Autumn has always been my favorite season of the year. Some of my fondest memories are from autumn when Lena and I, all wrapped up because of the chill and the rain, would race down the hill to the feijoa trees  by the library and trudge back laden with books(mostly comics), and fat, ripe, unbelievably  yummy feijoas. At home I would lie in bed (having taken off my jacket, hat and gloves), and read and read and read, enjoying the sound of the rain on the roof and the bounty of fruit on the floor by my bed, and the feel of the cosy, warm winter sheets; sometimes playing music on my cd player or, if I wasn't reading, an audio book. Bliss

We don't have autumn or feijoas here, so i'll just have to make do with dragon fruit!

A Coconut At Turtle Lake

Yesterday, after a stop at turtle lake, which happens to have no turtles and no lake, certain people in our group were feeling hot and tired. After a quick debate between ourselves, we chose a restaurant across the road to grab some lunch before heading on to the language school.. Amberly had wanted to go to a sushi club that was nearby. When we arrived, however, we discover that they were only serving drinks, presumably because the chef was out. Mum ordered a banana smoothy, I ordered a drinking coconut, and Isaac and Amberly ordered chocolate milkshakes. A few minuets later I was in heaven. Ever since trying one in a cafe in our first week in Vietnam, coconuts have been my favourite drink. Drinking coconuts (also known as jelly-nuts or tender-nuts) are unripe coconuts that have been cut open at the top to reveal coconut "water" and mushy,slimy (but tasty) coconut flesh. Coconuts are actually a type of fruit that contain sugar, dietary fibre, proteins, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, and provides an isotonic electrolyte balance. Today we learnt how to say ''can you give me a coconut please'', then we went and bought one of the street and successfully used the phrase to purchase 4 coconuts.

The ladies on the bus get hot, hot hot ...

This is me today - red and dripping with perspiration; it was running down my front and back making sitting down, standing up, generally moving or not moving rather uncomfortable. All it takes to end up in this state is walking for 20 minutes in 34 degrees, trying to find the number 3 bus to get home. When it didn't come to the first bus stop we were waiting at the kids were all in favour of just catching a taxi but I didn't think I had enough dong in my purse so we were committed to a bit more walking, eventually getting aboard at the main central bus stop across the way from Ben Thanh market. But it is so satisfying to eventually get where you want to get using the cheapest means available. And ice-creams are cheap too!

Something cold to keep us going as there was a little walk from where we got off the number 3 back to the apartment.

Our first formal lesson in Vietnamese today was awesome! We have a lovely teacher who told us she has never taught teens before, only over 30s and when Isaac asked how we compared she said the adults were more patient and didn't ask as many questions.

Our friendly teacher, Miss Thao (rhymes with cow and you say it like a question)

Class is in session - once we had walked from the bus stop (via Gloria Jeans) then climbed 4 flights of stairs to the classroom.

Vietnamese is really hard! Some of the sounds we have to make have no english equivalent (imagine saying oo with your mouth set in a half smile as if you were saying ee) but Thao was lovely and patient and repetitive which is what beginners like us need. After this first class we went out and ordered 4 coconuts from a street-seller in Vietnamese, Isaac even asked the price and understood the answer - so cool!

Bus-t a move!

As usual, this Wednesday was our travelling day, so after a quick breakfast of pancakes, we figured out our route and caught the bus. Our first destination was Turtle Lake, a little known feature in District 1. When we got there, having walked from the nearby bus stop, we noticed a distinct lack of turtles. And lakes. What we found was a polluted pond that probably didn't support any life forms larger than microbes, in the centre of which was a large concrete sculpture of a lotus flower. When we researched this, we found that there had once been a statue of a turtle on a plinth (which still remains), but it had been blown up in an attempt by a minority group of nationalists in an attempt to awake the mythical dragon of South Vietnam and revive the South after the fall of Saigon. Obviously, it didn't work, leaving the oddly named place we see today.

Having met our cultural learning obligations, we popped in at a promising looking restaurant next to the roundabout Turtle Lake was on, looking to grab some lunch. However, when we tried to order the waiter communicated, through a mix of pointing and head-shaking, that no food was being served, only drinks. Disappointed, we all ordered a drink, then headed to our next stop, the Saigon Language School, on foot, grabbing a banh mi each for lunch. At the SLS, Mum paid half of the total fee and organized when our English lessons were going to be. With that cleared up, we left by bus again for Metro, the supermarket we had visited, after talking to a lady who wanted to say hello at the bus stop. Once at Metro, Mum showed her passport in order to get a day pass (Metro is similar to Gilmours in that you have to join and become a member, or do what we did and show our passports for a temporary membership) and we went through, just buying a few things we needed as we still had distance left to travel and didn't want to carry too much.

