*Transcribed Journal Entry Day 10* 29.12.2010

Today I woke up to a round of Happy Birthdays from all of the volunteers.  It was a great way to wake up for sure!!  At breakfast we had Vietnamese baguettes, peanut butter and nescafe coffee.  All of the volunteers pitched in to get me a handmade scented oil diffuser that the Korean girls bought at a traditional Vietnamese market a couple of days ago. 

After breakfast, we headed back to the garden for more weeding work.  We had some good discussions about the future of the Korean peninsula and the Italian mafia...  Quite uneventful until Enrico, Yasuto and Philippe brushed their arms up against the plants that have a stinging reaction (quite likely Stinging Nettles).

Lunch again for me was vegetarian, still can't get the dog butchering out of my head from yesterday.  We spent the afternoon session sitting in on a class with the kids.  The teacher was trying to read over some phrases in a kids storybook with the kids and have them repeat the phrases.  It was quite uncomfortable as the kids had extremely short attention spans and the teacher spent quite a long time with each student repeating over and over again the same phrases.

We played another game of soccer before dinner, again all the guy volunteers and a few of the kids.  For dinner today, there was quite a Korean flavour, as was lunch too actually (lunch today included Gochujong sauce).  We had kimchi (spicy this time!) and again for me just rice and tofu...

After dinner, the volunteers brought out a birthday cake (Boseung carrying it!!) made of Choco Pie's for me!!!
*Just as a side note, Choco Pies are the Korean equivalent of Wagon Wheels (a chocolate treat filled with marshmallow filling inside) that is apparently popular in Vietnam as well.  I got very used to Choco Pies back in 2003/2004 when I was an ESL teacher in Korea as we used to give them out to the kindergarten students at break time.

At 20h00, we all made our way to the bar in a village about a 5 minute walk from the orphanage.  We got a round of beers and at my request Kien ordered a 2 litre bottle of Vietnamese 'wine' AKA Rice Wine...

After doing an obligatory solo shot of the rice wine, we all did a shot, then started up with a couple of drinking games.  Lilly, a German girl volunteering on an individual program for one year also came by with a Vietnamese friend to join in on the party.  The owner of the bar invited Thibault, Kien, Ville, Enrico and I to smoke some tobacco out of a traditional Vietnamese tobacco pipe.

The night ended at 22h00.  As tomorrow is international food day I will be the first to cook, making a breakfast of pancakes with Canadian Maple Syrup and Smoked Salmon pate.  Tomorrow is also Philippe's 25th birthday, so another day of celebration is sure to happen!!!