A year (or more) in Vietnam

We spent yesterday hanging out with teachers from APC. We had a delicious dinner at a French restaurant, Ty Coz. Then went to the Blue Gecko with Nick and had some beers.
I tried having a latte too, to keep me up all night, but I fell asleep around 1 a.m.
It'll be difficult adjusting to Kansas time. Well, it all came to a close really quick.
Now we're packed and resting before we head to the airport tonight. On the way to Korea we'll try to stay awake and then sleep from Korea to Georgia.
I guess this is goodbye to this journal too. I think I will switch back to my
old journal!.

Our last day with APC was yesterday. It was hard to say by to my little kids.
I didn't cry all day and then just as we were leaving, my P1 student, Kevin, said, "Teacher..." When he pronounces teacher, it sounds like "teachuuuuh".
He said it really sadly and gave me a hug, and then tried to give me a Vietnamese style kiss where you deeply inhale as your press your cheek to their cheek. Then, I cried a little bit in the parking garage. I'll miss those little boogers.

more here:https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/2o8srKmwIR4SF67EvgFxWA?feat=directlink

Had a great time in Singapore last weekend. We shopped like crazy, saw Joanna Newsom play at the Esplanade and ate really good food. I didn't buy too many things, but just walking around for a day on Orchard Road can be exhausting. So many places to browse and crazy buildings. I went to two or three Topshops. I came out with an insane pair of leather & wood platforms and lighter blue spring jeans. I tend to buy dark denim, so I changed it up this time around. I got socks, belt and cardigan from Uniqlo. I also got a new pair of black ballet flats at Pretty Fit. I got the exact same pair I bought last year in Singapore. They're so comfy and I wore through my last pair.

Now we're wrapping up here in Saigon. We'll be home so soon!! We already bought train tickets to take the AmTrak to Jeff City to pick up Derek's Jeep. My brother will have to take us to the station in Newton Kansas at 4 in the morning. We'll stop in K.C. on the way home to visit friends and pick up things we left behind two years ago. I can't wait to be reunited with our records.

I was afraid to document anything with my camera for fear that I would be heavily fined or caned (we were in Singapore after all). I did write down her set list. I was kind of hoping to hear Esame, Sawdust and Diamonds and/or Baby Birch. That's ok though. I loved seeing her again and am grateful I got the chance to in Asia!! The show ran about an hour and a half and she played one song for the encore (Peach Plum Pear). She said it was the last show of the tour and she was worried about everything being perfect.
Other people were a bit braver than I and recorded clips that are now on YouTube.

On Friday after school we watched NHK news channel for a few hours before going out to eat. We felt sad and helpless watching so much devastation happen so quickly. We have friends in Hokkaido, Japan and my second cousin is in Tokyo. They're fine. So sad to see/read how many people lost everything.
I tried donating on the American Red Cross site and my card was declined. I called the bank and they said nothing was wrong with my card.
I donated on this site instead: Second Harvest Japan
Help Japan and donate too, if you can!!

I talked to my dad this morning for about an hour like we normally do. I also talked to Loren on Skype for over an hour! It was so nice to talk with a friend on there. I've been bad about that this year. I guess I sit on the computer too much. She pointed out that I shouldn't have boring white plates on my registry and she was right! I saw this picture online and now I'm an advocate for mismatched fiestware. It's really pretty. I think this assortment of dishes looks really happy. Yay fiestaware. lol.


Next weekend we're leaving for Singapore. I can't wait to see Joanna! She's playing at 11 p.m. Friday night. We arrive in Singapore Friday morning. We'll have to take a nap and drink coffee, I think. We normally go to bed at 9:30 p.m. now. I hate waking up at 6 and I won't miss it! In Singapore I'd like to have hokkien mee noodles and wonton mee. delicious seafood and pork noodles. I read a recipe online that sometimes they are stirred in pork lard, so maybe I won't eat it after all. ;P
There are only 13 more days of school. I'll be relieved and sad too. I'll miss the kids of course.

I think starting tomorrow I will start posting what I will miss about VN. I get frustrated with the pollution and noise and general confusion Saigon can inflict, but there are a lot of things I will still miss. I was reading that beauty blog, "Into the Gloss" the other day at work and read that Lauren Santo-Domingo can't remember the last time she washed her own hair. You could get away with never washing your hair here! I went for a hair washing (which includes super awesome head massage) last weekend and manicure/pedicure for 80,000 dong or about 4 dollars. I'll miss stuff like that! And super fresh fruit and...

picking up the wedding dress tomorrow. oh god, I hope it turned out ok.

It stinks that Valentine's Day was on a Monday, but we had a nice one. After work we gussied ourselves up and went out to the Temple Club. Our co-workers recommended it when they found out we hadn't made reservations anywhere. It was really nice Vietnamese food served in a French style. We ate stuffed snails with plenty of lemongrass and garlic, noodle soup with what tasted like home-made noodles, and prawns, spinach with garlic, and barbecued spare ribs- really delicious. I can't remember what we did last year for Valentine's, but I'll remember the Temple Club! Their decor is gorgeous too. I want their bathroom in my house!
Here is the entry way to the restaurant.

I'm wearing my 30.00 N&M dress. N&M is Vietnam's answer to H&M. They have pretty cool stuff.

2011

Photos from our trip. I'm shy to take pictures of people. I should get over that!

Finally uploaded new Tet vacation pictures to Picasa, around 300 of them.

