C & C do En Zed

En Zed

Or to those of us who speak regular English, that would be New Zealand, land of The Lord of the Rings, Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Hobbit.  But...also some of the most diverse landscapes in the world due to its crazy volcanic remains, glacial gluttony and mash of tectonic plates (those are the technical descriptions, right Lauren?)  This also happens to be part of the backwards side of the world where they drive on the wrong side of the road. Which means that nobody ever knows when we are turning because Clayton turns on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal.  In his words, "WHY wouldn't all steering columns be the same?!" (But said in an exasperated high pitched wail after tricking a car behind that we were turning when in fact he just needed to wipe the windshield).

They do speak funny here though-"z" is pronounced "zee" to normal people. To them, it's "zed".  So, they would actually say "Zed Zed Top."  What?  A common term I find particularly entertaining is the word "jumper" as in "it was so cold I had to wear my jumper". You had to wear what?! They make those in adult sizes too?? I didn't realize that cute little onesies were appropriate adult wear. But what they refer to as a "jumper" is what we call a "sweatshirt"...I think (and hope). I still could never refer to my sweatshirt as a "jumper" without cracking up.

Here is a riddle for you...what would be your first reaction if someone says to you, "How are you going" (which actually sounds like "Haw'yr goin'")? My first time went something like, "uh, stammer, stammer, going, stammer... (And this is where I replay what they just said and think-are they asking where I'm going or how I'm going...where? Do I say what kind of vehicle I'm going in or where I'm going next? Or in this specific case-which was at a restaurant-were they asking what I was going to eat?) Now I'm an experienced En Zed traveler (though they also use this phrase in Australia) and after many an awkward reply, now stick to a standard answer of "good!" Then I equally stump them by adding on a: (good) thanks! And how are you?  I wonder if they also think, 'is that the end of the question? Is she adding something else onto the end...how are you...what? Going, doing...etc, because their answers are usually a mix of confusion and stammers as well. Makes everything equal again!

We booked our tickets to En Zed in July and I (being the obsessive travel coordinator and controller) confirmed all our travel reservations by August in fear that the busiest season here would quickly book up for January (their "summer").  I expected plenty of summer traffic, busy towns and crowded streets. But-did you know that the population of New Zealand-both islands (!!) is ONLY 4.4 million?  That's half the population size of New York City itself.  So the only crowded areas were the sheep populated grassy hillsides of the central interior. In fact the population of sheep is somewhere around 60 million...a ratio of 15:1..wow.  It was not crazy summer tourist busy-by my standards-which was wonderful!

So here is a little run down of our adventures.  We flew into Christchurch, then drove around the perimeter of the south island ending again in Christchurch.  Unfortunately we didn't see any of the north island-but we had to leave something for a future trip!

Day 1-3 was Clayton's "mancation". He spent 2 full days catching slimy fish, stomping up and down rivers, and whipping a fly rod around (without any accidental human hookings).  I treated myself to lots of naps, some good reading, running through the mountains (they kicked my ass) and a few bottles of wine...by myself (it was amazing).

Day 4 we drove to the southwest side of the island, a scenic 600 km trek-which by US standards is a normal days drive. Here, it's only a drive crazy Americans would do (it makes up about a quarter of the South Island).  I'm pretty sure we saw more sheep that day than we have ever seen put together in our years of existence.  Today was also the first day we filled the gas tank.  After doing the liters to gallon conversion came out to...drum roll...$8 USD per gallon. Wha?? That combined with a 6 pack of microbrews costing an average of $15-17 USD was enough to make me think...God Bless America! Say what you will but the average salary in NZ is no bigger (if not less) than an average American salary.  Islands are expensive!!

Day 5 and 6 were spent in the Fiordland national park (think Lord of the rings...but real life!!)  Unfortunately En Zed didn't account for our presence as vacationers and rained 2/3 days that we were there. However, luck was upon us one day and we were able to take our much anticipated helicopter flight through Doubtful Sound. When I wasn't afraid I was going to pee my pants it was pretty damn AMAZING. Definitely the highlight of the trip. The helicopter dropped us at the top of Mt. Luxmore-a popular overnight destination for backpackers, holding 60 bunks. We passed many a "tramper" hauling their packs up 14 km to the lodge while we lazily "tramped" on down.  I didn't expect it to rain so much though (which was why I didn't even bring my raincoat). Hello NZ?? We are on VACATION.  The country did redeem itself with enough microbrews and wine to keep me happily occupied while we waited things out.  We had to cancel our kayaking plans the second day due to heavy rains, closed roads and flooding, but it turns out that wine and beer tastes the same whether you are stuck inside playing cards or sitting alfresco on a nice summers day.

