some shots from sapa

well i am at the airport in saigon leaving for hanoi. i will then travel to sapa for a few days of relaxation before the bicycle trip begins on the 3rd of november. these are two of the three preschool classes i teach, the youngest ones i couldnt do group photos with cause i would have taken forever to get twenty three year olds to stand still. i will miss these kids. its nice to get hugs every day.

went ice skating on sunday and rollerskating today. well it wasn't really ice skating, it was plastic skating. it was a bazaar experience. my friend thi called me on sunday while i was in between classes to see if i wanted to go "rollerskating" that afternoon. apparently a new place had just opened in district 3 and she had never tried it before. she knew that we have "rollerskating" in the US and she wanted me to teach her how to do it. well i told her it sounded like fun and that i used to do quite a bit of skating back home,but i had an evening class to teach and so i would give her a ring after i got off work. i was surprised that she had never been rollerskating cause i knew there was a rink next to the zoo that has been there forever, and in fact i was planning to go to that one on wednesday with another friend. when i got of work i met up with thi and we headed to the place. it was on the top floor of the youth cultural center and as we walked up the three flights of stairs i noticed the mannequins lining the walls were dressed in winter clothes, some were wearing skis and parkas and some were in hockey gear. we weren't going roller skating this was ice skating. i was thinking ice in vietnam, this makes no sense. but after getting our skates on it became even stranger. it wasn't ice at all it was a hard white plastic on the floor that was sprayed with wax to allow you to slide. the room was long and narrow more like a wide hallway than a rink so instead of skating in a continuous circle, you skated down the hall, turned around and came back. watching vienamese try to ice skate was hilarious but of course i forgot my camera.

today i went rollerskating with my buddy joel who volunteers at a youth shelter for boys. every wednesday they do some sort of field trip activity, last week they went to a water park and this week they went rollerskating. the rink was really cool cause although it was rather small, around the outside was a track of ramps with banked turns.

i ate a cobra this week. it was wild. i had asked my buddy zack last weekend where a good dog restaurant was and he told me that on monday he and another guy ted were going out for snake if i would like to join. hell yes i wanna join. so i took the evening off work and we headed out to a snake house. zack had eaten cobra before and didn't like it but was willing to be our escort and after a long journey we found the place. i half expected it do be some back alley dodgy place, cause thats the kind of place zack had tried cobra at, but this place was really a nice fancy joint. we sat down and ordered beers and without even seeing a menu the waitress ask if we would like to have snake this evening, she knew why we were there. we asked to see the snake and we were taken into the back. the snake was already out of its cage and they were toying with it. this thing was huge, at least five feet long and it raised up and flared its hood ready to strike. wow i have only ever seen a cobra at the zoo and here was one that i was about to eat. after negotiating the price and ordering the three different ways it would be prepared for us, they asked if we wanted to watch it get killed, yep, and into the back again. after cutting of its head the blood was drained into a bottle of vodka, and the heart and bile sack were removed and placed in shots of vodka. both ted and i wanted to try the heart so we had it cut in half and even after that it was still beating. i'll be honest taking that shot with half a beating heart in it made me feel kind of queasy but it made drinking the bloody vodka through the meal easier. we had the stomach, liver and guts sauteed with onions and lemon grass, the meat barbecued, and also minced with peanuts, and the skin fried. i thought it tasted pretty good, although barbecued was hard to eat cause there were so many bones. i really glad i did this cause i feel like it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and an experience i will not soon forget.

well its been a while since i last posted. i just got a new laptop so updates should be more regular. what fun things have i been up to lately? a couple weeks ago i went to a wedding that was interesting. it started at 7 o'clock and was over by 9. there where dance performances and people singing karaoke and all the men in the family kept making me drink "100%" meaning you have to finish your beer in one gulp. the whole event was a whirlwind of drinking, eating, taking pictures and it was over before there was a chance for the guests to dance. a truly strange affair but im glad i got to experience it.
i have been going on training rides with the other members of H2H a couple times a week.last week i went on a 100k ride and a 75k. im getting really excited for this, and thanks to everyone who has donated to our charity. it has been fun getting to know the people in the group and any conserns about spending a month with a group of 19 strangers who might be squares, have been washed down with pints at our fund raising pub quiz night. they're a fun group of people and i cant believe a didn't meet any of them sooner.