Happy to be Back or Miss Being on Vacation?

The kids are most definitely the former, while I am decidedly the latter!

Just got back from our family vacation to Vietnam and it.was.freaking.amazing! I fell in love with Saigon from the moment we drove from the airport to our hotel, and my love affair has not abated. Saigon is one of the coolest cities I've been to in a very long time. Being there among the mix of old and new reminded me of why I fell in love with Asia in the first place. The neon lights and the smells of street food cooking in the hot summer night, the public parks (well maintained and brightly lit with lovely bushes trimmed into various animals and other objects) teeming with people enjoying their evening meals, taking a stroll, or doing some tai chi. The streets filled with motorbikes, taxis, and pedestrians, yet actual traffic jams are few because everyone follow the basic rules of the road. And the food. Oh the food! I gained 8 pounds in a week (no joke!) gorging myself on bread (Banh Mi is my new most favorite food ever!) and rice noodles (our guide delighted in taking us to local, off the beaten path places once he discovered our penchant for adventurous eating) like Pho Bo and Bun Bo Hue. And then, of course, there's the coffee. Even the shitty coffee in Vietnam is still pretty fucking good. The French influence in the food is astounding. A delicious mix of East meets West with a little cafe culture thrown in. It was so incredibly exhilarating. It was everything I had hoped Manila would be. I knew from the minute we touched down that this was a place I could live. So, yeah...I fucking loved it. :)

Besides just getting to hang out in Vietnam for 8 days, the other half of our vacation awesomeness was hanging out with my little sister and her husband and my little niece, L, who is about 1 1/2 now. It's always difficult vacationing with others, especially when you're doing it as an entire family, since everyone has their own needs and desires, but I think we managed ok. And I was thrilled to have the chance to hang with them a bit and really get to know my niece since we hardly ever get to see them thanks to our crazy lifestyles (we live in Asia, they live in Europe, and we all have family in the US that we also need to allot time and money to seeing), and I don't think we'll be seeing them again in person until Christmas 2014. So that was really, really great.

We started out our tour in Saigon for a few days, taking in the sights and sounds, and visiting the various war monuments and museums.* We even took the kids to a traditional Vietnamese water-puppet theater, which I was worried they might be bored with, but turned out to be highly entertaining. All of them were entranced! Then we left Saigon for a two day tour of the Mekong River. We cruised up the river stopping at various tourist-y sites (here's where the indigenous people make rice paper, here are some local fisherman making their daily catch, and here's a traditional song performance while we serve you hot tea in the sun with no aircon while it's 37 degrees out, etc. etc.). It was soul-suckingly hot, but everything we saw was interesting and I really felt no pressure to buy things (even though we did) as we left. We bought a crap ton of the coconut candy we saw being made (we got to try the fresh out of the pot stuff - it was soooo yummy!).

Then we stayed overnight in Can Tho and left very early the next morning to see the floating market where we had one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had ladled to us from the side of the boat by a floating mini-market dude. Crazy. We also crammed in a whole buncha Buddhist pagodas, although my sis and I were both surprised to find that most of these had been built within the last few hundred years. Not a lot of old stuff seems to be left in South Vietnam.

From Can Tho, we returned to Saigon for a day where our awesome guide, Alex, took us to a local joint in a different part of the city for Pho Bo. Hands down one of the best meals I've ever eaten! 

After that we were off to Mui Ne for a few days of beach relaxation, which we managed to turn into another marathon of activity by packing on the tours. First we went to the red sand dunes and fairy stream, which was a 2km hike through some truly gorgeous countryside. This was by far the kids' favorite tour. A got so dirty he practically blended in with the dunes, which made it difficult to pick him out when they went sand sledding! Bizarrely, this is also where the kids had the opportunity to ride an ostrich.** C's favorite part of the whole vacation? Getting to ride and then eat an ostrich all in one day.*** The Pu foodie genes run deep in that one!

Our second tour took us to an 8th century Hindu temple of the Champa people (the indigenous peoples of that region), which satisfied our need to see old stuff. I find the incredible mix of religions and cultures in Vietnam to be fascinating. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity sit side by side, along with a good amount of old Chinese beliefs like ancestor worship. I never realized what a veritable mixing pot it is. We also saw local fisherman, a fish market, and a temple to the whale god with a 500yr old whale skeleton, along with other local markets in the area where we stopped to haggle over some rubies and jade.

To top it all off, the 4 girls all took a cooking class and learned how to make Pho Bo. It's a bit time intensive but actually pretty simple to make. It was really fun for the girls to make their own food and then slurp it down! Best of all? They videotaped the whole thing for a promotional tool for their hotel, so we'll get a copy when it's all done.

