Work, Play, Sleep, Work, Play, Sleep.

Well hasn't it been a while. And if you look at the title of this blog it may become clearer to you. We have been constantly working, playing (drinking) and sleeping (until around 2/3am). We decided yesterday that this is not the way forward. Honestly I think we were just getting slowly into the working at random hours thingy but now we have a schedule that stays the same every week so we can actually live a real persons life instead of a crazy persons!

I only have a few things to update you on because not much has been happening (again referring to the title!) but I'm sure I can make them sound more interesting than they were!

Firstly, one thing you must know, is that during my time here I've developed an OCD for washing my hands! Seriously, I must wash them like 20 times a day! They constantly feel dirty and sweaty though and my nails seem to get black within a time span of 4 to about 7 minutes! It's crazy! Also the thought of lots of children's dirt on my hands is making me want to wash them now actually!

So we've been going out quite a lot recently and drinking just as much but who wouldn't when a vodka pineapple is 80p. But I learnt my lesson the other day when my hangover was horrific and then times that by the fact that it's a million degree centigrade and BAM it's worse than you could ever imagine! However, one constructive thing me and Matt are getting from going out is the free Vietnamese lessons we seem to keep getting delivered to us. Matt can now ask for "one beer please" and we can both say "thank you, hello, goodbye and no" (which is handy when people keep asking you if you want marijuana!

We've also taken to planning our lessons in bars! I totally recommend it! We have a quiet cafe bar near us that plays the cheesiest love songs ever - jazz style! It also throws in a few musical numbers! Memories (from cats) is my favourite.

Lessons are going pretty well. One of my favourite classes are a bunch of 6 year olds. They are awesome. There are two kids however that clearly have ADHD! Thankfully they're not friends otherwise the two combined could sabotage my lesson single hand-idly. I have one slightly strange girl that where's her fringe in a plait out the front of her head like a unicorn's horn. It's pretty amazing and I'm totally doing that to my child! Then there's one amazing girl, who knows a lot more english than the rest. She's blatantly just sitting there thinking "what am I doing with this lot?".

Matt had a class of elites (age 16-19) who utterly adored him. Basically every girl in Vietnam pretty much thinks Matt is Justin Timberlake. They cannot get enough of him. They actually got their camera phones out and started a photo shoot in class. He SO loved it no matter how much he's says he was embarrassed! Must admit I'm jealous! Where's my paparazzi? Apparently western girls aren't the thing over here.

When I get a chance I'm going to do an entire blog on Saigon scooters. These forms of transport are truly amazing. You need to be shown exactly what is carried on these bikes. It's anything from a 5 ft x 5 ft pane of class to a bed mattress (double). And people, there's no end to how many people they can fit on a scooter. I've only seen a family (4 people), but my friend has seen 6. SIX PEOPLE!! How? Like seriously how? Oh and the other day I saw one carrying what looked like a oil paint masterpiece, bigger than him, with one hand. These Vietnamese folk are skilled in the art of traveling by scooter!

Tonight we went for food at our local and this time we took some friends from work. As we were looking at the menu they all started pissing themselves laughing. At first Matt and I were totally bemused but then it became clear to us that they were laughing at the menu. I seriously do not know how me and Matt missed the on million funny things written on this menu. And no joke this menu is the single most funniest thing I have read EVER. I'm actually thinking of paying them for a copy. A few dishes include

- Two Sunshiny Ink

- The bird shares roti

- Pink things

- Forest Bees

There are so many more I need to share and I'll take not of next time but the best one was this.

'MAI PAHI' CRAP STEAM POT.

yes, a pot of steamed crap.

Anyway I'll leave you with that thought. I'll update pictures on this blog at a later date. We have few funny photo scenario ones from when a couple of friends were in Ho Chi Min on their summer holiday tour.

So... peace out homies. xx

Caodaism, AK47's and a Saigon Kiss

Since the last time I posted a fair few things have happened some good, some not. Lets start with Nipple Twister. This spawn of the devil came into my life once again when me and Matt went to get Vietnamese fresh beer. As we were walking into the garage like room, I sneezed. Suddenly I heard this "errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" and then "you buy cigarette!". I was like nooooooo! He soon fizzled away but not before he tried to touch Matt's nipples.

Moving on swiftly we tried some of the fresh beer that they do here. Basically they make a batch everyday and it usually sells out by night. Not because it's amazingly nice, because it's not it's just average. But because it costs about 30p a glass. If it doesn't run out they add bubbles to it to make it a fizzy lager type beer. If they didn't do this it would go off.

