Taking it day by day

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We apologise for the long delay between postings, but any earlier news from us would have been a less than favourable recap. We’ve been in Danang for three weeks now, but we are far from settled into our new jobs and our new place of residence. And while we admit that there was some talk of pulling the chutes, things are starting to improve.

As you all can imagine, moving to a new city and starting a new job is a stressful experience. Combine that with a seemingly backwards culture and a foreign language and suddenly renting a house, finding good restaurants to eat at, seeking affordable, reliable transportation and setting up bank accounts, etc. becomes a major, time-consuming headache.

Most of all, we’ve discovered that teaching is a challenging, humbling and sometimes just plain embarrassing experience.

We're both teaching adults and juniors (6-11 years olds). There is such dichotomy between the two in terms of what motivates them, what stimulates them and how they learn. Additionally, when it comes to us making mistakes in the classroom, the nature of what is considered faux pas in the eyes of adults versus children is like night and day. It’s hard to say which is worse: incorrectly identifying the grammatical form of the present perfect simple with an adult class or incorrectly doing the hokey pokey with the children (true stories).

We teach adults on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings and children on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Our days are spent teaching, planning lessons, finding food, watching movies and/or sleeping. Our lack of experience—and somewhat perfectionist tendencies—has us spending most of our “free time” planning lessons. To clarify, we don’t get paid to plan so we’re working on that.

Our busy schedules have left little time for blog reflection or photography excursions, so we don’t have a lot to say or show you right now. Just wanted to let you all know we are doing fine and thinking about everyone and everything at home more than ever. We’ll write again soon with more stimulating words and images of our new surroundings.

Until next time,
The Smiths

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Photos

Rooftop view of the Han River
On March 27 and 28 Danang hosted the International Fireworks Competition. Teams from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Canada competed for the title. Canada won (didn't you hear about it?), but we didn't get to see their display; we were teaching.
The Han River, which basically splits the city in two, was lit with thousands of small red lanterns, further illuminated by the glow of the city's lights. All of the hotels in town were fully booked and guests were able to watch the show from the rooftops.

Town square
The competition attracted tens of thousands of visitors to the city, who flocked to the streets in hopes of catching a glimpse of the fireworks.

Look up in the sky
People were extremely friendly toward us when we were wading through the busy streets.

Smokin
Vietnam's display included lighting up the Han River bridge. It was spectacular.

Pool days
During the last week or so of our vacation in Saigon, we spent a few days lounging poolside with our friends.

The best pho in Vietnam
Our breakfast staple in Saigon: Vietnamese coffees and pho from our favourite restaurant, Bi Saigon. We have come to refer to it as "our mother's pho" as we have yet to find a better bowl in our travels so far.

Galaxy Cinemas
We took in a movie in Saigon. While the movie (27 Dresses) is not worth discussing, it was an interesting experience. The subtitles were in Vietnamese (obviously) but the film was in English. Oddly, we had assigned seating in the theatre - about 10 rows back of where we would choose to be - even though it was half empty.

Marc in heaven
Our friends Stacy and Annabel got teaching jobs in Vung Tao, the beach city we previously visited. Along with Mike and Hannah, we went there to spend the day with them and found a driving range to putz around at.

Munching
Annabel, Mike, Hannah and Marc watching the sunset on Front Beach in Vung Tao. We were too busy pigging out on Pringles and chocolate bars to notice that the pink helmet at Mike's feet was stolen (along with another bike helmet) while we were sitting there.

Vung Tao sunset
Another sunset photo. Hope you're not getting tired of them!

Comments

[Alison]

Looks like you're having a lot of fun! What an amazing experience, enjoy every second of it.

[Chill]

Ha- You should see the kids laugh at me- Just kick them out and publicly humiliate them- thats what I do! jj- Planning is for squares- The only way to fly is by the seat of your pants- You guys rock- Miss you both- Tiger is 4 back

[Auntie Marcia]

Hang in there....
As much as you think it might be getting boring for us now, it is not. What becomes interesting are the 'unplanned' lessons, and the 'life' lessons. What your students are teaching you. Its all good. Love, Marcia

[Ryan]

Smitty, nice work keeping your head down on the ball. "Text book" form. ps- Tiger couldn't make a putt on Sunday and still finished in second

[Jill]

That pho looks good. what's in it? remember that the good and the bad are all part of one. plan a little less and don't worry about looking like a dufuss... who's the one who speaks english? ;)

[Tracy]

Hang in there
I know how tough the adjustments can be. When you mention setting up bank accounts, I cringe, because I never left the bank without having had some kind of scene, complete with tears. You don't know red tape til you've lived in Vietnam. As for chocolate bars, I gained a real appreciation for Snickers and Mars, our only choices. Same? Hang in there til you can do some more travelling! It's worth it!