happy december!

one month to go - where has the time gone?!

just when you think that stability could actually be considered a norm around here, our schedules have shifted once again. on a sad note, my conversational evening classes ended a week ago, but will restart once again on december 13. till then i have been slightly bombarded with lack of sleep, lack of planning, and a plethora of extra classes, including an overly-hyper 6th grade class that appeared to be on an exclusive sugar-high. but life is still wonderful here in vietnam, and even more so because we set up our christmas tree on monday - none of us have had the time to decorate it yet, but the feeling of christmas is lingering in the air, despite the 32 degree celsius weather. the weather seems to be the only difference from how it would normally look back home... the shops have begun to set up their christmas decor with the stuffed santas hanging outside the window, the entranceways of buildings are aligned with christmas lights, and the palmtrees are heavily decorated with lights and garland - yep, it's december, all right.

and so once again i'm here to give y'all the latest update with my antics in ho chi minh city and around vietnam in the past few weeks...

november 17
our last evening class of the semester. what better way to celebrate than have a pizza-party. bill, matt, and i thought it would be a real treat for our students if we ordered a whole whoppin' load of pizza and just watched movies and got to know our students a little better, while playing music, and just sharin' good times all around. during the party, the kids wanted to learn how to dance - in vietnamese culture, they don't really have dances or proms or semi-formals, but they love music. so, i decided to only do what i thought was the best solution to the problem - i taught my students how to LINE DANCE. my family would have been so proud to see me in action. none of my students had never line danced before, so as their teacher i thought it would be pretty interesting and enjoyable to teach them. :o) they actually got a kick out of it, and even bill decided to join in on the line-dancing fun. so now all of my students are starting to teach their friends how to do it... way to start a legacy here in vietnam :oD 'twas indeed good times all around :oP

november 20
teacher's appreciation day in vietnam. lemme tell you, when they show appreciation for their teachers, they go all out, and i mean ALL out... apparently in vietnamese culture, this event is the second biggest thing to a student's graduation, and it was just so amazing to be a part of it all :oD. for the full week i was given presents from my students from home-made star jars to wooden nick nacks, to cards and cards of appreciation, and the amount of flowers that i received were endless. for the full week my room literally looked like a florist's shop. i was so overwhelmed with all the warmth and gratitude my students showed me, words just couldn't describe how incredibly amazing it was. every classroom i walked into i received a huge applause - i was so touched. the friday before, each class had their own small party in their classrooms, which was then followed by a teachers-only party in the evening that included speeches from the principal, the head of the student body, and some performances by the students themselves. of course, liz and i sported our au dais and looked just smashing. the foreign teachers even got a special recognition for being such an encouragement to the entire student body - hmmm... all those hours of planning and losing sleep suddenly all became such a small sacrifice. :o)

november 26-28
"dalat is dalat of fun!" - this was our catch phrase throughout our entire weekend spent in dalat. dalat is a mountain-city about 6 hours away from ho chi minh city. so, imagine the distance from mississauga to montreal - kinda reminded me of the roadtrip the critkids took in the summer to see the jazz festival, only this time there were 13 of us packed into a mini-van, and team spirit had a vaguely similar smell to stale cheetos... :oP but nevertheless, it was awesome. i was particularly happy because i finally got a taste of cold weather. in dalat, they have 3 seasons, and it was nice to walk in the brisk crisp air of the mountains. the scenery was awesome, and the sights were all worth the 6-hour drive.
on friday evening when we arrived, we were able to ride the electric cable cars that gave us a city-wide view of dalat, followed by an hour spent at the truc lam pagoda - i wanted to take a picture with a monk, but unfortunately i scared the monk off with my camera (oops!) - in vietnam, it's always important to ask permission before you take pictures because some people (if not most) believe that if you take a picture of them, it'll capture their soul... probably not a good thing if you want to make friends here :oP and of course, the first night wouldn't be complete without a quick karaoke-session. i'm also proud to say that it was my first time to sing a vietnamese song :o) wooot!
saturday morning we took a few jeeps up the langbiang mountain. there's a romeo-juliet type of story behind the mountain, and it's popular for it. the view from the peak of the mountain was just beautiful. it would be such an awesome place to have quiet time in... and for miles and miles, all you could see was mountain peak after mountain peak, dotted with trees and trees... just gorgeous. it felt really good to have the mountain wind blowing through my hair. after a long drive back down the mountain, and after another 30 minutes of sitting in the van, we finally found ourselves at the base of this waterfall (the name of it escapes me at the moment), and after hiking a few (read: a LOT) of metres down, we set our eyes upon once of the most peaceful sights i've ever seen. it was like it came right out of a magazine photo... and to make it all even better, the water was fresh and pure... *sigh*
once night fell, we went to hell... "hell market", that is :o) it's a night market that happens in the center of dalat where all the shop keepers come out selling anything and everything from fresh strawberries to beautiful woven blankets made by the mountain tribes - they call it "hell" because it's just so insanely busy, and it's at night. it was really interesting to see all these people come out and just walk around the parts of the city because almost all of them were wearing WINTER JACKETS... IN 17 DEGREES CELSIUS. they all thought our group was slightly out of whack because we were just walking around in thin shirts and hoodies while they were all trudging around in their parkas and yes, even snow pants :oP
sunday morning before heading back to ho chi minh city, we came across a herd of water buffalo and stopped to take some "national geographic" shots - autumn wanted to ride one of them, but our group scared the poor things and they were nervous around us... after the buffalos, we visited the famous pangour waterfall - i thought that the previous waterfall was gorgeous... but this one took the cake. apparently it has a story behind it too - that the water coming from the top of the waterfall are actually the tears of an elephant who lost his master, and whenever the rainy season hit, the waterfall would overflow - some of us were able to hike up the waterfall (completely ignoring the "do not climb waterfall" sign), and some of us decided to just take every photo op we could find... i think that throughout the whole trip i must have taken at least over 60 photos with my camera :oP
final conclusions about dalat: YES, it IS as romantic as people claim it to be; YES, it's a beautiful city; YES there are flowers everywhere; YES it's cold; and if my future-husband to be is somewhere reading this out of nowhere, this could possibly be a good honeymoon destination :oP

i haven't gotten any pictures developed yet, but thanks to jeremiah, here's a lil sump'in sump'in for y'all!


morning in dalat


the girls n' the jeep: kim, me, liz, thuong, autumn (check out the view in the background!)


on the way back home to ho chi minh: jeremiah and me :o)