Vietnam sights unusual to these Pinay eyes

When we were in Ho Chi Minh City, we took two tours that took us out to the countryside. I am usually unable to sleep on long rides, so I saw several things that made me wonder about the Vietnamese.

 Tombs everywhere. I would see them beside houses, in fields and in what looked like deserted lots. The tombs would all be facing in one direction. At first, I thought they were constructed to have their backs to the thoroughfares until we entered an area where all the tombs were facing the road. Luc, our tour guide, explained that the tombs are all constructed to face the East. Each body must be laid according to the position of the sun otherwise families believe that they will be subject to bad luck. 

Too much "different" on TV

I am tired of "Glee".

Although I still appreciate the great production numbers and musical arrangements, I am tired of the "underdog" handle.

I am tired of the gay being bullied, the football stars doing the bullying, the blonde cheerleaders being all snotty and all those pretty and good-looking students moping around with all those insecurities.

I am also tired of these extreme "characters" on TV who are insensitive, dumb, unkind, rude, geeky, evil even if I laugh my head off at their antics because they are such geniuses and super, super witty.

Pasabog before Christmas

We received a basket just before Christmas. It wasn’t a Christmas basket, although it certainly felt like Christmas when we opened it.

It was a basket given by a soon-to-be-married couple to my husband, who they had asked to be their ninong or principal sponsor.

I was floored by the contents: a kilo of grapes, a bunch of bananas, four apples, four oranges, one dozen of plain suman, one dozen of suman sa lihiya, two big round pieces of kalamay, two containers of leche flan and a bottle of wine. The basket was also accompanied by one big chocolate cake.