One week later

One week later and my apartment is still bare. There's nothing in the kitchen cupboards except the grass jelly and nothing to cook or serve it in either.

I did buy a chopping board and a Chinese style chopper and a bag of limes, some beer, wine and Bacardi for my opening drinks party last Saturday night. I invited all the people who I started with and a couple of others whom I've met since. Everyone is at a different stage in deciding where to live, how much to pay and we talked a bit about where they had seen. I'm the first in the group to move out of a hotel into a permanent place. We had good moan about some of the miserable types who populate the office. It's very corporaty and serious, unlike most language schools or universities, and some of the people won't even make eye contact. We sit in pens in an open plan office and stare at our computers until its time to go to class. I don't care, as there are enough friendly people about, the work is fine and the students pleasant enough. Tonight there is a Halloween party and I've been told they change their personalities when they get drunk. We will see.

I do plan to buy food this weekend and attempt to cook. Stupid really as Ganesha, one of the nicest Indian restaurants is just around the corner where for about £4 you can get a great curry, some naan and a beer. There's Nathalie's, the Thai where for the price of a sandwich in Pret a Monge back home you eat red curry with chicken, pork or beef. Last Sunday I splashed out a bit more on Japanese and had fish so fresh it was almost wriggling. There are endless Vietnamese places to sit and eat and drink plus weird flavoured Korean if you like strange vegetables in tiny bowls.

I also plan to buy a few bits for the apartment too and arrange for the internet to arrive as I miss not being able to sit in bed and read the Guardian in the morning.

Outside in the cool evening breeze

Whilst there's no internet in the flat yet I still needed my online fix tonight but didn't really want to traipse to the Vien Dong and buy a drink so I could use their free WiFi.  Rather than that I have slipped downstairs to the garden area between my block and the next and parked myself on a bench.  There's a breeze this evening and all the little kids have packed up their footballs and bikes and are in bed ( or watching tv and playing computer games more probably ).

I've picked up an open internet connection, maybe coming from one of the cafes on Nguyen Van Linh ( the main road on the other side of my building ) and am happily surfing.  I've sent an email, had a quick read or the Guardian and done this update.  For some mysterious reason blogging tonight appears not to be censored.

Now it's time for a nightcap before bed.  There's very cheap and nasty Hanoi vodka to finish and a little bit of Bacardi, my new spirit of choice, delicious with squirts of fresh lime juice and a splash of Sprite. And more good news, I've been paid today and had all my visa expenses reimbursed too so I'm rich.  ( well by Vietnamese standards anyway )

1F-67, where I live

Today I moved into my new apartment. I'm in block 1F on floor 7 and in apartment 6 so I've been categorised and sorted and slotted in with thousands of other people. I'm in a tiny part of the enormous Sky Gardens complex of towers marching north from my block from Sky Gardens I, Sky Gardens II and , yes , Sky Gardens III. They are tall, pale cream and uniform.

I have two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a big, open plan kitchen/dining/living space all to my self. Its all heavy brown furniture and white walls, a rectilinear Jersey cow look that may not be to all tastes and is probably not to mine really. I love the space and the openness of it and the otherness of it too. This is not like back home. One of the bedrooms has a walk-in wardrobe area which is mad as I have 4 pairs of trousers, five shirts and about 6 pairs of socks. They will be lost in the vastness of the cupboards and I'll spend hours every morning looking for something to wear.

I have a choice of bathrooms both equipped with toilet, sink, mirror and shower. I have a kitchen with lines of cupboards, all empty, and a small,balcony fit only for a washing machine and a clothes rack. Sadly, lounging on a terrace with an after-work cocktail is beyond my budget but, as I'm not that sure about heights, sitting by the window in the living area suits me just fine.

I love the uniformity of the Sky Gardens blocks and the repetition of the shapes. There are grassy sitting areas around all the blocks and a long walkway through the middle lined with estate agents and small shops.  In the evenings the local families parade up and down clutching their kids, cooling off a bit after a hot day.  Underneath all the buildings there is parking for cars and motorbikes. Its a few minutes from work and even less to the restaurants and bars of Phu My Hung. I think its going to be a good place to live.

the mysteries of the internet

After days of struggling to post my purely innocuous comments on my blog I have come to conclusion that a virtual something is standing between me, sitting in my room, and the host of my blog.  Am I paranoid about censorship and blocked access?  I can update from most internet cafes but not from home or the university.  Is there a Great Firewall of Vietnam?  I don't know but I'm now going through some flaky free proxy server which is producing results and, although it isn't perfect, it keeps me going until I find out what the problem is.

And almost the next day I read this..........  so I'm off to buy a reliable proxy server and I'll be able to blog, watch the iplayer and listen to Spotify too.

Blogging at ........http://hochiminhandme.blogspot.com/

Grass Jelly

Hey mums and dads, I've found the perfect thing to liven up your kiddies party.  Bored of strawberry and chocolate?  Ever thought of grass?  You just know they'll love it and keep  coming back for more.  It's simple to make too,  just add water, bring to boil and simmer for 3 minutes before pouring it into mounds and letting it set.  Umm or should that be Mmm?  Grass, isn't that the stuff that cows eat and that stains your trousers green if you sit on it?

I haven't got a kitchen yet so can't do much with mine but when I get one I'll have some grass jelly to keep in the cupboard. You just don't when it might come in handy.