All finished, we left by taxi to our final destination, Souled Out, the church youth group. Sadly, I am the only boy older than 13 or so, but that can't be helped. Once youth group was over, we stayed around a bit to talk to the family who runs it, then headed home.

The Bus Stops Here

Today was one of the biggest traveling days we've had so far during our Vietnam trip. However, what made it remarkable was the fact that we traveled almost entirely by bus. We left before lunch, and our first stop was a bank to convert some NZ dollars into VN dong. Accustomed somewhat to catching a bus, we went to the stop, sat down and waited for the No. 3 bus to arrive. When it did, however, it was so packed that Mum balked and insisted we wait for the next one. Luckily, it arrived quickly and was nearly empty, so we hopped on, paid the tiny fare (about 30 cents each) and headed off. The thing about taking a bus is that you have to pay a lot more attention to where you are in order to get off at the right stop. As we went through the streets, I was sure that I saw the hotel that we were supposed to get off at. Mum hadn't noticed, so I pointed it out, but she seemed confused. Eventually, we got up and off at the next stop, which was the one we had aimed for. It seemed I had misheard her when I thought she said we had to get off at a certain hotel, but we ended up at the right place anyway.

As we searched for out first stop, the bank, we passed the infamous waffle seller. When she said "100,000", it took a second for me to realize that haggling was required. Once I did, I tried to get her lower, but Mum was so willing to pay the higher price that the best I could get was 70,000. We were later told that this was over 3 times what they were worth. Oh well, lesson learned. We found the bank and got the money converted, then our next stop was a hobby shop that I wanted to visit. Again, we took the bus and managed to get off at the right place, which was a large roundabout. We walked around it until we found the street we wanted, then headed down it. As we walked down, we were looking for number 15, so we kept track of the numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8... Wait a moment. We looked over on the other side of the street, expecting to see odd numbers, but there was only a large wall that continued down the street for 50 meters or so. Confused, we asked a nearby cop/security person for directions. This consisted of us saying "mui lam, mui lam", which means 15, and pointing to the street name. Eventually, he got it and pointed us down the street and across. Ok, so the odd numbers were just a while down. Luckily for us No. 15 was at our end of the street, so we quickly found it.

Inside, there were several RC toys ranging from miniature helicopters to helicopters as big as a dog. I found one I liked the look of, a replica of a twin-rotor thing from Avatar, and we asked to test it. Unfortunately, the batteries were nearly flat, so we couldn't try it properly. It looked quite difficult to fly, as the left toggle could also move left and right to give more power to the corresponding rotor. Used properly, this could be used to strafe the helicopter sideways, but it would be very easy to just flip it instead. I didn't quite have enough money to buy the one I wanted, so decided to come back another day once I'd saved up a bit more.

We headed out from the shop and back to the roundabout in order to catch the next bus, popping into a nearby mall to cool off. Again, we caught it with no difficulty and headed off again. After the longest ride so far, we ended up about a km from our next destination, a massive supermarket called Metro. The entire walk was alongside a large canal, extremely dirty but apparently fishable, as there were several people there with rods. Once we reached Metro, we had to find the entrance, not as easy as it sounds. We found the entrance, but not the trolleys, so had to carry everything we bought, which was just stuff for lunch. By this point we were running late for our youth group, Souled Out, so we caught a taxi for the short ride there. We munched down on the buns, bananas and yoghurt there, then it was time to begin.

After youth group, we hung around for a bit to chat to the Tarrs, who ran the thing, then headed off to meet Dad for dinner, again by taxi. We ate at a thai place down an alley, off a small street, off a main street. Joining us were two of Dad's workmates who he wanted us to meet. The food was very nice, not too spicy, and we left feeling full. One last taxi ride home, then we were done for the day.

WAFFLE RIP OFF!!!!

