The Glorious Empire of Snellopy - World Tour

Well, this is the only photo foolish me took of Vancouver. None of Fazar, his tail and his foxes, none of Fozzie, none of the scenery.

Vancouver

Hopefully, I'll be more diligent on the rest of the trip.

At the beginning, it looked like there wouldn't be any photos at all. 7 in the morning, I was running around like a blue arsed fly, trying to remember where I put my camera. I could remember downloading the last lot of photos off it, but I couldn't recall if that was at school, downstairs at home, or upstairs in my bedroom. The cleaner arrived, and I'm still running around like a spastic, but had to stop and show her that we wanted the turtles fed, and that I'd be back on the 11th. I walked in to school, hoping not only that I'd left my camera there, but that Lan Anh or Luyen would be there. It'd be just dandy, looking through the window and seeing it on the desk, and being locked out till one of them showed up, as I'd loaned my key to Louie so she could hide from work in there, playing on the internet. But no camera, so back home I race, and pack a final pair of shorts, and what do I see? My camera. That's right, I'd put it in my case the night before so I wouldn't forget it.

The flights to Vanouver were pretty standard, though the one from Hong Kong was 14 hours. Plenty of time to sleep, read, and listen to music.

I was met at the airport by Fazar, and we got a taxi to his place, $45, thanks very much. Then I had a meal and a few beers with a couple of his mates, and then off to the Harry Potter movie. I'll have to get dad to watch it too.

It seems no matter what timezone I am in, I'm hardwired to wake up at quarter to six. Fazar had to work, so I wandered in to town, and caught Transformers, as I didn't know when it would be screening in Hanoi.

I toddled off for lunch and fell asleep while I waited for my beer to rock up, and then for my burger to arrive. Not good, as it was about 2, and Fazar didn't get off work till 5:30. It was then I realised I should have got the keys off him. I window shopped till he was home, then went back and had a quick kip.

We headed out, and I met a bunch of his mate, and yarned to them. A good bunch, and no-where near as weird as he portrayed.

The next morning was a write-off, as we installed and burned about 50 games, before we finally hit on one that would go - and we spent the morning playing Battlefield, probably a good intro ready for the LAN, though I'll be making sure I flog a mouse there.

Off to the airport, another $45, and jump through all the hoops, ready to wait for the plane. It was a hard battle staying awake again, but I managed it, only to be told that the plane needed repairs, and we would be boarding later.

It turned out to be much later, as after sitting on my arse in the airport for 6 hours we finally took off. Of course, that meant my connecting flight was shot, but I had a new one the next day. Got in to Denver about 2 AM, and the promised pre-booked hotels were not real. As snarky other customers started baring up at the poor buggers working the desk, I grabbed my thing, and snuck out. Finally got to the room, rang the folks, and sacked out.

Though I was tempted to ring Seth, and find out how he was getting to the LAN, I decided against it as United still had my bag hostage, and was sending it on the next available flight. Interesting, as the next available flight is leaving now, and my plane goes in an hour or so. Good thing Fozzie is in there to guard my shit.

Happily, BC is willing to wait till I get there before he goes to the LAN, so I will still arrive in splendour, just a bit later, that's all.

While I've been sitting at the airports and on the planes, there is one thing I can't fail to notice - Holy Shit, but are Seppos fat! Not all of them, but the proportion is high. I'd go as far to say that there's more people that are comparable to Jabba the Hutt than hot chicks, which is nnot a good thing for a country's wellbeing. Going the quiet perv is a bit of a challenge here, and it pisses me off no-end to think of all my mates, like Kate and Sara, but especially Vietnamese girls, like Thuy and Lien who reckon they're fat. Mate, there's plenty of porkers getting round in pairs of pants, in which Thuy could stand in one leg, and Lien in the other, and they could get around like Siamese twins.

