this road.

jet lagged goodness

2005-01-01T18:01:00.000+09:00

after a two-day farewell tearfest and a bit of plane hopping from ho chi minh, to hong kong, and to los angeles; i finally find myself safely back on canadian soil, in the comfort of my own room at home in good ol' mississauga, ontario.

first thoughts when we landed: what happened to all the snow?! and whaddaya mean +2 degrees celsius outside?!?!

snow or no snow, it's definitely great to be back home... even more so to be greeted by 40+ of my family members in a typical gonzales-cajilig fashion - meaning, food, food, and MORE food. all the weight that i've lost back in vietnam is going to eventually find its way back to all the wrong places in just a matter of hours :o) but ohhh baby, was it a divine meal... err... meals :oP

and now, i officially declare this blog closed :o) oodles of thanks to everyone who took the time to read this shtuff and keep up with my adventures in saigon!

have a very peachy and blessed 2005, and i'll see ya when i see ya :oD

always,
estelle

"goodbye teacher! see you... again!"

2004-12-29T18:23:00.000+09:00

and so the countdown finally begins...

how wednesday could find its way to me so quickly is beyond me, but sadly enough it did. my last day of teaching at the high school was rather an emotional one, but i mustered enough energy to refrain from making niagara falls look like a wet napkin; even after all the goodbye notes, presents, and surprisingly even through the unexpected grade 11 male-student chorus of "nothing's going to change my love for you" at the end of my last class. in all my life i never imagined that i would be here in vietnam teaching conversational english to these students, nevertheless being well-wished by over 300 students and acknowledged for having such a huge impact in their lives - quite an overwhelming feeling for this ordinary suburbian-raised girl from the cold depths of canada... but it's a feeling that definitely leaves warm tinglies and yet at the same time an un-helped feeling of saddness realizing the harsh reality that it's finally all over.

one more evening class to go, and that about ends my 4-month teaching term. i've retired all my class material ready to pass the torch onto the next teacher. for the rest of this week: thursday i plan on spending the day packing and probably re-packing up a storm, and a final round-about the city at night with my dear friend jenny. friday at 9am i'll be heading out to the airport and start the long journey back home to canada. everyone here's been asking me if i would consider coming back to vietnam to teach, and i think at this point it's a strong possibility. God has placed such a burden in my heart for this country and its people, and it's just amazing how i've seen Him working - not only in me, but just in everyone and everything that i've been so blessed to encounter.

no worries, no regrets... well, maybe just a little smidgen of stress thinking about how i'm going to fit everything into my suitcases without causing too much of a ruckus ;o)

on tangent: if you're ever in the city, the ho chi minh city museum in district 1 is definitely a place worth going to. not only is it a famous wedding photo-spot, but it's got a lot of interesting geeky-history stuff to feast your eyes on too ;oP also, the cyclo drivers that hang around there are some of the nicest ones in town, so if you want a nice, relatively cheap, slow, scenic ride around downtown saigon, then this would be a good place to check out :oD

'twas a warm warm saigon christmas

2004-12-25T23:01:00.000+09:00

chuc mung giang sinh (merry christmas) to everyone back home! i hope and pray that all of you are resting easy during the holidays and that your christmases this year are just filled with wonderful times of good eats and great fellowship with close friends, family, and other kin-folk :o)

it's been quite the experience over here in ho chi minh city during christmas - christmas eve alone was quite the adventure. my teaching team and i (who all looked just fabulous by the way - especially the girls who were decked out in their fancy shmancy ao dais ;oP) attended our church's annual christmas dinner - and believe me, it was beyond satisfaction. they had everything from turkey, to mashed potatoes, to pumpkin soup, to roast beef, to yule logs and apple pies - definintely a nice change of dining atmosphere. the night's festivities also included a pastor's reading of the christmas story from luke, a surprise visit from santa claus himself (of whose vietnamese speaking skills i was quite impressed by ;oP), and a 1 hour and a half walk in district 1 amidst hoards and hoards of people - and when i write hoards, i MEAN hoards... it was insane. i was warned earlier that it was going to be a challenge to get home amidst the traffic, but it wasn't until i turned the corner on le loi street that i understood how much of a challenge it would be to get back home. and let me tell you, it was enough of a challenge for me to walk an hour and a half in 3 inch heels ;o) the streets were fully lit with streams and streams of lights, with bands playing christmas carol after christmas carol on almost every street corner, and every lane was either packed with people or motorbikes, and confetti thrown all over the place. i think i probably saw 10 motorbike santa sightings in a matter of just 10 minutes... definitely not your typical north american christmas eve... :oP

this morning, the team gathered around the christmas tree and opened our gifts while sipping our instant tim horton's french vanilla cappuccinos (courtesy of kim - THANK YOU AGAIN! :oP) of which were well-enjoyed by myself and my team - it was quite a nice touch of home... and also, for christmas, liz even gave me my own "little can of snow" to help relieve my nostalgia of missing the cold white stuff ;o) *sigh* faboo times indeed - then again, all christmases are pretty faboo regardless of how you celebrate it, aren't they? :o) i had been worrying about how i'd feel spending christmas away from home and even further away from anything familiar to what i'm usually used to... but i can thankfully say that any insecurities or doubts that i had lingering about it all prior to this point have all been forgotten this weekend.

... and the party doesn't stop there. tomorrow will be my farewell party with most of my friends that i've met here in vietnam - and of course the only proper way to say goodbye is to say it with a bangin' karaoke session at saigon star hotel... VIP style :o)

hmm. 8 months ago i wasn't sure about coming here - what i would do, who would i meet, how i would adapt to all the new sights and cutlure of this strange country... *sigh* one week left before i head home, and i'm not sure i want to leave...

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...

2004-12-10T16:45:00.000+09:00

so... i am now at the 3-week stretch. in a matter of a few days i'll be back on a plane heading north-bound for canada. today it finally started to sink in how distinctly different my life has been in the past 4 months and at the same time how different my life is going to be in the following 4 months once i set foot back on canadian soil. oy.

i'm a little disappointed because the ministry of education in ho chi minh city decided to switch the students' holiday to the week after i leave... meaning, it looks like i'll be working up until christmas eve. *sigh* so much for my long-awaited one-week holiday. but work or no work, fortunately christmas plans are still coming along nicely, and as each day passes, the more and more it truly is beginning to look and feel like christmas. the children's christmas program at our church was last sunday (the 5th) and it was just so cute to see all the children dancing and singing along - of course, there was the random boy who would constantly wave at his mom throughout the entire thing, and even more so be the same boy who would sit down when all of the other children were standing and standing when all of the other children were sitting :oP it kinda reminded me of the kids back home... all the hard labour and strife the kids had to go through each practice was beautifully rewarded with a plethora of cookie-candy houses (not gingerbread because there is no gingerbread in vietnam :o( ) - once again, happy times :oD

