Farewell Vietnam

School Logo
Originally uploaded by amasc

Time to move on, a brief time in Edinburgh picking up the new work visa then off to Mumbai. I have mixed feelings of regret and excitement but onwards and eastward, it's all part of the extended adventure. It's been good, we've made some fantastic friends and wonderful memories. We'll be back.

I thought of doing a montage of favoured images but I've posted them here already so by way of farewell here's a very occassional image from my workplace.

The last day at school, Students from the youngest to the oldest classes painted this during Creative Arts Week and assembled it during the last morning. No spelling mistakes either!

See you in India.

Anywhere in the world by DHL...

...anywhere else by bus.

Pastures New and Old Stamping Grounds

By July we'll be off taking the same kinds of pictures in a different kind of place and I'm already getting a bit nostalgic and taking pictures of things I see on a regular basis but have stopped really registering.
Hence, The Post Office, The Virgin at Notre Dame, Uncle Ho and a coffee shop;

I still think this is one of the loveliest Post Offices I've been to and the service is great and charges are excellent value for money despite the recent hikes in cost.



This is the famous "crying Madonna" who caused a huge fuss just before I came to Vietnam. She wasn't crying today and hasn't for four years I've been here but the real novelty in this picture is the blue sky which made such a change from the horrible grey candyfloss that has been passing for sky recently.



Now, what I wanted here was a picture of Uncle Ho's statue in front of the Hotel de Ville with the Vietnamese flag snapping away in the breeze. This was one of the grey sky days hence the ridiculously cropped closeup.



Vietnam has adopted the fancy coffee culture with arms open wide. A fancy coffee has at least four components to its name in my rule book. This was an expresso freeze with cream so clearly not as fancy as some. Very good though and the first time I've been back since their rebuild, I noticed that they're hosting live music now, Regina Coffee, Nguyen Du St.

I didn't realise just how many puns I got into the title of this blog until I re-read it, I'm quite proud of myself if a little ashamed.

Hoi An break

We were off to Hoi An for a few days during the recent break. We'd toyed with ideas of setting off somewhere abroad but work and other commitments wouldn't let us do it and I'm glad of it. A relaxing time with good food and friendly people and a break from the city was just perfect. I also spent some time with the models of Hoi An who will happily either sell you fruit or pose for you for a very modest fee.

Cheers Etienne.

Cambodia trip

At this time of year I am usually to be found leading a school trip to Nha Trang. I had a change of scenery this year and led a trip to Cambodia instead.

Angkor Wat is still there.



Spiders are still considered delicious snacks.



The monkeys of Angkor still swim when they get the opportunity.



And you still have to watch out for your ice cream.

Dress Up Day

It's the annual book week and students dress as their favourite characters or books, so do teachers.



It can make teaching a bit distracting.



Not a normal school day.

Old Advertising, Saigon

On Tran Hung Dao one hotel has been knocked down to be replaced with another one. In the process old wall advertisements have been revealed for the first time in who knows how many decades. I like the juxtaposition of the old adverts with the new and that there are no power lines getting in the way.

Cat Time

It's The Year of the Cat, rabbit elsewhere but cats rule in Vietnam! Nguyen Hue in District 1 is turned into Flower Street for a week and there are always representations of appropriate animals. Here are a few of them:

Yes, it is a dog.

So why do we have the Year of the Cat while the rest of the world hop along happily in the Year of the Rabbit. One theory goes thus: "The Chinese word for rabbit is 'mao', which sounds like 'meo' in Vietnamese, where it means cat. As the sound of the word changed, so did its meaning,". You can read the full article here .

I'll finish with one set of animals which seem to bridge the gap between cats and rabbits quite well.

Happy Meo Year

Tet Flower Market

My annual wander around a Tet flower market;

Flowers are a very big deal. Also a very big deal is making fruit and plants into something they're not like a Dragon Fruit Fruit Dragon.

More pictures from Flower Street with Cats being heavily featured very soon.

Santa Time

The streets are full again of children of all ages posing in front of the Tax Centre Christmas displays. This year the photographers are liveried up in Noel 2010 shirts.

Red velvet ropes are set up to help keep people from climbing on the polystyrene displays which have an international theme courtesy of Hitachi.

Most of the Santa Babies have already learned the art of photo posing but you have to start somewhere.

There are new Santa fashions, the halter neck tiered dress...

and more and more fairies.

The decorations are up.

The Santas on sticks have arrived.

The balloons have been modeled

and Mickey and Minnie are available for you in their Military Fighter helicopter.

Merry Christmas from Ho Chi Minh City.