• Quote of the Day: U.S. Foreign Policy

    28Sep
    Categories: Political, Quote of the Day Comments: 4

    “Like most people, they [Burmese] thought that it [U.S. foreign policy] sucks, but not for the usual reason. Burmese wanted to know why George Bush hasn’t invaded their country yet.”
    –a Westerner living in Rangoon/Yangon and talking about Burmese sentiment on the streets among a brutal crackdown by the military dictatorship on protesters
    from The London Times

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  • Video: Ostrich Riding

    19Sep
    Categories: Humor, Personal Comments: 2

    Here’s a video of Arlin and I riding ostriches in Vietnam.

    YouTube (0:35)
    WMV (4.38 MB, 0:35)

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 10

    18Sep
    Categories: Christianity, Personal Comments: 4


    Two street merchants conferring


    Drinking tea at breakfast. We enjoyed the Vietnamese tea, but some thought it smelled like silage and others thought it smelled like tobacco. It had a pleasant taste, though.

    We had the requisite noodles for breakfast. Then we headed to a unique place with beautiful gardens, native village replicas, and European architecture. We went to a village show in which some ethnic minorities from a village put on a song and dance show for us. After they were done, they asked us to come up and sing some songs.


    American group


    Me


    Beautiful flower-covered roof with stone wall in background


    Villagers dancing


    They asked us to join them in their dance and Arlin obliged


    Singing at their invitation


    Once again we were a tourist attraction and everyone wanted to have their pictures taken with us


    The villagers


    They had a little zoo of genetic mutations; this chicken had four legs


    This cage contained a cow with three horns


    This cage contained some unknown creatures with serious, yet undiagnosed problems


    I loved their almost Grecian architecture in Dalat! I was totally stunned to see it–it seemed so out of place


    Me


    Arlin riding the fountain dragon

    Tip of the day: If you are in Asia, wear a beard. Yet another person out of the blue said I am handsome. They really like beards.


    Eating a picnic lunch in the valley of love


    That afternoon, Phil, Arlin, and Josh went to a school and played basketball with some locals. The locals only consented to play after the teams were set up to be 3 against 10. The three foreigners against seven Vietnamese. The Vietnamese still lost, however.

    That night, we went to the night market. While the others shopped, Lao and the other two Vietnamese brethren took me on a food tour! They took be from food stand to food stand feeding me all sorts of unusual Vietnamese foods. First, they fed me some little sea creatures that had a curled shell. To eat, I dipped the small (fingernail sized) tubular, circular shell into the juice that it had been boiled in. Then I sucked the contents out of the shell. Along with the juice came a little bit of “meat” that was the consistency of nose mucus that slipped smoothly down my throat. I ate a bunch of those. Next on the menu was a hard-boiled chicken egg with a chick inside. I gamely ate about half of it before hairs/feathers on the chicken made my gag reflex kick in and I was unable to eat any more. Also particularly hard to stomach were the little legs. Next on the menu were some wonderful mussel like creatures that had peanuts and greens sprinkled on top. They were wonderful! We then left that stand and went over to a fruit seller. We squatted Asian style on the sidewalk and ate some stinky durian fruit. Durian fruit’s taste is not bad, but its smell makes so that few people outside of the countries where it grows natively eat it. Next Lao searched around until she found a lady that sold some sort of special rice soup that was an especial delicacy. While I was eating it, my beard struck again and the soup lady made a positive comment on my appearance.


    Seafood & chick stand


    Here I was smiling; I was eating the mussel-like things

    After the others were done shopping, we went to the Pink Grass Cafe, which by now as a favorite among those who liked American food. I just got a drink at Pink Grass and deemed myself to have gotten a much better deal than the poor people who ate American instead of Vietnamese.

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 9

    17Sep
    Categories: Christianity, Personal Comments: 0

    This morning we got up, went two buildings down the street, and went to a little restaurant and had beef noodles for breakfast. Then we headed up the mountain to a cable car, which we took up the mountain to a temple. From there, we got back in the van and went further up the mountain to a waterfall.


    Cable car view


    Workers in the field below


    Working in the fields


    Naomi reacting to a large rubber spider someone put on her shoulder


    IGo group


    The guys climbing the waterfall


    On top of the waterfall


    Waterfall


    A woodcarver


    A Vietnamese wedding


    Some of the AMAZING coffee we had in Vietnam!! Everywhere we went that had it, I ordered it. A little brewer was brought out along with the cup and it was brewed right there. It was very strong and the best tasting coffee I have ever had.


