Pagoda with Phương

This is Phương (that's my scarf and we're just playing around. She doesn't normaly wear that). We became friends very recently as she is a cousin of my friend Oanh. Our languages are both very poor and we've spent most of our friendship in silence. One day I thought she was coming to pick me up, so I waited for her, helmet in hand. She came and parker her motorbike and we walked up to my apartment. And we just hung out. I have no idea where the miscommunication occurred.
One day last week, she invited me to go to a pagoda with her family. I had no idea that it was going to be an all day affair. We ended up driving on the motorbike for four or five hours that day. I always thought being on a motorbike that long would be awesome. But my butt disagrees.Anyway, we met up with her family and then we all covered from head to toe in jackets, masks, gloves, you name it. Her little sister here (Who was ADORABLE and was handed to me often) is wearing a net, and she sat in her mothers' lap and was covered by another hat, a helmet, and shaded by another jacket. Her family was so generous with me. And so sweet, though we hardly talked at all. Phương's mother. When we got to the Pagoda, everyone parked and walked through a alleyway crowded with vendors. I felt like we were making a pilgrimage to Mecca. When we arrived, people were everywhere. Apparently, many many people make this trip at the first of the Lunar New Year to pray for happiness, wealth, luck, prosperity. The celing was low and the lighting was only what came in from the open walls around the outside. They asked me to go around and pray with them, and when I politely declined, they kind of looked at me like, "Then why did you come?" and then told me to wait. Incense was burning everywhere. It was seriously hard to breathe in there. People were crying, and I couldn't tell if it was because they were sad or because their eyes were burning.

I didn't take any pictures at the Pagoda because I didn't know if that was ok. People moving about everywhere. The smoke everywhere with different beams of light shining through. Some kind of ornamentation everywhere. Vendors exploiting-- er, I mean selling all types of religious paraphernalia. It really was a sight I'll never forget. Though I won't mind if I never go again.

Here is a cemetary that we passed on the way home.
There was a pile of trash being burned and the smoke seemed to never end. I took a picture when we first passed the fire (it was blurry), and someone came running up yelling in Vietnamese and we pulled over the motorbike. I thought I was in TROUBLE! But it turned out just to be friends of Phương's andthey were just pointing to me because I was an American.