When I first came to Saigon and was faced with the traffic, I couldn't see any sense in the chaos on the roads (and often times on the sidewalk). But as many of my friends here can attest, there is a logic to driving in the city and the sooner you get a bike and get into it, the easier and less scary it will be. Having said that, there are however certain drivers whose habits can be quite irksome if not also dangerous.
Showing posts with label HCMC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HCMC. Show all posts
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Designer Life
Last week I began a new journey without leaving the city. I started an internship at an architectural firm. Pentago, a Malaysian based company, specializes in hotels, villas, and other luxury tourism designs throughout Asia.
Monday, March 21, 2011
On Police Chases
"What if you don't pull over and just drive away?"
The question came up while we were discussing traffic laws and handling cops in Saigon. We were in Ellen's apartment after a session of acro-yoga on her rooftop by the pool. Ellen, a teacher from Wisconsin, was doing much better for herself working at an international school in Saigon than her contemporaries were back in her home state where they have to fight just to keep the meager salary that they were making. The pay and benefits for "real" teachers(not ESL teachers, like myself) are cushy.
The question came up while we were discussing traffic laws and handling cops in Saigon. We were in Ellen's apartment after a session of acro-yoga on her rooftop by the pool. Ellen, a teacher from Wisconsin, was doing much better for herself working at an international school in Saigon than her contemporaries were back in her home state where they have to fight just to keep the meager salary that they were making. The pay and benefits for "real" teachers(not ESL teachers, like myself) are cushy.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Short Acting Career
A lot of posts from me this month, a good way to start the year I think.
Daphne and I went to a themed potluck on Saturday called Latitudinal Cuisine. It originated in the UK and has spread to our humble Siagon. The basis is that you choose a Latitude or Longitude and everyone brings a dish from one of the countries that lies on the line. This week we did Longitude 15E. Presentations are made, stories are told and then very delicious food is eaten.
Daphne and I went to a themed potluck on Saturday called Latitudinal Cuisine. It originated in the UK and has spread to our humble Siagon. The basis is that you choose a Latitude or Longitude and everyone brings a dish from one of the countries that lies on the line. This week we did Longitude 15E. Presentations are made, stories are told and then very delicious food is eaten.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Not Another Coffee Hole
You don’t need to read a magazine or guidebook to know that Vietnam has a ripe coffee culture. However, if you did you’d probably be reading about its French colonial influence and how it is now the number 2 coffee producing country in the world, second only to Brazil. In the early morning, old men in checkered boxers and white tanks sit cross-legged reading the daily paper at their favourite hole-in-the-wall. As the day goes on, the holes fill up with their usuals who’ve come to get their coffee fix like bees to a flower, or gift card wielding teenagers to a mall.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Another Move
I am now writing from my third apartment since I moved to Saigon in June of 2009. While Daphne and I loved our old place, the landlord, who had been studying abroad in England, was returning to live in it once more. After an exhausting and often frustrating search we found a new home not to far from the old one. In fact, it's in the same building but in a different block. The rent is $600 [$50 more than what we were paying for the old place] for the same size space but different layout. Things we like about the place: bigger couch, bigger TV, wooden floors, bigger kitchen, bigger bed, better quality AC, bigger shower. The only thing we find lacking is that the layout is shaped to include a hallway, making the living room a bit smaller and the extra bedroom smaller. Also, there is the lack of storage space. Thanks to the successful delivery of Daphne's seven boxes, our storage demands are much higher than the average expat teacher couple. Pictures below:
[Entre]
[We like the couch, despite the animal print motif]
[The larger bed, however, makes some of our bedding obsolete]
[la cuisine]
[la disastre]
In other news, if you want to see what it looks like when the Vietnamese win a football[soccer] game, it looks something like this:
[Vendors capitalize on the event by selling cheap flags on the street]
[The city becomes a party on wheels]
[I don't even know]
[Entre]
[We like the couch, despite the animal print motif]
[The larger bed, however, makes some of our bedding obsolete]
[la cuisine]
[la disastre]In other news, if you want to see what it looks like when the Vietnamese win a football[soccer] game, it looks something like this:
[Vendors capitalize on the event by selling cheap flags on the street]
[The city becomes a party on wheels]
[I don't even know]
Monday, November 22, 2010
November Rains
This last gap between blogs is not due to a lack of having anything to write, but rather waiting for a few 'stories' to play out so that I wouldn't be blogging half way into them. Daphne and I had been visited by a string of bad luck and it would have been poor form to blog about these things without including resolution.
Motorbike Diaries
It began a couple of weeks ago when Daphne got into her second accident. It happened on her way back home from a yoga class just outside our apartment building. A woman crossing the street stopped in the middle of the road to stare at Daphne and her big bag that she uses for all her yoga gear. This caused Daphne to swerve, her yoga bag just catching the woman and causing an imbalance and fall. She didn't look so bad when she got home. It didn't seem as serious as last time, just some scratches on her leg and a swollen hand. But the hand got so swollen [it didn't help that Daphne still went to teach yoga] that we had an x-ray done the next day. Her left pinky was broken just above the knuckle. The doctor put a splint on it and said to get another x-ray done in two weeks to see if it was healing. Meanwhile, Daphne goes on and keeps teaching and driving, despite the doctor recommending against it. But what's a yoga teacher gonna do? Not work for two weeks to a month? Freelancers don't get medical leave.
Exactly two weeks later, driving home from work, Daphne is rear ended by a young guy with track marks on his arm. I get a call from her to meet her at the nearby local hospital. She doesn't call me from her phone though, she forgot that at home that day. I arrived at the dingy hospital in just five minutes. Mosquitoes were flying around the emergency ward and the water cooler in the waiting room had only three reusable plastic cups. Daphne comes out in better condition than I feared. A scrape on her shoulder was the only visible wound but then she showed me the crack in her helmet where she landed on from the fall. Fortunately, she was concussion-free, though she did sport a nasty headache for a couple of days. This time she was quite shaken up and I played chauffeur for the next couple days. We went to get the x-ray done but the bone hadn't healed yet so the doctor said it'll be another month with the splint for her.
I drove Daphne from her class in District 2 to District 7 by testing out a new route that was supposed to be more direct and faster. It was also very dusty, crowded with trucks and crater infested. The brilliance of this route however, was the massive arching bridge, Cau Phu My, that goes from one district to the other. It offered an incredible view of the city at sunset that almost made the grime on our face worth it. On the other side of the bridge we needed to turn left, but what we didn't realize was that the left turn only went into a car lane, an engineering oversight that was being taken advantage of by the motorcops at the next light. We got pulled over and the cops started asking for things in Vietnamese, a language I don't know. I began to speak really fast in English, a language they don't know, while pointing back the way I came. One of the officer pointed to a registration card and license, a document I don't have, and I pretended to not understand and just pointed back and kept on talking. They tried ignoring me for a while and went about doing paperwork, but as that didn't shut me up nor get me to produce what they wanted they finally just waved me away.
Seven Boxes and the Black Friday
Meanwhile, a boat arrives into Saigon bearing seven boxes addressed to a Ms. Chua. What's left of Daphne's possessions from her past life have arrived. Now there was just the not so simple matter of getting it cleared through customs. What should have taken only two days ended up taking two weeks. The problem initially arose because of a change in law. You used to need to fill out a customs declaration card upon arrival to Vietnam, but recently the law has changed so that now you only need to do one if you're bringing more than $7,000. While it's nice to have one less document to fill out in life, it would be even nicer if Customs had adjusted their shipping rules to accommodate the new law. As it was, they still required that you give them your declaration card to get your shipment. Since our arrival from the States was after the new law was instated, we had no such card. You would think that enlightening them with a simple law check would have cleared things up quickly, but no such luck.
Finally, the shippers told us that the boxes would be cleared last Friday morning, so I waited at home for them while Daphne went to teach. When they didn't show up I telephoned the shippers to find out that they've hit another snag with customs who now won't release the boxes until they meet Daphne. I hop on my bike to go meet her at work, but as I'm driving up the ramp my hand gently brushes against a corner of sideview mirror, causing the tip of my finger to slice open and blood to rush. I run up stairs quickly with my finger in my mouth to keep from dripping blood everywhere. Thankfully I manage to stop the bleeding. Wrapping my finger up in toilet paper and medical tape I went back downstairs holding my finger up to the sky to keep it elevated. I drove that way, finger pointing up, all the way to the studio to get Daphne. From there we drove our bikes to the shipping office, left Daphne's bike there, and followed one of the shippers on a 40 minute dusty ride to the port. We had a housing appointment at 1pm but we moved it to 2:3o and Daphne had to cancel her afternoon private class all because the customs officer wanted to see her. But when we got there they were out to lunch. So we waited a half hour, met with the officer who then said we had to go to the warehouse where the boxes were. So we went, waited for the warehouse to open, the boxes were brought to us, opened, searched, a 'token' fee was paid and off we went. We were told that the boxes would finally be released that night. We could only hope.
We got on the bike and just as we left the port a massive storm fell upon us. This time of year, the rainy season should have already been over, so the events that follow I blame entirely on global warming. As we made our way back we found ourselves on Cau Phu My bridge again, but the lower part was flooded. The engine flooded and the bike stopped. We trenched through the water, Daphne pushing the bike from behind while I tried to start it. It would start, she would hop on, and then it would die. About ten times. After some ten minutes of this I finally managed to get it started and kept on long enough to get back on track. Meanwhile, my makeshift bandage is nothing but tape now and stinging. We make it to our housing appointment thirty minutes late and absolutely drenched. We look at the place for about one minute, shake our heads and head back down to the parking to make our way home. Somehow, the parking tag disappeared in the short span of time we were there. The rule for losing your tag is that the garage keeps your bike for 24-hours. Somehow this 'proves' that the bike is yours and that you're not stealing. Because the parking tag is considered more legitimate than the registration card in my wallet for my bike. This is the my last straw, and I end up in a massive shouting match with the security guards. As neither party was backing down, I had to give in[I was surrounded by six guards] and fill out the paper work. We tried walking around the garage checking every corner but could not find the tag. It was gone and I was bikeless. We took a taxi to get Daphne's bike at the shipping office and, feeling like karma rejects, made our way in the rain back home for a much much needed hot shower. The day did end on a good note, however, when at 9pm those seven boxes that caused us so much grief arrived at our door, like Santa coming down the chimney at a wake.
And Then
The next day I woke up in an ill mood having to take a xe om to work[motorbike taxi]. But it was Teacher's Day and my first class of the day gave me roses. Yes, I'm a guy who feels better when he's given flowers, sue me. Other gifts included a couple of cards, $5 and a tie with pink polka dots. When I went to get my bike I picked up some beers and gave it to the parking attendants as an apology for flipping out on them. It's amazing what some flowers can do to your mood.
Now, we have seven more boxes of stuff to move mid-December. We did find a place and have just put down the deposit. While we love where we live now, the owner is returning from his time abroad and wants to live here again. Fortunately, we've found another great place in the same building so moving won't be too difficult. But before that, I think we are in desperate need of a vacation...
