June 30th

June 30th Figuring Things Out
Today was a teaching day, but only from 7am to 10am. We had one class for two hours, 7:00 to 7:45 and 8:00 to 8:45, then another class for just one hour, 9:00-9:45. Tomorrow will be the same schedule, then we are off for 3 days. Hopefully, next week we will have the ‘regular’ schedule that we planned on. It remains to be seen. However, it should be fine, as the students are coming back from break and starting classes full force next week. I guess they were on summer break these last couple of weeks. It turns out it was a nice way to ‘get our feet wet.’
The school graciously does our laundry for us. I don’t know what I’d do without them. I do wash several things by hand in my hotel room, particularly my delicate shirts and most of my underwear, but they do the bulk of it. Thank God! I’d be doing laundry all day and trying to find a place to hang it in here to dry! As it is, it often looks like a clothing store in here when we go to bed. It’s kinda cute. I seem to bring them a small bag of laundry every 3 days or so. We only brought one suitcase packed with both our clothes, so we need to wash often. I didn’t see any point in bringing two big suitcases to a country that sells luggage and mass amounts of clothes at the markets! I’m looking to buy a Coach suitcase before we go home. I saw one at Cholon market last week, so I’ll go back there and get it one of these days.
Today, Nguyen’s cousin met us at noon and showed us the closest internet café. It’s a lovely little place about 5 minutes from the hotel. We had coffee there and then walked back to the hotel so that we were sure we could find it.

Tonight she’s coming back at 6:30 to take us to Hahn Thong Tay, the Night Market. It is only open from 6:00 pm to ??? It’s a one of a kind.  We’re excited. Plus, it’s only about 10 minutes from our hotel—walking. We are doing a LOT of walking. It’s our preferred mode of transportation.
I also showed her a couple of things in my Lonely Planet book that I want to see: the Giac Lam pagoda, the oldest in HCMC, and the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre. We are going to both next Tuesday. She is also hunting down the ‘ca phe chon’ or, in Anthony’s and my translation, ‘weasel poop coffee.’ Actually, I think they feed it to ferrets, then wash it off and dry and roast it, but same family. You probably heard about it in the movie The Bucket List. Anyway, I noticed a few days ago that there were huge tarps of something drying in the park and on the sidewalks outside my hotel during the day. Today, I took a picture of that. Yup, coffee beans. I haven’t figured out if they are the weasel poop kind. I hope so!!