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Published: September 4th 2006
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Thanh Van
Or Ariel as she likes to be called. Not one of my students but a girl at our school. Apologies for delay in stories and news and photos! All I seem to be doing is working again so not much of interest has been happening of late. I then tend to forget how much I enjoy writing my blog so happy to be doing it this sunny sunday afternnon!
The weather has actually been quite cool recently, although the evil sunshine does tend to pop its ugly head out during the weekends, which means my plans for walking around the city running errands is completely foiled! For those that don't know, I'm taking antibiotics that react with sunlight to cause a phototoxic reaction (??) so I have been covering up like a proper Vietnamese girl! During the week I'm always at school and in the mornings when I drive to work it's quite cool and cloudy so no trouble there. The drive home from work is done in the dark as it gets dark quite early here, so really, the weekends bugger up my plans of any kind of exercise!
Last week I had three of my wisdom teeth pulled out. It really, really hurt! I'm not going to pretend I wasn't on the verge of crying and
My class
Some kids are still away on holiday so samll class and 3 teachers! YAY! We're the Tigers hence the tiger in the picture! calling out for my mummy on that damn dentist's chair!!! I told him I hated dentists and 'you people' (so as to include the dental nurse) and the procedure took 2 hours. I had difficult teeth apparently and I have tried to take a picture of them (because obviously I brought them home - and no I don't believe in the tooth fairy anymore, I just wanted proof of my bravery!). All the teeth had curved roots and one of them was at a 45 degree angle so ripped my gum. Oh well, the procedure wasn't pleasant but the recovery was hell. I got a lot of pain relief, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and so on and the concoction would just make me vomit. However because I couldn't eat anything anyway, I wasn't throwing up much! I spent a week of pure hell. One of our friends here is leaving to return to America to do her masters so this past week has been a case of, "let's go eat here because Suzanne is leaving" which is great except I couldn't eat anything! Found myself being convinced to go to the New World Hotel Brunch buffet (all you can eat) last Sunday,
Hoang Minh
He's so cute!!! paid 27 dollars, ate one dish, went home and threw it up because of the medication! Now, that's what I call value for money! 😊 Or the time when we went for Sushi and I got a piece of cauliflower stuck inside the now cavernous hole in the back of my mouth....Anyway, I'm fine now, and after losing 3 kilos in a week I am making up for lost time now!
Briony, Suzanne and I found a Rollerdisco place a couple of weeks back and as entertainment is kind of lacking in HCMC (it's a great place to eat food but lacking somewhat in other areas) we decided to give it a go. Now believe me when I tell you that I have never seen people skate as well as those kids at that roller disco.... it was unbelievable. They were jumping over things and going under people's legs and just being ridiculously extreme on 4 mini-wheels! Obviously, I can't skate for sh!t so I sat down to avoid being run over. It was a lot worse than rush hour traffic in Saigon. Briony and Suzanne skated for a little bit before they started to be pushed and shoved,
Yuuuuummy!
Waffle mania at La Fenetre Soleil so after half an hour of that we left. We did find this adorable place called La Fenetre Soleil, where we had breakfast this morning. It has couches and big pillows and even a four poster bed that you can sit on and eat on and read on! It's a great place for Saturday and Sunday lazing about! They serve some amazing waffles with ice cream and tropical fruit which is YUMMY!!! Everyday I realise how big this city is in terms of places to go and eat. There are far too many things I have yet to discover and so until I see more of what the city has to offer, I'm not leaving.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I will do when I feel the time is right to leave Ho Chi Minh City. I have decided that I won't return to Portugal just yet, I feel that I can gain excellent experience in the international schools out here, so Id prefer to stay here and continue to travel and immerse myself in another country's culture. It makes such a difference in comparison to just visiting for 3 weeks. So next possible
War Museum
American Tank stop could be Hong Kong or Japan. I had an excellent job offer from a school in Hong Kong but had to turn it down as it was to start this September and I have comitted myself to my current school for a year, and will fulfill that. And plus, there is still a lot to see and do here! I haven't started Vietnamese language or cooking lessons yet!!!!
This morning, before breakfast I also went to the War Remnants Museum with Suzanne as she is leaving tomorrow. The museum is dedicated to the French and American wars in Vietnam from the 1950's until 1975. It's a graphic photo exhibition and many times I thought how cruel and harsh life was back then, only to be reminded that this cruel and harsh life is being lived by people this very day, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon to name but a few. Towards the end of the museum there are many photos of people protesting in various parts of the world about the Vietnam war and it's a bit of an anti-climax, as the fire of the hope that most people in the world despise war is extinguished by the politicians who
War Museum
American plane do not listen to the majority of the population. And really, is this democracy?
On a happy note 😊 I'm really looking forward to Rita coming over in October! I'm looking forward to some more travelling through Vietnam as they (Rita and friends) wil be arriving in Hanoi (so I'll be checking out Hanoi for a few days before) and then we'll be catching the train down to HCMC stopping at different places on the way.
Hope everyone is well and please keep in touch! It can sometimes get a little lonely over here and a message from you would be the perfect thing to cheer me up!
Take care,
love Rooj xxx
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Lisa
non-member comment
deep
getting philosophical man! i'm sorry, i had to laugh about the cauliflower incident :-) hope you're feeling much better and not wasting away you skinny malinky!