Shanghai Times

Yesterday, we arrived in Vietnam by bus at around 3pm. We took a taxi to the Old Quarter, where we found a hotel. The architecture and layout of the streets resembles France, with narrow streets and narrow buildings. The first night we explored the city and got accustomed to the City.

Today, we woke up bright and early. First, we headed to Ho Chi Minh's Presidential Palace. The area around the palace is made up of bright yellow buildings, all of which have the Vietnamese flag flying in front of them. Around the palace was a huge garden. After the palace, we went to a famous pagoda on a lake in which a number of American B-52's crashed after being shot down. The highlight of the day was visiting the prison museum. The prison has a lot of history - originally opened by the French to house Vietamese rebels, then used by the Japanese to house Vietnamese rebels, then used by the Vietnamese to house Americans. One of the Americans was John McCain, whose flight outfit that he was captured in is on display.

We also saw a presentation of Vietnam's infamous "water puppets." They are marrionettes that (seem to be) controlled under the water. It was incredible.

We also did some shopping. I can't believe how cheap everything is here!!!!!! And we're coming from China!

Tomorrow we will visit the Military history museum, Ho Chi Minh's Masouleum, and more.

Sue, the hotel we are staying at is called "Camella Hotel"
The number is (84.4) 926 0119

On the small pictures below, you can click on them and read the descriptions of what they are.

Amara and I woke up at 4am today and headed to Hongqiao airport. We had never been to this airport before because it is only for domestic flights to select cities. We arrived in Nanning at around 10:30, and took a bus into the city. We found a cheap hotel (9 US a night). It is by far the dirtiest hotel i've ever been to - but you can't beat that price!!! After we checked in, we went to a travel agent to drop off our Passports so we can get our Visas to enter Vietnam. Unfortunately, the earliest they could have our Visas ready was 8pm tomorrow night, and there are no buses or trains to Hanoi until Thursday morning, so we have to spend an extra day in Nanning. I wouldn't mind except that we were only planning to stay in Vietnam for 4 days, and now we will only have 3.

I was a little nervous about this trip - we've never done anything like this before. But it is sure to be a great experience. On the next entry, I will add pictures from Vietnam.

Overall, things are off to a good start.

In case of emergency, this is our Hotel #:
We can be contacted at: (0771) 209 9000, room 20210

First off, here is the long anticipated video from my birthday. We had dinner at an Indian restuarant that night during the course of dinner, some diners started dancing on stage. They insisted we join them, to my embarrassment. So here is the video of that.

All in all, it was a fun night.

New Years Eve was also a good time. Luckily for me, I didn't have to work on Saturday or Sunday, so I had a nice four day vacation. Erik, on the other hand, had to go to Chinese class on Saturday (to make up for having class off on Tuesday) and had to teach on Monday (to make up for having work off on Saturday). So, he stayed busy. We went out with friends on New Years Eve and then both enjoyed New Years Day off. This was the first year that I didn't watch the ball drop in Time's Square on TV, but the restuarant we were at did have a countdown on a screen for the last 10 seconds of 2007. So it was still fun. Here's some pictures from out night out.

The resturant went all out for New Year's Eve. They had this guy juggle fire, it was pretty cool. Here's a video of that.

Happy New Year everybody!

Here's some pics of us celebrating Christmas at Kid Castle. The kids and us had a lot of fun. Santa visited all the classes and did a present exchange with the kids. We also made an Advent calender with the kids. (A secular Advent calender, the kids had no idea it was originally a Christian thing. They just enjoyed coloring 25 pictures and gluing them haphazardly to posterboard.)

Singing "The 12 Days of Christmas" a song I taught them.

In Shanghai, bunny ears are also a part of Christmas.

While it's definitly been strange not being around friends and family for Christmas, I'd say that our first Christmas in Shanghai has been a good one. We spent Christmas Eve at our home with friends. Erik and I threw our first party in our apartment. It was definitly a little cramped, but we had a good time. A lot of our friends came. We have a Christmas tree and other decorations, so it felt pretty Christmasy. I made egg nog from scratch, which to my surprise turned out delicious and attempted to make puppy chow which Erik subsequently had to salvage but turned out all right in the end. Additionally, we lost our electricity about one hour before the party, so that caused a little panic. But thankfully someone came and fixed it so everything was fine. So we had a good time. There was a lot of food and Erik ordered pizza for all our guests, so it was fun.

Christmas day was fun too. Erik went to Chinese class in the morning (can you believe him? I wouldn't have gone) and then in the afternoon we made Christmas cookies with some friends at our friend's restuarant. He let us use his oven, so nice. Later we went to a Christmas party that one of our friends threw. So the day was good.

Besides the surprise party Erik threw me, I had 2 other small get togethers. My friend Iris's birthday is also in December, so we went out together with the other teachers at work to celebrate. In Chinese tradition, Iris and I paid for everyone's dinner. Instead of friends taking the birthday person out for dinner, the birthday person takes everyone else out on their birthday. Interesting.

Of course, we went out for dinner on my birthday too. Indian food, my favorite. They were doing dancing up on stage and they dragged me up there. So embarrassing.