Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
A Post at Long Last
If anyone still reads my blog:
I have plenty of time now because my school, who said at the end of the 12 week course I had been teaching on, there would be a new course for me. However, it transpired that all they had was a link to someone else who had a "live in" job somewhere in the provinces. Which, of course, I turned down.
So I am looking for work again, just at the wrong time of year when there are few jobs around. With Christmas and Tet holiday coming up and bills to be paid I hope something comes up soon. I have applied for a few so far, so now waiting for replies.
I have plenty of time now because my school, who said at the end of the 12 week course I had been teaching on, there would be a new course for me. However, it transpired that all they had was a link to someone else who had a "live in" job somewhere in the provinces. Which, of course, I turned down.
So I am looking for work again, just at the wrong time of year when there are few jobs around. With Christmas and Tet holiday coming up and bills to be paid I hope something comes up soon. I have applied for a few so far, so now waiting for replies.
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Bun Cha in HCMC
I went for a walk this evening and after about an hour's walking I came across a very unusual sight in HCM. It was a Bun Cha restaurant! In Hanoi Bun Cha was my favourite food, so how could I not go in? In Hanoi Bun Cha restaurants are the dirtiest in town because it is barbecued pork in a soup with rice noodles and a big bowl of herbs and salad. So the charcoal gets everywhere and Hanoi people throw all their rubbish on the floor and then it gets swept up at the end of mealtime, which makes the places look a bit messy, but, of course doesn't affect the taste of the food. They are not only the most delicious places but also one of the cheapest. Bun Cha generally costs 10,000 Dong, or 60 cents US, 30p Brit. If you have a couple of equally delicious but very filling Nem or spring rolls then it may be 15,000 VND altogether.
This place had shiny silver tables, no sign whatsoever of charcoal dust or rubbish strewn floor. It had waitresses in uniforms and everything was sparkling clean and spotless.
So in I go "Bun Cha va Hai Nem" (bun cha and two spring rolls) I say. They were amazed at my perfect Hanoian accent... (well they didn't laugh too loud, anyway). It arrived at the table fairly quickly and I put in some garlic, a little chilli and looked through the herbs for the coriander/cilantro, but none there, only the normal herbs you get in HCM food, which was disappointing. Bun Cha needs coriander. I began eating, but the chilli, even though I only put two small pieces in, was extremely fiery, and I began coughing. "Mot Chai Coca." (a bottle of Coke) I said and waited for it to arrive. After a few minutes and asking where it was, I got a glass of iced tea and was told in English, your coffee is coming soon. Oh well, so much for my perfect Vietnamese accent! I don't think I have ever managed to ask for Coke and got them to understand. I need to do more work on my pronunciation... But at least it was better than a few days ago at a different restaurant when I asked for "mot chai bia" (bottle of beer) and was brought a spoon, which made everyone in the restaurant piss themselves when I took her over to the beer and showed her what I wanted. The bill for a coffee, the Bun Cha and two spring rolls? 48,000!
It never pays to eat in a clean restaurant, always look for the grubbier ones, it's always easier on your wallet.
It is another week til I get my first wage paid into my bank account, which took three weeks to open, endless form filling and lots of patience. My passport was needed for each of the six visits, even though they photocopied it several times on the first visit, but it's now ready to accept the money and I have an ATM card all ready to go...
This place had shiny silver tables, no sign whatsoever of charcoal dust or rubbish strewn floor. It had waitresses in uniforms and everything was sparkling clean and spotless.
