My Lil’ Saigon

Since my last vist, I’ve been quite busy. Some of you may have noticed this my by absolute absence from any online communication. (Skype, Gmail, Blog, Facebook, etc etc), as well as my complete avoidance of district 1 for the most part.

What I’ve been up to?…. In short, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do my job more efficiently so that I can have a little more free time. Mainly I’ve been busy with keeping up with staffing, events, events requests, and organizing to open up a new takeaway/delivery Fish&Chips shop for the restaurant I work for.

To this point, the biggest achievement we’ve had has to be the successfully held Porsche Vietnam Launch Event. From my Flickr account (bdcotter’s Flickr) you can see some of the things that happened at the event. We had a buffet for 100 people including Fresh Grilled Ribeye Steak, Cajun Chicken Breast. Fresh Grilled Crab, Prawns, and Seabass. A variety of Salads and our Home Made Passion Fruit Parfait, a Creme Brulee, and some Ice Cream. The entire restaurant was decked out in Porsche gear and I even got a picture or 2 with the models (woo!). The two models of cars were the Cayman and the new Boxster.  I didn’t get too many pictures but it was a great event and I look forward to holding more of the same at some point….

Now… its back to business as normal… Talk to you soon! (Not 2 months later, I swear!)

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!

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.

Tết is the Vietnamese word for Lunar New Year. This time of the year is marked by spending time with family and giving offerings to the gods and ancestors to make the next year a good one.

Tết mà is a phrase taught to me by my brother-in-law. During Tết, if anyone happens to ask you something like “why are you eating so much” or “Why must you drink so much”, you should reply “Tết Mà” or “because it is Tết”.

Pictures from the Flower Festival, Suoi Tien, and various activities around the house from Tết available on my Flickr, or click the picture above to see the album.

Happy New Year to All… Now get back to work.

Or is it a call for help?

Either way… I’ve just recently started working a lot more. 30 hours of teaching, plus a assistance ship at Wildlife At Risk (a NGO here in Southern VN). All of the projects I’m involved with concern Marine Conservation, and are in their fledgling stages.

Let me tell you about the projects.

1. Mapping/Monitoring of Endangered Species in MPA’s of VN.

-Title is a bit misleading at this point, we aim to use GIS or WORLDMAP to map the distribution and density of endangered species. Staring with Con Dao MPA (currently being developed). A little rough around the edges at this point, since I’m completely void of any experience in this field.

2. Fishermen Surveys/Additional Training of Fishermen

-Surveying fishermen to get supplemental data for conservation purposes in Southern Vietnam (materials, socio-economic, etc), and training fishermen in skills that will allow them economic opportunities while reducing dependence of fishing, therefore reducing fishing pressure.

3. Eco-Resort for Long-term funding

-A new conservation model of sorts. Use land that would normally be paved over for a traditional resort. Keep it green. Use green techniques of energy, local foods, etc etc, and make it a profitable business. Use profits to fund conservation projects. With the amount of marine resources available in VN, this could be a very excellent opportunity to make a model funding source for future conservation.

4.RARE conservation training

-Improving the marketing potential of Conservation in Vietnam. RARE conservation aims to put some business sense in the people who want to promote conservation.

That’s the basic information. They entail much more than I’ve written but basically we’re trying to approach the conservation from a little different angle. Creating awareness, leading to concerned citizens and tourists, bringing attention to projects that are happening in VN. For more information, or if you have some ideas, please contact me.

Coffee is addictive. Coffee is tasty. Coffee can be made out of poo?

Well not really. Ca Phe Chon is traditionally made out of coffee beans that have been passed through a palm civet (Con Chon in vietnamese) and then brewed. Trung Nguyen, the Vietnam equivalent to Starbucks ( by number of stores, not style of store), the weasel poo coffee has been brought back to popularity. Not by actual civet poo though…. by artificial enzymes that simulate the process. Trung Nguyen has artificial poo.

Today I drank some. Tasty indeed. At 10x the price of my normal cup of coffee, it was a bit expensive, but then again, I usually get mine from the street corner. The ca phe chon was dark, heavy, chocolaty, and quite good. Also , it made me very jittery for about 4 hours. Meaning it was pretty damn strong too.

I’d really like to have the real thing, but for now, I’ll probably have Trung Nguyen Ca Phe Chon anytime I’m feeling for a strong cup of coffee.