Thursday, April 25, 2013

Hot Damn Hot!!!


I didn't notice last April that it was so much hotter than the previous three months. But we are now in the hot season. April to July. I actually remember last July as being very cool here. We had Ontario summer weather here, and you in Ontario were experiencing what we have in Singapore most of the year.

It is very hot but more than that it is the humidity. Having been in Saigon, it is as hot as here, but not the humidity of here. On the other hand with this humidity if there is a breeze it really cools things off. Like those fans they have in the Okanagan that spray water in front of their fans. It really does cool the air.

Quick update on my medical saga. I have been without symptoms, i.e.. pain, for 3 months. I am ecstatic. In a way these terrible things that happen have silver linings, and I so appreciate being able to hold a pen, cut vegetables, get out of a chair no hands, climb stairs willingly, the simple pleasures of life. I am so grateful.

So all that I have been doing has paid off. And it really is easy here. Lots of very good modalities close by. I don't know what in my soup of modalities has helped but I will keep up with all of them and hope for continued painlessness. Just the creakies of looming old age.

I was to Saigon with my sister, her husband and grand daughter Cammie. It was so interesting that my impression of the city was so different to the first time. I guess I will have to revisit every where I have been to get the second impression.

I love Vietnam. I love the Vietnamese. They are happy, patient, courteous, forgiving, compassionate, and the list goes on. That country has been sieged for centuries. It was very valuable during the spice trade and  silk trade, it has so much shoreline. It is like a big letter "C" coastline.

I went to the Vietnamese Traditional Medicine Museum. It was fascinating. The lotus flower is their national flower. It is sacred. It grows out of darkness in to light. (It grows any where, in mud along the road.) They use every part of the flower for food and medicine. Stamens, petals, leaves, stem, roots.

There is a similarity to Chinese Traditional Medicine. Yin/yang, meridians, acupuncture. The climate is so good in Vietnam, for growing the herbs used in TM. There is a mountain in North Vietnam called Medicine Mountain.

We did a tour of the Mekong Delta. The source of the Saigon River starts in Burma and travels thousands of miles to the coast. The tour was wonderful. A long drive out to the delta, with a wonderful guide whose English was excellent. Once there we went to a floating village, visited a family of 4 living on a boat with a room about 15X15 for them, huge rice bags to sit on, hammocks to sleep on, children playing with the empty box that ziploc baggies come in, father on the cell phone, the tv on. They were about 100' off shore and a very long extension cord strung on poles in the water to the mainland was their power supply. They feed fish through a hole in the floor of the boat, and after 3 months of feeding the fish are big enough to catch and sell.

Home to Singapore and family left. I have been doing yoga yoga yoga. I love the way I feel after a class so I am doing as many as I can. That I can do 2 a day speaks to how little else I have in my life. But I kind of look at getting back in shape, and getting in better shape that when I moved here, and keeping this fibromyalgia at bay as a full time job. A photo of tonight's class follows. I'm the one on top!

I met with a personal trainer today and will add that to my soup of modalities. I told her my goal is to do a half marathon (power walking) for my 70th birthday. There. If I say it publicly I will be shamed in to following through. HA.

Yoga tonight. That's me on top. Nancy, below, survived to then crush me.


 My room mate in Saigon Cammie Cammaroomie





 Banana crepe. Oily deliciousness. For breakfast!



Mekong Delta Sanpan ride in the backwaters.

                                             



 Gord is tall. Our guide Tina is short!




After lunch siesta



The gang in Saigon
Me, our guide Tina, sister Judy, Camaroomie, Gord



Good night, friends.









1 comment:

  1. I don't know what I'm more impressed with: your writing, your yoga ability or your travels!

    It's all wonderful.

    All the best,
    Kathleen martin

    ReplyDelete