And the definition of wealthy changes wherever you go. In Vietnam, I make enough money to afford us to spend our weekends in Ha Noi, traipsing around the city eating expensive Western food and taking taxis to museums. I come back to Thanh Hoa and gripe about the insanity of prices in the northern capitol, […]
Travel is for the Wealthy Read More »
After more than nine weeks in Thanh Hoa, we finally returned to the beach that sits only 15 km away. I’m not sure what took us so long to get back there, but either way the situation was remedied. I had the middle of the week off, so on Wednesday morning we took a taxi
Returning to Sam Son Beach Read More »
How is it that no matter where you are life does not go according to plans? Our time has been cut short by more than a week; a week that we were going to spend traveling around the country. Unfortunately when our visas were renewed, they only gave us until the 12th. I will finish
On Saturday afternoon we headed out to Vincom Towers to visit the arcade. You can imagine our disappointment when we arrived and the doors were locked, the room was empty. Of course there was a sign, but we couldn’t read it. Frustrated, we decided to walk around the mall and just happened to stumble upon
Hitting the Arcade with the Kids Read More »
We’re right in the middle of it; the kids are in Hanoi with Keith and Trang while I’m down in Thanh Hoa. We are all edging into the red zone. Hold on tight.
Here Comes the Storm Read More »
It’s images like this, with symbols and markings that I can only partially decipher, that worry me. We’re not too far outside the pink on the far left. So far, no luck on finding much more about the path this one is taking, but the planned trip to Ha Long Bay (which is in the
Last Friday was the last day for the A2 class; they’ll be taking the TOEFL-iBT in just a couple more weeks. As a way to celebrate the end of their studies and the final push toward their test, we went out to dinner as a group. Our original dinner with the students had been at
Good Night and Good Luck Read More »
Today we were, after much planning and procrastinating, able to get out to the Thanh Hoa orphanage. Located much closer to the beach than the city, it’s a good-sized orphanage that is home to more then sixty children from the area. We’d gone at the request of an adoptive mom who had brought a little
Living out in Thanh Hoa, we see the same pale faces over and over again–the three of us plus one of the Kaplan teachers. That’s it. We never run into other Westerners at the supermarket or walking the streets of Thanh Hoa. And even though we know we look vastly different, we have stopped feeling
