SaigonNezumi.com

My Bruises from the motorbike accident

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:35:15 +0000

Last Tuesday as some you are aware, I was involved in a motorbike accident on Nguyen Dinh Chieu street in District 1. I was riding along parallel with my ‘work permit’ service agent’s motorbike. As we stopped at the intersection, another motorbike passed right between us. Unfortunately for him, he lost control of his overweight motorbike and ran into my handle bar. The next thing I know I was using my right leg to keep both of our motorbikes from hitting the ground.

That was my mistake. I should have let my motorbike fall and I would have had little injury. Instead, my right calf took the brunt of his motorbike impacting my motorbike. He luckily was able to pass with no injury. Since he REALLY looked guilty, I let him go. I was fine but I knew I would get some really bad bruises which appeared today after 5 days.

My right calf is still sore but recovering. I did not do any lower body this week but was able to attend kendo last Thursday. The bruise will be there for a couple of weeks (unless I can find some leaches). What is really funny about this accident is that many of my Vietnamese friends do not believe I was in one. For some odd reason, people here think bruises appear suddenly and do not realize that it can take days to appear. Well, here are the proof now

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Annoying Neighbors

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:22:04 +0000

For the last couple months now, one of my neighbors started to renovate their house. Since they had no place to part their motorbikes, they decided that the front of my house could be a great location. In normal circumstances, I would not mind. In the past, each of my neighbors rebuilt their houses so they had no choice but to park their motorbikes in the area near my front door. They ALWAYS made sure that the motorbikes were moved when my housemate and I needed to leave our house.

This neighbor would not get the similar treatment from me or my neighbors. For one, in the last 4 years that I lived here, the old lady from the renovated house always went through our trash. At times, she would not even clean up the mess she made. To make matters worse, the children from this house would steal my mail, open it and return it later. I received many “opened” letters.

Hence, when they started to block my front entrance, I would let them know I was not happy. Several times they found their motorbike in the middle of the alleyway. It was not just me that did this, my other neighbors would take their motorbike from the front of my house and move it to the middle of the alleyway. This makes it easier to thieves to steal them.

Nope, after two months they never learned but at least now when they see me, they run.

We are all wondering where they got the money to build their new house. I suspect they may have been responsible for the stolen motorbikes the last couple of years in my alleyway. There is a chance they also stole my black cat nearly two years ago as well.

It looks as if their house is nearly finished so I can get my free entrance back again…

(I was trying to leave my house)

(When I came home)

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Ever had a Russian Tortoise?

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:59:27 +0000

(Russian Tortoise – Image Source: Wikipedia)

The other day I was surfing online which somehow brought me to the Wikipedia article on Russian Tortoises. It brought back memories of the 1990s in Seattle. As a student at the UDub, I actually owned 3 Russian Tortoises. I think I bought my first two in 1993 if I remember right. I had a UV lamp and made a small pen for my two tortoises I named Gorby and Tatiana. An older Russian tortoise, Katya, joined the duo later.

Russian tortoises are quite easy to take care of. I just fed them bok choy and romaine lettuce everyday. During long weekend trips, I could leave them in my pen with a head of romaine lettuce. For longer trips, my gymastic’s coach and his girlfriend would take care of them.

These guys are fun. I let them roam my room when I am home. You will be amazed at how much water their bladder can hold. If they are scared, they can soak an entire pant leg which has happened to me on one occasion. Most of the day they just soak under the UV lamp. At nights, I would turn the UV lamp off at which point my tortoises would start to burrow underneath my wood chip bedding. Since they were in my room, it would be annoying to hear their feet scraping on the wood floor of their pen but I think I got used to it.

Sadly in 1996, I had to sell them back to the pet store owner who sold them to me 3 years earlier. I moved into an apartment complex that did not allow pets of any kind including fish. I lost contact of my gymnastic’s coach so I had to let Gorby, Tatiana and Katya go. Yeah, I do miss them.

Ironically, in the summer of 1998 which I was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Karatau, Kazakhstan, some Kazakh students brought a couple Russian tortoises to me. It turns out that in the Karatau area, there are many wild Russian tortoises.

In Vietnam, though, I have not seen any. They are not as popular as the turtle.

Watch some funny YouTube videos on Russian Tortoises.

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Another great Shahzoda Video

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:06:10 +0000

I really like this video by Shahzoda, a famous singer from Uzbekistan. Shahzoda puts some Islamic influences in her videos which tell a good story. Enjoy this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Hard Rock Cafe Ho Chi Minh City – Grand Opening Party

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:19:12 +0000

Last Friday was the official Grand Opening Party at the Hard Rock Cafe Ho Chi Minh City. Last month was the soft opening.

Leon Sikes, the Managing Partner at MNG Joint Venture Partnership, and I were given invites by the Viet Thai International Joint Stock Company, or VTI for short. For those of you that do not know, VTI is the owner of Highlands Coffee, and the master investor for Hard Rock Cafe HCM. MNG, which focuses on global commerce and trade, intends to distribute Highland products in Turkey with hopes in expanding to the Central Eurasian region.

