My Lil’ Saigon

My long awaited return to the blogosphere!

I’m sure this won’t be as good as you all hoped, but at least it is something.

1. I have a new job, I no longer work for a NGO.. I am now in the F&B industry working at a new restaurant called “Boathouse”. So far so good. It is located at one of the most peaceful places in Saigon.. The APSC compound in District 2. I never thought it could be so quiet within 5 minutes of a highway in this country. More to come on this.

2. New House. I will be moving to a brand new house in about a month. I can not wait as I hate the anticipation of the inevitable. I was expecting to move in early November, but now it seems more like December will be the time of choice. We have new furniture, new house, new district, new everything it seems. hurrah!

3. New post. This is all you get. I’ll be back… hopefully sooner rather than later.

plus I can ‘t believe I didn’t get ANY takers on that beer tasting stuff.

Here is a writing exercise I did in Vietnamese…. Composition isn’t so great, but I’d like any comments on grammar or word usage. I expect that the composition is rather elementary.

Bài 1. Viết về một nơi du lịch ở Việt Nam mà bạn thích nhất.
Nơi du lịch tôi thích nhất là Đà Lạt. Tôi rắt thích Đà Lạt vì ở đó là yên tĩnh, có thời tiết mát mẻ, và phong cảnh đẹp lắm.  Đà Lạt có rắt nhiều cây xanh và hoa. Khi tôi ở đó, tôi được giải trí.
Tôi đã đi Đà Lạt bốn lần rồi.Tôi thường đi Đà Lạt khi có ngày lễ. Khi tôi đi Đà Lạt lần sau, tôi sẽ chạy đều vòng quanh và ăn nhiều rau xanh. Tôi rắt thích thành phố Đà Lạt!

More to come….

Better late than never….

1) More wedding pictures up on my Flickr

2) Looking for people to help me “research” the Beers of Saigon… Any takers? I’d like to make some information pages on each of the beers, including taste tests, brewing information and costs.

Thanks!

I went to China.

It was pretty. I will agree with that. We went to Yangshuo, a wonderful little tourist area in Guilin, Guangzhou province. Supposedly it is one of the most beautiful spots in China. From my pictures (as seen below) you can see for yourself. The area was great, but it is really difficult to get to from Vietnam. I only really had 3 options, and only one of them had a reasonable price. Unfortunately, the one we took involved a 8 hour layover (which then turned into a 10 hour layover). We didn’t have anything we cared to see in Guangzhou, so we just stayed in the airport, where we planned on resting in the airport hotel. Unfortunately that didn’t work out. Eventually I fell asleep on the floor of the airport, something I thought was entirely common, but apparently not. The wife notes that I received many strange stares, and possibly one or 2 people took pictures. In case any of those folks are reading, I’d like to see those pictures.

While in Yangshuo I came to a realization, that I’m not a big fan of southern Chinese food (I’ve had some traditional northern food before, and that was not so oily). I also learned to appreciate Vietnamese food much more. I was actually craving for fish sauce by the time I flew back. Another thing I noticed was that beer was not a common product for consumption. Though it is present, not many Chinese seem to drink it during the meal. It is such a stark contrast to Vietnam that I was shocked, though I had been told that before.

The way back was a nightmare, with flights being “canceled” or as some people call it “non-existant due to no customers”. I’m convinced that the flight we had booked no longer exists or only runs in high tourist season. Either way, we had to sit in a airport hotel for 10 hours until the next flight to our destination, eat 2 meals off of trays I can only imagine they borrowed from the local prison, and deal with power in our room that continually went on and off. Then after being assured through terribly broken English (the best English speaker in the airport as well) that we would have someone waiting at the next airport to take us to a hotel, when we arrived the entire airport was virtually empty (at 10pm), with the only employee for the airline we were using being a stinky little bastard who wouldn’t give me any information and took forever to arrange our hotel room. I was asking for the next flight to Ho Chi Minh, but he kept refusing and stating that I should just come back in the morning at 7am. Finally another employee came by and sat down. So I bothered her until she would look for the next flight for me. She was unable to do it and asked the stinky little man, when he saw I wasn’t going to give up he finally looked and told me it was at 3pm. All of that trouble when he could have just told me the truth about 10 minutes previously. The hotel was passable at least

Enough of that though. I was very happy to be back. Not sure if I’ll ever go back to China. Check Flickr for some awesome pictures of the Yangshuo Area. Otherwise, here are my pictures.