Suddenly the face that had been so friendly turned serious. ''100,000''  ''What?!'' I heard mum say. ''that's really expensive!'' I was thinking the same thing. 100,000 for 3 small bags of waffles? Yikes! Thankfully Isaac came to the rescue just then and haggled it down to 70,000, which is still ridiculously pricey. We probably should have stuck at it, but mum was too soft. I wasn't the only one to notice. As we walked away another lady persistently tried to sell us some books. ''Very good book madam, very cheap!'' When mum said no, she pulled out more. she was probably thinking that if we payed 70,000 for some waffles, why not for her books? but when we finally convinced that we didn't want her books,  (it took at least 3 noes) she looked quite annoyed. The rest of the day was also fun, but I really shouldn't waffle on any longer!

Waffles and Literature

Yesterday, we went for a walk in downton Saigon looking for a money exchange place and we passed a street seller selling those crispy waffle things.

Spying a business opportunity, she hastily gave us a multitude of free samples ("sucking us in" as Mum would later put it!) Mum finally gave in and said she would buy a few bags. Instantly the middle-aged lady's face shot from warm and cheerful to dead serious. "One hundred thousand dong!" she said, (later on Mum explained that this was close to eight NZ dollars) but Mum was adamant that this was too expensive and managed to haggle it down to 70,000, although Isaac insisted that he could have gotten it to 60,000. Just as we were about to leave with our purchase, a bookseller, obviously thinking we were easy customers, came along and started shoving guides and atlases in our faces.

When we refused, her look of outrage said it all: "But you just gave her 70,000 dong for a few waffles!" My lesson learned? Stay away from waffle sellers!

Pity the Fool

I've learned a few important lessons today:

1. All countries have some kind of Customs Form that may have to be filled in
2. No matter how tired you are when you land, you should always try and read every sign with English instructions, no matter how small or obscurely placed they are.

Today I had to go back to the airport where we arrived on the 10th of Feb, to fill in the customs form I should have filled in when we landed. That form had a section where I needed to declare unaccompanied luggage - the 12 boxes that we had sent on ahead by ship.

Without that customs form, our possessions would be treated as imports and we would have to pay import tax on every item. Or worse - the boxes would just disappear into some warehouse forever.

Normally, when travelling to other countries, the customs form is given out on the plane for you to fill in. But in the four trips I have now made to Vietnam, no form was ever given.

The actual information about customs is accessed after you go through the border patrol (where you get the stamp on your passport), and down the stairs to the area where you pick up your luggage. There, hidden among the great throng of newly landed passengers, is a little table with a stack of custom forms. Oh, and there is a small blue sign on the corner counter where you place your luggage for scanning that says something to the effect of "You must declare stuff that is prohibited".

But even if I had read that in my sleep deprived state after landing, I doubt I would have concluded from that sign, that I should have filled in a customs form and declared "unaccompanied luggage" of 12 boxes being sent by ship.

I had some trouble conveying my story of ineptitude in one and two syllable words to the customs officer and in the end relied on a quick phone call to the office manager at work; she was able to explain very clearly in Vietnamese that I am obviously incompetent and can he please take pity on me.

He very kindly acquiesced, with the admonishment that "just this once, ok?". I assured him that it would never happen again - which shouldn't be too hard right? After all - how many times in my life am I going to come and live in Vietnam long term?

The Next Bus Adventure

I was so proud of myself. Elated even. I had just caught the right bus (number 3) by myself, paid the correct fare (= 50 NZ cents), recognized the right stop and disembarked straight across the road from the pharmacy I had sought! Sweet as, I would be home again in under 30 minutes.

Sure enough the bus with the same number but going the other way came along shortly and I happily climbed aboard. It seemed like it was taking the long way back but I figured that was to be expected with buses and I was never sure if the streets were familiar or not as you see the same dress shops, shoe shops and motor scooter repair shops on every street in Ho Chi Minh. Then we crossed a bridge. Then all the signs started ending in Quang (district) 12. Then after a while I was the last person on the bus.

The ticket guy and driver didn't speak any english but what they said obviously meant "Where are you going foreign lady?" and I was glad I had learnt how to say the name of our street and the park where the buses stop. "Aah, Com Vien Gia Den," followed by more friendly Vietnamese words and gestures instructing me to get off and get onto the next number 3 bus heading back the other way. Suddenly the driver started yelling and tooting his horn - not at me (I checked) but at the next number 3 bus that was coming right then. If only anyone I knew had seen my next amazing feat of fearlessness. To get home to my 3 beloved dependent children and not stay lost in the outer suburbs for anther half hour I ran through traffic across the road, around the back of that number 3 and onto a still moving bus in a single bound.