Since Leon and I did not have our invitation passes, Derick from VTI walked us in. Once inside, I forgot I was even in Vietnam. They did an amazing job with the interior of this Hard Rock Cafe. Since it was the grand opening, the drinks and appetizers were free.

Hard Rock Cafe HCM was a bit packed since there were actually two parties, the 6 PM and the 9 PM (for VIPs). At 9 PM, the early group just stayed, I would not have left either. Run-DMC was the star of the grand opening. If you did not get an invite, you really missed a great party.

Hard Rock Cafe HCM is definitely the place to go to hang out, have a drink and listen to good much in Saigon. Actually, I would say it beats all the other clubs in Saigon now.

Photos and 1 video below. Sorry, I used my G1 Google Phone so the picture quality is a bit lacking.

(Hard Rock Cafe HCM from the front of the Intercontinental Hotel)

(Entrace of Hard Rock Cafe HCM)

(First band playing)

(Run-DMC playing)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Saigon Rain and the Mud

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:16:06 +0000

The weather in Saigon has definitely been quite unusual since Monday. Oddly enough, it looked like it would rain Sunday but I never thought about it. It does not normally rain in Saigon during January. The rainy season usually switches to the dry season in November. Granted, the last three years the weather has not been normal in Vietnam, like much of the world. Normally though, January tends to be a bit cool with the warmer weather arriving by Tet.

The rainfall the last couple of days have been annoying though. The accumulated dirt, sand, dust, you name it, have collected on the streets and alleyways since the last rainfall. Saigon is now a muddy mess. I was surprised to see how muddy my motorbike was just after Tuesday.

Several years ago, the construction sites would have kept their areas clean. The drivers would wash their trucks before going on the streets. I remember my neighbors in Thu Duc used to clean their trucks very well.

Even when they tore apart the sidewalks on Tran Binh Trong street in District 5 nearly 5 years ago, there was not a mess. The workers kept the streets clean. Now when they break up the sidewalks, it is a huge mess. You see the sand and dirt all along the streets. It blows in your face. The days of not wearing a mask are long gone even on rainy days such as today.

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Qeeboa – My new photo blog

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:53:34 +0000

I have been quite busy the last month developing with Wordpress. Oddly enough, I had about 6 requests for Wordpress sites from friend and colleagues during this time. Wordpress has come a long ways and with the large number of developers and designers behind it, Wordpress is becoming the permier web content management system. It is perfect for small to medium company websites at the moment.

During this time, I decided to play with some of the features Wordpress themes and plugins are now providing to users. When one of my clients needed to manage their photos, I found NextGen, a great photo gallery plugin. I loved it so much, I decided to use if for myself.

Essentially I have 3 websites with pictures of my trips around the world since 1997. I decided to aggregate them into one photo blog using the free Arras Theme. Presto, Qeeboa is born. Qeeboa is derived from the word, keyboard, invented by one of my students almost 2 years ago. Since I already registered the domain name, I decided to use it for my new photo blog.

Some of you will notice that I use the name Kentai Matsunaga on the site. Matsunaga is my family name from my Japanese mother’s side. Kentai was my Kazakh name that I went by for two years (1997-1999). In Kazakh, it is deprived from a word small since many Kazakhs felt I was, well, small. It also have meaning in Japanese as well. Ken means sword, tai means body. I will explain later why I will plan to use Kentai Matsunaga in the future.

In the meantime, view some of the photos of the various cities I visited since 1997. I plan to put most of my pictures there.

http://www.qeeboa.com

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Water Biking in Japan (Japan Probe)

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:15:07 +0000

Another interesting post by Japan Probe. Biking over water on a floating flimsy bridge seems easy but…take a look yourself:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Valkyria Chronicles – Japanese Anime

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 08:41:30 +0000

Via the Jamaipanese blog, I learned about another Japanese anime series titled Valkyria Chronicles. Jamaipanese gives a good review of this anime series which already completed it’s first season of 26 clips. I am currently watching the English subtitled episodes online at: animefreak.tv.

(Image Source: Wikipedia)

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Saturday night Kendo in Saigon

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:01:38 +0000

Made it to my third Kendo class this week. I really enjoyed it though I got another blister on the bottom of my left foot. My right ankle swelled up a little so I need to find a really good ankle brace. Despited working out in the gym for nearly 3 months, I am still a bit out of shape for kendo as well. It is quite demanding but I am loving it.

I practiced kendo today at the dojo located on 235 Nguyen Van Cu in District 5. This dojo is ideal for beginner kendokas in Saigon.

Below are some pictures I took with my G1. I will try to bring a digital camera so I can get some clear shots in the future.

(My ICT student, Si, on the left)

(My men (helmet) is crooked…)

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