the city is also transforming into christmas mode. district 1 looks like a completely different world... this is more widely known as the "tourist district" - it's where all the pish posh hotels are like the rex, the sheraton, the park hyatt, etc., and also where all the small shops and tourist-priced goodies are. the fake snow in some of the displays that i've seen almost look convincing, especially in places like diamond plaza, and along hai ba trung street; and some of the lightshows that are exhibited in some of the hotel lobbies that i've seen (as beautiful and as impressive as they are) make me wonder about how big the electricity bill is going to be afterwards - but i think this may be a possible answer to why certain areas of ho chi minh city have been experiencing blackouts in the past week ;oP

liz and i had a nice surprise the other day too, courtesy of bill, who in my books, is one of the most wonderful people i've ever had the pleasure of knowing :o) after a long hard day of teaching at the high school, liz and i came home to our room to find christmas lights gleaming along the rim of our balcony door - it was simply fabulous. definitely hit a soft spot with me :o) and to relieve the rest of our christmas nostalgia, liz and i decided to relax and spend a whole afternoon making paper snowflakes to put up on our window. and now our room is a winter wonderland :oD i absolutely love it! our christmas festivities also include the esi teaching team avec autumn, thuong, and loc in our own secret santa... i've been trying to figure out who got me, but everyone's actually pretty good at being tight-lipped about it (...doh - hehe).

and to get ourselves boosted in the christmas spirit, liz and i have decided to add a little christmas spunk to our lesson plans for the week of christmas - santa hats, presents, singing carols, reading and sharing Christmas stories, and the whole lot. i just need to figure out how i can supply 330+ students with presents without burning a hole right through my wallet :oP

on a totally random note, vietnam has amazing team spirit and immense national pride. the other day while kim (my TA) and i were motorbiking around the city, there were hoards and hoards of teenagers and adults in the streets wearing red bandanas and making a lot of noise. rather confused, i asked kim what all the fuss was about, and she told me that it was because vietnam was playing against singapore for the Tiger Cup. The Tiger Cup (appropriately named by their sponsor, Tiger Beer) is a soccer tournament held within asia - vietnam really takes this seriously.. and i mean SERIOUSLY. in all of the parks within the downtown area there were jumbo flatscreen projections of the live game broadcasted, and the parks were completely surrounded by lines and lines of parked motorbikes with their drivers and/or families watching in complete anticipation. it was nuts. just imagine the toronto mapleleafs winning the stanley-cup IN toronto x 500 - that's just how intense it was. motorbikes, cars, bicycles ringing their bells, honking their horns; drivers yelling and screaming whenever the ball would come metres near the goal line... yeesh!

and among other things, the english geek in me was very much delighted when i stumbled upon a collection of english books while walking around in backpacker's alley - it's located at the back of this tourism office along the side of pham ngu lao street - the place is small, but the shelves are overflowing with books from your classic authors like joyce, hardy, eliot, and austen; to your popular authors like clancy, crichton, king; to even your baby books, do-it-yourself advice books, etc. the prices were pretty reasonable, but at the same time tourist-intended, but it was quite refreshing to be in the presence of a plethora of english literature :oD

hmmm. in the remaining three weeks i have here in ho chi minh, i plan on making the most of it by checking out the city's museums and shifting gears to full tourist mode. that's right, i'm breaking out the maps, i'm revvin' up the camera, and i'm going to sightsee like i've never "sightseed" (err... sightsaw?) before :o) word of mouth has it that the historical museum, the war remnants museum, and the ho chi minh city museum are definite must-sees, along with the reunification palace where the former presidents of the regime held their secret functions and meetings during the war (kinda like the vietnam equivalent to the US white house). and of course, somewhere in my busy schedule of teaching and last-minute sightseeing, i have to get all my christmas/souvenir shopping done :o) wowie! looks like sleep might not be an option in the next few days ;oP but really, who knows - likely anything can happen on the spur of a moment. as max always says, "embrace the mystery" - and that's what i intend to do for the next few weeks :oD.

... can i get a woot woot!

ahh... and of course, what better way to end this entry with a little more eye-candy :o) (thanks to matt for these pics!)

taxi cramming
front seat: max, liz, matt
back seat: me, bill

pho'in it up at our fave joint: bill, minh hung (our driver), mercy, aaron, me, liz, max

hen gap lai! :o)
(see you soon!)

happy december!

2004-12-01T20:00:00.000+09:00

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)

... finally. a little visual stimulation.

2004-11-12T17:24:00.000+09:00

some of you thought i was joking about my little encounter with "python joe". well, it took a while, but now you can see the evidence :o) hope you guys enjoy these, cuz i sure did ;oP

an unforgettable embrace: me and "python joe" :o)

paddling peacefully along the mekong delta: matt, autumn, me

our awesome tourguide giam, me, autumn, and liz before heading back to ho chi minh city

back from the jungles of mekong...

2004-11-10T13:34:00.000+09:00

it's been a while, but here i am again to give y'all a brief scoop on my latest adventures...

first off, i think the locals are now going to have a hard time determining what nationality i am, because at this point i could be anything from cambodian to african... yep, methinks i spent a little too much time in the sun in the mekong delta... :oP

hmmm. well, the jungles of the mekong were simply fabulous (pictures to be posted up soon... hopefully *cross fingers*)... and the tour that we took was pretty sweet. but to keep it short, everything about that weekend was just wonderful, and the vacation much needed... i've come to the realization that i'm SO ready for the next one! btw, fyi: during our trip i encountered a 6' boa constrictor of which we named "python joe", and took pictures with it - i got a little pannicky when it started to wrap around my waist, but it was good times :oP... so after that experience, i have been labelled as the "jungle queen" hehe. and yes the floating markets and monkey bridges look EXACTLY like the postcards i've sent some of you... :o) some things words just cannot describe. it was indeed a surreal experience...

hmm... and then there's the nostalgia. as christmas is vastly approaching, i miss all of you guys back home more and more... i think that for this past week, the homesickness really kicked in (perhaps delayed culture shock?). i really appreciate all of the emails, phone calls, and snail mail that i've been receiving from you guys, and it helps me to feel not so out of the loop :o) i've been trying to find things to do that are similar to what i would have been doing back home around this time of year, and so i've decided to help out with the children's christmas program at the church i go to here. our first practice was yesterday, and it felt really good to be singing christmas songs with the little kiddies ;o) cristina and mama esta have informed me that ontario was blessed with the first flurry of the winter season not too long ago. *sigh* as crazy as it sounds, what wouldn't i give to see one snowflake fall over here... hmm. well, maybe not so much ;oP but hopefully you get what i mean :oP

so now i must return to my regular busy teaching schedule and all the other fun stuff that goes with it. while i was marking the tests of all my students, i did the math, and apparently i'm teaching about 330 students a week... my goodness! however, all the busy-ness from the crazy class sizes and endless hours of planning, to certain young adolescent boys professing their love for me in class (man, remind me to tell you stories when i get back, folks!) life has been treating me so kind here, and as i've told some of you, despite all the chaos, i have been able to find a sense of peace amidst it all :o) ... what else is there to say, but God is good :oD

"From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another..." John 1:15

the heat is still on in saigon...

