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I realised today that I've stopped craving coffee, which is completely alien to me. I can't remember a time in my life before now that I've gone this long without it. It's too hot here, and iced coffee just isn't the same. Actually, now I'm writing about it I want it again, nevermind!
The past week has been a little less eventful than the first, though I've still managed to see more of Saigon and we've progressed a lot with the project. On Wednesday I got up early for the next meeting, and then waited to be picked up. And waited. And waited. Eventually I sent a few texts and discovered that the meeting had in fact been cancelled, which had been notified by email at around midnight the night before. I hadn't seen the email as I was already in bed by that point, so didn't have a clue. Needless to say I was rather cheesed off by the fact that I'd woken up super early for no reason whatsoever. It's now been arranged that any last minute changes (of which there have been an incredibly large amount) will be sent by text as well as email. Communicating arrangements feels a little strange as it seems that I'm only ever informed at the last minute, or if I make a point of asking. I guess I'm still getting used to relying so much on other people. But it turned out to be a good day. I met Vi's best friend and we all had lunch together. After lunch we were in Vi's room when the power cut out and were all sp hot that we decided to seek out a coffee shop with air conditioning. Typically, the first one we tried also had a power cut, so we went further afield and settled ourselves in a coffee shop in District 1. Vi and her friend were revising for an English test while I read a book, then I tested them on their English which was quite good fun. The only problem was that the practice questions they'd got hold of were written in terrible English - some made no sense at all!
Thursday started with a project meeting and I met Frankie, another intern from China, for the first time. After the meeting Safir and I decided to get the bus into District 1 where we headed to the main backpackers' area, which I had wanted to check out. We had lunch in Pho24, a large chain of restaurants that is popular with tourists. I'd heard about it before I arrived in Vietnam and wanted to try it. I'm glad I did, but it was quite expensive for what it was really. We were very thankful for the air conditioning there though! We explored the area and headed to Ben Thanh Market, a large market housed under one roof, which is a popular tourist attraction. We entered through the side of the building into an area where the stalls were selling clothes. The walkways were incredibly narrow, and both of us were quite alarmed by the stall holders, who grabbed you and said things along the lines of "miss, I have a nice t-shirt for you". We escaped the grabbing as quickly as possible and found the main walkway, where we could stay out of arm's reach. A lot of the stalls were selling the same thing, there were a lot of knock-off designer products, and it was the kind of place which might have been cheap once, but where now you would have to barter the price down due to all the tourism in the area. After an ice cream and a drink in a pleasant park, we decided to head to a water puppet show for some traditional entertainment. However, there was a mix-up with the time I was being picked up, so the show is still on the to-do list.
Friday consisted of a chilled-out morning, and a late-afternoon project meeting. We got a lot done in the meeting, finalising the content for the presentation and getting into a position to begin rehearsals. It was quite an awkward meeting though as we had already been working in one way and were near completion before Frankie arrived, and he had come with ideas, which was great but they weren't necessarily consistent with what we were doing. So it was a little uncomfortable as the rest of us were clearly thinking in the same way, but didn't want to put down Frankie's ideas at all, and had to vote for what we preferred in the most diplomatic way possible. After the meeting I had dinner with Vu and Frankie, which was nice as it gave me the chance to get to know Frankie a bit better. The workshop that had been planned for Saturday was cancelled, which was unfortunate, but which gave us more time to prepare and make the workshops professional. Another school also cancelled our workshops with them, which was incredibly unfortunate as we had 30 planned with them for this month. The cancellations are due to some Vietnamese bureaucracy to do with the legal status of AIESEC. So Saturday was mostly chilled out, and I spoke to my parents on Skype which was really great. The AIESEC members had organised a welcome party for the interns in the evening. It was held at a coffee shop and the turnout was great, I got to meet a lot more people (I'm starting to struggle with remembering the names of all these people I'm meeting!). When I say 'party', though, it's not a party as you or I would expect in the UK. There's no drinking or loud music or dancing, it's more like a gathering and you play games. So we all sat in a circle and played various games - something that I haven't done for several years, since I was in school - which was actually quite fun and refreshing. Though I'm not saying I would forego the kind of parties that I'm used to!
