Famous for a night.

Happy New Year!
Christmas and New Year’s Eve have come and gone and we are both still here to tell the tale, thankfully. Despite being in a Buddhist country the school closed on Christmas eve and New Year’s eve meaning that our classes were saved exposure to these particular native speakers for one class in the past two weeks.
On both these days Vietnamese people from outside the city flood into the centre of Siagon to look in wonder at the huge Christmas themed monstrosities that most of the larger shops have risked collapsed ceilings for. Visitors pose for photos in front of scenes of fake snow, waving penguins and large gleeful papier mache Father Christmases, which were all made even more special by the fact that most seemed to have out-sourced the making of said decorations to local primary schools for the blind. The crowds find themselves milling together and turning one of the main roads into a pedestrian thoroughfare. On Christmas eve we found ourselves in amongst the throng and suddenly propelled to the status of minor celebrities. As the crowd parted in wonder at our Western faces we thought there might be something amiss but as we made our way through hands thrust from every different direction asking for photos. This was all a little strange for most of us but Tim was calm in the face of such clamour as he has found that he elicits such furore in people just about anywhere he goes outside of Devon. The crowd really went wild when we bought some sparklers from a street seller, when we turned round there was a crowd about 6 people deep encircling us and they looked like we had given them eternal happiness when we handed them out to the wide-eyed children. The gift of a Westerner is unlike any other.
We woke up on Christmas day and transferred our unwilling bodies to the New World Hotel, where we had booked in for a buffet Christmas lunch. The range of food on offer was dizzying but we steadied ourselves by supping the free sparkling wine and considering our eating strategy. We wandered round the opulent offerings from various roasted birds and animals and gravy and mashed potato (there is a very large American presence in Vietnam) to pan-fired duck and chicken with cashews to bread and pate to lobster and prawns to a whole table to pretty little sweet things and on and on and on. Tim’s mood spiked in opposite directions as he marvelled at what delights were in store over the next 3 hours to noticing that there were no roast potatoes. I decided seafood was particularly un-christmassy but Tim couldn’t help but try an oyster with cheese, I calmly declined. 2 and half hours later we were all looking at each other like the last mouthful might have been a step too far when Tim decided that he wasn’t going to miss out on Boxing Day’s turkey sandwich so it would have to be down there and then. Needless to say the rest of the day was spent in a semi-reclined position trying not to think about work the next day.
New Year’s eve was a similar story, just tell it to yourself again but remove the bit about the food.
In other news we have now moved into our little flat and we are happy ensconced in a private domain of our own, sitting on the best 70’s sofa you are ever likely to clap eyes on. As the Vietnamese deal solely in cash we felt like we were involved in a minor drug deal as I carried our large packet of millions for the deposit clasped tightly in my sweaty hands. We’ve only seen a scattering of cockroaches so far and if I imagine that the ants are singing as they follow each other in a line up the wall then I simply don’t mind. Its a nice apartment so we’ve decided to completely resort to colonial times and we are going to get a maid as soon as possible.
Stay safe in 2010.