Suoi Tien Amusement Park, HCMC (Photo Post)

There are people around the world that like to go to weird amusement/theme parks.

AHEM: ATTENTION THOSE PEOPLE. This one is for you!

For pure goofy, Buddhist, Vietnamese WTF (and a whole lot of culture!), it does NOT get better than Ho Chi Minh City's Suoi Tien Amusement Park.

Located in Tan Phu ward of District 9, HCMC, this is a bit of a trek for the average tourist who will likely spend most of their time downtown. At about 40 minutes away, it's definitely off the beaten path, but if you've got an afternoon to kill, this is Vietnamese weirdness exemplified. It's a total treat, and one that could only happen here in Vietnam.

Take a look in this picture post! (Also, a special thanks to Mariana for letting me use her beautiful face in these pics!)

3 Vital Lessons I Learned from Stage Managing and One I'm Still Learning

As I’ve taken more risks in my life (in fact, almost making a habit of it some days!), I’ve come to the conclusion that the wide variety of practical skills I learned in theatre have been instrumental both to my successes and the very fabric of who I am.

Sometimes these skills come from actor-stuff, helping me make more sense of social life and living in a different culture.

Today's topic: I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for the skills I learned from Stage Management.

I tried out stage management not because I wanted to do it professionally, but because it’s a vital job within a theatre production and I wanted to learn more about it. Tackling a new job only tangentially related to your area of expertise and experience, or even completely outside it, is always a great way to stretch your brain.

View it as a challenge, and work to apply your existing skills in new ways (that’s right: your existing tools might be very successful when applied in unorthodox or novel ways!). If nothing works, seek out new skills to cope. We don’t always succeed at these ‘risky’ experiments, but being curious about how systems work is a great way to make new mental connections, skills, and develop a top-down model of your life and work.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF YOUR JOB, SOMETIMES, MAYBE

You are both in charge and not in charge. You’re expected to be invisible, immediately come to the forefront when problems arise, and then disappear again.

You get dumped on, a lot – because the buck stops with you.

If you're lucky...

In Praise of Living with Housemates Abroad / New House Tour

I live in a reasonably-sized bedroom, but I believe there are many great benefits of living in a smaller room, especially when you're in a house FULL of varied, awesome, friendly, nerdy housemates! (Seriously, we're all nerds about something, it's fascinating.)

First, let me describe my house for you.

I live in a house. It’s 3 meters wide at the main door on the street. My house has a garage, nicely-equipped kitchen, and a comfortable living room on the ground level. The living room and back 5 bedrooms were previously part of a separate structure, but at some point the wall between the (current) kitchen and living room was knocked down, combining the two and giving the house a super weird footprint. Rooms in the back lack the view of the canal, have less natural light, and are a bit hot, but are also  a bit cheaper.

Let's take a quick tour of my new place!

No Plan Motorbike Vacation: Tây Ninh

The City of Tây Ninh lies in the heart of Tay Ninh Province, almost an even 100 km NW of Ho Chi Minh City. The ride is along well-travelled highways (although you can explore if you so desire, Google maps is fairly accurate as far as I can tell), and there are many buses back and forth if you choose to watch the scenery roll by instead of getting a super-sexy farmer’s tan.

But a rando weekend getaway on a bus? Nopers. Nuh-uh. Not when it’s so close!

It’s time for a motorbike trip!

Vietnam Motorbike Bingo

Hey all, let's follow up my post about murderbike with a nifty little driving game!

Driving in HCMC is an experience. It can get nutty. There are so many people, everywhere, going all different directions, and everyone's doing everything all at once. You've got to look out for oncoming motorbikes, pedestrians, buses and larger vehicles - it's often overwhelming, and usually tiring, even after 4.5 years. You've got to plan for the unpredictable.

Check out a basic day in this gopro video my cousin shot on his trip for a taste of day-to-day street life. (Thanks CuzBro Chris!!)

These days, however, all this activity is pretty humdrum. Staying engaged while you're driving is crucially important - anything less than being 100% present is dangerous. I try to be observant of the world around me while I'm driving in order to stay sharp... and here are a few of the most striking sights you'll see on the roads of Ho Chi Minh City!

And now, a one-note joke for all you SEAsian Motorbike drivers out there...Just for you, with love from me... HCMC MOTORBIKE BINGO!

I Bought a Motorbike... and I Didn't Do My Research

@&#$ this fake Honda Wave. Looks fun and zippy. Is actually murdercycle.

A genuine Honda Wave is a great motorbike for a lot of reasons. They're cheap to fill up, cheap to repair, last basically forever (with proper care, of course), and are generally pretty good bikes for zipping around on any kind of trip, near or far.