    A rare case of facial hair and the style of dress caused us to jokingly dub this man the Chinese Gangster


    Some of the flowers in the gorgeous gardens surrounding the palace


    We had to wear booties over our shoes before we could go inside the palace as to protect the floor


    Arlin, shameless as ever, jumped in the picture with this beautiful young Vietnamese princess. It was the kind of thing where you could pay to dress in royal robes and then have your picture taken. Arlin’s cowboy hat made him a tourist attraction in his own right. Around 20 people asked to take pictures with him.


    A panorama of the gardens from the palace window


    A picture of the prince


    A view of Dalat at night


    The guys bought the ladies roses


    When Arlin tried to go to sleep with his hoody and cowboy hat over his face, we loaded his cowboy hat with things


    We had an American supper of pizza that night!

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 8

    16Sep
    Categories: Christianity, Personal Comments: 0

    This morning we got into a 14 passenger van—with Lao and two other brethren—and headed north. We drove for about 7 hours until we got to Dalat. We checked into our hotel and spent the evening relaxing.


    Playing guitar in the hotel lobby


    Our van up to Dalat


    Naomi, our faithful money manager–notating expenses and holding the money


    Beautiful riverside restaurant we stopped at for lunch


    Along the river


    A father and two boys rowing across the river


    A brother sleeping in the van


    A pet monkey at a gas station

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 7

    15Sep
    Categories: Personal Comments: 0

    We got up early, went to the lobby, found Lao waiting for us, hopped in a taxi, and went down to the river. When we got to the river “dock” (which was a large rock sticking out into the water) we waited for about seven minutes for the ferry (a decrepit boat with a car engine running its jury-rigged propeller) to come back. We hopped the ferry to the other side and then got on a bus. We rode into a residential area of town dominated by square concrete boxes several stories high that looked like a prison and served as apartments. We walked along and all of a sudden we heard singing coming from an open doorway. We went on in the ground level home doorway and found ourselves in the middle of about 35-40 Vietnamese believers extolling dad! We were amazed they were hanging out so openly—neighbors were walking by and you could see straight into the service from the road. They were using amplified instruments and microphones. The speaking could be heard plainly from the sidewalk.


    The little ferry that we rode on across the river


    Lots of bikes crowded on the ferry

    We led worship for a couple of songs with us singing in English and them singing in Vietnamese. After the sermon and the service’s completion, the IGo team, Lao, and a bunch of our Vietnamese friends went half a block down the apartment building to a sidewalk restaurant where we all squatted on little plastic stools around a knee-high table and ate beef and noodles with chopsticks. We had a great time!


    Eating lunch


    An example of the rows and rows of apartment buildings

    We then hopped on a bus and headed down to downtown Saigon. We saw the most famous church in Saigon (a large Catholic cathedral), Vietnamese military headquarters, a large shopping mall, and the “War Remnants Museum”. The War Remnants Museum was by far the most interesting. The outside of the museum was surrounded by captured U.S. military aircraft, tanks, artillery, and sundry armaments. The inside of was a masterful piece of propaganda about the “war crimes” of the “foreign war of aggression against the Vietnamese people”. They portrayed the war as the U.S. versus Vietnam rather than a civil war in which both North and South were receiving foreign assistance—the North from the Soviet Union, China, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and North Korea and the South from the U.S., South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. It does legitimately (though exaggeratedly) mention damage done by Agent Orange, some of the torture done by South Vietnamese troops, and the rogue My Lai massacre, but it totally ignores the consistent civilian-targeted terrorist actions of the Viet Cong, the Hue massacre, and the systematic torture of P.O.W.’s by the North Vietnamese.


    Catholic cathedral


    Naomi and two sisters


    Playing pool in the mall–pool is huge in Vietnam! There are tables everywhere!