Motorbike Diaries
It began a couple of weeks ago when Daphne got into her second accident. It happened on her way back home from a yoga class just outside our apartment building. A woman crossing the street stopped in the middle of the road to stare at Daphne and her big bag that she uses for all her yoga gear. This caused Daphne to swerve, her yoga bag just catching the woman and causing an imbalance and fall. She didn't look so bad when she got home. It didn't seem as serious as last time, just some scratches on her leg and a swollen hand. But the hand got so swollen [it didn't help that Daphne still went to teach yoga] that we had an x-ray done the next day. Her left pinky was broken just above the knuckle. The doctor put a splint on it and said to get another x-ray done in two weeks to see if it was healing. Meanwhile, Daphne goes on and keeps teaching and driving, despite the doctor recommending against it. But what's a yoga teacher gonna do? Not work for two weeks to a month? Freelancers don't get medical leave.
Exactly two weeks later, driving home from work, Daphne is rear ended by a young guy with track marks on his arm. I get a call from her to meet her at the nearby local hospital. She doesn't call me from her phone though, she forgot that at home that day. I arrived at the dingy hospital in just five minutes. Mosquitoes were flying around the emergency ward and the water cooler in the waiting room had only three reusable plastic cups. Daphne comes out in better condition than I feared. A scrape on her shoulder was the only visible wound but then she showed me the crack in her helmet where she landed on from the fall. Fortunately, she was concussion-free, though she did sport a nasty headache for a couple of days. This time she was quite shaken up and I played chauffeur for the next couple days. We went to get the x-ray done but the bone hadn't healed yet so the doctor said it'll be another month with the splint for her.
I drove Daphne from her class in District 2 to District 7 by testing out a new route that was supposed to be more direct and faster. It was also very dusty, crowded with trucks and crater infested. The brilliance of this route however, was the massive arching bridge, Cau Phu My, that goes from one district to the other. It offered an incredible view of the city at sunset that almost made the grime on our face worth it. On the other side of the bridge we needed to turn left, but what we didn't realize was that the left turn only went into a car lane, an engineering oversight that was being taken advantage of by the motorcops at the next light. We got pulled over and the cops started asking for things in Vietnamese, a language I don't know. I began to speak really fast in English, a language they don't know, while pointing back the way I came. One of the officer pointed to a registration card and license, a document I don't have, and I pretended to not understand and just pointed back and kept on talking. They tried ignoring me for a while and went about doing paperwork, but as that didn't shut me up nor get me to produce what they wanted they finally just waved me away.
Seven Boxes and the Black Friday
Meanwhile, a boat arrives into Saigon bearing seven boxes addressed to a Ms. Chua. What's left of Daphne's possessions from her past life have arrived. Now there was just the not so simple matter of getting it cleared through customs. What should have taken only two days ended up taking two weeks. The problem initially arose because of a change in law. You used to need to fill out a customs declaration card upon arrival to Vietnam, but recently the law has changed so that now you only need to do one if you're bringing more than $7,000. While it's nice to have one less document to fill out in life, it would be even nicer if Customs had adjusted their shipping rules to accommodate the new law. As it was, they still required that you give them your declaration card to get your shipment. Since our arrival from the States was after the new law was instated, we had no such card. You would think that enlightening them with a simple law check would have cleared things up quickly, but no such luck.
Finally, the shippers told us that the boxes would be cleared last Friday morning, so I waited at home for them while Daphne went to teach. When they didn't show up I telephoned the shippers to find out that they've hit another snag with customs who now won't release the boxes until they meet Daphne. I hop on my bike to go meet her at work, but as I'm driving up the ramp my hand gently brushes against a corner of sideview mirror, causing the tip of my finger to slice open and blood to rush. I run up stairs quickly with my finger in my mouth to keep from dripping blood everywhere. Thankfully I manage to stop the bleeding. Wrapping my finger up in toilet paper and medical tape I went back downstairs holding my finger up to the sky to keep it elevated. I drove that way, finger pointing up, all the way to the studio to get Daphne. From there we drove our bikes to the shipping office, left Daphne's bike there, and followed one of the shippers on a 40 minute dusty ride to the port. We had a housing appointment at 1pm but we moved it to 2:3o and Daphne had to cancel her afternoon private class all because the customs officer wanted to see her. But when we got there they were out to lunch. So we waited a half hour, met with the officer who then said we had to go to the warehouse where the boxes were. So we went, waited for the warehouse to open, the boxes were brought to us, opened, searched, a 'token' fee was paid and off we went. We were told that the boxes would finally be released that night. We could only hope.
We got on the bike and just as we left the port a massive storm fell upon us. This time of year, the rainy season should have already been over, so the events that follow I blame entirely on global warming. As we made our way back we found ourselves on Cau Phu My bridge again, but the lower part was flooded. The engine flooded and the bike stopped. We trenched through the water, Daphne pushing the bike from behind while I tried to start it. It would start, she would hop on, and then it would die. About ten times. After some ten minutes of this I finally managed to get it started and kept on long enough to get back on track. Meanwhile, my makeshift bandage is nothing but tape now and stinging. We make it to our housing appointment thirty minutes late and absolutely drenched. We look at the place for about one minute, shake our heads and head back down to the parking to make our way home. Somehow, the parking tag disappeared in the short span of time we were there. The rule for losing your tag is that the garage keeps your bike for 24-hours. Somehow this 'proves' that the bike is yours and that you're not stealing. Because the parking tag is considered more legitimate than the registration card in my wallet for my bike. This is the my last straw, and I end up in a massive shouting match with the security guards. As neither party was backing down, I had to give in[I was surrounded by six guards] and fill out the paper work. We tried walking around the garage checking every corner but could not find the tag. It was gone and I was bikeless. We took a taxi to get Daphne's bike at the shipping office and, feeling like karma rejects, made our way in the rain back home for a much much needed hot shower. The day did end on a good note, however, when at 9pm those seven boxes that caused us so much grief arrived at our door, like Santa coming down the chimney at a wake.
And Then
The next day I woke up in an ill mood having to take a xe om to work[motorbike taxi]. But it was Teacher's Day and my first class of the day gave me roses. Yes, I'm a guy who feels better when he's given flowers, sue me. Other gifts included a couple of cards, $5 and a tie with pink polka dots. When I went to get my bike I picked up some beers and gave it to the parking attendants as an apology for flipping out on them. It's amazing what some flowers can do to your mood.
Now, we have seven more boxes of stuff to move mid-December. We did find a place and have just put down the deposit. While we love where we live now, the owner is returning from his time abroad and wants to live here again. Fortunately, we've found another great place in the same building so moving won't be too difficult. But before that, I think we are in desperate need of a vacation...
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Eating My Best Friend
It will come to no surprise to my readers, or anyone that knows me well, that there is very little that I won't eat. If you're new here[welcome, I'm not sure how you got here but good for you and I hope you leave entertained] then allow me to illustrate this with a short list of food that I've tried:
Kangaroo[Highly Recommended]
Shark Fin Soup[Tastes good, but not good enough to justify the cruelty of the industry. Try a Chinese crab soup instead, it's very similar.]
Duck Fetus[Flavour is OK, but its appearance is just wrong. Gave me food poisoning.]
Fried Bamboo Worm[Tastes like Cheetos, but healthier]
Crocodile[Like chicken but with more awesome]
The delicacies mentioned above are all ones that I consider novel. Occasionally I will mention having tried a certain food to someone that I don't think of as being taboo and they give me eyebrows about it - things like rabbit, caviar or fois gras. But I suppose its all subjective.
As a child, not a birthday passed that I didn't ask my parents for a dog. I loved dogs, cats too for that matter, and dogs loved me back. "He/She really likes you!" I heard this a lot from owners of difficult pooches when they saw how quickly their leashed companions took to me. My best friend in childhood from across the street had two huskies that I played with often, and my roommates in University had a dog that I lived with for two years. So the addition of Dog to the list above may come as a shock even to those that know my eating habits well.
How does a dog lover like me drag himself to a dog meat restaurant? Curiosity[this time it killed the dog...sorry, bad joke]. Curiosity and a belief that putting animals into categories of 'pet' and 'food' are completely culturally driven and not objective rules. If the Vietnamese can eat dogs, so can I. I always make an effort to cross cultural boundaries to strive for a higher, unifying understanding of human nature. That's what traveling is all about, letting go of your inhibitions and taboos.
Now that I got the rationalizations out of the way, let's move on to it. Daphne held no interest in trying dog[she often tells me that I'm more Chinese than she is], so I waited for her to leave town this weekend before my culinary escapade. I drove down to an alley not too far from the backpacking district known for its many dog meat quans and stopped at the first place that said, cay truong. I wasn't sure at first if it was correct. I knew that cay was a word that meant dog, but my last attempt to get dog based on that word didn't work out. It happened like this, I walked into a place for dog and when they didn't understand what I wanted I pointed at a dog that all too conveniently walked up to me at just that moment. Cay also means tree, it was part of their restaurant's name. Really need to pay attention to those accents.
This time though, I was in the right place. They handed me a menu with only two pages, one with the many ways they can prepare the dog meat, all in Vietnamese, and the other half had a list of rice wines and other liquors. I guess alcohol and eating dog go hand in hand? It seemed that way when I ordered iced tea and the server practically scoffed. As for the dog, I ordered thit nuong, which meant barbecued. It was also the only cooking style I recognized on the menu.
The portion they brought me was rather big for one person. I have to say that it looked quite good as far as meats go. It was sprinkled with sesame and served with veggies, rice cracker and pepper/salt for dipping. Now for the tasting. I must confess, despite my rational I was feeling apprehension towards what I was about to do, but as far as I was concerned I was beyond the point of no return. The taste and texture was like a cross between beef and venison, with a hint of what was indisputably dog. I didn't realize that I knew what dog tasted like and it disturbed me to recognize that taste in my mouth. As the serving boys snickered nearby, I was determined not to be beat and finished the whole plate. Afterward, despite my convictions that there was nothing wrong with eating dog, I couldn't help but feel a wave of guilt nausea. A tingling in the stomach, a flush of the face and a few awkward burps. I spent the next couple of hours feeling like a different person. I wondered, will dogs be able to smell my crime and avoid me from now on? That would be tragic.
So, will I ever eat it again? Only if a friend wants to try it, I think it will feel less strange the second time around, but it's not something I'm going to crave. Do I recommend it? If you're like me and you need to try everything, then it doesn't matter whether I recommend it or not, but if you're on the fence and not sure that you can do it then you probably can't.
As for myself, I think I'm basically out of strange foods to eat. I decided to clump cat into the dog category and leave it alone. And as for live monkey brain, no way. Am I missing something? Is there an odd delicacy that I still haven't tried?
Kangaroo[Highly Recommended]
Shark Fin Soup[Tastes good, but not good enough to justify the cruelty of the industry. Try a Chinese crab soup instead, it's very similar.]
Duck Fetus[Flavour is OK, but its appearance is just wrong. Gave me food poisoning.]
Fried Bamboo Worm[Tastes like Cheetos, but healthier]
Crocodile[Like chicken but with more awesome]
The delicacies mentioned above are all ones that I consider novel. Occasionally I will mention having tried a certain food to someone that I don't think of as being taboo and they give me eyebrows about it - things like rabbit, caviar or fois gras. But I suppose its all subjective.
