Celebrating a Sweet Victory!

Normally the streets of Da Nang quiet down well before 9pm. The Vietnamese are known more as early birds (5am!!) than night owls.

Well this was NOT the case on December 28th!! Vietnam was playing in the final game of the Suzuki cup against long time rivals, Thailand. After a nail biting match with only one minute left in the game Vietnam scored to win the title!!! The Vietnamese have not won a championship of this caliber in 49 years!!

Just to put it in prospective this would be like the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup against the Montreal Canadians at the Air Canada Centre and scoring in sudden death overtime of game 7!! Well maybe not exactly the same...it has only been 42 years since Toronto won a cup:-P And I wouldn't have been celebrating!!

Men, women, children, and Vietnamese of all ages took to the streets immediately after the win to celebrate the sweet victory!!! The celebration went well past midnight!! People were cheering "Vietnam Vo Dich!" (Vietnam is the Champion!), waving flags, improvising barrels and pots as drums, dancing in the streets!! It was a beautiful site and I feel very lucky to have had the chance to celebrate with them:-) Check out the video - it is taken from the exact same spot as the photo above! Vietnam Vo Dich, Vietnam Vo Dich!!

Christmas in Da Nang

Being away for Christmas can be a bit tough and I figured since they don't really celebrate Christmas in Vietnam I would just work through the week and try to treat it as any other work week.
So I went to work on Christmas eve and all day everyone was tiptoeing around and giggling! Something was up!! Around 4 o'clock they called me into the meeting room where they had dinner, flowers and gifts for me!! I was so touched I even got all teary eyed!! How nice of them to go to so much trouble to make me feel more at home:-)






They gave me a new big rain coat to wear when riding my bicycle, flowers, and some lovely material to take to the tailor to get an ao dai (the national dress) custom made!

It just so happened that there was a HUGE football match going on between Thailand and Vietnam on Christmas eve. So after a great meal and lots of wobbly pops I headed to the local pub to catch the game.












Thailand has a long history of winning against Vietnam. After an intense match Vietnam ended up winning 2-1!! The whole city came alive for about 3 hours people were riding through the streets with Vietnamese flags and celebrating! It was truly awesome!











On Christmas day one of the restaurants owned by an American couple put on a beautiful turkey dinner so I invited Nhung, her husband, their son, and my badminton partner! So even though Christmas is never the same being away from friends and family it didn't turn out so bad! Happy Holidays everyone!!