Day 7 and 8 started a little iffy when we found out that the only road north was closed due to...all the unusual summer rain. A bridge had been washed out, so our choices were to take a 9 hour detour or change our plans for the next few days. I would say that on a scale of 1-10 of my abilities to "go with the flow," I'm a -2. I suck at it. When we heard that we needed to change our trip because of the road closure I probably reacted the same as if I had heard that the sky is falling.  So we cancelled all our bookings and tours, re-booked at another inland location and headed north in hopes that the road might just happen to open by the time we dawdled there. Just as we had given up and were making the final decision to head on our detour...the road miraculously opened...at 4 pm, closing at 9 pm. So we cancelled our re-booking, re-booked our original bookings and sped off towards the Fox and a Franz Joseph glaciers. Apart from the general appeal of snow topped mountains and glaciers, these 2 are special in that they are 2 of only 3 glaciers in the world that butt up against a rainforest running to the sea (the only other one is located in Argentina).  Although they are only 2 of some 3000 or so glaciers in En Zed, their location and speed makes them big hits on the tourist track. If there was a glacial race, these would be the winners, traveling 6-7mm in a day! Whoa-right? This also meant nothing to me except that they are therefore way more dangerous compared to other glaciers which are dangerous in their own right. To me then it seems that this may not be the best area to try out ice climbing for the first time. So because I'm such a pansy the closest we got to the glacier was the area roped off by the national parks to corral all the other tourists and keep them from doing something stupid like falling down a crevasse or getting impailed by falling ice chunks or rocks. (Which has happened.)

 

Day 9-12 started with a picturesque drive north along the west coast. We ended in the Abel Tasman area where we planned on spending 4 days kayaking, hiking and biking our way around the region. The weather had other plans for us... For an area of NZ that gets the most sun of any other, not to mention the fact that it was the middle of summer and the region was in a drought...to get hit with 3/4 of our days with RAIN was a blessing only to the farmers in the area... Day 1 in the area: kayak trip cancelled due to rain. In lieu of that we walked around the valley laden, grape vine strewn, olive, cherry and apple tree orchard melting pot of land with a goal of hitting up 3 wineries on foot. We arrived at the first one and plunked ourselves down in the garden for a bottle and a cheese plate. Our timing and my sense of distance was a bit off to meet our goal, so although we walked the entire 15 or so km of country roads, didn't make it to either of the other 2 wineries in time. We did have a good wine buzzed walk back with many a baaa, mooo and snort from animals along the way. Day 2: tried our luck at kayaking again...no cancellations except for a cloudy forecast and more rain starting in the afternoon. We set out, covered the recommended distance in about 1/4 of the time intended, saw families of seals flapping around along the shore, gawked at a few stingrays and jellyfish following alongside our boat and managed to avoid capsizing for the entire 20+km of the way and arrived back just in time for the rain to start. So, instead of a bike ride we opted to drive into town for dinner and to see The Hobbit (we were in NZ anyway-would be a shame to miss it on a big screen!) Day 3: woke up to rain...rain all day...bike plans cancelled again...so spent the day winery hopping via motorized vehicle instead.  It was probably good because Clayton would have been really tired carrying all 9 of the wine bottles we bought that day had we been on bicycle. :)

Day 13-15...raise of hands for those who have ridden a bicycle loopy? How about wine loopy? It's super fun, right?! Until you get 50 meters past your last stop of the day (6 in total...) and realize that you are not Lance Armstrong and that was not the 7 km left to go (though it seemed like suuuuuch a ways even at that point.) Then...you realize that you have had to pee since about 2 wineries ago, but conveniently forget as soon as you leave-your excitement of the next destination taken over for the warnings from your bladder.  At that point the breezes turn into gale force winds (or at least that is what you tell yourself as to WHY your legs only seem to pedal at snail pace) and panic sets in that by the time you get back home (still another 6.5 km to go) you may very well have ridden off your wine buzz!! Whose idea was it to ride bikes around to all the wineries anyway?! Oh, right...that was me... 

End of the journey...full perimeter of NZ South Island...check...day 16-18 in Christchurch. Due to the massive earthquake in Feb of 2010, followed by the many aftershocks, a large part of the central business district was abandoned, crumbling and shut down. Signs of the earthquake are still everywhere-old brick buildings secured with what looks like monstrous zip ties, demolished piles of wood and brick, fences EVERYWHERE. To quote Clayton "it looks like the set of one of those post apocalypse zombie movies"-stores abandoned, but still mannequins, shelves and posters littering the buildings. . It's definitely a good time to be in the fence business... First day there I took advantage of some fresh air park trails, then we headed into town to a local fair trade coffee shop in route to the "temporary" CBD shopping area of shipping container turned shops and restaurants. It was initially a way for the shops to get up and running again, though turned into a more permanent funky architectural mall. After that it was a soccer game, lots more cappuccinos and a few more glasses of wine and micro brews to round off the trip.

