One last trip and one last week

Our daily morning commute view. Le Dai Han is the name of the first road we take.

Greetings one last time from Vietnam!  I'll probably (maybe) post a blog from back home, especially to share my experience about "repatriating" that I often hear is the hardest part of living abroad for a time.  But for now, suddenly we are at the "one more week point."  It's a bit surreal, having been eager to go back home for so long.  And yet leaving will have its bittersweet parts too.  So many great experiences here, especially with the lovely people we have met.

Pretty effective cheap raincoat, stored in motorbike seat.

Rainy season has started!  Most days we get a shower; usually it seems to be in the late afternoon as we are ready to leave school!  But the pattern is mostly more random.  And we still get one or two dry days in a row.

Per the title, we did take one last trip to a different city.  We went to Vung Tau by motorbike, because our Vietnamese friend Chuck insisted it was a great experience. Vung Tau is about 65 miles away and going there by motorbike IS an adventure...if we go again it will be by car or boat!  Vung Tau is a port city, situated on a peninsula with ocean on 3 sides.  Once a French colonial town, it's now a popular seaside resort that draws many visitors from Ho Chi Minh City.  It also plays a significant role in Vietnam's offshore oil industry.  During the Vietnam War, it was home to the Australian Army and the American support units, and was a popular spot for in-country R&R for US combat troops.

Our guide (and friend) Chuck and his girlfriend Dana on the short ferry
ride en route to Vung Tau

We left early on a Saturday and picked up Dana and had breakfast, then drove about 2 hours before stopping at Dana's sister's place for lunch.  First we had coffee (she has a coffee shop), then went to the market to watch her buy lunch, then ate with Dana's extended family.  It was a gracious, home-cooked meal and very delicious!  

The lunch spread:  3 kinds of fish, vegables, pig ear (yeah, I know...), bitter melon soup, and rice.

We arrived in Vung Tau about 1:45 pm (took us about 3 hours to drive by motorbike) and explored.  We drove up to a lighthouse to get a great view, including a view of a large statue of Jesus, "Christ the King," built by the Vietnam Catholic Association in 1974, completed in 1993.  It is 105 feet high with the outstretched arms spanning 60 feet.  There are stairs inside we could have climbed up but we didn't drive over to the statue.

Amazing view of the city from on high.  Jesus statue over to the right.

A little closer view of the statue, from the back.

Not my picture!  (from the web by Chris Phan from Eugene, Oregon, United States - Large statue
of Jesus, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3096126)

The following beach pictures show the storm rolling in.  The beach was very beautiful and busy despite the weather being close to changing.

They look like dots in this picture but there were a lot of oil tankers on the horizon

Beautiful long sandy beach to walk on--in better weather!

Just as we were leaving the beach the rain started.  We found a coffee shop to wait out the rain, and then we drove around a bit more, had an early dinner, and headed back to Ho Chi Minh city about 5:30.  It began to rain shortly after we left the city so we pulled over and put raincoats on.  Then it RAINED THE WHOLE WAY HOME!  It took us about 3.5 hours to get home since it was dark and rainy.  Bob said that was the worst drive he's made on the motorbike in terms of feeling safe.  Remember I said that if we visit again, it won't be by motorbike?!!

Now, we are finishing up our school year.  There is one more week of final exams for our students; lectures are done and our office time is being spent organizing our teaching materials and putting them in folders and thumb drives for use for future classes.  We also assist in proctoring and grading practical exams, where students show that they can perform certain techniques.

One more picture of the optometry department, because we were taking photos for a PR shot.
Secretary Thao, Ngan (optometrist), secretary Thu, Bob, me, Mr. Long (department head), Dr. Koh (optometrist from Singapore), and Phuong (ophthalmologist).

We are also busy saying goodbyes, having dinner with friends, and starting to pack.  We leave early next Friday the 23rd and get home the same day!!  Amazing, traveling the "right" way over the international date line.  The killer will be our 5-hour layover in O'Hare airport.

A random photo, but just fun.  A recent Sunday I walked to church and saw these 2 dogs getting washed.  I asked if I could snap an photo and the guy seemed especially pleased!  The dogs did not!

The gas station on the corner across from our apartment building where Bob usually gets his gas.  I asked one of my students whether it matters (pricewise) where a person buys gas and the answer was as I expected: nope.  Gas prices are fixed by the government.