As a child, not a birthday passed that I didn't ask my parents for a dog. I loved dogs, cats too for that matter, and dogs loved me back. "He/She really likes you!" I heard this a lot from owners of difficult pooches when they saw how quickly their leashed companions took to me. My best friend in childhood from across the street had two huskies that I played with often, and my roommates in University had a dog that I lived with for two years. So the addition of Dog to the list above may come as a shock even to those that know my eating habits well.
How does a dog lover like me drag himself to a dog meat restaurant? Curiosity[this time it killed the dog...sorry, bad joke]. Curiosity and a belief that putting animals into categories of 'pet' and 'food' are completely culturally driven and not objective rules. If the Vietnamese can eat dogs, so can I. I always make an effort to cross cultural boundaries to strive for a higher, unifying understanding of human nature. That's what traveling is all about, letting go of your inhibitions and taboos.
Now that I got the rationalizations out of the way, let's move on to it. Daphne held no interest in trying dog[she often tells me that I'm more Chinese than she is], so I waited for her to leave town this weekend before my culinary escapade. I drove down to an alley not too far from the backpacking district known for its many dog meat quans and stopped at the first place that said, cay truong. I wasn't sure at first if it was correct. I knew that cay was a word that meant dog, but my last attempt to get dog based on that word didn't work out. It happened like this, I walked into a place for dog and when they didn't understand what I wanted I pointed at a dog that all too conveniently walked up to me at just that moment. Cay also means tree, it was part of their restaurant's name. Really need to pay attention to those accents.
This time though, I was in the right place. They handed me a menu with only two pages, one with the many ways they can prepare the dog meat, all in Vietnamese, and the other half had a list of rice wines and other liquors. I guess alcohol and eating dog go hand in hand? It seemed that way when I ordered iced tea and the server practically scoffed. As for the dog, I ordered thit nuong, which meant barbecued. It was also the only cooking style I recognized on the menu.
The portion they brought me was rather big for one person. I have to say that it looked quite good as far as meats go. It was sprinkled with sesame and served with veggies, rice cracker and pepper/salt for dipping. Now for the tasting. I must confess, despite my rational I was feeling apprehension towards what I was about to do, but as far as I was concerned I was beyond the point of no return. The taste and texture was like a cross between beef and venison, with a hint of what was indisputably dog. I didn't realize that I knew what dog tasted like and it disturbed me to recognize that taste in my mouth. As the serving boys snickered nearby, I was determined not to be beat and finished the whole plate. Afterward, despite my convictions that there was nothing wrong with eating dog, I couldn't help but feel a wave of guilt nausea. A tingling in the stomach, a flush of the face and a few awkward burps. I spent the next couple of hours feeling like a different person. I wondered, will dogs be able to smell my crime and avoid me from now on? That would be tragic.
So, will I ever eat it again? Only if a friend wants to try it, I think it will feel less strange the second time around, but it's not something I'm going to crave. Do I recommend it? If you're like me and you need to try everything, then it doesn't matter whether I recommend it or not, but if you're on the fence and not sure that you can do it then you probably can't.
As for myself, I think I'm basically out of strange foods to eat. I decided to clump cat into the dog category and leave it alone. And as for live monkey brain, no way. Am I missing something? Is there an odd delicacy that I still haven't tried?
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now?
Stuck at home, sick, on a Saturday I realize that it's been a while since I've posted anything. My initial excuse would be that there hasn't been anything worth writing about, but is that fair? Perhaps then I should take it as sign that I need to be out there doing more interesting stuff or maybe I've been here so long already that I've lost the ability to find what makes the things in my life extraordinary. I'm inclined to think it may be a bit of both.
Not able to find things of interest to outside, I began looking in. I helped Daphne out by making her a website for her yoga: www.daphnechua.com. And also took some new yoga pictures for her, as she has just been sponsored by a local clothing company: www.yborn.net/home/.
I looked even further in and started taking Mandarin on Rosetta Stone. I now know more Chinese than Vietnamese. Why am I not taking Vietnamese instead? Learning languages is difficult for me so I want to use my energy to learn one that I want to know forever, rather than just one that I'll use for a year or two.
I was fortunate to have three people this past month that pulled me out and reminded me that I was living some place different and special. The first was my university mate, Zane, who has just come here to do his CELTA[for which I got a $200 referral fee] at ILA and teach English here. He described things that to me were ordinary in a way that made everything glow. For him everything shined like the sun, while I was still squinting to see the stars. As we taught him simple words and numbers, and he told us about the things that he saw on his first day and the people he talked to, I felt nostalgia for the naivety that comes with being some place new and that I too felt just a year before.
Later that same week, our friend, Bret, who had done the CELTA with us came for a brief visit. He has been living and working in Shanghai and was now on a six week paid vacation traveling through Vietnam and Cambodia. He wanted me to take him shooting around Saigon, something I hadn't done since after my first couple of months here. So on his last day I drove him to District Five, China town, and we walked about all afternoon taking photographs. ...
[Bret shows these guys the photo he took of them]
[Vietnamese grannies are cute, no?]
[Obviously, he didn't get it]
[I took this with one of Bret's lenses. After he left, I placed a long overdue order for two new lenses of my own]
[Cupping, removes toxins from your body, leaves giant hickeys]
[These kids will sell you a lion mask for a good price]
[While I go through great lengths to take mediocre shots, I hand feed great material to Bret on the ground below]
Bret was hardly gone when Daphne had a friend from Singapore visit us on their International Day weekend. Yvonne is actually Taiwanese so we can forgive her lack of patriotism for leaving The Red Dot on its biggest day of the year. Since Daphne was working most of Friday, I was left alone with her friend on tour guide duty. I took her rock climbing for her first time, as well as a few of my other favourite places.
"Just for you reference, that was a red light."
"And just for your reference, a bribe is only ten dollars."
Whenever she tried something new for the first time, it almost felt like I was trying it for the first time, too. Food tasted better, the coffee was stronger and sweeter and everything was beginning to look fresh again.
Now that my contract at ILA is coming to a close I've had to spend the last few months contemplating on what comes next. Do I stay another year or try somewhere else? My three visitors were like prophets pointing the way, they showed what glitters when I was hard at seeing. I'm thinking it's stay.
Not able to find things of interest to outside, I began looking in. I helped Daphne out by making her a website for her yoga: www.daphnechua.com. And also took some new yoga pictures for her, as she has just been sponsored by a local clothing company: www.yborn.net/home/.
I looked even further in and started taking Mandarin on Rosetta Stone. I now know more Chinese than Vietnamese. Why am I not taking Vietnamese instead? Learning languages is difficult for me so I want to use my energy to learn one that I want to know forever, rather than just one that I'll use for a year or two.
I was fortunate to have three people this past month that pulled me out and reminded me that I was living some place different and special. The first was my university mate, Zane, who has just come here to do his CELTA[for which I got a $200 referral fee] at ILA and teach English here. He described things that to me were ordinary in a way that made everything glow. For him everything shined like the sun, while I was still squinting to see the stars. As we taught him simple words and numbers, and he told us about the things that he saw on his first day and the people he talked to, I felt nostalgia for the naivety that comes with being some place new and that I too felt just a year before.
Later that same week, our friend, Bret, who had done the CELTA with us came for a brief visit. He has been living and working in Shanghai and was now on a six week paid vacation traveling through Vietnam and Cambodia. He wanted me to take him shooting around Saigon, something I hadn't done since after my first couple of months here. So on his last day I drove him to District Five, China town, and we walked about all afternoon taking photographs. ...
[Bret shows these guys the photo he took of them]
[Vietnamese grannies are cute, no?]
[Obviously, he didn't get it]
[I took this with one of Bret's lenses. After he left, I placed a long overdue order for two new lenses of my own]
[Cupping, removes toxins from your body, leaves giant hickeys]
[These kids will sell you a lion mask for a good price]
[While I go through great lengths to take mediocre shots, I hand feed great material to Bret on the ground below]
"Just for you reference, that was a red light."
"And just for your reference, a bribe is only ten dollars."
Whenever she tried something new for the first time, it almost felt like I was trying it for the first time, too. Food tasted better, the coffee was stronger and sweeter and everything was beginning to look fresh again.
Now that my contract at ILA is coming to a close I've had to spend the last few months contemplating on what comes next. Do I stay another year or try somewhere else? My three visitors were like prophets pointing the way, they showed what glitters when I was hard at seeing. I'm thinking it's stay.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Paradise Lost and Found
The month of June marked my one year anniversary in Vietnam. Daphne's absence had left a void in my life, my schedule and my heart. Writing about personal stuff is a challenge for me and doing so in a public forum is all but impossible. So I'll be quite brief with it.
As I had mentioned at the end of the last blog, Daphne and I parted not for a lack of love but for other reasons. I won't go into what those reasons are, but let's just say that those 'other reasons' worked themselves out and exactly one month after I said goodbye to her at the airport she was back there with twice the load of luggage than when she left. I could probably write a book about everything that happened in between, but I'm afraid that all I can manage for the sake of a blog are two vague paragraphs. I hope the reader will understand and accept my censorship and read on.
Naturally, we had to give ourselves a short holiday, so we went to Phu Quoc again[this time by plane, not motorbike] to spend the week on the quiet beach, away from the world outside. We also chose it because during the time we were there, our good friend Sylven was getting married on the mainland just a short ferry ride away.
It's difficult to write about a beach holiday, anyone who's been on one will know. With all the lounging, sunning, swimming and eating it doesn't fit itself into a narrative structure very well. Because we were at the beginning of the rainy season, the weather wasn't as good as our first visit. Rainy, cloudy but also cooler in the nights and a bit less bitey in the evenings. It was the off season, so our room was only $10 and at first we were the only people at the hotel. Off season, however meant that the beaches weren't cleaned as regularly as they usually are, so what was a clean beautiful beach on our first visit was now littered. I'm told that if you were to get stranded on an uninhabited island, the beaches would be filthy there, too. Its all one ocean, after all. Worse than the general litter however, was the tar. Gooey black globs of tar lined the beach and the only way to clean it from the bottoms of our feet was to use the turpentine bottle we kept next to our bungalow. Why was there tar on the beach anyways?
Still we found ourselves having a good time despite these issues. We spent our time in hammocks, in the sea and reading a lot. I finnished Gulliver's Travels and Murakami's Norwegian Wood[on loan from a friend]. At nights we ate good seafood and played pool at Le Bistro while drink rhum lemons.
[Stop, Hammock Time]
We rented a bike and went cruising through the island, trying to find more things to do. At one point, we got into an accident when somebody who wasn't paying attention hit us from the rear. We felt a small bump behind us and then heard a crash. I stopped and looked behind to see a man falling off his bike, and some glass thing that he was carrying shattering on the ground into thousands of shards. In Vietnam, it's actually legal to drive away from an accident, so long as you go report it to a police station later[not likely to happen]. This is because Vietnamese onlookers can't help but get themselves involved and violence is not uncommon. I didn't drive away immediately and instead waited to see if he got up and was alright. When he got up and walked to his bike, he admitted wrong doing by not yelling at me and avoiding eye contact. Although I was ready to drive away from the situation, I held it together knowing I had to give both myself and him face. So I asked Daphne to get off, look at the damage on our bike and confirm that it wasn't a big deal. We then drove away without a word. Of course, it'd be nice to have seen to him and made sure that he was alright, take him to get a bandaid, etc. But without language, he would've assumed one of two things by our approach. Either we were going to ask him for money for damages, or that our polite tone meant that we were apologetic and claiming fault, to which he would've started demanding damages paid. So, under the circumstances, seeing that he was able to get up and lift his bike off the ground, I had to leave it at that.
