Reunification Day / Liberation Day

Today is Reunification Day /  Liberation Day in Vietnam. This is a public holiday in Vietnam which we get each year that marks the event when the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) on April 30, 1975 thus signalling the end of the Vietnam War. (Remember the picture of the tanks going through the gates in one of my previous blogs).

What does this mean for me? It means I get a day off work!!!! Also for a bonus, tomorrow is International labour day so I get another day off. What will I be doing? Going to the pub of course. One day to go to the pub and one day to recover.

Above is a picture of a statue in Ho Chi Minh City which captures the events on the day of 30-4-1975

The weather this April

Just a quick post to complain about how hot its been this year.This is my third April in Vietnam and by far the hottest. There are basically two season here, hot and wet or hot. But in many ways this is not true. In December / January the temperature in Ho Chi Minh City drops noticeably (23 Celsius is the low) then between January and May it keeps getting hotter and hotter until rainy season starts where it's still very hot but you get rain which cools it down. This lasts between late May and November. 

So at the moment we are in the hottest part of the year. The temperature has been in the late 30s every day and about 30 at night - there has been no rain - it's days like these I wish for those cold, drizzly, dull English weather days. Above is a screen print of the temperature tomorrow. The 'real feel' of the weather with the humidity is about 45 Celsius. It's so unpleasantly hot you just really don't want to go out in it unless you really have to. 

It's even been in the news about how hot its been, I'm just lucky I have a/c in my flat. I don't think I could stay here if I didn't.

Anyway the past week we did have rain once and it rained yesterday so after months with no rain I'm really hoping rainy season is here!

Hoa Vien Beer

One thing I miss about England is proper beer. There isn't any ale in Vietnam but there are some nice German / Czech style beer places. One of my favorites is called Hoa Vien. If your into your beer and are visiting Ho Chi Minh City I personally think its worth a visit.

Its a nice bar away from the backpacker area. It also does some nice snack food. It was also visited by Bill Clinton when he came to Vietnam some years back. There is a nice picture of him on the wall drinking a beer.

They also show the football at the weekend in the evenings on a big TV. The beer is very reasonably priced. If your interested, the web address is below

http://www.hoavien.vn/webapp/home.php

My Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't do much as I'm not really one for celebrating getting older. I went to work but did go out for a nice meal in the evening. I did get a parcel from England a day before my birthday. As you can see it contained lots of goodies (thanks mum).

As you can see the Easter eggs do not travel very well. They had melted and reformed into weird shapes. They tasted ok though.

I also got bought a birthday cake from my girlfriend. It was nice.

Not much else to report. Work is good and keeping me busy.

End of my semester and hanging out with my students

I've just come to the end of my second 10 week semester at RMIT. It's always a nice feeling when it comes to an end. The final week is exam week and the following week is a down week so I wont have a teaching schedule but will be on emergency cover.

After playing table tennis and football

On the Friday we have a 'fun day' where we basically hang out with the students. This is quite nice as you actually get to spend some time and relax with them a bit. I played table tennis and table football with mine then we spent some time playing cards.

Playing cards

They have been a nice class and I will miss them. I will see most of them around next semester as they will be progressing to the next level. I could have gone on holiday next week but have opted to save my holiday time for the end of the next 10 weeks when I should be able to have a two week break. I will definitely be going somewhere fun during this time!!!

RMIT's highs school English speaking competitions

Recently I've been lucky enough to be a judge at RMIT's high school speaking competitions. Basically local schools get the chance to visit RMIT and see the facilities. During their visit they go to one of the lecture theatres and in their teams can speak for two minutes on what they want to do when they grow up and what they want to study. 

Big group photo. I'm in the bottom right corner

As I said I have now been to two of these events and have been part of a three judge panel where we give them feedback and decide which team wins.

Me with the winners

 Its been a great experience and something very different to what you see in England. The students are always up for having fun here.

During the event

I've added some photos of the events on this post. Not much else to report. I stopped going to Vietnamese lessons after 5 lessons, lets just say it wasn't working for me. I will try and start this again in the future at some point.

Deciding on the winners

Group photo with the winners

Giving feedback

A shot of the audience

Deciding on the winners

Two people doing their presentation

Vietnamese Wedding

Today I went to a Vietnamese wedding. It was the wedding of a friend of a friend. Weddings are a bit different here which is refreshing to what I'm used to in England. They only have a service for the family in the afternoon then have a big meal in the evening. 

It was pretty interesting. There were about 300 people attending. We had a couple of speeches. Again its a bit different here, they only say a few words and there not designed to make people laugh, I could tell this even though they were in Vietnamese - short and sweet.

Before we had the food some guy came on stage and playe a violin. I think he comes as part of the package with the hotel which was nice. After this we were treated to a video made by the bride and groom shown on a big screen at the front of the room. It was a montage of lots of pictures and videos shown as some romantic songs played.

The food was good and we had a total of 7 courses. Lots and lots of seafood and free beer the just  like the last wedding I went to at about 9:30pm everyone started going home. No need to make excuses to leave Vietnamese wedding early. Another thing I like about the weddings here is that everyone just puts money in an envelope, nice and easy.