Seoul Garden Korean BBQ! We went as a staff to celebrate two birthdays and a farewell. I love some Korean spicy sauce with my grilled toful and broccoli! I also love the staff where I work. I think they are the best group of people ever.

Christmas Time in Vung Tau, Vietnam

On a short work trip to Vung Tau I got this great picture worth a thousand words! Vung Tau is near Ho Chi Minh City on the beach. In a week and a half I'm going to be in the States for two weeks for Christmas. I can't wait to see my friends and family. I'll have my old phone with me so give me a call...

I'm 27!!!

I turned 27 and I really do feel older. 26 was a crazy year. I moved to Vietnam all by myself, I started a "real job" and I've traveled all over Southeast Asia! Now it's time to stop just surviving and keeping up with life but really work on living on purpose! So I've made some pretty interesting life changes: (1) I am running a race in December in Cambodia so now I've started to run, swim, yoga. It's great because I go exercise with friends after work and I actually leave work at 5! (2) I've started oil painting! After my first successful attempt at oil painting I ordered a book that will help me develop my painting. (3) I've become a pescatarian! This is huge. I've been a ovo-lacto vegetarian since I was 4 and I decided that since I live in Vietnam I should start somewhere. So I've eaten tuna, grouper and one other fish I don't know the English name. But I haven't tried other sorts of seafood but who knows maybe... (My grandma is going to be so happy!!)

Here are some photos from my 27th birthday. My co-workers took me out to eat at Sen Chay (a Buddhist Veggie restaurant) and got me a really yummy cake.

Then my friends took me to the Deck, a really great restaurant in An Phu along the river. It was perfect to get out of the city and just hear the river go by instead of the motorbikes. The food was amazing!
My friend, Hong, made me an amazing carrot cake. The wind was a little strong so the lighting of the candles was a little crazy. However, I've always thought it was weird that we blow on the cake trying to blow out the candles and then serve it to everyone. So I'm glad that the wind blew out my candles. =)
I love my friends!! They've been such an encouragement to me while I've been in Vietnam.

The new digs

Just wanted to say a few about the new apt in general it is a really nice apt. We have a huge living area that we've decorated with lamps, carpets and some nice candles. (Pictures to come)

And except for the construction that is still going on in the apts next to ours we generally enjoy being here. After several complaints to the management we've almost successfully got a policy instated that the workers can only work from 9-11 am and from 2-5 pm Monday- Friday! I'm pretty proud of myself for pushing for this but me an my oversensitive noise issues couldn't

help but make this a big issue for the management. So no longer are we awakened by the pounding at 8 am on Saturday mornings. I'm convinced that if I looked in the classifieds in the Viet Nam Daily there would be a posting: Wanted: Banger/Pounder, must be willing to bang and pound on metal or concrete for 5-8 hours a day preferably at a constant pace without stopping!!

We become quite Vietnamese even though we are in a swanky new apt. We store our plastic bags in the dishwasher (we pay a dishwasher so no need to actually use the machine) and we dry our dishes in the oven (we have a toaster oven that we're more comfortable using)! Never knew that these appliances were such good storage areas!!

We are 20 floors up! We can see Diamond Plaza, Notre Dame Cathedral, Nguyen Hue Street, the huge Buu Dien (post office), the city communist buildings and the Siagon River just to name some of the sites (Pictures to come). One of the things I absolutely love about HCMC is that there is always a "Holy cow, I can't believe that is actually happening" moment just about every day here. So just the other day we opened the shades and saw men working without any safety belts just outside our windows. At least the one guy had on a motorbike helmet!

Malaysia - the food

A very important part of any trip in Southeast Asia is the food!! Can't go wrong with the following ingredients: (1) Coconut milk (2) curry powder (3) peanuts (4) chilies (5) tofu- although this is debatable for some (6) Rice- the most important part of the meal for many southeast Asians

To begin with Teh Terik is so yummy. The Malaysians aren't messing around when it comes to tea. Terik literally means pulling. They "pull" the tea back and forth between cups to create foam and mix the tea with the sweetened condensed milk! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPuIybnQemc

Here Elizabeth and Huy are enjoying some teh terik at the bus station!

Next is the amazing curry and noodles- 88 Jonker St is one of the best restaurants in Malaka. You know this by the line that is constantly in front of the restaurant. This was my dish minus all of the meat. They load it up with all sorts of sea food!

