The Last Day of 2006

I have stayed in Vietnam for 11 days now and it's time for some more reflections and thoughts of the life here. Due to an earthquake on Taiwan earlier this week the internet connection has been very s l o w, and still is.
The last years I have celebrated Christmas different places; last year I was in Ireland and the year before in China. One year I even celebrated Christmas Eve on an airport in Moscow, Russia that was by far the worst included the ones I have been sick! For anybody who has been there an experienced their (lack of) service will understand. So in a way I'm getting used to it, but this time maybe a bit different because I'm alone.
Outside it's around 24 C and partly sunny and it looks like it will be a nice evening/night.
I have lived in China for some time and I thought I was used to living in South-East Asia, but Vietnam is definately another piece of cake.
Chinese food is famous and rightly so. Vietnamese food is not that very different when it comes to ingredients, but they don't make it that nice and the menues in the restaurants are quite "thin" and it looks the same evrywhere. In most Chinese restaurants you get a big book with photos of the dishes and you can have a good read for quite a long time. Also the dishes here are considerable smaller...but also the people are smaller.
Shops is another story as well. In China you can get (almost) whatever you want. Here I still haven't found a shop I can buy milk and butter. There are a lot of small shops but they all seem to have the same things I don't need or I don't know what is. Luckily I have a housemaid 3 days a week who do the shopping. She came back with milk from Australia; the kind of milk that lasts forever, but the taste was mamahuhu to put it in Chinese.
The butter she found was homemade in a little tin that once had contained something else, luckily I don't understand what.
Last night I was out buying some DVD's. Not very good and updated selection but I choosed 4 so I had something to do this weekend. One of them was ok, the other ones I just have been back to the shop to change. One of the DVD's inside was something completely different than on the cover and I didn't understand a thing.
The two others were dubbed in a special way; one person only telling parts of what the Characters in the film said, like retelling the story...I think no good even for Vietnamese and no subtitles. I hope I have been luckier today.
My story today may seem to be a bit negative, but it's not meant to be like that. I like this place anyway and humans are very adaptable to various conditions, at least I am.