How old are you Ms. Angela?

Favourite question of the day:  "How old are you Ms. Angela?"

This is one of my favourite questions to answer to small children because they always have no clue about the concept of age.  I'm either 10 or 100 or somewhere in between.  I usually have them guess, just for fun.  A girl in my class asked me this question today, and her first guess after hesitating a while was "12?"  When I told her I was older, her guesses went up, in increments of 1 year... 13?  14?  15?!?!?!  She was pretty shocked when I said 30.

Grade 1s can be pretty amusing sometimes!

A student made this paper version of me for my b-day!

Birthday pug

I forgot to post this pic that John snuck onto my computer at school on my birthday, done in Microsoft Paint... it was just too funny!!!

Happy Earth Day from Vietnam...

It's April 22nd here - Earth Day!  This month the grade 1s participated in a garbage clean up around the school.  We gave them plastic gloves to pick up the garbage, which was literally strewn all over the grassy area across the street from the front of the school.  This area is not technically school property, but it is right across from the school where all the buses park near.  It's not nice seeing empty plastic cups and bottles, cigarette boxes, random papers and snack wrappers thrown all over the grass.  Collectively, the four grade 1 classes picked up 22 bags of garbage within around 45 minutes.  Crazy!  What did you do for Earth Day?

Mine and Jess' classes picked up 13 out of the 22 bags!

I love long weekends!

It was so nice to get a long weekend off work... this month has been busy for me.  Last week I just finished my third and final observation lesson (the vice principal came to watch 3 of my lessons and evaluate me on my teaching).  I haven't received the feedback yet, but it's a nice feeling to be finished with that!

Besides dog sitting this weekend, John, Greg, Angela, Will, and I made a random trip to Lotte Mart (the Korean version of Walmart, which is also in Vietnam) to go bowling.  It was a lot of fun!  After bowling, we decided to try out a Korean bar that is right by our place.  Just like in Korea, they give you lots of free food if you buy drinks.  We ordered some soju and chicken but then got free popcorn, egg soup, coleslaw, radishes, among other things.  Thanks for the "serbice-uh" (aka service), as they call it in Korea!

A small group of us also did some baking at our friend Rachel's house.  Ovens like we have back in Canada are rare, so if you are lucky enough to have a toaster-oven type thing that sits on your counter, you can bake stuff!  We made apple crisp and muffins.  Yum!

Only a few hours left of this long weekend and I am going to spend it catching up on TV shows and eating my Veggie Delite sub from Subway (yes, we have Subway here... and we can order it online, delivered right to your house!) ...

It was a great weekend!!!

Shop till you drop - Saigon style!

We had Friday off school for Hung King Day, so a bunch of my friends and I went to District 1 to go shopping at Saigon Square and Taka Plaza, two indoor market-style shopping centres that are very popular.  At these markets you can find clothing, watches, jewellery, shoes, purses, wallets, winter coats, backpacks, sunglasses, phone cases, and pretty much any kind of other accessory you need.  Most of the stalls do not have fixed prices, so you need to barter with the sellers to get a good price on the items you want to buy.

This is the inside of one of the markets, from the top level looking down

Sometimes you have to bargain a lot with the sellers before they give you a discount.  Some of them may not even budge - usually we walk away from those ones!  My friend got a really good copy of a brand name watch that they originally quoted as $45, but she was able to get it for around $15.  They even whipped out a silver briefcase full of "high quality" watches to try to make us seem like we were getting a top of the line product!

Everyone ended up buying something after we visited Saigon Square 1, Saigon Square 2, Taka Plaza, and "Shoe Street."  I got 3 dresses for around $35.  One of them I was able to find online and was retailing for $58 at the store, so I think I got a good deal!  I also bought an Hermes wallet... not real, but a decent fake for around $14.  I looked it up on the Hermes UK site and it says that model costs $1250.  Who would spend that much on a wallet?!?!?!  I like how this box looks pretty legit, haha!

Anyone from back home want a Hermes wallet?  Fake Rolex?  Pearl necklace?  Mulberry or Longchamp purse?  Ray Ban sunglasses?  Let me know!

Adventures in dog sitting

This weekend is a holiday in Vietnam (Hung King Day), so we have a 3-day weekend!  We decided not to go anywhere this time since we are going away next week to Borneo.  Our friends Andy and Julia were going to Kuala Lumpur this weekend, so they asked us if we could watch their dog Hidey for the weekend.

The first day Hidey arrived, she was very excited, but now she has calmed down a bit.  I think she is wondering where her owners are, but she has been good and has not been barking or whimpering.  We take her out 3 times a day and she has a feeding schedule for the morning and evening.  John likes to roll around on the floor with her.  I think Hidey thinks he is a dog too.  I'm sure she's pretty confused about that!

Book recommendation

A few weeks ago I just finished the amazing book "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett.  If you are looking for an interesting, entertaining read, I highly recommend this book.

