VANTAN.ORG: The Daily Weblog

Our internet connection has finally been restored after 2-3 days of sporadic availability. We’re going on tour today and I hope the persistent drizzle stops. Here’s a summary of our last few days since my previous post.

So far, we’ve played two rounds of golf. Considering this is my second and third time playing on a course, it wasn’t too bad although I need to be less erratic. My good drives went pretty far but I also became an expert getting out of bunkers. One of my best shots was from the bunker to within a few feet of the hole. My putting leaves much to be desired, especially on slopes. Need more practice there.

The food has been good. We have been enjoying lots of Vietnamese vegetables - so crunchy and tasty. The food is similar to Chinese food. Also if you’re a Francophile you will like it in Sofitel’s Dalat Palace hotel, which is the top place to stay in Dalat - if you can get a room. It was originally built for French royalty in the event that they visited Vietnam. Inside, it does feel like a palace. The receptionists say ‘Bonjour’ and there are a number of European (mostly French) and American guests.

The weather right now is drizzly like England but less cold. When the sun comes out it’s quite pretty. The locals ride motorcycles and love sounding their horns. It’s so noisy here. Even in our hotel room with the curtains drawn you will hear honking late into the night.

That’s all for now. More updates later!

We woke up at 5am and headed to the airport. It was a comfortable 2-hour flight to Ho Chi Minh City. However our connecting flight to Dalat required several hours’ wait, so we left the airport, took a short city tour, had a pho lunch and walked around the Ben Thanh market where we were accosted by lots of eager vendors who tried speaking to us in different languages. It was stuffy and uncomfortable, although the food section looked interesting.

Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City is just as crazy as ever, but we haven’t had any accidents crossing the road, touch wood, and I hope we never do. However, just when we thought that the multitude of motorcyclists were also fairly safe due to their relatively low speeds, we heard a crash and our van driver swerved to avoid hitting two riders who had collided on the road. I managed to whip out my camera and snap the scene just as we passed them:

Around Chinatown I spotted this pair of best friends walking down the street. Aww…

I was also kept amused when we drove down a very long road with my name in it - Vo Van Tan. Woohoo! I kept snapping so many photos of shop signs with my name. If you’re bored you can play the game and spot the Van Tans in each photo starting from the one below (similar to Where’s Wally). I like this photo the most because it incorporates Apple’s logo into the signage, and you know I love Apple, although ironically the shops here are advertising unlocking services!

We returned to the airport and took the connecting flight to Dalat. We took a shuttle from the gate to the steps of the plane. However just then it started to rain very heavily, and an airport ground services officer took out an umbrella to shield us one by one to the plane, but it didn’t make much difference as the wind blew the water into the vehicle and onto everyone.

The driver closed the doors for about a minute, reopened them and by then, amazingly, the winds had subsided. I had checked the CNN weather report earlier and learnt there would be thunderstorms for the next few days. Seeing the erratic weather made me think that our golf would be a washout as well :(

We got into the small plane with some pushing and shoving. I was a bit annoyed with a local woman who pushed me forward when there was already so little space to move. I glanced sharply at her and she took her hand off me. The plane ride was only about 45 minutes. However the turbulence and murky weather made me more apprehensive, especially when the small plane felt like a rollercoaster plunging up and down.

Then as we filed out of the plane, a beautiful scene awaited us. Cool air, too. It made the trip feel worth it.

We arrived at our hotel and I was happy to discover the free wireless provided in the room! However it is rather slow and I will probably not be chatting much online.

I went for a Vietnamese massage in our hotel and boy was it different from what I get in Singapore. Firstly, for 45 minutes we pay just over S$4! (At this point, some Singaporeans may sound like little birds going cheep cheep!) We were taken to a foot bath inside what felt like a sauna and my feet turned red. As it was crowded, we waited some time before any masseurs attended to us :( But what struck me was that the masseurs - all ladies - were wearing mini skirts! I was wondering if that was the norm in Vietnam as I haven’t had a massage here before.