I have yet to determine the bus I should've been on in the first place or where I should've gotten off the 2nd number 3 but in typical Middlemiss fashion, I managed.

Today I found a pharmacy within easy walking distance of our apartment.

These photos were all taken during our visit to an art museum in the city. Mum fell in love with the building, and probably would have stayed there all day if we hadn't got so hungry. Sadly, a lot of the older paintings were in bad shape, because of the poor conditions. Here are three of my favorites. There was also a cool statue out side of a guy with a cross bow, who was standing on a turtle for some reason.

This beautiful piece was called rows of bamboo, but what it reminds me of is a snowy scene on a mountain somewhere.

ghost party!!

The dancing men! Actually the two lowest ones are chained to each other, and the one on top celebrating their defeat, but it looks like they are dancing to me.


                                                                                                                                                                         

ART!!!
On Wednesday 6th of march me,mum,Isaac and Lena all went to the Saigon Fine Arts museum in downtown Saigon. For mum, it was love at first sight. For Isaac and Lena however, it was boredom to the extreme! I really enjoyed it because i myself am an artist! my favorite piece was probably a laquer engraving depicting vietnamese soldiers in the jungle as seen below.

This is another favorite of mine: a HUGE, 9 panel laquer on wood painting.

After the museum we went to an art store were i found an awesome sketch book. This shop was close to another art store that LITERALLY was less than a METER wide!!!
well, that's all for now! seeya.

Our Museum Trip

On the 6th of March, Mum dragged the three of us kids to the Ho Chi Minh Fine Arts Museum in District One, close to Reunification Palace. Outside the building were statues, which we looked at briefly, and a coffee shop, which Mum made a beeline for. She bought a coffee titled "thought", which was rather appropriate, as once it arrived it dripped at a snails pace into the cup, giving her reason to have second thoughts about buying it. After about 7 minutes, she lost patience and drank what little had dripped in. It was so good, however, that she regretted her hasty decision and tried to salvage what was left of it. Eventually, she gave up and we went into the main building. There were three levels, each one containing several rooms filled with sculptures, paintings, etc. It was extremely boring for me and the girls, but Mum was loving it. While we were walking around, Mum tasked us with choosing three pieces to take a picture of and comment on. I chose the following:

1: I bet this guy gets told a lot "your mind is an open book", 'cause that's sure what it looks like!

2: During the Vietnam war, soldiers would get extremely bored, resulting in occasional circus acts like this one. As they couldn't risk being seen on the height given by a full-size tightrope, they resorted to a bar held by four men, which meant they could fit two people at once on top.

 This is a view of some beach or other, but it's a bit hard to tell which one as the painter was in a plane doing a barrel roll at the time.

The Big Day

The day of our departure for Vietnam, we all got up at 4:30 am, got dressed and headed to the terminal from the Novotel, where we had stayed the night. We were planning on quickly checking in our luggage, then going back to the hotel for a leisurely breakfast with a couple of friends before our flight. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned.

The trouble started when Dad tried to use his Silver status in Qantas to add a second bag to our total (the usual amount is one each). He had only achieved this status on his last flight home, so his card hadn't arrived and the airport check in terminal still registered him as a Bronze, which would mean we had to pay a lot extra for the extra bag. To prove his status, Dad tried to log in to the Qantas website, but the wifi was locked. He then had to get the password from the lady at the desk. This whole process was severely slowed by the fact that every 5 minutes, the lady had to go to a nearby office and update them or confirm something. About halfway through this, the friends we were having breakfast with, namely Kruger, Debbie and Ruby, showed up and were waiting for us. We'd taken so long, by the time we'd gotten past that stage, it was 5:45. We had to be in the departure lounge by 6:15. This was going to be close.

At this point, Dad said that we could go on to breakfast, he'd finish up getting the bags through. Relieved, we headed back to the hotel with the others to a scrumptious buffet with eggs benedict, sausages, hash browns and more! Unfortunately we only had half an hour, but I managed to fit in a few helpings. When we had to leave, we said our goodbyes and headed through the departure lounge. After a nervous wait, we heard our seat numbers called, and we trooped through the tunnel into the plane that would take us to Melbourne. We settled into our seats, the engines started, we accelerated forward and we were off!

