hustlin' and bustlin'... with a li'l cu chi on the side

in the last few days i've gone from easy breezy to insanely crazy-busy... it's been a little hectic since i last blogged, but i must say that getting back into somewhat of a scheduled routine is pretty nice - at least now i can figure out what day and month it is without having to re-check my blogs... oy.

but without further adue, here's the latest scoop:

wednesday, september 15
bill, matt, and i on yet another adventurous excursion stopped by this corner-to-corner ice cream parlour for a brief pitstop, which was in good time too, because it had began to rain. i've come to learn that in vietnam, when it rains, it RAINS, and the people are prepared for it. seems like even just after the first couple of raindrops hit the ground, the streets are filled with motorcyclists wearing an interesting array of coloured ponchos - this was quite amusing watching it from the ice cream parlour window... the name of the place escapes me at the moment, but the ice cream was amazing. if any of you ever get the chance to come to ho chi minh city, you can't miss this ice cream parlour, it's pretty huge :oP - and i have come to discover that dalat strawberry ice cream is the most wonderful thing in the world... YUMMY! :o)
we then finally made our way over to the benh thanh market in central ho chi minh city. the benh thanh market is approximately 12,000 sq. metres of meat, food, fabrics, electronics, hustlers, televisions, cameras and just about everything you could think of... wall to wall and aisle to aisle of bargains. and when you walk around, your nose just tingles at the fine smell of spices and aromas around you, and you can find small places to sit and eat at the back of the market. pretty nifty - you could literally spend a day walking up and down the rows exploring what some people are selling. but what i wasn't aware of was how "persistent" some of these shopkeepers were. i was walking with bill when one of the shopkeepers selling fabric stepped out in front of him, and asked him, "sir, what are you looking for?" - not realizing what was coming next, bill then turned around and told the lady to ask ME what i was looking for. that then began a struggle to keep my arm - this woman would NOT let go of my wrist, and managed to lead (read: drag) me halfway into her store, and yelling out prices into my ear before i could shake her unexpectedly strong grip off of my wrist. yeesh. i guess some people's sales tactics are umm... different from others. :oP but all in all, it was a great experience. i think before i head back home to canada, i'm gonna stop by the market and get some good deals on some souvenirs for y'all back home :o)
in the evening, the whole team gathered for our first worship/prayer/sharing meeting - it was refreshing to hear what everyone's been struggling with these past few days that they've been in vietnam, and i felt comfortable knowing that i wasn't the only one :o) it's something that i've been really missing the past few days that i've been away from home, and it was just a wonderful time of fellowship between new friends. i'm starting to finally feel more at home with these people who i call my team... *sigh* it was definitely a good way to end the night.

friday, september 17
moving day. i packed up all of my belongings, and moved them all from logos 3 on le van sy street to logos 2 on dien bien phu street. the weather was definitely not on my side, as it rained and rained for most of the day. it was a little amusing to see SUVs, bicycles, AND motorbikes try and manouvre their wheels in ankle-high to shin-high waters... by the time i came back from a meeting at the high school i'll be teaching at, the waters flooded the alley where our house was. even after minh hung, our driver dropped us off right at our doorstep, i found my entire leg covered in almost river-deep water. i've never seen anything, or experienced anything like it before. but it was quite the experience.
and now i have a new roomie :o) liz and i are sharing the same room on the 5th floor - and let me tell you, it's quite the climb. i can already feel my buns turning into steel. lol. but liz has been just awesome these past few days, what with our girltalks and our spontaneous dance sessions :o) *happy sigh* it's so nice to have a girl around to talk to, and finally reach some sort of balance with the levels of estrogen in the house. :o) it's also pretty nice to come home to a good home-cooked meal every day... mrs. le, our housekeeper knows how to work that kitchen, and she's just been so wonderful... i can tell that the next few months living in my new home will be full of interestingly good times :o)

saturday, september 18
well, plans for visiting the mekong delta fell through, and have been temporarily postponed till next week or the next week after. but still feeling a little touristy, the whole team minus aaron decided to hop on a tour bus that headed over to the cu chi (or as max would like to call them, the "cuuu chi cuuu chi cuuu") tunnels about 45 miles southeast ho chi minh city. the cu chi tunnels were one of the famous battlegrounds of the vietcong during the vietnam war. just imagine a 75-mile-long underground maze where thousands of fighters and villagers could hide the soldiers, as well as some of the villagers who would actually live in these tunnels during the war, and as a means of defense from the american soldiers. from at least 30m to 100m underground, i was pretty impressed with the structure and the framework of these tunnels - they had bunkers for everything, complete with kitchen, hospital, sleeping quarters, conference rooms, and so on... kinda similar to an underground city... what really got to me was the size of the entrance holes on the surface - you'd have to be pretty skinny and short to fit into these tunnels. even when they altered the size of the tunnels for the tourists, it still seemed pretty small. it was an interesting experience though, for all of us to get on our hands and knees and crawl in between tunnel after tunnel. i could have gone for the full 100km, but it was just so incredibly stuffy in there, i could only do 30km before i wanted to get out and see daylight again. wowsers. liz and jeremiah were brave enough to tackle the smaller tunnels - liz is quite petite, so she made it through without breaking a sweat. i was pretty impressed with jeremiah though - picture a beefy texan boy squeezing into a sardine can... but he made it through in one quick turn. dang...
our adventures in cu chi worked up our appetite, so we decided to head over to "cappuccino's" along backpacker's alley for a bite to eat, and then headed back home... to then later head out to "super bowl" up above the saigon tourist plaza in the posh area of town to meet up with autumn, a new friend from church who is going to be here in ho chi minh city for the next 6 months studying vietnamese... now, i have never seen such a posh bowling alley before. first of all, the workers are either dressed in red cocktail dresses (the women), or full 3-piece suits (the men :oP) - my goodness. talk about taking bowling seriously. they even bring your bowling shoes TO YOU as you sit down and enjoy sipping an iced cappuccino... i'm here thinking, "this is so NOT bowling..." - i almost expected their washrooms to have the server-dude inside handing out complimentary lotion. but sadly, i was disappointed, because as nice as their facilities were, once again to my dismay, toilet paper was nowhere in sight... i've grown accustomed to the hose though :oP

