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See you there.
Charlie
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Amused To Death
If
your children aren't wracked with fear and completely misinformed about
historical events, you aren't doing your job. Fortunately, there are
places in Vietnam that do the heavy lifting for you. Time is money and those precious hours you waste popping wheelies while your unhelmeted child does a soft shoe on the seat behind you (I'm talking to you, Vietnamese parents) could be spent drinking to forget your
lies and actions (or drinking to forget the
truth and your inaction; whichever sets your whiskey arm a-itchin' more).
Remember all those times you didn't reverse Earth's rotation to fix shit? Keep drinking, Super-jerk. |
Đầm
Sen Adventure Park is a place to take your kids when the child's blood-drinking demons that
live in the ceiling-cracks above your bed cease to be fooled by rodent's claret. Between the rickety roller coasters, the
haunted house that's a legit threat to life and limb and the
whiplash-inducing bumper cars, you're sure to leave this joint light a
kid or two.
As a favor to you, dear reader, I took one for the team and threw myself on the Đầm
Sen funeral pyre (better me than you). I took children who, not being blood relatives, were more or less expendable. Our first stop was the haunted house. I'll admit that the pitch-black rooms, spray-painted particle board and misshapen foam skeletons struck fear deep into the cholesterol-choked recesses of my heart, but it was purely from an ADA stand-point. Once in the haunted house, there is no way to discern which way is forward. Cold, sharp steel stairs leap at your shins from the darkness, broken broom sticks abandoned carelessly against non-functioning railings lunge at your testicles (or maybe your ovaries; I don't know how ladies organize their bits). As you grope along the walls like some disgustingly crippled unsighted person,
you find yourself confronted at regular intervals
by vignettes illuminated with strobe lights. Each scene tells a "story." For example: 'And then there was an old lady who was a skeleton who sat in a chair while lights flashed on her!' or 'And then a man sat in a chair in front of a skeleton having a seizure while lights flash on them both' or 'And then a skeleton laid upon a table while lights flashed everywhere!'. Riveting stuff. Mostly skeleton-based tales, admittedly, but still there's a lot of meat there. Thinking about the brainstorming process for the haunted house is actually pretty depressing:
"So... what's scary?" says the sweaty president of the theme park (who looks like a partially sentient meatloaf).
"Skeletons and strobe lights, sir?" squeaks out the small, meal-sized assistant.
Jodie Foster will never love you, mortal! |
by vignettes illuminated with strobe lights. Each scene tells a "story." For example: 'And then there was an old lady who was a skeleton who sat in a chair while lights flashed on her!' or 'And then a man sat in a chair in front of a skeleton having a seizure while lights flash on them both' or 'And then a skeleton laid upon a table while lights flashed everywhere!'. Riveting stuff. Mostly skeleton-based tales, admittedly, but still there's a lot of meat there. Thinking about the brainstorming process for the haunted house is actually pretty depressing:
Đầm Sen's spokesman is a cockroach. No joke. |
"Right you are. Promotions for everybody," the fat man says, licking his chops/jowls as he heaves his corpulence within eating-distance of the smaller, weaker underling. Wheezing, Tons-O'-Fun whispers,"...promotions for every... burger," and then there are only wet breathing noises and the sound meatloaf sweating.
~fin~
|
Even
if you don't hate your children enough to cripple or kill them, you certainly want them to be confused
about well-known historical facts; the educational dinosaur ride in Đầm
Sen seamlessly combines authoritative-looking charts, informative
diagrams, dragons and cave men in a
single place thus skull-fucking scientific progress back into the dark ages, because kids are total idiots, right? They believe everything
you say! Bumbling poltroons!
Pictured: moron |
Why should you clean your room? Well, idiot,
because Jesus is magic and he will tear off your face while cooking
Mr. Kitty with his heat vision if you don't. Now go to the gas station
and get daddy some menthols and a Mickey's Big Mouth.
Did you read about how Brontosauruses aren't dinosaurs anymore? Yeah. That shit's real. It was a bone mix-up by some overzealous archaeologist somewhere. I totally loved brontosauruses. Maybe you did, too, but that train ride's over, junior. They're all apatosauruses, now.
Did you read about how Brontosauruses aren't dinosaurs anymore? Yeah. That shit's real. It was a bone mix-up by some overzealous archaeologist somewhere. I totally loved brontosauruses. Maybe you did, too, but that train ride's over, junior. They're all apatosauruses, now.
I'm as real as Jesus and the brontosaurus behind me |
The dinosaur ride is meant to be a thrilling, terrifying experience. If you're 6, you'll scream and bury your head in your teacher's armpit. Smell that, kid? It's Old Spice, now stop huffing all my classy, expensive deodorant fumes.
