New Year's Weekend

Rachel flew back to Tokyo on New Year’s Eve, leaving me to rattle round a rather quiet flat on my own. My local xe om drivers joined me in waving her taxi off to the airport – they’d been losing work while she was here. But at least they’d managed to keep themselves occupied by building a very pretty but essentially pointless little wall along the stretch of waste ground where they usually sit. Surprisingly, Rachel had been reluctant to take xe oms, insisting instead on going everywhere on foot or by four-wheeled taxi. And there was me expecting my intrepid friend to be up for renting a bike of our own.

Thursday 30th had been spent quietly pottering round the flat and discussing the impending doom to be visited upon my students when I give them their test results back. As a result of this abysmal test, and by happy coincidence a useful starting point in the campaign for the next AC job, Rachel had arrived back from Hoi An to find me writing a lesson plan aimed at familiarising our general English students with Part 2 of the KET Speaking Test.

Later we wandered down into town via the botanical gardens, which, contrary to what Lonely Planet seems to suggest, are not separate from the miserable zoo. We used the returning humidity as an excuse to escape as quickly as possible (despite the temptation to follow the signs pointing to Giraffe WC).

Next stop Ben Thanh Market. Here we walked (literally) round and round in circles as she negotiated a bargain price on the souvenir lacquered plates and coasters she wanted. I’m not a big fan of markets generally; standing around in a crowded covered market is not my idea of fun, but Rachel’s eventual purchases were very nice, and miraculously they did fit into her rucksack when she packed later that night. It being her last full day I even allowed her to take me to the final geocache on her list when we got down into Backpackerville, but not before I took her to a proper shop and demonstrated the art of not negotiating the 160,000 dong (£5) for a print of an old propaganda poster exhorting the masses to ‘Grow Lots of Coconuts’ (or so the translation label claims).

Back home at the flat, we finally made it to Papaya, the really nice restaurant across the road – according to its website a local woman spent years working as a chef abroad before returning to Vietnam and setting up business here in her old neighbourhood. The food is really good (we particularly recommend the Stuffed Pumpkin Flowers and the Tender Beef in Lemongrass) and also pretty cheap – 2 beers, 2 appetizers, 2 main dishes, 2 portions of banana fritters and ice cream and a bottle of water came to about 330,000VND (£10?).

New Year’s Eve was appropriately dull and overcast (but no less humid) to celebrate Rachel’s departure and my own lack of enthusiasm for the festival. New Year’s Eve has to be pretty special for me to enjoy it. My normal instinct is to batten down and ignore the whole thing. So I must confess to a certain sinking feeling when I found myself replying in the affirmative to Louise’s text asking if I’d be going to Mike and Hannah’s party. Nothing against them or anybody there – just don’t like New Year’s Eve.

And the day itself always seems to be waiting. One long wait for that chime at midnight. And if you aren’t caught up by the anticipation, then there must be something wrong with you.

So I faffed the day away, doing nothing very important or useful, although I did finally get my UKNova account set up so that I can download proper telly without paying iTunes all the time. Though needless to say, in my usual way, (haphazard, hit-and-miss, teach-myself-by-doing, getting-it-wrong-curling-into-a-ball-then-trying-again) that alone took all day.

Eventually dragging myself away from Upstairs, Downstairs, the party was actually worth going to just for the experience of getting there. It is probably the first time in my life that I have wished a taxi driver good luck for the return journey. If Rachel and I had thought the crowds on Christmas Eve were mental, it was nothing compared to NYE. It is 3.1 kilometres from my flat to Mike and Hannah’s (I know because that’s what it said on the taxi meter), a straight run down Ton Duc Thang along the riverside. A clear run home when I left at 5am took 10 minutes door-to-door. On the outward journey it took us that long just to get round the roundabout by the ferry pier. The whole journey took 45 minutes through mostly stationary scooters, pedestrians and an awful lot of rather over-optimistic coaches. They were all gathering on the riverside for the fireworks at midnight, which ironically after all that effort I didn’t get to see because Mike and Hannah’s flat faces away from the river!

New Year’s Day dawned (not long after I got home) as dull, overcast and depressing as its predecessor. I think at some point I attempted to leave the flat for a walk, got as far as the corner shop and gave up. Lack of sleep left me stressing about all the prep I needed to do for Sunday’s kids’ lessons, and all the marking and report writing still to do for that abysmal test. And I was starting to get a sore throat as well. Yep, a really great start to the New Year, full of plans, hope and anticipation.