On Sunday I was up relatively early, and Frankie and I caught the bus to Ben Thanh Market, and from there to Cho Lon (Chinatown). Using maps and my guidebook we did A LOT of walking, exploring various areas in Chinatown, trying to find somewhere to have good Chinese food. It's no secret that my sense of direction leaves quite a lot to be desired, and I managed to get us a little bit lost. Frankie found a shopkeeper who could speak Chinese and asked if they could direct us to somewhere for lunch. Once we had directions Frankie asked if I'd like to try a traditional dessert before we left and I agreed. He ordered two desserts. One was a lack-coloured jelly that tasted quite nice until he told me that it was made out of turtle shell (I'm not a huge fan of eating endangered species), which he then poured milk on, giving me a legitimate reason not to eat it as I hate plain milk and can't bring myself to drink it. The other dessert was yellowy and made of eggs, quite nice, but a little too eggy for me. We then found the restaurant the shopkeeper had suggested, which was pretty filthy with meat bones on the floor that a cat was happily eating. I ordered beef with vegetables - I wasn't really feeling the pig's brain with chicken feet - and Frankie ordered a pork dish and a soup that had something called a 'langine' (or something along those lines) in it, which I guessed must be a vegetable. The beef was really nice, the pork was on the bone (as much of the meat is here) and really fatty so I didn't have any, and then there was the soup. I was full so didn't have any, and thank goodness, and Frankie showed me the whole small chicken that was in the soup bowl - beak, eyes, feet, everything! I wasn't expecting that at all. He thought it was funny and started telling me some of the horrible ways the Chinese eat animals, the most disturbing being that they cut meat off a donkey and cook it, then cut more and cook it, and so on, while the donkey is still alive. Needless to say it put me off somewhat! There was a little confusion due to cultural differences as in China people order dishes and everybody shares what has been ordered, rather than people ordering for themselves, but we sorted it out and laughed about it. After lunch we visited a couple of temples, which were fascinating, really ornate and colourful, laced with the pungent scent of incense burning throughout. It was incredibly hot as we did so much walking and it took us what felt like forever to find a shop that sold drinks cold from a fridge, as drinks were mostly sold on street stalls, before we got the bus back.
Most of Monday was spent in a project meeting. The meeting took about two hours to start as we were waiting for everyone to arrive, and once they had the project leader, Nhung, decided that she wanted us to do some AIESEC dances. AIESEC has a tradition of dances, with each country and each committee having their own, which are performed at conferences. It was quite a funny way to start the meeting before getting down to business. We each ran through our parts, getting feedback from the rest of the team, and then, after a few adjustments, ran through the whole thing again and timed it. It was 3pm before we finally went for lunch at a nice French café called Tous Les Jours, which is chain with many stores around the city. We continued our meeting after eating as we will be doing a workshop for a primary school and so have to revise the content completely for that, making the workshop into something that will both entertain and deliver a message.
Today (Tuesday) was quite boring really. There wasn't a lot to do for most of the day, which was shame as I would like to make the most of the fact that I'm here. I'm hoping that we get more workshops for April as I would hate to be bored like that for such a long time. I think I'll try and book onto some tours that leave the city if there are going to be a lot of free days. We had a late-afternoon meeting and did a full rehearsal again. Tomorrow we've got out first presentation in front of somebody else, the manager of one of the schools we're supposed to be going to. It's good as we'll get the chance to rehearse with a projector, though I'm a little nervous that s/he'll think some of the content is inappropriate. It's for a university, but, again, there is still a bit of a taboo around sex. Fingers crossed that s/he likes it!
- comments
Ann Barnett Great your doing a blog Laura.It's so nice to get news. I'm settling into being a granny, I babysat for Anya on Saturday. Take care . Love Ann x
Nick Wrigley Your comments about the food take me back to an area in Montreal where I used to go for the Vietnamese soup..I think it was called Pho and it depended on what type as the the word that followed like Pho Ga for chaicken soup....it had lots of noodles and they used to serve it with a bottle of spicey sauce almost like tobasco...I used to gofrequently for a couple of years....lol N xx