2004-10-29T14:40:00.000+09:00

october is drawing to a close, and it's over 31 degrees celsius outside. wowsers.

i've been out of commission with my blog for the past couple of weeks, and things are just as hectic as always. i've been given 3 extra morning classes to my schedule, so sleep is something that i'm beginning to cherish more and more each day. sadly, i'm finding myself slowly slipping out of my usual nocturnal gladness... *sigh*

one way to survive amidst the hustle and bustle of ho chi minh city is to take one day at a time and consider it a blessing - because really, you may never know what may happen next. there's been a pesky stomach bug going around the city in the past couple of weeks, and jeremiah was the first one to take one for the team. little did i know that i would be next in line. for a day and a half, i was able to get myself well-acquainted with our bathroom facilities, especially the floor... to say the least, it wasn't pretty. but after a weekend of rest, relaxation and a few pills (...and of course a bit of karaoke), i recovered nicely. by monday i was back in the swing of hectic teaching schedules again.

this week i decided to teach a travel unit to my evening students. as a nice change of pace, i thought that watching "home alone 2" would be a good way of showing them the perks and quirks of travelling, and of course with good wholesome morals on the side. i've seen (read: grumbled at) this movie so many times, but this time around made me a little homesick. as much as i don't mind walking out of the house in a tank top and capris at the end of october without catching frostbite, it still can't beat being able to romp around in the cool crisp autumn air back home. the canadian in me misses being cold, believe it or not. liz offered to throw ice at me on christmas eve as a way to relieve me of my homesickness, but unfortunately it just wouldn't be the same :oP and with the christmas theme surrounding the movie, i couldn't help but feel a little emotional and somewhat sentimental about it... to the point where i found a few tears trickling down the side of my cheek. yeesh. leave it up to me to get all nostalgic over a maculay culkin movie... a SEQUEL at that! :oS i'll be celebrating christmas a little differently over here this year, decorating palm trees instead of pine trees, but nonetheless it should definitely be an interesting experience.

among other interesting experiences, liz, autumn, matt, bill, mercy, and i bought tickets for a 2-day tour of the mekong delta for this weekend (FINALLY!), so i should have more to write about in the next week or so. i'm looking forward to taking a vacation away from the citylife and into the deepest depths of the jungle... which just conveniently happens to have a swimming pool and bungalow resort right smack dab in the middle of it all ... tee hee! :oD

till the next bloggage, hen gap lai (pron. "hyen gap lie") - which means, "see you soon!"

a weekend of culture and class...

2004-10-14T13:52:00.000+09:00

saturday evening found most of our team at a nearby restaurant to celebrate liz's birthday. we had the chance to stimulate our tastebuds with a very popular vietnamese dish called banh xeo (pron. "ben say-o") - it's an egg crepe cooked with small morsels of meat (you can also have shrimp and chicken with it), beansprouts and other vegetables that you wrap up in a lettuce leaf and dip in pepper-filled fish sauce (think lettuce-wrapped springrolls). yummy! i also had my first opportunity to try soda chan (pron. "soda chahn") - a pleasant concoction of limejuice, sugar, ice, and soda water... kinda reminded me of sparkling lemonade (read: "LIMEonade" - they don't have lemons here in vietnam!), which was refreshing and oh-so-yummy!

sunday night, the gals all got decked out in our beautiful custom-made au dais and headed out to the opera house for a bit of ballet, symphony, and vietnamese opera. for a little history-check, the opera house (properly known as the national theatre, or the municipal theatre) was built in the beginning of 1897 under an original architectural design by french architect ferret eugene. over the years, the opera house was restored and renewed. the style and design of the opera house was done specifically with the aim to bring a feeling of french style to the french and pro-french vietnamese people under the period of french domination in the south in early 20th century.
our tickets (which were center row, orchestra ;oP) only cost us a nice 80 000 dong each, which is equivalent to just a bit under $6.00 US. in canada, if i were to pay for decent seats at the theatre or opera in toronto, i'd be looking at a whopping $80 bucks or more! the opera portion was composed by various vietnamese composers in response to the celebration of hanoi's 50th anniversary of their liberation day. my vietnamese comprehension skills weren't good enough to understand what the soloists were singing about, but the passion and pride for their country was more than evident. i was very impressed with everything that i saw and heard, and when they were joined by the ho chi minh city choir, the symphony orchestra and ballet company, you just really couldn't get any better than that. after the intermission the ho chi minh symphony orchestra performed their own rendition of mozart's symphony no. 40 - quite breathtaking, actually. for one night we were dressed to the nines, among ho chi minh city's elite and completely lost ourselves in the culture. simply wonderful... :o)

also, to help fit in more into the vietnamese culture, our teaching team decided to take vietnamese lessons every friday afternoons. i used to consider myself pretty good with languages, but learning vietnamese has proven itself to be quite the difficult task. vietnamese is a tonal language, meaning that different voice inflections on any word will change the meaning of that word... there are 5 tones in the vietnamese language, plus one mid-level non-tone (the way you'd normally say things without the accents). i've come to learn that it's absolutely crucial to say things the way they are supposed to be said, because you could easily say the wrong thing without knowing it. for example: the phrase for "stop right here" is "dung le dai". if you pronounce the word "dai" as "day", you are saying it correctly. however, if you pronounce "dai" as "die", then when you tell someone "dung le dai", you are telling them to "pee right here"... a mistake that i've come to experience first-hand. *ahem* it helps a lot when the person you're speaking to has a sense of humor about these things :oP ... nonetheless, my goal is to be able to carry a simple conversation in vietnamese by the time i have to head back to canada :oP

in other less-culturally stimulating news (well, depending on which way you look at it), we've got ants in our pants... well, not really in our pants, but our kitchen has seemed to have been invaded by an army of red ants. jeremiah named it "the ho chi minh trail" - from one corner of our kitchen wall to another, there's a small trail of red ants that make their way down diagonally back and forth across the surface of the wall. well, after a few sprays with our trusty raid can, they seemed to have gotten the hint that they were uninvited in our kitchen... however, last night while eating dinner, i noticed that the army hadn't retreated, but instead migrated to the other side of the kitchen, making a nice path from the garbage can, up the wall, around the door, up into the corner, and finally disappearing into a hole in the wall... yeesh. i actually found it more amusing than disturbing... until i opened the fridge door and saw a pink smartie walking away from its bag.

