My Lil’ Saigon

Though I swore I was just going to get a cheapo bike that got me from A to B, such as a Vespa, Bonus, or something similar, I ended up with a brand new bike straight out of the Honda dealership. I can’t really complain, in the long run it will certainly save me money and it is more fuel efficient than anything I would have bought. As a bonus, it rides extra smooth and I think it looks nice too. One big problem at the moment. Someone else in the garage I park in has the exact same bike, I mean come on.. there are only 8 bikes in the garage as it is, and now there are 2 of the EXACT same.

100km into the bike, it feels great. I got a plastic coating on the painted parts so that it preserves the original shine. Now all I need are some accessories or defining marks on the bike to make it easier to spot in a parking lot with 500 bikes, 50 of which are likely to look the same.

Well, I’ve been here for almost a week. I spent most of the time with Ly and her family, and it was pretty good. I went out into the countryside to a farm, took a dinner cruise on the Saigon river (should have went with one of the other boats, this one turned out to be… too uptight, but it was good), and went to Dầm Sen park for a little fun. I have pictures of the park, but not much otherwise. I’m currently exploring ways to make pretty galleries for everyone without paying Flickr, so bear with me.

I have decided that I should not teach so much this year, I hope to work about 20-25 hours per week at teaching, and use the rest of my time doing environmental work, learning Vietnamese, giving private lessons, and having a personal life. These are my goals, we shall see if they stick. For now I’m just going to try to relax a bit and enjoy the ride.

More to come…

Brian

Dear Mr. Passenger 61C,

You are located at the very back of the plane, that means you get a little extra leg room, how lucky you must be! Also, in a today only offer you get both seats in the row to yourself, WOW! Mr. Lucky must be your name. Oh, almost forgot, you are going to have to deal with the constant group of people standing behind you in the open space and talking about business in China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, and how it is different than in the U.S. Please allow this to interrupt any attempts you may have at sleeping. Also due to your baby face we will have to ask you about your age whenever you ask for a bottle of wine, even if we see the 2 previous ones on your tray table. Also we have placed 2 cute cry machines within botherin’ range of you.

Enjoy!

(ps: don’t let anyone know, but we are sooooo gonna delay your flight in Hong Kong)

United Airlines

Now… I don’t want to say the flight was bad… it certainly wasn’t. However I did have a few moments of sleep interrupted by businessmen behind me, and cry machines. I ended up sleeping about 3-4 hours total, with 4 bottles of wine (note to non-flyers: a airline bottle of wine is what you would call “a taste test”) helping me along the way. In Hong Kong my flight was delayed.. but only an hour, no so bad. And by some stroke of luck… I was moved up to business class!! Now, that was a treat, why couldn’t that have happened on my long flight. I’m all hyped up about the benefits of business class flying at the moment.

Also I sat next to a friendly business man who does work with exporting coffee to America. Now… I was interested in that before I left but I didn’t find much information. I got an invitation to visit his coffee farm here near HCM.. I can’t wait to go.

Tomorrow I’m off and drving at 7am to Ly’s family farm. Lord help me if I don’t get a few hours of sleep tonight.

-Brian “back in the HCMC” Cotter

Here I sit, in my cool (as in temperature) Wisconsin house pondering the next weeks worth of activities. The outside temperature has gone up a bit, but it is supposed to snow the next couple days. I have to do a few things, including shopping, giving a little presentation to some kids at my former grade school, and shave. I haven’t touched a razor to my face since I left Vietnam. I am pretty sad about the growth, and annoyed at the hair, but I hold true to my declaration of laziness.

I also have the potential of going up to the northwoods and tromping around the frozen forests of firs. I’m not sure about that, but I might.

Until then, I’m just going to continue to read my 3 books… Yes, I am reading 3 books at the same time. I like them all.

When I read “After Sorrow” I find it hard to quit, her personal experiences in Vietnam are amazing and it gives me motivation to learn the language quicker (because I’ve been pretty slow at it up until now). “The Zombie Survival Guide” is a great work of non-fiction. I will now be able to survive any type of Undead Ghoul attack. I want his other non-fiction book too. “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars” . Thirdly, I am reading a book full of excerpts from people who wrote or used cocaine. It rocks. I highly suggest it.