My lucky day

I must have done something really good in a past life. Otherwise I don't know how to explain all my good fortune. This morning I woke up to an email from Sam, sent from Taipei airport, explaining that everything with his ticket was completely ok now and that he'd be arriving as planned. Big sigh of relief.

At the market, the sticky rice woman was out of soy milk. But she just called over to the another soy-milk lady and ordered up two glasses of soymilk for me and Katherine. She's done this before, and even remembered (without our telling her) that I take mine with sugar and Katherine takes hers without. Phenomenal. This morning, we didn't hear sticky rice woman tell the other woman about the sugar specifications. When we reminded her, she indicated that the other woman already knew. I guess from last time? Again, phenomenal. Somehow Katherine and I have found our way into the network of cross-ordering from different food vendors at the market, and they women even know what we want without our asking.

Then, when I went to do the paperwork for the car, the man told me I didn't need the papers and I could just rent the car anyway. Perfect. I met the driver (who was sitting playing chess with all the other drivers), and Lien's mother, who works in whatever office at the university rents cars to volunteer teachers from America. And when we tried to confirm the fee of 240,000 dong (about $14), they just should their hands, wiggled their hands (it means "no") and said "Khong" (which also means "no"). I didn't have to pay. I still dont understand, but somehow I'm getting a car and driver at absolutely no charge.

The luck continued. Lien stopped by my room again later in the afternoon so I could help her with some English for a presenation she was scheduled to give this afternoon. I mentioned to her that I was going into the city to look for a dress for the wedding tomorrow. We finished working on the presentation, and then she left to have lunch with her family. But 20 minutes later, she called me to ask if I'd left yet. She wanted to take me to find a dress, even though she had a presentation this afternoon. Apparently her aunt told her about some good shops. After confirming that she did not need to work anymore on her presenation, I agreed to the outting,and she came to pick me up on her motorbike.

In the city, we stopped in handful of shops where I thumbed through the racks in vain. Everything was the wrong color, the wrong cut, covered in rhinestones/sequence/fake plastic gems (you would have loved it, Mom!). And most things were too small and/or too expensive. Finally Lien took me to an unassuming shop near the market. I would have never walked into the place of my own accord, but I think I've found my go-to shop for tailoring, custom-made clothing, and ready-made clothes. They had racks of dresses, ranging from simple cotton to elegant--all made in-house--and they even had multiple sizes of the dresses. Lien helped me choose a few to try on. I liked 2 or 3 of them but eventually chose a simple, deep purple dress. It was a little big, and I didn't think they could take it in before the the wedding tomorrow evening. I asked Lien--she said "No, they'll do it now!" Ultimately they informed us that the dress wouldn't be ready until tomorrow morning because they had to take it to a tailor down the street, but Lien immediately offered to go pick up the dress for me. I can't believe how kind this girl is. When the shop keeper came back from asking the tailor how much the alterations would cost, she told us the changes would be 20,000 dong. That's about $1.20, and I was perfectly willing to pay it. But the shop keepers were upset about how much the tailor was "over charging"--they seemed bothered just out of principle, even though I said I would pay it. After a few tense phone calls, they got the price down to 10,000. About 60 cents. I paid the alteration fee, plus the 100,000 dong ($6) for the dress--a total of less than $7 for an adorable little dress and custom alterations. And I had assumed I wouldn't even be able to find a suitable dress! As we left the shop, Lien said "This is your lucky day!" With a free car to the airport, a new dress for the wedding, and Sam arriving in 2 hours, I couldn't agree more.