So in I go "Bun Cha va Hai Nem" (bun cha and two spring rolls) I say. They were amazed at my perfect Hanoian accent... (well they didn't laugh too loud, anyway). It arrived at the table fairly quickly and I put in some garlic, a little chilli and looked through the herbs for the coriander/cilantro, but none there, only the normal herbs you get in HCM food, which was disappointing. Bun Cha needs coriander. I began eating, but the chilli, even though I only put two small pieces in, was extremely fiery, and I began coughing. "Mot Chai Coca." (a bottle of Coke) I said and waited for it to arrive. After a few minutes and asking where it was, I got a glass of iced tea and was told in English, your coffee is coming soon. Oh well, so much for my perfect Vietnamese accent! I don't think I have ever managed to ask for Coke and got them to understand. I need to do more work on my pronunciation... But at least it was better than a few days ago at a different restaurant when I asked for "mot chai bia" (bottle of beer) and was brought a spoon, which made everyone in the restaurant piss themselves when I took her over to the beer and showed her what I wanted. The bill for a coffee, the Bun Cha and two spring rolls? 48,000!
It never pays to eat in a clean restaurant, always look for the grubbier ones, it's always easier on your wallet.
It is another week til I get my first wage paid into my bank account, which took three weeks to open, endless form filling and lots of patience. My passport was needed for each of the six visits, even though they photocopied it several times on the first visit, but it's now ready to accept the money and I have an ATM card all ready to go...
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Weekend in Cuc Phuong National Park
This weekend we went to Cuc Phuong National Park. Jane, Henrik, Cuong, Fiona, Sara and me set out at 8am Saturday morning from Hanoi and arrived around 9 hours later! Why it took us that long I have no idea. It is normally a 4 hour ride we were told. But it wasn't important because we all enjoyed the ride and had the weekend. We stayed in a nice guest house outside the park for the first night and also ate there because in the village they had no food. It is late in the season so they probably weren't expecting too many visitors. We sat around drinking fruit wine and beer and play Pass the Pigs and then some dodgy card game Henrik suggested, gradually sinking down into inebriation before heading off to bed.
Early the next morning (10am) we paid 40,000 Dong to get into the park and rode the 20 kilometres to our chosen guest house along a concrete road with lovely views of the forest, which had no hot water but was only $12 a night a room, whereas the accommodation with hot water was $25 a night. We were only stopping one night as we all had to be back at work on Monday so no problems.
We had a fantastic walk through the forest and really Enjoyed the trees, ferns, rocks, and beautiful scenery. It was so powerful it felt like we were under the influence of something. Cuc Phuong is a lovely place to visit and I would recommend it to anyone. At the end of the path there was what is called a 1000 year old tree and huge and wonderful it is. We heard and saw many birds and butterflies and animals.
In the evening there is only electricity from 6 til 10pm but it is enough. We had dinner at the park restaurant, which was tasty then retired for music and beer on our balcony as Henrik had brought his guitar.
Next morning it took us 4 hours to get back to Hanoi, a bit of a nap and ready for work at 4ish. Henrik Jane and Cuong left earlier because of work. Altogether a fantastic weekend spent with good people and everyone having lots of fun. Next weekend is my last weekend in Hanoi (and Henrik is leaving for Sweden, too) so we are hoping to get a big group together and go back to Cat Ba for another good weekend.
Early the next morning (10am) we paid 40,000 Dong to get into the park and rode the 20 kilometres to our chosen guest house along a concrete road with lovely views of the forest, which had no hot water but was only $12 a night a room, whereas the accommodation with hot water was $25 a night. We were only stopping one night as we all had to be back at work on Monday so no problems.
We had a fantastic walk through the forest and really Enjoyed the trees, ferns, rocks, and beautiful scenery. It was so powerful it felt like we were under the influence of something. Cuc Phuong is a lovely place to visit and I would recommend it to anyone. At the end of the path there was what is called a 1000 year old tree and huge and wonderful it is. We heard and saw many birds and butterflies and animals.
In the evening there is only electricity from 6 til 10pm but it is enough. We had dinner at the park restaurant, which was tasty then retired for music and beer on our balcony as Henrik had brought his guitar.
Next morning it took us 4 hours to get back to Hanoi, a bit of a nap and ready for work at 4ish. Henrik Jane and Cuong left earlier because of work. Altogether a fantastic weekend spent with good people and everyone having lots of fun. Next weekend is my last weekend in Hanoi (and Henrik is leaving for Sweden, too) so we are hoping to get a big group together and go back to Cat Ba for another good weekend.
