6 Things I Didn't Bring And Wish I Had

1. My disc golf discs. It turns out, there is a course here and a small community of people here who play. They seem very nice, and willing to let me borrow their discs. 

2. Crocs. No seriously. Not the clog/virgin kind. Apparently Crocs make a whole bunch of cute rubber flats. The girls in my CELTA course wear them every day, they seem perfect for monsoon season. 

3. Wax pot/kit. I don't know why I thought this would be available here. All was quiet on the expat group when I asked.  

4. More long pants. I brought 2 pairs of jeans and various silly leggings but it's not enough. All I want to do is wear long pants because I am delicious to mosquitoes here. 

5. My poi. I have so many pairs of poi, I could have supplied our whole circus club with them. And here I am with none :( 

6. More board games, especially Cards Against Humanity. I haven't found a place to buy them here yet. I brought Scrabble and a deck of cards, but that is it. 

5 Things that Happened (Outside of the CELTA)

In list form, because I have things to do today

 

I have been making a massive effort to do things other than CELTA-homework-eat-repeat. It's difficult because the class is intensive, but it is extra difficult because my classmates are super studious. Almost no one wants to go out. Some of my classmates have kids or boyfriends/girlfriends here and they're struggling to fit the CELTA into their lives. Some of them are not native English speakers so they have to work extra hard on some of the more pronunciation-heavy assignments. I am very much in vacation mode, and I'm one of the youngest people in the class, so I have been striking out on my own a lot.   

1. I met circusy people. 

I wrote a post on a female expat Facebook group desperately trying to find someone to hula hoop with. I actually got a response AND in addition, someone told me about the very first "circus meetup" at Indika, a bar near my hotel. I brought my hoops (which were kind of a hazard because Indika is a teeny tiny hippie spot with stuff all over the walls and ceiling). It turns out there are plenty of other flow artists in town who crave a creative outlet. Though this group, I learned about Quest festival in Hanoi and acroyoga jams. I am really optimistic that this group will ignite a circus/flow scene in Saigon. 

2. I bought tickets to a music festival 

This sounds easy enough but it was actually a 2 week ongoing debacle. When I first got to HCMC, I was stranded in my hotel because I was scared of the Xe Oms and the language barrier. Also, I was just feeling alone and sorry for myself. I went on forums and social media and tried to find something that felt like home, which for me was adding every SE Asian page that had "rave" or EDM in it (roll your eyes, I don't care). I found out about a festival here in town called Land of Dreams on September 25th. I'm pretty sure it is some kind of extension/copycat of the "Dreamstate" festival circuit in the US. 

I contacted the promoter, who speaks English, to make sure I am allowed to bring hula hoops (because priorities). After the go-ahead, I spent the next 2 weeks trying to convince someone to go with me to this show. No one from the CELTA would commit because we have class the day afterward. I convinced a friend I met in New York to come with me and then I started trying to get the tickets. 

First, my credit card did not work on their website because I do not have a Vietnamese bank account. Then, they tried to use a delivery service to deliver the tickets to my hotel and I would pay upon arrival in cash. They gave me a 3 day window of when the tickets might show up. I am stuck at the CELTA training center for hours a day during the week and I am usually somewhere else all weekend, so that didn't work.

THEN my friend and I tried to go to the box office during rush hour and we could not find it, despite zipping through pedestrians on the sidewalk on motorbike during a thunderstorm. By the time we are looking around for the office, it was past their closing hours stated online. The next day, I went back and gave myself plenty of time. I still ended up standing on a street corner telling the promoter what buildings I saw until she got on her motorbike and hand delivered the tickets to me. By this time, the festival is mostly sold out so of course I end up paying 330,000 VND each (google says $14.80 right now, but I am thinking it is just a particularly bad exchange rate).  

TL;DR I spent hours of my life attempting to get tickets to the show, and I got them.

3. I went to probably the coolest bar I've ever been to. 

There's this bar called "Saigon Outcast" that I pretty much want to live in. They have a skate park and a rock wall. While I was there they had a theater troupe doing live performances. The drinks are cheap (they are pretty much everywhere) and there are dogs running around (which is also pretty much true everywhere). I brought my hula hoops with me, and no one gave me a hard time about it at all. Some people even tried hooping with them. 

Side note: the expats I met at Outcast and at other places have all been amazing.  Everyone made me feel better about my culture shock, my fear of the motorbikes, and my feeling of isolation. In general, people are down to try new things and are not afraid to look a little silly. And I have noticed that there is less "flaking out" (except in the case of the sudden rain storms where you don't want to be out on your bike, we are in the rainy season after all).

