Coat shopping!

I bought a winter coat in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday... yes, a winter coat in a city where snow (or winter) has never existed.  Luckily, with our upcoming trip to Europe, the vendors around the market had what I needed, at the right price!

I got a long North Face coat filled with goose down feathers for 900,000 VND ($45).  The same coat on the North Face website is selling for $300 in Canada.  What a bargain!  Of course there is always the question of "is this product legit?" ... well, I don't know if it's real North Face or real goose down, but WHO CARES?!  At that price, I'm happy with my purchase!  I tried it on and it was really warm.  I was sweating instantly (however, it was also over 30 degrees outside)!

The guy who sold me the coat even rolled it up in a bag and packaged it up really small with the help of packing tape.  I can just throw it in my bag and crack it open in Prague.  No need to worry about a bulky coat taking up half my bag, or wearing a coat on the plane in the blistering heat of HCMC or Dubai.  Gotta love shopping in this country!

Here is my coat all wrapped up, ready for packing...

Europe itinerary!

The Europe itinerary is set...

Prague
Salzburg
Innsbruck
Vienna
Budapest
Dubai

I'm excited!!!!!!  The countdown is on... 10 more days!  Now I just need to buy some winter clothing...

An art-filled weekend!

More art news...

Last weekend I went with some friends to a former student's home (aka mansion) for her mom's art show.  It was quite the event.  Live music, wine, multiple artists' work on display, and even a DJ!  I got invited last year but couldn't go... I guess I was missing out!  The whole event felt very swank and exclusive, as it was by invitation only... very interesting evening!

 

Celebrating Christmas, Vietnam-style!

Christmas is coming soon, even to Vietnam!  It always surprises me how much Vietnamese people actually decorate for Christmas, considering the majority of people here don't celebrate it as a religious holiday.  It's nice to see lights and other decorations up around the city.  It makes me feel somewhat festive even away from home.

In our apartment I put up some lights and decorated our fake potted plant.

Last night we also had our staff Christmas party at a small restaurant downtown.  It was a lot of fun and it was great to see the decorations up and everyone enjoying some Christmas cheer!

John and Greg

Tanya and I

Merry Christmas from Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh City!!!!!!!!

Wine + Painting Evening!

This week I attended a wine and painting evening in district 2, which is on the other side of the city.  After doing a wine tasting, we began to start the painting portion of the evening.  There was an artist there who showed us some techniques and was giving us pointers throughout the night.  We were painting winter scenes in the spirit of the holiday season.  We got a choose a painting to replicate, and then were given a canvas, paint, and more wine and set off to create some art!  I was happy with the way mine turned out.  I hadn't really painted since high school, so I wasn't sure what to expect.  It made me feel good that the artist said I had talent and that I should continue painting in the future!

Here are some photos from the evening:

The inspiration for our paintings

Do a base coat first, then paint over and scratch some colours through with the end of a brush

My painting!

Xin chao, toi la Angela ...

Hello, I'm Angela...

And I'm studying Vietnamese!  Last year I didn't put much effort into learning Vietnamese.  I felt a bit embarrassed that I've lived so long in this country and really don't know more than a handful of words.  My friend Alex and I decided to take up lessons with a Vietnamese co-worker's friends.  We have lessons twice a week with 2 female tutors named Phuong and Nguyet.  They are really nice and are good teachers.  They even make PowerPoint slides to teach us, and take us to the grocery store to learn about foods.  The best thing is that these lessons are FREE.  Phuong and Nguyet like to practise English and want us to help them with their language skills too, so they do not charge for any lessons.  It's just a language exchange, which is great!!!  Unfortunately, Vietnamese is extremely difficult (it's a tonal language) and we're not the most motivated of students.  It's fun trying to learn the language and laugh at ourselves when we pronounce a word 20 times and it's still wrong.  Oh well!

Rosemarie

We have a maid/cook who comes every Wednesday named Rosemarie.  It's great to come home from school on Wednesday afternoon to find the apartment clean and a home-cooked meal on the stove.  Here is one of the meals she made us...

Home-cooked Filipino food!  Chicken stew...

Terry Fox Run 2012

This post is coming a bit late, but in November we held a school Terry Fox Run and participated in the 16th annual TFR in HCMC!  It was amazing to see that even across the world there is so much support for Terry's cause.

Jess & I at the school run

John & Alex at the HCMC run

Andy, Julia, and Hidey at the HCMC run

Julia, Nguyet, Phuong, me, and Alex