... yep, always an adventure here in ho chi minh city ;o)

... they call me "teacher"

2004-10-07T14:47:00.000+09:00

when i was in high school, i used to think that teachers had it easy. i mean, how could i possibly think differently when all i really knew on the surface was that they worked almost only 20 hours a week, and on top of that had weekends, march break, and summer vacation off? little did i know that it's a completely different reality behind the scenes. the naive frame of mind that i once had in high school was completely turned upside down once it was my turn to step up to the plate. as of this past tuesday, i now work the full 20-hour weekly workload; but with prep-time and lesson planning, it feels more like i'm working 45 hours a week - if i'm not teaching, i'm lesson planning. if i'm not lesson planning, i'm reading the class material. if i'm not reading the class material, i'm marking quizzes or journals. if i'm not marking, then i'm sleeping... my weekends are precious - something that i've come to take for granted while i'm at school, what with only a 3-day courseload and all ;o)... but it's a healthy kind of humbleness that i've come to welcome with open arms and an open mind.

it's actually a pretty interesting thing to see how the educational system works here in vietnam. students start their day as early as 7am and then finish class around 9pm. it's funny to think that we all complain about how long our school days are, and how they never seem to end - just imagine having to wake up at 6am to be ready to learn by 7am, and keep the academic drive going till 9pm. usually they have 5 min breaks in the morning classes (that are usually 1.5 hours long), and then 15 min breaks in the evening classes (which are each 2 hours long). the school that i teach at is actually a private high school with 2 campuses (from what i hear, apparently it's the largest private high school in ho chi minh city), both boarding schools, and the children belong to the more well-off people of vietnam. so from monday to friday, these children live on-campus, and then on the weekends have the option of going back home to their families. some students that i've talked to have parents handling business in the states or in canada, and so they live there at the campus for months, with the occasional parental visits here and there. they all wear uniforms, and are "trained" to greet the teacher at the beginning of classes and at the end of classes... i remember my first day teaching, i was almost thrown to the wall by it all - just imagine 30+ students standing in military formation, yelling at the top of their lungs "Good morning teacher, nice to see you today!". not something that you'd expect in north america at all.

on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays i teach conversational english evening classes from 5pm-9pm. on tuesdays and thursdays, i teach morning english grammar/pronunciation classes at the high school from 7am-10:35am. what i didn't expect the first time teaching in the morning was the ridiculously huge class sizes. some of these classes that i'm teaching consist more than 40 students, a few reaching almost 50 students in one room. and the rooms aren't comfortable at all - imagine having to cram 50 students into a room with 3 sections of picnic tables - yikes! and for us waterloo people, you thought sitting in the PAS was bad. it can definitely be a bit overwhelming having to teach and talk over so many voices in a language not known well to some of them, if not most of them, but the TAs in each class have been more than helpful helping me out with everything. as expected in any class, there are a few students who aren't as eager to learn as the rest of the class, but i've come to appreciate the challenge :o) on the whole, these kids have such an eagerness to learn, which makes any teaching job so much easier when you know that some of them actually want to be there to learn something from you.

in the past few weeks, i've been really interacting with the children of this city, and it's just been wonderful, and once again humbling. on tuesdays liz and i have made it a routine to head over to the phu my orphanage in the ben thanh district to spend some time with the children there. the phu my orphanage specifically takes care of abandoned children who are mentally handicapped or challenged, and their facilities help educate and support them in preparing for independent life. it's amazing to see what joy these kids have the moment you step into the room - their faces just light up with so much happiness in knowing that they have visitors. there was this one 16-year-old boy who i met last week. it was "bubbles" day, and the kids really love it. sometimes you don't really think about it, but just a smile or even a light pat on the back can definitely go a long way - they can really knock the wind out of you, but the hours spent with these kids is well worth it. these kids are so beautiful, it really didn't take me long to fall in love with each and every one of them.

... in other news, we have two new teachers on our team! nick, who is from australia (and has a nifty accent!), and tammy - of which i'm proud to say is CANADIAN and a fellow mississauga person just like me :o) good times! they've been just awesome the moment we met them :o)

liz and i finally made it inside the notre dame cathedral in district 1. to be honest, it's not as "architectually pretty" as i thought it would be in comparison to the outside, but it was still pretty interesting. i wasn't sure whether i could take pictures inside the church, but it's definitely something to see. there were prayer chambers that were lined up along the two longest sides of the church, and inside them were many marble plaques engraved in french - a lot of plaques had read "merci" and "pour Jesus", and they all surrounded old statues of saints and other sculptures of Jesus and Mary... some of the ave marias were brightly lit around the edges with neon lights of all colours - i didn't really have much appreciation for that, but it was still pretty interesting to see. if you look at some of the rooftops and shops that are in ho chi minh city, neon-lit ave marias and other roman catholic statues are the same way. it's kind of hard to explain in words, but hopefully i can find a way to get a picture of it to show everyone back home.

and in my last entry, i mentioned rain. well, it's been raining hard these past few days too - floods everywhere. but it's gotten to the point where i'm used to walking around with my pants folded up to my waist ;o) just the other day i had to go make photocopies at one of the shops down the street, and it was literally like crossing the red sea. when it rains, it RAINS. but thankfully, rainy season will be ending sometime in mid-November *cross fingers* :o)

also, another blessing that i've had in the past week is that we now have hot water running in our bathroom - and running hot water definitely makes all the difference! :oD as much as i do appreciate being woken up by the somewhat overly-cool refreshing showers, this is quite the nice change. apparently liz and i just forgot to flick the switch of our water heater... and didn't realize that until this past weekend - oops :o) you learn a new thing in vietnam everyday ;o)

this weekend a bunch of us are going to celebrate liz's now-belated birthday on saturday, and check out the ho chi minh city ballet company and symphony at the opera house on sunday night. this will give us girls a chance to sport our new au dais - the cultural dress of vietnam. there will definitely be some photo opportunities for us on the weekend, so hopefully i'll be taking some memories home to show you. :o)

i sent some of you guys postcards in the past week or so - i hope you got them okay. i was planning on sending more, but then realized that a bunch of you didn't give me your addresses :oP ... which could make things a little more difficult ;o)

but until the next blog,
estelle :oD

ps - if i don't blog before (canadian) thanksgiving rolls around, then HAPPY TURKEY DAY IN ADVANCE! :o) methinks i'll be dining a little differently than the usual turkey-stuffing/springroll dinner with friends and family, but i'll be thinking about y'all back home :oD

pps - a few entries back, i mentioned an ice cream parlour that had "dalat strawberry" flavour. the name of the parlour is "bach dang" (pron. "back dung") - while motorbiking around district 1, i stumbled upon it again and just had to write it down ;o) so there ya go - another piece of useful info about ho chi minh city ;o)

ppps - i've been in vietnam now for 1 month and 4 days... WOOT!

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

2004-09-23T13:44:00.000+09:00

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)

drum roll please

2004-09-14T22:34:00.000+09:00

we officially have internet now at our place here - as i type this, i am sitting up on the 3rd floor of our house, and surrounded by huge open windows that stretch from wall to wall, accompanied by sounds of the nightly city buzz... there's a light breeze coming from all sides of the room, and it just feels wonderful. to my left, i see nothing but the lit rooftops of other houses - just beautiful, especially when the sun sets... but i think by friday i should be settling down at the other guest house. well, more like as soon as they can move a bed into liz's room - which should be interesting since she lives on the 5th floor and they'll have to get that sucker up there by rope and pulley through the center opening of the winding narrow staircase of the apartment :o) ... should be interesting... *sigh* as excited as i am to move (again), i'm kinda feelin' a little in between about it all cuz i'm finally starting to settle down and get a feel for le van sy street... oy. but one must do what one must do...

btw, i've managed to get matt and bill hooked on this wonderful thing called blogger. while bill's still in the process of making his blogspot a spectacular spectacle, in the meantime you can read about matt's encounters in vietnam at tompsett.blogspot.com

... even in vietnam i'm sharing the gift of blogger - teehee. ;o)

it was bound to happen sooner or later...