    Vietnamese flag


    The Vietnamese version of the Pentagon


    Group shot


    Tank on the grounds of the “pentagon”


    A captured U.S. plane


    U.S. tank


    American fighter jet and Huey helicopter


    Arlin cringing in anticipation that the drink procured from a streetside vendor would taste like it looked


    Street vendor carefully arranging a pile of roses


    It rained incredibly hard and the streets flooded with a foot of water in some places

    That night we went back to the hotel and then that evening we split into two groups and played games. We had a great time worshiping and interacting with our Vietnamese friends. Afterward we went to a small restaurant and ate noodles for supper.


    Eating supper with the youth

    Meanwhile at the church service, the others had a bit of a more exciting time. A man attending the church service had a stroke right in the middle of the service and had to be taken to the hospital. He and his family are quite poor—the church recently bought them a motorbike so he could earn money by working as a bike taxi—and can’t afford to pay for his care. Unfortunately in Vietnam, hospital care is contingent upon paying for the care upfront, ahead of time. If you don’t have the money, you don’t get taken care of. So the church is helping take care of his hospital care—they had to raid the orphans’ fund to pay his bill.

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 6

    14Sep
    Categories: Personal Comments: 0

    Saturday was a free morning in which most of us slept in until 11. We then got up and went over to the same restaurant for lunch that we were at the night before. The lady had to run get a neighbor to translate our order—since our Vietnamese friends weren’t there to translate for us. Our order still got slightly mangled, but it was delicious nonetheless. After our order had been taken, the sister in law of the cook showed up and asked permission to sit at our table and chat with us—she had excellent English. She is a primary teacher and thoroughly quizzed us about ourselves. She seemed delighted for the chance to interact with another culture and practice her English. Later Lao showed up and invited her along to the orphanage.


    We tried to communicate through the neighbor that we wanted chicken fried rice, but instead we got a whole chicken + rice. Oh well.


    Three on a bike, a common method of transport

    We then headed to the orphanage and hung out with the kids and watched one of the brothers—Jonathan—put on a magic show. We were going to play a game of soccer, but then Lao asked us to cook an American supper for 17 people, so we needed to hurry off to the market to get the appropriate food. We decided to make hamburgers, fries, and cookies. However, when we found they didn’t have an oven, we converted it to being cookie dough ice cream.


    Phil and a kid from the orphanage


    Arlin and the resident magician exchanging magic tricks


    Naomi and orphanage kids


    A lady working in the rice paddy near Lao’s house


    Some older people smoking and playing cards

    It took a long time to cook in their outdoor kitchen with unfamiliar tools, but after several hours, we—the six of us working together—accomplished it. It was interesting to be on the other side of the cultural food barrier—we sat there on the floor watching as they ate slowly with unfamiliar eating methods and foods while we gulped down familiar food in a comfortable fashion.


    Mixing hamburger and making patties


    Washing potatoes


    Chopping potatoes into fries


    Mixing cookie dough


    The crazy cooking crew we had flipping burgers and frying fries


    Eating supper, at long last!


    We helped wash dishes, Vietnam style, even though they did their best to insist that they would do it

    That night I used a VoIP phone to call my family and talked with them for a while with crystal clear quality for $0.025 per minute.

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 5

    13Sep
    Categories: Personal Comments: 0


    Meeting for our own morning meeting at the break of day

    This morning we started the day with a soccer game—the championship of the tournament—right after a breakfast of noodles and ostrich meat. After that the Americans—except Phil and Josh—went on a horse carriage ride around the camp. The camp has an amazing menagerie of horses, crocodiles (hundreds for meat), ostriches (hundreds for meat), bears, monkeys, peacocks, fish, and all sorts of other creatures.


    Peacock


    Ducks and herons


    A friend and I


    Arlin about to make yet another spectacular save


    The soccer championship in full swing


    A very energetic young man who was all over the field and whose highest goal was not to stay on his feet


    More soccer!

    When we got to the ostriches, we got out and rode them! It was awesome! We sat on the ostriches bareback with their wings draped over our legs. We held tightly to the wing, leaned back, and off they went running! The first time I got on, I was too far forward and slid over the ostrich’s neck while still in the loading dock. I did finally get on in the right position, , but the ostrich’s rear kept sinking lower and lower under my weight until I finally slid off the back after about 30 feet. Arlin and Lao got more complete rides.


    Arlin nervously (they kept making threatening motions with their beaks) cheesing with the ostriches


    Riding the ostrich!

    Video of Arlin and I riding ostriches can be found on YouTube (0:35) or you can download a higher quality WMV (4.38 MB, 0:35).