Ah well, I'll be in South Dakota soon, with beers and a network connection. I can't belive that you can only have that sweet, sweet internet if you have an American ISP, that's crazy! In Hanoi, as long as you aren't sitting on blue plastic kiddy chairs like in a Bia Hoi, then everywhere has free wifi. Oh well

Since I always have my camera with me, there are not very many photos of me. I know I'm not very photogenic, and most of my mates are happy to carry on in front of a camera, which leaves me relatively safe behind the shutter. Those that do get taken of me get downloaded to my machine, so it is rare for them to see the light of day.

But since I'm here on another continent, meeting people who have never met me before, it might help if they know who to look for. More truthfully, this is a picture of my current hat, and there surely can't be that many people with poor fashion sense that two of these numbers will get off the plane at once.

New Hat

Righto, now its posted, I can link to it on the MHOC forums, so that they all know which hat to buy beers for.

So over a month ago, Lan Anh says that the 13th is important to her, but I missed what month and why due to daydreaming, or kids, or whatever. So I started getting stressed on the 13th of June, trying to find out if it was her birthday, or wedding anniversary, or what. She said no, it was next month. So I had a month of bugging her trying to find out what it was.

Turns out it was the anniversary of her father's death, which is a big thing over here, with all the ancestor worship stuff. Stephen and I were invited over (the only non-family members to get a guernsey to the event). She took us upstairs, and introduced us to her father, said a quick prayer and then downstairs we  went with her in fine spirits. It started off a bit surreal, as the first guest in the door was 70 if he was a day, and it was Lan Anh's step-father. Now is probably a good time to point out that Lan Anh's father died in the war, and he was fighting on the North Vietnam side. The bloke walking in would have served too. But the great thing about over here is there is no bitterness towards westerners. I can just imagine if you were at a family gathering of Aussies remembering  someone who had died in a POW camp and you invited a Japanese friend along... every family has the equivalent of a bitter, racist uncle whose comments get more and more pointed the more piss he sinks.

But not here, its awesome. Admittedly, we didn't have much Vietnamese, and the old fellow (and most of the other senior boys we were sitting with) had little  English, but Lan Anh's  husband speaks it better than he thinks, and another young buck was with us at the table, and it was all good... after all, a toast is a toast, and pulling faces at the effect of the third shot of straight vodka is practically universal. It was a jovial night all round.

As usual, Lan Anh's husband (must try and remember his name, but as always, mate serves me well  :P ) , Stephen, and I get pretty mashed - but not as wasted as the first time there, my my that was great. Speaking of which, here's a couple of pictures as an example:

Mr. Lan Anh and Lan Anh

Apparently Mr. Lan Anh isn't normally very expressive of his feelings, but that's easily fixed in the form of some dutch courage in the form of a  bottle of wine, a bottle of Famous Grouse, and a couple of beers. A damn shame I wasn't sitting straight on, as  Lan Anh's face would have been better than the back of her head. Oh well.

Thuy and Lan Anh

And the coup de grace of the evening:

Headlock

It looks like Mr. Lan Anh has Stephen in a headlock.What's happened is they both passed out on the couch, Stephen has slid slowly and gracelessly over onto his lap, and Mr. Lan Anh has put his arms around his wife -  or so he thinks :P Lan Anh refers to Stephen often as Mr. Elephant, and in one sense its very true... to wake him up is an absolute bastard, the best system I have found is repeatedly flicking and poking his nose and ears. Eventually I  use his hands to do the job, as he does at times grab your hand and tries to swat it, thinking it is a fly or something.

Damn, but it was a good weekend.

Friday night, dinner with a kid, their family and her.

Saturday night, guitar performances with Thanh, Stephen and her.

Sunday night, barbie, with the usual crew.

3 nights running, and 2 nights on the back of her bike for a while, and I met her mother.

How good is life at the moment, I mean really? And I'm not even drunk in America yet!

Jeez, I can't wait till then.

So I was yarning to a mate of mine who is being promoted to the position of principal of a new school down south when the school year starts in August. If the current principal at our school left or took another position in the company, he'd be our boss, and all would be great.