Christchurch did give us a little flavor of its quakiness...while we were sitting in the theater, the largest aftershock since last July of 2012 hit (4.6 was officially recorded). It came right at a fairly climatic part...and I thought for a second...wow! This 3-D is AMAZING...then I immediately registered...this is not a ride. Had anyone else around me started panicking-I may have too. But just seemed like another day to them I suppose... I do like being on solid ground better.

New Zealand...you did not disappoint!  (Expect maybe the unseasonable rain). Until the next time!!

Our pictures are in the first slideshow on the left.  Apologies in advance...we got a new camera...

Basketball in Vietnam??

Yeah, I questioned that too when I heard that a new professional team had just started in Ho Chi Minh City.  How tall do these people actually come?  And since when do they even play basketball here??  But HCMC is slowly becoming more of an international city and I suppose the sport was on its way here at some point.  The “Saigon Heat” plays in the Asean Basketball League (ABL) with 7 other teams from the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia.  As for the dance team for the half time show…bet you can’t guess the name?  Yeah, you got it…”The Hot Girls”.  Somehow the thought of little Vietnamese girls, whom I usually picture in innocent white ao dais, in scandalous cut off tops and the shortest of shorts trying their best to sex it up during the half time show just seems…wrong.  But everything comes miniature here, and so do the “Hot Girls”. 

Last fall one of my patients who was involved with organizing the team asked if I wanted to help them out-be something like the team physio or whatever.  Not having any idea what I was agreeing to, I said, “sure, why not?”  Within the week I was meeting the coach and the team and being thrown into this VERY new sport to Vietnam.  The league itself has rules about import players, so though I am sure in your mind you are picturing Asians running amok, its largely imports like Americans and Pilipinos battling it out on the court.  (Did you know that basketball is the national sport in the Philippines?)  The Saigon Heat has their max 5 imports with two very tall Americans and 3 other Philippine passport holders making up the starting line up.  The rest are national Vietnamese, some from HCMC and others from Hanoi who get a small amount of playing time.  Coincidentally, the Head Coach is from Milwaukee, WI, coached for a guy I graduated high school with (who now plays professionally for Japan), and is personally friends with the basketball coach from Tosa East (my high school).  Small world…  But he is pounding the good old Midwestern work ethic into these guys and trying to mold them into a winning team best he can.  Something I can relate to at least!

They guys loved it when I made them do yoga ;)

My role didn’t come with a job description, so as the season went on, it morphed from physical therapist to trainer to Ho Chi Minh City advisor to “team mom”…what?  Yeah, I don’t know how that happened either-but it turns that that no matter how old they are, guys still need someone to take care of them ;)  But my position with them also meant that I got the opportunity to travel to the away games and see cities that I may otherwise not have gotten the chance to see such as Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Singapore.  More importantly, I got the chance to try the local foods…which of course was my favorite part!  In Manila, because a couple of the players lived there, I got a chance to really see the city-touring safely inside their cars.  The Pilipino players and their families graciously made huge efforts to show me the “local” side of Manila…including taking me out for amazing seafood feasts and treating me to homemade meals of pork, fish and beef local specialties.

Kristine (one of the player's fiancee's) and her mom with the awesome dinner they made in Manila!

The first home game that I attended with the team was against the San Miguel Beermen from the Philippines…wonder who sponsors them…  The arena that they play in in Ho Chi Minh City is a bit rough around its edges, but works anyway.  The place holds enough seating for 2,000 and the game was sold out and jam packed!  This was definitely an anomaly…a sport that is so rarely played here that included with each ticket was a flyer explaining the rules of the game and when to (or more importantly when NOT to) cheer had a sold out game… was a shock to just about everyone.  My irritations and complaints with this country are endless, BUT the pride that this country also has for its new 1^st professional basketball team is priceless.  Made me remember why this city is so special sometimes-the MAJORITY of the fans attending the game literally had no idea what was going on, but were so thrilled about this new sport in Vietnam that they came out in droves, complete with huge signs to cheer on their new home team.

The start of the season was rocky to say the least…but the fans continued to fill the stadium with each home game win or lose and progressively got more and more lively.  They began creating giant posters with players names and numbers, created huge cartoon figures with the player’s faces, painted themselves, learned to heckle the opposing teams, and mauled the players after the games with requests for autographs and pictures.  The team broke record after record for the league in game attendance and by the end of the season nearly all of Ho Chi Minh City, expats and locals, were clambering for tickets to the final game.  To say that I have never experienced something like this before is an understatement…the games were true to American custom-Vietnamese style-with time out entertainment, half time entertainment, t-shirts being catapulted into the stands and music so loud my ears would ring all night.  The shows were anything from a flash mob to a popular Vietnamese singer performing live to a scandalous “Hot Girls” dance routine. 

