Marshall's $1.79 Haircut

One of our goals while living here is to be courageous and venture into the local lifestyle. This means eating at the food carts or local style restaurants (we're easing into this one - trying to get the gut flora fully adjusted) shopping where local shop, etc...

While I've been scouting out the new neighborhood by bicycle, I noticed a sidewalk barber that always had a customer in his chair getting his hair cut, ear wax removed, or a shave. He was stationed a stone's throw away from a premium L'oreal salon. When Marshall mentioned that he wanted a haircut, I thought of this guy and Marshall was up for the adventure.

The barber's shop set up consisted of an old, reclining leather chair, a tarp, a cheap mirror, and a scooter w/ a basket that held his trimmers, scissors and other tools of the trade. Positioned in front of an empty lot on the sidewalk where scooters and cars were whizzing by.  The barber's friends were also hanging out - 5 older men were huddled around a little plastic table sitting on children's sized stools (to american standard) and were playing some sort of board game. The atmosphere and experience was pretty amazing. The haircut turned out great too! I think Marshall will be a repeat customer.

Apartment Hunting

You can find anything here - from ultra modern, furnished, fully 'serviced' (a maid comes in and does everything from scrub your apartment clean to washing and folding your laundry) apartment with a roof top pool and gym. Like this place, which is $1200/mo + utilities for a 2 bedroom:

To the other end of the spectrum, where you can find more of a 'local style' apartment that has a very strange lay-out and the curious bathroom style of simply having a shower wand in between the sink and toilet and you just take a shower in the middle of the bathroom, spraying water everywhere.... for about $450/month:

I visited about twelve different apartments on the back of a realtor's scooter over three days. Marshall and I carefully analyzed with the help of some awesome 'sell sheets' I made for the main contenders. The result?

Before I get to that, let me share a couple insights that I gained about the culture and lifestyle here:
1. A higher price doesn't necessarily mean that you get more or that it's better in some way from the lesser expensive apartments. Prices seemed to be pretty arbitrary and were not indicators to the style of apartment you were looking at. A $600 place could be really sweet and new where a $1000 place could look like it came out of a 2003 Asian JC Penny catalog. Logic has it's own style and rules here.

2. You may have to be a bit of an elitist or a tad soulless to live in a luxury apartment around here. To build that apartment building, the government probably showed up with bulldozers one day and forced families to move out of their tin roof shanties. One such apartment I looked at was pretty nice, it was brand new and had a modern european design and a cute little balcony that looked out onto a dusty, garbage filled lot with a couple huts that people called home. The stark disparity of living standards was a slap in the face.

So after working with three different realtors to try to find that perfect place... we decided to go with none of those options. Instead, I found a house share on Craigslist - a large 5 bedroom Villa, to be shared with people from around the globe - Vietnam, Germany, UK, Wisconsin!, and New Zealand. It is a fancy place and people were probably displaced to build it...but at least its being put to good use (and not a half-empty building). It made the most sense to us because it's pretty cheap ($525 including all utilities and services; to be split between us) and more importantly, gives us the chance to meet people, make some friends, and gain some tips that will help us ease into living in a new district/city/country.

Here are some pictures:

Finding Beach Paradise - Deserted to some, Chaos for others

Beach adventure time! Bob (Marshall's co-worker here) and his family invited me to join them to the beach. They had arranged a van and driver to take the family to the beach and Bob and a friend were going to ride mountain bikes there and meet us for lunch on the beach. It's still the Tet holiday and the normal 1.5 hour drive turned into three. Usually, that's not a big deal, but with 3 kids and a rambunctious puppy, it was a long 3 hours! Actually, Bob's kids are pretty easy - there wasn't a single temper tantrum and I only heard "are we there yet?" twice :) 

Finally at the beach, it was crowded beyond belief! I think this was the annual beach trip for most of the factory workers in the area. There were so many people, it was hard to see the ocean or even sand - standing room only. But the odd thing was that they were all scrunched into a small section of beach - maybe 200 meters of coast. There was plenty of room to spread out, but I thanked they enjoyed the crowded atmosphere. We did not and promptly cut through a restaurant and walked up the nearly deserted beach to a perfect strip of sand.

The water was warm and a lovely shade of jade. Absolutely perfect if you could ignore the plastic bags floating by every now and again. 

We spent hours making sand sculptures, digging for clams and shells and swimming. 

Every now and again, I would look down the beach at the staggering crowd of people and wonder how that could be enjoyable. Most of them probably drove their scooter here - 3 hours or more of crowded highways and country roads only to go to a beach where there is hardly enough room to lay a towel down. Seems so crazy to me! 

Perhaps where we were was technically private property. I know we crossed onto one resort where a security guard was giving us the stink eye and made sure we passed through. But there was just empty, deserted beach right next to them! I guess that's just the difference in culture. We americans like our space - big lawns, our own tables at restaurants, and 3.5 feet of breathing room. 

I made a little map to help explain the absurdity of it:

Viet Skillz - Video!

It's like learning how to walk all over again - at least learning how to walk across a street. I am completely amazed by the locals and how they will just start frogger-ing their way across a super busy street like it's ain't no thang. Seriously, they just start walking and it's like Moses parting the red sea of scooters. In contrast, I'm more akin to the lunatic squirrel that can't seem to make up its mind of which way to run. Ok, I'm not that bad... but I definitely am a tourist out there.

Did you know that you could row a boat with your feet? I didn't either but it sure makes a lot of sense now that I've seen how its done. 

Check out the moves of those kids! The boy at the end is just adorable, I want to pinch his chubby cheeks.

Who needs a Cuisinart mixer when you've got a tractor lawn-mower? That's right, diesel powered dough. Savory and smoky!

I've been told that I have now officially visited Taiwan - I went on my first scooter ride! Thanks Bob and Specialized for giving me a quick tour of the city! We even did a little off roading :) Tomorrow, I am planning on renting my own scooter and will try my best not to die out there. Wish me luck!

First Day

Teeter-totters. I used to both love and hate playing on the teeter-totter as a kid. It mostly depended on how vicious me or my brothers were feeling at the time. When things were good, we'd be singing Farmer Brown, farmer Brown, let me down...what will you give me Charlie Brown?and playing would be funny and civil - the teeter would totter smoothly and frequently. On other days, it would be a hellish game. One person would be trying to rattle the other off of the bench or trying to make them slam their butt against the ground... or just hop off when they weren't looking and were stranded up in the air. We were such nice kids :)

Today I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This was my first time visiting Vietnam and I'll be living here for the next two years. I've done a lot of traveling for work in China and Taiwan so I figured I had a pretty good idea of what it might be like and so I sprang for this opportunity. One day in and as I reflect on how the day went, I thought of being on a teeter-totter. At times I was feeling so excited and joyful, I couldn't keep a grin off my face... and then everything would tip and I would feel a sickening terror. Terror of 'holy shit, what did I get myself into.' *

Up and down, joy and terror... and a few calm moments of teetering that line. I finally ended the day on a high note and have decided that everything is going to be just fine. What ultimately pushed me to that joyful place was one of the best meals I've had in a long time. A delicious bowl of vegetable Pho and an iced tea.

 After the first bite, I could feel every part of my body relax. It was so delicious and I thought that no matter what craziness or frustration I would endure in the years to come, I'll be able to sit down and eat a bowl of Pho and will be instantly happy. Happiness in life can be that simple.

*note: hey friends and family, know that nothing bad or scary happened, I was never in danger and things seem to be very safe here! Mom, don't freak out.