    Ostrich riding


    The bear pit


    Another bear

    We then had the closing service of camp in which we reviewed the English songs, had speeches, gave gifts, etc.

    For lunch we had sun dried fish stirred into some pungent black sauce. All of my Vietnamese table mates were quite certain that I wouldn’t like it, but I downed it with relish and asked for more. Fong came over to our table and when he found that I liked the stuff, he said, “Now you are qualified to have a Vietnamese wife because you can eat the Vietnamese food.” Shortly thereafter Pon—who is majoring in English and speaks excellent English—told one of the guys in Vietnamese to tell me that she wanted my phone number. I replied by telling her that I would give her my email address because my phone number(s) are very varied and without permanence: Home telephone number in VA, cell phone in VA, VA Skype number, Thailand cell phone, Thailand landline number, SMBI phone number, KS home number, Vietnam cell phone, etc. She later gave me her phone number and email address as well. She was actually more capable of asking in English than the person she asked to ask me, so I’m not sure if it was simple shyness or some sort of cultural thing.

    At the end of lunch, the Americans went over to another table where Fong had ordered grilled crocodile meat for us to sample. We did and it was awesome!


    The crocodile meat being cooked


    You’d think the crocodile wasn’t quite dead yet!

    We then packed our things, reboarded buses, and bid farewell to camp and some of the many friends we had made. Many of the path-followers were from Saigon, so we would see them more throughout our trip, but some of them were from other towns and villages in a several hour radius.

    We then returned to Fong’s house and relaxed there for a while. I worked for a bit trying to get the c’s digital camcorder—which had recorded camp—to work on his Firewire port. He had found a hotel within sight of their house in which we stayed the night. It was a brand-new hotel and we were the only occupants. We paid $12 per night for the ladies’ room with a queen bed and $17 for the humongous men’s room with two queens. We had a large jacuzzi style tub in our bathroom—the first time I recall seeing a tub in Asia. To quite literally top it all off, there was a nice swimming pool on the roof.


    Emily singing lullabies and rocking Arlin to sleep in the hammock on Fong’s living room

    That night for supper we went to a small restaurant a few minute’s walk from the hotel. We had a veritable feast of boiled shrimp, rice, chicken, seafood fried rice, fried pork, and lemonade. They brought out a burner and set a pot on it. Arlin curiously lifted the lid to see what it was and with a loud snap a humongous live shrimp jumped out! That mightily startled the entire table! Another highlight of this luscious meal was the chicken. All of the chicken—sans the feet—was there including the head. Arlin ate the head with much clowning. In fact, the entire evening entailed quite a bit of clowning on the part of Arlin, Josh, Phil, and Lao. We had the restaurant staff—a family—laughing at us quite a few times throughout the night. Our tab was enormous by Vietnamese standards—400,000 dong—but puny—$26 ($3 per person)—by American standards.


    Eating supper


    Our jumbo shrimp, this time being properly removed from the pot via chopsticks


    Eating the shrimp


    Some of the wonderful fried pork


    Arlin seek to assuage his tongue with a wet washcloth after having eaten something quite hot


    Arlin posing with his portion of the chicken


    Singing in the hotel room

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 4

    12Sep
    Categories: Personal Comments: 0

    This morning Fong tried to wake us quite early, but we rolled over and went back to sleep for half an hour or so. We were still quite exhausted. I was in the mood to simply skip breakfast in favor of the more valuable sleep. I finally did get up and took a shower. Unfortunately, while there was a hot water knob, it did not produce hot water. While I was in the shower all soaped up, the water quit. I stood there for about 5-10 minutes before I discovered that if I turned it all the way cold, a small trickle would issue forth. So I got most of the soap out—I discovered some in my hair later—and went to our main area. My team was in a huddle in our tent decoding the riddle/cipher problem on a piece of paper that led to the treasure of a treasure hunt. The pastor saw me arrive and brought be a garlic and tofu sub that was the breakfast fare. I munched on that while my team chattered in Vietnamese and frantically scribbled on a piece of paper working the puzzle out. Pon—who is an English major in university and quite smart—was the person who was the leading decoder and scribbler. All of sudden they jumped up, motioned for me to follow, and took off running for the next clue. We went all over the place having to do things—one person from the team jump in the lake, the whole team waddle like ducks, throw one person in the pool, have a person jump in the canal—to get the clues. After each clue was procured, everyone got in an Asian squat huddle and worked on the fitting the clue in and discovering our next destination. At one clue station, some people from our team had to carry me over a wall and then back again. They struggled with my 220 lb. body, but managed it after dropping me a few times. Then we had to carry about 5 people 20-30 feet. Most of them were carried by two people, but when I just picked up the biggest guy there and carried him by myself. This did not help to correct their mistaken notion that I am a strong person.


