Somebody came up with the crazy theory that “if we leave in the middle of the night, we’ll be home early in the afternoon.” Apparently, this somebody (my brother, actually, but let’s not acknowledge that :P) did not factor in sleep for this idea. Instead of leaving at 1:00AM, hoping to arrive by like 11:00AM, we drove off a hundred miles or so and slept in a rest area for like.. 3 hours. When 5:00AM came by, we got into the car once more and booked it, and ended up coming home at roughly around 4-5PM in a cloudy, rainy Albuquerque. Yeah, that’s how you get welcomed back.

More importantly, I find that things aren’t what they used to be in California. Everything’s so different now — and more crowded than ever. Definitely lots of more people and Vietnamese folk in Little Saigon, making their living, commuting, and uh… living, peacefully. Though it was different than how I remembered it around 2 years back, the fact that it used to be home never left, and I was definitely glad to stumble upon familiar sites, places, and names (Names part a big plus). For the most part, I just hung out at Alan’s (not me, my other friend who’s named “Alan”) after school everyday to catch up on things and play some DDR, StepMania, and some RPGs — like good old times 2 years back.

I was also glad to be able to dine in on some of my favorite food in my favorite restaurants once more, that was awesome… eating childhood favorites like banh beo tom chay, banh bop lop and pho thai (spelling and accentuation issues, as you can see), only the best in California (and Vietnam). For the most part, we went there so we could pick up Mom from LAX, who was returning home from her vacation in Vietnam. I made the mistake of cruising by Los Angeles at night a few days back when we went to go pick her up — ain’t gonna pull that off again anytime soon.

Long story short (only around 4 days long, anyway), I had a good time in Orange County. In the end, it’s still the good old home as I remembered it as a few years back. When the time comes, I’ll definitely move back and live there once more.