Work

It had to happen, I couldn't just sit around all the time drinking iced coffee and eating noodles, I had to go to work. It's a gentle start for me with three days of induction followed by a week of materials development and preparation before meeting the students and starting to teach them.

The university is 15 minutes walk from the Sky Gardens tower block complex of apartment buildings in the Phu My Hung residential district where I'm living. Its a collection of modern buildings surrounded by brown-watered, sludge-filled creeks that will eventually find their way into the Saigon River. The creeks fill and empty in tune with the daily cycle of heavy rain that falls at this time of year and maybe the tide, as we are not that far from the sea. The buildings are fronted by the busy Nguyen Van Linh toll road that brings traffic out of the narrow chaotic city streets towards the more open southern extension of the city. It's a six lane highway with four of them full of motorbikes.

I've joined a large group of American, Australian and English teaching staff administering to 3000 or so students studying English and Business and, in a slightly randomly twist on the usual subjects, a bit of Art and Design. The well healed of HCMC send their sons and daughters here to get the coveted English education that will hopefully one day give them access to the wide world of foreign business opportunities. The main building is 5 stories high with a pair of wide, sculptural looking external stairwells giving access to the floors. The English department has taken over the top floor and some of one of the two outlying buildings placed across an adjoining lawn. We all have a desk, there's a room full of books and photocopiers and stationary. Its clean, modern and open-plan all so very very different from the crappy London language school I was used to in my previous job.

Beyond these buildings is the new sports complex with gym, sports hall and, worryingly, the medical centre. Sport and illness are separate things and cannot be in the same building. I'll be joining the gym soon and be pounding the treadmill again during my non work hours, in the pointless pursuit of physical fitness. I've read in 'The Word', HCMC's glossy, expat advertising magazine, that a cricket club operates out of the university for us colonial types so I might give that a look too.

Because we are in Asia a large part of the complex is given over to food outlets where we can buy our breakfast and lunch and snacks in between. There's an indoor air conditioned area and an outdoor tent-like construction serving foods of the region and sandwiches too. Eating is a constant event, I can't detect any obvious meal times, you just have what you want when you want it and nearly all of it comes with chillies. There's little wheat or dairy so people don't get as fat as we do in Europe. Except the children who have developed a taste for KFC and burgers.

On my way home each day I've come across a woman sitting by the side of the road with a bag of snakes for sale and it brings me back to the reality of Asian life. They can build big roads and modern clean universities and apartments but the people here will still crouch down next to the traffic selling weird stuff to the passers-by if they can.

I've been shown an architects model of the completed campus, an array of neat glass blocks circled by blue water and miniature trees. It is small and perfectly formed, the Kylie Minogue of universities and a charmingly pleasant place to live and work.

The Vien Dong Hotel, Phu My Hung, District 7, HCMC

Finally a post to my new blog and the big news is things are looking good. I arrived last Friday after a long and tiresome journey from Heathrow. As the tube rumbled slowly towards the airport the knot in my stomach started to loosen its grip and I began to relax after a few tense weeks of organising and fixing my flat prior to leaving for a year in Vietnam. It is a long but uncomplicated ride from zone 3 at the Eastern end of the Piccadilly Line to the airport. After a while, as the commuters left the train I got a seat and, resting, willed the tension of the last weeks to dissolve. There's nothing like leaving for a long time to put petty domestic concerns into perspective.

The inevitable flight delays meant a free meal voucher given by the airline which I blew on a fancy seafood stall in terminal 3, wine and Guinness before finally leaving 4 hours later feeling relaxed and slightly mellow. The flight was full, the entertainment meagre but we passengers endured somehow and emerged 10 hours later in Bangkok and then onward to Saigon, or HCMC depending on your political preference. I'm inclined to the more modern HCMC. Uncle Ho didn't fight for the independence of his country and get a city named after him for us not call it by its new name. A very nice man picked me up from the airport, placed me in the front seat of his monster of a Toyota 4X4 and barrelled his way through the crazy city traffic towards our destination, The Vien Dong Hotel, Phu My Hung, District 7, HCMC.

If you've read my previous blog covering my holiday earlier in the year you'll know that I was impressed by HCMC's energy and I still am. There was constant noise, mad traffic, narrow cluttered streets and bright lights as we made our way through District 1 in the centre of the city. There was grubbiness, potholed roads and confusion in District 4 as we headed towards our more peaceful destination of the southern suburb.

The university is south of the city in District 7, modern, open and quieter than downtown but still distinctively Vietnamese this is where I will most probably end up living. I could go for the comfort and convenience of this suburb with the university a 15 minute walk or 5 minute motorbike ride from the hotel or I might opt for the more 'authentic' atmosphere of the city centre. Local opinion amongst teachers seems to be in favour of convenience over commuting and I'm tending that way myself. The local areas might be a little bland but it has bars, restaurants, a pool and what need do I have of excitement and nightlife? I've posted a video of the place which is here if you want to take a look. Its an attractive place with a grid of well laid out roads filling rapidly with apartment buildings, villas, hotels, restaurants and shops as the area grows. The Saigon river snakes greasily through the city and this area has a network of murky channels and canals draining into it. This was probably a swamp a few years ago but now its been taken over by the modern world and Vietnam's economic progress.

After catching up on my missing sleep I went out the following day and found 3 other teachers all living within a few streets of the hotel and we have been trying the local eateries and making tentative trips out and about getting ready for the next week when we turn up at the university and start work. I have a feeling that this will be a good place to be.