Monday, 23 July 2007
Hoa Binh
I had a lovely weekend away from Hanoi this weekend with my friend Fiona. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so have no pics. So I will have to try and paint an (unsatisfying, as Telly Savalas said 'If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you?') picture with words. After a pleasant couple of hours on the Wave with some smashing views, karsts, greenery and a good tarmacced, not too busy road we arrived in Hoa Binh.
Hoa Binh is a quite attractive town about 75 kilometres away from Hanoi, so could be done in one day. However, I managed to get the weekend off and wasn't working until 5.30 Monday, so we went for two nights in the pink palace which was the hotel in the centre of town we chose as our temporary abode. Which was had for a bargain price of only $30, a 33% reduction off the asking price. For $15 a night we received a huge room with en-suite, air-conditioning, tv (without satellite or cable) two big beds, nicely decorated in light blue, friendly, helpful service, including room service peace and quiet, with a view of the river behind and an attractive town, with indoor and outdoor market and a dam to explore.
The first thing I could say about Hoa Binh is that very few local people like to eat out. The choice of restaurants available to tourists is pretty spartan and need to be searched out. After a wander around town on foot upon arrival and seeing most of the side of the town which is on the left bank of the river we hadn't come across anywhere we fancied for food. So we returned to the hotel picked up our mechanical steed and wandered over to the seedier side of town on the other side of the river. Where we did manage to find quite a nice restaurant, with pretty twinkling lights, catfish in a pond, edible food on the menu and delicious bia hoi available. So with full bellies we returned to the hotel satisfied and a little tiddly, ready for tomorrow's journey.
At 8:00am prompt we awoke, for a few minutes, fell asleep again for another hour or so before eventually struggling out of the pit, to set off for Ba Vi hillside. The hill with a temple at its peak, to be climbed because it is there. We decided to search for an egg place for breakfast and eventually found a pho shop doing eggs too, so in stilted Vietnamese, with hand signals aplenty we asked for pho with eggs, which duly arrived. We hadn't realised the eggs were vit lon, those disgusting duck eggs with a part-grown chick inside, which we chose to feed to the friendly little cafe kitten and puppy, rather than eat. but the soup was adequate for breakfast and kept us going on our journey, onwards and upwards to Ba Vi.
Here I should have scanned in the map of the countryside around Ba Vi, with its bridge over the river clearly shown, but as I don't have a scanner and am too lazy to go to a scanning shop, then you will just have to take my word for it. But we travelled along this road for an hour or two, til we got to the area of the bridge, stopped for a coffee and asked directions, from the smiley and happy three generations of Vietnamese ladies and the guy who spoke a little English who happened to to be in there, being told it was about another 15 kilometres then turn right, so we didn't bother to get out the posh, hard-backed map, we just continued on our way. After about 20 odd kilometres, we stopped, thinking something must be amiss, and we had missed the turning. So we got out the map, saw that the bridge was more like 20 kilometres back, somewhere near the cafe we had stopped in on the way. Turning around, we thought it was odd but somehow we must have missed the turning. For our ever patient readers, to cut a long story, semi short, there wasn't any fucking bridge! up, down, up, down, nothing! It was clear as Pi-pi Island seawater, on the map, but in reality there was nothing there, so we had to return to the outskirts of Hoa Binh and drown our sorrows in local Bia Hanoi at a very nice little restaurant with a huge Anchor Beer sign, with no Anchor beer of course, with no chairs and an unrushed, almost Lao atmosphere, before heading back to the hotel and a snooze before dinner.
