Christmas in Ho Chi Minh City

Christmas lunch

Last week I got to experience my first Christmas away from England. I went to the New World hotel in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City along with about 40 other teachers from ILA, the school where I work. I was an ‘all you can eat and drink’ lunch from 11am – 3pm. There was a great selection of food including roast turkey, roast potatoes and a great selection of cheeses.

Christmas in the evening

It was nice to be able to dress up and socialize with the other teachers in a nice hotel. After the dinner I went to a house party for some more drinks. It was a very nice day. Apart from being with the western people you would not have noticed it was Christmas. I don’t think the locals really celebrate it and on the way over to the hotel everyone was just going about their usual daily routines.

Cake with a snowman

Since Christmas I've been working hard. I've now got a few days off for New Year but at the end of next week I’ve got about two weeks away from work as my school closes for the Vietnamese holiday of TET. I’m hoping to go away for this time but so far have not made my mind where. Cambodia is probably going to be the best option as there are still some places I want to see.

Christmas dinner

Some good news which everyone is excited about is that after TET the darts season will start again so ill have something else to talk about. I need to get practicing again. Darts are hard to come by in Vietnam and as far as I know there is only one chap who sells them. He gets them imported from England. I've arranged to meet him in the New Year to get some more flights and stuff so I can be ready for the new season.

My picture of the week this week is one I took of a taxi driver... It made me laugh!!! - see below.

Taxi driver hard at work.



2 days till Christmas

A Christmas decorated restaurant

I've been working hard over the past few weeks but its nearly Christmas and I've now got 4 days off work which I'm very much looking forward to. On Christmas eve im going to a secret Santa party and on Christmas day lots of us are going to a hotel for Christmas dinner then in the evening we are going for a house party at one of my work colleagues houses.

There are alot of decorations up around the city and this week I went out and took a few photos. They seem to be also putting alot of new year decorations up. Im not sure what happens here at New Year so will try and find out.

Shopping centre decorated... big time

I have some other good news.. One of my cover classes won the Christmas Tree poster competition!! The teacher who I was covering for only told me yesterday. There prize is a KFC on the school. As I was covering the class I'm not invited to the party but I was told I would be saved a piece of chicken. Im all honesty I was in it for the glory and as KFCs aren't that great here im not fussed about the chicken.

Snowman, its not real snow

Ive also just realised I can add video footage to my blog. This has alot of potential and will improve my blog going into 2012. I will dig through my video achieve in the next few weeks to see what good video I have from my travels.... It could be like a review of the year thing.....

Diamond Plaza with snow.. again, its not real snow

ILA Christmas party.

My favourite Pho Bo restaurant

This past Tuesday evening was the ILA Christmas party. It was held at a posh hotel called the ‘ice palace’ which despite the name was not made of ice, or a palace. It was free to go and there were free drinks all night. Sadly I had to work at my other school the next day so had to exert self control at the free bar which I successfully managed. The only disappointing thing was that they didn’t play any Christmas music but opted for dance music instead. I requested some from the DJ but he looked at me like I was mad. I kid you not, he then asked me ‘why do you want Christmas music?’ to which my reply was…… ‘It’s a Christmas party!?’

Market, 2 minutes walk from my house

It was nice to see everyone dressed up though. Sadly I forgot to take my camera so don’t have any pictures. I will try and pester some people for some in the next few weeks as it was pretty impressive.

I needed to get a suit made for the party. Although I have had some trousers and shirts made before I don’t have a jacket. I went on Sunday to a shop where the tailor measured me up. I got to choose the material, style and lining.  I picked the suit up two days later and it fitted perfectly! All this cost $110 (70 pounds!) for the jacket and trousers.

The river north of my house - words can't describe how bad it smells

As I've said before I’m doing more hours at my new school so have been pretty busy all week. I’ve not been doing any other fun stuff. I’m looking forward to Christmas! There are 35 of us going to a posh hotel for Christmas lunch then were going to a house party in the evening.

I can’t believe it’s only 10 days until Christmas! It seems even stranger that it was May, seven months ago, that I left England! At the moment the plan is to come back to England next November / December. I’m not sure if this will be for a visit or for longer. I’m still liking the teaching and being in a different country.