One day, we took a trip to the far side of the island. We stopped by a pearl farm, where I played with a guard monkey, and went to small beach that had finer white sand then ours, but sadly was just as dirty. On our way back we got caught in some really bad cold rain and had to drive through it for one hour without raincoats. A hot bowl of Bun Rieu, helped warm our bones when we got back to town, and luckily we didn't get sick.
[He found my keys and tried to eat them]
Halfway through our stay, we went to Rach Gia for two nights to see our friend Sylven get married. Sylven's an American who did the CELTA with us and he was marrying a Vietnamese girl, Lan, in her family's house in Kien Giang in the Mekong Delta. Sylven really wanted to do the wedding local and do it right, but it proved to be harder than he had expected[ok, I don't know what he was expecting, but it was hard]. For the wedding, the dinner came first the night before. No pictures, sorry, we forgot our cameras. In order to get there we had to take a car from Rach Gia, where our hotel was, cross a slow ferry, drive some more, and then take a boat to the house itself[two hours in all]. The boat ride was at night, so while one guy drove Sylven had to shine a flashlight ahead to make sure we didn't run into any debris. I'm not sure how they're able to find their houses like this, but finding Lan's wasn't too hard. All we had to do was find the carnival tent with the loud electric keyboard tunes and screechy karaoke vocals emanating from it. The food was pretty good, large shrimp, crab, innards soup and other tasty things were served. Easy to come by for Lan's parents, who were shrimp and crab farmers. One problem, however, was the massive amounts of little insects that kept flying around and falling into the food. Each bite had to be closely scrutinized for unwanted guests before being invited into our mouths. Sylven made a big error with the mother-in-law that night, he didn't bring her an offering of roast pork. One of the many traditions of a Vietnamese wedding. Bringing it the next day wasn't an option either, it had to be then or never. Ironically, we had passed a lot of stands on the way there that sold roast pork[heo quay], Sylven and Lan just didn't know that he needed to bring it.
The next day, the responsibility for gathering all the necessary offerings had been allocated to some of Lan's cousins. That way Sylven could avoid making anymore mistakes. Lan had to spend the night at the house so that she can stay up all night and wash vegetables with her female family members[really] while we made the long trip back to Rach Gia, only to make it again early the next morning. This time, I had my camera.
Aside from Daphne and myself, the only others able to attend Sylven's side were his friend Thorin and his eight year old son[Thorin's not Sylven's].
The little boat we had to take was hard to balance your way onto, and it had no chairs. After that first night of squatting for thirty minutes in the boat, Sylven decided to buy some short plastic chairs for us this time around.
[Land ho]
[All offerings are in order, will Sylven be forgiven for the pig?]
Sylven is now in Lan's house. Offerings are all set. The tradition here is that the man comes to take the woman away from her home. She will now be a part of his family and no longer her own.
[The Bride waits for her cue]
So, as confusing as it was for us to understand what was going on at the wedding, we came to realize that we weren't the only ones confused. The man pictured above[some kind of uncle?] was leading the proceedings. However, in the living room were seated family members who kept interrupting him. Apparently, there was a lack of consensus for how a 'Vietnamese' wedding should be performed, each family member had his or her own opinion on what came next. And on a personal note, I begrudged the uncle with the mic for constantly standing in front of the bride and groom, making good photo-ops near impossible.
Meanwhile, while Uncle rants, family members burn incense and make offerings to their ancestors, or Buddha, or both[?].
Sylven also has to pay up. Aside from a dowry that includes giving the mother gold, he has to give her gifts during the ceremony, as well as to all her sisters[and any other family member that wants to paid off]. In addition to the wedding ring, he also has to dress Lan with other bits of jewelery: necklace, earings, etc.
The ceremony ends with a bow to the audience and a bow to the ancestors/Buddha shrine. No kiss like in the West. Then, a meal, with much fewer guests in attendance than the night before, and we were off[after waiting for a short storm to subside]. Wedding finished. Instead of wedding presents, its customary, as in Chinese weddings as well, to give red envelopes with money instead. Daphne says, that its customary for Chinese to pay for their own wedding, but then make a profit[for some] off of the envelopes in the end[in the West, the parents pay and you get pillow cases and blenders]. However, for whatever reason, it was Lan's mom who got to keep the red envelopes. Payback for no roast pork, maybe?
Sylven and Lan had to leave for Saigon the same day, while Daphne and I stayed one more night in Rach Gia before going back to Phu Quoc to enjoy our last days of holiday.
It took some time before I could post this blog, I had some computer issues that had to be resolved first. Since then, Daphne is on the way to refilling her yoga schedule, I'm back at work, with less then two months before my contract ends. And after that, we shall see...
As I had mentioned at the end of the last blog, Daphne and I parted not for a lack of love but for other reasons. I won't go into what those reasons are, but let's just say that those 'other reasons' worked themselves out and exactly one month after I said goodbye to her at the airport she was back there with twice the load of luggage than when she left. I could probably write a book about everything that happened in between, but I'm afraid that all I can manage for the sake of a blog are two vague paragraphs. I hope the reader will understand and accept my censorship and read on.
Naturally, we had to give ourselves a short holiday, so we went to Phu Quoc again[this time by plane, not motorbike] to spend the week on the quiet beach, away from the world outside. We also chose it because during the time we were there, our good friend Sylven was getting married on the mainland just a short ferry ride away.
It's difficult to write about a beach holiday, anyone who's been on one will know. With all the lounging, sunning, swimming and eating it doesn't fit itself into a narrative structure very well. Because we were at the beginning of the rainy season, the weather wasn't as good as our first visit. Rainy, cloudy but also cooler in the nights and a bit less bitey in the evenings. It was the off season, so our room was only $10 and at first we were the only people at the hotel. Off season, however meant that the beaches weren't cleaned as regularly as they usually are, so what was a clean beautiful beach on our first visit was now littered. I'm told that if you were to get stranded on an uninhabited island, the beaches would be filthy there, too. Its all one ocean, after all. Worse than the general litter however, was the tar. Gooey black globs of tar lined the beach and the only way to clean it from the bottoms of our feet was to use the turpentine bottle we kept next to our bungalow. Why was there tar on the beach anyways?
Still we found ourselves having a good time despite these issues. We spent our time in hammocks, in the sea and reading a lot. I finnished Gulliver's Travels and Murakami's Norwegian Wood[on loan from a friend]. At nights we ate good seafood and played pool at Le Bistro while drink rhum lemons.
[Stop, Hammock Time]
We rented a bike and went cruising through the island, trying to find more things to do. At one point, we got into an accident when somebody who wasn't paying attention hit us from the rear. We felt a small bump behind us and then heard a crash. I stopped and looked behind to see a man falling off his bike, and some glass thing that he was carrying shattering on the ground into thousands of shards. In Vietnam, it's actually legal to drive away from an accident, so long as you go report it to a police station later[not likely to happen]. This is because Vietnamese onlookers can't help but get themselves involved and violence is not uncommon. I didn't drive away immediately and instead waited to see if he got up and was alright. When he got up and walked to his bike, he admitted wrong doing by not yelling at me and avoiding eye contact. Although I was ready to drive away from the situation, I held it together knowing I had to give both myself and him face. So I asked Daphne to get off, look at the damage on our bike and confirm that it wasn't a big deal. We then drove away without a word. Of course, it'd be nice to have seen to him and made sure that he was alright, take him to get a bandaid, etc. But without language, he would've assumed one of two things by our approach. Either we were going to ask him for money for damages, or that our polite tone meant that we were apologetic and claiming fault, to which he would've started demanding damages paid. So, under the circumstances, seeing that he was able to get up and lift his bike off the ground, I had to leave it at that.
One day, we took a trip to the far side of the island. We stopped by a pearl farm, where I played with a guard monkey, and went to small beach that had finer white sand then ours, but sadly was just as dirty. On our way back we got caught in some really bad cold rain and had to drive through it for one hour without raincoats. A hot bowl of Bun Rieu, helped warm our bones when we got back to town, and luckily we didn't get sick.
[He found my keys and tried to eat them]
Halfway through our stay, we went to Rach Gia for two nights to see our friend Sylven get married. Sylven's an American who did the CELTA with us and he was marrying a Vietnamese girl, Lan, in her family's house in Kien Giang in the Mekong Delta. Sylven really wanted to do the wedding local and do it right, but it proved to be harder than he had expected[ok, I don't know what he was expecting, but it was hard]. For the wedding, the dinner came first the night before. No pictures, sorry, we forgot our cameras. In order to get there we had to take a car from Rach Gia, where our hotel was, cross a slow ferry, drive some more, and then take a boat to the house itself[two hours in all]. The boat ride was at night, so while one guy drove Sylven had to shine a flashlight ahead to make sure we didn't run into any debris. I'm not sure how they're able to find their houses like this, but finding Lan's wasn't too hard. All we had to do was find the carnival tent with the loud electric keyboard tunes and screechy karaoke vocals emanating from it. The food was pretty good, large shrimp, crab, innards soup and other tasty things were served. Easy to come by for Lan's parents, who were shrimp and crab farmers. One problem, however, was the massive amounts of little insects that kept flying around and falling into the food. Each bite had to be closely scrutinized for unwanted guests before being invited into our mouths. Sylven made a big error with the mother-in-law that night, he didn't bring her an offering of roast pork. One of the many traditions of a Vietnamese wedding. Bringing it the next day wasn't an option either, it had to be then or never. Ironically, we had passed a lot of stands on the way there that sold roast pork[heo quay], Sylven and Lan just didn't know that he needed to bring it.
The next day, the responsibility for gathering all the necessary offerings had been allocated to some of Lan's cousins. That way Sylven could avoid making anymore mistakes. Lan had to spend the night at the house so that she can stay up all night and wash vegetables with her female family members[really] while we made the long trip back to Rach Gia, only to make it again early the next morning. This time, I had my camera.
Aside from Daphne and myself, the only others able to attend Sylven's side were his friend Thorin and his eight year old son[Thorin's not Sylven's].
The little boat we had to take was hard to balance your way onto, and it had no chairs. After that first night of squatting for thirty minutes in the boat, Sylven decided to buy some short plastic chairs for us this time around.
[Land ho]
[All offerings are in order, will Sylven be forgiven for the pig?]
Sylven is now in Lan's house. Offerings are all set. The tradition here is that the man comes to take the woman away from her home. She will now be a part of his family and no longer her own.
[The Bride waits for her cue]
So, as confusing as it was for us to understand what was going on at the wedding, we came to realize that we weren't the only ones confused. The man pictured above[some kind of uncle?] was leading the proceedings. However, in the living room were seated family members who kept interrupting him. Apparently, there was a lack of consensus for how a 'Vietnamese' wedding should be performed, each family member had his or her own opinion on what came next. And on a personal note, I begrudged the uncle with the mic for constantly standing in front of the bride and groom, making good photo-ops near impossible. 
Meanwhile, while Uncle rants, family members burn incense and make offerings to their ancestors, or Buddha, or both[?].