2004-09-14T13:41:00.000+09:00

so yesterday, bill and i were feeling adventurous once again (we're officially the last 2 teachers - without a regular schedule of some sort - standing), and decided to explore down dien bien phu street (where logos 2 is located). we stop by this outside restaurant for dinner that seemed really interesting (the name of it escapes my memory at the moment...) - they were big on the whole outdoor charcoal bbq grill type of thing, and you could watch the cooks grill the most mouthwatering concoctions right in front of your eyes. so bill and i thought it would be a good experience to try it out. from the 30+ page menu, we had decided on ordering the grilled season beef in banana leaves, steamed-fried bean curd, and chinese style fried rice, of all which were very delicious and tantalized our tastebuds.

halfway through our dinner, i looked over to the chair beside me, and realized that my purse was gone. i searched all over the tabletop, and underneath the chair to make sure it hadn't fallen, but it was nowhere in sight. i then look to the corner behind me, and lo and behold, there was our waiter, hiding in the corner, crouched down and LOOKING THROUGH MY PURSE - bag wide open, his grubby hands all over my personal belongings and shifting through everything. when i asked him "what the heck do you think you're doing?!", i startled him, and he looked at me with this petrified look on his face. he didn't speak any english, but his gestures and tone of voice gave me the impression that he was being very apologetic (that, and i could recognize his panicky repetition of "xin loi" which means "i'm sorry")... from what i got out of his motions and rushed dialogue was that he was trying to explain to me that he was trying to pick up the purse because it fell down, and he was just making sure it was mine... he then put the purse in my lap, and once again started repeating "xin loi". luckilly everything was still there, because i had placed all the important documents and cards into the "secret pocket" of my purse. but still... i was slightly bummed after that experience, but at least i know not to get too comfy while i'm over here. so here's another valuable tip to y'all who are planning to travel far and wide: keep a close eye on your bags and personal belongings - yes, it can happen to you. :oi something like that can really change the mood and ruin a perfectly pleasant dinner, i'll tell ya that much. in conclusion, i doubt i'll be heading over there any time soon :o(

after our "interesting" dining experience, bill and i decided to put the past's poopiness behind us and talk about much happier things over smoothies, coffee, and blueberry cheesecake at AQ (hehe, i think i'm eventually going to become a regular at this place)... i've come to notice that vietnamese people (as are all asians, esp. including filipinos) are quite nosey. i mentioned before that i've been mistaken numerous times for being vietnamese. this whole observation first came to my attention after a few days living with matt. see, because matt and i are the only ones who live in logos 3 at the moment, and because we go everywhere together (canadians tend to do that ;oP) - to the grocery store, to the karaoke bar, to the restaurants, to catch a taxi, etc. - people are starting to get the impression that we're married. oy. and during my excursion with bill yesterday, i got a few cut-eye looks from a few women while i was walking with him, who probably thought that we were married too... yeeesh. this has become quite the running gag between me and matt for the longest time now, and unfortunately one that i can't seem to escape from. but now the plot thickens... apparently i've left matt for bill, and will soon be leaving bill for liz when i move in with her at logos 2 by the end of this week (we're going to be roomies! which is actually going to be a nice of atmosphere, because i'm starting to feel an imbalance of estrongen ;oP). but who knows, if i keep going with this whole marriage business thing, after 4 months i might leave this country with having been married at least 4 times. lol. talk about cramping my style - now how am i supposed to find my young vigorous rice boy farmer if the people here are already under the impression that i'm attached and off-limits? :oP

(for my parents who i know are reading this, i'm JUST JOKING! JOKE LANG!)

today, just like the rest of the week looks pretty free - once bill comes back from the bank, he, matt and myself will be heading back over to le van sy street (where matt and i live) and do some restaurant hopping for lunch. tomorrow (wednesday), the team will be having their first home praise/worship fellowship over at logos 2 - pretty excited about that because aaron brought his guitar so some Godly jammin' sessions will be much appreciated :o) *sigh* in other news, i'm getting really antsy in anticipation for next week's teaching schedule. apparently once classes officially start in october, my days will be even more busy because i'll be teaching in the day as well, and on 2 high school campuses - starting as early as 6:30AM! i don't even think i'm asleep yet at 6:30AM! but busy can actually be good as the days will become shorter. oy... but as i've grown accustomed to in the past few days, i keep in mind that this information may be out of date in the next 5 minutes... :oP

tangent: it turns out that msn web messenger works fine here in the school office too (we still don't have net hooked up at our house just yet :oP) so if you guys are still up in the wee hours of the morning (it should be almost 3am toronto time as i write this blog entry), feel free to chat with me either on yahoo or msn.

as always, know that i'm thinkin' of ya, and i miss you guys lots!
estelle

ps - charlene, i almost forgot to mention that herbert bunked in my room last night. there was a blackout (one of 4 that happened in a row), and he found shelter and comfort under one of my shoes. :o) he's such a cute little bugger. :oP

taxi hopping

2004-09-13T13:28:00.000+09:00

oy... busy busy busy. but once again, here's another briefing on what's been going on with me so far:

friday, september 10
... and the exploring continues. after an "unexpected" taxi-tour from one end of the city to another to get to the other teachers' guest house, matt and i finally met up with bill, liz, and max, to then hop in another taxi and let the wind take us wherever it wanted to take us. now, in ho chi minh, it's never a problem to get a taxi - it's cramming everyone in that's the challenge. but after strategically placing liz across our laps, we managed to fit everyone in the compact "now" clown-car, all limbs inside (and still in tact). "20 minutes" later, we find ourselves in downtown/central ho chi minh city. the english geek in me decided to take up bill on his invitation to go bookstore hunting - we came across two fairly large bookstores, but unfortunately came out of both of them empty handed... however, it took me a while to debate on whether i should have purchased a viet-learner's guide called Learn Vietnamese in Two Months... *sigh* the rest of our morning included checking out the "tourist" department stores in diamond plaza and saigon tourist plaza - kinda reminded me a lot of the eaton centre in downtown toronto, but cleaner and with more security guards. oh, and one more thing that i've come to notice about vietnam - toilet paper in public washroom facilities is a rare thing... instead, the washrooms come with portable hoses (at least in the ladies' room) to finish your "business" with.
there were also a great number of beggars in the tourist area - far more than in our own neighborhood, and even more persistent. while liz and i were walking down one of the main streets, this elderly woman in a wheelchair that was being pushed by another elderly woman followed us down at least two blocks before leaving us alone. i knew that vietnam had a lot of people living in poverty, but coming face to face with it is a completely different experience altogether. there's a huge difference between seeing someone homeless and begging for money at union station in downtown toronto, and seeing someone homeless and begging for money on the streets of ho chi minh... it humbles me to a point where it's actually a sad thing to know how spoiled we all really are back home in north america... usually if you see this sort of thing on television, you're more likely to change the channel and ignore it - but when you're constantly surrounded by it, it becomes more of a harsh reality check. for some if not most people here, they don't have the option of changing the channel or ignoring it - because to them, this is real life.