    Carrying Arlin around for the treasure hunt


    Eating lunch


    Doing weird stuff to earn our next clue


    Josh, after being deposited on a rock after being manhandled in a treasure hunt activity

    Next up was lunch. After that we went to our cabin and we practiced “Who Am I?” and took naps. We then went to main tents and the Americans got up front and sang, played, and taught some English songs to the Vietnamese youth. The songs were “Pass a smile around”, “This is the day”, and “Peace like a river”.


    Singing for fun


    Practicing “Who Am I”


    A picture with one of my good friends clowning in the background


    Another example of the beautiful campground

    After that came a soccer tournament in which each of the four teams played each other. They put me in at goalie, much to my dismay and damage to our scores. I let in a tournament-high three goals. However, once again they found a place to lift me up. I blocked—not on purpose, I just happened to be standing there—one fairly hard shot at the goal with my chest. It bounced quite a ways off and I stood there unfazed. I found out later from Lao that the camp was abuzz at how strong I was by blocking that shot. (*sigh*)


    Soccer!


    More soccer


    Arlin, always the hero when it came to soccer (remember Bangladesh?), blocking a shot


    One of the goalies demonstrating during a game what was my normal practice when playing goalie


    Simply having a blast


    Eating watermelon while watching the game


    The beautiful moon shining through the palm trees


    The pool


    Eating supper in one of the campground’s restaurants; Pon is in the middle


    That night when we got back to our cabin, we found thousands of ants crawling up the walls. Josh sprayed copious amounts of Axe underarm deodorant at them in a vain attempt to exterminate them.


    Our insectoid friends

    The guys went for a midnight swim and when they returned, the ants had mysteriously disappeared.

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 3

    11Sep
    Categories: Personal Comments: 1

    The next morning we got up fairly early and walked into town. We met a bunch of other C’s in front of one of their small house c’s and hopped in one of two buses they had chartered. We drove outside of Saigon until we got to a beautiful campground. We stopped at the large wooden gate and the guards came out, opened the gate, and we all walked in with our backbacks.


    An example of the beautiful flowers that populate the campground


    Unloading at the campground

    The camp event was for youth and we youth divided into four groups of 15-20 each. We all took off our sandals, sat on one of the name, and rested our feet on the other sandal in traditional Vietnamse style. We sat in a circle and introduced ourselves. Several people in my group had broken English and they translated for me. Next we went over to our four large tents that sat in a row and spent some time decorating them with lights, cut out paper, banners, palm branches, bamboo, and little red flags. The camp leaders then came around and did something that was incomprehensible (it was in Vietnamese) but apparently was hilariously funny.


    Our four group tents


    Fast friends


    The American group


    One of the beautiful restaurants in the campground


    Teaching English songs

    That afternoon, we had a cooking contest. Each of the teams was given raw ingredients and had to cook supper for themselves. It was great to sit out there on the ground chopping onions, squashing garlics, and roasting my fingers along with the meat on a stick. Also interesting was the first marriage probe. There were four of us sitting there—myself, an older single guy, and the two most beautiful young ladies in our group (Lan and Pon, as I shall call them)—and the guy asked me if I had a girlfriend. I, of course, answered in the negative. All of us could speak fairly good English, so this wasn’t a private conversation. Next he asked if I liked Vietnamese women. I replied that I thought they were “very nice” but I hastened to add that I was interested in none in particular. He extolled Lan’s virtues by saying, “She is a very good cook!” The ladies kept working but I could tell they were concentrating on more than cutting meat into small strips. The guy ended the conversation by conceding, “You are still young.” I heartily agreed. No winner (for the cooking supper, that is) was officially judged, but I believe we won hands down. One of our team members—Lan—owns a restaurant and has won prizes for her cooking. We had a very nice looking and good tasting supper!


