Things

1) we ate dog. It was gross, and not to mention we heard a dog barking in the restaurant before we got our food!

2) We motorbike like it is nobodies business. People have more motorbikes than cars here! Because people don't really follow the whole go the direction that traffic is going, we frequently are somewhat fearful for our lives, but we love it! I want to learn to drive one before I leave!

3) Hai wanted us to sing "It is Well" at his church, and that has to be one of the many funny experiences we have had so far. Or maybe it was just awkward..

4) The beaches here are amazing! It is weird because people go in with their clothes on, and more often than not you can always spot a handful of men wearing speedos or something of the sorts. We have to watch out for jellyfish, but other than that...

5) we went to an artist district to buy things for people back home, and got to stop at a place called Marble Mountain on the way there. It is literally right next to an old US Air Force Base during the war, and in it the Vietnamese somehow had a hospital in a giant cave in the mountain. We got to roam around the mountain and take pictures and such, it was amazing!

6) Vietnam possibly has some of the coolest cafes EVER. I am in heaven...there is boba tea everywhere as well as amazing the coffee. The coffee here is served in very small portions, so it will be interesting to go back to the States and get coffee there! Two of our interpreters took my teaching partner and I out after class yesterday, to this cafe with rad art all over the walls, and there were seats that look like park benches, but without the legs so you are pretty much sitting on the ground. There were even these shiny dragonflys hanging from the cieling, along with sweet techno music playing. There are differen't rooms too so you can go and do hw in one, or go to another where it is definitely louder. Not to mention, they serve you your drink in wine goblets...which just adds to the coolness of it :) All I can say, is that there are some things that only Asian countries can pull off, and cafes like this is one of them!

7) We took some of the kids from Fisher's SuperKids on an environmental walk. Pretty much we walked to a park and picked up trash along the way, then played on a playground there....in the 100 degree humid weather. Other than that though it was fantastic :)

8) Teaching around 35 kindergardners english is definitely interesting to say the least. Half the time we want to pull out our hair because they have no attention span, but really we love them! It is awesome to be able to teach them and play games with them without using tactics like smacking them to get them to move into a circle (an example) and such like a lot of the teachers at the school do. One of the teachers has the kids sing a song to get into a circle where the kids hold the shoulders of the person in front of them, and I always jump in line with them....because I fit right in :)

9) We decided to go to the movies as a team and see I Love You Man...so funny! The theater is nice, and we were all reminded of home while in it (minus the asian snacks we were eating)

Well there is lots more to say, but of course I can't remember it all right now. I am really enjoying my time here, and am being taught a lot through the lives of the people we come in contact with.

Pictures

Pictures are posted on Facebook. Check them out!!

Closing Time

We ended our time in Saigon officially on Sunday, and we flew to Da Nang Monday afternoon. We got to do some cool things in Ho Chi Minh City (in Saigon) before we left though. One of which was going to the war tunnels. This was such a cool experience, and was worth the 2 hour bus ride. We got to crawl through several tunnels and go into some of the different rooms that they had. These tunnels seriously amaze me with how much ingenuity went on into creating them. For example, they are 3 stories, and there are several air holes in them that are disguised as ant hills at the top. And, these tunnels are so strong that they survived the bombs that were dropped in attempt to destroy them. Some of the rooms we saw included a dining room, meeting room, surgery room and hospital room. Some of the tunnels were longer than the others, which got me a little nervous, because I am a little taller than the average person, but I survived. We also saw things such as the slots they cleverly created to shoot out the feet of the enemy. There were also huge craters along the tunnels that are still there from the bombs. All of this is hard to explain, but I have pictures of all of it which should provide a better understanding of things. I am trying to figure out how to get those uploaded still.
Something else we did as our time in Saigon came to an end was go on a river boat cruise for dinner. They had several huge boats that were all decorated, ours was a fish, and you getting dinner, an awesome cruise where you can see a lot of Saigon, and there were some fire dancers as well as other live instrumental entertainment. We all had a lot of fun, and enjoyed the cooler (er) air!
The next day we had to leave for the airport by 9:30am. It was really hard to say bye to the kids for several reasons. We bonded with them way more than we ever though we would. This experience was way more difficult than I ever thought it would be, as well as more rewarding as I thought it would. A little boy who I became close with is named Liem, and he has so much joy in him. He represents a lot of what we saw in so many of the children....that despite their circumstances they still had joy. Some days we would come back with pee on us, or food that some of the kids had managed to get on us, but the end of the day we all laugh about it because it is part of the experience. It was hard to leave these children because Sister Marie said that a lot of them don't live past the next level, but it also reminded us that our spiritual ministry doesn't stop when we leave the kids and that it needs to continue afterwards as well(for these children and their health, for new volunteers, for the orphanage, etc). It is sad not saying good night to the kids when we get back from dinner anymore, but we will forever have our memories of them.
We are entering our second day of teaching, and I will right about that whole experience in the next blog. We teach kindergardners in the afternoons, and starting next week we will do that along with teaching kids from orphanages in the morning. The more time we spend here, the more time we fall in love with Hai and the ministry he has created through this school. He and his wife Theresa invited us over to their house the first night we were here for a bbq, which definitely reminded us all of home. Check the website for the school--> Fishersuperkids.com.
This weekend we are taking a tour of the city, and going to the beach. The beach here wa supposedly rated one of the best beaches in the world.....so we will see!
Well that is it for now....more to come soon!

