Teachers' Day

Yesterday was Teachers' Day which, unlike in America, is quite a big holiday over here. It is a day to thank and show respect to your teachers, and it's an important holiday to many people.

To celebrate the holiday students visit their current and former teachers, give presents (usually flowers), and - the best part of all - teachers get the day off to rest and relax. As a teacher I must say it makes you feel pretty special.

Things You Only See in Viet Nam

Cyclos

One of the "not to miss" things the tour guide books like to mention is taking a ride in a cyclo. A cyclo, for those who don't know, is basically a cart attached to the front of a bicycle. This is just one of the many ways that the guide books are way off. Would you want to take a ride in this?

In case you're wondering what's being loaded in there, well that's a big pile of grease. Dirt, bricks, various dirty building materials are all common cyclo cargo.

To be fair, the cyclos in Hanoi are a bit nicer, but to me there's something a little too lazy about having some poor guy cart you around town. And, strangely enough, the only people I've ever seen in them are fat, lazy looking tourists.

Snake Wine

Yummy.

Also available: monkey wine, bear paw wine, sea horse wine (just to name a few).

Lion Dancing and Fire Breathing

This was definately one of those "I am very far from America" moments...

I'm not sure if you can tell, but most of the dancers/fire breathers are about 14 - 16 (one kid, who was smoking a cigarette before he had to go on, looked about 10). There's several groups of kids like this who go around the whole city performing for money. The video doesn't really capture it, but it 's pretty wild.

Moon Cake

Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival. I know what your thinking - it's not mid-autumn. On this side of the world people go by the lunar calendar as well as what ever the regular calendar is called, and according to the lunar calendar it's mid-August right now...which would also make you think it's not mid-autumn. But apparently the seasons are at different times over here and, yes, it is in fact the middle of autumn.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also called the Moon Festival, is pretty much the biggest holiday here besides Tet. People celebrate by walking down the streets with lanterns (to show Cuoi - a boy who was sent to the moon - the way back to earth), dressing up as a mythical creature called Kylin (part lion, part dragon, and part some other animals) and dancing in the streets, and of course by eating moon cake. The streets have literally filled with moon cake vendors. And although I was told it's not as fun to eat them before the Moon Festival, I had to try one.

There are 2 different kinds of moon cake. One is brown and more dense, like the pictures above and below.

The other is white and much more chewy. A student described it as the kind that old people like to eat. It looks like this:

They taste...well...gross. As you can see, both kinds have an egg yolk, or a 'moon', in the center. Which, considering they are sweet cakes, is pretty weird, taste-wise. They both come with various kinds of fillings. Some type of fruit and chicken is common in the brown ones (again, weird) and lotus seed paste or watermelon seed paste is common in the white ones (which by itself wasn't so bad, but combined with the egg and the super chewy crust it was also...weird). I've heard that there's all sorts of variations, some with no egg, some that are more of a sponge-cake with fruit, and that they're very delicious. But what I've tried so far wasn't really what I'd call delicious.

But maybe it's my fault because I ate them before the Moon Festival.

Just Another Work Party

Some highlights:

Steve was awarded staff member of the quarter...

...in addition to a lovely plaque and a rose, one of his rewards for this was a song sung by the bossman...

...and maybe the best highlight of all (yes, even better than the song), this guy's outfit:

Crap on Bikes

People here have an uncanny ability to shove more crap than you'd think humanly possible on a tiny little motorbike. Of course the best ones - say a 180 kg refrigerator (for those of you who aren't being forced to use the metric system that's about 400 lbs), about 20 full grown pigs or a real, dead cow - are always impossible to catch with the camera. Here's a few that I have managed to get.

Messing Around With My New Camera

That's Fresh

One of the many popular junk foods here is the Fresh Pie (it's now).

Fresh Pie is a soft cake filled with stawberry cream, which is clearly labeled on the box in case there was any confusion:

And, as you can see, it looks so much more appetising in real life than it does in the pictures:

More Awesome Headgear

I now have the power to control lightning...

and Steve's ready for spring break in Cabo...

More Random Pictures of Students

Shots of students pretending to their work:

these kids are actually demons

They Actually Let These People Near Children

My coworkers:

working hard

don't trust this guy

one of the Vietnamese teachers...not sure why her shirt says "girls"

Fail

It's not that cool that we've been here 6 months already and still haven't seen hardly any of Vietnam*. A new plan to travel somewhere once a month has been put into effect, and this last weekend we set off to Halong Bay for our July trip. We left for Halong City right after our last class on Saturday night, with the intention of staying in the city that night, getting an overnight boat out to the bay on Sunday, and then heading back to Hai Phong on Monday. What we didn't plan on was everything going pretty much as wrong as it could.

