Race to the Present

Yes yet again my pitiful attempt to keep this blog updated had failed yet agian and I have realized that there is about 2 months that I know need to catch up...sooo here we go.

April we had Australia Day...yes Trent I know WAY late but take that up with AusCham. As per usual the Aussies put on a great party =) There was free flow wine, beer and food! The entertainment was great however what they palyed is a little foggy, but from the pictures we clearly had a great time!

May was janny's birthday so she hosted a pink party at our house...nothing brings people together like the color pink :P Of course in true Saigon fashion the weather had to be hotter than Hot! I don't think that there was a dry person in the house. It doesn't help that our hosue is 4 storeys high and so not matter where you want to go you're getting a workout!

FLOODS

Possible the worst part of rainy seaon is that floods are not uncommon! Vietnam as it is still is developing doesn't have good draining systems in place to handle the heavy rains. I was used to the raods and everything flooding,however I was not ready nor impressed by the flooding that occured in our house! I would be a little more forgiving if the flood was like a normal flood at the bottom of the house. However the flood accured from the Top (my room) down. The rain was so heavy that the water couldn't drain from the balcony of my house, so with no where to go it invites itself into the house/my room. The only reason we knew that my room was flooding was because there was so much water that it started to come down the stairs like a water fall!! Which sounds cool... when its not your house! I finally got my room mopped up but I am pretty sure that I had used almost all the towels in the house! I've posted ome of the pictures that Janny took of me while I was cleaning .. Too bad you can't really see the amount of water.

In March my faithful Hanoian friend Hieu departed back to Canada! It was she came down to Saigon for one final visit with the crew down here and to visit her family. We spent the weekend hanging out and going out with the Frisbee crew.

The highlight of the night,thanks to Tino, was the classy convenience store party. Similar to the US you can get all sort of liquor at the convenience store. So when the music sucks at the bar clearly the next thing to do is drink there!

It was good fun of course, as always the stares followed those crazy foreigners! I think they were just jealous!

I have seriously neglected my blog in the past months sorry guys! Don't worry I am still alive ...yeeps! I think that the reason for my slacking is that after spending all day at work on a computer the last thing that I want to do is come back on here ....sorry:P

Here goes my catching up !

Me in the CanCham Office...I Tried to Catch Diem (my office manager) but she snuck away!

Sssssssnake for Dinner

One of the true Vietnamese meals is snake. It's quite the ceremony and I'm not sure that I was fully prepared for the whole ordeal. Actually that's a lie it wasn't as bad as I thought that it would be.

The meal starts off with them bringing out the live snake for weighing, just so you see how big of a snake you were about to eat. And as you can see by the pictures they also play with it for a while so that you can get a real good look at the snakes!!

After the photo shoot with the snake it's time to get down to business..for those of you that are a little squeamish you may not want to read on (Em...Just don't' read Period!) They slit the snake open to get the blood out, the blood is mixed with the ever potent rice Vodka. And yes we shoot this vodka!!

The meal was a lot better than I thought that it would be. They make about 4 dishes with snake in it. We ordered a few non snake so that we wouldn't get too overwhelmed by snake.

There is one that all you men have to keep in mind when going for snake, make sure that you are not the oldest man their. It's the Vietnamese custom that the oldest man shoots the beating snake heart in the blood vodka. So my neighbour Mark was the unfortunate eldest and so he had to shoot the heart!! You also have the option to shoot the bile as well, but it's really foul I guess, so none of us decided to give it a try.

Enjoy the pictures from the night!

Who Do VuDoo...We Do VuDoo!!

There was no better way to spend Easter weekend than the glorious Island of Bali Playing Frisbee!!

I left HCMC with Jeigh and Tino on Wednesday to start off the adventure! It's funny how realistically Bali is only about 4 and a half hour fly time however it still took us all day to get to Bali!! By the time that we arrived in Bali it was dark, so we met up with Hoa, baby Hannah and David for supper and some exploring around Kutu. Kutu is the touristy part of Bali. The oddest part is that the main road is a one way road and you have to walk a long way before you hit a cross road.

