good morning It is a beautiful day Finally great weather here in Daang Vietnam I just got back from my trip to LA And it was my first time back in LA in like 18 months since starting this whole digital nomad journey And I had a little bit of that reverse culture shock as people call it when I was back in LA It's only been like you know less than two years but so much has changed and I've spent so much time in Korea and Vietnam and Singapore and Tokyo just outside of the US that a lot of things kind of became normal to me And going back to LA the things that I thought were normal were a shock By the way this is absolutely peak tur season right now If you go down there I was trying to film down there but it is completely packed Um but the amazing thing about Daang is you only need to drive like 3 minutes from there to here Like a beautiful drive along the coast 3 minutes up here north And look at this You have this amazing beautiful pretty empty uh plot of beach and it's um not as nice in terms of touristy stuff So in the touristy area you have like fruit juice and coconuts and pasta and pizza and whatever just like stalls of stores all along the side But if you don't really care about that stuff and you just want to go for like a nice stroll on the beach then you could do this We're right between basically the anting area over there and we have Lady Buddha right Oh where is it You see it I can see it right there Is that it Anyways that's Lady Buddha over there So we're pretty far north up on the Sona Peninsula There's still some people swimming here And you can see that there's um actually fishermen over there So these basket boats that are you know quintessential iconic Vietnam These basket boats they're using it to fish over there So we're going to slowly walk in that direction and maybe we could uh see if they they got anything as well I parked my scooter off on the side So I'm a little bit worried because it's not in like a parking area and there's nobody watching it Um so I won't I won't walk too far But let's get back to the topic reverse culture shock from going back to LA So if you guys are new to the channel I'm David My wife and I who is my girlfriend at the time decided to leave LA and just travel the world Now this is not going to be one of those stories where it's like we hate America and America sucks and it's so much better everywhere else We just wanted to travel right We wanted to see new cities Uh we wanted to experience new cultures and we thought you know once we have kids and once we have a family it's going to be a lot harder to do this stuff We're not going to be as mobile So we have a very small window to be able to really take advantage of this So we've been traveling for the last 18 months or so Uh we've been to Korea and we spend quite a bit of time living in these areas So we're not just like hopping hopping hopping Uh so we were in Korea We were obviously we're in Vietnam right now This is our kind of uh home base Tokyo Singapore I'm missing something other places in Vietnam like Saigon and I'm forgetting some cities there but we've been hopping around and the obvious number one thing that was the biggest biggest culture shock back in LA is just the price of everything The price of everything Now this should be an obvious thing right Because we go out and eat and it's like $30 a person And I know it's gotten bad because once upon a time I used to you know go out and be like "Okay I spent 20 bucks on lunch or something. " And my mom would be like "20 bucks for bacon and eggs Why would you do that when you could just cook at home and blah blah blah blah blah? " And this time I'd say "Yeah Kim and I went out and we got breakfast It was like $30 each for bacon and eggs.
" And she just goes "Yeah that's kind of the cost of things now. " So when my mom thinks it's completely normal that's when you know it's gotten like really really bad Look at these guys Getting distracted here What they do is they take the basket boats and then they go out to the ocean and then they drop the net off So you can see there's like two lines of ropes of fisherman here and they're pulling it in slowly So they have a giant net out there in the sea and they're slowly pulling it in and um just whatever they get they get Wow They're working really hard Usually you have like 10 people on each rope but they got two people on each rope pulling it in very very very slowly I'm getting very very distracted There's a lot of stimulus around me right now It's actually so nice outside I'm going to go walk back in the other direction I'm going to just walk back and forth so that I don't get too far away I can see myself ranting for a long time and getting like miles away from my bike But getting back to topic it's not just the price of things it's the hidden price of things that really shocks me And these are things that I thought was normal And of course these are things like tax and tip Now in the US it seems like it's a given But US is like one of the only countries in the world that doesn't include tax in the bill and doesn't include tip or you're required to tip There's a culture of tipping Um and in the US it's as you know I don't care what anybody says it is a required tip right It's definitely not an optional tip right Um they say it's optional but it it's really not So in Vietnam if you eat something for 10 bucks which is very expensive for Vietnam then it's 10 bucks Like you show up you pay 10 bucks you leave and now you're 10 bucks shorter But in the US you go eat for 10 bucks and then you add tax on top of that you add tip on top of that You probably have to pay for parking Uh the fees are getting kind of ridiculous in LA We ate at a place that had a service fee So they had tax they had a service fee and then the service fee said something like this is to account for health care for our employees And I'm like isn't that supposed to be in their salary Anyways but like they talk about cost of living increases and again I'm like isn't that supposed to be part of their salary And then there's like a little note that says this is not a gratuitity You have to pay a tip on top of this And like I'd rather you tell me the meal costs 30 bucks