A Day on the Mekong River

Is my food looking at me?

that's something you have to get used to over here, food that was probably walking or swimming around just 5 mins before being served on your plate.

anywho, this morning was a nonstop journey from leaving our hotel around 7:45 until now.

we started by having breakfast on the roof of our hotel (that's where the restaurant was) with the most beautiful view of the sunrise and the Mekong river right below us. With everyone well fed and ready to go we piled into into our taxis and headed for our vessel. This was totally radical, we basically got to go on a real life jungle cruise, except if we ran into hippos here, they might tip the boat cause a pop gun ain't gonna scare them off. or boat journey took us all along the Mekong river (central river that runs through Vietnam) we got to see the "floating market" which is a series of boats all floating together, you just have to pull up in your boat, grab your food, clothes, or other goodies, then you're on your way, kinda like a grocery run. Except instead of hopping in the mini van with all your kids, you pack up the boat and head out across the river. The view on the river was absolutely phenomenal. as pictured below, I got to stand on the bow of the boat. With the wind in my hair, sun at my back, and the beautiful trees lining the river, can't think of anywhere else I would rather be right now. It's really hard to put everything we've seen into words (or even take enough pictures to accurately represent it all, which I've taken 6000 pictures already)

The person responsible for putting this awesome tour together is Chi, she is a Vietnamese travel agent who has adopted Bob and Jeanne Smoker as her parents and is working with them as they speak conversational English with the Vietnamese English teachers. A couple of the places we got to visit were the candy factory and the popped rice factory (they were in the same building). Popped rice is basically a rice crispy treat, only it's made from scratch with rice instead of rice crispy cereal. Watching them make the candy (coconut based caramels) and the rice treats was very fascinating. The samples were delicious as well.

One of the stops we made along our journey was at a bee keeping place (not really sure the terminology for that) they had all the bees on the honeycombs making the honey right there. We got a small sample of the honey in some green tea, it was literally to die for, so good!! as with most of our stops there was a small souvenir shop. Something that set this one apart is that instead of the wallets sitting on a normal table, these ones were sitting on top of a cage... a python cage. This snake was huge!!! his body was approx 4-6" in diameter and he was about 7-8' long. A few brave members of our team got the luxury of holding this beast of a snake. While at the bee farm we discovered that Diana is deathly afraid of bees, this made for an entertaining time as anything that flies qualified as a bee as long as we were at the bee farm.

Part of our journey took us down a small river that branched off the Mekong, since our boat was rather large and was designed to brave the waters of the open river, it didn't exactly fit down this small canal so we boarded some sand pans and set off into the jungle. This was a lot of fun because the smaller boats were much quieter as they were rowed instead of powered by a noisy diesel engine. Also, it was like riding through the amazon with the low hanging trees and bushes growing out of the water.

After the mini-adventure with the sand pans, we docked a little ways up river and got to visit a fruit farm where all the Durian, lichi, jack fruit, and other fruits were grown. This was a lot of fun getting to hike through the tropical forests, walk across sketchy bridges (ok, in reality they were only about 3ft off the ground, but they were still fun) and get to see (and taste in some cases) the fresh fruit off the trees.

once the tour was over we headed back to port and had some lunch (probably our biggest meal to date) there was fish, soup, chicken, spring rolls, rice and all sorts of stuff.

*sidenote: Sand pans are typically the boats you see in movies where they have the long poles, so instead of rowing the boat, they push off the bottom of the river. However, these were a little different, since the water was a little deeper, they had oars (kinda like a Gondola, most had two though some only had one)

after our marvelous adventure on the Mekong we got to take our own bus to Tra Vinh where we will be spending the next 10 days talking in English for the teachers, creating conversation, talking about our families, entertainment, jobs, life, holidays, etc. We met Bob, Tyler, and Abby (Abby is interning with the Vietnamese teachers to teach English at the University) for dinner at a BBQ restaurant owned by a very nice Greek guy. After Dinner we headed out to a cafe to meet one of the teachers we will be working with (her name is escaping me, I'll edit this post when I get it)

That's all the adventures we had today, Thankfully we're all remaining healthy and having a blast (Though some might tell you it's a little on the hot side)

Pray for us to have the right words to say as tomorrow is our first day speaking
pray for continued safety, health, and sanity
pray that the heat won't get too unbearable
Thank you for supporting us

Soli Deo Gloria
Brandon Goodyear

Vietnam in words

GOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!!!!

so I've been here in Vietnam (Saigon, Vinh Long, [headed to Tra Vinh]) for a grand total of 2 days. I've taken over 2500 pictures, several hundred video clips, and having the time of my life.