If you're not 6, you'll herniate yourself laughing at the rubbery seizures of foam dinosaur after foam dinosaur. Here's a conversation that the ride designers had:
Guy 1: "Do you think- like, during the Jurassic period- that dinosaurs' eyes flashed red and blue while they head-banged to pre-recorded, digitally distorted screams of bats being crushed underneath, like, car tires or whatever?"
Dinosaurs were neon, yeah? |
Guy 1: "Well, yeah... wait. Did you say 'having sex'?"
Guy 2: "Totally, dude. The world's most extraordinary prehistoric sexual odyssey and we are right here in the epicenter crafting the fuck-dolls."
Guy 1: "No, man. This is a kids' ride."
Guy 2: "..."
Guy 1: "You mean, you thought..."
Guy 2: "You will shut the fuck up. I got this foam-rubber dick rash for nothing. For nothing. Get me those porcelain ducks. I'm gonna make a wet, vengeful mess of those non-dinosaur-fucking, pre-pubescent shits' understanding of prehistory."
Excuse the quality of these pictures; I'm taller than intended for the ride and dinosaurs/gently vibrating dumps kept head-butting me:
Porcelain ducks. The Jurassic period. Together at last. |
This dinosaur hit me in the face |
Vibrating dentures |
This foam turd also hit me in the face |
Corky the Dinosaur |
Here are some non-life threatening highlights:
Kind of like The Galleon, for those of you who know a thing about Adventureland |
Exactly like The Galleon, for those of you who know a thing about Adventureland |
The Udder Queen's dead eyes will follow you until you stop being a coward and kill yourself |
Đầm Sen is quite pretty from the right angle |
Check this mess out: there's an attraction called Ice Lantern (they may have meant "cavern," but we'll never know); it's a giant refrigerator for Vietnamese people to experience cold, because they think the mid 60s (F) is freezing. It's a warehouse kept at a brisk -15 C (without any wind that's just long-sleeve shirt weather) and filled with ice sculptures of famous places. There's a giant Buddha and an ice train and an Ice-fel Tower (I thought of that, France. Me. You're welcome). It's all quite pretty. I took pictures on my phone of everybody kickin' it. Check't:
Fuckin' cool, right? |
Science Discovers Trashcan Made From Pure Ice! |
It's just like being in Paris, if Paris were inside a cold-storage unit and crowded with Wonders Of The World crafted from ice. |
This is supposed to be a princess. She's cold, emotionless and utterly disinterested in my well-being and somewhere in the middle of this sentence I got an erection. What's wrong with me, Gob? |
The kiddos praying to an ice Buddha. Kids doing things is probably cute. |
Somewhere towards the beginning of this blog, you probably asked yourself, "What do snail eggs look like?" Well, wonder no more, friend:
Snails bone and they get a nice centerpiece for the dining room tables. All I ever get are tears and tense drives to Planned Parenthood |
There's a roller-rink buried deep within the bowels of Đầm Sen Park. This is the first evidence of roller-skating I've seen in Saigon and is precisely what one would expect from Vietnam. The floors are cracked and uneven, there are suicidal "fun" features placed randomly around the rink and everyone rents skates in order to stand around and prevent others from moving freely or enjoying the fun, "skating" part of skating (it's a lot like the road situation in this country, really).
These skates were as uncomfortable as they were broke-ass'd. |
The only people who knew how to skate were the three folks who ran the skating counter. Every other person at the rink toddled around like a dog trying to hump an imaginary leg. It was a bit surreal. However, given the condition of the rink, I don't blame suckers for not knowing how to skate.
Pictured: the rink closing for lunch. |
The lack of lines inspired confidence in the part of me that wants to die |
I've ridden on some pretty funky-looking, carny-maintained rides, but god'am I've never seen anything so shoddy in my entire life.
When, "Made In China," is meant to inspire confidence, it isn't a question of if you're going to die, but rather in what terrible, limb-rending fashion your death will occur |
This is what a Dark Night Of The Soul looks like. |
In all fairness, the ride was pretty okay. There were several times that the metal screamed as if its tensile strength was being pushed to the very edge of its tolerance. There were several times that the cars clanked to the right and left as if they were getting ready to leap from rails. There were several times that the two sizes too small restraints seemed ready to fail. But, when the kids jumped out of the car at the end and screamed, "That was so flipping awesome, can we go again?!?!" I was more than willing. I mean, them properly using "flipping" and "awesome" makes me prouder than almost anything I've ever done in my life. You keep up that fluent English and I'll buy a bridge in New York from you, munchkins.
After the coaster, we hit the bumper cars. Unless your spine is made from adamantium, you might want to skip this one. It's funner'n hell, but only because you can get enough momentum to really fuck up the life of that small Asian child who rear-ended you 30 seconds ago.
"Why're you in a wheelchair?" has never had a funnier answer. |
After the bumper cars, we hit three ice cream stands in a row (ice cream's a quarter, for fuck's sake!) and walked around until munchkins started whining.