and I have to pay 30 bucks and that's all included then you tell me the meal is 20 bucks and then like I end up paying 30 bucks right I feel like I'm getting tricked Like you pay the same amount at the end but it's definitely designed to trick people to thinking the meal is cheaper and then you go there and you eat and then it's like surprise and you're not going to like you can't give the food back right So you have to pay the 30 bucks So it's ranting a little bit but that was really annoying to me It was something that I thought was completely normal for the first 30 years of my life And now that I go to other places Korea you know Vietnam whatever it's all the same thing If the menu says it's 10 bucks then it's 10 bucks and that's it But yeah pretty much every meal that we had cost about 30 bucks And I'm talking about like diners I'm not talking about like fancy fancy meals Um like there was one restaurant I think this was the first meal that we had when we landed Kim got um gravy biscuits and gravy right Just English biscuits and gravy And then I had uh corn beef hash And then we had one cup of coffee that we shared cuz we saw that coffee was so expensive So we had one cup of coffee that we shared And it ended up being 60 bucks right It was like 18 to 20 bucks for the meals for the entre like four five bucks for the coffee tax on top of that tip on top of that It was like 60 bucks And that was kind of like the theme that was going on the entire trip Um it's not only the food but it kind of feels like in LA anytime you step out of the house it's going to cost you money So you have no choice but to just stay home You don't want to step out of the house because if if you want to sit somewhere to get coffee it's going to be seven eight nine ten bucks just to sit somewhere just because like I want to get out of the house and I want to go somewhere else A third place that's just not my house and not work it's going to cost you at least 10 bucks You're probably going to have to pay for parking because nothing is nearby you That's going to be another five bucks at a minimum So it really just feels like just stay home and don't move If you don't want to spend money just stay home and don't move That's what it kind of feels like life in LA is which is completely different from any other city that we've been in Whether it's an expensive city like Singapore or a more affordable city like Vietnam the culture is completely different It feels like everyone is supposed to be out and about and enjoying what the city has to offer which kind of transitions me into the second place and that's this idea of a third place Now walkability is by far the thing that's missing the most in the US And the more things that I have to kind of like complain about that the US is missing I realize that walkability is at the center of all of those different things And the reason walkability is so important is it makes it easy for you to experience a city When you're living in LA when you go out you only have one destination to go to right You're going out specifically to go to this restaurant and once you're done going to that restaurant you go home You don't explore You don't just enjoy the city like I'm doing right now I could literally walk there and get some juice I could literally go there and go to a restaurant I can like I'm on the beach This should be like the least walkable place in the city But it's just so walkable And the reason walkability is so important is it makes communities form Now what do I mean by that It significantly reduces the friction required to hang out with your friends to have spontaneous meetups to know who your neighbors are Like in LA you don't really know who your neighbors are unless you live in like an apartment and their door is like literally 10 ft away from your door You don't really know who your neighbors are You don't know who the people in your community are because you don't have that opportunity to just meander around and experience people run into people and just have these spontaneous interactions And I think that makes a city kind of lose its soul I know it sounds super cheesy but that's the only word that I can really use to describe this When you go to a place like Tokyo not even just Tokyo but a neighborhood within Tokyo a neighborhood within Daang neighborhood even in Saigon So anywhere you go there's kind of like a character and a soul to the neighborhood And I think that's something that LA really lacks because it really does feel like I'm at my house and then I need to get into a car to teleport to another location and I get to my car to teleport to another location You know what it kind of feels like Now this is a really weird example It kind of feels like every place in LA is like a website and you have to like type in the URL to go to the website but it's not like a map where everything is connected You kind of just like teleport from place to place to place and place and there's no context of how everything flows together That's a really nerdy example but that's what it kind of feels like Let me give you an example of something that happened that really ties the costing and the walkability thing together I wanted to meet up with friends while we were in LA We were there for a very short period of time and we wanted to go get food and we wanted to go to this popular place So we drove over there We paid five bucks for parking and it was like an hour and a half wait and we thought you know what we'll wait for an hour and a half So we were sitting around and after like 30 minutes we were like "Okay this is this is taking way too long Let's go to another place that serves the same type of food You know it's only like 3 or 4 minutes away. " So we got back in our car Now we already paid five bucks for parking We drove over to the next place We paid five bucks for parking again And I have to emphasize this is four people in four cars We're all coming from different places in LA So we paid five bucks each for parking We drove to the next location We paid five bucks each for parking again We ate and then someone said "Hey do you guys want to get dessert We haven't seen each other in a while Why don't we go get dessert?
