Day 2ish
Today I managed to wake up earlier today 7 instead of 11 although I didn't make it out of my room until around 830. I'm still a bit daunted? I really can't think of the right word... over the 5 million solicitations I (and all tourists) get from people selling sunglasses, trying to get me to eat at their place, trying to get me to get a massage, ride on their bike or buy their clothing. I know it's normal and it happens all the time in all tourist locations no matter where you go, but I honestly feel a bit bad turning people down.
For breakfast I had a mushroom omelette and a pineapple shake a restaurant very close to my hotel. They were kind of surprised to see me put fish sauce on the omelette... It was amusing to watch them laugh and smile at me. I can only imagine what they might say in Vietnamese about the loud and obnoxious tourists that I see ordering them around in restaurants and bars. At least, I would personally have a bit of a love hate relationship with them. Love and cater to because they're wealthier but hate because they CAN be quite rude. I think the worst I've seen so far comes from the british men who scam on the girls and order american hamburgers and complain loudly about it not being very good to their fellows.
I met Thuy at around noon. She's a Vietnamese Cambodian woman who grew up in Australia, but she knows Vietnamese quite well, or at least everyone around her seems to understand and be able to talk to her in Vietnamese. We wandered around a bit (this seems to be a common thing to do in Vietnam, but that's probably just the non-natives,) and I managed to get a Simcard via Mobifone. I think i managed to get a decent deal, but I'm not really sure how this whole pre-paid thing works. http://www.mobifone.com.vn/web/vn/products/tariff_vas.jsp#SuperSIM I think I more or less get it. I paid 100,000 d, we'll see how it works out.
We also got some really nice, yet overpriced massages in the tourist district. We were taken upstairs to this high ceilinged room with four massage tables in them and little lockers for our clothing and backpacks. It was wonderfully blissful to relax into it. One thing I was a little surprised by was that half way through the massage, we were joined by three french men who were also getting massages in the same room. He went on and on about how ugly women outside of Vietnam can be. I laughed out loud. The woman who managed everything gave us a 'free' facial as well and did her best to convince us to buy a membership to the place.
We also found a coffee/bar with a very high end look to it near ILA which was surprisingly inexpensive. I don't see how a place like that could stay open with such low prices, but it had a pretty decent clientele. I suppose most of them were wealthy VIetnamese and Japanese for the most part.
We met up with her husband in another restaurant and ended up talking for an hour or two about various things. They're pretty fun people who have done a fair amount of traveling. He's in the oil business and she went to school for O.T. They seem to live a privileged life, but they're both quite humble about everything.
It started to rain as we were walking and we ended up sitting at a street vendor and buying cuttle fish and snails to snack on. Such interesting flavors! I think I have a picture on my tumblr.
I'm HEAVILY considering a trip up the coast that would take me a few days... I'd probably leave the 29th and come back the 2nd or 3rd. I'd miss meeting up with people, but I guess we'll have plenty of time to hang out during the course. I have absolutely NO idea where to put my stuff and I suppose I'll have to take it with me.... I don't really know how that works, but I hope that I can.
I feel like I go through a HUGE range of emotions through out the day, mostly the worst ones are in my room by no fault of the room itself of course. In this room I think about home and worry about selling my car and about paying loans, I read the learning teaching book and check out lesson planning websites and stress about how I could never be creative enough to learn how to create a million different lessons for every day, I talk to Garrett online and feel happy, excited and a little sad that I'm not close enough to see and talk to him for very long, I talk to my mom and get frustrated about the cell phone and then ten seconds later I get really sad about teaching and she reassures me that I do have a lot of strengths that a good teacher should have and that I should to recognize that....
I feel like a big baby when I tell my mom that I might be really shitty at this and I might not get a job because I'm Asian or just god awful at teaching. She reassures me and does what she can to make me feel better... such a good mom
There's so many interesting and new things I do through out the day and so far I'm really enjoying myself, but reality smacks me in the face in this room. Today I seem to be spiraling a bit. I read a little for pleasure but "learning Teaching" and "grammar for English Teachers" both keep gnawing at my feet and I cant seem to ignore them and enjoy myself.