We went for another walk like the first night, but this time with a little more determination, knowing that there must surely be a good restaurant in the centre of Hoa Binh. And it paid off. There it was, right along the main street, but quite a way down, the Anchor restaurant, with real draught Anchor at 4 for a dollar, excellent Hai san (seafood) type food. So we had giant prawns, squid, rice and vegetables plus several beers for the princely sum of about $7 for two. Some excellent coconuts were also drunk/eaten around town and the shopping, including the markets, looked quite fun if we had had a little more time. After dinner we popped over to the Pho Cafe, and elegant little upstairs establishment with powerful cooling 'steam' being emitted through pipes and blown around by fans to cool the almost non-existent customers of this Vietnamese version of the 'Turkish bathhouse' down. But now it was time for bed
After an excellent night's sleep and another early morning start (which went from me telling her we were getting up and going for breakfast at 8:30 to actually decamping at 10:30, we made our way to a cafe with a limited menu we had spotted the night before on our travels. The Jackson cafe. With egg, pate, beef, chips (4), spring onions, sizzling away in oil on a metal plate, with a bread roll and a plate of cucumber to accompany it, one of only three foods on the short menu, with one of the others being sugar and butter on bread. Food fit for a king! and what better way to set ourselves up for the return journey to Hanoi. We did the return in very bright sunshine, 35C, slathered in factor 50 and a Jesse James mask mainly keeping the rays at bay, in a little over two hours, with one pair of dead sunglasses, one minor battle with a lorry and no bones broken.
Altogether a very enjoyable weekend and next time we might even get to Ba Vi.
Hoa Binh is a quite attractive town about 75 kilometres away from Hanoi, so could be done in one day. However, I managed to get the weekend off and wasn't working until 5.30 Monday, so we went for two nights in the pink palace which was the hotel in the centre of town we chose as our temporary abode. Which was had for a bargain price of only $30, a 33% reduction off the asking price. For $15 a night we received a huge room with en-suite, air-conditioning, tv (without satellite or cable) two big beds, nicely decorated in light blue, friendly, helpful service, including room service peace and quiet, with a view of the river behind and an attractive town, with indoor and outdoor market and a dam to explore.
The first thing I could say about Hoa Binh is that very few local people like to eat out. The choice of restaurants available to tourists is pretty spartan and need to be searched out. After a wander around town on foot upon arrival and seeing most of the side of the town which is on the left bank of the river we hadn't come across anywhere we fancied for food. So we returned to the hotel picked up our mechanical steed and wandered over to the seedier side of town on the other side of the river. Where we did manage to find quite a nice restaurant, with pretty twinkling lights, catfish in a pond, edible food on the menu and delicious bia hoi available. So with full bellies we returned to the hotel satisfied and a little tiddly, ready for tomorrow's journey.
At 8:00am prompt we awoke, for a few minutes, fell asleep again for another hour or so before eventually struggling out of the pit, to set off for Ba Vi hillside. The hill with a temple at its peak, to be climbed because it is there. We decided to search for an egg place for breakfast and eventually found a pho shop doing eggs too, so in stilted Vietnamese, with hand signals aplenty we asked for pho with eggs, which duly arrived. We hadn't realised the eggs were vit lon, those disgusting duck eggs with a part-grown chick inside, which we chose to feed to the friendly little cafe kitten and puppy, rather than eat. but the soup was adequate for breakfast and kept us going on our journey, onwards and upwards to Ba Vi.
Here I should have scanned in the map of the countryside around Ba Vi, with its bridge over the river clearly shown, but as I don't have a scanner and am too lazy to go to a scanning shop, then you will just have to take my word for it. But we travelled along this road for an hour or two, til we got to the area of the bridge, stopped for a coffee and asked directions, from the smiley and happy three generations of Vietnamese ladies and the guy who spoke a little English who happened to to be in there, being told it was about another 15 kilometres then turn right, so we didn't bother to get out the posh, hard-backed map, we just continued on our way. After about 20 odd kilometres, we stopped, thinking something must be amiss, and we had missed the turning. So we got out the map, saw that the bridge was more like 20 kilometres back, somewhere near the cafe we had stopped in on the way. Turning around, we thought it was odd but somehow we must have missed the turning. For our ever patient readers, to cut a long story, semi short, there wasn't any fucking bridge! up, down, up, down, nothing! It was clear as Pi-pi Island seawater, on the map, but in reality there was nothing there, so we had to return to the outskirts of Hoa Binh and drown our sorrows in local Bia Hanoi at a very nice little restaurant with a huge Anchor Beer sign, with no Anchor beer of course, with no chairs and an unrushed, almost Lao atmosphere, before heading back to the hotel and a snooze before dinner.
We went for another walk like the first night, but this time with a little more determination, knowing that there must surely be a good restaurant in the centre of Hoa Binh. And it paid off. There it was, right along the main street, but quite a way down, the Anchor restaurant, with real draught Anchor at 4 for a dollar, excellent Hai san (seafood) type food. So we had giant prawns, squid, rice and vegetables plus several beers for the princely sum of about $7 for two. Some excellent coconuts were also drunk/eaten around town and the shopping, including the markets, looked quite fun if we had had a little more time. After dinner we popped over to the Pho Cafe, and elegant little upstairs establishment with powerful cooling 'steam' being emitted through pipes and blown around by fans to cool the almost non-existent customers of this Vietnamese version of the 'Turkish bathhouse' down. But now it was time for bed
After an excellent night's sleep and another early morning start (which went from me telling her we were getting up and going for breakfast at 8:30 to actually decamping at 10:30, we made our way to a cafe with a limited menu we had spotted the night before on our travels. The Jackson cafe. With egg, pate, beef, chips (4), spring onions, sizzling away in oil on a metal plate, with a bread roll and a plate of cucumber to accompany it, one of only three foods on the short menu, with one of the others being sugar and butter on bread. Food fit for a king! and what better way to set ourselves up for the return journey to Hanoi. We did the return in very bright sunshine, 35C, slathered in factor 50 and a Jesse James mask mainly keeping the rays at bay, in a little over two hours, with one pair of dead sunglasses, one minor battle with a lorry and no bones broken.
Altogether a very enjoyable weekend and next time we might even get to Ba Vi.
Friday, 4 May 2007
Halong Bay
Had a great couple of days in Halong Bay with my friends Steve and Lan Anh.
We went by Minibus on Sunday morning. I forgot my passport (and you cannot stay in a hotel without it!) so we ended going round and round Hanoi by taxi to start off the journey. But we eventually got to the bus station around 11ish. It was 40,000 VND to Halong and took around 4 hours. As it was carnaval (sic) almost every hotel was full and we ended up paying 400,000 VND for a triple room, which is 100,000 over their published rate, but beggars can't be choosers and we had to stay somewhere. It was a nice quiet room with air-con, so it was ok. First we went and ate some delicious seafood (well sensible people did (Steve doesn't eat seafood) before heading to the beach, where Steve had to go parasailing, at 180,000 VND a time. He did it three times while we were there! The night market is good in Halong and we had a few beers and an enjoyable first evening.
The next day we went on a junk around the bay. This cost 130,000 VND each, which was very good value. from around 11am to 4ish including stops at a village, beach and a cave. They didn't give us any food tho, so it was good we had a huge breakfast before getting on. Surprise cave, including a red lit penis!! was the highlight of the day, as can be seen in the pics taken by me and Steve.
After returning to Halong we went by taxi to a Vietnamese resort which I cannot remember the name of. Here we swam, Steve (obviously) went parasailing, before returning to Halong and an evening spent in the Good Coffee bar drinking beer and listening to outdoor karaoke next door..
Tuesday we spent on the beach and all had a go in a blow-up ball, which was fun running around on the sea, tied to the jetty, but because me and Steve went in together, we ran out of air pretty quickly and we both came out feeling pretty dizzy..
We caught the minibus back to Hanoi around 5pm. It broke down around 6pm. We waited for the next bus til around 7pm and arrived in Hanoi around 9.15, with the 33 other passengers on the rather cramped (seating for 18) minibus.
But altogether a fabulous time was had by all and we survived the ravages of fighting our way back to Hanoi. I will definitely go back and enjoy more of Halong's sights and foods and spend more time with the friendly people.