Sylven also has to pay up. Aside from a dowry that includes giving the mother gold, he has to give her gifts during the ceremony, as well as to all her sisters[and any other family member that wants to paid off]. In addition to the wedding ring, he also has to dress Lan with other bits of jewelery: necklace, earings, etc.The ceremony ends with a bow to the audience and a bow to the ancestors/Buddha shrine. No kiss like in the West. Then, a meal, with much fewer guests in attendance than the night before, and we were off[after waiting for a short storm to subside]. Wedding finished. Instead of wedding presents, its customary, as in Chinese weddings as well, to give red envelopes with money instead. Daphne says, that its customary for Chinese to pay for their own wedding, but then make a profit[for some] off of the envelopes in the end[in the West, the parents pay and you get pillow cases and blenders]. However, for whatever reason, it was Lan's mom who got to keep the red envelopes. Payback for no roast pork, maybe?
Sylven and Lan had to leave for Saigon the same day, while Daphne and I stayed one more night in Rach Gia before going back to Phu Quoc to enjoy our last days of holiday.
It took some time before I could post this blog, I had some computer issues that had to be resolved first. Since then, Daphne is on the way to refilling her yoga schedule, I'm back at work, with less then two months before my contract ends. And after that, we shall see...
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Shorts
Some short boops about stuff that happened while I wasn't blogging. I'll be back to the original format soon.
The time the rain came. Six months of dry skies, we're sitting at Lam Cafe, sharing a chocolate banana pancake and drinking a couple rhum lemons. We stare out into the street as we see drops of rain coming down. The drops turn into a downpour in no time, signaling the beginning of Vietnam's rainy season. An American expat cheers the rain but then gives everyone the news: its going to flood, and there will be cockroaches. Then rats. True to his word, the water level was six inches high in mere moments and cockroaches started making there way into the cafe, the staff swinging their brooms at the archway and pouring boiled water onto them. One rat makes a dash inside, hiding behind the drink fridge. The whole time the American's hooting and hollering to his friends, drunk less so on booze than he was on Saigon.
Getting Daphne's bike fixed. Daphne's telling the mechanic his sudden price hikes are unreasonable. She points at her scar and at the bike damage and says, 'same accident! you said less!' As she repeats the word 'accident' for the third time, a woman instantly crashes her bike right in front of the bike shop. We decide to go to another mechanic.
Educating. After doing a reading about a blind marriage that led to divorce. One of my fifteen year old students says that divorce is very bad for the woman. Why? Because then she's no longer a virgin. I tell my student that in the West, chances are slim that she was a virgin when she got married in the first place. I observe his fifteen year old brain exploding behind his eyes.
Trip to Vung Tau. Vietnamese Freedom Day we take the hydrofoil to Vung Tau, the closest beach to HCMC. So did the rest of Saigon. After going to what was supposed to be a cleaner and quieter beach nearby, Long Hai, we found it to be just as crowded as Vung Tau and the ocean fortified with floating trash from one end of the beach to the other. In Vung Tau we try to get a place to stay but everywhere appears to be booked[which is what we should have done before going]. One place that is available and nice is $60 for the night. Thinking it too steep, we decide to go inland to the guesthouses, only to find that some of them cost even more. We head back to the $60 place, but the room is no longer free. I decide that if we're going to spend that much money then we should get more value instead of overpaying for four walls and a bed. We settled in the very cozy Royal Hotel for $100, enjoying a comfortable bed, good breakfast and spending all of the next day by the pool. For us, there's always a silver lining beyond the ring of floating trash.
Educating II. One of my students shows me a neat trick with the VN Dong bill. You can fold it so that it looks like Uncle Ho is smiling or scowling depending on how you hold it.
Books. There aren't enough of them in English. Just photocopied stuff for backpacking hipsters. Alchemist, Life of Pi, Bill Bryson, etc. When I come back from the States I'll be lugging back a suitcase of just books.
Waterpark. We spent the day at the waterpark with some of my coworkers from school. Favourite ride was one that looked like a toilet bowl. Its the first place I've seen where the Vietnamese obey the queue, which they don't even do at the airport. Also, its the most shaded water park I've ever seen. Fun times were had.
Educating III. My students don't know what Communism is. 'You are,' I tell them. Though the more I live here the more I realize that Vietnam is actually the most Capitalist country I've ever been to.
Vietnamese and sunlight. Many Asians prefer being pale, but the relationship between the Vietnamese and the sun borders on phobia. Although its 37 C outside, they're still running around fully covered in jeans, sweaters, stockings, gloves, masks and conical hats. I see some covering their heads with a jacket as they run through the street, as if they were avoiding getting their hair wet from the rain and not blocking the sun. But what really takes the cake is their behaviour at the traffic light. Instead of waiting behind the white line they instead will line up as much as 50 metres further back where there is shade. On one such occasion, I had seen a man stop at the white line just as the light turned red, he then proceeded to inch his way back on his motorbike slowly towards the shade some 15 metres back. Just as he makes it away from the sun, that's when the light turns green. I laughed out loud as I sped away.
Education IV. Category game. Name a genius. Student:"Hitler?" Me: Jaw on the linoleum floor. My students explain that they learned in history that Hitler and Napolean were brilliant leaders[Daphne also had a student once who said he admired Hitler]. I checked with my students to see if they were aware of the bad things he did, which, thankfully, they were, but they were still convinced that he was a great leader and it seems that his skills in leadership have made him a suitable role model here in Vietnam. Instead of arguing against his political abilities I chose to put things in perspective for them. "A good leader doesn't conquer for greed, he leads those that want to be led. Vietnam has been invaded many times by people who did not have Vietnamese interests at heart, Chinese, Japanese, French, Americans, and they were all beaten away because they weren't wanted here and only came for themselves. That's why Hitler was defeated. That's why Napolean was defeated. If they were truly geniuses, they wouldn't have lost because they would have never put their noses where they weren't wanted." This finally got nods from my students, who at first could only reply to my questions by saying, "that's what they told us in school." Days like this make me happy to be a teacher. Days like this also worry me though.
I call Daphne for lunch. She was supposed to meet me in front of the school to show her bike to an interested buyer. On the phone she says,"I'm around the corner at the wonton noodle place." "Why aren't you here?" "I don't have my bike with me. I got stopped by the police." This is bad news because Daphne, like myself, doesn't have a license. Meaning that her bike can be taken away for one month and to get it back she has to get a license and pay a 500,000VND fine[27USD]. So I meet her at the wonton place and ask for the full story: She did an illegal turn and got pulled over, the cop grilled her, and then let her go with a warning and nothing more. Yes, Daphne had punked me. Although, she did not tell a lie on the phone, she told it as it was, her bike wasn't there[it was still at work] and she had indeed been pulled over, the two just weren't related. She stopped laughing, however, when I told her that I already told the prospective buyer that there was no more bike for him to see.
The time the rain came. Six months of dry skies, we're sitting at Lam Cafe, sharing a chocolate banana pancake and drinking a couple rhum lemons. We stare out into the street as we see drops of rain coming down. The drops turn into a downpour in no time, signaling the beginning of Vietnam's rainy season. An American expat cheers the rain but then gives everyone the news: its going to flood, and there will be cockroaches. Then rats. True to his word, the water level was six inches high in mere moments and cockroaches started making there way into the cafe, the staff swinging their brooms at the archway and pouring boiled water onto them. One rat makes a dash inside, hiding behind the drink fridge. The whole time the American's hooting and hollering to his friends, drunk less so on booze than he was on Saigon.
Getting Daphne's bike fixed. Daphne's telling the mechanic his sudden price hikes are unreasonable. She points at her scar and at the bike damage and says, 'same accident! you said less!' As she repeats the word 'accident' for the third time, a woman instantly crashes her bike right in front of the bike shop. We decide to go to another mechanic.
Educating. After doing a reading about a blind marriage that led to divorce. One of my fifteen year old students says that divorce is very bad for the woman. Why? Because then she's no longer a virgin. I tell my student that in the West, chances are slim that she was a virgin when she got married in the first place. I observe his fifteen year old brain exploding behind his eyes.
Trip to Vung Tau. Vietnamese Freedom Day we take the hydrofoil to Vung Tau, the closest beach to HCMC. So did the rest of Saigon. After going to what was supposed to be a cleaner and quieter beach nearby, Long Hai, we found it to be just as crowded as Vung Tau and the ocean fortified with floating trash from one end of the beach to the other. In Vung Tau we try to get a place to stay but everywhere appears to be booked[which is what we should have done before going]. One place that is available and nice is $60 for the night. Thinking it too steep, we decide to go inland to the guesthouses, only to find that some of them cost even more. We head back to the $60 place, but the room is no longer free. I decide that if we're going to spend that much money then we should get more value instead of overpaying for four walls and a bed. We settled in the very cozy Royal Hotel for $100, enjoying a comfortable bed, good breakfast and spending all of the next day by the pool. For us, there's always a silver lining beyond the ring of floating trash.
Educating II. One of my students shows me a neat trick with the VN Dong bill. You can fold it so that it looks like Uncle Ho is smiling or scowling depending on how you hold it.
Books. There aren't enough of them in English. Just photocopied stuff for backpacking hipsters. Alchemist, Life of Pi, Bill Bryson, etc. When I come back from the States I'll be lugging back a suitcase of just books.
Waterpark. We spent the day at the waterpark with some of my coworkers from school. Favourite ride was one that looked like a toilet bowl. Its the first place I've seen where the Vietnamese obey the queue, which they don't even do at the airport. Also, its the most shaded water park I've ever seen. Fun times were had.
Educating III. My students don't know what Communism is. 'You are,' I tell them. Though the more I live here the more I realize that Vietnam is actually the most Capitalist country I've ever been to.
Vietnamese and sunlight. Many Asians prefer being pale, but the relationship between the Vietnamese and the sun borders on phobia. Although its 37 C outside, they're still running around fully covered in jeans, sweaters, stockings, gloves, masks and conical hats. I see some covering their heads with a jacket as they run through the street, as if they were avoiding getting their hair wet from the rain and not blocking the sun. But what really takes the cake is their behaviour at the traffic light. Instead of waiting behind the white line they instead will line up as much as 50 metres further back where there is shade. On one such occasion, I had seen a man stop at the white line just as the light turned red, he then proceeded to inch his way back on his motorbike slowly towards the shade some 15 metres back. Just as he makes it away from the sun, that's when the light turns green. I laughed out loud as I sped away.
Education IV. Category game. Name a genius. Student:"Hitler?" Me: Jaw on the linoleum floor. My students explain that they learned in history that Hitler and Napolean were brilliant leaders[Daphne also had a student once who said he admired Hitler]. I checked with my students to see if they were aware of the bad things he did, which, thankfully, they were, but they were still convinced that he was a great leader and it seems that his skills in leadership have made him a suitable role model here in Vietnam. Instead of arguing against his political abilities I chose to put things in perspective for them. "A good leader doesn't conquer for greed, he leads those that want to be led. Vietnam has been invaded many times by people who did not have Vietnamese interests at heart, Chinese, Japanese, French, Americans, and they were all beaten away because they weren't wanted here and only came for themselves. That's why Hitler was defeated. That's why Napolean was defeated. If they were truly geniuses, they wouldn't have lost because they would have never put their noses where they weren't wanted." This finally got nods from my students, who at first could only reply to my questions by saying, "that's what they told us in school." Days like this make me happy to be a teacher. Days like this also worry me though.
