Giac Lam Pagoda

Our goal is to get out and do something fun with the boys every weekend.  We had the same goal in Colorado too, but it's so much easier now that we don't have to cook, clean, shop, do laundry...  Anyhow, we had planned to go to a water park on Saturday, but silly Saigon's rainy season had other plans.  We then searched for a mini golf place Derek found on the internet only to find that the place no longer exists.  Two major bummers for the kids.  So we took them to an ice cream place that has an outdoor play area and started searching for something to do today.

Derek found a pagoda called the Giác Lâm Pagoda.  It was built in 1744 and is seven stories tall with each level having it's own Buddhist statue.  My favorite was the statue of Guanyin with all her arms.  Owen's favorite was the Bo Dai (the guy with the nice round belly and happy expression).  We strolled around a bit, took some pictures, and headed home.  It was a pleasant excursion.  Next weekend we hope to do som

Vung Tau

We had a three day weekend last weekend due to Vietnam's National Day.  We seized the opportunity and headed to the beach town of Vung Tau via hydrofoil.  Because we were also celebrating my 30th birthday on Sunday, we booked a room at a 5-Star resort called The Imperial.  It was a beautiful hotel with stunning amenities.

As soon as our boat landed, we hopped a taxi and took a quick ride to the hotel.  We checked in, had our complementary "check-in" beverage, and headed up to our room.  We immediately changed into swim suits and headed for the ocean.

The water was a lot warmer than it was at the beach in Mui Ne and there were a lot fewer waves.  Owen was paddling around with his floaties quickly and even Oliver decided he liked to "ride the waves" in the ocean.  We spent about an hour splashing about before getting ready for dinner.  (Sorry no beach pictures...  I didn't want to get my iPhone wet!)

We met up with a huge group of our colleagues/friends that were also in Vung Tau for dinner.  I'm not sure that the restaurant we went to had ever seated a party of 17 before.  The grown ups were chatting, the children were hanging out, it was a lovely evening even if the food wasn't the greatest.

Sunday morning the boys slept in until 8:00.  That alone would have made it a great birthday as they usually wake at 5:30.  We dressed and went down to the buffet breakfast provided by the hotel.  The breakfast was good with a lot of options, but very traditionally Vietnamese.  We haven't quite made the switch to morning pho, so we stuck with waffles and omelets.

Vung Tau

After breakfast we rode a gondola to the top of the "Big Mountain" in Vung Tau.  At the top there was a giant happy Buddha and a carnival type amusement park.  We got to ride a few rides,  have some ice cream, and see some interesting statues.  It still impresses me that there can be places of worship inside the grounds of a carnival.  They just seem so mismatched.

Once back at the hotel, we ordered room service for lunch and put the boys down for a nap.  Once they were asleep I went down to the hotel spa and had a traditional Vietnamese body scrub.  Very relaxing.

I then went back to the room.  Owen was awake, but Ollie was still sleeping (yay!), so I grabbed Owen and took him to the pools.  Yes, pools.  The hotel had four different, beautiful swimming pools.  Owen and I spent some time in each one and the finished in the ocean.  By that time, Oliver had woken, so he and Derek joined us in the ocean.  Derek, of course, wanted to check out all the pools, so we went back through all four of them again!  Lot's of afternoon swimming for the Swanson family!

For dinner we went to an "Italian" restaurant called "Good Morning Vietnam."  (I put Italian in quotation marks because it was faux Italian food.)  Derek told them it was my birthday and asked them to sing to me.  They didn't quite understand what he meant, but they did understand "birthday" and "song."  So for the next 45 minutes, we listen to dozens of different versions of the Happy Birthday song.  (It didn't get obnoxious until the 30th time or so.)  We then had some ice cream and went back to the hotel to put the kiddos to bed.

When we got to the hotel, the receptionist scurried toward me and Owen with a cake that said "Happy Birthday Swansan" on it.  Derek had set it up to be delivered when we got back from dinner.  (Too bad he has somewhat scribbly hand writing.)  The cake itself was about an inch of cake surrounded by three inches of whipped cream with a few strawberries for decoration.  It wasn't very good, but watching the boys scarf it down made it the best birthday cake I've ever had!  

