Swimming in Chocolate

Note before I post: This one is gonna be a little shorter as I really want to get some sleep tonight, so some details might nor make it in here, but you will definitely here them when I get back

Today was an extra special day as we got to take a trip to the beach. we woke up super early in the morning (at least some of us did) to be ready to board a 15 passenger van at 7AM. We kinda were running a little bit behind schedule, and to help things along, there was a problem with the van, so around 8:15 we were off, headed down to the beach. Our drive out there was a bit long, but we got to enjoy the Vietnamese countryside. On our way we stopped to pick up lunch, crab & shrimp. I kid you not, this time I literally watched my food squirming around, because all the crabs were tied up (though one lucky soul managed to escape the bucket, but he didn't get very far). We stayed at the roadside crab shack for about 45 mins while they cooked our food. Once we arrived at the beach we claimed a gazibo to set out our food.  Then we set to work cracking open crabs, peeling shrimp, basically just eating the food, but with a little bore more work since they were just whole cooked crabs.

The water down at the beach felt amazing (just got my feet wet)

after enjoying the food and the scenery we headed back to Tra Vinh where we had a couple hours to rest before dinner with Twii

*food seems to be a big thing over here (either that or I'm always hungry)

we got to have waffles and Ice cream for dessert back at the hotel.

now I'm getting ready for bed as we have an early morning tomorrow (visiting the english school)


Thank you for Praying for us!!
Soli Deo Gloria
Until next time
Brandon Goodyear

Speaking natively

wait, they're Bi-Lingual? I'm not even Uni-Lingual, Im doing good just to order a hamburger at In n Out...

Yesterday was a busy day. It all started with waking up super early to be at the school by 7AM for our breakfast, steamed buns w/ pork, duck eggs, and some other mystery stuff that we really don't know what it is. We started out our second day of English showing a video on how to make the "sh" sound, this was quite an interesting task because not only is the instructor in the video a little bit funny, but he also has a strange choice of words for teaching the "sh" sound. For example, the sentence that they came up with for the sound was "will the shy showgirl shake her shoes" made us giggle, thankfully the concept of making the sound got across. I discovered that it helps them to learn if they have a physical motion to go along with the sound. Like when you are trying to tell someone to be quiet you put your finger to your mouth to say shhhhhhh. This worked, but makes for a funny time when you see people trying to say "mission" and having to put their finger up to pronounce the "sh" sound.

we were on our own for lunch after class, so we went to a small place near the hotel and got some pork, rice, soup, a typical meal. Here's where things got better, we got to go to the Sunrise cafe afterwards and get coffee, orange, piña colada shakes. They were extremely delicious, I think we will be frequenting there.

Random Vietnam fact #1 Despite the extreme heat (it's been in the 80's but with the humidity, it feels really hot) the sun doesn't beat down and burn people like it does back home

Full with food and about an hour left until our field trip of the day we headed back to the hotel to rest up before the long moto ride (in a light rain). funny note, on our last field trip it began to rain on our way back, the teacher I was riding with didn't have a rain coat, so we had to stop for a couple mins to let the rain stop (he was concerned about my camera, super nice) I asked if I put my camera in my backpack (which has a rain fly) if we could just brave the rain and head back. We tried, got about 700 ft then had to pull over again cause the rain was too much. Back on track, so we were headed to our field trip, which was to a place called Ao Ba om which was a large pond with what looked to be an alter of some sort in the middle. This was an awesome field trip, the location was beautiful as we were surrounded by trees. While we were there we got to visit a pegota (temple where bhuddist monks live) right as we were getting ready to leave the pegota it started to rain (let me paint a picture, when it rains, imagine someone following you around with a hose, that's how it rains here) we all ran for cover to wait until the rain dies down (that's another thing, when it rains, it rains like crazy, but only for about 5 mins tops). Once the rain calmed down we headed back to our motos so we could go out for an early dinner with the teachers. Thankfully dinner was right across the street, because I know I was hungry. for our super early dinner we got to have Phô noodle soup. We got to eat some in Saigon, but haven't had much of an opportunity to eat it as I would like. I Like. Phô.