The day we landed was pretty relaxing yet exciting, one of our team members (Diana) is Vietnamese and her father used to live in Saigon in a little apartment building, all we had was an address and a local, but we set off from our hotel in the rain and the traffic to find where her dad used to live. This was a pretty awesome experience, armed with camera in hand I set off with Thun (pronounced Thûng), Diana, and Lauren to look for Diana's father's house. Let me preface this trip by saying that neither of the girls has been to a South-east Asian country, let alone crossed the street at a busy traffic circle during rush hour, I'm bummed I didn't catch the first experience on video, quite comical. After surviving the streets and walking many blocks we made it to the address we had, the only thing was it no longer was an apartment complex, but a department store. Once we had taken in the area we took a scenic route back to the hotel to see the rest of the city.

That night we got to have dinner with the team from Alaska that taught English at the university last week. That brought a whole new level of excitement to the team as they were sharing their experiences getting to meet with the Vietnamese and the relationships they built with them.

we were all super tired and despite how much we wanted to stay up late (to aclimate to the time difference and get over jetlag) we all were back at the hotel and asleep by around 9ish

getting to sleep early sounds really awesome (and it is) but with going to sleep early comes waking up at 2, 3, or 4AM. I'm pretty thankful that I was able to get a good night's sleep (makes me thankful for my crazy sleep schedule at home) Knowing that I was going to be running on minimal sleep I decided to look for good coffee when I woke up in the morning (usually about an hour or so before everyone else). One thing I learned pretty quickly is that coffee shops in Vietnam don't open early like they do back home, Everything opened at 7... Period. First day coffee adventure turned into getting to breakfast a little early. After a hearty breakfast we set off to visit all the touristy stuff in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city) Starting with the reunification center. The reunification center was formerly the palace of the president of Vietnam. The palace has a long history of presidents that were either assassinated or forced to surrender their position in office. (more information about it here http://goo.gl/SE3UU)
Once we finished our tour, Including seeing the basement, helicopters, and tanks used in the war, we hopped in our taxis and headed to the Saigon Sky Deck (tallest building in Saigon). We discovered it when we were on our walk looking for Diana's father's house. The view from the 46th floor was breathtaking (I posted one pic from my phone on facebook) that doesn't really do it justice, better pics will come

*sidenote: taxis are rather small, so our team doesn't quite all fit in one taxi, Thankfully Diana speaks vietnamese so she can help give our driver directions  

Day two of the Coffee adventure however was a tad bit more successful (that's today) we were having breakfast at 7:30 so I woke up a little after 6, showered, grabbed my backpack then headed down to the end of the street to get myself a latte. quite delicious, I was throughly impressed.

*sidenote: I'll do my best to post pictures, but it's taking a long time to process all of them (some on phone, most on camera) also internet has been a bit slow (cept here where I'm posting from is impressively fast)

After a nice cup of coffee and the best Phó ever (yes, I get to have phó for breakfast and it only cost $1.50) we packed our bags and hopped from taxi to taxi (took I think 2 taxis to get to the bus station) and even when we got to the bus station, that was only a small bus that was transitioning us to the big bus to take use to Vinh Long,  while on the big bus I think I set a record for the fastest I have filled a blank memory card (competing with the time I photographed a concert at the House of Blues) there was so much to take in and the bus was moving so fast it was a huge challenge to take in as much as possible. hopefully out fo the 600 or so pictures I took on the bus there are a few good ones to show the experience of driving through the Vietnamese country side.