We stood in line for 45 minutes to go to dinner at century 100... a satay place! Was it worth it... YES!

This is a hotpot sort of deal where but everything is on a skewer. I had veggies (morning glory and cucumber) and tofu satays. The others had meat- don't ask me which kind! :)

And then there is the glorious night market where all of your dessert and drink dreams can come true....

In Kuala Lumpur we went to a very Indian Restaurant where they came around with banana leaves for the placemats/plates. We got the rice first and then a choice or 3 different curries. And let me tell you that it was some of the best food I've had in a while. Yum... and I'm holding a lassi- an Indian yogurt drink.

Malaysia truly Asia- the trip

We flew into Kuala Lumpur on Friday night and took a taxi 2 hours to Malaka. We stayed at the Heeren House, a boutique bed and breakfast on the outside of Malaka. Our first stop in Malaka was the Church and The Stadthuys, built in 1650 it is the oldest Dutch building in southeast Asia and it was once officially home to the Dutch Governors. Malaka is a UNESCO world heritage site
and we enjoyed going into all of the antique shoppes in the old Chinese trader's houses along Jonker's street. Unfortunately, throughout my education I wasn't taught much history outside of Western Civ and American History, so all of the history of Southeast Asia is new and exciting for me. I love history and I really enjoy hearing it from a different perspective. Remember in history class talking about colonization and the trading routes through the east indies? Yeah? Well that is Malaysia, India, Thailand, Burma... and they really are exotic and beautiful countries. And Malaka was one of the main port cities for the traders. And guess who were the main traders??? The Chinese- shocking, huh? But it's super interesting to walk where the western explorers walked and see what they saw.
And the night market was a great taste of culture as we tasted all kinds of food, saw dancing/exercising, bought little trinkets and generally saw EVERYONE in town!
Next we flew into Kuala Lampur for 1/2 day. I was shocked by how developed the city is! We went to to the top of the communication's tower and got a 360 view of the city of 2 million people. These are the twin towers, which were once the highest towers in the world. They are pretty impressive. A wonderful shout out to Anita, Neal and Sadie who were our tour guides in the city! You were wonderful!
Then we traveled to Lingkawi island for a wonderful 2 1/2 days of relaxation at the secluded Andaman 5 star Resort. I'm not going to lie- it was wonderful. Even though it was the rainy season we had a wonderful time.


Cathy and I went canoeing one afternoon and saw some really nice, new coral in the bay near the island. The main predator for the coral is the starfish. During the tsunami the wave took all the starfish to the land so now new coral can grow. Isn't that interesting?

The water was perfect. We bobbed around for 2 hours one day just laughing and talking while the small waves washed over us. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

Mangrove Forest- Can Gio District

Today I went on a language trip sponsored through the Consulate and the school that I take my Vietnamese lessons through (VLS). We traveled down through districts 4 and 7 and finally got to the pha (ferry) and paid the equivalent of 3 cents to cross the river to Can Gio District. If you look at the map of Ho Chi Minh City you'll see that there are a bunch of small islands and so there are a lot of bridges but sometimes the land is too far away so the ferries shuttle cars, motorbikes and people across continuously.
Then we drove about 1.5 hours down to the very tip of the district to the Mangrove Forest where there are a bunch of young Mangrove trees, about 1000 khi (monkeys), 100 ca sau (crocodiles), 1 (bui)vbeach , and 1 Viet Cong base (bo doi- VC soldier).
My teacher, Co Chau. She has been teaching me for about 9 months now and I can effectively communicate a very basic conversation. Usually something dealing with name, age, married, boyfriend, and salary (I don't usually share that).
The Viet Cong used the Mangrove forest as a base. This was a bomb shelter with 3 openings incase a B52 was dropped and one opening was closed they could exit through the other openings. A major mission that these men completed was a suicide mission blowing up the enemy's oil supply for Saigon. About 90%-95% of the 800 VC soldiers died during the course of 10 years.