with dinner out of the way I headed back to the hotel (confusion about what our plans were, turns out everyone went to a coffee shop... the irony). It all worked out for the best because those couple hours gave me time to go through and organize a small portion of the pictures I have taken while here (approx 7500 in 5 days) after going through the pictures I re-grouped with the group and we headed out for out nightly cane juice routine. The main reason we go to this cane juice place is because one of the teachers that is in the class runs the stand at night after going to class and teaching during the day. But it is cane juice, who's gonna turn that down? After enjoying our sweet treat the teacher invited us to go to the beach. As I'm typing this I'm counting the hours of sleep I'm gonna get as we have to be up and ready to leave by 7AM so we can make it there (about an hour bus ride) and back in time for our team meeting etc.

ok, that was yesterday, let's move on to today

what can I put as a tagline... oh

you though people with bad shopping cart skills were dangerous in the market, lets try a moto ^_^

today was our "relax and do whatever" day, relax we did, kinda. The morning plans got a bit jumbled up in translation so instead of going to the market at 10AM some people were just getting out of bed at 9:55AM while some of us were up and ready to go by 7 as usual. I slept in until about 8 or so, sorted some pictures until 9, then went down to grab some breakfast in the cafe right outside our hotel (pork and noodles w/coffee grand total for the meal $2.50 (including buying Tyler's coffee) Once I finished my meal the rest of the guys showed up (probably out walking the town) we waited for the other hald of our team to be ready to go to the market (it's about 9:45 when all this is taking place) Ed slipped a note under the door of their rooms so that they would know where we were when they finally woke up to head downstairs.

Eventually they came down but were ready for food (since they hadn't eaten breakfast. So as a group we all headed over to the cafe around the corner that way we could enjoy a cup of coffee while they ate. Instead fo getting to the market by 10, we ended up leaving for the market by 11... oops, thankfully we didn't have a too strict a schedule for today. I always enjoy a nice day trip to the market, it's a great experience that everyone should at least see (and smell) once in their life. The Vietnamese market was very similar to markets I have visited in Cambodia, there was one difference though, People were driving their motos down the small cramped walkways of the market. In some cases there was barely enough room for normal foot traffic, let alone a full blown moto with a family of 3 on it.

my walk around the market got halted as I realized I had to use the restroom but had no way of asking where the restroom was (donde el bano didn't work). That's one problem that won't go overlooked next time.

we all met up at the vinitex market (kinda like a mix of walmart, and smart n final) got some snacks, then headed to Palace 1 (the hotel Bob, Tyler, and Abi are staying in) to have our team meeting/ devotional/debriefing/brainstorming. Our theme verse for the trip is 1 Peter 3:15, we've been reading through 1 Peter. New experience, since none of us are musically inclined (In the sense that none of us had a guitar or instrument to play) we played worship songs off an iPhone & my laptop and just sang along ^_^

After our team meeting we all packed up, dropped off our goodies at our hotel, then headed over to the sunrise cafe for some food and shakes. Honestly the best shakes I've had, so delicious. With just a little time to rest before our night time activities our group headed back to the hotel to rest, Ed, my Dad, Bob, Tuan, and I met Twii (the english teacher) at a cafe down the street for coffee. They discussed ideas as how to have more teams here on a regular basis, and possibly the option of having people come on extended periods (like what Tyler and Abi are doing)

Finally on to night time we had two activities to choose from, go down to the arena and watch Tyler play soccer (and play if we felt up to it) or go watch Abi in her English class she teaches.
I went to the soccer game tonight, it was a lot fo fun.

That concludes the evening, now I'm super tired, but looking forward to the beach tomorrow

Continue praying for the English teachers that an opportunity will com up to plant seeds
pray for health and safety
pray for wisdom and guidance for the ministry to continue on

Soli Deo Gloria
Until next time
Brandon Goodyear

BTW
I GOT A PICTURE WITH A COW!!!!!!!

