Week in Review

It feels like I have been in Da Nang for months after recounting the events that have taken place in the last seven days.  I am going to attempt posting once a week from here on out as I’m sure some aspects of life here will fall into new norms and there will be fewer sights and activities to recount.

I started teaching this week and although I was nervous to take over classes, I knew that after a class or two, my beloved teaching instincts would pop through and nerves would calm.  Teaching art previous to this job has definitely helped me relate and motivate.  The kids love watching me draw on the board as they dictate monster body parts and adjectives to describe images in their vocab studies.  I have had as much fun watching them draw about their interests and explain them to me.  Their intense competitive nature and natural good sportsmanship make our language games very enjoyable.  There was a funny moment yesterday with the teens - I wrote a letter on the board which they had to then connect with an animal, food, country, and past tense verb.  For the letter D, one student wrote “dog” under the animal column, and for the food column?  …“Dog.”

China Beach with the
Bodhisattva of Mercy in the background

Finally made it to the beach!  China beach is quite a spectacle, and since most locals go during the evening (no sun), daytime is relatively crowd free. 

If I thought I was stared at in normal street clothes, it’s safe to say the bikini brought a few lingering glances.  Add in the brightly colored tattoos and my beach visit was quite an exhibition.  The beach’s water, lightly lapping at the shoreline, is clear, warm, and chest high quite a ways out from the sand.  After swimming until I could barely touch, the easy buoyancy allowed me to take in every sense and breathe fully in the moment.  Loud speakers serenaded the beach with piano classics while fishing boats, mountains and a large white female Buddha statue lined the peripheral.  After we had our fill of swimming, my new Aussie friend Shish and I went for a run along the shoreline to work off a very filling banh xeo lunch.  

Banh Xeo (Vietnamese crepe with shrimp and pork)

To obtain a legal work permit in Vietnam, foreigners are required to go through a full physical from a Vietnamese hospital while in-country.  Today was my lucky physical day!  Early before breakfast, Richard (another new employee) and I took the moto over to the hospital for our exams.  After paying an unfortunate but necessary hospital fee, we began a whirlwind tour of tests including blood, urine, vision, ears, throat, x-ray, mental and dental!  I quickly learned that our fortunate hospital fee was a fast-pass ticket to the front of every doctor’s line and all of this great fun was done within the hour. (What!?)

I have to say the highlight of the medical tour was the blood test.  I trusted the nurse’s experience and knowledge of taking blood, but I was nervous about the environment of this part of the facility being, basically, in a windows open-air room just steps from where our motos were parked!  Our trusted friend from the English school assured us that this hospital used to be reserved for only very important officials which helped settle nerves.  

After wrapping the elastic tourniquet around my upper arm, the nurse inspected the typical veins used to extract blood with a worried expression.  I nervously watched her unwrap the tourniquet and refasten it to my forearm.  “Woah…where are you going with that needle??” I thought while she smiled at a located spot on my hand.  Then she painlessly and expertly took the blood from my hand.  Amazing!!! I won’t even get into the hilarity of an eye exam with a translator.  The medical mission was topped off with a very needed purchase of a rockin green moto helmet.   Just a regular day takin’ care of the bod.  Mission for next week: find a moto!