Cu Chi Tunnels

A few weeks ago we booked a day tour to the Cu Chi tunnels and the Cao Dai Temples. The Cu Chi Tunnels are an huge system of underground tunnels used for living, fighting and escaping during the Vietnam War. They were just one of the ingenious ways that the southern Vietnamese who sympathized with the north survived during the war. Actually even though 100% of them had intestinal problems and 50% had malaria they still managed to fight really hard. Most of the time while living in Vietnam now there is no reminder of the war that we fought here a few decades ago. This might come as a surprise to you since the first thing that most Americans think of when the country name "Vietnam" comes up is the war. However, the country has healed quite well and most of the population is under 30 with little recollection of the actual war. But there are a few reminders every once in a while and going to the Cu Chi Tunnels was one of them.
This is one of the entrances to the tunnels. Laurel was pretty adventurous. The average weight of a man during that time was about 110 lb to 120 lb and a woman was between 80 and 90 lbs so they could fit into these tunnels with little trouble.
They were quite ambicious with the booby traps. They used tricks to capture the southern army and the US troops that they used to capture tigers. It was a little over the top.

There was a chance to actually go in the tunnels but I got a bit too nervous. They had widened the first part of the tunnels for western tourists but it was just too unnerving for me.
The propaganda was pretty over the top as well. We watched a film from 1960s about the community fighting off the Americans. There were a few Germans laughing behind us during the film and I got mad because it was a serious issue that was being shown. However, I got a giggle too when the propaganda just went a bit too far. Most of it was just rediculous. Anyway I know this will probably stir a bit of emotion in you but I thought I would share anyway because it is apart of our history. Do you think our children will be in Iraq in a few decades doing what I'm doing in Vietnam?

34 Le Duan, District 1

I do work!! You've seen so many pictures of my travel and none of my work. I guess I don't think of work as blog worthy- but I don't want you to be getting ideas that it's all play and no work!!
Behind the "Notre Dame" Cathedral here is Diamond Plaza. My days are mostly spent on the 8th floor! On the 4th floor there is a bowling alley and arcade. The first 3 floors are filled with the most expensive merchandise in Vietnam (I think!). So yes, I work in a shopping mall!

Something to Consider-SaPa

This is the view outside of the room we were staying in. It was a HUGE room with a King sized bed , a twin sized bed, a fire place and enough room for two people to do some yoga!
And the people loved to follow us around. Popular sayings were, "Where you from?" "You buy from me?" And my response besides trying to ignore them was, "Khong muon mua- Cam on"! Transalated: I don't want to buy (anything). This was then responded to with a bunch of giggles and then questions: "Chi co ly chom, khong?" "Chi co dia dinh, khong?" "Chi boa nhieu tuoi?" So the most important question is: "Do you have a husband?" "Do you have a family?" and then "How old are you?" This is important to identify how to address me!
These are the beautiful Silver Springs Waterfalls. They are described as a white scarf or ribbon wrapping around the mountains. There was water everywhere since it was also raining. We were walking down some of the stairs and there was a small waterfall on the stairs!
And I have no idea if anyone lives here or not but holy moly, what a great 360 view
A monestary that was burned down in the past 50 years. "Em khong nho" I don't remember why it was burned down
And here are some more locals following us around trying to sell us their stuff. We met 2 ethinc minorities. These ladies were clothing dyed with indego dye and on their arms you can see that they are a bit blue as it is hard to "set" the dye. They also wrap their hair around their head and fasten it with a comb!
The beautiful view

These are the red had ladies. They are said to know more English than Vietnamese but I don't think that is the truth. They knew very good Vietnamese and only a few sayings in English mostly dealing with buying and selling

Mui Ne

Just a few hours away from Ho Chi Minh City is one of my favorite beaches in Vietnam. Even though it is only 120 Kilometers away it takes about 4-5 hours in a bus! And even though we only had one night there is was totally worth it!
And this time the sun was shinning the whole time! Remember back around Thanksgiving the sun hid from us the whole time.
And then there are fishermen catching the fish for the restaurants for dinner. I found a coconut and had a little bit of fun trying to be creative.
Laurel and I went for a 22 minute swim in the ocean before breakfast. I've never done it before but it was super nice. Then after a 5 course breakfast I went to play volleyball with some local guys on the beach. Yeah never realized how difficult playing in such soft sand.
I'm off to SaPa this weekend. I will post pictures next week!!

And if you are wondering, yes, I do work too! In fact this week on top of working I have packed up my entire apartment and moved into a temporary apartment until August. Not as easy as you think in a foreign country!