June 1st, 2024 - 40 hours of straight travel - Vietnam

Things I am grateful for English as my native language. Friends that love and care for me Family that loves and cares for me. To be in a position that I am able to travel That my health is in a good enough space to travel. Good walking shoes. Zopiclone to sleep. Having a work away. Food is paid for, Housing is paid for. Air conditioning. My patience for a long haul travel. Hot weather. Sunshine. Good music Technology. Emotional intelligence. Good food on the airlines and Clonazepam.

Flight path Flew from Calgary to Vancouver. Got 2 hours worth of anxiety before I left and I took a clonazepam to help with the issue. Only made it to my connecting flight in Vancouver with 30 minutes to spare. Flew from Vancouver to Hong Kong. I took my normal meds plus a zopiclone and got 6-7 hours worth of sleep. Watched the migration movie to pass the time once i woke up. I also built a solid playlist with most of the songs I like. It’s over 4 hours long now. Got to Hong Kong. Had an 8 hour layover. I forgot I have lounge access and I forgot to use it. It would have been able to shower and have free food. Oh well. I’ll use it on the way back. I ate ate at Wolfgang puck and enjoyed my breakfast with 2 lattes and some food. I even checked out Chinese McDonald’s but I didn’t eat anything there. They had some cool menu items.

I got to Hanoi and it was HOT. My Hostess set up a ride for me from Hanoi to Hai Phong. None of the drivers spoke any English but some how I made it to where I was going. First by car, then by sprinter van. They by suv. It took a lot of trusting the process and I had no idea where I was going. I was really thankful Trang set that all up for me. Once I got to the home stay they welcomed me with food and beer. We sat on the ground and there must have been 10 of us. Everyone was really excited to see us and were very welcoming. There’s this one other man who is doing the teaching thing as long as I am. He’s from New York New York. His name is Harrison. He’s going to be a godsend for me as he has already been to Vietnam before. I feel so thankful it worked out that way. Definitely helped with my nerves. We even sang some karaoke that night with the work away team we will be interacting with. They had grilled beef and pork in a fancy sauce that wasn’t spicy. We wrapped it with lettuce and paired it with Kim chi cucumbers. I even tried hot pot. They had a strange mushroom in it but it was good just really stringy and got stuck it your teeth. I didn’t want to eat what anything else that was in the hot pot so I just asked for broth only and it was really good.

This whole day I have been saying to my self just trust the process and it’s seems to have been working out. I’m super proud of myself for getting myself here. It’s a huge culture shock for sure. They drive like mad men around here. They even have babies being transported on motorbike. It’s wild. Total duration of travel was 40 hours from start to finish. Training starts tomorrow at 3 pm. Goodnight !