"The Help" takes place in the southern USA during the 1960s.  It follows the stories about upper class white women and the black maids that serve them.  This book has also been made into a movie, but I haven't seen it yet.  "The Help" is funny, sad, and surprising all at the same time.  It is definitely a page-turner, and I was actually sad when it was finished because it was such a great book.  Now that I've finished this book, I'm looking for another one to read... any suggestions?

A new decade!

This year I turned 30 years old, and got to celebrate twice... with the surprise birthday dinner/karaoke night the weekend before my b-day, and also on the real day - a nice dinner with friends at my favourite restaurant, complete with a delicious free dessert courtesy of the restaurant owner.  My housemates also got me a box of my favourite snacks... candy, chocolate, chips, Japanese yogurt drinks, crackers, and even a bottle of soju as a joke!

Now that I have turned 30 and completed my goal of visiting 30 countries before 30 (I even surpassed it and am now at 31!), I feel a bit of a sense of accomplishment.  I'm lucky to have wonderful family and friends, and a steady job that allows me to travel a lot, the activity I enjoy the most.  I'm feeling good... what's next for the third decade of my life?  Only time will tell!

Surprise!!! It's your birthday!!!

On the weekend I was feeling better and my friend Tanya suggested we go downtown for dinner.  Having not left the house for several days, I was definitely up for it.  John said Alex wanted to go too, and that he wanted to meet us to get a cab in 25 minutes.  At that point, Greg, Tanya, John, and I were all sitting around watching Survivor, so I jumped up and got ready.  John took a shower and then said he wasn't sure if he felt like going.  With some nagging, I convinced him to go, and then we met up with Alex and some other friends Will and Angela.  The 7 of us cabbed downtown to one of our favourite restaurants.

When we walked upstairs, I heard a lot of people and then realized it was a SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY for my friend Angela and I.  Her birthday is 2 days before mine.  I was really, REALLY surprised!  I never had a surprise party before... there was a huge group of our friends from school there.  John and Will organized the whole thing and everyone was in on the secret.  I couldn't believe how well my housemates pulled off the plan so naturally... complete with John almost deciding not to go because he was "tired."  I had NO IDEA this surprise was going down.

After a nice dinner, some of us went to karaoke where we had a good time.  I guess this will go down as my most surprising birthday to date.  It was lots of fun celebrating, and my birthday isn't even until Wednesday so I guess I can celebrate again!

Shoo, flu!

I am finally starting to feel better after missing 3 days of work dealing with the annoying "flu."  Some friends were sick, it was going around, and unfortunately I caught it.  Tuesday was the Longest Day of School Ever.  Having a fever when it's already 35 degrees Celsius outside isn't pleasant.  But then having chills when it's 35 degrees outside isn't either! 

Now that all my body temperature has regulated itself and all the aches are gone, I am just left with this annoying cough.  Instead of popping cold meds, I decided to try a few "natural" remedies to see if they worked...

Remedy #1:  The secret tea

My friend Greg was also sick with the flu and unable to sleep.  His family told him about a special recipe that could help... boil 1 can of coke (really), along with lime and ginger in a pot, then drink.  It sounds weird, but it doesn't taste bad!  He said that he drank it after some sleepless nights and had the best sleep of his life and felt better.  I thought it would be worth a try.  I drank this stuff and went to bed early.  I sure did sleep well... so well that I thought I slept through the entire night with the flu (a miracle?) but then when I woke up my clock said it was only 12:38am.  Maybe it was the caffeine that then caused me to be awake for most of the rest of the night.  Partial fail.  I wish I could have kept sleeping!

Remedy #2:  The mystery elixir

Ok, this one is just kind of weird.  Normally I wouldn't just take something like this, but I thought "why not."  John received a mysterious elixir from a Korean student (those Koreans always know what is good for your health).  The bottle says it's made in New Zealand, with all natural ingredients.  The doctor who invented it has a degree in Medicinal Herbology from Quebec (random!) ...  They have a website that you can even buy the stuff through, so even though the bottle looks weird it seems legit.  This product claims to "soothe and support deep bronchial health and the removal of mucus."  Apparently it's an excellent elixir for smokers too, so it says on the bottle.

Anyway, I took a shot glass full of this stuff before bed one night, and it tasted horrible!  It was like drinking Tiger Balm.  My throat immediately felt cool and then the coolness spread to my ears a bit.  I slept the whole night through, and in the morning, I woke up with no coughing.  SUCCESS!  This stuff is magical... when the cough later came back, I just drank some more and it goes away.  This product contains a bunch of herbs, oils, and other items... including cayenne, ginger root, licorice root, cedarwood, eucalyptol, jojoba, juniper, lemon, menthol, peppermint, pine, rosemary, sea salt, and "UV light-treated rainwater," among many other things!

There you have it!  Now that I'm feeling better, I can get on with things.  Shoo, flu... don't bother me!!!