4. I lost weight! 

Not even on purpose, but I am not complaining. The tiny-bit-too-small clothes from my suitcase now fit perfectly. I guess I just haven't been as hungry, and the things I do eat have been pretty healthy.

5. I RENTED A BIKE! AND I RODE IT. 

I was deathly afraid of the motorbikes when I got here. Just thinking about being on one made me feel sick. A CELTA classmate agreed to go with me to get one. He had a bike in England, so he knew which ones were a good idea for a complete nerve-case beginner like me. We settled on this itty bitty automatic scooter-looking thing he got something manual that I wouldn't know how to drive. Guess whose bike looks cooler. 

Unfortunately for me, we picked a rental place in one of the busiest parts of the city, so my very first mile was through insane Saigon traffic. I got used to the bike pretty quickly, though. We rode around the city aimlessly for a while. Surprisingly, I already knew the streets a little bit, just from riding around in taxis and on xe oms. 

I am hooked. I am not scared at all anymore, except of having my foot run over at a stoplight. Motorbiking around here is in my top 5 favorite things to do ever. I'm sure it will get old when I use it to commute day in and day out, but for now, I am so stoked about it. No more cursing my phone when the Grab app isn't working. No more confusing charades games with taxi drivers who don't speak English and can't figure out my few horrible Vietnamese phrases. The city is mine!

In general, I haven't been doing all the fun "travel-y" things I want to do yet. (I've been too busy) but think I could see Saigon as my home. I see why people stay here. 

The First Week of The CELTA

I began the CELTA course at Apollo last Monday. The CELTA is a British course offered by Cambridge English. It's available all over the world, and is supposedly standardized (as evidenced by all grading rubrics and paperwork that we fill out.) 

If you want the whole low-down, it is available on the Cambridge English website, but here is the basic layout:  

The course is INTENSIVE and it lasts a month. It is meant to be a crash-course in becoming an English as a Second Language teacher. It goes Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm, but I have been there until at least 8:00 pm every night preparing. (And some nights I have worked until midnight in my hotel) There are twelve total people in the class, but we are split into two groups of 6 for "Teaching Practice."

Teaching Practice is every morning between 9 am and 11:15 and consists of three 45 minute lessons that we are to give to adult learners. (The learners pay a deposit to take the class, and if they attend 80% of our classes, they get their deposit back. They are aware that we are learning to be teachers.) 3 out of the 6 of my group will teach one day, and the other 3 teach the next. Each lesson is observed carefully by the non-participating students as well as two "tutors" (the CELTA teachers). We take a 15 minute break from 11:15 to 11:30, and then we all critique each other. The rest of the day, both groups of 6 are in one room together and we learn how and how not to teach. Anything we learn about in this afternoon session becomes part of our grade for subsequent Teaching Practice sessions. On top of that, we also have 4 big assignments. 3 other CELTA students and I spent all of Saturday in a coffee shop working on the first one. I still have not finished.

So far, I am really thankful for the course. I have never been so uncomfortable and challenged in my life. The class incorporates all the things that scare me the most: being in charge, public speaking, explaining things, and being judged. Thankfully, it seems to be challenging for everyone else in my class, even those who have been teaching for years. It creates a very supportive environment, like we are all struggling together.

I am struggling more than others. It is a humbling experience. I am passing, though, so I am trying not to worry about it. It also helps that the learners are very kind and supportive. They are all Vietnamese adults, and many of them are local teachers. They noticed I was really nervous during my first lesson. (I was. I couldn't look up from my notes or figure out what to do with my hands.) One woman said she was terrified in her first class, and that it would get easier. She was right.  

This course is my life for the next 3 weeks. It feels good to be back in school again and to be so absorbed in studying that I don't have time to feel homesick.

First Impressions

I am really fed up with blogspot. It is blocked in Vietnam, and although I can get around that with a VPN, for some reason it also won't let me add photos. Very annoying. I am taking suggestions for a new platform! 

It's been a few days, I thought I would check in. Thanks to the 11 hour time difference and my lack of self-control, I am still dealing with jet lag, so that has hindered both my sanity and my motivation to really go out and experience everything. I am really over being an American vampire.

