We're here!

So we're finally in Vietnam!

First, I would like to apologize for not posting until now. It's been a week since we arrived in Da Nang and even longer since we arrived in Vietnam, so this post is a bit overdue.

So, where to start? We first arrived in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) city on Wednesday, August 18th at about 10pm, and stayed there for the night so we could fly out to Da Nang the next day. It was an interesting night, to say the least. I decided to take a walk while the rest of the team went to bed. During my walk, I had my first bowl of Phở (Vietnamese noodle soup) in Vietnam, as well as my first drink of nước mía (sugarcane juice). I also got offered things that I've never been offered in my entire life before... I said no thanks.


My first bowl of Phở. Delicious.


The next day we got to Da Nang, and someone from our school picked us up at the airport. We were taken to a hotel and told to get ready for dinner, which was great. It was Jeremiah, Mr. H, Ms. D, and myself. A lot of delicious Vietnamese food was consumed, and we got to know about each other a bit more. They told us a bit about Da Nang, and informed us that we'd only be staying at the hotel for one night, and the next day we'd be moving to our house.


With our administration after dinner.

Speaking of house, it is pretty awesome. During training, we were told that we needed to keep our expectations low as far as any sort of commodities while in Vietnam. Well, our Father definitely heard us (and you) when we lifted the situation up, because our house is pretty awesome. We have one room per person, and one bathroom each. Here are some pictures:



The front of our house, and the entrance to our alley.

I started teaching on Tuesday. I am teaching three different groups: one pre-intermediate group, one beginner group, and a "kitty" group, which is what they call groups of 6-10 year olds.
Teaching has been going pretty good. The first class was not so good. For some reason, I decided to follow the teacher's guide word by word, instead of planning my lesson like I was taught during training. Since then, my classes have improved a lot, and I can tell my students are more interested and willing to participate. They are all very good students so far. I do have a couple of girls that giggle to each other from time to time, but oh well. I'll get better at classroom management as time passes. :)

It is a weird feeling knowing that my "occupation" is now that of an English teacher, and not an engineer.