The ridiculousness, absurdity or whatever you want to refer to it as would not have been complete without an actual recorded “Saigon Heat” theme song and “Hot Girls” music video…which I included here as a link because they are extremely entertaining!!  (Added bonus is that one of the Vietnamese basketball players debuts in the dance video!)

http://www.saigonheat.com/en/news/134/saigon-hotgirls-music-video-just-dance.html

http://www.saigonheat.com/en/news/126/saigon-heats-theme-song.html

But working with the team has been really fun and I enjoyed hauling my treatment table into the stadium every day and laying my elbow into their aches and pains.  It’s not exactly typical for an Asian team to have a physio on staff because we tend to be expensive, but luckily for them I was willing to help out for the experience itself-chalk it up to career building and future investments-so it ended up that I was affordable enough.  Who knows what the future holds for the Saigon Heat, but maybe I will get another chance to sit aside the players during the games, travel again with the team and lend my expertise in keeping the guys on their feet during the season!

Here is a little extra entertainment and a link to my 20 seconds of shame...I mean fame...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJLWaBwYKjM

And a few other bits & pieces of my contribution...
http://www.saigonheat.com/en/news/73/practice-yoga-and-flexibility-with-saigon-heat.html
http://www.saigonheat.com/en/coach/70/trainer-chantel-gorton.html

Holidays in Nam

We were blessed with some comic relief through the fall & holiday months as one of my best friends came to stay with us for the months of November and December. I signed Kristina up for a marketing job with a small tourism company, which actually only lasted 2 weeks because she was a little too efficient for Vietnam. She didn’t realize that job security here means find something that nobody else is good at and then TAKE YOUR TIME finishing things. She mistakenly finished a normal 2 month job in just under 2 weeks…which then only meant that she had more time to tag along with me on my adventures and dote on Ginger (who had no words of compliant). I was most surprised while she was here to have realized that so many things about the city and country were becoming the norm for me. When she gaped at the 4 people squashed on a motorbike or the mother passenger side saddling and simultaneously breastfeeding or started dry heaving from the aroma of dried fish in the market, and all she got from me was a “yeah”, I realized I have seen too much already…

But we had planned a beach trip for the first weekend she was there to hopefully draw her interests a little more and avoid her re-scheduling her flight to leave earlier (ha ha, just kidding). We took a short weekend trip to Nha Trang, a coastal resortish area that also offered some good scuba diving since Clayton has had some serious ants in his pants to get into his diving gear in Asia.

Our friends tipped us off to a new resort that was just opening and had great deals on room rates-so we tagged along on their family vacation and drug Kristina kicking and screaming (she really hates just relaxing on the beach). The three of us shared a charming little romantic 1 room bungalow (the resort was nice enough to bring an extra bed which we shoved into the corner for Kristina) and spend Saturday diving. Clayton spent a large amount of his time in college diving, so it was all we could do to keep him from jumping off the boat before the motor was turned off. However, for me it was my first time. There are certain places where we, as humans, just do not belong: outer space and beneath the ocean. I’m hoping that maybe next time my anxiety of being nibbled on by a shark, tickled by a jellyfish, using up my tank of oxygen or being left behind will lesson and I will be able to enjoy the surroundings more. This time it was more a series of: hyperventilating, talking my self into breathing normally, seeing a dark object, hyperventilating again…it just went on and on.

Luckily Kristina also got to HCMC just in time to serve as another of Clayton’s sous chefs for a good old American Thanksgiving dinner…with an imported Canadian turkey which just barely fit in our pint sized Asian oven (I should have thought about that before I bought the biggest turkey I could find).

With a combination of interesting substitutions and recipes made from scratch, we pulled it together to have the feast necessities and invited 2 other Nike families over to break in the new (*regulation size*) corn hole game Clayton had just built and enjoy a normal, loud, crazed Thanksgiving dinner. Followed of course with passing out on the couch during a football game (though we had to download a previous game-so it wasn’t exactly the same...)

Shortly after Thanksgiving Kristina and I took off to join a specialty pain psychologist from Portland, OR on a series of workshops throughout Vietnam on how to treat phantom limb pain. Beth had chosen Vietnam specifically as a great opportunity for education and instruction because of the large number of traumatic amputations still happening today due to left over land mines and other not so nice things from various wars. I found her and her project through the great wide world of google and immediately offered my time and services to help out…as long as I was all the way other here already! A surprisingly large number (up to 80%) of people who have had an amputation also have “phantom limb pain”, or pain from a body part that is no longer there. For a majority of those who do have these sensations, they are very disturbing and painful and up until now have relied on other methods and occasional heavy drug use as an attempt at a solution. Beth’s project and research was on a fairly easy method of tricking the brain into understanding that the severed limb is okay. Since our perception of pain is generated in the brain, the phantom sensations that people are feeling are almost always a “mis-circuiting” of correct information. So, by changing the way the brain understands reality versus a past event, we can control the “alarm” signals of pain and the extremely unpleasant sensations. If the brain perceives our body to be “normal”, it turns off the “alarm” and allows us to function as we always did. But anyway…all that interesting stuff aside, it was a fabulous excuse to travel and see other areas of Vietnam that I had not been to and for Kristina to tag along and see it too!