We went by Minibus on Sunday morning. I forgot my passport (and you cannot stay in a hotel without it!) so we ended going round and round Hanoi by taxi to start off the journey. But we eventually got to the bus station around 11ish. It was 40,000 VND to Halong and took around 4 hours. As it was carnaval (sic) almost every hotel was full and we ended up paying 400,000 VND for a triple room, which is 100,000 over their published rate, but beggars can't be choosers and we had to stay somewhere. It was a nice quiet room with air-con, so it was ok. First we went and ate some delicious seafood (well sensible people did (Steve doesn't eat seafood) before heading to the beach, where Steve had to go parasailing, at 180,000 VND a time. He did it three times while we were there! The night market is good in Halong and we had a few beers and an enjoyable first evening.
The next day we went on a junk around the bay. This cost 130,000 VND each, which was very good value. from around 11am to 4ish including stops at a village, beach and a cave. They didn't give us any food tho, so it was good we had a huge breakfast before getting on. Surprise cave, including a red lit penis!! was the highlight of the day, as can be seen in the pics taken by me and Steve.
After returning to Halong we went by taxi to a Vietnamese resort which I cannot remember the name of. Here we swam, Steve (obviously) went parasailing, before returning to Halong and an evening spent in the Good Coffee bar drinking beer and listening to outdoor karaoke next door..
Tuesday we spent on the beach and all had a go in a blow-up ball, which was fun running around on the sea, tied to the jetty, but because me and Steve went in together, we ran out of air pretty quickly and we both came out feeling pretty dizzy..
We caught the minibus back to Hanoi around 5pm. It broke down around 6pm. We waited for the next bus til around 7pm and arrived in Hanoi around 9.15, with the 33 other passengers on the rather cramped (seating for 18) minibus.
But altogether a fabulous time was had by all and we survived the ravages of fighting our way back to Hanoi. I will definitely go back and enjoy more of Halong's sights and foods and spend more time with the friendly people.
Saturday, 14 April 2007
Do you miss anything from home?
IF you are an ex-pat reading this or are thinking about becoming one what do you miss or what do you think you will miss about your home country?
Here's what I don't miss:
British weather; getting up at 6 or 7am to struggle into work; fog; rain; hail; sleet; 40 or 50 hour weeks; overtime; cold, dank, dark evenings and mornings; speed cameras; petrol that costs the earth; beer at £2 or £3 a pint; pubs that serve food only at certain hours; boil-in-the-bag pub/restaurant food; fruit that tastes of nothing.
Here's what I do miss:
Errrrr... Still thinking about this one...
Here's what I enjoy about Hanoi:
The weather, although it is occasionally rainy and sometimes windy and cold, the climate seems generally favourable, much cooler than Ho Chi Minh or Bangkok. Although I haven't seen the wet/hot season yet, having arrived in September. I like working short hours and being paid enough to live on; I like being able to rent a motorbike for $40 a month and a great 4 bed house for $500 a month; I enjoyed living in a hotel for $9 a night inc free internet in the room; I love Bia Hoi, which is fresh rice beer from a local brewery and costs 8p or 15 cents a glass; the food, especially cheap local food is often delicious (although the more expensive restaurants are not always). It often seems the more you pay in Hanoi the worse the experience. At the top of our alleyway there is a snail soup restaurant! which we tried the first night we moved in, not knowing what it was before we sat down. It was actually surprisingly delicious. My students (well most of them!) they are hard-working and really want to learn English, which makes my job a pleasure.
Coursebook: New English File, Elementary, which has everything in it an elementary class needs, it reintroduces language over and over again, has games, exercises, all four skills are covered and it is paced exactly right for new learners (although it is a little UKcentric) like so many coursebooks. I did my dissertation/thesis on coursebooks being too Western, and pushing our culture onto the rest of the world, so it is something I care about and would love to change.
Being able to get on my motorbike without a crash helmet, ride off into some of the busiest roads on the planet without a nanny government making sure I am safe and sound. I love the unruliness of the roads here and as a foreigner I am never stopped by the police (although I see local people getting stopped every day) I can break the law with impunity, as does virtually everyone else, and never have to worry about government trying to tax me with speed cameras.
