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After two years of faithful service, my HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) was due for replacement; exchanging it for the new cutting-edge Android device, the Samsung Galaxy S.  Although my G1 was the first Android device on the market, it has since been upgraded from Android 1.0 to 2.2 (courtesy of Cyanogen) and every increment between.  Unfortunately, the Galaxy S is currently running 2.1, though the upgrade to FroYo ought to be soon.

Aside from 2.2, the software for the Galaxy S is, alright.  I’ve been spoiled by the efficiency of Cyanogen’s mods.  My only real complaint is an insane amount of bloatware. The phone ships with a 720p copy of Avatar, which is neat and all, but you can’t remove it from your app menu without Root access. There are a bunch of useless widgets from Samsung and their launcher looks ridiculous. All of this was easily remedied with Root access. It also comes with the Swype keyboard, which is quite necessary for me now that I lack a physical QWERTY and often times corrects my inebriated txt messages.

Now that the software is fixed, the hardware is absolutely amazing. The Hummingbird processor is the fastest on the market, has a dedicated GPU and 512MB of RAM.  It has 16GB of integrated storage, and I have an extra 8GB (class 6) MicroSD card for a bit of extra space.  The 4-in screen is a key selling point of this series, the Super AMOLED performs beautifully, even in direct sunlight.   The camera has a 5MP sensor, though lacks flash…this is my only complaint so far.

I’m quite excited for the 2.2 update as well as a Cyanogen release, which is currently under development.  Overall, my impressions of the Vibrant are very high and will hopefully prove to last as long as my G1

We arrived at our guest house around 10AM, it was pouring down rain and we discovered that many of the guided tours do not run over the weekend. This was kind of disappointing and pretty much prevented us from visiting the DMZ. Regardless of the rain and lack of guidance, we set out to visit the War Museum. This museum, to my pleasant surprise was not just about the Korea War, but all violent history of the entire nation; this spanned from arrow-heads to pistols. The building was massive, talking us multiple hours to get through. That night we went around the university district looking at bars and clubs. I wasn’t really feeling up to going around too much, but we found a couple interesting places.
An obvious thing that stood out was the height of the locals. These girls were as tall as I am, and the guys were towering above us all; not only are they tall, but everyone is fit! I’ve never seen so many perfectly attractive people simply mingling about on their daily activities. It also helps that the average wardrobe was superior to anything I have and everyone managed to wear it just right.
The following day we visited Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was most impressive.  They had traditional guard rotations, which were  lot of fun to watch all the while we were free to roam around the palace and visit the many living quarters, dining halls and government rooms. We stopped by the courtyard in front of the palace where a tribute to Yi Sun-Sin and Sejong the Great stand.
Otherwise, we wandered around the town via subway to a few of the many massive shopping malls and looked through various market places. It was a great experience, though quite fast paced and shorter than I would have wished.

For three days/two nights, we stayed in the Seahorse Resort at Mũi Né beach; resulting in a sunburn, a peaked interest in Russians and ever more adventures from driving in Vietnam.
The bus ride to the coast took 4-5 hours and cost 100,000 Dong or roughly $5.20. The sleeping bus we took was arranged such that you had no hope of sitting upright without the option of completely laying down. On top of that, I’m certain its design would not pass US safety guidelines.
Once we arrived at Mũi Né, we each hired a motorcyclist to drive us to our resort. The long, straight, mostly unpopulated strip of road only makes such an activity slightly safer. Legally you must wear a helmet in Vietnam, but the one provided was solid plastic, of which fit 3/4 of my skull. I’m pretty sure this would have made a cranial impact worse. Regardless, we made it in one peice and found a rather nice room awaiting us. The bathroom was open air, directly connect to a small private garden.
The resort was quite nice, though fairly empty (not the right time of year I suppose) Both the beach and the pool were mostly void of anyone but the groundskeepers.
We wandered about the strip each day we were there. As it turns out, Russians have long frequented Vietnam, particularly during Winter as a cheap, warm get away; the result of this is everything being written in Russian and the locals assumption that I am from said nation. Many of the times we were served, I had to ask for an English menu.
The majority of our time was spent wandering around and bathing in the sun, which as it turns out is infinitely magnified in such an equatorial region. This left both of us with sunburns across the majority of our body, except my face which was moderately protected by my face lotion, conveniently containing SPF 20.
Our ride back was quite interesting, except the one time that a motorcyclist, carrying a large propane tank darted in front of our bus going roughly 60km/h. The whole scene was presented through the over-sized windshield, such that I saw pretty much everything, except one small detail. As we’re sliding down the road, brakes locked, the motorcyclist tries to drive escape by driving forward. His acceleration did not compensate for our uncontrolled slow down. Right as the man escaped from my view, the bus rumbled and bounced slightly; this lead me, and many of the other passengers to gasp and think that we crushed the poor fellow, on-top of the increased scare his propane tank rupturing in a Hollywood-esque explosion. This was followed by our driver flooring it; which left me with an odd feeling in my stomach. Of course, we didn’t hit the guy. In fact, we stopped in time, and the motorcyclist started to drive off, so our driver chased him down, forced him to the side of the road and gave him quite the lecture with much gesticulation. The other passengers and myself were quite relieved to see him intact.
Overall, it was quite the trip; and except the last part, quite relaxing.