    Cooking supper


    Our finished supper


    The alligators that are raised for meat there at the camp


    Alligators


    Teasing the alligators


    More alligators

    That evening after supper, I was sitting out on the edge of the field with one of my closer friends—Jang, who speaks good English and plays in the band—and we were talking about the camp’s theme, which is “Who am I?” I asked him if he knew the Casting Crowns song “Who Am I?” He excitedly replied that he did and we sat there in the fading light and sang it together for a while. After we finished, he eagerly begged me to sing the song (while he played guitar) for the service that night. I demurred, but agreed to try to do so the next night after I had a chance to practice. He later suggested that Phil and Josh play guitar for it while Arlin and I sang.

    That night we went out to a field where a stage was set up and the worship team played praise and worship songs. There were also a number of other events, one of which was a little David and Goliath skit in which I was Goliath—they kept exclaiming all throughout the camp how big and strong I am (based only upon my large size)—and a little boy was David. I had a large metal stake for a spear, a motorbike helmet on my head, a pot lid for a shield, a wooden “sword” stuck in my carpenter pants’ hammer loop, a cape, and a large French mustache and further thickened eyebrows drawn on with makeup.


    Their augmented idea of what Goliath looked like


    Goliath in regalia

    They had a large man with the words “Who am I?” (in Vietnamese) formed from wire encased in fluff drenched in kerosene which they lit later in the evening. We danced around the flaming man and bonfire singing to dad and playing games. Throughout the evening, we were recruited to come up on stage and help lead singing.


    P&W


    P&W


    P&W


    The burning “Who Am I?” man

    Late at night after that was over, we went back to the four tents and had the option of eating some noodles in a cup. I declined and went straight to bed because I was exhausted. Us four guys had a small cabin.

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 2

    03Sep
    Categories: Personal Comments: 4

    Day 2
    Tuesday

    The next morning we got up early and went back to the same place we ate the night before for a very good breakfast. I had apple juice, an omlette (with cheese and ham), and wonderful, hard, European bread. I don’t know why that was on their menu, but it was. I was expecting a Vietnamese twist, but it was a straight up European style breakfast and it was wonderful!


    Eating breakfast right next to the street left us vulnerable to the many street vendors walking by hawking their wares


    Breakfast!


    Street vendor walking along in Saigon

    Then Lao—as I shall call Fong’s wife—hailed a taxi and we all clambered in and she took us to the market. We walked through the dimly lit market—it was on a narrow street that had canvas overhangs that made it a covered street—and were on the receiving end of a lot of curious stares—I doubt too many Americans have recently walked the Vietnamese markets of Saigon.


    Just some of the amazing variety that was to be had in the market

    Next, we headed to the bus station and took a bus to the edge of town near where Fong and Lao lived. We got off the bus by a supermarket and they ferried us to their house with three motorbikes.


    Josh and Arlin sacked out on the bus

    They live back a little dirt track that runs beside a railroad, about halfway between two small paved roads. Their three room (living room, bedroom, bathroom) house is set in a nice little fenced and gated courtyard. We went in to lovely AirCon and a nice leather couch. That afternoon the ladies went to the orphanage and played with the kids.


    Phil wolfing down a standard issue Asian whatchamacallit. It’s fairly standard Asian fare, but I don’t know the name for it. It’s a pastry-like thing with meat inside.


    Kids at the orphanage


    Emily playing with the kids

    In the evening, the worship team from the church game to Fong’s house and rehearsed along with Phil, Arlin, and Josh for the English camp. The guys—including Fong and one of the worship team members—slept in their living room. The ladies—including Lao—slept in their bedroom.


    Rehearsing for camp

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  • Hi-def Video: A380 Lands in Chiang Mai

    03Sep
    Categories: Personal, Photos, Tech Comments: 0

    We were privileged (mainly due to Thai Airways’ order for a couple of A380s) to be recipients of a visit by the new Airbus A380, the world’s largest airliner. It landed at Chiang Mai airport in part to demonstrate that the A380 can land at secondary airports without difficulty.

    We went out to a footbridge over Hang Dong road near the airport to watch it land. We waited in the hot sun for a long time while the schedule kept getting pushed back. The A380 had scraped its wing on a hangar door in Bangkok and finally they simply removed the vertical winglet on the wings.

