A Not So Lazy Rainy Day

Lyn, my housemate, is celebrating her birthday today. I went out to buy cake for her this morning and it was a good thing, Dung, my other friend's Vietnamese boyfriend, accompanied me. You see, they usually layer their cakes with pineapple.... Pineapples taste good, but please, not on cake! He spoke with the girls at the bakeshops until we found two that had chocolate in it. One had orange frosting and the other had a thick layer of white frosting with a water buffalo on top. Dorky but I chose the one with the buffalo. Would've been stupid to avoid pineapple and go with orange frosting. :P

after candles were taken out

I went biking with Thea this afternoon. Talked for a bit over chocolate milk tea and kiwi milk tea (yeah weird, I know). Then we went around the city. It was nice to see the sights and relax while getting some exercise. It was raining a bit but it was fun. I miss my old bike, though. The handlebars on the one I have now is a bit lopsided so it's a b**ch to balance. On the upside, if I went biking everyday, my arm muscles would probably become more defined. Haha.

It's really pouring now... I usually think of rainy days as lazy days. But today-- even though I'm a bit tired from biking, I still want to go dancing tonight. It's been on my mind for days. I wonder if I can get them to go with me. I can go out alone but from previous experience, I'd rather not. People would always try to talk to me and they become more annoying when they find out I'm not Vietnamese. No fun at all. 

Oh well, we'll see. The night is still young after all.

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We didn't start eating till 920PM, and Tin, Thea and Lyn are supposed to be in school pretty early tomorrow morning. So... no dancing, will have to wait till Wednesday next week. Hmft. Anyway, had a lot of spaghetti, grilled squid and the cake wasn't that bad. It was chiffon layered with bits of chocolate and raisins with white frosting.

Quick Update

It's my third month here in Vietnam. We've moved to a new house nearer the center of the city which means no more expensive taxi rides. Yey! I'm way better at riding a bike than I was before and I can now manage to join people on the roundabout.

My job(s):
1. I work 5 days a week at a small international preschool . I handle the 3 to 5year olds.
2. I help at the baby group on Saturdays.
3. I work part time at the Natural English School, they give me 1-4 classes every week.
4. I tutor Sugar (11 year old girl) with Thea 3 days a week.
5. I tutor Truc (16 year old girl) once a week for two hours, we just converse in English.
6. I tutor my friend Moon whenever she has free time.

I don't earn much from all these, but I'm surviving... and happy :D

I haven't set an amount for my emergency fund, but basically I'll be putting in 20% of any amount I receive or earn, except for the fee for tutoring Truc, which I'll be saving the full amount of. To date I owe $300 USD from my emergency fund, I'll be saving an additional $25 USD every month for that for 12 months to take care of that.

I'll also be putting aside $100 USD every month for 3 months for my visa renewal, Metrobank Easy Tuition Savings Plan and Citisavings loan.

The Day I Learned How to Ride a Bike

The new apartment we'll be moving into on Tuesday is just within walking distance to NES (the school where Thea and I teach). However, I realized that I would still need transportation after getting another job as a preschool teacher. With that in mind, I decided that I would rather buy a bicycle than rent a motorbike because of the additional expense every month. I tried to borrow from a friend but I couldn't handle a bike with a high seat.

I was pleasantly surprised when my friend Nguyet(Moon) arrived early this afternoon because she told me that I wouldn't see her till Friday. After our English lesson, she said that we could start looking for a bicycle. We drove around for a bit to look at some secondhand bicycle shops. The first bicycle shop had a nice bike that cost a little bit more than $50, it looked pretty new and the seat was low, but I decided to look at other shops first because I might be able to get a better deal. At the second bicycle shop, I saw some nice bikes. The really good ones cost about $75, but I found 2 possibilities. One was black, which would normally be my first choice, except Moon told me that it's from China and the seat wasn't all that stable. The second one's from Japan and looked okay. It's pink and black, which is one of my favorite combinations. The latter cost almost double the first one's price, but because Moon is Vietnamese, she was able to get a discount. So I got the second bike for 450.000 VND (just a little bit more than $25).

I wanted to get a taxi so I could bring it home, but Moon didn't want to hear any of it. She told me that she'd guide me while riding her motorbike. She told me that I could take it home by myself. It was painfully slow, but we managed... And then it rained! I don't mean a drizzle either. It was a full fledged downpour. Moon insisted that I wear her heavy duty raincoat and proceeded to escort me home. We sure got loads of strange looks. Moon was riding so slowly in the rain, and I was obviously learning how to ride a bike. People were calling out, "Why did you choose today to practice riding a bike?" In a country were virtually everyone knows how to ride a bike from childhood, watching me learn how to ride a bike at my "advanced" age was a novelty.

3 kilometers later and after several mishaps --- I hit a car (yes, I mean it and not the other way around), guttered the bike, almost hit some people --- we arrived at my house drenched to the bone. This is a day that I certainly would never forget. The day I learned how to ride a bike with my friend Moon.