Susan Hurley is a blogger and advertising copywriter. After starting her career in Boston and San Francisco, she paid off her sizable student debt by following the Dave Ramsey plan and relocated to Asia last year; first Hong Kong, then Singapore, and most recently Vietnam. She doesn’t have a master plan or even a timeframe but rather, just ventures to wherever her work takes her. Please enjoy this week-in-the-life of Su Hurley, as she makes her way from Vietnam to America with pit-stops in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong.

Day 1

Vietnam to Malaysia

I’m glad to be leaving Vietnam today. For some reason, I didn’t make friends here like I did in Hong Kong. The expats in my neighbourhood seem strange and my coworkers keep to themselves. No one at the office goes out after work and if they do, I don’t know about it.

One huge exception is Nhung, a Vietnamese copywriter at my agency, who’s been there for me from the start. She pulls up to my place on her moped one last time, to ride with me to the Saigon airport.

While we wait for our cab, we have an in-depth discussion about why publicly picking one’s nose is perfectly fine in Vietnamese culture. As I understand it: Arm itches? Give it a scratch. Something on your knee? Brush it off. Something in your nose? Get it…get it good! The first she knew of anyone having a problem with unabashed nose picking was at her international school. The foreign teachers there would have none of it!

I’ve never been to Malaysia before. The first time I ever heard of it was in a Seinfeld episode where Elaine envies a man who got his glasses there.

After an evening flight to Kuala Lumpur, I check into the Reggae Mansion. It’s after midnight by the time I check in and the rooftop bar is in full swing. I stay up till 3am talking to two guys from Daytona, FL., Tom and Michael. They’re both engineers taking a few months off “until the money runs out”. After KL, they’re headed to Vietnam to motorbike from Hanoi to HCMC.

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