Hola Holding off on the Take That details for now, I must simply list things I’ve done so far. This is not a braggin’ rites kinda thing, it’s more to show you the wonders of France and the benefits of knowing another language

On commence:
1. Eating fois gras BBQ…that is the richest liver pate out there melting on a grill…imagine…I get stuffed just thinking about it!

2. Cycling around le parc de la Tete d’or in Lyon with its amazing deer, giraffe, botanical and rose gardens, exotic plants section, gorgeous green lake etc. (one of the best parks I’ve ever seen) and guess what, all this stuff is FREE!

3. Cremieu, which is the cutest little medieval town where Mika and SB live with walls and castles dating back to the XIII century! wowza!

4. Eating and drinking French style–I’ve discovered the art of le sirop. Fruit flavoured syrups make your water colourful and uber delicious. Did you know pate tastes better when it’s covered in a flaky crust? Yup, tis true and I think it’s called pate-croute but I could be wrong

5; Drinking deserves its own mention. The art is that you drink to appreciate (drunkness no good). I love me some kir (cassis/current or peach syrup in white wine) but I’ve tried Cremieu-brewed beer, pastis (licorice:annise flavour) with water or coke which is a true French classic and I’m starting to like rose wine again…a blend of red and white never felt so good! Yum, in moderation bien sur

6. Manicured gardens and so many types of flowers and trees that my poor lil allergic eyes can’t stop tearing up IT4S SO BEAUTIFUL HERE and I think I’ve taken so many plant pics that I will have to spend a whole month once I’m back at home just sorting through the tree pics!

7. Natural sceneries…I went to Annency which is bidding for the 2018 winter games and it’s a lake town at the foot of the Alps. Ahhhh now that’s what I call a ski town but it is gorgeous in the summer too as we pedal-boated round the lake and there was a outside waltzy ball where ppl were just twirling around just beside the lake! You don’t get that in Canada!

Of course there are a million more things I love about being here but I gots to go explore Toulouse so adieu, it’s time to say GOODBYE…I have no idea why The Sound of Music is constantly running through my head but it must be the melodic peace that I’m feeling on this trip

CIAO xoxoxoxox smoochies! cn

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Oh my goodness, it’s my first post of 2009 and it’s already the second half of the year!!! Oopsies, talk about neglect! But I’m back or I’ll try to write more regularly so that the few peeps interested in the journey (which since it’s been almost three years in VN, sometimes doesn’t seem so exciting anymore) will have something to read though there are totally better things to read than this

PIC TO COME
That’s me having fun in beautiful DALAT in the central highlands

As I’ve been away for so long, I’m having technical difficulties but they will soon be solved by my awesome blogmaster

Ciao!!!!

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Hola! Anyone who knows me knows that I am hipper hyper, supa duper, well, happy/annoying, depending on if you like me? C’est vrai and I know since only ppl who know me read this, basically you agree.

Soooooooo I was wondering how pestering I am to my buddies since I easily fall in love (in a platonic way), get obsessed almost daily, am fiercely loyal (14 years and growing on Take That!), and am an expert stalker of all things….including U!

Perfectionism doesn’t play into my being since I am a klutz and a perpetual wannabe/poser and well, I do live in VN so it’s kinda hard to be perfect and it’s unimportant when there’s ppl begging on the street who have been badly burned etc.

It’s so not about me and so for this teeny piece of knowledge, I am thankful.

What are the gifts God gave you? What’s in your being that keeps you up and moving along in your life….

For me, I move a lot…in terms of geography, ideas, speech and I am BIG on change…In fact, one could call it somewhere flighty, scatterbrained, ditsy wah wah wah but all that is given to us can be a gift. In fact, I can’t find the exact verse but I do believe that all is good in time…

So what are we doing that is “good” and how are we using our gifts? I’ll be the first to admit I’m selfish.

So to squash down the “I”m so cool” vibes, I volunteer my time to others and work in humanitarian aid so that even if I feel selfish, my work forces me to think about others. And I use my crazy energy to spend personal time with as many friends as possible. So wanna hang? I’ve available from wee in the morn til wee at night

ENERGY can be annoying and unhealthy. My doctor friend worries I don’t sleep enuf. But once I’ve had 4.5 hrs I start thinking and thinking and thinking and then I get up. Then I chat w/friends, work on reports at all hours of the day and make cookies to give to ppl.