Oh livejournal, you seem to have sucked me back in.
For breakfast I had a mushroom omelette and a pineapple shake a restaurant very close to my hotel. They were kind of surprised to see me put fish sauce on the omelette... It was amusing to watch them laugh and smile at me. I can only imagine what they might say in Vietnamese about the loud and obnoxious tourists that I see ordering them around in restaurants and bars. At least, I would personally have a bit of a love hate relationship with them. Love and cater to because they're wealthier but hate because they CAN be quite rude. I think the worst I've seen so far comes from the british men who scam on the girls and order american hamburgers and complain loudly about it not being very good to their fellows.
I met Thuy at around noon. She's a Vietnamese Cambodian woman who grew up in Australia, but she knows Vietnamese quite well, or at least everyone around her seems to understand and be able to talk to her in Vietnamese. We wandered around a bit (this seems to be a common thing to do in Vietnam, but that's probably just the non-natives,) and I managed to get a Simcard via Mobifone. I think i managed to get a decent deal, but I'm not really sure how this whole pre-paid thing works. http://www.mobifone.com.vn/web/vn/products/tariff_vas.jsp#SuperSIM I think I more or less get it. I paid 100,000 d, we'll see how it works out.
We also got some really nice, yet overpriced massages in the tourist district. We were taken upstairs to this high ceilinged room with four massage tables in them and little lockers for our clothing and backpacks. It was wonderfully blissful to relax into it. One thing I was a little surprised by was that half way through the massage, we were joined by three french men who were also getting massages in the same room. He went on and on about how ugly women outside of Vietnam can be. I laughed out loud. The woman who managed everything gave us a 'free' facial as well and did her best to convince us to buy a membership to the place.
We also found a coffee/bar with a very high end look to it near ILA which was surprisingly inexpensive. I don't see how a place like that could stay open with such low prices, but it had a pretty decent clientele. I suppose most of them were wealthy VIetnamese and Japanese for the most part.
We met up with her husband in another restaurant and ended up talking for an hour or two about various things. They're pretty fun people who have done a fair amount of traveling. He's in the oil business and she went to school for O.T. They seem to live a privileged life, but they're both quite humble about everything.
It started to rain as we were walking and we ended up sitting at a street vendor and buying cuttle fish and snails to snack on. Such interesting flavors! I think I have a picture on my tumblr.
I'm HEAVILY considering a trip up the coast that would take me a few days... I'd probably leave the 29th and come back the 2nd or 3rd. I'd miss meeting up with people, but I guess we'll have plenty of time to hang out during the course. I have absolutely NO idea where to put my stuff and I suppose I'll have to take it with me.... I don't really know how that works, but I hope that I can.
I feel like I go through a HUGE range of emotions through out the day, mostly the worst ones are in my room by no fault of the room itself of course. In this room I think about home and worry about selling my car and about paying loans, I read the learning teaching book and check out lesson planning websites and stress about how I could never be creative enough to learn how to create a million different lessons for every day, I talk to Garrett online and feel happy, excited and a little sad that I'm not close enough to see and talk to him for very long, I talk to my mom and get frustrated about the cell phone and then ten seconds later I get really sad about teaching and she reassures me that I do have a lot of strengths that a good teacher should have and that I should to recognize that....
I feel like a big baby when I tell my mom that I might be really shitty at this and I might not get a job because I'm Asian or just god awful at teaching. She reassures me and does what she can to make me feel better... such a good mom
There's so many interesting and new things I do through out the day and so far I'm really enjoying myself, but reality smacks me in the face in this room. Today I seem to be spiraling a bit. I read a little for pleasure but "learning Teaching" and "grammar for English Teachers" both keep gnawing at my feet and I cant seem to ignore them and enjoy myself.
Oh livejournal, you seem to have sucked me back in.