I call Daphne for lunch. She was supposed to meet me in front of the school to show her bike to an interested buyer. On the phone she says,"I'm around the corner at the wonton noodle place." "Why aren't you here?" "I don't have my bike with me. I got stopped by the police." This is bad news because Daphne, like myself, doesn't have a license. Meaning that her bike can be taken away for one month and to get it back she has to get a license and pay a 500,000VND fine[27USD]. So I meet her at the wonton place and ask for the full story: She did an illegal turn and got pulled over, the cop grilled her, and then let her go with a warning and nothing more. Yes, Daphne had punked me. Although, she did not tell a lie on the phone, she told it as it was, her bike wasn't there[it was still at work] and she had indeed been pulled over, the two just weren't related. She stopped laughing, however, when I told her that I already told the prospective buyer that there was no more bike for him to see.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Bakery
[Part five in a series on Vietnamese food]
Bakeries are alive and well in Vietnam and while most of the shelf space is wasted by gaudy looking birthday cakes or moon cakes during the Moon Festival, there are also some that carry some rather tasty, uniquely Asian delights. Here is our favourite place:
Moon cakes are a traditional Chinese pastry that usually combines savoury and sweet fillings as well as a salted egg yolk to represent the moon. These are given as gifts during the fall Moon Festival and most people I've met don't like them. Some are better than others, perhaps chicken filling is a better choice than clams?
[Moon Cakes]
Other sweet pastries line the shelves with fillings such as red bean, lotus seed, black sesame, and dried fruits, to just name the ones I like, and many of them follow the Moon Cake tradition by having a salted egg yolk in the middle.
[I would NOT recommend the Choco-Pies on the top shelf]
[My favourite, top shelf, half red bean half lotus seed filling]
Daphne wouldn't forgive me if I didn't mention the egg tarts and cream puffs that are behind the cake counter. Also very yummy, and also her favourites.
Bakeries are alive and well in Vietnam and while most of the shelf space is wasted by gaudy looking birthday cakes or moon cakes during the Moon Festival, there are also some that carry some rather tasty, uniquely Asian delights. Here is our favourite place:
Moon cakes are a traditional Chinese pastry that usually combines savoury and sweet fillings as well as a salted egg yolk to represent the moon. These are given as gifts during the fall Moon Festival and most people I've met don't like them. Some are better than others, perhaps chicken filling is a better choice than clams?
[Moon Cakes]
Other sweet pastries line the shelves with fillings such as red bean, lotus seed, black sesame, and dried fruits, to just name the ones I like, and many of them follow the Moon Cake tradition by having a salted egg yolk in the middle.
[I would NOT recommend the Choco-Pies on the top shelf]
[My favourite, top shelf, half red bean half lotus seed filling]
Daphne wouldn't forgive me if I didn't mention the egg tarts and cream puffs that are behind the cake counter. Also very yummy, and also her favourites.
Veganam
[Part four in a series on Vietnamese food]
If you have sensitive tastes when it comes to food, Vietnam might not be the place for you. Although I have met people here who can't eat shellfish or are vegetarians, without the language it can be quite difficult to stay faithful to your dietary piques. Asking for no meat still won't ensure that the broth isn't meat based or that the water spinach isn't cooked in fat.
However, I have found this amazing gem in District 4 that serves exclusively vegan food to an all Vietnamese clientele.
Now, I'm probably the furthest thing from a vegan you'll find[I ate duck fetus a month ago] but Daphne and I became regular visitors to this establishment for its amazing variety of unique and delicious foods we couldn't find anywhere else. Located near a few Buddhist monasteries, its purpose is likely to cater to the neighbourhood's monk population, though I had a feeling that the majority of the customers, like us, just came to eat something tasty.
[This is what tasty food looks like]
If you have sensitive tastes when it comes to food, Vietnam might not be the place for you. Although I have met people here who can't eat shellfish or are vegetarians, without the language it can be quite difficult to stay faithful to your dietary piques. Asking for no meat still won't ensure that the broth isn't meat based or that the water spinach isn't cooked in fat.
However, I have found this amazing gem in District 4 that serves exclusively vegan food to an all Vietnamese clientele.
Now, I'm probably the furthest thing from a vegan you'll find[I ate duck fetus a month ago] but Daphne and I became regular visitors to this establishment for its amazing variety of unique and delicious foods we couldn't find anywhere else. Located near a few Buddhist monasteries, its purpose is likely to cater to the neighbourhood's monk population, though I had a feeling that the majority of the customers, like us, just came to eat something tasty.
[This is what tasty food looks like]
Banh Mi
[Third Part in a series on Vietnamese food]
The mark of the French is not only found in the yellow-walled villas and a few street names that escaped being patriotically changed, but also shows up in some of Vietnam's mainstream cuisine. Coffee culture aside, you can't go far without running into a baguette[banh mi] sandwich stand. Fillings and price vary, usually containing paté with some fresh vegetables and some kind of meat. If you're not in a rush, its worth your time to stop for a banh mi op la served hotplate style.
[Our favourite banh mi lady wearing her traditional Vietnamese pj's]
The mark of the French is not only found in the yellow-walled villas and a few street names that escaped being patriotically changed, but also shows up in some of Vietnam's mainstream cuisine. Coffee culture aside, you can't go far without running into a baguette[banh mi] sandwich stand. Fillings and price vary, usually containing paté with some fresh vegetables and some kind of meat. If you're not in a rush, its worth your time to stop for a banh mi op la served hotplate style.
[Our favourite banh mi lady wearing her traditional Vietnamese pj's]
First, they'll cut up some small Vietnamese deli meats. On a hotplate, an egg is cracked and then joined by several meats, fish cake...
paté...
And then served with a banh mi similar to French baguettes but airier, some soy and chili sauce and a plate of vegetables.
It takes skill to pack everything into one baguette. I recommend saving the cucumbers for last, as they are cleaner on the hand and keep the mess fairly contained.
Bon appetit.
paté...
And then served with a banh mi similar to French baguettes but airier, some soy and chili sauce and a plate of vegetables.
It takes skill to pack everything into one baguette. I recommend saving the cucumbers for last, as they are cleaner on the hand and keep the mess fairly contained.
Bon appetit.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Welcome Home
[Part 4]
My parents and I were on the flight back to Saigon. The plan: Daphne would meet us on her bike at their hotel, we would go to Bee Saigon and have some yummy fish for dinner, buy a tour to Cu Chi Tunnels for the next day, when my parents would be flying out late. Of course, you know where this is going. No writer would give out the plot in the beginning if it wasn't going to completely change before the end.
I had to pick up a new visa after we landed because my school had given me a single entry one last time, which is fine because they said they'd reimburse me for this one, too. Standing in line[a much longer wait than Hanoi for some reason] I turn on my phone, down to one bar, and call Daphne. Busy. One more person closer, I call again. Busy. One more person closer...
She picks up. Tears are on her voice. She tells me she had an accident. She tells me she has to get stitches on her chin. She tells me her friend Yen is coming to get her. She doesn't know what hospital yet. I'm almost speechless. All this and I'm technically not in the country yet. All this and I still don't have my luggage, still haven't gone through customs, still an hour away on taxi. All this and there's only one bar left on my cellphone.
In the mean time, I'm letting people pass me in line one at a time. With nothing else to really say, Daphne said she'd call me back and tell me what hospital to meet her at when Yen got there. Finally, I get to the counter, fill out the application and wait. Wait for what seems likes ages. Back when I first arrived in Vietnam, to Hanoi, I didn't even get to finish filling out my app before they handed me back my passport. Finally, they call my name and I get my passport. I walk over to customs where there's no longer a line, but get stuck there when the officers computer freezes just before finishing. The computer wakes back up and I get my red stamp. Daphne calls again, telling me that Yen wants to take her to a local hospital in D. 5. I tell her that if she's getting stitches she should go to an international hospital instead, suggesting FV in D.7 where I went, post-Cambodia. But that was too far out, so instead I gave their clinic in D.1 a call to see if they would do stitches. But the illiterate nurse that answered the phone said I should make an appointment for the next day. That was no good. Meanwhile, Daphne's still at home, waiting for Yen, and we're still in the airport, my parents asking me 10 questions a minute that I don't have the answers to.
We head for the taxi stand, where there are no reputable taxis to greet us. The first one we do see, is taken by some cripple girl in a wheel chair. Just didn't seem right to go up to her, talking about an emergency need to cut in line. We finally got a ride, heading first to their hotel and then to the yet undecided hospital. Daphne calls as we are exiting the airport and says that they picked Colombia Health Clinic in D.1. Sounds fine, until I get another call on the way. Colombia didn't have any doctors on staff[?] and they had to go to another hospital now, SOS International. So I drop off the parents at their hotel, circle the location of Bee Saigon on a map, switch phones with them to avoid running out and being stranded, and head over to SOS.
Scene: Me, walking into the small operating room, with a full camper bag on my back and an even heavier backpack on my chest. The doctors, wide eyed, 'you can't bring those into a sterile room!' So the bags get ditched in the hall and there I am, finally, at Daphne's side. As she lays on the operating table, she looks up at me and points to her chin. A sleek, clean cut opens like a mouth as she tilts her head up towards me. A cosmetic stitch was sewn from the inside, so in the end we didn't know how many she had. Her knee and foot were badly scraped as well, so the nurse had to use the antiseptic and bandage it up.
Price of everything: $330. Daphne's school was about to help her get insurance, but just a bit too late. The nurse says that the dressing needs to be changed everyday, the price of which would be $22. Poor Daphne's spirit is crushed. She had just began to feel more comfortable driving her bike. The accident itself took place only a block from the apartment while she was on her way home. Some guy in the wrong lane scraped her passing by and she hit the brakes. But the rear brake was weak and needed to be tuned, so all the stopping power went to the front wheel and she flew over her bike. The sharpness of her jaw had acted as a knife, the gravel road the cutting block, cutting open her chin from the inside. People around were helpful, and gave her cotton swabs to hold to her chin. One off duty cop drove her and her bike back to the apartment. He told her to call family. But she didn't have any to call, and I was in the clouds.
Not having insurance made the whole thing an expensive enough affair as it was. It didn't help that we were in the most overpriced hospital in town, or that Daphne had to call off work for two days[much more annoying to do when you have three different jobs to call]. The nurse there was very friendly. She provided us with some free bandages and the address of another, more reasonably priced clinic. I helped Daphne to a taxi, finally heading home. On the way I call my parents to give them an update and check in on them. They're at Bee Saigon, but instead of ordering fish, which was why I sent them there, my mom had ordered a beef dish. A decision she would come to regret. I told them that should order a tour for the Cu Chi tunnels for just the two of them, and that we'd meet up after they got back to have dinner before they left.