As a precursor to his new position, he went down to Hue to shake babies and kiss hands of the movers and shakers down there. He was his normal ocker self (slightly toned down, due to lack of booze, but he was still living large) and had a grand old time, winding people up, being himself, and generally releasing felines amongst pigeons.

The big cheese of our company was down there, and talking to him about many many topics, and there had been a few brainstorming sessions about staff (current and those leaving) and what they could do for the company. My name came up, and was suggested for management positions, which I laugh at with scorn (and openly in the bosses face, last time he asked me) as I hear they involve paperwork and stuff. I might even have to liaise with parents. Yuck. But out of the blue he says he knows about me and the girl I like on staff... my mate is floored, even though Ricky goes on to  say its all normal its all natural. Haha, if he only knew how far it went. My mate was laughing his arse off, but was surprised all the same.

Surely I'm laying it on too thick if the bloody boss of the company (who has spent a grand total of about 12 days at our school since I've been here) knows I'm sweet on someone. I sure as hell haven't told anyone but allies, and I'm certain she wouldn't be blabbing.  And there I was thinking I was ogling in a subtle and dignified way.

To a certain degree, Aussies are an equal opportunity race. We know we're hot shit, and generally assume that everyone else is, too... apart from those of us that are raging rednecks. So tipping really doesn't fly in Australia. I'm a teacher by trade, which is a service industry. No-one goes "my kid is no longer a knuckle dragging thug" Or "my teenager isn't trying to top themselves and has stopped wanting to sleep with blokes with tattoos on their faces" followed by "here's a pile of money". If they do, we get busted for bribery, corruption, or liking little girls, like, really liking them or something. Its crap. So you don't tend to see people lashing out and leaving extra money behind.

I do for taxi drivers when I'm drunk, as a thank you for driving smoothly so I don't throw up in their glove box, plus I don't want to wait while they fish around in their jocks for a 50c coin. Tipping in a restaurant is generally unheard of, unless there is a lot of you and you can't be arsed splitting the $2.30 in change, or there's some retards who believe its the right thing to do, and they tend not to be that common except in inner Sydney. The waitress might get a tip (a small one) if the food is awesome, the service is great, and she is hot. But it never seems fair to me, why should she get the dough for being able to carry my food without dropping it, as opposed to the chef who didn't sneeze in my food, or the dish pig who scraped the caked on cheese off with his thumbnail? Or even the bartender, someone even more closer to our hearts. The number of barmen who get tips is miniscule, because they may add  up to one for the road at the end of the night.

Here, things are different. We call the local currency monopoly money, because it is just crazy, there are too many zeroes. A million dong is about 100 Aussie (Its less, but we are lazy with our maths, drop a few zeroes and you're golden).Back home, it would be unheard of me to generally gad about with $100 Aussie in my back pocket. Here, there's normally a benjamin and somewhere between 1 and 2 mil, just because you never know what the go is. Stephen had a prang on Mary-Lou the other day, 500k and it was all smiles, though the other blokes thumb was connected to his hand by a tendon.

When things are bullshit cheap, tipping doesn't seem such a bad thing. Tonight, I had 2 beers, a pizza and stir fried prawns with straw mushrooms for 125,000 dong. Hell, I've been in pubs back home where 2 beers would set you back more than $12.50. Admittedly the pizza wasn't huge (and it was rather flexible in its topping selection, but its all good), but the point remains... who is going to hang around for something so little that we have 3 coins larger than the amount I'm going to get back? That's not to say we always tip, its always a toss up if we take it all with us, or leave something behind.

Which brings me to America, where tipping is expected, and from what I've read, demanded. Y'all can get fucked.There was a great ad back home of a pizza delivery guy asking for a tip. Guy at the door "Be good to your mother" and slams the door in his face.

Blog ate most my post. Dammit. I was eloquent. I was in fine form. I even put the hyphens in the right place for  the phrase poo-rooting monkey-fuckers.

Damn, I'm sulking. Next time its control c, then control v into notepad.

