Roof top braais

We miss home. There I said it... we're home sick. Luckily there are small things that we can do to help us get a little taste of home here in the big city and one of those things is rooftop braais!

Whenever you drive around, you see people braaing meat (usually at around breakfast time, they cook the meat for their food stall for the day) so we knew we would be able to buy a braai - it was just a matter of hunting one down. We went to our local market and popped our heads into a couple of stalls and voila, we found one! It's not the best braai in the world but you can make a fire in it and chuck some meat on the grid... perfect!

We're trying to make it a bit of a Sunday evening tradition. We get home from work at about 6.30 and we're often tempted to flop onto the couch after a long weekend of teaching, however, going up to the roof and burning some meat does wonders for the soul! It also always comes with some good banter with Craig.

Sadly, our braai companion is now on school holidays and is headed home to South Africa - the land of real meat - for a few weeks (lucky bum!). So our weekly braais will be a kind of romantic boere date for two for the next few weeks.

Here are some pics from some of our recent braais:

Deeeelicious food

Some post-braai Saki... not to be repeated soon!

Saigon sunset

Well we might complain about the pollution but one positive thing that comes from it is the beautiful sunsets! We've been up to the roof a couple of times to catch the sunset. Here are some pics of what we've seen (all unedited of course!):

When the stars align

On Friday, the stars well and truly aligned for us... There was Sharks rugby, on a Friday, and we weren't working!!! Excitement! We haven't watched any Sharks rugby since the first weekend we arrived here which was three months ago.

So off we went to a bar for us only to be told that there was a problem with the channel that was showing the game. We decided not to give up and decided to try another pub. There was one around the corner and we knew that a South African runs it so we thought that if anyone would be showing it, it would be them. It wasn't on when we arrived but they managed to find the channel and we got to experience a very tense 80 minutes, and it was amazing! Go The Sharks! Lets hope for more Friday afternoon rugby.

Two very tense guys

Much happier chaps after the win

Oh my duck!!

Saigon has been home to a 600kg rubber duck for the past month. We've seen it from the road, and man is it big but we decided that we had to go and see it properly in person. So along with our friend Kirsty, we trundled off to Crescent Mall to see the big duck.

The duck is "an iconic work of internationally-acclaimed Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, is a huge version of kids’ popular yellow toy duck which is stylized to entertain spectators, particularly children. 

Beginning with a tour titled “Spreading Joy around the World” in 2007, Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman said he wanted to recall everyone’s fond childhood memories by showcasing the duck in 14 cities around the world, starting in his hometown, Amsterdam.
The adorable duck has since been exhibited in such cities as Lommel (Belgium), Osaka (Japan), Sydney (Australia), and Hong Kong (China)."

Life lately

Apologies for the lack of blog posts recently. Our lives have been chaotic and we've spent the last few weeks trying to organise all of the documents that we need to get ourselves work permits. Work permits are valid for three years and that means no renewing Visas and we can come and go from the country as we please.

Organising the work permits has certainly been no easy feat. First we had to get our original degrees sent over from South Africa, as Vietnam is one of the few countries who does not belong to the Hague convention and does not accept appostilled documents. We then had to go and try to find our consulate so that they could send all of our documents up to the embassy in Hanoi (to get a stamp to say that they are true copies of our original documents). We drove up and down the street searching for the consulate as all other consulates and embassy's have big signs and flags outside. We found number 19, it was a bar so we obviously didn't stop there. We kept driving up and down the street making countless phone calls to the consulate, until we spotted a tiny, tattered and faded, A4-sized South African flag flapping in the breeze. There were also a few pictures of Nelson Mandela's face stuck to the wall - we had found it. On the gate, was piece of paper saying that the consulate had moved to number 19 - Animus Bar. We were on a one-way street, and were fed up with this mission, so we drove the wrong way - but on the pavement, back to number 19. There we saw a small sign saying "The South African Consulate". The South African Consulate in HCMC is in a bar!! A classy wine bar - but still! You walk in, go the back and walk through a door that says 'Cigar Lounge'. So anyway, we sent our certificates up to Hanoi and two weeks later we had to fight the traffic and go back to the consulate to receive all of our documents. To our joy, the Embassy had ripped Mel's original degree! But not to worry, they sticky-taped it back together again.

The consulate is behind that door!

So after we had a stamp saying that our documents are true copies, we had to get them notarised by the Vietnamese officials. After finding the building (luckily without too much hassle), we had to try and figure out what we were meant to do next. We were first sent to the wrong line, then we had to fill in some forms that we didn't understand (even though they were in English!). Finally someone who could speak English helped us. We sent the forms in and had to go back a few days later to collect them. (*A side note - The consulate managed to give us somebody else's police background check with all of our documents, so we had to mission back to them to return it.)

After that, we had to get all of our documents translated into Vietnamese. So again, we traipsed into town and found where we were meant to go and waited around until someone who spoke English could help us. We had to make some more photocopies of the photocopies which we already had, and we sent those documents off to be translated. We were told to go back a few days later to collect them.

