Urban Jungle

Here is a motorcycle car park from the center of town near the now infamous golden triangle that was recently auctioned off for 500 million dollars or something ridiculous (and that doesn't even buy the land, just the rights to use it...).

This area of land adjacent to Pham Ngu Lao has been a 'hung' project since I arrived three and a half years ago...I just find it staggering considering the value of the land must be so astronomical, and it is most recently being used as a 3000 dong a time motorbike park!

Car Spotting

Never again will I forget my camera. I may be a little over excited, but after the interest shown in the yellow Lambo I snapped a few weeks earlier, I was absolutely kicking myself yesterday afternoon. A posse consisting myself and Chi, a photographer and helper, a yogi and a driver left HCMC for Anoasis Beach Resort, Long Hai. Here Connections plan to start running short yoga breaks as a refreshing weekend out of the city, or possibly as an add for existing tours.
More on that later.

When we arrived at the resort I was staggered to see a silver Rolls Royce Phantom and a black Bentley parked carelessly in the sand under a couple of palm trees. Man that Rolls looks stunning! Only three are in the whole country, and the owner according to the staff was the Khai Silk guy, as confirmed by this story. The Bentley may have been a Brooklands. The RRP has a base price of $300,000 in America but as the VietNamNet story says, it would have cost up to a $1,000,000 in Vietnam.

To add to this, after we left this morning, passing us in the opposite direction towards Vung Tau was another Rolls Royce, not a Phantom but an older style car, and then travelling together a red Ferrari and yellow Lambo, probably the same one I saw and photographed a few weeks ago. That must cover the top 5 out of 5 cars in Vietnam!

AIS bloggers

Kevin has pointed out his 'Linux Lab' over at AIS. My 'Windows Lab' as I suppose it would be is next door. Here I teach Grades 6-9 about using technology to express themselves creatively (whenever possible).

I started the AIS school blog near the beginning of the year to showcase student blogs which I had them set up on blogger, and also showcase some of their work they did using Adobe Photoshop.

Check out the site to see what is going on inside the head of Vietnamese teenagers -- especially their creative stories most have posted to their blogs. I particularly like Tue (G7), Hienrich (8A) and Watson (possibly the next H.G Wells, 8B).

Soon I will be uploading some of their videos made in class using Adobe Premiere Elements, when I have the patience/time to deal with uploading videos!