Despite not bearing the "Eat It All" instruction set that Americans cones have, Kev-o was able to work out what to do with his ice cream cone. |
It's that peace sign thing that Asian people are genetically required to do. |
Before leaving, we visited a merry-go-round and this weird ride-type thing for shorties. It made frog noises and went up and down waaaaay too fast for children's fragile necks.
I can't hear you over the snapping of juvenile vertebrae. |
Here's a picture of the older munchkins on the way out:
We're out and done, yo. |
I'd definitely go to Đầm Sen again. It's like surviving a car crash. It's like waking up as Raymond K. Hessel. It's like punching Gob in the nuts and daring him to kill you. If you like adventure and your life is cheap, I recommend you, too, take a trip to Đầm Sen. Make sure you bring a spare change of diapers and your wits; you're gonna need 'em.
That's a blog!
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Powerless In The Face Of Doughnuts
DOUGHNUTS!
Or "donuts".
Whatever. If you want American doughnuts in Saigon, you should probably
pull the blinds and dust off your Smiths records. Your future's gonna
involve some smeared mascara and disappointment. Unless... [80s record-scratch noise]
That pristine vinyl copy of Hall & Oates' H2O is ruined, but DonutMan's smile makes it worth it |
There's
this sweet joint up on 33 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai in District 1 called,
Fresh Donuts. I can't guarantee their freshness (though, I'll stake my
reputation on their flyness), but they certainly
taste potable-ish. It's like being all up in a Donutland,
which only means something to you if you're from Iowa. If you're not, I
pity you and you should probably take a second to go look in a mirror
and shake your head back and forth while tsk-tsk'ing. Donutland's
Facebook page is as confusing as a convincing drag queen and only
slightly more difficult to get straight answers from. So, you can look
'em up and try to get a feel for what their doughnuts were like in those
bygone days of redundant yore, but you're probably gonna end up
disappointed and guilted into a sex-act that you'll only speak of later
in the most abstract of terms.
Fresh Donuts is fucking great. I can't tell you how long it's been since I had a passable powder doughnut. Vietnam is good ata lot of some things, but doughnuts traditionally aren't one of them. Most
doughnuts here have meat on them. Like, they're rolled in
bacon crunchies or smeared with fish glands or ensconced in spicy
chicken nuts and then glazed with chocolate-ish sauce (if you consider
muddy
wax a sauce) and, if you're not diabetic yet, sprinkled with sprinkles.
Fresh Donuts is fucking great. I can't tell you how long it's been since I had a passable powder doughnut. Vietnam is good at
Comas are for people too lazy to die |
But
Fresh Donuts is different. They get points upfront for having doughnut
names that don't look like they were choked-out of Google translate
with a turducken Double Down daisy-chain. "Chocolate Do-nut" says one
sign, "Bismarck with milk filling" says another. I can wrap my brain
around what they're spraying there. They got them
jelly-filled, they got them Boston Cremes, they got them Bear Claws,
they got them Bismarcks, and they even got them Donut-Holes. Shit's
fire. Powdered, sugary, creme-filled fire.
They ain't perfect, though. Their coffee totally sucks; it tastes like a diarrhetic, battery-eating camel's taint-squeezings. Their water is doughnut-flavored (what?), but they do right by the doughnuts and with a doughnut shop, that's all that matters.
I'm serious about the doughnut-flavored water, too. That's a really good idea for getting fat kids to exercise. Fat kids are an untapped market with all sorts of growth potential. I firmly believe that every aspect of life and living should be turned into a commodity in order to generate profit because I'm an asshole who should kill himself.
They ain't perfect, though. Their coffee totally sucks; it tastes like a diarrhetic, battery-eating camel's taint-squeezings. Their water is doughnut-flavored (what?), but they do right by the doughnuts and with a doughnut shop, that's all that matters.
I'm serious about the doughnut-flavored water, too. That's a really good idea for getting fat kids to exercise. Fat kids are an untapped market with all sorts of growth potential. I firmly believe that every aspect of life and living should be turned into a commodity in order to generate profit because I'm an asshole who should kill himself.
This kid's lunch is packed. |
If
I think too hard about how the doughnut-flavor got into the
excessive-even-for-me amount of water I drank at Fresh Donuts that day,
my gag
reflex starts kicking-in, so I'm gonna stop. Point being, if you're in
the tri-county area, you should get your ass all up ins some Fresh
Donuts. Just don't drink the water (unless you like that sort of
thing). Here are some pictures of the Fresh Donuts and my
tutoring kids:
60% of Children are happy with my tutelage |
"Fresh delicious every day," is what that shit says. You're welcome. |
So, check it out. Fresh Donuts is definitely worth a visit if you've got a deep-fried yen for fat-soaked, sugar-dusted dough. Word.
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