After I helped get the boys cleaned up from their cake adventure, I went back down to the spa for an incredibly relaxing massage.  Two spa treatments in one day!  This kind of lifestyle is starting to become addicting...

We had breakfast by the pool Monday morning and the took the 8:30 hydrofoil back to HCMC.  We took the boys to JoyMax for lunch, had a family nap time, and ordered in from our favorite vegetarian restaurant for dinner.  At 9:00, we woke up Owen and watched the National Day firework in District 1 from our balcony.  

It was a busy yet relaxing weekend.  The hydrofoil only takes a bit over an hour to get to Vung Tau, so Derek and I are thinking we could even make going to the beach a day trip.  It's not much farther than going up to Denver to go to the Children's Museum or Aquarium.  

Now we are busy planning our next trips.  We have a week off in October, three weeks for Christmas, two weeks in February for Tet, and a week at the end of March.  That's four vacations we need to arrange!  Should we go to Hoi An, Bali, Singapore, Bangkok, Hanoi, Dalat, Phuket, Nha Trang, Siem Reap, Bejing, Kuala Lumpur,...????????  So many exciting choices!  Stay tuned!

Home is wherever I'm with you!

I have been hesitant to blog about our new place simply because our shipment hasn't come in and we don't have it set up to our liking yet.  Seriously, we have nothing on the walls, very few decorations, and not a lot of "us" going on yet.

But here it goes.  After several weeks of searching, and a deal that feel through at The Vista, we found visited Hoang Anh Gia Lia Riverview apartments.  We saw a few nice 4 bedroom places at very good prices.  We settled on one on the 7th floor because the landlord was easy to work with, it was only $850 a month, and (we thought) we would be able to move in August 1st.  Well, it turns out the previous tenants were simply not cool.  They stayed an extra 2 weeks and trashed the apartment before we moved in.

We moved in on August 11th (the Sunday before school started with students), and the apartment was filthy.  I was seriously regretting our decision.  It was dirty, lights were broken, handles on windows were missing, the ceilings were leaking in the bathrooms, and the beds were disgusting.  I was ready to pay for a second apartment just to have somewhere else to live--it was that bad.

So Derek and I went to work on Monday the 12th, Owen went to his first day of Pre-K, Oliver went to preschool, and Phuong cleaned.  I mean she REALLY cleaned.  She also made sure to get someone to come in to fix everything that wasn't the way it should be.  It was incredible to come home on Monday after our first day of work, to happy kids, a spotless house, and a full home cooked meal on the table.  (We have another lady also named Phuong cooking for us.)

Now, the apartment is clean, and livable.  We replaced the master bedroom mattress last weekend with a Sealy.  The boys' mattresses aren't nearly as bad, but we will be getting them new mattresses soon too.  It still doesn't really have Swanson Family character, but we'll get it there soon.  The shipment is scheduled to arrive in port this week!  It'll take about a week to get through customs, then we will get our stuff!!!

I'll post more photos in a few weeks after we have had time to unpack our shipment!

And we're off!

Derek and I started school two weeks ago, and have had students for a full week already.  It has been a whirlwind to say the least.  The school we are working for just switched to an American curriculum a little over a year ago, and the administration and staff had a HUGE turnover from last year.  The school itself has been around for 20 years, but it feels like we are getting to start fresh which is very exciting.

My classes are a bit larger than anticipated.  I am teaching the 6th grade class, two sections of Pre-Algebra for 7th and 8th graders (mixed), and calculus.  It's been difficult to figure out what level of math these students are capable of due to a lack of transcripts.  In Vietnamese school, no matter what level math you take, your report card just says "maths," so we have no idea what these kids have been taught until we get them in the room.

I am also struggling with the language barrier.  Our school is nearly 100% Vietnamese students, so English is not the first language for a single one of them. The upperclassmen have significantly better English skills than my
6th graders, but they still don't get my nerdy math puns.  It is something I will have to get used to.

The school itself is very nice.  It's six floors of classroom.  (I average 32 flight of stairs a day!)  At the base of the building is our courtyard/cafeteria.  We have around 250 students in grade 6-12, and they all use the stairwell at the same time.  The classrooms are big and incredibly clean.  My room gets mopped every single day!