The second area we went to during the workshop was in Hue, a city in central Vietnam that is within an hours drive of an area that was heavily bombed and so has a large number of traumatic amputations still happening. Hue itself is an interesting city, recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site with a large number of tombs leftover from the Nguyen dynasty. The tombs were built for the emperors of the Nguyen dynasty (17th-19th century) often long before they actually died and so also served as their homes. We only got the chance to see one, because I thought it would be a fabulous idea to rent bikes and ride around to see them (not realizing that the one we wanted to see-the tomb of Ming Mang was a much farther trek then expected…).

But the ride through the country side was littered with old relics and tombs scattered through the rice fields and cute water buffalo roaming through the area, so the ride itself was an adventure worthy of our last afternoon. Plus, who doesn’t like getting lost in the dark on bicycles in a new city!? Additional information on the tombs: http://www.haivenu-vietnam.com/des-hue-royal-tombs.htm.

Then we were off to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam (the capital moved from Saigon to Hanoi after the “reunification”-or when the North won and changed Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City and moved the capitol to the North). I had heard that Hanoi was very different to HCMC in many ways as it held to the more traditional northern ideals and was also closer to China, so had more northern influences. I was surprised to find that the people there were equally as accommodating as what we found in HCMC and the rudeness I had expected was absent.

However, the pollution was terrible-we scheduled a private car to drive us out of town to a “national park” just to get some fresh air. We were running around like freed prisoners in the fresh air and did not welcome the smog that we eventually returned to. I refused to go for a run even around a park in the city because it was so bad. And as bad as it was, Clayton said that most cities in China are 10x worse. Gross. What is the matter with us?? When it becomes the norm not to be able to see because there is a haze so thick that it obscures your vision-something is WRONG! But the national park was a fun adventure and I’m pretty sure it was the first time the driver had ever been there. In fact, I had only read about it on 2 different website sites, and pieced together information on how to get there and what there was to do. Our hotel that booked the car thought we were crazy to want to go there explaining that most tourists go to the “Disneyland” of parks in the area-“no way” we said.

Happy to return to HCMC, we soon began preparing for Christmas-and the arrival of Kristina’s boyfriend for Christmas eve. As Clayton says, “its just not the same-Christmas isn’t supposed to be hot!” But we decorated a tree & the house for him anyway, hoping to brighten his pouty mood for having to be stuck in HCMC for Christmas. Luckily he had the forethought to get a copy of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation before we moved over last year. It really would have been awful without that... But though there was not a snowflake to be seen, we managed to have a pretty great Christmas dinner anyway.

New years was probably the highlight of the holidays though (minus the following day...). Traditionally, New Year’s is not hugely celebrated, though since the western world has infiltrated most places, it has now become a huge holiday-though not as big as the Lunar New Year (which fell on Jan 23-28th this year). Never have I seen so many people all crammed into one place. We had to bail out of our taxi in the middle of the street on the EDGE of downtown at 9pm because the area was so jam packed that nothing could get through. We weaved our way through the bumper to bumper motorbikes and ran smack into a wall of people that were not going anywhere and were so thick that even Kristina couldn’t squeeze through. After backtracking and re-routing a few blocks, we found a tiny gauntlet to pass through to get to our destination. We had intended to leave the bar a few minutes prior to midnight to see the show that Heinekin so thoughtfully sponsored in the street, but after the spectacle getting there I was in no mood to head back into that... So, we rang in the New Year’s downtown in a bar and when we thought it was safe to leave ventured out to try to find a taxi. Luckily we all ran in an empty one as it was rolling down the street just in time because Clayton and Kristina were about 30 seconds away from dropping like flies. The next day wasn’t any fun for any of us, partly because of the events the night before, but mostly because we had to say goodbye to Kristina and Joel who were leaving HCMC and continuing the last of their travels in Thailand.

Shortly after that Clayton and I shoved off for our visit back to the states for the necessities: see friends & family, ski, shop at Trader Joe’s and Target...oh how we have missed you TJ’s! Couldn’t fit the whole store in our suitcases though. Damn United and their stingy baggage policies! Now we are back, with a few headaches thrown in along the way...but ready to start on year #2!

Wedding Bells Are Ringing!

