A Glimpse of Life Here

Hi everyone!

We've been in our home a week now and in Da Nang for nearly two, and life is beginning to take on a rhythm.  It's not yet the routine of normal life, but it's closer.  We'll start school for the kids this week (Vietnamese schools have just begun as well), and we are still waiting to hear when Tim's classes will start.

I was looking through our pictures so far and realizing that there are many stories still untold, so in this post I'll give just a few pictures that cover a variety of aspects of our life here, and then we'll add details in the days to come.  You'll start hearing directly from the kids, too, since writing blog entries will be a requirement in their schooling each week!

First up, this is our house.  It's brand new, which is a first for us!  It looks impressively large from this view, but it is not very deep.  The second picture shows the view of the living room/kitchen/dining area from the stairs, and you can see that the room is narrow in one direction and long in the other.  All the houses here are tall and skinny, but since ours is on the corner, we have windows the width of the house instead of at the two skinny ends.  This gives us a lot of light and fresh air, but also exposes us to more heat.  Since it's a new building, we don't have the mature trees that our neighbors have.

We have three stories plus a rooftop patio that is becoming a garden.  I'll let Tim write about that since it's been his passion to get plants and furniture up there.  It's going to be fabulous as soon as it's not too hot to enjoy it!  We have three bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms, and some extra spaces that will become game rooms or such.  Right now we're clinging closely to our air-conditioned bedrooms and haven't finished setting up the other rooms.  Our neighborhood is wonderful. We expected to live surrounded by the noises of city life (and we have some of that), but instead we have a neighbor who plays light jazz on his saxophone after dinner.  It's lovely.

Currently our main activities include going to English Club at the Vision English Cafe, shopping for household goods, and going to the beach.  Tim told you about shopping in the last post, but I found this picture of all of us riding the "rampscalator," as the kids have named it.  If you've been in multi-level grocery stores in major cities you've seen them--they're escalators that are made for shopping carts to be able to go on them without continuing to roll.  The boys think they're the greatest thing ever.

Here's a picture to go with what Tim told you about the Vision English Cafe. This is the second floor room where English Club happens. Anna enjoys being the volunteer leader for one of the groups, but the boys mostly go for the smoothies. And because they have to.  Daniel and Esther have been really kind to us, driving us places in their car, and taking us out for Korean food.

  

And then there's the paradise aspect of living in Da Nang.  For $4 per person we can swim in this pool. After playing in the surf and sand first, then rinsing off in a shower spouting from a palm tree.

The Vietnamese all go to the beach at two times of day only: early in the morning (5:30-7:00), or late in the afternoon (4:30-7:00).  This picture was taken at 9:00am, and we had the place to ourselves.  Only non-Asian tourists are on the beach the whole rest of the day because the locals prefer not to be in the full sun.  It's nice to know when and where we can go to be alone, but after this first visit we've gone during the local times in order to match our daily rhythm to theirs.  Only once did we make it out at sunrise, but it's something I'm going to work at making happen regularly.  It really is a marvelously refreshing way to start the day--everyone is out exercising at that time, either swimming or doing various calisthenics on the beach or participating in a dance class in the park, all with the glorious backdrop of the sun rising over the ocean.  Then, about 6:30, most everyone leaves to get on with their day.  The days that I've gotten myself out first thing in the morning like that (to the beach is best, but even walking the neighborhood helps), I don't feel as hot as when I get up and the weather is already steamy.

         

Our initial stomach upsets and dehydration headaches seem to have subsided, so we are well on our way to enjoying a year of soaking up life, Vietnam-style.

Love,

The Foreign Five (that's Daniel's name for us)