*sidenote: in Vietnam, bus passes you...

while we're here I'm going to do my best to do a Chronological update of our progress, I have been taking in so much of the culture, people, cities, the list goes on, while I won't have time to compose my thoughts into interesting stories, I'm going to be writing everything down, and when I get a creative spark I'll write up a little anecdote about something funny that happened. Like that one time when I got a small bottle of Tiger Balm for free because I thought it smelled good. Fun times, fun times ^_^

Continue to Pray for us

things to pray about

Rain (as much as we love it, it's rained quite a lot, makes traveling a little bit more of a challenge)
prepare us to mingle with the people we're going to teach
safety (while driving, walking, eating, health)
being a light an good influence to those who we come in contact with

Soli Deo Gloria
Until Next Time
Brandon Goodyear

Traveling the world, One country at a time

Back and ready for travel.

over the past 6 years I have had the most amazing opportunities to travel to mant places in our amazing world. The Domincian Republic, Cambodia, Mexico, downtown LA. This has given me a great passion to travel the world. This coming week I have the awesome opportunity to go to Vietnam for a few weeks to teach English at a university. Having an invitation from the governor of Tra Vinh to come teach English in a university town is pretty spectacular.

I'm sure that when I get back I will have loads of pictures to share as well as a thousand stories from our trip.

with this trip directly in front of me I am starting to set my mind on traveling the world to capture it's amazing beauty. Also, I would like to bring the different cultures of the world back to those at home, or with a 9-5 and no way to get out of the groove. Many of us have watched the CNN special, or national geographic shows on africa, china, and all the other wonderful places in the world. These are nothing less than spectacular, seeing the sunset on the African plains, fog over the mountains near the great wall of China, but when it comes to visiting the small villages and meeting the actual people in these countries they only occasionally follow one single person around, and it's usually in the "day in the life" format. 

I don't want to spill out too much if my plans until I get back and can properly put together a Kickstarter project and figure out funding for the trip (OH!! I've already said too much!!!!) 

anywho, now you'll just have to stop by and read my next post to find out where I'll be going next year ^_^ 

toodaloo!!! 

Raising money for Vietnam

Hello world!!

In my last post I threw out the plan that I was going to be putting together a gallery of my best photography. I did put it together and it was a great success!

it was a fun night of mingling, viewing the prints (which are much more beautiful than seeing the pictures on a computer screen) lots of people buying stuff there and even more people wanting to order stuff online (which is there this post will eventually be going) can't wait to get my work out into the world.

ok, so ordering online, here's how it's going to work (bare with me it's a slightly involved process)


you can go here: http://goo.gl/3Wjyg
to see all of the pictures that I had printed at the gallery.

after you have found a picture that you like, here's the ordering process

Email me at brandon.goodyear17@gmail.com

subject title: Vietnam Gallery Picture

Email content:

Name of picture (found on Facebook)

Quantity of print size

Method of payment (cash, check, credit card [using square for credit cards, so in person meeting required for credit card, also 2.75% cost for using credit card)

shipping plan: Pick up, mailed to house (shipping rates apply)

Cost per print is fixed, make checks payable to Brandon Goodyear
Any additional donation checks can be made out to Grace Church of Orange (tax deductable)

*I would have all checks made to grace church of orange so they can be tax deductable, but I need to cover the cost of printing/having the pictures shipped to my house. Thank you =)

here's a price list

8"X12" - $25

11"X14" - $50

16"X24" - $100

24"X36" - $250

Commissioned time $200/hour + printing cost to create a piece of art specifically for you

A Whole New World

I always have to start off my blog post with an anicdote from my life, to set the stage, I was sitting at a table working on my computer with my camera sitting next to me.

It was about 7:15AM at Kéan as I was constantly checking the time waiting for a friend to talk business. to help pass the time I thought I'd go through and work on some pictures I had taken but not quite gotten around to processing. I had my camera with me so that I could take pictures of people working cause the lighting was just perfect. The coffee shop started to get a little busier as people were stopping by for their morning coffee. still waiting for my friend, one of our regulars that I had served his 4 shot expresso countless times saw me sitting there with my camera, came over, and asked "have you ever done video with that? or just pictures?" talk about perfect timing, I had just filmed a short 45 second clip of one of our barista's making a latte. Answering yes I actually have really been interested in video, I pulled up the short clip as a demonstration. The following question nearly knocked me out of my chair. "have you ever worked with a RED camera?"