Or should I say wedding balloons are popping? What? You didn't think I was talking about our wedding, did you?? This past weekend we went to our first Vietnamese wedding! I know that sounds really exciting, but it wasn’t, seriously. We were invited by the bride, who is a co-worker of Clayton’s, and because this was our first wedding in Vietnam and we didn’t want to completely embarrass ourselves, we made sure to ask some friends the necessary questions. (What is an appropriate gift, what should we NOT to do to call ourselves out even more than our huge white faces already do-that kind of thing.) Let’s just say that it was not our biggest success.

First, let me fill you in on a few details about tradition here. Keep in mind that although I have done a little light reading on the subject, I probably still have no idea what I am talking about. Anyway, our first wedding conundrum was seeing the “pre” wedding pictures. On the weekends, couples are littered about over a few “picturesque” places in the city (Notre Dam Cathedral and a park in D7 are the most popular) in full wedding garb with generally about 4 other costume changes and posing every which way possible (and when I say every which way, keep in mind, they are Asian and LOVE to take glamour shots). These pictures are done weeks before the actual event and then blown up on posters and put in a slide show so the room is jammed with cute, cuddly, sexy, and aloof pictures of the bride and groom. Apparently, the more dresses the bride has, the more affluent she is, so the higher the number the better (though I also read that the dresses are rented). The pictures are usually comprised of at least one fluffy white wedding dress, western style; 1-3 colorful, bejeweled, taffetaed ball gowns; one traditional Vietnamese garb; and one matching t-shirt photo op (the cheesier the better-cartoons, phrases, etc). For this wedding, we counted 3 white wedding dresses, a blue ball gown, a red ball gown, a traditional dress and matching red t-shirts with cartoon characters saying something about love. This also goes for the actual reception itself, though with fewer changes (and yes, she changes mid-reception).

What I didn’t know was that the “wedding” that we were invited to (and the invite actually said “wedding”) was really only the reception. Generally the couples do the official ceremony a day or 2 before the wedding. This official ceremony varies depending on religious beliefs, customs, etc. and generally lasts an entire day ++. However, what we heard from others about the Vietnamese wedding reception was true to what we experienced-every detail is the same. Vietnamese cookie cutter reception. Lots of popping balloons as the bride and groom walk into the room, game show type host introduces them and says a short speech, parents are introduced, Father says thank you (which really was all he said), couple pours some bubbly bright red concoction into stacked wine glasses, everyone eats, couple takes pictures with EACH table with red bubbly concoction in hand (then also multiply that times how many outfit changes she has), sit through some Vietnamese karaoke for 15+ minutes, go home. 2 hours and it’s over. Not really even worth getting dressed up for…

The wedding reception that we went to was on a Sunday afternoon (a lunch reception). Generally, the more money you are willing to spend the later the reception will be. So, the low income wedding receptions are at lunchtime on weekdays > week nights > lunch on weekends > dinner on weekends. But the time frame is usually only 2-3 hours regardless of time of day. One of the questions we made sure to ask was, should we arrive at exactly the invite time? Answer, if in the evenings, come 1-2 hours later. If in the afternoons, come on time (generally). Wrong…as we learned. We arrived at 11 am, which is what the invite stated and stared into a completely empty reception room. When Clayton spotted the bride, he said, “Ummm…are we at the right place? I thought the invite said 11?” She immediately covered her mouth and started giggling at our cute-foreignness (that’s what I like to think instead of stupidity). “No,” she said (in between giggles). “Everybody knows to come an hour after the invitation time.” What?? Whatever, we had the pick of the tables, got a head start on the beer, translated the menu via google translator and played a round of scrabble (what was life like BI-before iPhone?) Not only were we the biggest and whitest of anyone else there, we were ridiculously early. Oh well, could have been worse!

We did eat one new thing that we choked down purely out of respect. Sea cucumber, I would rather see you on the bottom of the ocean and not on my plate next time. The gelatinous texture and briny funky aftertaste is a bit too much for my western palate. I’m having some post-traumatic reflux as I think back… But overall, its was cute to see the bride so happy and by the end of the reception, the groom was bright red and about ready to pass out (too many mot, hai, ba, yo’s and downing of beer glasses-one per table will really do in a 110 lb Vietnamese guy). Same same, but different.

We Made It Out Alive...

Through some stroke of luck, we ended our 10-day trip to Australia without a heartbreaking sting, lethal venomous bite, nor loss of limb.  We left only with pictures, a little bit of dirt between our hiking shoes and empty wallets.  I would call it a success!  After reading Bill Bryson’s “In a Sunburned Country” my knowledge of Australia was mostly of potential life threatening wildlife, vast desert and mobs of kangaroos.  Well, he talked about other things besides this, but my mind mostly honed in on all the ways to die there.  Of course, all the Australian’s that I have met have merely batted away my fears with a “ah, no worries, you’ll be fine” (input aussie accent here).  They generally go on to say that they themselves have been stung by a blue bottle(s), which was “very painful”, but they usually manage to skillfully downplay the likely amount of “pain” that they were in, leaving me with scrunched up eyebrows and thinking there is no way in hell I am putting a single toe in that jellyfish-polluted water.  (Blue bottles, or Portuguese Man o’ War, are actually not true jellyfish, but according to wikipedia, stings usually cause severe pain to humans, leaving whip-like, red welts on the skin that normally last 2 or 3 days after the initial sting-google image, say no more.) 