Pictures Are better than words I believe… So check it out! Clicky Clicky for many more pictures!

If you were at the wedding and want some other pictures, feel free to contact me, I have a ton!

So.

It’s been an exciting month. As you may notice, my last few posts have been about my parents being in VN. Well, that is done and over. Now you will hear a bit more of the story.

It all starts like this. I met a girl. We became friends. We became more than friends. She moved home to VN, I came as well (though 6 months later). 2 years after that.. we are now married.

Pictures will come shortly, and you will all get to see the beautiful lady that is now my wife. In the meantime you’ll have to deal with text.

My parents arrived on June the 2nd, late at night. Things started out poorly. The time I had written down was 10:35pm. Assuming 30 minutes for all security related matters, we arrived at 11pm. The problem was someone had given me the wrong time. Their arrival was 10:05pm. Therefore we were quite late, and they had waited 10-15 minutes by the time we got there. They were all anxious to get to the house, have a snack and get some rest. So we went to get a taxi. As anyone who has gone through that airport knows, they isn’t always an easy task. We finally got a good taxi (none of those SASCO over-chargers) and got everyone in the taxi…. Except my brother. I had to take my brother home with my on my bike. This was fine… but I have to say that carrying him on the back was quite difficult. He is a large man. You can just imagine 2 guys over 6″ tall (185cm+) on one bike in Ho Chi Minh. If you live here, you’ll probably giggle at that suggestion.

Anyway, they had arrived, everyone was healthy. Then came the morning. Typical HCM traffic…. not so typical for folks from small town Wisconsin. My mother’s taxi in the morning (on the way to get some tailoring) had its mirror ripped off by a truck. Great. Then my taxi (with my brother and dad) got stuck in a bad traffic jam, mostly due to the idiocy of the driver. Next up the first 5 places I went to get tailored/fitted clothing either didn’t do that service anymore, was closed, or didn’t have the right size.  So finally… I took them to the tailor I got my suit at. My brother got his shirt and pants in time, great quality. My dad… no go on the suit. So… we had to go another place for a rental. All in all… one full day to get 2 people clothing for the wedding. Not the best first day…

Next up… Da Lat and Mui Ne. We did all the touristy stuff, nothing major happened. My mom finally found her comfort zone (first at a ice cream cafe in Da Lat, and then next at the spa in Mui Ne). Then we returned. Took care of things and…

I had a wedding.

To Be Continued………

We’ve been to Da Lat, now we are in Mui Ne for one more day. Almost back to Sai Gon. Da Lat was a great change of pace from Sai Gon, and I”m pretty sure that my parents enjoyed it. It was a good choice to get them out of the city (and heat) as soon as possible. Now we are enjoying the Sailing Club, which is a great resort. My parents have finally experienced a luxury resort, even though my dad hasn’t taken part in the nicities of the Spa.

Tomorrow is the return to Sai Gon. We will have some wedding things to handle and then we’ll get all cleaned up for the wedding on saturday. After we recover from that…. it’ll be time for them to head home, and for the newly weds to head off to China.

All is well. No serious ailments so far, but you never know with the Cotter’s.

The parents came in on a plane from Japan late last night!

They are here, they slept well, they ate Pho… and now we are off to the City.. More to come later!

Oh yeah… about 2 months ago I said “I got nothing”

Well, still holds true, except now it is 2 months later.  My wedding party is in 2 weeks and hopefully after that I’ll have some more things to write about, pictures, and motivation.

Are you holding your breath? I’d stop if I were you.