Thursday a bunch of us went up to Ubud. Ubud is the main shopping Mecca of Bali, they have everything and anything that you could ever want. It was odd cause the stuff that they have sold hasn't changed since Erin was there. I saw the same thing that we have in our house that Erin brought back. For lunch we went to a local restaurant for some traditional suckling pig. It was fabulous so tender and juicy. I can't say that I was the biggest fan of the crunchy skin that you get served or the blood sausage but the rest of the meal was fantastic! After lunch we ventured to Monkey Forest. These monkeys were the absolute opposite to the ones that Em and I saw on Cat Ba in Vietnam. They were the most tame and well somewhat friendly Monkeys, they honestly didn't care how close you came! It was OK until I was attacked by a monkey!! All I was doing was minding my own business taking a rest on a bench, and the next thing I know I have a Monkey on my Back....yes yes insert Monkey joke here.

After our adventure ion Monkey Forest it was time for practice. We decided that there was no better place to practice than the beach! The beaches are huge here! so we had plenty of space to run all the drills and play a great game of pick up into the setting sun! It was unreal!!
I guess I should explain VuDoo (I know most of you are thinking I can't spell) however the Vu is for Vietnam Ultimate and it was only logical to make us VuDoo. We ended up amending it to stand for Vietnam Ultimate Defence Offence Organization, which as you can tell is quite the mouthful...thanks Tino! For the tournament we had bought some Vudoo Dolls (found in Ubud) and David had brought some drums to play on the field as well!

The first day of the tournament team Vudoo went undefeated, we had some really great games. Especially against the top ranked team in the tournament Freakshow! The second day we made it thru the pool play and came out 1st, so we earned a Bi into the Semi finals. In the Semi Final we faced Shiok, it was a great game, extremely long points! Usually the games go to 15, our score was 9-8. We didn't even make it to half (which was at 7 points) due to time Cap. That game was probably one of our hardest fought and most fun games of the tournament!

In the final we had to face yet again Freakshow. Freakshow, for as long as most people can remember has won this tournament, so we knew that we had another tuf game coming up! In the final there was no time Cap and so it was the first team to 15. Well the final game lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes!! Unfortunately we ran out of steam and Freakshow came out on top 15-10. I'm so impressed with the team, it was the first time that we had a team from Vietnam in the tournament and most teams had no expectations for us. So coming out and turning some heads was unreal!

After the game was the tournament party with the theme of "out of the Jungle" Lester had arranged the teams' Jungle inspired outfits. The night was full of drinks, dancing and bungie jumping! Team Vudoo went out in style and if there was an award given out for best partiers it would for sure be our team!! Most of our team was partying hard till the next morning!

Our final day in Bali Lester took us around for the Lester Tour! We started the day off with a cozy massage. This is the best way to spend the day after a tournament! We enjoyed and hour and a half full body massage..Heavenly!!After the massage we went for a Balinese Feast! I have had some Indonesian food when Erin introduced it to us, but it was great to taste it there. I was sad that the restaurant had run out of my favorite dish Rendang, however the rest of the food that they had more than made up for it!

After lunch we headed out to Paradise Beach...which held very very true to it's name, the waves surf and sun was a great combination! In Bali you can rent a surf board for $10 so we had alot of fun!! It was great to take Mai to the beach she doesn't really know how to swim, but she was so eager to learn! She was far more brave that I think most people would be, she jumped right into the ocean and enjoyed the waves! She was hit however pretty hard by the surf while trying to get out, but was still ready to get back into the water again ( well a little later after she recovered from being hit 3 times in a row!) We watched the sun set at the beach, then headed back to hotel for a quick swim in the pool, and some Frisbee throwing.


That night we went out to eat Greek food, i know it seems odd to be in Bali and eat Greek however it was worth it. It had been a long time since I had Greek Food.Actually I think it was in Penticton before I flew out here. After Dinner we headed to Ku De Ta , which has been voted one of the top 10 restaurants in the world! It was very nice, we missed sunset there which I guess is their specialty, they have big lounge couches that you can spread out in to watch the ocean or the sunset (which they time t music). There was 8 of us sharing a couch chatting and enjoy our last night in Bali.

Monday it was an early flight back to HCMC...I wish that I had a few days more in Bali as there was still a fair amount that I have yet to see. However that just means that i will have to go back again!!

I hope that everyone had a great Easter Holiday.. I miss you all.... keep writing I love the updates!!

Love

BC/Sarah