Reflections from Saigon

HCM was awesome, mainly because of its abundance of cafes and what always happens when sasha and I are in a cafe.

The best part I believe was when we were wondering around saigon, looking for nothing in particular, but heading towards the independence palace. We stopped for some coffee "take away" and ended up having bubble coffee over the next hour. We both remembered that it was an awesome time but my recollection of our conversation was that it was about identity and her recollection was that it was about sex. The identity conversation went something like this: If we split your actions into things that you work for and things you fall into, what's more essentially you?
My argument is that people are constantly changing and shaping themselves to be how they would like to see themselves. In that case, is your nature defined more by things that you work hard to achieve or things that come naturally? And if it's the former, are your goals and aspirations what define you rather than your current state and current actions?

But more on this later...

The other conversation occurred over a $10 buffet breakfast at an ahotel near ours. We were discussing our reactions to seeing the Vietnamese countryside and meeting a girl who obviously had her share of emotional problems. The girl was anorexic, bulimic, asthmatic and had an uncanny way of redirecting the conversation to focus in on only one topic, which was usually either herself or hermit crabs. She had just graduated from university and was spending some time traveling SE Asia before entering law school in the fall. I found her to be a fascinating person. She was almost the exact opposite of me and was extremely open about personal details, making it a prime opportunity to understand someone fundamentally different. The difficulty for me is understanding why someone would choose to focus on the bad and have complete strangers feel sorry for me. But I suppose that's another topic altogether.
Meanwhile, traveling through the Vietnamese countryside had a much more profound effect on me. Our bus from Saigon to the Mekong Delta had a lot of random stops and at one of these stops, our driver got out of the bus and got out a canister of gas (for cooking, what are these things called?) and placed it by the roadside. As we drove away, I saw an old lady appear from an abandoned shop and drag the canister slowly towards the shop.

okay, bedtime. TBC...