You may think I am being totally irrational because things like that don’t happen when you are on vacation, right?  Well, that’s true, it didn’t happen to us, but we also visited the country in their winter, so the cold weather was enough of a bother to keep us out of the water, much less all the blue bottles that we saw washed up on the shore along the beaches.  (Yeah, we did actually spot them littering the sand on nearly all of our beach strolls…)  But I felt fairly confident that my worries could be benched for now, though only because we were going nowhere near crocodile territory, were there in the winter, so all the poisonous snakes (and there are MANY) were hibernating, and we would not be going in the water anyway (so sharks, sting rays, and jellyfish can also be subtracted from potential life-takers as well).  Now all I had to worry about was the likely possibility of Clayton exploring too far down a cliff…

Our exploration there was via a very glamorous camping trip as we rented a camper van, which included all the modern conveniences of a stove, sink, minuscule bathroom, refrigerator and heater (though as we unfortunately learned, only worked when plugged in…).  So, it allowed us get a little more off track without Clayton griping about cleaning dishes sans sink and hot water and me complaining about how much I hate the condensation inside the tent in the morning.  So after Clayton worked out his anxiety about driving a huge van with a plethora of blind spots on the wrong side of the car and wrong side of the road we managed just fine!  First up on the adventure packed Unesco world heritage-recognized itinerary was the famous Blue Mountains outside of Sydney.   “Oooooh” is what we caught ourselves saying way too much.  The area was named after the characteristic slate-colored haze from the mist of oil exuded off eucalyptus trees.  We power hiked our way through as many “bushwalks” as we could fit in in 2 days.  To quote Clayton, “it’s just like hiking in Oregon in the spring or fall.  Same, same, but different trees”.

 

While renting a camper van was a great idea, there were a few mistakes that I made...

Mistake #1) Not bringing any CD’s to listen to on the drives, having instead to bear Clayton repeatedly impersonating Elaine from Seinfeld, “maybe a dingo ate your baby” in a terrible Australian accent, trying to answer his favorite question of the day such as, “what noise do kangaroos make?” (insert annoying noises here), or making up new animals: wallabats, kookaroos, kangaburras…

Mistake #2) Assuming Australia was a warm country no matter what season it was, and more specifically because we were on vacation-the weather should have sensed our arrival and warmed accordingly.  My wool socks were way overused.

Mistake #3) Assuming that the auxiliary battery in the camper van would be fully functional when we were camping deep inside the “bush”, instead of lasting 15 minutes, then dying.  Big thanks to Clayton’s good friend Pat who gave us headlamps (intended for use during Vietnam’s roaming blackouts, though majority of use during our Australia blackout).

Despite visiting in the winter, we did see lots of wildlife: owls, colorful parrots, kookaburras (NOT sitting in gum trees, nor laughing…), kangaroos & their little joeys, wallabies, Australian monitor lizards, a dingo, monster spiders, tiny but absurdly loud frogs, washed up Portuguese man o’ war, jellyfish lazing around the waters of the Sydney harbor, and sharks at the Sydney aquarium (okay, so that last one was not actually in the wild, but we had to do at least one tourist trap while we were in Sydney!)  My one disappointment was not seeing a koala.  We had the chance to stop in a koala reserve on our way north, but Clayton vetoed the idea annoyingly commenting, “I don’t want to see them in the hospital”.  Oh well, maybe next time, Australia.

After the Blue Mountains, we meandered through the back roads, made a stop in Hunter Valley (wine country) for some awesome Australian wine, stinky cheese, fresh fudge and views of the beautiful country side.  Then we headed up the coast, stopping for a night on the beach, followed by some more bushwalking through Dorrigo National Park rainforest and a tour drive along the famous Waterfall Way, then ended our camping trip with a couple more nights along the coast.  The last of our money was spent in Sydney, where on our last day we power toured our way through the Sydney Aquarium, the Sydney fish market (second in the world only to Tokyo!), sampled way too much deep fried seafood, briefly stopped in the Maritime Museum (mostly because it was free…though there were some great exhibits), walked around the Sydney Harbor, took a ferry to Manly beach, saw harbor views of the Sydney Opera house and bridge, then lastly had a nice dinner at a small French restaurant.  Whew!

Complaints aside, we had a great trip, did lots of “bushwalking”, marveled at orange trees still holding strong despite the freezing temperatures at night, got up close and personal with nature, sans injury and re-grouped before returning to steamy, sweaty, loud, unorganized Vietnam.  Rest much needed!