Grace & Peace.

Food

You may be wondering, what the heck does one eat in Vietnam.....well here you go!

  Breakfast: Usually ice coffee and Vietnamese pastries. Sometimes we get a sandwich that has this "different" shredded pork stuff in it, cucumbers, tomatoes, a fried egg and liver (SICK). We didn't know that there was liver on the sandwiches, and once we knew most of us couldn't shake the taste/texture of it. Needless to say that after that, we reminded one leader to not tell us all of what is in our food, because then we will be more weary of it. Another morning, we went and bought a bunch of native fruits, such as dragon fruits and mangosteens. One day we ate these rice bun things, that has some sort of ground pork mixture, and freaking quail eggs! Once I actually looked at the shape/color of such eggs, I couldn't bring myself to eat them. 

Lunch: The orphanage where we are staying makes us lunch, and it has been a hit and miss. We can have everything from mock American food, to these random shrimp things that are wrapped around the stems of leeks. Today and yesterday we have gotten fresh watermelon too, and today we got a treat of cream puffs for dessert. We also got this random vegetable dish with something that resembled bacon on top. Somethings look like foods I would eat in the states, but taste completely different. Like one day we got egg rolls, but they had fish inside. 

Dinner: For dinner we usually go out at one "hole in the wall" place. We haven't recently discovered a place that sells bbq pork with rice, pickled veggies and cucumbers. we ordered pork at this one place, and we got 2 small pieces, along with 2 eggs. 2 BROWN eggs....SICK. we would poke them with our chopsticks and s slight indentation would remain. I think one person out of all of us was brave enough to try it. We have also eaten plenty of pho noodle soup as well, which is a lot better than in the States :) And usually dinner is followed by more ice coffee, but because it 1)  incredibly humid here and 2) Ice coffees are like 50 cents. 

Well this is it for now. It is like 10pm and way past my bed time. Tomorrow is our last full day working at the orphanage, which is really sad. Saturday we go through the war tunnels, and Sunday we have go to church, then have a free day. 

I hope to post again soon, because He is doing amazing things in and through this group and I can't wait to share!

Grace & Peace.

Dinner:

Day 1

  Plane flight wasn't too bad! We all got our luggage too, which is always a bonus. The layovers weren't that long either, which always helps. 

This is our first day working at the orphanage. I think we can all say that it is teaching us to be humble in a completely different way than we have experienced before. The kids we are working with today have cerebral palsy, and I wish I could lend my eyes and ears to you to let you experience this as well. Most children here have so much joy, and they totally have a piece of our hearts already. We have been playing with the kids as well as feeding them, which is more difficult then one would think. I was feeding this one kid today, and another knocked the bowl over, and the food spilt all over my legs....not to mention getting peed on! It gets to the point to where we all have something spilt on ourselves and are gross from the humidity, so we just have to laugh it off. 

    Tomorrow we will be spilt up in small groups, and go in different rooms which we will have for the rest of the week. We have been given 3 rooms here, and there are about 4 of us in each.e Each room has its own bathroom and mini fridge, so we can keep drinks cold....It is so humid here that I know we would all be in trouble if we didn't have one!

    As for the food, I can say that it is very interesting....but for the most part we love it! We have had Pho noodle soup, weird pork/chicken sandwiches, boba, meat rice buns with quail eggs.

Ok I know there is a bunch more I could write about, but that is it for now! 

Here We Go.

We leave for the airport tonight at 9pm, which is both exhilarating and surreal. We have a 14 hour flight to Taiwan, then we are off to Vietnam. Our team spent almost all day yesterday bonding with lunch, trips to a few different stores for supplies for the day camp we are putting on, and going to the beach for a bonfire.
I am excited to see what is in store for us, even though we have a "set" schedule.