Well, that is all my news for now.  Once again, I thank you for following our "adventures" over here.  We have learned so much by living in a different culture for 9 months!  And have been thankful for the technology of today where we can stay in touch with people from all over the world and receive encouragement from friends and family back home.  We are eager to see familiar faces and get back to "normal" life for a couple of months anyway. Until next time!!

Air travel x 2, local culture, pizza party, and clinic begins!

Hello again from the other side of the world!  It's been a month again already so I'd better update before we are headed home, before you know it! (24 more days, by the way!)

We did get to Danang and Hoi An for our holiday weekend over May 1st, and saw a bit more of Vietnam.  Danang is the 3rd largest city in Vietnam, situated on the coast of the South China Sea, and some of the beaches there served as an R&R destination for American troops during the Vietnam War.

I made the map as big as I could! Still hard to read, but Danang and Hoi An are right under the word
"south" in "South China Sea."

Beach in Danang with construction of high rises in the distance

Hotel breakfast in Danang.  Hints that it's Western: salt and pepper on the table
 (not soy sauce, fish sauce, and chilies) and dry paper napkins!  And I had TOAST for the first time 
in 8 months, I think!

We only spent one night in Danang because we wanted to explore Hoi An for the 2 full days we had left over the weekend.  Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site; it is a city on Vietnam's central coast known for its well-preserved Ancient Town, cut through with canals.  The former port city's melting-pot history is reflected in its architecture: a mix of eras and styles from wooden Chinese shophouses and temples to colorful French colonial buildings, ornate Vietnamese tube houses and the iconic Japanese covered bridge with its pagoda.  Hoi An was only 15 miles away and took about 45 minutes to drive.  Our hotel/hostel sent a car for us so it was very convenient.

Our hostel in Hoi An cost only about $7 a night (!!) and the bed looked like this upon arrival.
The flowers were fresh and beautifully arranged on the towel sculpture. The place
was called "Trust Villa" and Vy was our hostess.  Highly recommended!  Private shower
and great air conditioning in the room. 

Hoi An: listed as the Top 100 historic places in the world according to
National Geographic Travel

View across a canal running through the Old Town market in Hoi An

Beach at Hoi An with sandbags to control erosion

To get to the beach, we rented a motorbike from our hostel.  The tank was almost on empty so we had to find gas pretty quickly.  This is how hard it is to find a gas station in small towns:

Hidden "petrol" sign and container.  Bob has
sharp eyes!

The shop owner pumping our gas into motorbike tank

Back in Ho Chi Minh City, we enjoyed a bit of culture one night in May when we were invited to the "Europe Gala Concert" at the Saigon Opera House.  The structure was built in 1897 by a French architect and is another example of French Colonial architecture.  The capacity is only 500 seats so it was smaller than I expected.

Dr. Hui Hiang Koh came with us too; here we are outside the theatre.

Inside, while empty, showing the walls.  No seating in the alcoves nowadays.  
Picture taken from the balcony at rear.

There was an amazing French pianist accompanied by the HCMC Symphony Orchestra.  

The HCMC Choir sang the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah!!  So beautiful.  They also
sang selections from musicals and operas.

Bob invited me to tag along one Wednesday night to watch his futsal (5-on-5 soccer) game and I managed to get one partly decent photo.  Those players move fast!  And my camera is just my phone so no high-quality sports shots...and I had to shoot the photo through a net.

Futsal you bet!

We had promised our 3rd year class a pizza-making party at our apartment and we made good on that commitment on May 12.  They all showed up in the parking garage at the same time and when Bob went down to bring them up on the elevator, the security guard stopped him and wouldn't let him bring 13 students up all at once!  So he brought the 8 girls and I went after the 5 boys.  Silly.  They had a lot of fun making their pizzas (probably overworked the dough a bit, enjoying trying different shapes or trying to make a PERFECT circle) and we only once had to stop a mini flour fight. These are 20-year-old kids after all.

