Time for reviewing some of the trips in 2016…. Different trips, different feelings, different lessons, different companies…. But each trip gave me so much memories – for my 23 and 24 – at least sometime in the future, when I look back, I realize at least I enjoyed my youth a lot 🙂

For the first trip that I write a review for – not the opening trip of 2016, not the second trip – but is about the first foreign trip that I flied alone.This trip was totally beyond my expectations. Many things happened before the trip. When sometimes, I was just afraid that I couldnt make it: when the one I supposed to go with cannot go with me, when I asked many of my friends but noone was available, when my grandmom was sick, when I asked my parents that I would go but they didnt allow me…. Yes! But Im happy that I made the decision to go – and even go alone is like one of best things happened.Going back to the day before the trip – the day that I felt so alone and disappointed by some ppl. Then the day before that day, I totally enjoyed myself.

I stayed in Saigon for 4 years but hen that night was the first night I wandered ard SG at a very late time. SG at night was just so mysterious in a way that I wanted to discover it more and more, day by day. I wont forget when my friend came to pick me up at the airport a very late time – then drove me back home to leave my luggage there – then took me to eat and drink, then buy ice cream for me, then took me to places that I really wanted to go when I was back to Saigon after long long time and just sat there and made me laugh by his jokes. Though he had another trip which was just 2 hours later, he was still there – for me. That I realized how lucky I am to have this friend beside me. And he just made my day bright though it was dark at that time :))

The flight was at 9:35 am and I got off at the Yangon International Airport at ard 11am. When I just got off, waited on the immigration line, I already got the message from my little girl who was waiting for me just outside of the airport. We were so happy and excited to meet each other after 6 months, and of cuz, a selfie should be made to remark this moment 🙂

There’s also a building which is invested by HAGL of Vietnam but she couldnt tell me which is that building :)Then a friend of YSEALI UConn but in A different group joined with us for the trip in Yangon. Got a little chit chat about everything. Then we decided to exchange the money. Actually we did try to exchange the money at the hotel – but the receptionist didnt accept the money cuz my USD wasnt new enough – so one reminder that ALWAYS BRING NEW AND PERFECT USD TO MYANMAR! But that turned out a good thing – we had a time to enjoy a very luxiruous hotel in Yangon which of cuz, no way we couldnt afford to have a night there – but haha, got a photo together is enough, just to check in we were already there.

Look at the photo behind us. Actually I did read the info on that photo. But now I forget all :)). Just rmb it’s about the history and also which type of ethnic ppl live in each region of Myanmar.Then 3 of us went to Shwedagon Pagoda – the biggest pagoda in Yangon. We went there in the afternoon – but from what I heard we should go there like at 4pm, then we can enjoy the sunset there which are really beautiful with the yellow color from the pagoda shining under the sunset. But I still had a great time there. The pagoda here was really different from pagodas and temples in Vietnam (though two countries are Buddism – I dont know a lot about religions, even Buddism in Vietnam so I guess maybe the there are some differences in branches of Buddism in both countries – gotta learn and research about this)

Funny thing is that Myanmar is the Buddism country, but the two friends took me here both are Christian so yeah…..they were like me. We just wandered around, took some pictures, enjoyed both the peacefulness and also the way ppl worship their religion. But I gotta admit the differences are quite huge – While in Vietnam when I go into the temples, I dont need to take off my shoes unless I go into the worshipping area, but here I need to take off my shoes when I am in the area of the pagoda to show the respect (And it was quite hot under the 40 degree celcius of Myanmar at that time)

I guess it can be more interesting if I can know more about the story behind this pagoda (gotta research about that and then update later). I also saw the pple there they use the water to “shower” for the statue (there’re so many names of the statue so I dont rmb at all). After that, we continued our exploring trip in Yangon at the Karaweik Garden, which is not too far from the pagoda. The Garden is not too different from in Vietnam, pretty and large. There’s a quite big lake located in the garden which has many lotuses. I guess if I came there at the lotus season, it would be really beautiful.

Quite like a tourist there (and actually I was a tourist), took photos with everything – even the coconut trees, the balloons they used to shoot a music video, bamboo trees, umbrella…. Thanks Hkawn for always telling me take pictures with this, take pictures with that – Im sure when u come to Vietnam, at least u gonna have more than 1000 photos :)).

I visited Yangon when it was almost summer – so there were a lot of flamboyant trees and also “hoa bò cạp vàng” (which I dont know how to call it in English). And orange flamboyant flowers which was the first time I got to see.

So when we got out of the garden, it already passed the sunset time. Mung needed to leave cuz he had another meeting but we had a fun time together. So me and Hkawn went on with our trip by visiting a mall to have dinner at a rather creepy Chinese restaurant – and that was the first time I tried the food by hands. Uhm, it has rice, chickens, fried vegetables…. (I dont rmb again :)), just rmb that it was good, but a little too much that two of us couldnt finish all)