It took me many hours on the air before we landed in Japan. I checked the time. It was just around 11 AM in Vietnam, I still had a long wait ahead. I was so sleepy but i did not dare to sleep. I did not want to delay fighting with the jet lag until i arrived in Vietnam so i started the fight immediately. I had 5 hours waiting in Japan. I wanted to be home as fast as i could "my family is waiting and i want to meet so many of my friends new and old".
We took off around 4 PM Vietnam's time and the trip would take several hours. Everything was perfect so far except the sleepy part but i could handle it.
I thought that i planned everything for this trip perfectly:
- I would stay up so i could sleep easily the first night in Vietnam.
- I had all the paper work correctly this time.
- I had some extra "green paper" so it could help me find a short cut through the custom.
But just as things always happened to me. Yes, here is the story:
- I was stopped at the custom gate because my visa exemption was not valid. What the heck ! Yeah, the small book was real, everything was correct except the part that I applied this exemption while i was still carrying my US green-card. I got US-passport now but i did not re-apply for the new visa exemption. So i got pointed to a small office to fix the problem. I walked there and "holly cow !" a not small group of people were standing there waiting for somethings. Just to cut my story short, I took me around 1 hour with some nice talking to get a new and FREE 1 time visa this time. I was LUCKY at the last minute, just as it has always been like that.
- There was a guy who had been waiting for 3-4 hours. I could not recall what the problem with his visa application was but i remembered what he said "This is bull shit, I was in like 20-30 countries and this is the first time i got this kind of shit".
- There was an unlucky American girl too. "Hahahahaha, welcome to the world and remember America is not the world". So, the girl came to Vietnam through a Japanese travel agent. They did not get her a Vietnamese visa. It was OK, she was willing to apply and pay for the application fee. But the unlucky girl did not carry US dollar, she had Japanese YEN and Vietnamese custom just takes US dollar. The girl then tried to ask for an ATM to get some USD. She soon found out she was in a deadlock situation "She needs US money to pay for the visa fee, and the ATM to withdraw money is on the other side of the custom gate which she needs a visa to pass through". So i offered to help the girl with some US dollars, she gave me back the same amount in Japanese YEN. Minutes later, a guy came up to her and asked her to pay for the picture fee and he did not want to take US coins. I and she exchanged coins and US dollar again. By the time i got me visa and passed the custom, she was still waiting for her visa but at that moment she got one of her friend with her.
- "So what do you want to do ? You did not declare all these laptops, cameras, cellphones in the form. You will have to declare them and pay tax for all of them !". I replied "Is there anyway else and I gave a $20 bill to your friend over there already?". "Umh, alright, let just make it easy and straight forward. Give me another $20 bill then you can go". Yeah, i took the easy way, no fighting at all, just paid my way for the short cut through troubles.
I walked out the door. My family was waiting there. Mom said "I thought that they took you to hospital because of H1N1, but ,hell, they must let you make a phone call, right ?". "Yeah Mom, I did try to call you, a guy was nice enough to let me use his phone but i do not remember any of yours cellphone's number". We got back the house around 1 AM of July-26-2009.
I opened my luggage and every people got somethings. My Dad was waiting for his laptop but he was not very happy when he found out that he could not get it until my buddy get to Saigon 2-3 days later.
I ran up and down the stair several rounds, did some push ups. All those efforts so that i could sleep for several hours before going to my first date on that Sunday afternoon.
Not much to complain this time, we already know the legacies. You have your choices (or maybe not) to pick a way to deal with it. For now i just go "green". Hahahahahahaha
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