Saigon Chronicle Month 4: The Saigon vs. Shanghai Battle
November 1, 2019
I’ve just returned from 10 days of visiting Shanghai. This was my first trip back to the city since we bid farewell in June 2018. Since arriving in Saigon four months ago, despite my best effort to be objective, I couldn’t help but compare this new home to Shanghai, a city that I knew so intimately well. I suppose our…
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Argentina Patagonia Part I: 4-Days in Ushuaia
October 29, 2019
Day 1: Travel from Salta to Ushuaia We concluded our whirlwind road trip in Northern Argentina and headed South to explore Patagonia. The first stop was to Ushuaia, a city located at the furthest southern point of the world, and thus claims its “End of the World” title. Argentina is approximately 3,600km (2,300 miles) in length. Traveling from North to…
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Northern Argentina Road Trip from Salta
October 15, 2019
After a few days of settling into Argentina in Buenos Aires, we flew up north to Salta to begin a whirlwind of a four-day Northern Argentina road trip. If we had more time, I would have doubled the length of this itinerary and spend two nights in each destination. Whenever possible, I try to spend more than one night at…
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2019 Q3 Business Update
October 9, 2019
Q3 was filled with transitions as we settle into our new lives in Saigon. With Xav at work, I am left with ample time to catch up on this blog. Am I A Writer? Being in a new city, one of the most common questions I get is that dreaded, “What do you do?”. I find myself stumbling over this…
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4 Days in Colorful Buenos Aires
October 5, 2019
On our full-time travel, we picked destinations based on our global set of friends and families. Xav’s brother lives in Uruguay, so we decided to escape winter and migrate down to the Southern hemisphere. We kicked off our three-month South America tour with a 4-day stay in Buenos Aires, visiting a good friend from grad school on her Foreign Service…
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Saigon Chronicle Month 3: 90-day Resettlement – Expats vs. Refugees
September 27, 2019
I learned on an episode of Sincerely, Hueman recently that the U.S. government’s refugee resettlement program lasts only 90 days. Refugees are expected to be self-sufficient within this time frame. This week, we, the privileged expats in Vietnam, approach our own 90-day milestone. The dichotomy of our experience versus that of refugees is on my mind. Living abroad and settling…
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Recognize Passport Privilege
September 15, 2019
One of my main goals with this blog is to inspire people to live globally. When contacted by the U.S. State Department to help promote its #BeginYourJourney campaign for Passport Month, I happily obliged. After all, obtaining a passport is the first step to living more globally. Recognize Passport Privilege Before I dive into my story, I would like to…
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Birthday Giving: Hair Donation in Saigon
September 9, 2019
Since turning 30, my desire for elaborate birthday celebrations has waned. Instead of large gatherings, I now prefer to retreat and reflect. Recently, there’s been a trend to raise funds for birthdays on Facebook, to support a good cause. This year, in keeping with the “being uncomfortable” theme, I decided to have a makeover, and do some giving of my…
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US Road Trip: One Week in California’s San Francisco Bay Area
September 5, 2019
From geological marvels of the American Southwest, we headed west to San Francisco for a change of scenery, but continued the road trip theme in California. During my time at the fruit company, I had a few extended visits to the Bay Area and wanted to share this beautiful region with my family. Upon landing at SFO airport, we picked…
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Saigon Chronicle – Week 7 & 8: Apartment Rental Search
August 29, 2019
After a month of living in our temporary apartment, we began the hunt for our longer-term home in Saigon. The process proved to be more challenging than I had anticipated, but I am happy to announce that after two weeks of painstaking search, we have been blessed by the apartment-hunting gods, and landed on a great two-bedroom apartment, with a…
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