Ready... Fire!!! Aim... wait what??

Today was our irst day teaching English, it all started off a little behind schedule as we were a bit confused about when we were supposed to be at our breakfast location (which just ended up being dumplings right outside our classroom). The first day of teaching was quite entertaining as we are getting to know the people while we are trying to teach them (Christine being the only teacher in the group). We watched a 10 min video on how to make the "th" sound both the voiced and voiceless versions. After watching that a whole new world of sounds was opened up when you think about how we use our mouths to create sounds. One of the things that makes learning English difficult is it is the language that uses the most movements of the mouth. Most of the Vietnamese words are spoken with very little mouth movements and even fewer facial expressions.

After our first teaching session we all headed over to the university Café to get some Ice Coffee (Vietnamese Ice Coffee is by far the best I have ever had... period) and continue chatting with some of the teachers. It is very interesting talking to people who know so much English, yet it is still a struggle for them to speak it (mainly because their mouths work differently than ours). Once we finished our coffee we headed back into the class room to finish up our last 2 hours of teaching. Our subjects that we were discussing today were Family and entertainment. I really enjoyed getting to talk about my little family (at work and at home) it really helped being able to show them some pictures of what I do in my spare time.

one thing that is pretty neat is that most of the teachers all teach at the same school. One of the guys in the English class has just recently graduated from the university to become a teacher, he has been teaching for three months now.

Now that we have finished all our teaching for the day it is time for us to head over to grab some lunch with the teachers. we took our motos from the school to the restaurant which was along a river that eventually joins the Mekong. Our lunch consist of the traditional beef, shrimp, rice, soup, fish, etc. I really love the rice soup that they serve at almost every meal (makes me want to be more proactive about cooking at home... Phô for everyone!!!!!!).

With our stomachs full and our brains exercised the next logical step is to go on a tour of Mr. Ho Chi Minh's temple here in Tra Vinh. Here's the thing, people don't normally get to tour Mr. Minh's house and temple, it's a very special thing that was put together by the English teachers. It was absolutely beautiful, you can ask any of the people on the team and they would tell you that they want a house like that (some might prefer a room with an air conditioner, but that's beside the point)

After the tour we stopped at this small roadside restaurant where we had DIY spring rolls. Basically they gave us all the fillings and some rice paper to make our own spring rolls. I'll be honest, Tyler and I preferred to just eat the meat (these weirdly delicious sausages that tasted a little like bbq sauce), this got us in trouble as our meat bowl cleared out twice as fast as the other ones. Thankfully it was no problem to order a bit more.

That's something I've learned here, despite that they seem to eat a ton of food (or they're bringing out more than usual because we're Americans) the Vietnamese are in very good shape and are very healthy.

yet again filled to the brim with food we headed back to Palace 1 (the names of the hotels are Palace 1 & Palace 2, our team is staying in Palace 2) to meet with Bob and the rest of the team to debrief from the day and discuss any ideas we had for class tomorrow. We prayed then headed out for our last event for the night, a sugar cane juice run. One of the teachers in our class also runs a small sugar cane juice cart. Sugar cane is the most delicious drink, but is only good if you get the fresh sugar cane (and in their case, add a little bit of pineapple for a litte bit of extra flavor). While the group was enjoying their sugar cane I got to take a walk through the night market with Tuan. It was mostly clothes, but still a fun experience.

looking forward to a good night's sleep ^_^

Keep Praying as we prepare for our next day of teaching, Thankfully we have two days off scheduled teaching (saturday/sunday). We will most likely be spending that time with the teachers, but also catching our breath and getting a little rest.

Soli Deo Gloria
Until tomorrow
Brandon Goodyear

P.S.  WiFi was not cooperating, so no picture this time around, if it decides to work with me tomorrow I'll edit this

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