The days are busy, but Derek and I have been able to eat lunch together every single day.  We've also been able to swing past Owen's class and wave to him playing outside!

Owen is really enjoying going to school.  He has a small class and is making lots of friends.  We will be signing him up for swimming class next week.

Oliver loves our new nanny.  Her name is Phuong, and she is phenomenal.  He also goes to a preschool called Noah's Club three mornings a week for some socialization and playtime.  Phuong tends to pick him up early though because she's afraid they won't stick to his vegetarian diet.  She truly cares for our boys.

We moved into our permanent apartment last weekend.  I'll post some pictures and tell that story soon...

Ta Cu Mountain

During our trip to Mui Ne, we took a day trip to a nearby mountain to see some pagodas and Vietnam's largest laying down Buddha.  The Buddha was built in 1963, but the pagodas were built in the late 1800's.  I tried to find information online about how it was built and materials and what not, but all I could find were the dimensions.

To get to Ta Cu Mountain we hopped into a 1960's Jeep and had a guy drive us to the the base of the mountain.  It was about a 45 minute very bumpy drive.  Both boys fell asleep in my arms on the way there.  When we got there, and the guy turned off the engine, Oliver bolted awake and started clapping.  It was really cute.

Once there, we purchased tickets to take the gondola to the top of the mountain because neither of us were down for a 2 hour hike up a mountain through a jungle.  (I don't think Owen would have enjoyed that.)  When we got to the top, we followed a group of tourists down a path that led to some stairs.  After about 15 flights, we got to the pagodas.  They were impressive!  I was surprised at the number of people who were there for worship, and it was a great opportunity to talk to Owen about how the culture is different here.

We then hike up another 10 or so flights of stairs to find three beautiful statues.  The problem with being a tourist in Vietnam is that you can't read any of the signs--Vietnamese has nothing in common with English.  So I have no idea what those statues were for or what they represented.  I do know that they were breathtaking!

Then we climbed another 15 or so flight of stairs before we got to the Buddha.  This guy was massive!  He is 49 meters long (about 160 feet) and 11 meters tall.  He was laying down, sleeping, and had a very serene expression on his face.

After taking several pictures, and posing in a lot more with a bunch of random tourists, we walked back down the 40 flights of stairs to the gondola to take us back to the foot of the mountain.  We ate lunch at the base surrounded by Vietnamese tourists.  It's so funny to eat in a room full of Vietnamese people because we get stared at the entire time.  The boys especially.  Owen doesn't like the attention very much, but he is coming around.  He's getting so much better at talking to strangers.  Oliver, on the other hand, LOVES the attention, and boy! does he get a lot of it.  People love his blonde hair, and they point at him, and take pictures of him everywhere we go.  He smiles, waves, and blows kisses and makes all the girls giggle like crazy.  Such a ham.

Panoramic view of the Buddha

After lunch, we went back to the Jeep to take the ride back to the resort.  The guy was busy having a smoke, so we were told to wait 10 minutes for him to finish up.  Sounds crazy, right?  After he was finished with his break (even though we had been on the mountain for about 2 hours), we got in the Jeep.  It wouldn't start.  Turn's out that his transmission was busted and gears 1, 2, and 4 were out.  He asked us to get back out of the Jeep (using only gestures because we don't understand Vietnamese and he didn't speak English).  He had a friend tell us to wait 20 minutes, so we wandered around and got some ice cream.  Meanwhile, the guy pulled the floorboards out and opened up the gear box.  He then rigged it so the the floor boards would hold the gear box in place so that he could jam the transmission into third gear.  Derek had to push on the shoddy floor boards with his foot the entire drive back to Mui Ne.  And we couldn't get past third gear, so the trip back took significantly longer than the trip there.  He was supposed to take us into Mui Ne to a restaurant for dinner, but he dropped us on the edge of town saying the restaurant wasn't far (it was).  He just didn't want to have to drive through town because his car couldn't shift.

We ended up taking a cab about 2 miles (which is too far for a 4 year old to walk after climbing up and down 40 flights of stairs) to a place called Oliver's.  The food was okay, and Oliver broke a ramekin.  At least my mojito was good!

