Mentally Mapping the City

I never appreciated what I had in Chi-town.
God bless you, grid system.

"Where in the twisted hell am I??"

is something I find myself saying pretty much every week, whether it's because I'm lost in some maze of alleys or because I've just realized that I'm living and working in Vietnam (both can be equally disorienting). Let me try to give my definitive answer on locating myself in space and time* here...

I never really knew Chicago until I biked it. The same holds true for Saigon. This time, however, I've got a few extra cc's under me!

Sure, I took public transportation all over Chicago prior to biking, but it was always a passive, stare-out-the-window kind of knowing. It wasn't until I had to navigate and triangulate my position on two wheels in motion that I truly felt I knew where I was, and how I'd get to where I wanted to go. It was a good feeling.

A similar process of knowing is happening here in HCMC, but the difference here is that the City is so massive and the map is so unpredictable, it would take years and years of non-stop exploration and practice to effectively know it all. Hell, even my taxi drivers don't know it all! When I took taxis, they often had to stop and ask another driver for directions. I stick to the places I need to get to, and add to my repertoire as I need to.

So that's something I've been doing in my spare time - figuring out just where in the sam hell I am...

Bánh Khọt Cô Ba Vũng Tàu: Breakfast for Dinner

lThis is probably the easiest review I'll write about a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh (UPDATE: Psych... no it wasn't). I know that going into it. The challenge will be how to look critical - as far as I know, these pancakes can do no wrong. They even cancel out the blatant misfires I've had - that good.

Bánh Khọt Cô Ba Vũng Tàu is my favorite bet in the city to get enormous rice pancakes filled with stuff. Delicious, delicious stuff. In fact, this is the only place where I allow myself to blatantly order things with seafood in them (damn you, The Gout!) and enjoy it - I don't really care if my toes hurt for a couple days afterwards. Totally worth it.

For those of you new to the Banh Xeo ("Bahn Say-Oh") party, the Southern version is a huge rice pancake filled with stuff, usually seafood, and made a nice toasty yellow with the addition of turmeric.

Since I'll never be able to make something like this dish at home (it takes a lot of ridiculously special equipment and training), I haven't bothered to find out the details. So bear with me as I take you through eating one of Vietnam's most surprising dishes...

4/5ths Of It Food: Expenses Dec 2-8

The first step to taming your spending is knowing where your money is going - and, three weeks in, I'm finally developing a picture.

Most of my money is going to food. This is fairly unsurprising - I mean, I really like food, and I'm in one of the food capitals of the world. There is literally food everywhere. Go half a block and you'll meet at least one street food vendor.

I should note that for this spending/tracking experiment, I'm just spending money like I normally would here. It's probably true that I curtail it a little bit (you can't observe something without changing it!) since I'm keeping such close tabs on it, but for the most part I'm letting myself run willy nilly.

Because my long-term money goals are ambitious (for me, at least), my next step after collecting data will be to create a budget that allows me to have fun and live a comfortable (delicious) life while also saving substantial portions of my income (hopefully in a way that lets me remit it to the US). Look for my first budget experiment in January 2014!

But for this week... my god, 83.3% of my weekly expenditures on food?!:

Saigon Sights: Lâm viên Cần Giờ (Monkey Island)

District Can Gio.

Recently it was the most glorious holiday (TEACHER'S DAY!) and I was able to rearrange my office hours to take a much-needed trip outside of the city - fresh air, fewer people, fewer bikes, nature... and monkeys.

So many monkeys. And so many pictures!

You can see the map of Cần Giờ District (yes, still part of Ho Chi Minh City, crazily!) that we traveled to. Our destination was Lâm viên Cần Giờ (Cần Giờ Forest Park), in the southern region - almost as far south as you can go while staying both on land and in HCMC's expansive boundaries.

Lâm viên Cần Giờ is a designated UN Biosphere Reserve, recognized as such for the best practices exhibited by the Vietnamese government in regrowing the massive and extensive mangrove forests following the destruction of over 80% of the total biomass through American gas attacks during the Vietnam War. Today, the area is a quiet haven for thousands of monkeys (called a troop!), a group of crocodiles (called a float!), and a beautiful and calm alternative to the endless shouting, honking, bustling throngs of Ho Chi Minh City.

It's picture slideshow time!

Teacher's Day 2013

Teacher's Day!!!

Was there ever a holiday so fantastic?! Vietnam holds an annual national holiday recognizing the hard work of (and low pay of most) teachers every year, and this year it landed on Wednesday, November 20th. Both of my schools cancelled classes and I got my office hours moved to Friday - the better to go to Monkey Island with!

On this day, kids sing songs, dance dances, and shower teachers with all sorts of presents, cards, and cash. Parents and administrators alike seemed to take this 'gift' thing to heart, as you'll see below. I got an absolutely unnecessary amount of gifts - honestly I just love interacting with my kids. That's usually reward enough... but this did not hurt one tiny bit!

Here's one of my photo album posts - just to explain how big a deal this is, here's a set of some of the craziest parts of this fun day (and indeed, whole week). If you're thinking of teaching in Vietnam, I guess I'd say this was an endorsement!

The Cost of Smartphones in Vietnam

This is $10 of minutes that I purchased at
my local convenience store.

"How much does your phone cost?"

and

"How do you use a phone there?"

These are fairly common questions I get, and I think it's worth a response simply because the system here is so unlike the system we have at home in the US - it took a bit of a learning curve (and I still have questions!) to familiarize myself.

RECAP: So basically, in America, you don't have to bear the entire cost of a new smartphone because they are subsidized by the carriers. In return, you're limited to their network and most likely locked into a long, expensive, two-year contact, paying anywhere from $50-100 - or more - to provide that phone with service and whatever internet packet you've signed up for.

The system in much of the rest of the world is different. I recently bought a secondhand smartphone (my very first capable smartphone!!) and, having lived the dream for a couple months, want to tell you all about it.

Read on for numbers and money, and to learn how much your phone plan sucks!

More Gas, Please: Expenses Nov 25 - Dec 1

My second week of formally tracking every single "cent" I spend is off to a good start, and I'm starting to notice things that I had no idea were happening. I love budgets.

I've had good money news this week - I get paid once a month (CRAZY, I KNOW) and I've learned that my probation period at work is over. I'll notice several changes:

1. Taxes reduced from 20% to 10%
2. A fixed salary every month, no matter what
3. A higher salary

THESE ARE GREAT THINGS!! Hopefully this will allow me to start putting much more away, now that my big ticket items are purchased (phone, bike). I'm looking forward to seeing much more money remitted to the US in these little posts in the upcoming months!

Things I've learned this week: