Tet in Hanoi

This post is long overdue, but I won't bore you with the last few weeks... I'll save that for a different, long delayed post. My Uncle Jon, Nom De Plume: Honorable Uncle Jon, came to Hanoi to visit over Tet. He was very active in the SDS and anti-war movements in the 70's and we started his visit with some Vietnam War history.


Khe San:

Wait, no, I've gotten ahead of myself. We picked Jon up at about 11 P.M.and didn't rush into the war history.  It was the eve of the start of Tet.  As we came back from the airport the driver took a turn.  I knew that it was a short cut but it would run us right into the Dragons.  Around West Lake there are a number of dragons such as these.  A set of them is right by our school and at the end of a shortcut....or at the beginning of the massive fireworks display!
Since we had paid at the airport, the rate wouldn't have changed so I let the driver take the tiny road down the short cut.  We stopped about 100m/300ft from the dragons and saw an awesome display amidst the parked motorbikes.  Let me define two words: Stopped: forced to a halt because the street was a convenient place for everyone else to park and watch the fireworks.  Parked: forced to halt because the street was a convenient place for everyone else to park and watch the fireworks.

We got down to the Sofitel Metropole a bit before 1 A.M. and Jon got situated.  He also gave us our presents:

Moisturiser without bleaching cream, razors which I haven't used much since I've got a mad beard going on right now, girl scout cookies and.... Frank's Red Hot sauce.  Tossing glass bottles in your check in can result in breakage so Jon washed out a few bottles of hair conditioner and poured in the liquid goodness!
Now you think that this would last me the rest of the year.  Ha!  I've nearly used all three bottles!
The Sofitel was awesome and had some cool history.  The next day we took a tour around Hoan Kiem lake (Old Quarter).

 Red Bridge to the Jade Island  We looked for turtles (Janet is always optimistic) but we didn't see any.

 Ly Thai To was a very very popular statue for Tet.  Although a lot is closed over Tet, we got to see everyone out in full force enjoying their own city.  There were more Vietnamese tourists and worshippers everywhere than I'd ever seen before.  In between lighting incense and praying at these statues and pagodas, they took pictures just like the rest of us.

 Turtle pagoda in Hoan Kiem

 The front of the Metropole still has the same charm as it did in 190something

 You can rent these cars, one is currently not working, but both are beautiful, except for the CD player in the running one.

 This is one of Jon's pictures.  He sends these electrical nightmares to his theater grips and reminds them to tape the cords down and keep them organized.


In Hanoi, we happen to live next to the most important pagoda on the lake.  So important that everyone and their great-grandmother started coming on the night of Tet.  Yes, we left Jon at the Sofitel around 1 A.M. and got home to see cars rushing by.  Normally, we see a bit of light activity on the road.  This middle of the night traffic was just the beginning of this:

This went on for a few days and then for every weekend into March.  It wasn't as crowded, but it was craziness.  We've walked down to the pagoda, and walked around it with absolutely no one there!  This day we got as far as the "old men" who write fortunes and turned around.
From where you see Janet and Jon in the picture, the pagoda is 500 hundred meters, but the cars did not move while we walked there and it looked vaguely the same after we turned around and waked in the opposite direction about 150 meters (all of these measurements are based on the fact that our apartment was right where we took this picture from).  So 150m away, we found a very sparsely visited, but beautiful pagoda that had some tombs that looked to be very very old.

 At the time I didn't take pictures of the old tombs and graves around the side, or the pagoda itself since people were praying.  Writing this, I wish I had since it isn't a big deal to whip out a camera and take pictures of anything anytime in Hanoi.  Oh well, one of these days I guess I could take 10 minutes, walk down, take pictures, and walk back.  At the other gate of this pagoda there is a large piece of un-polished marble.  It is interesting and beautiful and there is no good reason why I don't have pictures of it, I see it a few times a week.
In the picture above, when you glance to the left, there is a gate, the main gate, that is often closed.  The marble stone is just on the far side of the statue, as is another gate.  This gate is always open and it is where we first walked in to see the marble stone.  Coming from that side, we thought that it was the main attraction of the temple area.  Therefore Jon decided that it must be a meteorite if they had built this big temple area around it.  I wish he had been right, but it is just a cool piece of rock.