Here's what I don't miss:
British weather; getting up at 6 or 7am to struggle into work; fog; rain; hail; sleet; 40 or 50 hour weeks; overtime; cold, dank, dark evenings and mornings; speed cameras; petrol that costs the earth; beer at £2 or £3 a pint; pubs that serve food only at certain hours; boil-in-the-bag pub/restaurant food; fruit that tastes of nothing.
Here's what I do miss:
Errrrr... Still thinking about this one...
Here's what I enjoy about Hanoi:
The weather, although it is occasionally rainy and sometimes windy and cold, the climate seems generally favourable, much cooler than Ho Chi Minh or Bangkok. Although I haven't seen the wet/hot season yet, having arrived in September. I like working short hours and being paid enough to live on; I like being able to rent a motorbike for $40 a month and a great 4 bed house for $500 a month; I enjoyed living in a hotel for $9 a night inc free internet in the room; I love Bia Hoi, which is fresh rice beer from a local brewery and costs 8p or 15 cents a glass; the food, especially cheap local food is often delicious (although the more expensive restaurants are not always). It often seems the more you pay in Hanoi the worse the experience. At the top of our alleyway there is a snail soup restaurant! which we tried the first night we moved in, not knowing what it was before we sat down. It was actually surprisingly delicious. My students (well most of them!) they are hard-working and really want to learn English, which makes my job a pleasure.
Coursebook: New English File, Elementary, which has everything in it an elementary class needs, it reintroduces language over and over again, has games, exercises, all four skills are covered and it is paced exactly right for new learners (although it is a little UKcentric) like so many coursebooks. I did my dissertation/thesis on coursebooks being too Western, and pushing our culture onto the rest of the world, so it is something I care about and would love to change.
Being able to get on my motorbike without a crash helmet, ride off into some of the busiest roads on the planet without a nanny government making sure I am safe and sound. I love the unruliness of the roads here and as a foreigner I am never stopped by the police (although I see local people getting stopped every day) I can break the law with impunity, as does virtually everyone else, and never have to worry about government trying to tax me with speed cameras.
Sunday, 18 March 2007
An Evening spent at Hanoi Opera House
Friday night, for the first time in my life, I visited an opera house and saw a live classical concert. In England to do that would be really expensive, and even here it is 120,000, 150,000 or 200,000 Dong ($8-13). When we got to the box office there was a tout trying to sell D200,000 tickets for D100,000, but we were a bit apprehensive, thinking they might be fakes. We were just about to buy proper tickets when a guy comes up and says he has two free tickets, do we want them?! Not only that but it doesn't matter which tickets you buy you can sit wherever you like (the same guy told us in the break) once the concert has started. So we watched the first half from our proper seats up in the stalls and the second half from down in the expensive seats!
The Beautiful Hanoi Opera House was the location. The Vietnam Symphony Orchestra were the band. Strauss, Dvorak and Beethoven were the composers:
* R. Strauss - Symphonic Poem "Don Juan" Op.20
* A. Dvorak - Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, B minor, Op. 104
* L.V. Beethoven - Symphony No5, C minor, Op.67
It is fantastic to see an orchestra working so well together and producing such sweet music. I will definitely return, even if I have to pay next time.
I took a couple of (awful) pics but thought I would include them for posterity. Not sure quite what happened to the one of the stairs!
The Beautiful Hanoi Opera House was the location. The Vietnam Symphony Orchestra were the band. Strauss, Dvorak and Beethoven were the composers:
* R. Strauss - Symphonic Poem "Don Juan" Op.20
* A. Dvorak - Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, B minor, Op. 104
* L.V. Beethoven - Symphony No5, C minor, Op.67
It is fantastic to see an orchestra working so well together and producing such sweet music. I will definitely return, even if I have to pay next time.
I took a couple of (awful) pics but thought I would include them for posterity. Not sure quite what happened to the one of the stairs!
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