My flight and first Impressions...

Hi everyone,

Before I begin, I should point out that I am a total newbie to the whole blogging phenomenon, but thought it was time to try something new. And I don't think there is anything that saids "new" like starting to live in a "new" country, especially moving from the westernised suburbia that a relatively quite Australian City - if one is bold enough to call Toowoomba a city, moving to Ho Chi Minh City, together with all of its hustle and bustle, its large community of expats and travels, and its almost endless tide of motorcycles and mopeds.....which, as I have been told, appears to be the preferred means of travel, even amongst the expat community - I idea, which for me I think is going to take sometime to get use too.

But lets start at the beginning "a very good place to start". I arrived in Saigon a few days ago, flying out of Brisbane, with a short 3 hour stop over in KL. Arriving, and acquiring my visa on arrival, was nowhere as daunting as I first presumed.... however, venturing down to the baggage claim, and waiting....waiting....waiting..... until I came to the eventual realisation that indeed my baggage was not coming was a little annoying, especially as a few days before, I had packed up my life into this so called backpack and was heading aboard....

So with no luggage, I headed into the city, getting a quite run down from a fellow teacher that picked me up from the airport, but left be as promptly as I arrived at my guest house. Altogether though, the loss of the luggage, in my new location, seemed pretty insignificant....  pure material and nothing more...thankfully though, it did arrival later that evening on a following flight - but personally, for me, I was a bit disappointed by this, and aside from the bag itself being a gift, I like the whole premise of a fresh start with, only the clothes on my back, a tie, and a spare pair of underwear (dirty), in fact, I found the whole prospect kind of liberating. Nevertheless, baggage intake I soldier on.

I have about a week before I start work, which I guess has both its pros and cons, time to settle in - find more permanent accommodation (the school has put me up for a week), find my way around the city, and simply take a breathe, relax and explore. To be honest - I think I will be doing more relaxing than exploring..... I came here on a year long contract, so at the moment, I am happy to take a breather from the hectic pace in which I moved over here.

In fact, a friend of a friend, is actually living and working over here, doing pretty much the same thing, living around the corner from my hotel, so I guess that has made the transition from my old farm life, to life in Saigon more palatable, or less challenging. I haven't really met anyone from my school yet, thus my plan in the next day or so, is to actually fine my place of employment, and get my bearings - oh and purchase some business type attire, as I have very little in the "white collar department".

Time to sign off for now, but hopefully I can make this blog a regular thing.