I didn't bring my notebook with me on our trip to take notes. We started out in Vientiane, Laos and stayed a couple of days. We stayed at the Princess Hotel. haha. It had good reviews on Agoda.com. It was the nicest place we stayed in during our trip for about 50 dollars a night. They had really good rice soup for breakfast. I liked that since I usually feel sick from traveling. It's funny that I travel quite a bit now when I really don't love it. I'm training myself to handle it. It takes Dramamine. There's not a ton to see in Vientiane. We went up inside an old tower, looked at the president's palace and ate at the same restaurant two nights in a row since we liked it so much the first night. Next we took a bus ride to Vang Vieng, a big backpacker's town about 3 hours away from the capital. The bus was so packed, Derek had to sit in a plastic chair in the aisle, not a great start to our journey. Some guy also was so eager to get off the bus, he started to push a little when we arrived in Vang Vieng and Derek snapped at him to chill out and be patient. The weird dude said he'd be looking for Derek while he was in town (to fight), so that made me a bit scared. What a jerk.
We were really hungry on arrival and stopped at a restaurant. Most of the restaurants in Vang Vieng are outfitted with long benches and pillows carrying backpackers watching Friends or Family Guy dvds. We saw about twenty restaurants with the same scenario. They mostly serve the same foods too.. a few Asian dishes and about twenty "western" dishes. I ordered Pad Thai with tofu and I got stir friend noodles with tofu, egg and KETCHUP. Now I was sorely disappointed with the food and scared this old hippie was going to jump out and beat us up.
A big attraction in Vang Vieng is tubing. I would say it's the only attraction, other than the beautiful scenery surrounding the town. I did love this and the clean, crisp air we don't get in Ho Chi Minh City. Walking around town we noticed a lot of the younger folk who went on the tubing trips were wasted, stumbling around, cussing and looking for a banana pancake (another popular Western snack on the backpacker's trail in Asia). We decided not to tube, because we didn't want to go with these people. Maybe we are too old now. Besides we can tube whenever we want in Arkansas.
After about a day in Vang Vieng we started for Luang Prabang, a five hour bus ride up and down huge mountains with bumpy roads. I was really proud of not getting sick on this ride. A tuk tuk driver took us to a guest house after arriving and it reminded me a tree house. Our room was about 70,000 kiep a night (10.00 usd). The tuk tuk ride was freezing. I'm glad I brought a jacket to Laos, southern Vietnam is never as cool. We spent several days walking around LP. It's a beautiful charming, old-world city. The Mekong and Nam Khan river meet here and they look so much cleaner than rivers in VN. There are farms along the rivers rather than buildings. Laos has a lot less people then VN too. We were able to ride bicycles around and not feel like we were going to be hit by motorbikes and buses. I loved Luang Prabang. The people are laid back and don't hassle you at all. I could look through the night market and touch everything without anyone asking me to buy anything. I got a pretty purse made from an old tribal (Hmong?) skirt and gifts for my family. We decided to save ourselves the 8-9 hour bus ride and flew back to Vientiane for about 90 bucks a ticket. After one more night in the capital we headed to Cambodia. Derek and I stayed in Phnom Penh a couple nights before heading to Siem Riep to see Ankgor Wat. I liked how the older colonial buildings are better preserved there than in VN. The press is free there as well. I don't think in VN you could get away with saying certain things in print, but Cambodia prides itself in its freedom of press. We stayed along the Sisowath Quay in the Indochine 2 Guesthouse for about 25 dollars a night. I don't see this in VN as much, but in Cambodia I noticed some older creepy men with Cambodian girls that just looked too too young. I guess the age of consent there is only 15. yeesh.
The bus ride to Siem Riep was a smooth, easygoing five hours. We watched funny Khmer karaoke videos. I saw women selling grilled cockroaches and grub worms on sticks during our rest stop. Ankgor Wat was amazing of course, but we weren't expecting to see it in such disrepair. In photos I had seen it didn't look so bad. We hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around the park for the day for about 25 dollars. Our tickets to the park were 20 dollars for a one day pass.
Maybe some day people won't people to walk all over the ruins. That human contact, and all the exhaust from buses and motorbikes isn't doing much for the preservation of the park.
A bus ride back to Phnom Penh and a short 40 minute plane ride brought us back to Saigon and another Lunar New Year is over! People were still celebrating when we got back to the city. Kids playing in the street and adults chatting or playing cards on the sidewalk.

hearing a lot of noises again! We're back in noisy Ho Chi Minh City. Dogs are barking and howling in our building for some reason. We didn't hear nearly as much honking in Laos and Cambodia. Saigon is the honking-est city ever. Our Lunar New Year trip went off without a hitch, but now we're really tired. We went to Vientiane and Luang Prabang in Laos, and then Phnom Penh and Siem Riep in Cambodia. I will update more about it later and upload all the photos, but for now I'm weary and hungry. A lot of shops are still closed for the Tet holiday, though I did see a few restaurants open. It's nice to see the city so relaxed.

Merry Christmas!

forgot my camera cord or I'd have a photo post of Phu Quoc. That'll have to wait until we get back to Saigon next week. I hope our trip doesn't go by so quickly though. It's beautiful here. We got a better room this year, a bungalow really close to the beach.
We left really early Christmas morning, 4 a.m. We had a friend visiting from Japan. She and Derek went to school together in college. It was nice to have someone visit us.
I'm already a little burnt though I've used up a bottle of spf 45 already. My hair feels a little crunchy from salt. We're taking a break in the room after swimming and eating a big lunch of fish burgers, calamari and fries. There was cinnamon in the ketchup and fries. I liked it. I love adding cinnamon to my coffee too. Tonight we'll walk over to the night market for some shellfish and I will try to get a good deal on some pearls for gifts to take home with us.
talked to dad on skype today. I tried to get a hold of my mom on yahoo. I'll try again tonight.
We miss being home for holidays, but I can't complain too much when we're at a place like this! I love having fresh air to breathe after living in Saigon five months straight!