saturday, september 11
the group of us headed over to one of ho chi minh's private high schools to give the placement tests to the students. the first portion of the test was 20 minutes of listening to a tape and answering multiple choice (which was pretty hard for them - i speak english pretty well, and i even had trouble making out what was on that tape!), and the second being a 5-minute interview with yours truly. i think i probably saw about almost 20 kids, and half of them couldn't get past saying their name... what was interesting was that these kids, who are about 12 and 13 look so much younger than that... there was one child that i was talking to that looked about 8 years old, but was really 13. i'm really looking forward to teaching these kids. as frustrating as it was for them and myself in trying to communicate with them, you can easily tell that they have this genuine eagerness to learn the language... but oy, i have a feeling i might become one of those teachers who are "generous markers", because i can easily see my grading methods being influenced by their cuteness :oP especially when they're in full uniform.
after the test, matt and i headed back to our place (logos 3), where aaron and his friend phuong (pron. "fung") were waiting for us there to have dinner with our landlord and her family. on the menu: lotteria - the vietnam version of mcdonalds. our landlord was sweet enough to order out for us, thinking that we were in need of some "comfort" food. well, the look was definitely there, but after biting into what seemed like their version of a "big mac", i was slightly deceived. it was edible nonetheless, but somehow it just didn't taste like beef - but in situations like these, ignorance is bliss, i suppose. but i did become a huge fan of their "shakey fries" - the fries come in a paper bag, you add "artificial cheese flavoured" powder, and you shake 'em like there's no tomorrow... none too shabby! :o)
after dinner, the kids around our neighborhood, joined us for some hardcore karaoke action to help digest our fabulous grease-feast - yes, karaoke AGAIN. :oD what was dangerous about the place where we went to is that it's only a 2 MINUTE WALK AROUND THE CORNER... AHH! *gleeful scream* - a few hours of belting out "i will survive" and "the lion sleeps tonight" with the clan brought nothing but a smile to my face. i even learned to sing in vietnamese too - pretty good times, indeed!

sunday, september 12
hopped on yet another taxi and drove to church at the duxton hotel in the morning again - i'm getting used to the taxi rides across the city. one thing i forgot to mention is that the vietnamese are really big on calling/address/business cards. if you want to get somewhere either by taxi or motorbike taxis and don't have the address on hand, you can always show them a card with all the necessary information on it, and you're set. most of the taxi drivers here don't speak english, so it helps a lot if you just pull out a card and show 'em where to go. the rides can be pretty quiet, especially if you're travelling alone, but i'm hoping that'll change in the next few weeks once i start attending vietnamese language classes. church was followed by lunch at this small cafe called "central cafe" - a small western-style cafe a block down from the hotel. surprisingly their smoked salmon bagel was actually pretty yummy. gabriel, another new friend that i met from church (who's from louisiana and yes, just like the angel) joined us for lunch. he's been to vietnam several times and just moved here permanently since june. such a funny guy, and super nice. he entertained us during lunch with his adventures of being in the city and his encounters while teaching english...
once lunch was done, we headed back to logos 2 (the other teachers' guest house) to pick up a few things for our team dinner later that night. aaron thought it would be a cool idea to cook up a traditional (north) american meal and invite some of our new vietnamese friends. on the menu were pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. so we did a bit of shopping for the basic necessities, but not until AFTER we stopped at AQ for a cafe suah da... before trying it, bill warned me of how rich it was (because they pour in a load of condensed milk instead of regular milk)... the way it worked was that they'd bring out the cup with the coffee filtering on top of the condensed milk, with a separate ice tray to mix it with once you removed the coffee filter. omigoodness... bill wasn't kidding - after taking just one sip, i felt as if my throat was completely coated in rich, buttery, creamy, coffee goodness. even after loading ice cube after ice cube, it did nothing to dilute it... but i wasn't complaining. it was heavenly. :oD it was a good thing we were inside, because while we were schmoozing over our drinks, the rain hit pretty hard - first time in a long while that i've seen the streets flood with water. i now know what "rainy season" means... once the sky cleared up a little, we made an attempt to walk back to the house. very valuable tip: when wearing flip-fops in ankle-high water, you become prone to losing one or perhaps both of them. while crossing the street, halfway across i looked down at my feet and realized my left foot was naked. once i looked back, i found my other flip-flop, back at the sidewalk, floating downstream on top of a gargantuan puddle of water that looked more like a river. i could only do what was absolutely necessary to save my temporarily-estranged flip-flop: i slowly turned around, literally sacrificed my life in dodging a few motorbikes, WHILE being splashed on by oncoming traffic, finally made it back on the sidewalk, and retrieved my poor shoe. *sigh* the things i do for shoes... and like the gentlemen they were, matt and bill both stood there laughing their heads off in utter amusement during the whole ordeal while standing on the opposite side of the street, completely dry and safe from harm... men. yeeeesh. :o)
once i was dry again and in a fresh, new change of clothes, the evening was once again filled with good laughs and good times. aaron's dinner/breakfast was successful, and enjoyed by our viet friends - with blueberry pancakes, and a whole lotta butter, you can never really go wrong :oD. and to work off dinner, we all headed over to super bowl for a little bowling action. i've never been good at bowling, but one thing is for sure - when the vietnamese play, they play HARD... *sigh*

today's agenda, like most of my days already spent here, is up in the air... :o) i called my family this morning, and as usual, they put me on speaker phone for all to hear. *sigh* it's always good to hear their voices. i got a little kick out of it when my dad started a whole chain of conference 6-way calls to my other relatives in scarborough. hehe gotta love him. :o)

updates on my teaching position: there's been a bit of confusion as to when i'm supposed to start teaching and getting things together. bill and i were supposed to start teaching at the high school tonight at 5pm, but on account of miscommunication, we've just been informed that we're not actually starting till next week when they have their curriculum all sorted out. no worries - there's always something to do in ho chi minh city, so i know i'll find something to keep me occupied in the meantime. to make things more easier on our driver, it looks like i'll be moving into the other teachers' guesthouse earlier than originally planned - probably in a few days, so i think i have quite the packing spree ahead of me as well.

rumor has it that we'll be taking an overnight trip to the mekong delta this weekend from saturday to sunday. for $14 US, you can easily book an all inclusive trip, including boatrides, hotel, transportation, meals, and so much more. i have a feeling that if we do go, a lot of film will be used on this trip :o) the mekong delta is just beautiful, and it's supposed to give you a feel of what vietnam was like before industrialization - jungles, rainforests, and as a whole whopping load of vietnamese history and traditions... it's all there. there are a few digicam pictures taken from the past few days floating around somewhere - it's just a matter of posting them up, so hopefully i can get around to linking them onto this blog sometime in the near future...

hmm... the more and more i spend time with my team, the more easier it's getting to settle down in this busy city of ho chi minh - everyone here is getting along just fine, and gradually breaking out of their shells ;o) the past few days have just been so wonderful. i can't wait to see what the next few weeks have to offer. it's only been a week, but i've already discovered how visually stimulating this city truly is - the colours, the people, the buildings, everything... 4 months may not be enough for me to absorb everything. but i sure am gonna do my best to try ;o)

hope the rest of y'all are doing well - for those of you who are starting school again, or on their co-op terms, hope everything is just peachy-keen!

until the next blog post...
estelle

"the heat is on in saigon!", indeed!