    Without further ado, here’s the hi-def video (taken with my Canon TX-1) of the plane landing:

    2:44
    Hi-def: MPEG-2, 1280×720, 376 MB
    Hi-def: WMV, 1280×720, 9.5 Mbps, 153 MB
    Hi-def: WMV, 1280×720, 3.6 Mbps, 58 MB (While I’m sure a videophile could, I can’t tell the quality difference between these first three)
    Lo-Def: MPEG-4, 320×240, 1 Mbps, 22 MB (not recommended)
    YouTube

    Play the WMV files in something other than Windows Media Player. For some reason WMP squishes it down to 4:3 instead of properly displaying it at 16:9. (I recommend Media Player Classic.)

    Here are some pics that my good friend Darren took with his Canon 10D:

    Airbus A380 approaching Chiang Mai International Airport
    Airbus A380 approaching Chiang Mai International Airport

    Airbus A380 landing at Chiang Mai International Airport
    Airbus A380 landing at Chiang Mai International Airport

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  • Vietnam Trip - Day 1

    02Sep
    Categories: Christianity, Personal Comments: 0

    Day 1
    Monday


    Boarding the songtaew to leave school

    We left school early in the morning and went to the airport. On the flight to Bangkok, Arlin and I sat beside each other. We were talking about a parody we had written of Kokomo about IGo that we were going to sing for talent night. We decided that instead of singing it live, we should record it and make it into a music video. So I stood there in the aisle and videoed him sitting in the airplane seat lip-syncing some of the lyrics. When we got to Bangkok airport, he videoed me re-eneacting my running through the airport with two backpacks on my back and slipping on the tile floor, because the song mentions that incident in one of the verses. People looked at me a bit funny.


    Eating on our layover in Bangkok

    Eventually (after a 5 hour layover) we boarded our flight for Hanoi (Ho Chi Minh City) on Vietnam Airlines. We had been praying for a while that the bread would be safe and continued doing so on the flight. When we landed, we offloaded from the plane onto buses and drove up to the terminal. We then tried to go through immigration, but two things stopped us. Apparently the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok had issued the wrong type of visa to us. The lady immigration officer frowned and insistently told us that in the little English she knew. She said it multiple times spread over 5-10 minutes, each time pointing to the Visa type code (which was C1) on my Vietnamese visa. Then she apparently decided to let me through despite the incorrect visa type. However, I had not filled in my destination in Vietnam address. I had no idea what it was and didn’t really want to let Vietnamese customs know what it was even if I did know. She insisted that I fill it in. I told her that I had no idea. I told her we are staying at a hotel, but that a Vietnamese friend had arranged for it and I didn’t know which one. She told me to call the Vietnamese friend and find out. I told her I had no cell phone and didn’t know his number. She furiously punched around in her computer for a while and finally wrote “Saigon hotel” in the destination address blank. I smiled and thanked her for her time and effort and apologized for the difficulty and I was on through. I next waited for Arlin—we had split up in pairs rather than go entirely solo—and she figured out that he was with me and in the same lodging and visa boat, and so she skipped the grexing (griping) phase and wrote “Saigon hotel” and waved him through.


    Outside the Saigon airport

    Our contact, a Vietnamese man, met us outside the terminal and grabbed two taxis which we hopped into. We wended our way through the honking, disorganized traffic to the tourist sector of town where we checked into a small hotel. The traffic reminded me of Dhaka it was so very noisy (our taxi driver sounded his horn every 3-10 seconds) and so disorganized (cars merging everywhere in intersections—intersection trajectories are like a ball of yarn), except it was motorbikes instead of rickshaws.


    A rather orderly example of Vietnamese traffic


    One of the main squares in Saigon with the requisite symbols of Communism

    We were on our own for the evening. We walked around town. Flashing neon signs adorned nearly every shop, restaurant, or bar. Since we were in the tourist section, there were lots of Caucasians around. We walked past all sorts of vendors insistently hawking their wares. Every restaurant we walked past had people out trying to get us to come in. We finally went into one and went upstairs. It was beautifully decorated in oriental style. The waitress was beautifully dressed in a traditional royal blue Vietnamese outfit. We had a very good Vietnamese meal for $2 per person and then played pool afterwards.


    Phil playing pool

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