Wood, water, fire

The morning began with a scavenger hunt/trip to the market. It was time to put our two weeks of Vietnamese class to the test. Each team was to haggle for and buy three kinds of fruit. After completing this first task we were to meet up with our teachers and get an envelope containing further directions. I admit I was a little more excited about taking pictures at the market than about haggling.

Tarps are a perfectly valid building material when it comes to awnings as well as walls.

Sometimes I feel destined to live somewhere with old yellow buildings.

The back of a laden-down motorcycle: not an unusual sight.

More tarp, more market.

After successfully buying quả chôm chôm (rambutan), quả nho (grapes), and quả thang long (dragon fruit), we received our envelope. Inside there were directions to our final destination, a cafe, and questions we needed to ask the cab driver while in transit. Fortunately, our cabbie was good natured and willing to be interviewed by semi-tone-deaf 'tây' (the Vietnamese gringo-equivalent/word for Westerner). Upon arriving at the cafe, we did mini-presentations about our cab driver and I presented on behalf of my group. We then sang -- over and over and over again -- the song I hope to use to impress my future Vietnamese students: Và tôi cũng yêu em. Meanwhile, several couples were taking wedding photos on the outdoor patio adjacent to our room, so our old-school pop ballad felt very fitting for their occasion. We feasted on our fruits and casually celebrated the conclusion of the first phase of our orientation.


Lunch, learning how to teach, and a nap later, it was storming and dinner time. I got to test out some teva-type shoes I bought at the night market last weekend, and to my delight they were both comfy and weather appropriate. We moseyed into a restaurant called Gecko, whose menu featured some excellent typos. Every page proclaimed "We will make you delicious!" and some of the dishes' ingredients included "mushromoms", "minced bee" (beef, I think), and "lettukce", "lettuc", "lettuce" in subsequent dishes (I guess they figured they'd get at least one right if they included all three). 


Tonight's big activity was seeing a water puppet show. As the name might suggest, the stage is a pool of water. At first I was strongly reminded of the "It's a Small World After All" ride at Disney World, and had a hard time taking the show seriously, but I grew to appreciate it. I had to override my 21st century, MTV generation expectations of big and quick and flashy, and view this 11th century tradition as a cultural artifact instead. I really enjoyed the music, but was also entertained by the idea of having wooden puppets wielding flames while partly submerged in water.