Hey everyone.

Hey everyone. I’ve been meaning to sit down and share what’s happened in my world with those who are interested, and its good for me too (I don’t want to forget these things).

Right now I’m in a dead poor and dusty port on the Island of Cebu in the Philippines. I’m on holiday away from Vietnam for the longest time so far and I’m having a great time. To be honest I’m feeling bit flat right now. I’m really tired, but I’ll explain why in a mo.

The rest of Christmas day was a really odd day. Maybe the strangest since I’ve been in Vietnam. I just was really missing home to be honest. It started off great with the ‘Happy, happy happy, Go Vap’ experience briefly wrote about. I just started to feel a little self-conscious and after a trip to the pool, found myself wondering around town not knowing what to do with myself… It picked up though as my friend Trevor came to my rescue and invited me round. I ended up dancing like a crazy fool.

It was pretty much the same story for New Years eve too. Though I missed everyone loads, I did have a lot of fun.

It’s been a good year so far. After the partying of the festive week was over, things went back to normal. I found myself really happy to be back in my routine. Something from that time stuck though. It felt like the Christmas period was just a shaky time for me because in some ways I’m trying new things here and meeting people that are making me think about my life philosophy how I think of myself and act in certain situations. He feeling I’ve felt since this time, has been a kind of carefree-ness or the begins of an adventurous spirit. I’ve felt much more of an urge to get out there meet people and take life head on.

Is tough to explain, but its exciting and interesting too. There are ups and downs, but I definitely feel I was just working something out over Christmas, and I feel a little freer. Maybe I let some ideas I had about myself go, maybe a sense of being overly worried about other people’s feelings and fearful of situations has been lifted.

It’s just meant that I’ve been happier. I’m still enjoying my paid and voluntary classes. I was blown away when I went to one of my free classes last and they had remembered so much. They’re like little sponges!!

I spent Chinese New Year with my Vietnamese family which was really interesting. It was a bit of a gamble as I was passing up the chance to spend that week in the Philippines. It turned out to be a good party. They just drank and drank and drank!! And on top of that, the street outside our house turned into an illegal gambling den. Everyone was gambling, everywhere I looked there were cards and money. It was incessant. Everyone was involved eighty year old grandma passing down notes to her 13 year old granddaughter, heckling and shouting advice. I fluttered 50,000 dong which is a small amount. It lasted five minutes much to the hilarity of the raucously drunk men eating, drinking and chatting inside the house. I honestly thought that one of the fathers of the house was going to fall off of his chair laughing when his wife entered with a massive handful of notes, and I exclaimed in Vietnamese “oh my god, my 50,000”

So from that experience I headed off to join my buddy Rob for the second week of his holiday in the Philippines. It’s been absolutely ace. This is a beautiful country; we’ve been staying in a wicker cabin just next to the sand with the sound of the waves never too far away. Good fun too, working our way through the locally brewed rum.

And finally, last night... We were on an overnight ferry, that when we got on, already pretty drunk, felt more like a bar. Sharing drinks with locals and chatting with the people around us I ventured into the café and found to my amazement a Karaoke machine that you could put money into… I sang ‘Lady, lady, lay’ with intense drunken emotion to a beautiful girl traveling with her father… I think I might have been on my knees at one point.

So now I have to go because our ferry is here… Speak soon.
James.