So the next day we went to go see Ho Chi Minh sleeping.  

 

We went in through the 'outside' gate since we didn't have an appointment and we had no idea where to go.  We did have to go through a metal detector that went off to the annoyance of the security as they waved us through.  After standing outside in the rain we realized that there was a big line to get in.  We asked how to get in and were escorted to the front 10% of the line.   This line took us right into the mausoleum and around to the museum which was crazy according to Janet and Jon.  I walked back around to pick up our bags from security and couldn't get back in.  At this point in the day the line was wrapped around in an over 2 hour wait.

I'm glad we got to cut into the front of the line.  Along with the attendance of the pagodas, visiting the mausoleum is also an important Tet event and was crowded.

After that we went to the 1 pillar pagoda.

 

It is supposed to look like a lotus flower.

How many pillars?    Ahh, I got it wrong, it is just a 1 pillar pagoda.


On the second day of Tet we were invited to my assistant teacher's father's home.  We had a great afternoon (after a cab ride from someone who wouldn't admit they were lost and only took us an hour and a bit out of the way).  So nearly 2 hours late, we got to Ms. Ha's father's house.

It was a really fun afternoon.  The food was good, my legs went numb from time to time since I'm not built to sit on the floor, we scooped rice wine out of bowls into shot glasses and the kids got lucky money envelopes.  It was a great experience, and that afternoon we went off to the airport on our way to Hue.

Jeff's Thoughts on Life Recently

Exam weeks.

Yes "weeks"- plural.

Today my students had a Chinese test for 60 minutes.  We have been instructed that they cannot, CANNOT get up or go to the restroom.  I cannot start teaching even if everyone is done.  So students were finished in 12, 20 and 22 minutes.  It was a looooooooong time for them to sit quietly and read a book.  They did it though!  Only one thing went horribly wrong... everyone asked me questions!  I know slightly between 4 and 5 words in Chinese.  I can read slightly less Chinese, between 0 and 0 words.  There happened to be two big mistakes/misprints/typos on the test.  Since I can't leave the class and the Chinese teacher is running between 6 classes, help was nowhere to be found.  After about 7 minutes, I grabbed a teacher who was walking by and asked her to find and send the Chinese teacher over.  She promptly gave them the answers and said that it was a bad copy.
Don't you just love watching kids sweat every morning for 60-80 minutes over a test!

And...(I know, never use and at the beginning of a sentence, but it's my blog and I'll write what I want and have Janet correct me later)...And it is raining so my kids have to stay inside for break and lunch and snack.  It is times like this that I wish I was one of those horrible teachers/people who like to punish kids.  They are getting punished today by the rain and the tests and it makes me miserable.
It gets better/worse!  I can type this because they are in the midst of a second, surprise test (given by their EPP teacher)! Hooray!  They are taking an EPP (English Preparatory something) test right after their Chinese test, and right before I give them their English written test tomorrow...and Monday.  "Two English tests?" you ask... Nope 4!

To add to the joy of test weeks, the weather outside has looked like this for the last 4 weeks:

I found that it was the same image whether I made it in paint or took a picture.

I did get 2 days of intense sunshine and thought I might die of heat stroke in Saigon though.  I went down for my second softball tournament.  This time I went with my Hanoi team, the Bad News Bums.  We tied for last place but had a great time.  Due to peoples' work schedules we brought our infield but none of our outfield.  We had some really great guys fill in, they were great to hang out with and I'd love to grab a beer with them again.   They don't play in the local league and were a little bit out of practice.

It was fun to see the same guys I met during the September tournament.  They were pushing to have a Hanoi or halfway tournament.  Personally, I'd like to do the halfway tourney.  That means we would be in Danang or Na Trang.  Both in central Vietnam and both by the beach!  Either way I hope our outfield comes, it is made up of 4 tough guys who can field and hit the ball like it insulted their mother.

Despite our atrocious losses (19-5, 15-0, 17-0 and 14-5) I went 10 for 12 and stood tall at third base, we just couldn't put 3 base runners on in a row without getting 3 outs in a row.  If you're a score keeper, I actually went 9-12 because of a FC to put a guy out at second.
I also got my new bat right before the tournament!!

This bad boy right here:

It is USSSA legal and feels sweet to hold, but it is still in the plastic.

As Jeremy, our PE teacher who also lived in CWE only 3 houses away from me in the mid 90s, and I were taking practice swings in my classroom at the end of the day (as any good teacher does), I got an email from our captain.
"Another quick note from the tourney.  No outside bats, all bats will be provided."
Crap.
Our spring season starts in March so the bat will stay wrapped up and unused until then.

We recently went to Indonesia as I'm sure everyone knows from our well written, in-depth, riveting  opinion altering post.  If I had to pick a last meal, I'd have some oysters, crab, rendang, flying fish roe, rare/raw steak, wings from Jeffersons and Buffalo Wild Wings and Indo Mie rasa Kari Ayam.

So I brought back a bunch of Indo Mie to Hanoi.  This morning I opened a pack to make lunch and not one, but TWO  bumbu/cabe packs were in it!  I shouted "Aww Hell Yeah!"  just like Will Smith in every movie, and Janet commented that she hadn't seen me that excited in a while.  If you've ever had Indo Mie, you know how great this morning was.  It was GREAT!  I can have an extra Kari Ayam meal!

Merry Christmas!!!

We had Christmas day brunch with my dad, Dyah and my setengah brothers.

Janet and 3 year old Peyton.

The brunch at the Darmawangsa was fancy. Really fancy.  Ridiculousness fancy.  So fancy that I had caviar left on my plate and no bellini,  so I left it.  I left the caviar so I could get new caviar.  If that doesn't make me a big shot rapper, I don't know what does.

 

It's raspberry jello but he has an oscar in his future for pretending to be drunk.

We haven't mentioned the part about our luggage being ...um... non-available.  That's how I ended up in this appropriately festive shirt.

With Eric (age 7)...Sorry, 7 and 1/2 I was just informed (by Eric).

Dad and Dyah.

The buffet is so big you need a map.  I honestly walked around 3 times before I got out of the "Jakarta room."  Then I walked around 38 more times.  The more you walk, the more you can eat.  It's all about the consumption to cost ratio and maximizing consumption!!!!!!

 Oysters, Pate, Shrimp, Lobster, Crab and Salmon.

I stopped at 11 oysters since I'm allergic.  If I only do 5 at a time I get an itchy face and my throat starts to tighten.  So after 5, I had to space my oysters apart so that I could survive and keep eating the rest of the plethora of scrumptious food.

Prawns, scallops, clams, baby lobster and crab.

Wagu beef wrapped asparagus.

 Fois Gras.

Wheel 'o' parmigiana.

The library that we want in our home.

They will grind and brew coffee to order.

Sushi.  One of my favorite things in the world.  To common-place for this buffet.  I had none of it!

Pate

This fish just likes to chill and watch you.  Get it?  Chill.  He is on a huge block of ice!

Sometimes you want oysters.  Then you want prawns and baby lobster.  Then you think... fois gras would really put a bow on this whole plate.  So you do it!!!

Champagne or wine?  Sure, I'll have it all.

Eventually they ate all the deserts.  Really, all. Then promptly fell into a sugar coma afterwards.  First, they had to play Nintendo DS while they digested the chocolate fondue covered marshmallows.  All 14 of the mallows.

Ahhh. I've had enough lobster and fois gras.  I'll settle for lamb and oysters if that's the only darn thing available! 

Delicious!