2004-09-09T16:56:00.000+09:00

today was yet another scorcher. a blazing 31+ degrees celsius, give or take 10+ degrees on top of that with the smog and the humidity. oy. i've discovered ho chi minh's equivalent to starbucks or tim horton's: AQ. liz, matt, bill, and i decided to cool off by grabbing some iced coffee or caphe sua (pron. "cafe suah") - but after seeing that there was a wide variety of fresh fruit smoothies on the menu, our tastebuds lead us in that direction instead. really, you can never go wrong with a nice cool glass of fresh mango shake, blended to perfection. *muah*

other events that happened today included checking out the canadian consolate, strolling around downtown ho chi minh city, and accidentally stumbling upon the notre dame cathedral that was built by the french during the days of colonization. but unfortunately it was closed for the day, so we plan on coming back... :o)

oh, and it seems we have another resident staying at our place. a cute little lizard (for those ilongo ppl reading this, a "tiki"). i found him staring right at me once i opened my room door this morning. cute little thing, if you ask me. i named him herbert. there's actually a lot of them scurrying around the buildings here in ho chi minh city. but better than cockroaches, for sure. :o)

so now i'm here, back at the language center, passing time before my first tag-team lesson with liz. she thought it would be a good idea for me to jump into teaching mode by teaching the students one activity in tonight's class. tonight's topic: the weather. as i went through the lesson plan, i felt my first sensation of nostalgia: not being able to see the leaves change auburn, brown, orange, and gold this coming fall. why i let it hit me now, i have no idea, but it's sinking in. it's something so small, and yet, i know it'll be something that'll i'll miss - especially since i've come to learn that vietnam has 2 seasons: dry and rainy. we're currently in the rainy season which will pretty much last till the beginning of november... eeeps.

saturday i'll be giving a placement test to the high school kids on the other campus with bill, and then a grand dinner hosted by the landlord of my house. and who knows where the rest of the weekend will take me? :oD

that's one thing about vietnam - you never plan more than "20 minutes" ahead. :o)

chao for now!
estelle

xin chao!

2004-09-07T11:25:00.000+09:00

greetings from ho chi minh city, vietnam! first of all, i'm sorry for the delay in reply. we still haven't set up a computer at the house yet - i'm actually in the school office as i type this. *sigh* when i said i was going to be amidst the hustle and bustle of this city, i sure wasn't kidding. it's been on the get-go since i first set my feet in this wonderful city... so, without further adue, here's a breakdown of what i've been up to in the past few days:

tuesday, august 31
after a tearful goodbye to my family and the triple j soul sisters (hesed, i'm so sorry i missed you and your family by only a matter of minutes!), i hopped on a plane for sunny, hot and humid californ-i-a. once i landed in LA, oddly enough the adventures just kept happening one after the another - truth be told, i haven't had such excitement in one day and a half. it all started when kim, my coordinator and i headed out for pasadena after picking me up at the LAX airport. on the freeway, not even 10 minutes after we leave the LAX, we see a small white ford car swerve in between the wheels of a huge flat-bed semi-truck. the truck's wheels completely rolled over the car's hood at over 65 miles an hour... glass breaking, metal crunching, tires screeching, smoke fuming all over the freeway - and we're watching this at only a few meters distance and only one lane over. after the car finished spinning a 360, the driver still managed to bring it over to the side of the road AND get out of his car, unscratched and un-bruised to check out the damage. several cars stopped to help him out, however the driver of the truck that ran the poor car over KEPT ON DRIVING at FULL SPEED! kim and i managed to catch up to him 15 minutes later on the same freeway, took down his licence plate number and called 911 to report the case. it was like watching Speed all over again. unbelievable. but thankfully (read: miraculously) no one was hurt in the end... talk about your warm welcomes :o) ... only in the states i guess ;o)
they had me start training the moment i got there - what was normally a 5-week training session was packed up into 2 days, as i was told that i would be leaving wednesday night for hong kong. watching videos and one-one training sessions filled the rest of my day. i was able to stay the night at the william carey international university in pasadena - such a beautiful campus. waterloo doesn't even hold a candle. just outside my dorm room, right when you step out, there is an incredible view of these mountains, and it's really just breathtaking. the atmosphere and the scenery was just beautiful. i was almost disappointed that i couldn't stay longer and admire it all, and just let everything sink in...

wednesday, september 1
(happy birthday kris!) after more training, a compacted 25 minute practice-lesson in front of the other teachers at ESI, and a superb send-off dinner with kim, i was again off to the LAX. however, i was faced with yet another obstacle - only half an hour before we were supposed to head to the airport, the zipper of my carry-on decides to be fickle and completely breaks, leaving me with no way to open my bag. trying not to panic, kim willingly drives me to the closest marvin's multi-purpose department store so i can find a cheap, affordable, yet stylish bag that i could quickly transfer my entire universe of belonings into before we got to the airport. the cheapest bag i could find was $30 US - yeesh. it wasn't even that cute... :oP but we made it to the airport in good time. thinking that everything else would go smoothly, we then realized that on my visa papers, it had me listed as an american citizen, when clearly my passport and the rest of the documentation i had in my slightly-beginning-to-sweat hands read otherwise - not a good thing. apparently kim was able to set things straight on the receiving end in ho chi minh city, but not in time to get everything arranged and updated in the states. oy. so, we had decided to keep things quiet and just not tell the airline people at cathay pacific unless specifically asked. we made it through - man, if ever i had a james bond moment, that would definitely be it. SO... thinking that nothing else could go wrong, well... it did. when checking my baggage in, one of my suitcases was over the weight limit by 2 kilos. so, i'm here thinking... not a big deal, i'll just switch some stuff around the two suitcases, and everything will be peachy - BUT... what i thought would only take a few minutes, ended up holding the rest of the baggage line up, because the guard had trouble locking and re-locking the locks on my suitcase, and couldn't find the right key... so, here i am, l'il ol' me, looking really sheepish at this point and slightly embarrassed at the fact i was holding everyone up, especially because it was during peak hours and everyone was on the rush to get outta there. *sigh* i guess that since this was my first time travelling by air on my own, it only made sense that i experience everything and anything all at once :oP but thankfully the guards took pity on me and let me proceed, luggages locked and boarding pass safely in hand...
... and then there was customs. man, i knew that the states were strict about it, but dang... if i had to remove any more articles of clothing, i'd be a little exposed - and that's all i gotta say about that :oP but once i got through customs, the coast was finally clear - in a matter of 14 hours and 45 minutes, i would be in hong kong.