I know when I wrote about a mozzie I said I was going to try writing more often. I forgot we were coming into report writing time. Now I'm as lazy as they come, and can flog anyone in a competition that proves otherwise. But I take pride in my laziness, its a well crafted affair, not some shoddy, assembly line shtick. Writing reports sucks arse, don't get me wrong. But kids are different, and they deserve different comments. Even if you've only done one topic all year for , it is not right to cut and paste a comment and just change the name. Even having 3 different comments (one for good, one for bad, one for in between) I still look down on. You and your partner took the time to spawn em, the least I can do is spend a moment rewording the same sentence for your kid. Sure, it might be on the same theme as all the other good/bad/in between kids, but it isn't a cut and paste. I am still to meet a report I can't spin shit and fill the report card in 10 minutes, and I've always had peers who need 30 minutes, the kids work book and their notes. Hey, buddy, if you don't know the damn kid, what the hell are you doing?

In my eyes, the best way to write reports is a large chunk of whiskey (or vodka, spirits is better than beer for the task), then open the most annoying kids report (or the one with the most feral parents) and absolutely go to town. Don't hold back. Cut loose. Put that hyphen between mother and fucker. Vent. Then delete, have another drink, and go through the kids alphabetically. And if it takes more than 10 minutes a kid (barring forgetting how to spell curly words because you have to look them up, or you're blatantly out of a drink or something) then it is obvious they aren't due tomorrow, so why are you stressing?

But there's a lot of creative writing going into reports. You have to phrase "the kid and parent should have been shot at birth" in encouraging, morale building terms. So I get home, and there's no way i hell I want to make up more stories. Then I remembered long ago, a competition based probably along the lines of my *favourite* book (the whinging about is another entry some day, when I have another another copy) called 100 Short Short Science Fiction Stories. Most were under 100 words, some were a bit longer. Admittedly, some had a 3 sentence title, but its all good, whatever works. Anyway, the competition was to write a one sentence story, not too many semi colons, and not too many commas (which I am the first to admit I am addicted to). Had some corkers ready to rock, needing a little bit of tightening up, then I stumble on the link to One Sentence Stories which is not only one sentence per story, but Real Life shit. Great fun, and awesome for wasting time at work when Lan Anh isn't watching me. They are supposed to be life changing moments, but some aren't. But lots are awesome.

So I will sulk, and eventually get around to fixing my one syllabul (flexible spelling due to drinking, and can't be arsed fixing) story, where no word is supposed to be longer than one syllabul.. But I so can't count for shit, so some could be wrong. I remember doing stuff in the library in my last school in Darwin, there would be the ESL teacher, the Librarian (this was me for a while when ours went on leave), the class teacher, and the kids. First thing in the morning, the kids are given a passage of text, and they are to colour nouns blue, adjectives green, and adverbs red, and then write them in order of syllabuls. Some kids have whispered me over to ask for advice "Guys, be fair, its early in the morning, I'm hung over, and I think an adjective is a kind of car or something. Go easy on me, OK?"

I hope when Dave Does America, that I write a bit, either while I am over there, or before it blurs into nothingness due to time and drink. It has been suggested that I should do it as a Grunt Smash-Kill trip, but I am not sure I have pictures of him still, and there is a chunk of people who won't know him. I'm also tempted to take a screenie of Fozzie and I, and superimpose them over all the pictures instead of me with all my mates. My parents are still having kittens, as there is a bit of ambiguity on the gender, let alone the name and address of the people I'm going to visit. My parents are in fear of me knocking on some door in middle America, and asking for Deathinator 5000, and being greeted either by a 12 yearold in plaits, or some butch dyke with graphic tattoos and biceps the size of my head. I'm not sure which scares them more. For me, its the former, as I love my job as a teacher, and it could be damn hard to convince a twelve yearold to buy me a drink. In a similar vein, Utah should be interesting, as should Minnasomething, and Kentucky. Mormons don't drink (or swear, or look at porn, as was pointed out to me once when I said on vent " but either I'm really drunk or I'm downloading too much porn, as I'm pinging like ". Apparently the one in the mason jar doesn't drink too, as he points out to me the times I'm really really drunk, and calling all and sundry to drink with me as I'm bummed out about something bad. Well, at least his decoder ring works most of the time.