The flight was pretty uneventful, to be honest. I watched a movie, played some music, then found Hamish and Andy and watched that until we got to Melbourne. Coming off the plane, thankfully we didn't have to find our luggage so could go straight to the next departure lounge. As we were looking for it, we heard our name on the PA system! "Would the Middlemiss family, just arrived from New Zealand, please go to gate ... and talk to the staff there". It was quite funny as just minutes ago, Mum had said "wouldn't it be cool if we heard our names here?". We went to the gate and sorted out our passports, then waited until the boarding call. When it finally came, we went through a gate again, settled into our seats again, then we were off again!

This flight was about as interesting as the previous one, with two main differences. 1, it was longer , 2, there was no Hamish and Andy! Oh well, there were still plenty of songs and movies to watch. I found a poker game, and by the time we landed again had gone from $200 to over $10000. Mum and Dad had it a bit rougher than I did though, as there was a little Vietnamese girl in the seat directly in front of them, and once she realized they spoke english, she wouldn't be quiet! To make things worse, she kept turning around and interrupting their movie by tapping the touch-sensitive screen or flipping the seat cover over to cover it. The mother, who was sitting right there, didn't do a thing about it, and Mum had to physically restrain the girl at one point so she could watch in peace.

Finally, the moment came. First, we saw land ahead, then passing beneath us. We were officially in Vietnam! The airport grew closer and closer, then touchdown! We all headed slowly towards the door, then we were out. The first thing that struck us was the heat. It felt like Auckland during a high day at noon. Next came the smells. Wherever you are in Vietnam, you can always smell something, whether it be exhaust, food or just the general smell of pollution. Getting out of the terminal took a while, as Dad had to go through a few processes to finalize his visa, then we picked up our bags and went to catch a taxi. Exiting the doors, we were faced with a huge crowd of people. It took a moment for me to realize that this was just the usual arrivals gate crowd, only with ten times as many people as Auckland. We found a taxi, then we got our first glimpse of Vietnam traffic. Oh boy.

It was insane! Motorbikes everywhere, weaving around us, each other and any pedestrians crossing the road. There were so many cars and bikes that it felt like Auckland traffic, only crammed into a normal sized street. That taxi ride was so fun, I was laughing as we pulled into the apartment where we were going to spend the next year of our lives. Dad had, on his previous trips, set the apartment up for us, buying some kitchen supplies, furniture etc., so all we had to do was unpack our bags. We were extremely tired, having been traveling for over 12 hours, but Dad reckoned we had to stay up as late as possible to help ourselves adjust to the jet lag. We achieved this by watching tv for hours (we have 70 channels including Animal Planet, Discovery, Cartoon Network and three movie channels, although most of the others are entirely Vietnamese). Finally, we couldn't stay up any more, so we shambled to our beds and almost instantly fell asleep. Thus ended our first day in Vietnam.

The Wheels on the Bus

The plan on Friday was simple enough. We were going to catch the 55 bus to Software City to meet Phil and Tam for lunch and deliver our passports to confirm who we were for his work permit and residency so he could be paid. This was a good plan as we want to get the hang of using the bus to get places as they are so much cheaper ($1.40 for all of us) than the cheap taxis and we wanted to see where Phil works and eats each day. We gave ourselves plenty of time, having been assured that buses came every 15 minutes or so. Indeed, after 30 minutes, we had seen five 55 buses, all going the other way, and plenty of other buses dropping off and picking up passengers at the bus stop where we were waiting in the searing heat. We checked that we were at the right place, waited for a few more buses to come and go, then as Phil couldn't understand either why our bus hadn't come after 45 minutes we followed his advice to give up and catch a taxi. We started trudging wearily in the right direction waiting for a taxi to come along and were shortly passed by the number 55 bus.

Our taxi followed this bus into the Software City entrance where we met Phil. Once we were seatd at the restaurant the effect of waiting and walking in the Ho Chi Minh heat was manifest by both girls resting their heads on the table until their parents told them to harden up like real New Zealanders.

After a very enjoyable lunch we crossed the road and successfully caught the number 55 bus home, laughing along with the ticket seller who clearly thought my pronunciation of where we wanted to go was hilarious. But as we say a lot here, "It's all part of the experience." The pool sure felt nice when we made it back to our building!