So it's entirely on me when I say that the Honda knock-off I bought has been pretty much a total *$&%ing disaster. It was my own, personal, eternal teachable moment, every day, forever (it seemed) for 7 months. Truly, the gift that kept on giving! It was only when I moved houses and got rid of that disaster deathbike did my daily nightmare end.

First it was the brakes.

Then it was the gears.

Then the turn signals. Then the front lights. Then all the lights. Then the fuel hose. Then an oil leak. Then the engine. Then the ignition.

I thought I could learn to fix it. Mechanics laughed in my face. True story. I am much more shy around mechanics now. For some reason they are as intimidating as barbers and doctors for me (a lot).

Murderscoot Jr. continued to totally suck in new, ever-more impressive ways. I looked forward to learning some new horrible thing about it every time I got on... it was a major stressor in life for me, tbh.

The symptoms were clear: I had bought myself a lemon!

Life In a Shoe Factory, One Year On

Hi from the office! Pardon my sweat and fluffy hair.

Well Hello! It’s been a while. How nice to be back with you again! (Yes, YOU!)

I just passed an anniversary at my job, and it occurs to me that I’ve never really explained what I do at my new place of employment. I haven't posted in so long!

My mother likes to tell people I work in a shoe factory in Vietnam - har har, Mother! What a troll. ;D She’s correct, of course, but I’m firmly in bonafide cubicle-land among the shoe developers, managers, and planners. And, as of September 1st, I’ve been here a year.

It’s a fascinating job and fairly challenging in all the best ways, and a few really not great ways.

Let me give you a little overview...

Book Review: 'The Green Metropolis' and HCMC

David Owen’s amazingly prescient and clear-eyed book from 2009, The Green Metropolis, deconstructs exactly what city planners, environmentalists, and the general population get right about cities… and what they get very, very wrong.

His book offers staggeringly simple reasons to rethink how we approach the twin questions of:

1. “Are cities good or bad for the environment?” and
2. “Cars… OMG?”

His answers boil down to:

1. Very, very, very good, and
2. Yes, cars, OMG.

His arguments, citing a veritable mountain of statistical evidence laid bare in his clear, concise writing, chronicles the rise, fall, rebirth, and future of human cities since the invention of the automobile. He argues that these high-density urban environments are not only more environmentally green, but actually shift the entire conversation from cars and drivers back to fundamental quality-of-life issues for all humans, from the very young to the elderly, and how best to satisfy them.

Owens’ three basic themes are clear: live smaller, live closer, and drive less.

Tib Chay Restaurant: Upscale and Affordable Central Vietnamese Vegetarian

Tib Chay restaurant in Ho Chi Minh’s District 1 is a fine choice for getting your Central Vietnamese vegetarian food fix! Check it out – colorful, flavorful, and reasonably priced.

One of the best things (out of many, many best things!) about eating in Vietnam is the incredible variety. While it may be occasionally difficult to find street food that is truly vegetarian (for example, fish is not considered a meat), a huge chunk of the population is Mahayana Buddhist, and one of the traditions is eating vegetarian on the 1st and 15th days of the lunar month. As a result, there are a fair amount of prominent vegetarian restaurants, from cheap to expensive, that serve exclusively veg food any time of the month. Sometimes you just can’t with the pork again, you know?

Slightly off the beaten path, Tib Chay revels in the royal traditions of Central Vietnamese food. Central Vietnamese cuisine is distinct from the Northern or Southern traditions, and centered around Hue. This ancient city was the home of the last Vietnamese royal dynasty, and the food reflects the court: sophisticated and colorful. Dishes are often defined by their small size and elaborate preparation.

Our main dish (seen above) was the house rice, served with veggies and lotus seeds. I’m not usually a fan of anything culled from the lotus plant, but these seeds are an exception to the rule. The vegetables were juicy and well seasoned.

The Musicality of Vietnamese Tones

Daily conversation in Vietnam "resembles the singing of birds", wrote Alexandre de Rhodes.

Vietnamese tones are one of the most complicated aspects of Vietnamese language to understand, hear, and speak for foreigners, especially those not used to singing.

Take it from me! I've actually quit Vietnamese lessons twice before I got to this current point - tones and weird vowels plus a very relaxed dialect in the South have made it exasperating at times to speak and, especially, hear. Fortunately, I've been able to grasp a little more this time around, which I attribute entirely to simply living around and among Vietnamese for almost 4 years.

One of the keys to my (limited) success in the language is that I've changed how I think about tones.

In my mind, there are two components to nailing tones: mental and physical. You need to think in them and feel them (hey, here are my acting class lessons coming back again!).