Damn. that's a rather long post for what was going to be a short post saying I wasn't going to write. Time for sleep, I guess.

I feel like I should post, but maybe not. The general spiel of life is good, Hanoi is great, is all well and good, but it gets a bit repetative. Especially if you throw her in the mix to complicate things. A while ago I was yarning over IM and out of the blue got told I embarrass her any time I'm around and people are starting to ask her what's up. I can only assume my ogling was not as furtive nor as interspersed as I previously assumed. Where I thought things were going great guns, and we were hitting it off really well (I was nearly ready to almost maybe say how about it again), from the outside it probably looked liked I was staring fixedly at her left breast and drooling uncontrollably. But that's pretty suave for me. Oh well, after getting warned off, I struggle frantically to keep my distance, and she's around all the time - but hell, I'm not complaining, though I'm getting a bad crink in my neck by focusing on gables all the time to make sure.

So I wander in where all the staff are gossiping and giggling, and I get a couple of photos passed to me. I glance at them, and am about to hand them back, just opened my mouth to say "WTF would I want to look at some stupid supermodel's fashion shoot" when I realise its her. I say woah quietly, and triple take to make sure. I say woah a bit more forcefully, like an understudy for Keanu Reeves, and she steals the pictures off me. Thanh, the eternal trouble maker hands me another snap... this one, in black and white, with the dress/sheet/whatever hiked up to her thighs and a smouldering look on her face. Pretty much as the photons hit my eyes I realise its something I want to wallpaper my room with, but also realise its not something she'll want me to see, so I spin it round in my hand and pass it to her.

I ask when I can see the pictures, or at least the ones she'll vet through to me. She smiles and says "nope, never". I sulk a bit, then remember the last time there was a "nope, never" she gave me a website for her blog. A bit of digging, and blam! There they are. Sure they're cropped, sure you can't make them fullscreen, but lordy lordy, they are good. I must thank her tomorrow for giving me the link long long ago, and see if I get slapped or a demure "what did you think". I'm thinking it'll be the former, so I'll be looking for a new motorbike helmet, as mine isn't a full face number. But yeah, life is good, Hanoi is great

To come over to Vietnam, I put in for a year's leave without pay. I signed a 2 year contract when I got here. I'm not good with temporal mathematics, and didn't really see a problem at first. Then when I saw it, it wasn't that serious, as they hand out leave without pay for ages if you want it. I just apply for another year, no worries. Or, if the job here sucks, I can cut and run and return to a fanfare of trumpets to Darwin.

So I go through the motions of applying for extra leave, thinking its a shoe-in. Wrong! Denied, as per sub-section something, paragraph whatever. I look it up, and it has 4 bits to it: 1, you can't work while on the leave unless you tell the department first - check, done that. 2, you can't study while on leave, you have to take other leave for that - no worries. 3, If you want to come back early you have to warn them - not a problem. 4, something random, about turnips or whatever - it doesn't count in my case.

Ahh no worries, they just can't spell properly, that's all. So I email them back and find out what the go is. Apparently you only get one years leave for every 5 years of service. So no extra years leave for me.

Righto, well, I quit then. Resignation form was mailed off on Friday, but its a bugger trying to ring my old school to make sure it's been processed and not lost in the flurry of emails. The timezones aren't that out, but when I'm free to ring tend to be the busy times of the day for a principal. Finally get through, no worries, they'll take me when I'm done.

Well, looks like I'm here for a fair bit longer, so long as things keep kicking arse here. Worst comes to the worse, there will always be jobs in the NT for teachers. And the wicket here is pretty good, and if it does sour, there's plenty of teaching jobs around the world if I stil want to go roving.