" And then it just like you could see immediately on everyone's face The thought of we got to like get into four cars again We got to go to this other location The parking lots are tiny so it's like really hard to find parking anyway And you have to like double park and triple park and we have to probably pay five bucks for parking again and it's just like let's just go home So I feel like that is the friction I'm talking about where you're less likely to hang out with your friends You're less likely to keep it going Just yesterday in Daang I met up with friends at a bar and we just hopped We hopped from bar to bar to bar to bar We met up with other people at a different bar We like it It was just a really fun night where you can just roam around with your friends around the neighborhood And this is a very common thing This is like almost an everyday thing here in Daang It's such a chore in LA to meet up with a friend because you have to get into your car you have to drive 30 40 minutes in traffic and you just meet up for like an hour because again without that walkability you don't really have a way to extend that hangout time So you're doing all that just to hang out for an hour and then you're going back home So I rarely meet up with friends We talk a lot online We stay connected but it's definitely not a five out of seven days a week meeting up with friends kind of thing like happens in Daang By the way guys I do want to give an update on the app that I'm building called Nomad Social This is exactly the motivation of why I built this app It's because every time I go out to a coffee shop I would have just had to like text 20 different people like "Hey where are you Where are you Where are you You I'm at coffee Do you want to hang out You're not doing anything? " And it was such a pain So I wanted to build an app where I can just tell all my friends at the same time hey I'm getting coffee right now at this place or I'm getting lunch at this place right now If you're not doing anything if you're in the area come hang out I'm not really like a big meetup type of person There's all these meetups that are like something money mastermind and it's like a 100 people That's not really my scene I just want to get coffee with like two of my friends So that's the idea that I built Nomad Social around It's this idea that I just want to keep tabs on my friends And on top of that even when they're out of town I can know when they're back in town When I'm out of town I can know who's in my city That's the idea behind Nomad Social You can also do public hangouts So if that is your scene and if you want to say "I want to get dinner with 30 people. " Then you can do that as well The app is only live in Daang right now We're going to be launching the rest of the world soon But if you're in Daang right now and you're a digital nomad an expat or a traveler just send me a DM on Instagram and say "Send me a code.
" And I will send you an invite code so you can get early access to the beta I'm already using it My friends are already using it on a daily basis So we have public and private hangouts there all the time But I'm having a public hangout at least two or three times a week So if you're in Daang you can meet up with me grab coffee we can get to know each other and just be social and enjoy the city Oh my gosh Another funny and kind of ridiculous difference between Daang and LA is the driving Trying to drive a car in LA was so weird at first I was like this close to crashing I mean I wasn't actually like close to crashing but in my mind I felt like if I slipped and I didn't focus I would crash And the reason for that is there's no red lights and green lights in Daang You just kind of like look around and you go when you feel like going and you try to like weave your way between other people And when I first landed in LA we're driving home from the airport freeway was fine but once we started getting to the local streets I kept slowing down at every single intersection and to look left and right So I would It's a green light It's green light I'm going I'm going Slow down Nobody's coming Slow down No And my mom's like "What are you doing Why are you driving like that? " And I realized it was a habit because in Daang there are no green lights And even if it is a green light the green light is more of like a suggestion than anything else So you have to kind of slow down at every intersection make sure nobody's coming And if somebody is coming you have to make sure that you're positioned so that you can you know you're not going to collide with them And this was a habit So even in LA I realized I can't do that If it's a green light I got to go And it was actually really hard for me at first I got over it in like a day but the thought of not seeing if another car is coming and just like shooting through the green light it was like a little anxietyinducing I felt like I was playing Russian roulette here I was just like "All right I'm just going to go for it And if somebody you know runs the red light and it hits me then then I'm dead. " And the same thing happened for red lights There were a couple moments I didn't actually do it I didn't actually do it but there were a couple of moments there where I was at a red light Kind of stop at the red light I look left and right There's nobody here And I almost went because again in Daang red lights green lights if they even exist are more like suggestions So when you're stopped at a red light and there's no cars you just go And yeah can't do that There were moments where I almost made like a ridiculous U-turn cuz I was like "Oh I'm going the wrong way Let me just U-turn here right in the middle of the street this crowded street and go in the opposite direction.
