize that this would be one of the longest, busiest days of my life.  Officially beginning the day at 6 A.M. Eastern Time, it wouldn’t come to a close until over 24 hours later.  Making it through security at the Pittsburgh Airport was the first step to one long trip. The flight from Pittsburgh to Chicago was our shortest flight of the day, leaving at 11 A.M. Eastern Time and arriving around 11 A.M. Central Time just made it a bit more interesting.  After wandering O’Hare Airport, and eating half of a personal deep dish, it was time to make the longest leg of the trip. 

 

The flight was roughly 16 hours, which I found almost impossible to sleep on.  Maybe subconsciously it was excitement, but for the most part airplanes are just pretty uncomfortable to sleep on.  I read over half the book I brought with me, and watched a number of movies and music videos along the way, sleep for maybe of total of 2 hours the entire trip. Near the end I got restless, but overall I didn’t think the flight was too bad actually.  I would get up and wander a bit every once in a while, just to stretch out.  Then they announced that we were on our descent down to Hong Kong Airport.

 

This is when some more excitement hit me.  Before this, I had never been to an Asian country.  I was touching down somewhere new to me and it gave me a rush, not to mention the view was spectacular.  After finding a place to meet up, we split up to find a decent meal during our 3 hour layover leading to our flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Obviously we went with something authentic, well as authentic as you can get in any airport.  The airport food court area was so packed that by the time we finally found a seat I had green onion soup spilled all over my tray, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying my entrée of spicy chicken and rice noodles with their fancy chop sticks (which I proudly feel that I have almost mastered).  After being adventurous in this giant airport, we headed to our gate for our final stretch of the trip.

The flight from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City felt astonishingly short compared to our flight that lasted over half a day.  In just a couple of hours we had reached our final destination.  We landed around 11:25 Sunday night and finally made it through immigration and security a little past midnight.  Heading to the bus was when we all finally felt the wall of humidity waiting for us outside.  As the hair began to frizz up, I didn’t mind because I was taking in the environment around me.  The streets weren’t nearly as busy as I imagine they will be during the day, but even still, the amount of scooters or motor bikes that I was absolutely blew my mind.  Shops lit up much brighter than any I’ve seen in America at that hour, and they opened up entirely into the streets; not just a window, but the entire wall overflowed tables and stands from inside the shops to the sidewalks before them.  It didn’t feel like a culture shock, rather and experience that made me smile the entire way to the hotel, and I can honestly say I cannot wait to experience more.