The next day my parents didn't go on the tour. My mom had food poisoning. On the way to SOS for a dressing change, I dropped off my keys for them so that they could check out of the hotel and hang out at our place to get some relaxation. We then go to get the dressing change which should have cost the $22 that was advertised the night before, but instead we were given a bill for $80. $80 to put on three new bandages. We told them the price quoted and refused to pay anything but. They then lowered the price to $50, we still said no but with a final price of $35 we consented, reluctantly. In Vietnam, even the hospital bills can be bargained I guess. From then on we went only to Victoria Clinic, the one recommended by the nurse from the night before, which was cleaner and only charged $15 to change dressing. I also picked up antiseptic and more bandages and did most of the cleaning and dressings myself. Keeping her knee from getting an infection was a daily affair.
We came back home and spent the rest of the afternoon resting with my parents, drinking tea and looking through pictures from the trip. Daphne took a couple of naps here and there. We went to a Chinese place nearby for dinner and late at night we said goodbye to the folks as they grabbed a taxi for the airport. We were planning to go see Avatar just then, but as we were about to leave it started to rain so we took a literal rain check for the next day.
Healing
Two days after the accident, Daphne was back at work teaching yoga. Three days after the accident, she's back on her motorbike[though we do go and get the brakes fixed]. A week later, we remove the stitches[only $15 at Victoria]. Now, her chin has healed really well, still a pink scar visible but on the underside of her chin and still healing. Her knee and foot are healed up too, no more bandages. We did try to go see Avatar the next day, but the theatre was sold out, for the next two weeks, so we had to buy a ticket in advance for the next available time which was three days ago[there's only one screen in Saigon playing Avatar in 3D and the whole city wants to go]. Daphne's still nervous every time she rides her bike, sadly getting over that will only take time but she's making good progress and is pretty good driver. Next weekend we plan on taking a trip to the Mekong Delta for Tet. Hopefully, it will be much less eventful then this last trip.
My parents and I were on the flight back to Saigon. The plan: Daphne would meet us on her bike at their hotel, we would go to Bee Saigon and have some yummy fish for dinner, buy a tour to Cu Chi Tunnels for the next day, when my parents would be flying out late. Of course, you know where this is going. No writer would give out the plot in the beginning if it wasn't going to completely change before the end.
I had to pick up a new visa after we landed because my school had given me a single entry one last time, which is fine because they said they'd reimburse me for this one, too. Standing in line[a much longer wait than Hanoi for some reason] I turn on my phone, down to one bar, and call Daphne. Busy. One more person closer, I call again. Busy. One more person closer...
She picks up. Tears are on her voice. She tells me she had an accident. She tells me she has to get stitches on her chin. She tells me her friend Yen is coming to get her. She doesn't know what hospital yet. I'm almost speechless. All this and I'm technically not in the country yet. All this and I still don't have my luggage, still haven't gone through customs, still an hour away on taxi. All this and there's only one bar left on my cellphone.
In the mean time, I'm letting people pass me in line one at a time. With nothing else to really say, Daphne said she'd call me back and tell me what hospital to meet her at when Yen got there. Finally, I get to the counter, fill out the application and wait. Wait for what seems likes ages. Back when I first arrived in Vietnam, to Hanoi, I didn't even get to finish filling out my app before they handed me back my passport. Finally, they call my name and I get my passport. I walk over to customs where there's no longer a line, but get stuck there when the officers computer freezes just before finishing. The computer wakes back up and I get my red stamp. Daphne calls again, telling me that Yen wants to take her to a local hospital in D. 5. I tell her that if she's getting stitches she should go to an international hospital instead, suggesting FV in D.7 where I went, post-Cambodia. But that was too far out, so instead I gave their clinic in D.1 a call to see if they would do stitches. But the illiterate nurse that answered the phone said I should make an appointment for the next day. That was no good. Meanwhile, Daphne's still at home, waiting for Yen, and we're still in the airport, my parents asking me 10 questions a minute that I don't have the answers to.
We head for the taxi stand, where there are no reputable taxis to greet us. The first one we do see, is taken by some cripple girl in a wheel chair. Just didn't seem right to go up to her, talking about an emergency need to cut in line. We finally got a ride, heading first to their hotel and then to the yet undecided hospital. Daphne calls as we are exiting the airport and says that they picked Colombia Health Clinic in D.1. Sounds fine, until I get another call on the way. Colombia didn't have any doctors on staff[?] and they had to go to another hospital now, SOS International. So I drop off the parents at their hotel, circle the location of Bee Saigon on a map, switch phones with them to avoid running out and being stranded, and head over to SOS.
Scene: Me, walking into the small operating room, with a full camper bag on my back and an even heavier backpack on my chest. The doctors, wide eyed, 'you can't bring those into a sterile room!' So the bags get ditched in the hall and there I am, finally, at Daphne's side. As she lays on the operating table, she looks up at me and points to her chin. A sleek, clean cut opens like a mouth as she tilts her head up towards me. A cosmetic stitch was sewn from the inside, so in the end we didn't know how many she had. Her knee and foot were badly scraped as well, so the nurse had to use the antiseptic and bandage it up.
Price of everything: $330. Daphne's school was about to help her get insurance, but just a bit too late. The nurse says that the dressing needs to be changed everyday, the price of which would be $22. Poor Daphne's spirit is crushed. She had just began to feel more comfortable driving her bike. The accident itself took place only a block from the apartment while she was on her way home. Some guy in the wrong lane scraped her passing by and she hit the brakes. But the rear brake was weak and needed to be tuned, so all the stopping power went to the front wheel and she flew over her bike. The sharpness of her jaw had acted as a knife, the gravel road the cutting block, cutting open her chin from the inside. People around were helpful, and gave her cotton swabs to hold to her chin. One off duty cop drove her and her bike back to the apartment. He told her to call family. But she didn't have any to call, and I was in the clouds.
Not having insurance made the whole thing an expensive enough affair as it was. It didn't help that we were in the most overpriced hospital in town, or that Daphne had to call off work for two days[much more annoying to do when you have three different jobs to call]. The nurse there was very friendly. She provided us with some free bandages and the address of another, more reasonably priced clinic. I helped Daphne to a taxi, finally heading home. On the way I call my parents to give them an update and check in on them. They're at Bee Saigon, but instead of ordering fish, which was why I sent them there, my mom had ordered a beef dish. A decision she would come to regret. I told them that should order a tour for the Cu Chi tunnels for just the two of them, and that we'd meet up after they got back to have dinner before they left.
The next day my parents didn't go on the tour. My mom had food poisoning. On the way to SOS for a dressing change, I dropped off my keys for them so that they could check out of the hotel and hang out at our place to get some relaxation. We then go to get the dressing change which should have cost the $22 that was advertised the night before, but instead we were given a bill for $80. $80 to put on three new bandages. We told them the price quoted and refused to pay anything but. They then lowered the price to $50, we still said no but with a final price of $35 we consented, reluctantly. In Vietnam, even the hospital bills can be bargained I guess. From then on we went only to Victoria Clinic, the one recommended by the nurse from the night before, which was cleaner and only charged $15 to change dressing. I also picked up antiseptic and more bandages and did most of the cleaning and dressings myself. Keeping her knee from getting an infection was a daily affair.
We came back home and spent the rest of the afternoon resting with my parents, drinking tea and looking through pictures from the trip. Daphne took a couple of naps here and there. We went to a Chinese place nearby for dinner and late at night we said goodbye to the folks as they grabbed a taxi for the airport. We were planning to go see Avatar just then, but as we were about to leave it started to rain so we took a literal rain check for the next day.
Healing
Two days after the accident, Daphne was back at work teaching yoga. Three days after the accident, she's back on her motorbike[though we do go and get the brakes fixed]. A week later, we remove the stitches[only $15 at Victoria]. Now, her chin has healed really well, still a pink scar visible but on the underside of her chin and still healing. Her knee and foot are healed up too, no more bandages. We did try to go see Avatar the next day, but the theatre was sold out, for the next two weeks, so we had to buy a ticket in advance for the next available time which was three days ago[there's only one screen in Saigon playing Avatar in 3D and the whole city wants to go]. Daphne's still nervous every time she rides her bike, sadly getting over that will only take time but she's making good progress and is pretty good driver. Next weekend we plan on taking a trip to the Mekong Delta for Tet. Hopefully, it will be much less eventful then this last trip.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Long Time No See
[Part 1]
[Edited since initial publication to include a couple new pics and better grammar and spelling]
Way, way, way overdue for a blog entry. So bear with me if it takes a few installments to cover everything that's transpired over the last month.
Christmas Eve Housewarming Party
To celebrate our new digs, and give our family-separated friends something to do, Daphne and I threw a housewarming party on Christmas Eve. At about the same time, Daphne got hired as a part time English teacher at ACET and was stuck working that night until 8. No big deal, it just meant a later start time and that the cooking and cleaning would rest solely on my shoulders.
[As usual, I wasn't done cooking yet when guests started to arrive]
[Notice the cleaning rag that guy's carrying? So many spills]
The best part about the party? Getting to sleep in the next day. Daphne and I have conflicting schedules now, so long gone are the lazy mornings. But alas, the repose was interrupted when we saw what a mess was laid outside the bedroom. Not having the foresight to have arranged for a maid to come for only 100,000VND[$6USD], we spent the afternoon cleaning up the apartment.
Meanwhile, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, my parents were on their way to visit. They were going to spend three weeks here, but unfortunately I could only get time off for the latter two. So after a 26 hour flight and one night of rest in Saigon, I had arranged for them to fly to Hoi An the next day for a few nights until I was off from work. Daphne was kind enough to show them around town on Saturday before their flight while I was at work. By the time they left for Hoi An, she had spent more time with them than I had.
A New Motorbike
On Sunday, Daphne sends me a text while I'm at work celebrating her new purchase:a Yamaha automatic motorbike. She had gone with her friend, Yen, to pick it out and had gotten it for 7 mil VND[$390]. She had already payed the deposit on it and later that week we returned with the rest of the money to pick up the motorbike. When Daphne handed the money over, the owner counted and looked at us confused. He then wrote on a sheet of paper the number '17'. English, being Yen's second language, meant that when she had translated the price for Daphne she had made a common, though in this case expensive, pronunciation error.
Daphne was at first distraught by this turn of events, the deposit already being paid it was too late to negotiate on the price. After some careful consideration on the bike, we agreed that the original price was way too little considering that the bike was only three years old and in very good condition. So she paid the remainder and we drove home, each on our bike.
Whatever doubts Daphne had on her purchase melted away between the mechanic and our place. Initially, she had wanted us to take a taxi and have me drive the bike home since she was still inexperienced and the traffic in Saigon is a fright to the uninitiated. But I insisted that if she didn't start driving the bike immediately it would stay in the garage and rust. In just a few days, Daphne was driving the bike to work on her own.
New Years and Family Vacation
My parents arrived back on the 30th, delayed by Jetstar for the second time. Aside from a bit of food poisoning they seemed to have enjoyed their time. We took them to one of our favourite spots, Din Ky, a Chinese place that served anything from steak to shark fins soup, but that we always come to for the excellent crocodile. The next day, I have dim sum with Daphne and then go to meet my parents for a a day of touristing while she goes off to work. The problem with Saigon is that its more of a place to live in than to sight see, so planning what to do was a bit tricky. For a start, I took them to get cheap massages, then some VN iced coffee...and then I was stuck. For one thing, my parents were afraid to get on a motorbike which meant the only way to get around the city was by taxi which is way too slow. In fact, my mom was so stressed out by the traffic that even walking around the city was a problem. But after we consumed our coffees and I had flipped through the guide book, we settled on taking a taxi to a pagoda on the far side of the District. After that, a trip to our old neighbourhood in District 4 to have some baguette sandwiches at my favourite stand. Unfortunately, she was out of baguettes, so we went to a nearby bakery instead, picking a few treats up, and had a seat at another coffee spot to watch the sun fade.
