First few weeks - part 1

by Eric

Just over two weeks ago, we arrived in Vietnam. Jet lag wasn't too bad. We had stayed up most of the night taking care of last minute business, packing, and weighing our suitcases. It was a mixture of taking care of stuff we had to do and making a preemptive strike against jet lag. Our days and nights were going to be messed up soon (there's 12 hours difference between Vietnam and the Midwest), so we figured starting the process half a day early wouldn't hurt.

It was three flights to get to DaNang, with a night in a Ho Chi Minh City hotel between flights two and three. We left the campus in Pasadena at 9 am Tuesday morning and we arrived in our hotel Thursday around 7 pm!

We had a week off before we started teaching. That gave us time to get over jet lag and to start exploring our new city. Each day we either went to a new place we had heard/read about or we just picked a direction and started walking! We've found some cool things: a market with fresh veggies, fish, and live frogs, a daycare, several restaurants and bakeries, three lakes, an amusement park, a mobile pet store, a park that would be the source of dozens of lawsuits in the states, and a mini-zoo.

We also found out another key thing about life here on our exploring walks: It's hot. Really hot. We've been toughing it out and walking most of the places we go, though our walks now usually happen either very early or very late in the day. But we've quickly found out why most people ride motorbikes or bicycles. We're seriously considering joining them and are looking in to our options. More on this hopefully soon...

In the meantime, here are some pictures!

This was the 3 year old room at the daycare. There was a whole lot of cuteness packed in that room!

Karissa looking lovely by lake #1

Big sky above lake #2

We're learning how to get around in the weather conditions here. Maybe someday we can be as awesome as this guy: