The Latest

Tonight is our final night of shows here in Vietnam. I can't believe it's already here! It went by so quickly. This last week has flown by especially fast. The shows were great all week. Georges came and watched almost every single night, and luckily he was in a great mood so everything was alright. On Friday night the new band Xpress arrived and they all came up to watch us. We always put on a good show but we felt like we had to do even more that night just so these new guys could see what they need to do. Xpress is an El-live band as well so we've been taking them around and showing them everything. They are a 6 piece band like us except they have no keyboard player so they have 3 singers, two girls, one guy, a bass player, a guitar player and a drummer. They are all really nice and it's been so fun having more people around to hang out with. The two girl singers and the guitar player are all brand new so it's fun to hear about how they are liking everything so far.
After our show on Friday night we all went out to eat on the street and hang out. It was a fun time until we were standing waiting for a taxi and two guys on a motorbike drove past and ripped one of the new girl's purse off her neck. Luckily he dropped it and she got it back but she was in shock and she has a mark on her neck from them pulling it. I felt bad that that was one of her first experiences in Asia and we all told her that doesn't happen often. It never happened to any of us and I still can't believe it happened. But at least now she'll be more careful.
So back to tonight, Xpress is going to come up and watch us again for our final night, so we have to rock it! After tonight we still don't really know what's happening. We still have no idea when we are flying out of here because our Visas are still processing or something. So at least we get a nice little break for a bit. I'll keep you updated on what's happening! Happy Sunday everyone.

Final Week

First off I have to say Happy Birthday to my mom! It's already past her birthday here now but it's just starting there, so Happy Birthday Mom, I hope it's great! And secondly you'll notice I posted another video, again it's still really dark, but the sound is pretty good! So I hope you all enjoy.
This is our final week here. I know I can't believe how fast it's gone by either, I am excited to move on though. I'm sure after a couple months in Oman I will be missing this place, but for now I am ready to get on out of here and onto another adventure. Righ tnow I'm kind of nervous about going to Oman with all the uprisings happening in all the countries around it, but I think we will be fine. From what I hear they are a very peaceful country so I feel pretty safe. And if anything happened they would get us out of there quick! Anyway things have been going smoothly. The shows have been great, tonight the audience was kind of lame, but we still had a good time.
We are supposed to be leaving here the 1st or 2nd of March, we don't have a definite date yet, I don't really know why since it's in a week. I will make sure and post when I make there, and I still might post another before we leave, we'll see. I think that's about it for now!

The Wrath

Sometimes it's weird how things can go from great to bad so quickly. The last couple days have been just like that. Things were just moving along going great and then came Wednesday night. We all knew that Georges was back in town, he left to go to Korea and Beijing, because we could hear him yelling at people on Skype all the way down the hall. So we pretty much knew that he wasn't in a such a great mood. When he showed up to our show Wednesday night, we knew for sure that he wasn't in a good mood. We had already done one set and were in the middle of the second set when we noticed him. He usually comes in and makes himself known but this time he was kind of quiet and just sat in a corner where we could barely see him. But it didn't really matter because we were doing a great job like we usually do. As soon as the set ended he called us all over to a corner and let us have it. He just yelled like we had done the worst show he had ever seen. It was so weird. We did the same show we always do and we did an awesome job. But it seemed like all the things he liked from before now all of a sudden weren't good anymore. After that we still had one more set to do, and of course it made us all stressed. Then after the last set we had another lecture, and at the end he told us, "I'll be here tomorrow, the next day, the next day, and the next day, and so on," like it was a threat. After that then we all just went to our rooms and went to bed.
The next day I got up did my normal thing and then came back and noticed I had a missed call from JD. So I called him back and he said, "uh we have kind of an emergency," so immediately I thought someone was hurt or sick. It wasn't anything that bad but he told me that the hotel was overbooked and I had to give up my room so I had like 20 minutes to get all my stuff together and move into Andrea's room. That was not a simple task, my stuff is spread out everywhere like I'm home, because this is my home right now, so it was quite a job. I threw everything into my suitcases and into his room and then it was time for rehearsal, I had to miss lunch and I was starving!! So then rehearsal was alright until about 2 hours in and Georges shows up for more lecture time. So then we get more of the same stuff about how horrible were doing and how it's going to suck so bad in Oman for us if we perform like this and so on and on. And he ended by letting us know he'd be there again tonight. By the time he finished we only had time to run one more song, so now he have to add an extra rehearsal day.
Then dinner time came and that was uneventful other than I was starving so it tasted AMAZING! Then we were up doing shows, the first set passed and it was great. Then the next set Georges was up there watching us again....Goody! We put on a great show again, the audience loved it again and we felt great about it. And you know what? He was in a good mood so things were OK again! Imagine that! How odd. So after everything it was a normal end to a couple bad days and I will take that normal anytime!

Video

I know I haven't been posting much lately but there hasn't been too much to post about. Things are still going great and we only have two weeks of shows left here, then it's off to Oman! I'm mostly excited about that! I love it here, but I also love getting to go somewhere new.
This week the shows were pretty great, some of the nights were a little slow, but we still did our best of course, so no problems there. Then last night the bar manager from Zeta in Malaysia surprised us and came to visit us here! He's going to be staying for a few days, it was a nice surprise! He's the one that had us all over to his house for Christmas dinner, such a nice guy. It's going to be fun to show him around here and stuff because he's never been here before.
Anyway besides that, not too much excitement. So since I don't have much to write about I thought I would attach one of the videos Kyle filmed while he was here. there's no filming or picture taking allowed in the club so he had to borrow my mom's Super Secret Spy Glasses, cool right? Anyway the sound quality is pretty great, but the video itself is really dark, but at least it's something! So enjoy:)

Cu Chi Tunnels and My Visitor!

Last week was such a blast! Kyle came and visited me here and it was like a vacation, even though I live here right now. It was so much fun, first of all it was great just to have someone from home to talk to and hang out with and just be me with! And then secondly, it was awesome to do the touristy things and go eat at different places every day and just have some fun. Also it was great having someone see the shows who I can actually trust their opinion and see if we're really that good ha ha. But ya know, now that I think of it I never really asked him what he thought!
We went shopping all over the place, we did a LOT of shopping, but that's great because it's so cheap. A lot of places were still closed the first couple days he was here because of the Chinese New Year holiday, so I had to just show him around at what was open. We went and walked the big flower street, it was perfect timing because the day after we went to it they took the whole thing down! I can't believe they could take it down so fast! I took him to a different restaurant for every meal, I didn't dare feed him street food because I know it would get to him. We even went to Hard Rock Cafe one night. It was awesome because no matter where you are in a Hard Rock Cafe they still have the same menu, and it was delicious. I also had him try my new favorite fruit, the passion fruit, and he loved it too!
Then on Monday, my day off, we went on a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels. It was so cool! We learned all about what life was like back then and how the tunnels were so useful to the Vietnamese in the war. We even got to climb around inside one of the tunnels, it was freaky, I felt so claustrophobic down there, but it was cool to see what it was like for them. They showed us all the different areas, like the medical area, the kitchens, the weapon making area, everything. It was so much fun! The pictures I posted are all from the tour, so take a look and it will be just like you were there too!
When it came time for Kyle to leave his bag was STUFFED! I wanted to send some of the clothes I don't need back with him, plus all the stuff he bought, but we made it fit! It was so great having him here, but now it's time to get back to the real world, well sort of real world, this still doesn't feel like much of a job.

Chinese New Year

So Chinese New Year is here! They've been decorating the streets and everything for the whole month of January and now it's finally time for the celebration. The biggest part of it is this whole street that they shut down and decorate with all sorts of flowers, statues, lights, and fountains. It's so cool! I watched them each day as they built all the structures and started planting everything, it was fun to watch it all come together. Then on Monday night they opened it up and it was amazing. There were so many people out there. I tried to go take pictures that first night but I couldn't even squeeze into the crowd, it was crazy! So I decided to wait til New Year's Day because everything closes down and everyone stays with their families the whole day so it was really quiet. You can see from the picture how amazing it all is! They spend so much time and money just for this one week of celebration. They even did a big fireworks show on the eve. When we looked out from the club all you could see were people's heads, there were so many people out there celebrating! There is nothing like this back home, I'm so glad I got to experience this while I'm out here, it's really a cool thing and I'm glad I got to see it here in Vietnam since they go all out like this!
Besides the excitement of the new year not much else has been happening. Just been doing the shows, and they have been great. Oh and I did meet two guys that were from Utah! What a small world right? They were both originally from Canada but they moved to Utah to go to BYU. Now the one is a pro golfer in Asia and he lives here in Vietnam and his friend still lives in Utah and just came out to visit him. So crazy! I never would have thought that I would meet a Utahn out here in Asia!
Anyway not much else has been happening, I'm going to go out tonight and try to get some good pictures of everything with the cool lights, but we'll see how they turn out!