It was quite the day.  One I am sure we will remember for a long time.  It was for experiences like this that we packed up our family and moved to the other side of the world.  I'm so glad we went on this little vacation before school started to solidify why we came here.  I think we are going to go to Dalat for our next mini vacation!

Mui Ne Vacation

We took a four day vacation to Mui Ne, Vietnam.  It is a beautiful tourist town right on the beach.  We found a great room at a resort on the water and have had a blast splashing around in the ocean, looking for sea shells, and exploring the surrounding area.

We took the Reunification Express from Saigon to Phan Thiet early Wednesday morning.  The train ride took about four hours, and Oliver slept nearly the entire time in my arms.  It was a short cab ride from the train station to the resort.

We checked into Phu Hai Resort shortly after noon, and immediately went to check out the water.  It was simply incredible!  We then ate lunch at the resort's restaurant and went back to the room to put the dudes down for nap.  Oliver, of course, didn't want to nap since he slept all morning, so Owen and I rested while Derek and Ollie explored the resort.

When Owen woke up, we got in a cab and went to a vegetarian restaurant in Mui Ne.  The owners spoke zero English, but the food was incredible and super cheap!

After dinner, we put on our suits and splashed around in the ocean a bit.  Then we went up to the resort's pool so that the boys could swim in calm water.  (The ocean here is a little rough.)

We snacked on the delicious tropical fruit left in the room for us before bed and all had a great night's sleep.

Thursday morning, we went to the beach early (mostly because Oliver woke up at 5am) and saw a gorgeous sunrise.  We splashed in the water a bit more and then got ready for a day of sightseeing.

We went to Ta Cu Mountain on Thursday to see Vietnam's largest lying down Buddha.  It was quite the adventure, so I'll save that story for its own blog post.  It deserves it.

On Friday we took a Jeep tour and saw a fishing village, white sand dunes, red sand dunes, and a beautiful little river called "Fairies Stream."  At the white sand dunes, we got to take a ride on a four-wheeler.  Owen loved zipping around the dunes, but Oliver was not a fan.  We got to see a lake full of lotus flowers too.  It was interesting to see the natural beauty of the area, but I am way more interested in the cultural experiences--like ancient temples and what not.  The Fairies Steam was very pretty too.  The boys loved walking in the water and splashing around.  Oh, and at one point, Derek and Owen got to ride an ostrich.  Seriously.

Friday night, we ate dinner at a German restaurant in Mui Ne and got to have real beer for the first time in nearly four weeks.  Apparently Mui Ne is a very popular destination for Russians and Germans.  All of the store fronts have their names in Vietnamese and Russian, and we are quite literally surrounded by Russians.  It's a very interesting experience.  At the pool Friday afternoon, we were able to pick up on Vietnamese, Russian, German, French, Korean, Hindi, and English (British version) all be spoken in the same area.  It was pretty cool.

On Saturday morning, we got to see the Poshanu Towers which were built by the Cham people around the 8th century and the remains of a castle built by a French prince around 1900 when the French occupied the area.  The castle was mostly destroyed, but one tower and several underground buildings remained.  The view was magnificent.  Then, from what I understand, the Poshanu Towers were built by the Cham people to worship a Shiva Genie.  The Cham people are still around, though their numbers are few.  They are known for their beautiful textiles.  We purchased a table cloth and scarf from the local tribe.  It was incredible to meet the woman who made the items we bought!  While Derek and I were admiring all the beautiful fabrics, Oliver and Owen hung out with a Cham guy.  Both guys instantly took to this man.  He showed them around their garden and let them feed some birds.  Their little garden and shop made the day incredibly memorable.

We spent Saturday afternoon at the beach and in the pool (and have the sunburns to prove it).  We headed back to Saigon early Sunday morning via the Reunification Express.  The return trip was significantly less enjoyable than the trip there due to a very full, very old coach.

PS: A sure fire way to get our boys to nap is to go on a bumpy jeep ride.  Every time we rode in a jeep for more than 15 minutes, the boys fell asleep.  (Carseats are not used here which seems absolutely crazy to me still.  I literally just hold on to my children on bumps.  Very few taxis even have seat belts in them.)