I totally see a roller coaster in life but we make progress, grow, and love and that is IMPORTANT TO ME. So love to hear from you…thanks for reading and if you are hungry or chatting, call me? Let’s talk. let’s hang

Hugs, bises, oodle-canoodles! Luv, Cathy

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Me blog is rejected as I have facebooked too much and now monsieur bloggy is upset and neglected and I am experiencing writer’s blog block/guilt.

Ok whatever! I like to write but hate to post pics cuz it takes time but here goes. I noticed that successful bloggers have pics and care what they write and they also think about the stories b4 they post. This segment is a blurb that’s just spitting outta my mind.

Thanksgiving….I like sharing what I’m thankful for b/c there is oodles to be happy and smiley about and if you are feeling blue, well, shake that head of yours and think of your blessings…My happy thoughts calendar says smthg along the lines of “count ten blessings before you even start your complaints” and usually if you get through ten happy things, well, the one negative just disappears or does not seem so important anymore….

So here’s the list:
1. Saigon living: peace and activity…a random mix to be balanced but I am sooooooooooooo blessed to be here and enjoying the sunshine and the fruits and ppl who are trusting and gentle.

2. REAL friends: from afar and near they are here in my life whether in person or online, I LOVE MY FRIENDS! High school, FB, colleagues, church members, brothers and sisters, teachers, baking buddies etc….it’s sooooooooooooooooooooooooo good to have ppl around Oooooh and I cannot forget the household pet TURTLES (one’s an albino and I have to show a pic soon!)

3. FREEDOM and material WEALTH: these two are iffy as in too much of a good thing can be bad for us and I see this in that I love to express myself but yet I don’t want to spend so much moola doing it. However, the freedom to think and talk and evaluate and pray and write and read and sleep…..I LOVE TIME! And with wealth, if it comes your way, how you use it will be your legacy…it’s ok to have money even lots of money as long as you use it to do good and for me that means charity, donations, feeding ppl, gifts of all LUSH-ious sizes and intl text messaging. I don’t mind spending to tell you that JE VOUS ADORE!

4. TRUTH IN GOD: I love reading the Bible and learning about God’s plans for his people….I am experiencing peace and faithful revival. Yip yip yip!!!!!

OK toodle-y noodle-ies! Bye but I’ll be back! Je ne crois pas que c’est deja le premier decembre!

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Can you believe it was only a few months before that Cathy and I came up with a title for our vacation and that it would be called Vietnam Voyage? (That’s right everyone, she did not come up with that one herself, it took a team effort!) We joked that it could be a mini book series for kids and it would be about three sisters, two crazy ones who get into trouble and one sensible sister who manages to save her sisters from peril. From our experience, it’s safe to say that we all needed saving from:
1. food poisoning
2. fatigue, over exertion, fainting
3. tempers! (Ok, I did have an internal hissy fit when I went to the tailors and received a blazer that DID not fit well at all. I tried to hide it but it bothered me, oh yes it did.)
4. and of course, AUSSIES! KIDDING!–for the most part anyways.

There are always the stock answer stories that I tell everyone about what I did during this trip but then past them, I found that there were even more interesting tales to tell. We sang Christmas carols at the orphanage and received little ornaments from the kids as gifts on X-mas eve, spoke to a veteran at the East Meets West office on Christmas, explaining my connection and deeper understanding of Vietnam and my parents which is something I did not expect to develop during my vacation and we rode elephants y’all!—lucky you whoever gets to read this b/c these are usually the untold stories. And yes, we HAD to wear the costumes.

Big thanks to Mimi otherwise the orphanage and x-mas dinner at East Meets West would have never happened!

By the way, Eric, Cathy’s Vietnamese French friend, is SUPER FABULEUX even if he does look very much like our brother Nam.

I’ll take off where Anh left off on her blog entry which is Nha Trang and Cam Ranh. So Anh and I met our grandma for the first time ever!—Strange at first b/c I don’t speak very much Vietnamese but she welcomed us into her home.