Our final day was spent traveling back to Saigon from Mui Ne where we said goodbye to my sis and her family (they were headed on to Hanoi for another week of holiday). We hooked back up with our old tour guide Alex, who took us back out for some intense market shopping (and a stop at a Hello Kitty store!) and a hearty meal of Bun Bo Hue, which I thought was even better than Pho Bo.

It says a lot about the Vietnamese people that Alex not only offered, but happily came along for our last few hours of tour. He did it solely out of the kindness of his heart and his desire to show us more of his city ( and his food - he's from the Hue region!). We tipped him anyway since it meant a lot to us, but this was just one of several things that struck me about the Vietnamese people. Everyone was so kind, and they love children (as in most Asian cultures). There was one restaurant in particular in Mui Ne where we stopped for dinner (fresh fish and scallops on the grill for sis & I!), J was upset about something and crying when we walked in. The elderly owner fussed over her for a while, fixing her hair into a traditional bun, showing her the restaurant's puppy, Lucky, who hung around under our table throughout the meal (much to J's delight), and even painting her nails! It just blew me away.







Anyway, since no one will ever read all the way through this anyway. I guess what it boils down to is, we had an awesome time and had to come home way too soon. I absolutely fell in love with Vietnam, and Saigon in particular. The vibrance, color, and culture of the city just sung to me in a way I haven't felt since the first time I went to China. I would live there in a heartbeat! Too bad Vietnamese is even harder to learn than Chinese!!

*Pu review: very depressing, and totally worth seeing, but naturally a bit one-sided. It's much like seeing WWII historical sites in Japan. 
** A: Nooooo, I don't want to. Get me off, get me off! *ten seconds later* THIS IS AWESOME!!!! Buy me an ostrich, mama!!!
***She also tried alligator among other local delicacies.

Hello, Konichiwa, Very Nice to Meet'cha

Spent all last week and some of this one in Okinawa, Japan. It was so, so great being back in Japan. Husband and I have long debated whether or not we'd be willing to bid on a Japan post sometime in the future, and this trip really drove home the point that, yes, we would fucking bid on Japan in a heartbeat!* Everything about Japan is pretty much awesome. The food, the cleanliness, the order, the polite yet distant people. Oh, and I didn't even get to vending machine hot coffee yet. Japan freaking rocks.

Anyway, I was actually there for work purposes since I somehow managed to score a sweet TDY to help out at the Consulate there. It was really cool to experience such an incredibly different environment - small Consulate vs. large Embassy. I got to do a little of everything, and I really felt like my presence made a difference, which I guess is to be expected in a post with just a handful of officers. Every one is needed! I also got to attend a citizenship ceremony**, which is one of the coolest things I've ever witnessed. As Consular officers we see people at the start of their journey towards citizenship. We see them through the craziness that is American immigration law and get them to the point where they can legally enter the U.S. as intending immigrants, but that's pretty much where our role ends. So it was super cool to see the swearing in of some 30+ new American citizens.*** Bonus - the key note speaker was a Marine Corps O-4 Fil-Am who achieved his citizenship through the military. Then they played "Proud to be an American" (natch), and I was pretty much a sloppy mess. God, I love that patriotic shit.

So after my week of work, Husband flew out and we made a long weekend of it by pretty much seeing everything the island of Okinawa has to offer, and then spending an entire paycheck at the BX (one of the benefits of still being part of the military!). The weather cooperated for the most part, and we managed to avoid getting rained on even during the periods of occasional downpour.

The Ocean Expo Park and Aquarium is interesting, and the grounds are lovely, but we thought it was overpriced considering the rest of the island is pretty cheap (compared with mainland Japan, that is). Plus, the main draw of the aquarium are their pair of whale sharks and, well, we've already seen those up close and personal. :)

My favorite part of our visit? The various off-the-beaten-path castles. What can I say? It's in the genes. Stuff that hasn't been restored yet is always more interesting to me.

My other favorite part? The Okinawa Peace Park and the Japanese Navy Underground Headquarters. World War II stuff is always interesting to me, and it's even more interesting to see it from a different cultural perspective. The Okinawans really got screwed - caught between the Japanese and the Americans. Seeing some of those pictures and reading the testimonials made me tear up. No one likes war, but I think it is important for all of us to be reminded of its consequences every so often.

We also just generally enjoyed the food and the ambiance (and the vending machines!) :)

*We're booked through at least 2016, so the point is moot for now.

**Where I was one of the guests of honor! No, seriously!! They even said my name and made me make a little wave.

**Plus, that oath they take? It is no fucking joke! All citizens should have to take that oath when they hit 18, IMHO.

Fitness Friday: Burn Out

Oh mah gah, haven't done a fitness Friday in foh-evah. I know, you're all devastated. Well, tough shit. I can't blog about worky work* so you're stuck with this. Still pretty fucking awesome, huh? 102 and kickin' ass. What's your excuse?