We Live In A House!

I know that we have been keeping some of you in suspense about the new accommodations that we recently moved into-it has been pretty cruel to hold that back, hasn’t it? But I’m not doing it intentionally, really! I just don’t feel like it is quite “moved-into” yet, so I have not been motivated enough to start describing it. But I think it will be okay, in fact, I doubt that there will be a period during our short time here that the place will ever be full. It will likely always echo when we yell and look partially lived in, but I’m okay with that-largely because I just don’t have any more patience to find the other fill-ins. I have gone on enough treasure hunts for now.

As far as housing goes here there are a few options: lowly, boring, apartment; fancy serviced apartment; individual house; house in compound; house in BP compound. You can see how this is going right-least desirable to most desirable. The one in the middle I probably would never do only because I have heard too many tales of break-ins at houses that are outside of a compound (despite the night “guards”). A house in a compound has a gated entrance with full time guards (that actually stay awake through the night), then also gates around each house. Seems a little overkill, right? Well, some of the homes even have additional guards inside the compound-they must really have some good stuff in there! I would feel sorry for the poor guys who accidentally broke into our house instead of our neighbors…they wouldn’t walk away with much! Unfortunately theft is almost guaranteed if some measures are not taken. However, the BP compound is one of the oldest, most established and notoriously safe, flood free compounds in Ho Chi Minh City. We are still not really sure how we got lucky enough to move there, but we thank our good fortunes every day.

So, imagine a large 4 bedroom (technically 5 if you count the “maid’s room” in the back-outside entrance, of course-you wouldn’t want your maid to actually have to be seen) “French colonial” style villa, small “garden” with a patio, shiny silver gas grill & outside dining/sitting area. No private pool for us…but then again, we haven’t even gone to the compound pool since we moved into the house, so I doubt that it would get much use anyway! It is an older house, so the kitchen is unfortunately tucked into the back corner, behind the dining room, but that was originally designed so the owners could shut the maid in there and not have to see the kitchen at all. Only…that’s not really our style. So, we asked for some kitchen remodeling & took the door off the hinges-good enough! The upstairs has our master bedroom and 3 guest/exercise/office rooms. We are definitely enjoying the pomp and splendor as it is likely to be the biggest house we live in…ever. But the good news is that the guest room is all ready-I know that’s what most of you were waiting for, right?

The compound itself (I hate that word, makes me think I am living a concrete and walled-in existence) is beautiful. The compound was originally built for BP expat employees (hence the name BP compound), but it has slowly been infiltrated with outsiders-heads of consulates, CEO’s, company “x” employee, etc. At the time it was built, real estate along the Saigon river was dirt cheap because it was the first place to flood and expensive to actually build on to control it. But what do we westerner’s love more than living on some body of water…nothing! So, the compound is bordered on one side by the river, where a pretty walkway, BB court, skateboard park and restaurant are located. While the restaurant is nice enough, it definitely lacks in culinary expertise and the music they play makes me want to vomit. Think horrible 80’s-90’s R&B, easy listening and pop that never made it on the radio with some N’sync thrown in here and there. I guess if you have a restaurant on the river in a nice compound, then nothing else matters…what they need is some competition! There are also 2 pools, a gym and 3 tennis courts (complete with “ball boys” if you are that type) for residents of the compound and those who wish to pay way too much for a membership.

But it does make us feel like we can at least lead a semi-normal life. You just have to pretend that the walls around the compound are there as a decoration and as a trellis for the crazed vines. Because the compound was built so long ago, the plants, trees and flowers are all a madness of tangles and shades of green and bright colors. The streets are shadowed by large tropical trees and littered with fallen flowers, making it such an oasis from the smog and hustle of the city. I think so far Ginger is none the wiser that she will never be stepping foot outside the compound walls. I won’t go into details, but we would rather keep her for ourselves during the time we spend here. Luckily for her, the perimeter of the compound is fairly large-about 1.5 miles, which is about as far as she gets before dropping into an exhausted, hot Ginger pile. Just outside the compound gates is a great little expat inspired area where there are 2 nice grocery stores, easily within walking distance. The fruit market and other shops are only a short bicycle ride away & there is always a taxi ready if not. Although it drives me crazy to be dependent on other modes of transportation to get places, I wouldn’t drive a car here even if I had my own! The bicycle is enough to raise my blood pressure a few notches for the day…or week.

But as spoiled as we appear to be here, we miss the Northwest and our homes like crazy. Nothing can replace the natural beauty of the US and especially not our best friends and family on the other side of the world. Three years will fly by, we will stock up on travel and new experiences and come home appreciating the US likely more than we ever have. However, while we are here, it definitely helps to have somewhere beautiful to spend our time.

To see more pictures, click on the new slideshow to right!