We continue to adjust to life here in Vietnam. Both Luna and Justo started with swim lessons last week, and Luna restarts with violin lessons this week. Justo tried out a Tae Kwon Do class last week, which he really took to (scary). They're having lots of fun riding their bikes - although they've had a few spills resulting in some crying.
Traffic here - of course - remains fascinating on a daily basis. There's a traffic light that is at the main intersection in and out of our area. It's a three way intersection, between the highway and the small road that leads to our neighborhood. Now, see if you can picture this. The highway - as would be expected - has the bulk of the traffic. As you would expect, when the light turns red for the highway traffic, it becomes a green signal for the traffic coming out of the side road to cross into the intersection and make a left turn. Seems logical. But, then, add into the mix that a left-turn lane FROM the highway TO the side road (which already has a green light) is also green. In other words, imagine making a left turn unto a street, while the oncoming traffic from that street is ALSO making a left turn - so you just end up crossing each other's paths. Hard to
understand, right? I'll have to make an illustration, because it is just so wacky.
Over the weekend, we had breakfast at a very nice restaurant about a five minute cab ride from our house. The restaurant is on the grounds of a very nice apartment complex, and sits right on the riverbank. From there, we took a ferry down the Saigon River to downtown. Luna managed to get a little cut on her foot so we had to look for a band-aid. We strolled into a hotel and asked the doorman if there was a place where we could buy band-aids, and immediately someone ran to the back and just got us one. We weren't even guests!
We trotted over to Ben Thanh Market - one of Saigon's major landmarks. It's a typical market with cheap Chinese and Vietnamese goods, knock-off watches, foodstuffs, an impressive variety of tropical fruit, etc. Among the highlights were the bottles of home-brewed liquor filled with snakes, scorpions, and seahorses; a variety of cow-innards, like brain, intestines and whole hearts; and, of course, the countless vendors just saying "you buy shirt?" every three feet. The last thing could have easily been annoying, but they just laughed and smiled when we said "no" in Vietnamese, or said we were looking for
the food. While Justo was interested, the combination of the heat and the smells just became a tad much for Luna, even with candy thrown in.
After mass on Sunday, we went back to the zoo and made a beeline for the elephant ride. No elephant ride, however, because it was sick. The orangutan was around, so we got our pictures with the poor guy.
We feel really spoiled since our cook Ms. Han (I kind of cringe in embarrassment writing that) has been taking good care of us every night. She started out cooking lots of western dishes - pastas and such. It took awhile, but she's finally cooking more Vietnamese style dishes. A few days ago, she made us stuffed squid. This evening, we had very delicious shrimps. With whatever meal we have, we're also always served a platter of fruit. And the tropical fruits here have been so sweet! Plus our cook does most of the shopping.
Sonia's had a very busy social calendar. Last Thursday for instance, she went to the International Ladies of Vietnam at one of the hotels downtown. She's now signed up to join a mah-jong group (no experience necessary!). She also had an interview of sorts today at the kids' school to be a sub. That may throw the mah-jong out the window.
In terms of what's really happening here in Vietnam, who knows? The press is tightly conrolled. Today, the English-language daily "The Saigon Times" ("available on international flights") had as its hard-hitting, banner headline spanning 6 column inches: "SAIGON CO-OP (a local grocery) SET TO EXPAND CONVENIENCE STORE CHAIN." The local Vietnamese dailies fare a tad better, with articles on police ineffectiveness and young people trying to find scant jobs. Absolutely no political news whatsoever.