Ok, so I've actually toned it down a bit lately. After all the marathon training, I was sooooooo burnt out that I kinds just didn't want to do anything. I actually ended up gaining a few pounds following our race because I just didn't feel like getting my butt out of bed yet I was still eating like I was in training mode. Not a good combination! Anyway, I've kind of been muddling through the last couple of month just doing whatever I felt like, which mostly wasn't cardio (especially after my AF pt test - now I had nothing to motivate me to keep the cardio going!). So when I tried to do an old tried and true HIIT workout a few days ago and I just about died, it hit me that I need to get back on the cardio train. The heart is like any muscle - it needs to be trained appropriately in order to keep functioning at its peak.

So, how do you get back in the saddle again after a major burn out? For me it's all about shaking up my routine and getting out of my comfort zone. After much cajoling, I sucked it up and overcame my fear of being trapped under the water and took up scuba diving. Turns out that I'm pretty fucking good at it and the fear is nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. We've finished our pool classes, so now it's on to underwater dives. It doesn't seem like you're moving around the much when you're under the water like that, but I am ravenously hungry after our lessons, so I must be burning some pretty good calories. I also decided to take my on-land fitness back in an old, familiar, and much-loved direction by adding dance back into my regime. I managed to score a used set of Dream Body workouts from Fitness Fusion. I think in conjunction with my Buti classes, these are seriously going to kick me in the ass. I need a little funk in my fitness to keep me happy! Plus, these are the perfect workouts to keep me company while I galavant off on my mini-tour of SE Asia. First up? Japan. Konichiwa, bitches!

 *that just auto-corrected to wormy work, hah!

Don't Panic!

Still getting out of our comfort zone. Stay tuned for more video when we go for our first open water dive in April!
 

*Sorry, can't figure out how to flip the picture the right way up, so you'll just have to tilt your heads!

Adventuring

Well, I can definitely say that Husband and I are stepping it up in the getting out-of-the-house department. We spent a lovely evening out last night at the historic Manila Hotel with some friends from work. Our friend P did such a great write-up, that I'm just going to link to her post in hopes that it distracts you from my lazy-ass refusal to write my own synopsis. We've been on a foodie roll lately. The Champagne Room at the Manila Hotel had excellent service, good drinks (at least I thought the signature cocktail was pretty good, and we were impressed to see a 2006 Chilean wine on the menu considering this is the land of Yellow Tail). I enjoyed my main course, which was a mixed seafood grill over risotto (the rice was not great but certainly the closest thing I've had to real risotto in the Philippines, while the seafood was excellent). The only real disappointment for me was the foie gras starter, which originally emerged from the kitchen doused in some kind of sugared coating similar to the crust of a creme brûlée but even sweeter. It was so overpowering that I couldn't even taste the foie gras, so I sent it back. They asked if I would like it without the sweet toppings, and I agreed, so they ended up bringing me out a cold version that basically tasted like the canned foie gras that you can get at the market. All in all, most of the food came out a winner (the rest of our party seemed pretty pleased with their choices) and the ambiance and service were really nice, so I would recommend a stop at the Champagne Room. Too bad we didn't get a chance to see the MacArthur Room!

This morning we had quite the adventure trying to find the Philippines version of the DMV. In order to get a rental car for my TDY to Japan, I need to score myself an international drivers license. I'm got an American one and a Filipino one, but no international license for me. Apparently all that's required is filling up a form (that's right, filling up not filling out), paying a fee, and voila! international drivers license. Unfortunately, this simple process is made less simple by the fact that the DMV is hidden using some kind of invisibility spell and guarded by security who turn you away when you are hot on its trail. We spent a good two and a half hours driving around Manila on the hunt. We actually found it within the first half hour but were foiled by the security guard at the front desk who informed us that "this is just offices" and turned us away. Then we tried to locate the address on the actual form, which was on the other side of Manila, and it turned out to be the old address that the DMV had moved from some months or years ago (it was not clear given the dinginess and fading of the old sign we managed to find hanging above the brand new drug store that had taken its place). In spite of our relative failure (still no license), I was actually pretty proud of our navigation skills considering that we actually found both buildings.

We spent the rest of the day shopping (oh the money I dropped at S&R today) and doing some spring cleaning. So I am pretty much wiped out. We were supposed to meet up with some other friends of ours in the Fort for dinner at a tapas restaurant called Las Flores, but I was just too damn tired after our crazy day. Baby steps, people, baby steps. Tomorrow I think we'll hit the Legazpi Market early and then spend the rest of the day just relaxing in the pool. Summer is full on here now, and it is freakin' hot!