sunday, september 19
church, and then an indian food buffet. hehe. it's pretty funny how i'm finding all these culturally-diverse restaurants in vietnam. first korean, then japanese, and now indian. it was pretty yummy though, and the buffet only cost us 6.00 for all-you can eat goodness. *sigh*
the evening only gave way to more eating. mrs. tuyen, the landlord at my old house (logos 3) invited the whole teaching team, and officemates for a grand vietnamese dinner. when she cooks, she COOKS - we had all these vietnamese dishes piled high to the sky... noodles, soup, seasoned pork, salads, chicken, rice, more noodles, and more rice... yeesh. i was amazed at all the food - it must have taken her a day to cook everything. she's such a wonderful woman... and of course, no evening would be complete without a little karaoke and a lot of good laughs.

monday, september 20
(happy birthday edmond!) i started my first teaching lesson today. every monday, wednesday, and friday, i will be teaching an intermediate class from 5-7pm, and then a beginner's class from 7-9pm over at the private high school. i was surprised to learn that vietnam has more private high schools than public high schools, and the one that i'm teaching at right now is the largest school in all of ho chi minh city, because it's the only one with 2 campuses. my first teaching experience went okay - i just reviewed the basics with them, played a little hangman and let them ease in, and be familiar with me. funny story: i gave my kids nametags so that it would help me pronounce their names better, and i told them i would collect them after class. i come across this boy (who must have been like 13 or 14), who gives me his nametag. i read it, and notice that he puts an extra note on it. the note reads, "i love english, and i LOVE YOU" - i look at him oddly and ask him if he wrote this, and he just smiled and giggled profusely. heh... and so it begins. teaching the beginners i've found to be quite the struggle though, and even a little bit overwhelming. but i'm hoping that once we get the ball rolling, everything will fall into place. what i do appreciate is that they're very responsive to doing new things, like walking around the classroom and getting out of their seats - something that they would never really get to do (or be allowed to do) in their normal classes at all... but i'm planning to take things slow, one day at a time - really, that's the only way you can live life here in vietnam :o)

tuesday, september 21
liz brought me and phuong (now named "jasmine" - apparently it's vietnamese custom to make a name for foreigners, and vice versa :oP) to her women's bible study today. it was pretty good - and i got a chance to see what the inside of norfolk mansion looks like. pretty posh - from what i understood, most of the westerners who come to vietnam live in these apartments, and it looks exactly the way they do at home, complete with private western toilets and the like. except, like all kitchens here in vietnam, there isn't an oven. hmmm. these women are just wonderfully nice and so hospitable - such a blessing, indeed. :o)
after the study, the three of us went along the "furniture" street, where most, if not all stores along the street sell everything from couches to shelves, to coatracks, to hatstands... liz and i were on a hunt for a shelf for our new "bachelorette pad" :o) - we found a pretty good shelf that actually matched the furniture in our room for about $200 500 doung (almost $20US), and managed to talk it down to $200 000... not a bad deal. of course, it was an adventure on its own to fit that sucker of a shelf into the back of a taxi, and still make room for one of us to sit in the back - but after 20 minutes of shifting and lifting, we finally got it to fit, and were able to bring it back home, haul it up to the 5th floor, and set it in place... :o) we are women, hear us roar... LOL.

wednesday, september 22
teaching day #2 - ViUS (my organization here in Vietnam) decided that to make things easier for Bill and me at the high school, they would hire a vietnamese TA to help around the class, especially for the beginner classes. we found this out 15 minutes before leaving for the high school. turned out that mrs. kim was actually a big help in explaining the activities to the beginner classes. and the kids were just great in participating in the class - they are still a little shy, but overall, things are looking good. i taught them about feelings today, and personalities. i showed them a couple of pictures from back home, of friends, and family, and i think i was hit with my first sensation of homesickness. but eventually it subsided, and the class went on. they were actually really interested in the pictures that i brought in - wanted to know what the names of my friends were, and my family members, and everything :o) what was funny was that half of the girls in the class seemed to have developed a crush on my brother after they saw his picture... i heard a lot of "dep trai" (pron. "dep chai" - meaning handsome) after i told them who he was in the picture... hehe. on the way home, she even said that she can help me find some decent-priced fabric for me to make an au dai for myself - apparently all the high school teachers at the school wear them while they teach... hmm... :o)

and now it's thursday - the weeks seem to fly by now that there's something to do every day, and my sleeping patterns are finally kicking into a nice stable pattern. it's my day off today, so i just plan on taking some time to rest - something that i've been looking forward to since i got here :oP, perhaps take some time to unload my suitcases and set them aside, take a nap, or maybe grab a fruit-cocktail smoothie (very good!), or "sinh to" (pron. "sin toh") nearby my house and just chill... who knows :oP

on tonight's agenda: liz and i, and a few other girls that we've met, and perhaps jeremiah and aaron might head over to "la casa latina" in district 1 for some free salsa lessons... yes, in vietnam :o) hehe. should be interesting... :oP

to those of you who have expressed their concern about my temporary "blogging absence" through e-mail and messenger, know that i'm alive and well, and haven't fallen off the face of the earth just yet ;o)