Hmmm so a Saigon Kiss, what's that? I here you say. Well its a lovely burn one gets when they get off a motorbike the wrong side and melt their skin on the exhaust pipe. For all those who don't want to see look away now!


















BAD BAD TIMES. This was 5 days ago. It did get a little worse but now it's all drying out. Luckily me and Matt were going to the clinic the next day anyway to get the HEP B and Rabies jabs so a lovely nurse looked after it for me :) I may have a scar to remind me of this foolishness for the rest of my life! Ah that's life!

On a random note I woke up the other morning to find a gecko in our sink. I was a little unsure as to what to do. Usually with spiders and things I just wash them down the plug hole but gecko's are actually cute. I tried to get him out but he leaped about a foot and now resides under our sofa.

Whilst I'm writing this Lola is here cleaning cleaning cleaning! I don't think I'll be able to return to England until a maid is a definite feature in every house. (And the prices are changed to about 3 times cheaper). But seriously I don't clean anything it's awful!!! I'm going to become a lazy lazy girl.

Right so actual pictures! I'm only putting a few good ones on here but the whole set for these two weeks will be on Facebook.

Yesterday we visited the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels and it was awesome! It felt so good to get out of the city and see what I consider to be the real Vietnam. We met Kelly at 8am to wait for the trip we'd paid for. This trip cost under £5 for the whole day! I love this place! So this mini bus pulls up and a Vietnamese man jumps out and calls us onto the bus. There were other tourists already on the bus so we met some new people which was good!

First stop was the Cao Dai Temple. It took around 3 hours to get to the temple but it didn't feel like it. The tour guider's name was Son. He was a funny man. With his jam jar glasses and tongue in cheek comments, Son made the trip very worth while. One thing he said about the Temple. "We leave at 12.20 p m. If you not at the bus, first of all, we respect your choice for religion and second of all, we go." Basically just get back on time.

Caodaism is a religion combines elements from many of the world's main religions, including Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, as well as Geniism, an indigenous religion of Vietnam. Cao means "high" and dai means "palace". The temple was full of colour and patterns! It was also just before mass so all the monks (not sure whether they are called monks?) were congregating. We also watched part of the ceremony but had to leave about ten minutes in otherwise Son would think we'd surrendered our souls to Caodaism!






After visiting the Temple we made our way to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tunnels were absolutely awesome! We were shown where everything basically went down. The Vietnamese were so sneaky. They basically lived underground and the Americans lived pretty much on top of them and never knew they were there. That's how so many of them died. The Viet soldiers would sniper the Americans and disappear without a trace. After a while the Americans started to realise that maybe the Viets were underground and not in fact invisible. They covered their tracks so well though, rubbing the Americans scent on everything so dogs couldn't track them. They even had this crazy smoke dispatching mechanism for cooking underground. Bamboo pipes led the smoke far away from where they were cooking. It was clever! The tunnels were crazy tiny! And they had been made bigger for us westerners as well. But of course before crawling around this underground labyrinth we got to play with guns!





















Oh yes! Matt and I fired an AK47 and an M60 (machine gun). Worth every penny! I don't understand how all soldiers weren't deaf though. The shots were SO loud!

What a fab day we had.

So now I'm finally coming to the end of this blog post (it's taken me 2 days to write) a lot more random stuff has happened. We all went out together for some drinks etc and Matt and I decided we wanted to go home around midnight. As we walk down our alleyway we can see in the distance the funeral party that has been there for a few days. Apparently its a normal thing, they set up a wake and party the days and nights away WITH the coffin. Now this is the part I was slightly worried about. A coffin...sitting in 35 degree heat...in an alleyway...an alleyway that in fact has a market every morning...with food. But it's all cool apparently.

So anyway back to the story, we were walking through the party and we get beckoned back by everyone. "Hey hey hey come!". So we thought WHAT THE HELL. I'm glad I did because it was the best party I've been to so far in Vietnam yet! We sand Vietnamese songs - very badly. We sang English songs to the people - very badly. Songs that made the final act were "Hit me baby one more time", "Wonderwall", "Wannabe" and "Barbie Girl". Yes I said Barbie Girl. Imagine me, Matt, a plastic box drum. It was bliss. We did the "Come on Barbie" bit and EVERYTHING! They loved it! I think. Also they took to imitating my laugh which I did not find funny at all and Matt thought was hilarious. We also drank beer from a communal cup and were given lots of food. It was so cool! They were the nicest people ever and it didn't matter that we couldn't understand a f*cking word each other were saying.

So now farewell, it's to the grindstone for us as we actually start teaching Saturday! Be back soon! xx