" You can do that in Daang You can't do that in LA I honestly love riding a scooter around Riding a scooter feels more like walking than it does like driving And the reason for that is lane lines When you're walking there's not really lane lines You kind of you know stay in your lane You kind of want to walk straight You kind of want to walk in a way that is predictable for other people but it's very easy to maneuver So it's not that big of a deal And that's kind of what driving a bike is like It's okay if you're going in the wrong direction as long as you're not doing it too much It's okay if you walk on the sidewalk as long as you're not going too fast It's okay if you kind of you know make weird turns or have to adjust and not exactly follow traffic rules because it's flexible Bikes are flexible just like humans and walking is flexible So it almost feels more natural for lack of a better word because you can just kind of go based off your senses and not based off traffic rules By the way this is what the boat looks like Little random another ADHD history lesson The reason that Vietnam has basket boats is because when the Vietnamese were colonized by I think it was when they were colonized by the French Vietnamese have been colonized by like everybody But when they were colonized by the French the French put a huge tax on boats Now place like Daang a lot of fishermen it's very difficult to pay a very high tax on boats So what the Vietnamese did is they created these giant baskets and they would say "These aren't boats These are baskets This is where we store our fish and this is where we store our vegetables That's all it is They're baskets and when they're out on the water it's because we use it to collect all the fish that we've been fishing So this was a way for Vietnamese people to get around attacks Uh hardship breeds ingenuity and this is kind of like an awesome history piece Uh they still use it now cuz it's actually pretty practical It's just great because you don't have to turn the boat right If you're if you're in a boat you have to like turn it but a basket boat you don't have to turn it because it's facing every direction And it's just really easy for them to go out into sea They don't have to go too far either So they go out drop their nets Oh they're doing it over here too It's going to be interesting Let's see how it goes But that's a little history lesson behind the uh basket boats Oh they're parasailing over there That looks like fun I guess there's more than one parasailing Oh they're uh what's that called Base jumping See that parachute over there I think that's uh base jumping Or is that parasailing too I don't know They're jumping off of a mountain They're flying off They're hang they're um getting pulled by a boat So there's a difference but I don't know what the terminology there is You guys can let me know in the comments What was I talking about I don't know I think I was talking about biking and traffic laws but let's move on to the next thing The final thing I want to talk about I'll keep this short I had like a whole list but I realized I I rambled too much in between points that this is probably already a really long video But the last thing that I want to talk about is brand and especially clothing brands but all types of luxury brands And in Vietnam it's kind of refreshing that brands mean nothing Now I'll go the opposite way and say in Korea brands mean everything In Soul at least Soul South Korea brands mean everything So I'm not saying the US is better or worse but the US is kind of like in the middle I probably like high in the middle but it's just a different point of view that was really interesting to me So in Korea brands mean everything There's no point of buying an LV bag if it doesn't have a giant LV logo on it because if other people don't know what's the point People will literally go into debt They'll take out fiveyear loans like a car loan on an LV bag and then make like $50 payments a month over five years so they could have a a uh luxury designer bag which is kind of ridiculous But Vietnam is the opposite It's kind of like there's a dis disillusionment moment when you come to Vietnam when you realize that they make like Vietnamese factories make luxury brands and it's weird you guys understand like the real stuff They make the real stuff There's factories in Vietnam that make like Gucci bags and you know Supreme shirts and these kind of things and they make it for pennies And there's so many fakes here that are so close to the real thing that you can't even tell the difference But the funny thing is people in Vietnam a lot of them don't even know the brands So for example my cousins come over to sleep over on the weekends all the time and they always bring over their PJs and their PJs always have Chanel PJ or uh Barraamo or Fendi or Versace or whatever And once I was asking one of my cousins like "Do you like Fendi? " Like "Do you like the brand Fendi? " Because he had a full Fendi print uh pajamas And he said "What's that?
" I was like "The the shirt that you're wearing the uh the pajamas that you're wearing that's Fendi. " And he said "Oh I don't know what that is I just it's just comfortable And he told me that usually the luxury brands get printed on the nicer fabrics So they pick it based off the fabric because it's a nicer softer fabric of pajamas But he has no idea what the brand is that's on the pajamas He just picked the one that's like the softer fabric It costs a little bit more And I thought that was so funny At first when I got here I thought everyone was trying to kind of flex right Cuz when you look around everybody is wearing Louis V Gucci everything Every single t-shirt is Fear of God essentials Every single you know handbag is Louis Vuitton Even you know things that you wouldn't even imagine like uh you have a poncho and the poncho is like Farragamo right It makes no sense Like a rain poncho But everything is branded And at first I thought it's so obvious that these are fake Why would people wear this And I realized they don't even care They're not trying to pretend that they're wearing a brand They're just wearing whatever looks nice or whatever feels nice in terms of quality And oh here's a good example right here I was looking for a wallet and I was at the Sunshine Night Market and I just wanted a wallet that was extremely small so it could hold a couple credit cards and a little bit of cash So I got this one because again super slim super lightweight This is a fake Goyard wallet It's a fake Goyard wallet I didn't care about the brand I would have actually I would actually have rather gotten this exact same wallet if it didn't have the print because I don't like that it's a fake Goyard I would rather it just be all black But I got it because it was like $2. 50 and it solves exactly the need that I want and it's actually like one of the most convenient wallets that I've ever owned in terms of form factor But again it doesn't matter at all And when I was back in LA I realized oh shoot I can't like pull this wallet out of my pocket Like the first time I pulled it out of my pocket I didn't even think about it being a fake Goyard Now it looks pretty real And people said like "Oh nice Nice Goyard wallet I have the same one.
" And I'm just like "Bro this is $2 It's from Vietnam This is not a Goyard wallet.