Before...(note the cute heart-shaped pizza)

13 students patting out pizza crust on the table and Bob in background,
checking the oven

A couple of the finished product

No new pictures of the next item, but remember that Grand Opening Ceremony back in February for the Academic Vision Center?  Well!!!  Our 3rd years had their first day in clinic, finally, on Monday May 15!!  They were instructed to try to bring in their own patients (because opening day wasn't a sure thing until almost the last minute), and we had a few "real patients." A couple of relatives or friends.  It was actually a very chaotic morning but we all survived.  Clinic is over already, it was only 6 half days total.  The last day of clinic was much smoother than the first day, but there are still bugs to be worked out.  At least now we can know our students will be up and running seeing patients next fall for their whole 4th and last year of optometry school, and next year's 3rd year students can get into clinic in a more timely fashion.

The newest Dr. Molter-our Alex! Left to right:  Kim, Bob, Alex, Elaina, and AJ (Elaina's boyfriend)

The latest exciting thing on our schedules was attending Alex's graduation ceremony from Ross Medical School, held in Miami on May 20.  We made 2 international flights within a week!  It was worth it to have our kids both together and to be able to hang out a bit as a family.  Elaina and AJ came from their medical school in Michigan for the weekend.  And I enjoyed being able to read signs and ingredients in the grocery store in English!  And to have some good whole-grain bread!  We had a nice burger cookout at our airbnb one night, courtesy of AJ. Alex's next step is his 4 years of psychiatry residency back in Michigan.

Well, this blog is getting long but I have one more big announcement.  Some of you know this already but since our time is drawing to an end it's probably time to tell everyone who might be wondering what is next for us.  We were asked to come back a second year which is a big honor and it will be very meaningful to watch the first optometry class in Vietnam graduate next summer...BUT.  I have really missed a lot of things back home, mostly family and friends, but also things like sewing and other crafts, and cooking.  We are so far away and miss out on many small things in the lives of people close to us. We crafted an agreement with Brien Holden Vision Institute that Bob would come back in September, but would return to the US on 2 occasions, once for some needed continuing education and to do a presentation on the program here at the American Academy of Optometry meeting in Chicago in October (and I will meet him there), and again at Christmastime.  Then in January we will both return to teach 2nd semester through June 2018.  I started this adventure by saying "I can do anything for 10 months, right?" so now I can say, "I can do this again for 6 months, right?"!  We don't have a written contract with these terms so nothing is a sure thing yet, but that is the current plan.  What will I do all fall?  Harvest our garden, walk our dog, be the lap my cat loves to sit in, cook in my own kitchen, VISIT FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

This is enough writing for now!  School is beginning to wind down as lectures end and final exams begin after next week.  Some of our current duties related to this time of year is to help  write test questions and participate in grading the students in practical activities.  Thank you again for following our life over here; it truly makes me feel less isolated when I see how many people are looking after us.  Happy June and I'll post again at least once before we head out!! 

FOOD, Bangkok, Alex visits, cooking class and hockey!!

I "passed" the class and received a certificate!  Haha.
Yes, everyone passes.

Hello to all interested parties!  It has been a LONG time since my last blog; it has been a busy month.  Did you realize it's May in 4 days?!

I'm not in chronological order but thought I'd start out with some fun photos.  A couple of Saturdays ago I ticked another thing off my "Vietnam to-do" list and took a cooking class a with my colleague and friend Hui Hiang and another expat woman from Arizona that I met. It was a really fun class and I recommend taking a cooking class if you ever have time as a tourist!  We had 14 in the class and met a lot of fun talkative people.  Now I can for sure cook some Vietnamese dishes...with flair!

One of my favorite dishes in Vietnam, fresh spring rolls.
Real name:  goi cuon.  I learned to make the carrot
flowers, too!

Bahn xeo, or "sizzling pancake."

Pho ga, or chicken pho.  Traditional pho in Vietnam is "pho bo" made with
beef but the broth takes hours to make so chicken pho is faster for a morning
cooking class after a market visit.

We did get to Bangkok the last weekend in March, but I already posted most those photos (especially the weird food photos!) in my facebook feed.  Here's just a few more interesting ones.  Our last day there we did a bicycle tour, another thing I highly recommend if you have time in a new city!  Our guide was great and taught us things about Bangkok culture, including how to address a man or woman properly.  We had only one other rider on our tour, a man from Japan who was a lot of fun.  Bangok has LOTS of temples (we also did a temple tour and visited 3 temples with a guide who again, taught us about the history and culture) and markets similar to Vietnam.  I think Bangkok would have been more "different" to us if we didn't visit there after living in Vietnam.  Traffic was MUCH worse because they use cars more than motorbikes and cars are slower and more cumbersome!  Frequent gridlock in that big city.  We were glad to have help from our Thai friends in learning to navigate public transportation.  It was SO HOT there (yes, worse than Ho Chi Minh City!), too hot to walk.

