Thursday, February 12, 2009

Vietnam

This is day four in Saigon and I am having a great time! I'm staying in a nice little hotel called The Ordinary Hotel. It's right across the street from the Sheraton in a very interesting and lively part of town. Good selection of restaraunts, spas and shopping... what more could I ask for?

The traffic is crazy but it's also kind of entertaining. There are 10 times more mopeds than cars and it's not unusual to see a family of 4 or 5 riding on a moped. I got a picture of one this morning... kind of blurry because I was on bike. What's entertaining about the traffic is that if you just wonder out into it (forget about waiting for it to clear... that'll never happen) then the reponsibility to avoid hitting you is on the other drivers! My bicycle driver cuts into these huge, oncoming lines of traffic and I'm thinking we're going to die some horrible death but everyone just wizzes by as we slowly make our way across the intersection. It only takes about 10 minutes to get to the Consulate but it's my favorite part of the day.

One thing I love about this town is there are no McDonalds!!! The only US fast food chain that dared to set up shop was the Colonel himself... KFC! The Vietnamese have their own version of McDonald's called Pho' 24. You see one on just about every corner. Pho', pronounced FU (I always thought it was FO, like FE FI FO FUM, but it's more like FUM, without the M) Anyway, it's a bowl of noodles with meat and vegatables. The veggies come on a side dish so you can do it yourself. I had some the first night I was here and then every lunch this week. There's a Pho 24 right next to the Consulate where a lot of ConGen folks like to eat.

I am getting some very positive feedback on my Office 2007 training class. I've trained about 60 people so far. I know that some of these folks do not understand a word I'm saying but y'know what... they don't let that stand in their way. I think they really appreciate the training and they are taking full advantage of it while I'm here.

Okay, that's it for now. I'll post a few pictures that I took this morning on the way to work but I plan on getting some really good ones this weekend when I put on my tourist hat and roll through town with my bicycle driver/tour guide.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Dusit Zoo

Sunday we spent a few hours at the Dusit Zoo... What a FIND! This zoo was every bit as good as the National Zoo in Washington, DC. The minute we walked in there was a pen full of giraffes, zebras and ostriches.

Mary wanted to document her adventures so she put together a book and got right to work before we ever left the apartment. She started off pretty strong and then she passed the book to me and I kind of dropped the ball once we got out of the Nocturnal House. She was right on me though... we saw some goats and then moved on to the hippo pond. After that she said, "Now you need to write about the goats AND the hippos!" But, before she finished I was rushing off to see the bear cub standing on his hind legs. Micah was rushing me! He wanted me to get a good picture. Then Mary said, "Now we need to write about the goats, the hippos AND the bear!!" I said, "That's it - I'm giving you the book back and YOU can write about it." She was very persistent though and I think it put her in a bad mood.

Micah wanted to do three things at once (typical) so we caught a train that ran through the whole park in about 20 minutes but we didn't get a chance to really see anything that way. We were a little pressed for time but I think we'll try to get there a little earlier next time.

When we were ready to go we could NOT get a taxi to take us back to the BTS so we all crammed into a Tuk-Tuk which had no problem taking us to the sky train. I tried to get a picture of Mary eating this bag of dried seaweed. She loves that stuff! Anyway, here is a slideshow of our Sunday at the Zoo…

===I'm going to try to put together some food packages for you folks back home that will have some of the snacks that you would never find in the States, like dried seaweed. ===