Anyway, my masseur covered her skirt with a towel just before sitting down and I was a bit relieved because otherwise it could look a little obscene. But when she sat down the towel got caught on my toes, and another masseur laughed at her. Gabra! What made it more interesting was … after the regular leg massage the masseurs would climb onto your massage chair/footstool and click your knees and finger joints one by one! Finally, for the back massage they would climb BEHIND you as you’re sitting upright on the massage chair, and massage/pound your back! I’ve never had a massage so close up with any masseur before, clambering onto the same chair with me. It was a weird yet amusing experience and I was trying to keep myself from grinning. Oh well, if you’ve experienced this before, do let me know, and if you haven’t and want to check it out, I can give you the name of the hotel…. in private!!

I just showered and am going to bed now. Uploading more Flickr pics. Tomorrow we play our first family game of golf. I am apparently the 2nd best player in the family after my Dad (i.e. the only one with a PC), and so unfortunately I will not be given as much chance … I hope all that hanging around Annika Sorenstam will rub off on me!

Now that I have the Logos bible study software on my Mac, I consulted it to learn the origin of Christmas. My two main questions were:

How did the name ‘Christmas’ come about?

According to Harper’s Bible Dictionary,

Christmas, the annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus, celebrated on December 25 in all churches except the Church of Armenia, for which it is January 6. The term appears as early as a.d. 1123 in Old English as ‘Cristes maesse’ (and variations) and ‘Christmas’ by 1568, meaning Mass of Christ.

Why is Christmas on the 25th of December?

This question has been in my mind for a while. After all, it’s not like the Bible recorded the exact date Jesus was born. I’ve read reports on how the actual date may be different but for various reasons, the Church settled on the 25th. According to the same dictionary,

The actual date of Jesus’ birth is unknown. There is no evidence of celebrating the nativity before the third century. January 6 became widely observed in the third century to commemorate the ‘manifestation’ (‘epiphany’) of Christ on earth, including his birth, baptism, and the visit of the Magi, with varying local emphases. The celebration of the nativity is attested in Rome in a.d. 336 (where Epiphany, January 6, commemorated the visit of the Magi), and this became widespread in the fifth and sixth centuries. Although there are various theories on the selection of December 25, the most widely accepted is that this date had already been a major pagan festival, that of Sol Invictus, the ‘birth’ of the ‘Unconquerable Sun,’ marking the winter solstice (the sun’s triumph over darkness). With the triumph of Christianity, Christmas replaced the pagan festival, Christians having applied ‘Sun of Righteousness’ (Mal. 4:2) to Christ.

I think that there’s no need to quibble over the most exact date because that’s besides the point. We should look to the spirit of the occasion and those who believe should see this as a special time to celebrate, anyway.

A blessed Christmas to you!

On Christmas eve morning I visited my colleagues and joined the department lunch party. Then I went to town to look for golf bag covers. I went to Tangs (in real life, not Second) to spend some vouchers. Then I went home and helped mum prepare for the Christmas party. The turkey and ham was excellent, and the rest of the pot luck food was great, too.

I’ve been moving about the whole day without coffee and am really sleepy now. Good night and Merry Christmas!

I had a productive day:

1. Sent the car for servicing. Repaired the blown fuse in my cigarette lighter which I use to charge my iPhone
2. Met up with ex-colleagues from Fynch for lunch. Took lots of photos of
3. Went to SGL at Sim Lim Square to buy RAM to upgrade the family iMac and my MacBook Pro. Got SGL staff to upgrade the MacBook Pro on the spot. Bought a cooling unit for my MacBook Pro so it won’t get hot so easily.
4. Went for Bible Studies
5. Successfully installed the new RAM in the iMac by watching the instructions on Youtube
6. Tomorrow I will be going for a HPB reunion and catch up with people.

(Observation: When times are hard, instead of buying new cars and new computers, we service them and replace or upgrade existing components.)

Other things to be done:

Go to Tangs (in real life) to use up a voucher that’s expiring really soon Visit golf shops to look for covers for our bags when we fly to Vietnam on Boxing Day Pack for the trip! Finish editing the INSEAD Dash video Fix the darn comment problem on my blogs (probably by removing a Typepad comment script I installed which worked initially) Upgrade to the latest version of MT. If it keeps giving me trouble I have half a mind to move to Wordpress. Seriously, after all these years, I’m getting fed up