You also need a medical health check and you can only do it at two hospitals in HCMC both of which, of course, are no where near where we live. So we phoned ahead and the hospital said that we could go in with no appointment - so off we went. We managed to find the first hospital on the list. We fought our way into the parking and then into the building. We were greeted by a nurse who didn't really know what we wanted so she went off with our piece of paper saying 'health check' to find someone who could help us. She came back and said that we couldn't do our health check there. We told her that we had phoned and they said that we could do. So off she went again while we sat waiting with half of Ho Chi Minh's sick, lame and lazy - and then she came back with someone else who told us we were at the wrong hospital. Well, it was the right hospital (the big signs all over stating the name of the hospital was a dead give-away), but for some reason they decided that we couldn't get it done there. So on we went to the next hospital. We were directed to the floor we needed to go to and found that we were finally in the right place, however, they are extremely busy and we needed to make an appointment. We made an appointment for early the next morning and went back home only to have to return the next morning.

We went back to the hospital the next morning and were the first ones in. We weren't allowed to eat anything before we went which was rather challenging for Mel. With the medicals done, we were told that we'd have to go back in a few days to collect our certificates. By now we were starving so we decided to spoil ourselves with a nice big English breakfast. They were huuuuge and great!

So now we have all of the documentation we need (we think and hope!) so we just have to get our company to submit everything and then hopefully we will both have work permits! We did all of the above stages while suffering from tummy bugs and in extreme heat so the fact that we've made it through alive is some miracle! (And hence the lack of blog posts!)

Very blurry photos taken which zooming past the Cathedral. People love to have their wedding photos
taken here and it is extremely common to see a couple of brides outside on any given day.

A new favourite! It's 29,000 (about R15) Dong for a drink and donut. We definitely felt like we deserved
a treat after all of our running around.

A happy face donut and a cafe su da (iced coffee) for Ross and a custard-filled donut and tea for Mel.

Some good news, is that we both have new jobs starting in August! We will both be working at the school where Craig works, V-Star. It is a dual language school so students have some classes in Vietnamese and some in English. We will both be English teachers, Mel teaching Grade 1 and Ross teaching Grade 4 and 5. We are so excited as it is a Monday to Friday job (so regular hours) and a regular salary. We can start to get into a routine, which will be wonderful! The school is only about 10 minutes from our flat, so we won't have to spend too much time on the road which is always a win!

Our new school

Yummy lunch

Sometimes living in a foreign country can get rather overwhelming and it can be rather challenging. This is when you have to just sit down, relax, eat a bacon and avo baguette and drink a cold milo. Happy place again.

Touch Rugby Tournament

Sorry for the silence on the blog. We went from a busy work weekend straight into a five day trip, straight back into work and now we finally have a little bit of time to catch everybody up (in-between trying to sort out work permits and visas!).

Last weekend saw Ross playing in a touch-rugby tournament. It was an extremely hot day (sweat was dripping off Mel's face while she sat, not moving, in the shade!) but this didn't deter the "All-Stars" one bit. Every year, the same team wins the tournament (The mighty ANZAC's) and no one can really give them a run for their money.

The All-Stars were a bunch of strangers (essentially) that were thrown together and largely met for the first time on the day of the tournament. Naturally, everybody wrote us off as massive underdogs, and didn't even expect us to make the play-offs. We, however, had different ideas. There was a (not so silent) belief that we could go ahead and win this tournament, purely through the surprise element.

We met the almighty ANZAC's in the pool stages (our second game), and put on a poor display. By half time we were already 3-0 down and were nursing heavily bruised egos. At the break there were some inspiring words shared by all three of our self-nominated captains, and we headed into the second half determined to do better. It seemed to work, because we conceded only one more try in the match, leaving the scoreline reading 4-0.

We didn't lose another match (although some were tough battles), and clawed our way into the final by beating the very passionate (and filthy) French team, le Blues, 2-1 in the semis. They were the team who used to always lose to the ANZAC's in the final.

Going into the final, there was a sense of defeat amongst many of our team... This meant that an already tough game was going to be that much tougher! We played much better than in the pool stages, and our defence was solid. Their surprise and concern at not having scored yet was becoming more and more evident as the first half went on, and we thought that we were going to go into the break at 0-0. However, late in the half, the ANZAC's slipped through and scored the only try of the half. At half time we were shattered! We looked across to our opposition, and those gym-bunny boytjies had barely broken a sweat (not really, but they definitely looked better than us!).

After the first half, however, there was a renewed hope in our team, and that belief that we could cause the upset was back. We went into the second half firing on all cylinders, and continued with our solid defence. We even had the ANZAC's pinned on their own try-line for some considerable periods. Unfortunately we just couldn't breach their defences, and were tiring ourselves out in our efforts to do so. The crowd started getting behind us, and we could feel our efforts raise once again. We could do this!! We made some breath-taking breaks, and ran some pretty professional lines, but our last pass was always somehow impeded by our impenetrable opposition.

At last there was a break which counted. A stunning draw, pass, loop and skip pass to the wing which left the defence in absolute tatters and complete awe of the level of skill and accuracy of the move. Sadly it was the ANZAC's who performed this piece of rugby brilliance, and the final whistle blew shortly after. The epic final was over, and the better team won. However, this year our team certainly made them work hard for their 2-0 victory.

The All-Stars

Saki - Ross's lucky draw prize.

A beautiful ending to a fantastic day.