friday, september 3
(happy belated birthday yesterday cristina!) - i arrive at the hong kong airport for a 2 hour-stop over before heading to ho chi minh city... not much to say about the hk airport, other than the scenery was once again captivating - the mountains that surrounded the island were just amazing to look at, but were unfortunately covered by a slight fog for most of the time i spent there. the sun popped out finally once i was on the plane.
after another 2 hours or so on another plane, and i am finally in ho chi minh city, vietnam. apparently i had no trouble fitting in, because everyone here actually thinks i look vietnamese - when i had to get my landing visa approved, it took me about 30 minutes to explain to him that i didn't have a clue of what he was saying... but it was funny that we both took humour from it all. it's a completely different world over here, but strikingly familiar to what i remembered when i visited the philippines a few years back. the people here are just wonderful - very pleasant, and very hospitable. once i was picked up at the airport by my newfound friends doung (pron. "tune") and quang (pron. "whang"), we went to see the school office, and then had lunch at a pho (pron. "phah") restaurant nearby. what's pretty convenient and really cool about ho chi minh is that no matter where you go, there's always a store or something nearby - everything is in easy access. the girls and i have this running gag that everything takes "20 minutes" to get to. :o) another thing that i noticed the moment i got here was that everyone who's anyone here rides a motorcycle - the number of motorcycles actually outnumber the cars here. and crossing the street is a challenge all on its own. i haven't had the courage yet to hop onto a motorcylcle taxi just yet (called a "sey on"), but who knows, knowing that i could easily buy one for a little over $300 US (and we're talking BIKES not mopeds), i might just invest some money and purchase my own... :oD
after lunch, the girls took me to where i'll be staying for the next little while - because things seem to be up in the air about some schedules and teacher positions at the moment, there had been an overflow of teachers at the house i was supposed to be staying at. right now they have me staying at another guest house "20 minutes" away from the original house. the houses in vietnam are tall, and extended upwards, rather than sideways. some houses can have 6 floors, whereas others can have 10 - with no elevators at all. my buns are definitely gonna get a good workout while i'm here :o) i'm actually pretty overwhelmed at the hospitality the people here have shown to me so far - i almost feel like i'm living a life of luxury. i've never had someone hired to wash my clothes before, and i've never had someone hired to drive me where i want to go and when i want to go. it's crazy, but these people are so genuinely friendly. so far everyone has done more than enough to help make the transition from living in canada to here so smooth, and it's just been so wonderful to still be able to feel a sense of being at home.

saturday, september 4
there's another teacher named matthew (also from canada, eh!) who came after me, and is also staying with me at the guest house. we picked him up at the airport, and then had lunch again with duong and quang. once he got himself settled down, we got ready for dinner and met up with the rest of our teaching team. there's aaron (who is 6'7"!), jeremiah (from texas), liz (from arizona and my newfound dance partner), max (a former journalism prof), and bill (... really quiet but friendly). such a great bunch of people - a lot of us have different personalities, which is good because we seem to balance each other out :o) after dinner at saigon pho (a really posh restaurant in the heart of ho chi minh city, but with relatively cheap prices), aaron wanted to show me and matt some of the nightlife in ho chi minh city. he then asks me... "do you guys like karaoke?" - not even 10 minutes later, we find ourselves in a crowded taxi and heading down for the nearest karaoke joint. i then make the conclusion that i absolutely ADORE these people - watching them sing and dance to popular 80s hits such as "eye of the tiger", "oh what a feeling", "say you, say me" - it was awesome. we even did a l'il "daaaay-o" on the side :o) definitely good times. the locals must have thought we were crazy, because we were just that loud, and maybe even perhaps slightly obnoxious.

sunday, september 5
aaron took us to this international church service that was held at the duxton hotel in the central part of ho chi minh city (formerly the saigon prince hotel) - gorgeous atmosphere. it was a christian service specifically geared for foreigners who spoke english - it was awesome. the worship band was actually pretty good, and i knew most of the songs, and learned some new ones too. i also met an array of fabulous people, including this guy named alvin gonzales sanchez - he's filipino, and a missionary teaching english in vietnam. he even speaks ILONGO - it was absolutely refreshing to be able to talk to him in ilongo, which was pretty funny, considering he didn't think he would be able to find anyone who spoke the language in vietnam... i also met some more people who were from the states, even from canada. just awesome... after church, we went over to this place called cappuccino's in the tourist district of ho chi minh city. most of the backpackers and westerners in seek of "comfort food" go there to schmooze and browse the tourist attractions. and i must say, their pizza actually does taste like pizza - yummmy... as much as i love my pho, i gotta say that the occasional grease fix definitely does the body good. :o)

monday, september 6
yesterday i was able to sit in on one of liz's classes to learn the ropes and prepare for next week when i start to teach the students. it's a wide variety when it comes to age-range and knowledge-capacity, but it's amazing how eager everyone is to learn english. and it kinda makes me realize how much of it we really do take for granted - these students try so hard to keep up with the class and absorb so much that i just can't help but sit back in awe of it all. and the smiles on their faces help remind me how much i really want to be here and do this... one funny moment was when i was sitting at the back, observing, and this cute middle-aged woman named xinh (pron. "sin") asked me if i was a student or a teacher. once i explained to her that i could be teaching the class next week, she further asked for my age. when i told her i was 23, she then asked me if i was married. after telling her no, she then elaborately explained that she has 3 sons who are 21, 24, and 26 who are all in school, and can speak english, and just happen to be single. she even slyly (but cutely) managed to pass a wink or two while she talked. such a wonderful lady... hehe but thankfully i managed to gracefully sway her into talking about other topics... like fruit markets and motorcycles. :o)

... which brings us to today - nothing much has happened just yet, other than confirming my teaching schedule. it looks like i'll be teaching at the language center either 3 hours on mondays and wednesdays, or tuesdays and thursdays. once october hits, i'll also be teaching a couple of classes at the high school on top of that. their weekends are from friday-sunday, so my schedule seems pretty light as is, so in that free time, i hope to see as many things as possible while i'm here for the next 4 months. this weekend coming up, i think we're planning on heading out to the mekong delta to look at the water markets, see a bit of water puppetry somewhere in the city, and perhaps even manage to fit an exploring of the cu chi tunnels that were used during the vietnam war... other future events include heading down to a local seamstress with liz and have our very own ao dais (cultural dress - pron. "aye yaies") sewn for us four our outing to the opera house, and maybe try to fit in a pagoda tour around the city... wowsers. talking about putting the hustle in the bustle :o)

wish you guys were here :o)
luv always,
estelle

new life chapter = new blog

2004-08-31T02:45:00.000+09:00

I've got a funny feeling that I'm gonna go away
Gonna face my future, gonna try to make the grade
I've got a ways to go from here and
Vision doesn't seem so clear but
Praise God He's got a plan and
Understanding isn't my place...

-- from Sanctus Real's After Today

***

gonna take a sentimental journey...

all packed and ready to go. i leave toronto at exactly 8:05am for sunny pasadena, california... and after 3 days of intense teacher's training at the william carey international univeristy, i'm gonna be shipped off to vietnam for 4 months to teach english to high school and university students in ho chi minh city.

bring it on! :oD