Some other good news is that it’s getting cooler! The mornings feel fresh on occasions but putting it into perspective its only cooler compared to the usual relentless heat. It’s still 20 plus degrees and still rises to at least 30 most days. The heat doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. I’m not sure if this is because I’m getting used to it or because im used to being hot and sweaty.

Football tournament and disappointment in the Xmas poster competition

The infamous HCMC traffic

I started working more hours at the ERC – the business school this week which has been going well. My work schedule is changing now so from January I will be working Monday – Thursdays then having Friday, Saturday and Sunday off work. It will be nice to have three days off in a row which will also mean I’ll be able to go away for a few days to places like Dalat and the Mekong Delta.

View from the ILA cafe on the 9th floor

I've also got nearly three weeks off mid January for the annual Vietnamese holiday called TET which will be cool. Unfortunately everything stops in Vietnam so travelling around might be difficult so at the moment I’m thinking of going back to Cambodia to do the places I missed earlier this year.

I took part in an ILA football tournament this week which was fun. It’s amazing how my fitness has deteriorated since I’ve been away but I was still comparatively better than my team mates.

My team - no one got the email about what colour to wear

Our team performed ok but our results didn’t match this so we crashed out in the group phase after 4 games. We only scored 3 goals (I got 2) drew 2 games and lost 2. We lost to a Vietnamese team who were good but one of the guys was wearing bare feet!? As they were short on referees I volunteered to referee a game between two Vietnamese teams who were both pretty good. It was quite nice to do some ref’in again.

Me in the middle - Referring the all Vietnamese match

I’m disappointed to report we didn’t win the poster competition. Not only did we not win but our art work has not even made it onto the wall in the school reception. Not sure why it’s not there, one theory I have is that it’s been put forward for the turner prize but that’s unlikely. When I heard the news I challenged one of the judges who used phrases like “It was good…. but not that good” and “too much glitter”. I shall be using these quotes when I to break the sad news to the children next week.

Enjoying playing football again

Apart from this I’ve not been doing much fun stuff. Found a shop that sells all the latest films on DVD for 50 cents each (about 30p) which is exciting. I watched a film last week and it was just like being in the cinema, since this is the place it was filmed. It even had someone’s head in front of the camera at the bottom of the screen - but then what do you expect for 50 cents.

Christmas poster competition

My teaching assistant - aka 'assistant project manager'

As I’ve previously mentioned I’m working part time at two schools at the moment, ILA and ERC. ILA is the school where I teach lots of young learners and ERC is where I lecture e-commerce. ERC, the business school, has asked me to work more hours and as my cover classes finished at ILA this past weekend, I’ve agreed. This mean I will only be at ILA 8 hours a week whilst doing a lot more at ERC. I will be teaching English to BBA students who are young adults (18-24), it should be good experience and good to get some adult teaching on my CV.



Glitter-tastic

It was a fun week at ILA this week. With Christmas around the corner I got to spend my time making and decorating Christmas posters with my junior classes. After bombing out of the Halloween poster competition I wanted to win this one. As you can see it was great fun. We were short on time so had to rush it which meant the classroom was a mess at the end of the lesson, there was glitter, paper, glue and paint everywhere.

Finishing the artwork

There were three cleaners waiting outside when I left. One had obviously taken a peek into the classroom and seen what was going on and called for reinforcements, they didn’t look impressed when I left the classroom. I got to play some Christmas hits whilst making this poster too. It was if Shakin, Mariah, Wizard and Cliff were in the room with us.

There are quite a few Christmas lights up now. There is a place near the park I go to which I've dubbed ‘Christmas corner’, it looks pretty cool. I will get a photo of it for next week.

Hoping to win the competiton with this!

I’ve been taking Vietnamese lessons provided by ILA for the past two weeks. It’s been good fun but tough. So far we’ve learnt the usual stuff, like saying ‘hello’, ‘my name is Joel, what’s your name?’ and the numbers 1-100. We also learnt some countries which was fun. Sadly I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to keep it going with my new schedule at ERC, If I can’t I’d like to get some lessons elsewhere.

Happy Christmas

It’s still very hot here. I’m told December gets cooler but I have my doubts. I went out with a friend last night. We were on a bike, it was 9:30pm and it felt slightly cooler than usual. I looked up at one of the buildings which displayed the temperature…. 27 degrees. It makes me wonder how hot it normally is. I saw a teaching job advertised on the Internet a few days ago in Siberia, it’s tempting at times.