Tag: bachata

Enjoying life in Hanoi

Hey there !

Well, I think it’s been a week, maybe 2 since my last post. I’ve been quite busy with work, and lazy about writing, so nothing new here!

I’m still following yoga classes, twice a week (1.5h each), and despite the fact that my legs are definitely not souple enough, I quite enjoy it. But yeah, I need to practice my legs so I can bend them in that lotus sitting position. Can’t do that yet. And that’s like the only thing I can’t do in the class so far, so still quite happy with myself ! About yoga itself, I feel really good after my classes. Everything seems easy and smooth afterwards.

I’m also looking for some more things to do. One thing that’s quite popular here is martial arts. I’ve done a few years of judo when I was a kid, and contact sports is not really my favorite. Nhung’s father mentioned some special vietnamese martial art called Vũ Gia Thân Pháp, and made me a little demonstration. It seems interesting, and as many other martial arts, it’s defense oriented and based on avoidance and speed. He also seems to know the local Masters, so that could be an option. However, it is very very local, and there is very little information about it. Not to mention it’s all in vietnamese, except for one of the Masters who apparently would be able to teach me in english.

So I’ve been thinking of something else, like tai chi chuan, which is very popular world wide, and probably less agressive, although I believe there is a combat style. I’ve had an introduction class when I was at university, and I remember enjoying it, but never got round to picking it up. So now might be a good time. It is also very popular in Vietnam, as everyone gathers around the various lakes and parks in the city, at any time of the day to practice together. So I’m currently looking for some classes to get myself started. I think that might be a good combination with yoga, especially in terms of balance and relaxation.

I’m just back from a Salsa night, and those evenings are filled with bachata. We really need some classes for this, they are playing so much of it here. We tried going to some salsa class too, but they were doing Advanced On2, which I tried to follow but couldn’t really keep up, since we’ve only learned On1 so far, so we are back to looking for some Advanced On1 classes.

We also started the paperwork for the wedding, but I’ll write more on that later on. I have a little more to say regarding ‘administration’ in Vietnam that will need a separate post.

For now, I’m exhausted, so that’ll be all for today.

Cheers from Hanoi!

Living in Vietnam

I arrived in Vietnam 2 weeks ago. So far I’ve been spending most of my time working, and trying to find a rhythm, that would leave me with enough time to enjoy being here. I haven’t yet reached a balance but still working on it.

The main problem comes from my job shared hours. I’m working remotely, for an US company (based in San Francisco), and I’m part of a SCRUM team which is mostly in european timezone. That means, I’m respectively, 14 hours and 5 hours ahead of them. To be able to work remotely, SCRUM teams have some shared hours when all team members need to be online, so we can do our stand up meeting, and then get some things done together. There are usually 3 shared hours a day, and then I still have to put in at least 5 more hours, that I can arrange during the day as I please.

Fitting those 5 hours is quite easy, some in the morning, more in the afternoon, or I can also plan to work through the afternoon. This freedom in arranging these hours is quite nice.

However my shared hours are set between 9 PM and midnight. So I’m working every evening, which leaves little time to go out during those times. Luckily, people tend to eat quite early here so we can easily go out for dinner and be back on time to start working again. It’s definitely not ideal as a couple though, as I can’t spend my evenings with my other half.

Anyway, this is only supposed to be for a few months, until my VISA (H1B) for the US is ready.

In the mean time, I’ve been looking to get some vietnamese language lessons, and I just a missed a new session which started the day after I landed. That’s a shame, the next session is in November, which is quite far away. I found some other classes but heard mixed feedbacks about it.

Yesterday I started a yoga class too, from what I understood the teacher is at the terminal stage for a cancer, so she started yoga 14 years ago, and she’s fighting it back. This class is definitely not for foreigners, it takes place in a tiny room in a back alley somewhere in Hanoi. There’s no air conditioning that westerners would probably expect when doing indoor exercise, just a couple of ceiling fans, turning slowly.

The place was full of vietnamese women from all ages, even a very young kid, who was probably with his mother, we were 2 guys, and I was of course the only foreigner. It was quite an experience. Having been avoiding any kind of exercise for the last .. 15 years or so, and sitting down behind a computer all day, I knew I was definitely not in shape, and especially when it comes to stretching, or sitting in that lotus position. One of the exercise was about sitting cross legged and then leaning forward until the head touched the ground in front of you. No need to say I didn’t go very far down on that one ! I was told I’ll get better at it, so we’ll see about that ^^

In the evening, after a delicious korean diner, we went to a bar that had a special salsa night, where we met one of Nhung’s friends. The dancing level was quite high, but after a couple of mojitos, I took Nhung out on the dance floor! As I expected, most people were looking at “the foreigner” but I think I did ok ! Our salsa classes in Amsterdam ended at the end of July, and I have to admit we didn’t practice since, so I was a bit rusty, trying to remember some moves. I remembered most of them, so I wasn’t completely lost. Anyway, we are going to try to pick up some salsa classes here also, and maybe also some bachata classes which seems to be very popular here. For each salsa song played, there were 2 bachata songs.

I think Nhung wants to go dancing salsa again tonight, we’ll see how that goes.

That’s it for now, cheers!

Anthony