Hello everyone
Its me Trang
In today's video
I want to share some personal updates
about my life here in the United States
If you would like to follow me along in Vietnamese,
I'd appreciate if you turn on the subtitles
I'm considering speaking more in Vietnamese:)
Let me know your thoughts about that.
Thank you so much!!!
well, where to start
there were a few obstacles that I had to overcome
such as homesickness, loneliness and material rejections
such as finally getting a driver's license
and having a offer of a home being
denied
and
denied
and denied
more on that later
but I definitely had more ups and downs
This new transition has been smooth
and honestly better than I planned
There are many things I miss about Saigon
and other things I can do without
such as the heat!
Yes!
I mostly lived in Saigon and Singapore
and I can say GOODBYE to the heat and pollution
well, sort of:)
There has many many wildfires throughout
Oregon and Northern California :(
which has made the air polluted with smoke
but the air quality does get better in the Fall
As for the things I miss
One of those things I miss is family and friends
Even-though the 15 hour difference,
I do chat with them on a daily basis,
but I miss spending time with them especially in the evenings.
If you have been to Saigon,
you may know about the vibrant night life there
Its really common to see people out past 9 p.m.
But here the restauants close by 9pm
and most coffeeshops close at 7pm
I'm told that it was
closed at 9 p.m. before the pandemic.
The size of the city could partly be blamed beacuse
its actually the land size of district 1 in Saigon.
But living here in a smaller city has it advantages too
Pollution and traffic is a breeze
everyone follows the rules of the road
and they show their courtesy when
I make mistakes when driving.
When I drive,
I still have the mindset that I'm driving in Saigon
I'm always on high alert
I honk the horn
fearing that the car next to me won't see
and I usually drive below the speed limit
which I hear that is a stereotype that Americans have of us
It's kinda funny:)
Among other things that I miss
are the usual conviences of
eating cheap and paying cheap for services.
It was just the other day I went to a nail salon
I paid $65 for a manicure and pedicure
for which that would cost $10 in Saigon
As for real estate, the real estate market
is very competitive and expensive
I had to submit numerous offers
for different homes to finally have one accepted a month later.
My real estate agent explained to me
that those that out bidded me
offered $25,000 or more above the asking price!
They were mostly coming from California or Washington State
trying to get away from the cost of living.
Well I too decided to live
in Oregon for its lower cost of living
among a few other things too.
I can discuss this topic
further in the future
and do a tour of my new house in the next video.
There I can discuss more about
the detail of the cost of living.
But what I will say, in my opinion,
is the cost of living here in Oregon
is not expensive.
I been to California and Nevada
and the prices over there is
just crazy!
Maybe I have more understanding
why there is a homelessness problem
there in the US
and a migration of people leaving those states.
Thanks for sticking with me in this video so far
This type of vlogging is not what I am used to
I'm more used to showing the beauty of Vietnam
But now I'm in Oregon!
As you can see, right now is the season
is changing from Summer to Autmun
I hope to share more
of the scenery here to my Vietnamese friends.
We don't have much of an Autumn in Vietnam
much less in Saigon.
Thanks everyone for watching!
See you on the next one:)
bye