So we crashed . . . hard b/c flying around really does wear one down. We slept during the afternoon the first day in Cam Ranh and the next day we headed off the Nha Trang which is probably my favourite place so far in Vietnam. The food is great!—we had raw oysters and no food poisoning, so high ratings from my behalf. We watched some music television and Cathy and I have made a new enemy and his name is Alvey. I’m sorry, but we don’t want to watch a show about arcade games, you idiot Alvey!—GET OFF THE SCREEN OR HOST A MUSIC SHOW! SHEESH!!!–and I’ll leave it at that b/c I’m usually not one to yell at the tv but I thought it couldn’t get worse than MTV (Laguna Beach is that channel’s only saving grace).
To top things off, Cathy did get sick (food poisoning, a plague onto your home! That’s Shakespeare, R+J which we did see in VN) and she tried to rest but it’s hard to do that with a bunch of LOUD Asian voices, construction and the sounds of a chicken being butchered in combo coming from the backyard. Gotta love our humble beginnings! I had to give her some earplugs poor girl. We went to the mudbaths . . . well, everyone else did sauf moi. I decided that it wasn’t my thing so I spent time alone in the heated swimming pool instead and I got a new bathing suit from the whole deal so I rather pleased. We did spend a crazy New Years in Nha Trang at the Sailing Club and then it was two consecutive early flights (torture!) on the way home to Canada. What did I learn from flying early? There is actually NO traffic in Saigon at 4am. Didn’t think I would ever see empty streets in that city but that would be the time. All in all, great vacation. Now I’m home, missing the super strong coffee that tastes like chocolate and picking up glass by the beaches.

But I bring a part of the whole experience home as I struggle yet thoroughly enjoy reading my beginner's Vietnamese book on the skytrain during my 1.5 hour commute to school so let's say vacation never really truly ends.

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Hello all! This is Anh, the elder of Cathy’s younger sisters. I’m so tired because there hasn’t been much down time since getting here. So let’s start, shall we?

First, Michelle (the other sister) and I went to visit my friend Yvonne in Tokyo. She made us a cute welcome sign and rice balls for us to eat when we arrived (aww!).


For the next couple of days, we zipped around the city, going to Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza, etc. Visited an origami museum that Michelle adored. I adore all those vending machines! We met up with Aikawa, one of Cathy’s Japanese friends. He took all of us for kaiten sushi (conveyor belt style) which was very fun.


So after three days, we flew to Ho Chi Minh City and arrived early at the airport. But Cathy was there waiting for us already in the hot stuffy weather! We spent a few days there getting our hair done, experiencing pain and relaxation from a Thai-style shiatsu masage, eating and shopping. Michelle experienced some food poisoning and didn’t get to go down into the Cu Chi tunnels during a tour, but I did. Very dark and cramped.

Then we flew to Da Nang, after being delayed for about an hour. Cathy’s friend Eric picked us up at the airport and we drove to Hoi An to stay the night. The next day, we took a look at the old houses and temples around Hoi An while we had some clothes made. We took a little boat around the area and Michelle almost tipped it over while taking a picture! The beach was very windy so that wasn’t so enjoyable. We ended up staying late because our clothes didn’t fit properly, and our taxi broke down on the way home because it was overheated. We had to wait for anothe taxi in the outskirts of town with drunk guys walking around, but it wasn’t as sketchy as it could’ve been!

Now that we’re in Da Nang, things have died down a bit. We did spend the whole day in Hue yesterday, visiting temples and tombs, but besides that, it’s been less busy. I’m actually home alone right now while Cathy and Michelle are out carolling. Tonight we’re going to hand out presents at a orphanage and have a Christmas dinner at a French restaurant. I’m hanging out by myself now because my energy is at an all-time low. Haven’t fully adjusted to the time here in Asia, so I know I’ll be really messed up when I get back to Vancouver. We’re leaving to see our grandmother in Cam Ranh in a couple days and will spend New Year’s in Nha Trang. Then we’ll be heading home on January 2nd at 6am. Talk about a whirlwind trip!

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