Our bicycle tour operator.  The guide was a Dutch guy who has
lived in Bangkok for 30 years.

Cycling through a market (I think it was under an overpass so it's not indoors
as it looks to be)

Bangkok had bright pink taxis!!!

One temple sign.  Asian languages don't always translate well into English.
You can be rich like money!

  

I had posted our eating of tentacles but not the big fish Bob chose.  Grilled with salt on the skin.
It was delicious!  Served with not one, but two little bowls of chili.  (we didn't need any bowls of chili!)

One of two full tables of food
at the potluck.

Close up of the fish

The weekend after we were in Bangkok, we attended a POTLUCK!!  And I thought that was such an American thing to do.  I heard about it on a facebook group I'm in, "Foodies in Saigon."  It's my way to learn about food terms here and where to eat!  The potluck was fun to meet people from all over and try international dishes.  It makes me want to start a "Foodies in Charlevoix" group when I get back home!

We had a nice treat when our son Alex could fit into his schedule an 8-day visit over here.  He's waiting to begin his medical residency in psychiatry in June.  He handled the jet lag pretty well but does NOT enjoy this Saigon heat.  We showed him areas of our big city and tried some new foods and ate in air conditioning as much as we could.

We had to show him the "wet market" in our neighborhood, kind
of an outdoor market that is mostly covered.  Busiest in mornings.

Fresh meat!!

There are always cats at the market.  This one was creepy and wouldn't stop staring at me!

We had a nice Easter (2 hour service at our church!) followed by a buffet lunch--this past Sunday the Singaporean pastor made me laugh when he said "of course we can't fellowship without food!" and then he added "We know that God is somewhat Asian because the Bible says there is a heavenly banquet!"  People are the same everywhere--we all like food! Easter evening we had a nice outing at one of Bob's futsal (soccer) buddy's place, he hosted a homemade pizza party.  He had a great pizza oven to cook the pizzas in and NO A/C in his place, whew, it was hot.  But the company was delightful; again, people from all parts of the globe.  Well, not Alaska or Antartica.  But a couple of people were from Finland!

Not only has Bob been playing on his soccer team, he actually found out about a place to play HOCKEY!!  There is a full-time rink in a district quite a ways from us, but he inquired about it and played last week on a half-sheet of ice in a mall.  The hockey is sponsored by the Canadian chamber of commerce here in HCMC, and when we arrived there were children still on the rink from their skating time.  I bet that's fun for Vietnamese kids to learn to skate, and to be on ice!

A scene I haven't seen in months!

A happy hockey player...although now he wishes he had his own skates from home.

As regards school (we don't just have fun here), we are doing lots of "teachery" stuff lately like reviewing and making policies for retesting (if a student fails an exam), reviewing curriculum and the order in which classes are taught, and discussing things like getting a "job code" made up for optometry in Vietnam since it's a new profession here.  Salaries are based on the job code and optometry doesn't fit into the nursing code or the technician code.  We had an all-day meeting this week about things like that, and 2 representatives from Brien Holden Vision Institute attended as well as university personnel and the optometry staff.  Regarding our classes, my Applied Optics unit has finished and I'm beginning to teach Environmental and Occupational Optometry and Bob is finishing up his Contact Lens course and beginning Practice Management. Next week we both are presenting at a medical conference hosted by the university (requested since we are "foreign" lecturers); my topic is Nutrition and the Eye and Bob's is Optometric Care of the Diabetic Patient.  

We have a 4-day weekend coming up since May 1 is a national holiday (Reunification Day) and May 2 is also (National Labor Day)!  So we are headed off tomorrow to see another part of Vietnam, Danang and Hoi An, cities near each other, 530 miles north of HCMC, a plane ride of 1 hour 20 minutes.  Next blog will be sooner than one month and I'll let you know what's cool about our new explorations!

Thanks again for keeping up with us and for comments; they really make our day especially when we feel homesick and disconnected from home.  8 weeks from Friday and we come home!