That night, we had reservations at a nice, swanky place called the Temple Club to celebrate New Years Eve and for midnight we went out on the street and counted down with the rest of the town, in Vietnamese.
[Edited since initial publication to include a couple new pics and better grammar and spelling]
Way, way, way overdue for a blog entry. So bear with me if it takes a few installments to cover everything that's transpired over the last month.
Christmas Eve Housewarming Party
To celebrate our new digs, and give our family-separated friends something to do, Daphne and I threw a housewarming party on Christmas Eve. At about the same time, Daphne got hired as a part time English teacher at ACET and was stuck working that night until 8. No big deal, it just meant a later start time and that the cooking and cleaning would rest solely on my shoulders.
[As usual, I wasn't done cooking yet when guests started to arrive]
[Notice the cleaning rag that guy's carrying? So many spills]
Meanwhile, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, my parents were on their way to visit. They were going to spend three weeks here, but unfortunately I could only get time off for the latter two. So after a 26 hour flight and one night of rest in Saigon, I had arranged for them to fly to Hoi An the next day for a few nights until I was off from work. Daphne was kind enough to show them around town on Saturday before their flight while I was at work. By the time they left for Hoi An, she had spent more time with them than I had.
A New Motorbike
On Sunday, Daphne sends me a text while I'm at work celebrating her new purchase:a Yamaha automatic motorbike. She had gone with her friend, Yen, to pick it out and had gotten it for 7 mil VND[$390]. She had already payed the deposit on it and later that week we returned with the rest of the money to pick up the motorbike. When Daphne handed the money over, the owner counted and looked at us confused. He then wrote on a sheet of paper the number '17'. English, being Yen's second language, meant that when she had translated the price for Daphne she had made a common, though in this case expensive, pronunciation error.
Daphne was at first distraught by this turn of events, the deposit already being paid it was too late to negotiate on the price. After some careful consideration on the bike, we agreed that the original price was way too little considering that the bike was only three years old and in very good condition. So she paid the remainder and we drove home, each on our bike.
Whatever doubts Daphne had on her purchase melted away between the mechanic and our place. Initially, she had wanted us to take a taxi and have me drive the bike home since she was still inexperienced and the traffic in Saigon is a fright to the uninitiated. But I insisted that if she didn't start driving the bike immediately it would stay in the garage and rust. In just a few days, Daphne was driving the bike to work on her own.
New Years and Family Vacation
My parents arrived back on the 30th, delayed by Jetstar for the second time. Aside from a bit of food poisoning they seemed to have enjoyed their time. We took them to one of our favourite spots, Din Ky, a Chinese place that served anything from steak to shark fins soup, but that we always come to for the excellent crocodile. The next day, I have dim sum with Daphne and then go to meet my parents for a a day of touristing while she goes off to work. The problem with Saigon is that its more of a place to live in than to sight see, so planning what to do was a bit tricky. For a start, I took them to get cheap massages, then some VN iced coffee...and then I was stuck. For one thing, my parents were afraid to get on a motorbike which meant the only way to get around the city was by taxi which is way too slow. In fact, my mom was so stressed out by the traffic that even walking around the city was a problem. But after we consumed our coffees and I had flipped through the guide book, we settled on taking a taxi to a pagoda on the far side of the District. After that, a trip to our old neighbourhood in District 4 to have some baguette sandwiches at my favourite stand. Unfortunately, she was out of baguettes, so we went to a nearby bakery instead, picking a few treats up, and had a seat at another coffee spot to watch the sun fade.
That night, we had reservations at a nice, swanky place called the Temple Club to celebrate New Years Eve and for midnight we went out on the street and counted down with the rest of the town, in Vietnamese.
[Le Loi crowded by festivities]
Sleep? Only a couple of hours, because we had an early flight for Hanoi the next day. Our original flight had been canceled so I had to take the earliest time they had available in order to make it on the bus for Cat Ba Island in Ha Long Bay.
Dragon in the Mists
The short flight to Hanoi didn't leave enough time to make up for the sleepless night before. Nor did it help that it was cold and rainy on arrival. My heart sank. My parents had left the vacation in my hands and here I've sent them up north where its cold and wet for their holiday. I hope that it will be more clear in the Bay when we get there. Driving to the bus station in a taxi, I gaze out the window, noting how different the vibe is from my first visit back in June. Where there was life now it was in hiding.
A couple of bus trips later we were at the ferry to the island. It was still pretty cold but at least it had stopped raining. Seeing the rocky crags of Cat Ba changed all of our moods. A heavy mist hung over the islands in the bay, giving them a magical charm. It was different than my first visit, but still utterly beautiful. The island itself was comparatively empty without the summer beach goers.
We rented a boat out on the bay for the following day with Slo Pony, the climbing company I used last summer. It was still occasionally rainy and cold but it didn't stop us from enjoying the scenery and doing a bit of kayaking.
When I went out on the kayak with my dad, we were directed to steer towards a place called Paradise Cave. "Ten minutes that way, turn left." So paddle we did until we get to an opening in the rock face on our left hand side that opens to another body of water. It seemed like the place, though it wasn't a cave, and there was a sign in the cliff face that read: no entry. My dad insisted that we paddle on and that the entrance must be further down the wall. But after about twenty minutes we get to another similar opening with the same sign. I infer from this that 'Cave' is an incorrect VN translation and that both openings are for the same place. My dad isn't happy with this, especially because of the sign, but I convince him to paddle in for a look. The current at the opening is strong and against us, so we have to power our way in, noticing that the floor is quite shallow at the opening and a larger boat would not be able to pass here. When we finally muscle in, the site is truly paradise. The water, so still it reflects the green rocky cliffs perfectly. I was sad not to have my camera with me. The scene was like something out of a pirate novel or Robinson Crusoe. I wouldn't have been surprised if pirates had at one point used this cove.
At this time, my dad is still nervous about the sign and the fact that we only have thirty minutes left. But I convince him that if we circle the rock on the left we'll get to the opening we saw earlier and get back faster that way. So we paddle until we get to just such an opening that resembles the one we first passed. As we make our way through, the water gets so shallow that we strike ground and have to get out to push it through. On the other side we look around and notice that we are still not out of the cove! Further to the left we see another opening in the rock and some other kayakers paddling their way to it. Surely this was the opening we were looking for. As we paddled over we noticed that the counter stream was even stronger than the first one, with the addition of sharp coral that made it too shallow for passage in parts. But we succeeded in muscling our way through[note, my dad is 63] and made our way through a beautiful stalagmite[or stalactite?] roofed tunnel with colorful see plants below us only to come out into another cove. Although there were other places we could swim to to look for the exit, we only had five minutes until we were supposed to be back on the boat and way more than five minutes of paddling to cover. So we conceded to the cove and turned around, back through the tunnel maneuvered through the coral rapid[but not without getting stuck a couple times and cutting our feet on the coral trying to get out], and muscled our way back all the way through to the boat. We were only thirty minutes late and only ten second later than another group that we managed to catch up to through vigorous paddling[used this word too much, but I don't know any other synonym]. The next day, we got on the bus to go back to Hanoi. The sky was blue, the air was warm. What a tease. But no matter, everyone had a good time and I didn't feel bad anymore about taking my parents up north. Besides, after Hanoi there was still Thailand to look forward to.
[...]
Sleep? Only a couple of hours, because we had an early flight for Hanoi the next day. Our original flight had been canceled so I had to take the earliest time they had available in order to make it on the bus for Cat Ba Island in Ha Long Bay.
Dragon in the Mists
The short flight to Hanoi didn't leave enough time to make up for the sleepless night before. Nor did it help that it was cold and rainy on arrival. My heart sank. My parents had left the vacation in my hands and here I've sent them up north where its cold and wet for their holiday. I hope that it will be more clear in the Bay when we get there. Driving to the bus station in a taxi, I gaze out the window, noting how different the vibe is from my first visit back in June. Where there was life now it was in hiding.
A couple of bus trips later we were at the ferry to the island. It was still pretty cold but at least it had stopped raining. Seeing the rocky crags of Cat Ba changed all of our moods. A heavy mist hung over the islands in the bay, giving them a magical charm. It was different than my first visit, but still utterly beautiful. The island itself was comparatively empty without the summer beach goers.
We rented a boat out on the bay for the following day with Slo Pony, the climbing company I used last summer. It was still occasionally rainy and cold but it didn't stop us from enjoying the scenery and doing a bit of kayaking.
When I went out on the kayak with my dad, we were directed to steer towards a place called Paradise Cave. "Ten minutes that way, turn left." So paddle we did until we get to an opening in the rock face on our left hand side that opens to another body of water. It seemed like the place, though it wasn't a cave, and there was a sign in the cliff face that read: no entry. My dad insisted that we paddle on and that the entrance must be further down the wall. But after about twenty minutes we get to another similar opening with the same sign. I infer from this that 'Cave' is an incorrect VN translation and that both openings are for the same place. My dad isn't happy with this, especially because of the sign, but I convince him to paddle in for a look. The current at the opening is strong and against us, so we have to power our way in, noticing that the floor is quite shallow at the opening and a larger boat would not be able to pass here. When we finally muscle in, the site is truly paradise. The water, so still it reflects the green rocky cliffs perfectly. I was sad not to have my camera with me. The scene was like something out of a pirate novel or Robinson Crusoe. I wouldn't have been surprised if pirates had at one point used this cove.At this time, my dad is still nervous about the sign and the fact that we only have thirty minutes left. But I convince him that if we circle the rock on the left we'll get to the opening we saw earlier and get back faster that way. So we paddle until we get to just such an opening that resembles the one we first passed. As we make our way through, the water gets so shallow that we strike ground and have to get out to push it through. On the other side we look around and notice that we are still not out of the cove! Further to the left we see another opening in the rock and some other kayakers paddling their way to it. Surely this was the opening we were looking for. As we paddled over we noticed that the counter stream was even stronger than the first one, with the addition of sharp coral that made it too shallow for passage in parts. But we succeeded in muscling our way through[note, my dad is 63] and made our way through a beautiful stalagmite[or stalactite?] roofed tunnel with colorful see plants below us only to come out into another cove. Although there were other places we could swim to to look for the exit, we only had five minutes until we were supposed to be back on the boat and way more than five minutes of paddling to cover. So we conceded to the cove and turned around, back through the tunnel maneuvered through the coral rapid[but not without getting stuck a couple times and cutting our feet on the coral trying to get out], and muscled our way back all the way through to the boat. We were only thirty minutes late and only ten second later than another group that we managed to catch up to through vigorous paddling[used this word too much, but I don't know any other synonym]. The next day, we got on the bus to go back to Hanoi. The sky was blue, the air was warm. What a tease. But no matter, everyone had a good time and I didn't feel bad anymore about taking my parents up north. Besides, after Hanoi there was still Thailand to look forward to.
[...]
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