well, no only my DSLR

sidenote: RED cameras are super awesome cinema cameras that they use for like huge movies
here's a link simply to the camera (no batteries, lenses, memory cards, controls, viewfinders, anything, just the sensor)

http://www.red.com/store/products/epic-m-dragon-brain-only

when I hear that, my brain nearly exploded. So where does all this lead? I've been working at an internship where I'll basically learn all the ins and outs of the cinema industry, from cameras, to audio, to editing, compositing, storyboarding, script writing, the whole nine yards.

we just finished a commercial that turned out pretty good and now we're onto the fun projects ^_^

I feel like I'm leaving out a ton of detail, if you want to know anything more about it, just ask and I can fill in details, I need to move the blog post along cause there is other stuff I need to talk about.

I'm so blessed to be learning all this video stuff perfectly timed cause I am going to Vietnam with a team from my church this June. This is a much needed trip because I have been wanting to travel for about a year but with running/work I just haven't had the time or resources to do it.

as a fundraiser I would like to sell some prints of pictures I have taken. I'm going to set up a gallery at my house with all the pictures all of the procedes will go towards helping my team go to Vietnam

we need to raise about $2400 per person (7 people in total) I am personally responsable for raising $800 for myself (any extra will go into the team fund) all donations are tax deductible (more info on that will be at the gallery)

Thanks for reading/supporting
I will be trying to post as much as I can while in Vietnam
Brandon Goodyear

God's Most Loved Creation

I spent some time in Big Bear this past weekend on a college group winter retreat. It was a ton of fun, there was snow, laughing, sledding, the whole lot. The main event though was our lessons (saturday morning, evening, Sunday Morning. Last Year we were learning about the contrast between Adam and Jesus. How living in the flesh will lead to death and destruction, where as living in the spirit will lead to life and heaven. This year we were learning about the importance of reading your bible, praying, and walking in the spirit daily. God's word is supernatural, and will apply to what you are going through no matter where you are reading in it, God will use it. I cannot stress how important it is to read and pray every day, humbly asking God for wisdom and guidance as you go through out your day.

Now this all sounds good, but if we're honest, things can go perfectly until we run into that person that just can ruin our day. Weather it's a customer, cashier, server, guy who cut your off on the freeway, you get the picture. This is the one thing that I learned this weekend that hit me like a train, backs up, then hits me again. That one person, customer server cashier guy on the freeway, they are God's most loved creation. God is infinite in love, so you are God's most loved creation, and when you look at it in that perspective  how would you treat God's most loved creation? With respect, love, servent's heart, and even though they might not know it, God sent his son Jesus to die for them and save them of their sins. Think back for just a week, I know I can come up with a long list of things I have done that is less than pleasing to God, and that's just this week!! God paid for all the things that we have done in the past, are doing, and will do in the future. Now, how will you treat people knowing that they are God's most loved creation? 

just a little food for thought, it has definitely changed the way I look at the people I work with and serve =)

Enjoying the simple things... like Coffee

Wow, it just occurred to me that I have been working for almost 8 months at Kean Coffee. To answer all those who will inevitably ask, yes I'm a Barista. 

now, the reason that I'm writing this post is not because I totally forgot to tell the world that I got a job but because about a week ago I started composing a blog post on my phone while I was waiting for some friends in a hipster coffee shop in the middle of irvine to discuss our future filming plans (more info to come in it's time). As I was sitting there I realized that I need to get out and see the world, and if I can put together a big enough project I can get funding (through sites like Kickstarter/indegogo). My big mental block was what to do, what can I photograph, video, or simply document while traveling all over the world. Then it hit me, I was sitting in this small coffee shop (coffee wasn't the best, but I'm spoiled, so take my opinion with a grain of salt) that has a relaxed, comfortable aura to it. That's when I realized that I should photograph/film in coffee shops all around the world.

this is (in all honesty) a brilliantly crazy idea. I'm gonna start out by mapping out where some coffee shops are, then see about travelling as a "pre trip scouting" we'll see how this all pans out, if you need me I'll be praying and doing a little bit of research ^_^ 

have a wonderful day, and if you ever want to stop by, my latte art is getting a little better 

- Looking at life through a lens

Brandon Goodyear