Karen and I had the day off today and we decided to get out in the city and do some stuff. We started off at 8am and had a great breakfast at Culi Cafe, an Australian restaurant with great food. After breakfast we decided to take a swan paddle boat out on Westlake, where we live. After an hour of mad paddlin, we went to a cafe in the city to enjoy some ice tea and a great view. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around and checking the place out. Click the title above to get to MySpace and see a short video we took of our day.
Ed
Nov 7th
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Sunday, November 26, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
The Vietnam Show.
I have to say that we are absolutely appalled by the behavior of the Vietnamese. I, of course, am not speaking of all Vietnamese, just some of them. This particular rant is going to fly a little south of politically correct, so I warn you now.
It now seems to us, that we are in the middle of a large, seemingly endless nature programme, where we are the explorers observing the native Vietnamese in their natural habitat. We are in awe of their unique and wondrous behavior. We have had the glorious opportunity to see grown men urinating in to the street, facing traffic, with absolutely no shame in their actions. We have stood by, observing as both men and woman go, knuckle deep, in to a nostril and root to satisfaction with a complete lack of embarrassment.
We have spent enough time around these wondrous folk that they have grown comfortable in our presence. On many occasion I will have a Vietnamese adult male walk up to me on the street, and without so much as a word start to rub my belly or squeeze my arms and shoulders. I take this to be an acceptance of some kind, and although it is unwanted and quite off-putting I have grown to tolerate it.
The truly exciting find is the "lifters". I believe them to be a discovery otherwise unknown to the western world, and we are racking our brains to come up with a more suitable name for these interesting little variety of Vietnamese males. I have experienced the actions of a "lifter" on four separate occasions. In every example it was a full grown male, Whom I had no previous interaction with. In each case this male would walk around me, scrutinizing me to their fullest extent. Once satisfied with his observations he leaps behind me and attempts to lift me off the ground. In every experience the lifter has failed miserable, yet there is little to no impact on the "Lifters" mood, as they seem relatively happy with the simple act of trying, and success seems unimportant.
Another puzzling aspect of their nature, both male and female, is the constant need for attention. They obtain that attention by being the loudest, most obnoxious voice in any given place. You have to imagine that a restaurant full of people like this can make quite a racket. This behaviour also takes itself to the streets where Vietnamese people try to outdo each other in both volume and duration of horn blasting. We have yet to figure out if this action is based on aggression or if it is possibly some kind of mating performance. We have not been in country long enough to make determinations like that.
Well, this is it for this installment of The Nature of Things in Vietnam, We will keep you posted on further finding of these curious creatures.
Until next time,
Ed,
It now seems to us, that we are in the middle of a large, seemingly endless nature programme, where we are the explorers observing the native Vietnamese in their natural habitat. We are in awe of their unique and wondrous behavior. We have had the glorious opportunity to see grown men urinating in to the street, facing traffic, with absolutely no shame in their actions. We have stood by, observing as both men and woman go, knuckle deep, in to a nostril and root to satisfaction with a complete lack of embarrassment.
We have spent enough time around these wondrous folk that they have grown comfortable in our presence. On many occasion I will have a Vietnamese adult male walk up to me on the street, and without so much as a word start to rub my belly or squeeze my arms and shoulders. I take this to be an acceptance of some kind, and although it is unwanted and quite off-putting I have grown to tolerate it.
The truly exciting find is the "lifters". I believe them to be a discovery otherwise unknown to the western world, and we are racking our brains to come up with a more suitable name for these interesting little variety of Vietnamese males. I have experienced the actions of a "lifter" on four separate occasions. In every example it was a full grown male, Whom I had no previous interaction with. In each case this male would walk around me, scrutinizing me to their fullest extent. Once satisfied with his observations he leaps behind me and attempts to lift me off the ground. In every experience the lifter has failed miserable, yet there is little to no impact on the "Lifters" mood, as they seem relatively happy with the simple act of trying, and success seems unimportant.
Another puzzling aspect of their nature, both male and female, is the constant need for attention. They obtain that attention by being the loudest, most obnoxious voice in any given place. You have to imagine that a restaurant full of people like this can make quite a racket. This behaviour also takes itself to the streets where Vietnamese people try to outdo each other in both volume and duration of horn blasting. We have yet to figure out if this action is based on aggression or if it is possibly some kind of mating performance. We have not been in country long enough to make determinations like that.
Well, this is it for this installment of The Nature of Things in Vietnam, We will keep you posted on further finding of these curious creatures.
Until next time,
Ed,
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Halong Bay ( Click for the movie) Working now!
We left our jobs at Vietnam News. Unfortunately, the pay was just not enough to accomplish our goals in Vietnam, so we had to move on. We began new jobs as English teachers at a school called Clever Learn. The money and the hours are better. Anyway, we recieved some tickets for a Halong Bay tour and we jumped at the opportunity to experience one of the best eco-tours available in Vietnam. It was two nights and three days of pure asthetic bliss. The bay itself is too beautiful to sully with mere words, and the Junk that we stayed on was a blast. The days started early and therefore the evenings were not long, we found ourselves in bed by midnight both Friday and Saturday. We got to take a tour of one of the biggest caverns on the planet, and do some sightseeing on Cat Bah Island. All in all it was a great way to relax and enjoy our last weekend before hitting the classroom hard and working long hours. We took many pictures, and made a little movie that I am currently attempting to put on MySpace, but the internet connections here are so bad they usually time out. There was supposed to be a movie from our day around town on Nov 7th, but we are experiencing some technical difficulties posting movies. Stay tuned, all issues will be worked out and you will be able to enjoy some of the sights we have seen. Here are a few pics from our trip.... Ed
The Bay
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Thursday, November 02, 2006
Click me to view a small movie of our new house!!!
Click the title above to see the new house, and click the title below to see my second restaurant review.
-Ed
-Ed
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