After the 2 hour bus ride (which would be a lot shorter if they didn't pull over every few meters to pick up more passengers until the bus is full) and a short taxi ride we had made it to Halong City. And man, was there a lot of people there. Unfortunately for us, it's the local tourist season. People from all over Vietnam and China head to Halong this time of year. Hotel after hotel turned us away because they were full. By now it's about 9 pm (and still quite hot) and we're stranded in this tiny city with no place to sleep. Luckily, we found a tourist advisor guy who was happy to help us find a room - because he knew his commission off of what he was going to be able to get from us would probably be more than he's made all week. A few minutes and phone calls later we had a room, probably paying more than three times the price for it, but a room nonetheless. But it was all ok because tomorrow we'll be on an awesome boat in the middle of beautiful Halong Bay and everything will be great....right??

Wrong. Sunday morning we get a taxi to take us to the tourist warf, where you can hire a boat to take you out to the bay. There's a bunch of people there, but no one seems to be getting on any boats. The ticket booth lady avoids us for a few minutes, going to the other side of the counter every time we try to talk to her, so we have to go out of the building, walk around, and go in on the other side. We finally catch her and ask to buy a ticket for a boat. "No boats! Storm!" She yells, and as she is clearly done talking to us walks back to the other side of the counter. A little in shock - how can there be no boats? this is the only reason people go here! - we walk around the warf for a bit, asking a few other people. Everyone gives the same answer - "No boats".

Trying not to let our failure get the best of us, we head back into Halong City, deciding to enjoy some beers on the beach and maybe have a nice lunch before the long bus ride back to Hai Phong. About halfway through our beers we realize it's sprinkling. Which, in Southern California, means it's going to continue sprinkling for maybe the whole time it rains, but in tropical Vietnam it means you have about 10 minutes before it starts pouring.

Sure enough, by the time we finish our beers it is really coming down. Annoyed and defeated, we get a taxi and tell the driver to take us to the bus to Hai Phong. We get to the bus stop right as the bus is about to take off, but with help from the taxi driver we get them to stop to let us on. As soon as we get in the door we wish they had just taken off. There's about 40 people on this 25 passenger bus, and now 2 giant Americans too. We squeeze into seats (people are sitting 4 and even 5 across, so whenever someone behind you has to get out it's really fun) and pray this is the fastest bus ride ever.

We finally made it back to Hai Phong, drenched and cramped. Although I will need some time to recover before the next adventure, this will not be a last attempt. Halong Bay is supposed to be really amazing. But I think next time I might check the weather first.

So close yet so far. Here's some pics of Halong Bay from the (not so lovely) beach.

*Note: I realize this sentence is grammatically incorrect, but it's ok. I'm an English teacher.

The Big Two-Five

Last week I had my first birthday in a foreign country. And it was a pretty damn good one. Steve got me the most awesomest present ever - a real professional-type camera, so hopefully you will be able to see quite an improvement in my blog pics. I also got not one, but two amazing looking and delicious tasting cakes (they really know how to do cakes over here), two beautiful flower bouquets (they're quite good at those too), my own custom-made birthday card, several renditions of Happy Birthday from my students, and I was even thrown my very own surprise party by one of my classes.

Of course I didn't have my new super camera with me, but I was able to get some pics of the party with my old camera.

One of my cakes with what I think is a rocket on it. Whatever it is I'm sure it's probably illegal in the states.

My class.

Me and my students. I've found that the best way to look like a giant is to stand next to a bunch of teeny asians.

My Helmet

After wearing the community helmet my xe om driver carries for longer than I even want to think about, I finally bought my own motorbike helmet. Now I can be like a local and wear it everywhere and at all times - regardless of whether or not I'm actually on a motorbike.

It's a good thing I look so awesome with it on.

Street Food of the Week - Bun Cha

Bun Cha is is another northern-region dish, which is lucky for us because that's where we are, and it's got to be in the top 5 of the most delicious meals here. It is comprised of a plate of cold noodles, BBQ pork that gets dumped in a bowl of some type of broth with some carrots, apples, and bean sprouts, and a basket full of leafy greens. You take some of each, mix together in your little bowl, and enjoy.

*Note - I realize the name of this post should probably be changed as I haven't been writing even monthly, never mind weekly, about street food. But Street Food of the Bi-Month just doesn't have the same ring to it so I'm not changing it.