Here are a few things that I've learned and/or noticed so far: 

1. Nobody walks/Motorbikes reign supreme. 

Don't get me wrong, there are a couple of people milling around from market to market, but they aren't going very far. They certainly aren't trekking for a few miles. Practically everyone rides on a motorbike. I thought this was strange at first, but now I get it. It is SO HOT here. I got exhausted and sweaty walking everywhere in the heat. I have started grabbing a xe om (motorbike taxi) to get around and things have gotten so much easier. Or rather, I am still really bad with the language barrier, so I have opted to use "Grab" instead. Grab is a smartphone app similar to Uber. You can choose to hail a taxi or motorbike with your smartphone, choose your route on the maps function, and you can pay through the app so you don't have to deal with the currency at all. It gets rid of the haggling aspect of the Xe Om while simultaneously being much cheaper. Note that catching a Xe Om is not expensive to begin with. My first ride cost 50,000 VND or $2.24 USD. By comparison, a similar ride on Grab during non-peak hours might cost around $1 to $1.75. Just in case this all sounds so suave and adventurous to you, I will fully admit that I was TERRIFIED of the bikes until a wonderful expat talked me into getting on a bike, communicated with the driver for me, AND paid for my first ride since I was bumbling around with my money so much. I was so shaken I couldn't even take my own helmet off after the ride. 

2. The traffic is terrifying. 

Duh, right? I knew this was coming, because it is the first thing that everyone who has ever been to HCMC has told me. I guess this could really be a subsection of #1, but HOLY SHIT. There is no understating how insane the traffic is without being in it. Stoplights are few and far between and they are kind of like suggestions that most, but not all, follow. Motorbikes bob and weave randomly into any empty space on the streets and lanes are pretty much meaningless in some places. Pedestrians (human, canine, and feline alike!) walk straight into the street and somehow don't get hit. In a way, it is a little less scary than the US because I do not get the impression that the drivers are on their phone and/or drunk out of their mind, but it is unnerving to be in a state of near-collision all the time. Since I was so terrified of the Xe Om the first day, and the actual car taxi drivers I encountered often didn't recognize the address of my hotel, I had to get used to crossing the street right away. My new habits might kill me when I get back to the states.   

3. The food is amazing. 

The main way I have fed myself is by pointing at things other people are eating or by pointing at menus. Everything I have eaten has been a surprise, because I effectively had no say of what actually went into it. The most mysterious meal I had was the first night, when I pointed at a menu that had no photos on it and got something that looked like rice with some kind of rubbery meat on it. I think it might have been seafood of some sort, but I can't be sure. It was really spicy and tasted phenomenal. It also only cost me $3 and it was a big enough portion that I couldn't finish it. Unfortunately, whether from anxiety or this horrific jet lag, I haven't really had my normal appetite. When it returns, though, I am going to eat every unfamiliar food in sight. 

4. I packed badly. 

People dress like ninjas here, at least that I've seen so far. Long sleeves, long pants, hats, and pollution masks while they ride their motorbike. I have a whole suitcase full of clothes I feel uncomfortable wearing. My shorts are too short, my shirts show too much skin, and my whole wardrobe just draws more attention than I am comfortable with. I am not about to take fashion advice from the local women around here (there's lots of strange pattern outfits that fit like hospital scrubs here), but I wish I'd packed more modestly. I thought there was no way that anyone was actually wearing sweatshirts and long pants in 90 degree heat. I was wrong. 

5. I have no idea WTF I am doing. 

No really. I am alone (pretty much), completely adrift, and am experiencing culture shock. I would love if I could just look at things as they are, but I naturally have to compare absolutely everything to what I already know. I am not an excellent communicator even when I have English at my disposal, but I am hopeless when a language barrier is in place. I've lived with myself for 25 years, I have expected this. But there's that tricky space in between knowing something intellectually and actually dealing with it. It's like if there was a deep sea fish, probably living her normal life at at a couple thousand feet under the sea, going to her deep sea fish job, attending deep sea fish music festivals dating her deep sea fish boyfriend. The fish reads like, a couple books and checks out The Lonely Planet's entry on The Surface and decides to go live there by herself, but the change in atmospheric pressure has her all stretched out on the verge of exploding. (That botched metaphor sounded better in my head). What I mean to say is, I am all over the place. I'm so exhausted, lonely, and overwhelmed and just want to chill out somewhere but I also feel this pressure to go see ALL THE THINGS because this is the one time I get to explore and do all of this. 

I am not including this last part for pity, but just for honesty's sake. I would hate to give a false impression should anyone read this blog and decide that they also want to potentially explode. I am sure that some people could show up in Saigon, instantly hop on a motorbike and see all the sights and make lots of interesting friends, but I am also equally certain that I am not an aberration. It will get better for me, considering that every day I have become more and more comfortable. Also, my CELTA class starts tomorrow and I will no longer have free time for angst.