I went with a couple people to the premiere (for Vietnam) of Twilight:Eclipse; the movie was…bad, though infinitely better than the first two. The nearest theater was quite a ways out of city center and a little smaller than the one in Hermiston.
In yet another odd coincidence, one of the people we went with was a photographer from Port Angeles (a city mentioned in the books/movie) and had interned with the Register Gaurd, a news paper in Eugene.
After the film, we went to a birthday party located on the roof of a small building near downtown. They served lovely wine and hired a cover band that ranged from Pink Martini to Gaga.
We’ve more or less ran out of tourist activities, except the expensive/multi day tours and visiting the presidential palace, which holds very early hours.
Nae-Seok has picked up Final Fantasy XII and I have shifted to a more vacation like/relaxed mood in which I am making great progress through Moby Dick. We hope to go to the beach for a couple days this coming week, though we’re still working on the logistics.

We went to the Củ Chi tunnels today, about 70km out of HCMC. We learned of the ways the Viet Cong lived in the tunnels during the US’s war in Vietnam and their various means of fighting. Though incredibly horrible, I had to admire the ingenuity of some of the traps. It was painful just to look at the replica traps, to think that they were made for people
The tunnel we entered had been widened in order to accommodate tourists (fat Americans) but was still quite small. Its difficult to believe that so many people were able to live underground for such a long time.

The other night we went to a Spanish bar to watch the Brazil/Netherlands match. We met a couple entertaining people that were quite enthusiastic about the game. Though I’ve never cared for watching sports, I adopted Netherlands as my team and thankfully won the match.
We wandered to a couple other bars till ending up at Q-Bar, which is located underneath the opera house, a rather amazing location. While sitting outside enjoying the slightly cooler air, we chanced to meet a man that went to Georgetown. When he asked where I was from, and actually recognizing the state of Oregon I hazard to state my city; he knew Hermiston! In one of the oddest coincidences of my life, it turns out that this this man, Scott, knew my next door neighbor Matt Worstell, as well as the rest of the family!

We went shopping today. Many of the shops of more like markets that happen to reside within a building that resembles a mall. We found some simple shorts/t-shirts that ought to keep me functional in this heat/humidity. We also went to a couple slightly nicer shops, where I got a couple things worthy of taking back with me.
Tonight, we went out to a nice wine bar and a club named Velvet. It is a fairly interesting experience, though they play the same terrible top 100 playlist presented in the US. Overall it was a fun/productive day, and ought to make the remaining days easier now that I have a feel for the place.
Jet lag seems to be non-existent, though we’ll see how I feel tomorrow; hopefully going out for a swim in the morning.

We took a quick trip through downtown Ho Chi Minh yesterday, which proved to be quite the experience. We were still adjusting to the time change, so we didn’t do too much. The traffic is truly crazy, with swarms of motorcycles flying every which direction and cars bullying their way down crowded roads. Essentially, to cross the road you start walking in what appears to be a cross walk and trust in the traffic’s equal distaste in hitting you; regardless it is quite scary.
I exchanged $200 US, which consisted of two bills for 3.8 million VND Dong; this ridiculous wad of cash makes carrying my wallet quite annoying
Took a few pictures, but nothing too exciting. We plan on wandering a bit more after we purchase some temperature appropriate clothing later today.

So I’m pleased to say that I made it safely to Vietnam and am well settled at my overly-generous roommate’s apartment. His family and abode are simply amazing, especially in contrast to the scenes I witnessed in route from Ho Chi Ming Airport…
Our flight went quite well, everything on schedule with friendly service courtesy of Asiana Airlines. Until we stepped through customs at our final destination only to be greeted by a blast of painfully humid tropic air. This was quickly remedied by Nae-Seok’s beaming father waving us towards his air conditioned van.
Vietnam is certainly a third-world country, most obvious in the apparent lack of building codes/traffic laws. Fortunately, due to Nae-Seok’s father, his insane driving skills and an awesome suicide nob attached to the steering wheel, we safely navigated the supposedly mild traffic of mid-night.
For now, I’m of to bed, I could hardly sleep on the plane due to a (quite literally non-stop) screaming child and his mother’s boisterous attempts at hushing him.
So far, I took a few pictures, but they consisted of airport terminals/amazing duty-free shops. May or may not post them later.

A while back, my roommate Nae-Seok offered to show me around Vietnam and Korea; I gladly accepted. For the next two weeks, we’ll be staying in Ho ChiMinh City. I have hopes of seeing a reasonable number of tourist sites, while spending a larger portion of our time relaxing and enjoying the city, likely finding our way to the beach.

From there, we fly to Seoul and spend three or four days wandering about. Our agenda is fairly open, hopefully allowing this to be a relaxing and educational vacation before I settle in at my new job with the school district.  I intend to update the Images section of my site as often as possible while over there, we’ll see how well that goes.