Thanksgiving Day Blues

I've been asked a couple of times what I did for Thanksgiving. The highlight of the day was when Huyen rang my doorbell at 10:45 AM holding a giant mango and an even bigger smile. I asked here why she was at my house so early on a work day and she said, "To wish you a happy Thanksgiving day."

Huyen and I ate the mango together and in this way it was the closest I've ever come to the original Thanksgiving -- sharing local crops with the natives.

Besides that though the day was uneventful and frankly depressing. I had to work until 9:30 PM and then had my big Thanksgiving meal by myself since Huyen had dinner with Ryan's parents who were visiting. I went to my favorite new chicken spot (been there 5 times in 8 days) and ordered the largest plate of chicken they had and pretended it was turkey:

After I got home Huyen and I went for coffee and shot some pool. I think it goes without saying that besides my family, the thing I'm most thankful for this year is Huyen.

That said, I was definitely homesick on Thursday. There's really no replacement for sitting in my dining room in Livingston with my family. Perhaps next year Huyen can join us for Thanksgiving!

Not MIA

About a week or so ago I didn't post my daily blog. Well, sure enough I got a frantic email from my mother with the subject line: "Where are you?"

This was the first part of the email:

no blog yesterday or today... is everything ok?

Just so you don't worry, Mom, I'm going on a weekend trip with Huyen to Cat Ba Island. We'll be back on Sunday night. Love you!

(Yes, this is a cheaters way to post a blog...and yes, I emailed my mom too!)

Have a great weekend and lets hope that LT and Michael Turner have great games so I can make my fantasy football playoffs!

My Weakness

I've been told before that I'm a competitive person. However, my joy of winning is trumped by Huyen's. About five months ago she "accidentally" smacked me in the berries while were jokingly wrestling with each other. I immediately fell to the ground with a loud, "Uh! My nuts." Huyen was obviously confused why I had nuts in my pants but didn't let that stop her from celebrating her wrestling victory with a jubilant, "I win you! I found your weakness!"

Indeed Huyen has found the chink in my armor and has often exploited it. A common line from her these days if we're jokingly arguing about something is, "I know your weakness and will win you."

Now as funny as this is, it brings up a serious subject. In Vietnam they don't have sex education classes. Boys and girls are left to investigate their bodies on their own and via the internet. After about the -- oh, let's see -- eighth smack to my crotch I said to Huyen, "You know that is very bad for me. If you keep doing that maybe I can't have children." Huyen looked shocked and immediately apologized with these words: "I'm sorry. I'll find another weakness."

Happy Thanksgiving!

I asked my students if they knew what turkey was and they said it's a country. As much as I love Vietnam, there's no replacing Thanksgiving in America -- my favorite holiday bar none.

My mouth is watering for the turkey drumstick my mother puts aside for me every year.

Happy Thanksgiving, America!

Do I Look Like I Need A Surveillance System?

(PICTURE: Some literature on new surveillance products.)

The other day Huyen and I stopped by the Hanoi Expo Center to visit her friend who was working at a booth. The exposition was on new surveillance equipment and business security devices. It was actually a really cool exhibit with tons of high tech devices. I kept thinking how my friend Sam Friedlander who always buys crap from Sky Mall Magazine on airplanes, would have sold his truck to buy some of the cooler gadgets there.

I thought Huyen and I were just going to lunch during her lunch hour so I was wearing jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. I hadn't showered yet and frankly looked like crap. When we got to the Expo center we met her friend who was wearing a suit and tie with his credentials around his neck. He gave us each a pass for the exposition and we began to walk around. Huyen and her friend both looked like working professionals and I looked like a guy who was just outside raking leaves. Despite that, every person from every booth ignored Huyen and her friend and came right up to me to demonstrate their new products. I tried to tell them I wasn't in the market for $100,000+ surveillance equipment but they didn't get it. I wanted to give the brochures back to the people but Huyen told me it would be rude. So, I've now got a bunch of new toilet reading.

All that said, maybe I should buy a home security system. I mean I was robbed by ninjas once already.

James Bond

(PICTURE: Nguyen. Huyen Nguyen. Shaken not stirred.)

Huyen and I saw the new James Bond movie the other night. We both thought it was great and left the theater pretending we were spies. I'm now trying to convince Huyen to introduce herself to people like Bond: "Nguyen. Huyen Nguyen." It just rolls off the tongue.

Anyway, there are always reminders that I'm living in a socialist country and seeing the movie was just another small one. It was quite clear that portions of the movie had been edited to fit Vietnamese cultural standards. Frankly, I paid money to see Daniel Craig with his shirt off and only got a glimpse of his Adonis like body for a mere two seconds. Clearly they had edited out the sex scene(s). From what I could tell there was just one but who knows. There was also another time or two during the movie that the action would just cut and resume in a different scene indicating something was missing.

Despite that the movie was still really enjoyable. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Daniel Craig is the best Bond yet.
(PICTURE: Wayyyyy more skin then they showed in the theatres here.)

Google Analytics II

This week Ahoy Hanoi reached a milestone: 900 unique readers. That's right, according to google analytics, 900 different people have signed on and read my blog. Out of those 900, 55% of the people have visited my site more than 8 times (75% more than 1 time). That means about 495 people are reading my blog on a regular basis. That's like the whole state of Delaware!!!

Just a few fun facts:

Fun Fact 1: I'm now being read in 45 countries. In the order of most read: USA, Vietnam, Australia, Germany, Israel, Canada, Singapore, France, UK, Malaysia, Japan, Mexico, Cambodia, China, (a random country whose IP address isn't being recognized), Thailand, Hong Kong, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Phillipines, Spain, Hungary, Norway, Austria, Denmark, India, Turkey, Italy, Brazil, Laos, Croatia, Egypt, Indonesia, United Arab Emirites, Ireland, Taiwan, Finland, Poland, Latvia, South Korea and Costa Rica.

Fun Fact 2: Ahoy Hanoi is being read in 40 US States. That's right, screw you Louisianna, Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virgnia, Indiana, Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, and Vermont! I'm especially disappointed in Louisianna for not reading my blog. After Katrina, you would have thought someone in that state would have found my site looking into the Vietnam floods. How soon we forget...

Fun Fact 3: Most people are finding my site these days by googling "Ahoy Hanoi" into the search field of their search engines. "Hanoi Massage" and "Vietnamese Girlfriend" have dropped all the way down to the 7th and 8th most commonly searched words that led people to my site. Some other fun searches were: "sexy voice recordings", "I had to pee so badly", "flood in hanoi catch fish in the street", "hanoi bar girls" (which was next to "hanoi meeting girls"), straight up "hanoi sex massage", "massage hanoi happy ending", and of course "tighty whities locker room."

Keep on reading people!!!

My First Vietnamese Wedding

NOTE: This is two days late because my sister had to be born on November 22nd.

In America last year I went to thirteen weddings (technically twelve in America and one in Italy). You can say I'm a wedding expert. That said, I haven't experience anything like my first Vietnamese wedding. The wedding was for my former student Trang and her fiance/now husband Dzung. Trang is one of my favorite students I've taught. She's frankly hilarious in a half Woody Allen half Rodney Dangerfield way. I was really honored to be invited to her wedding and she seemed extremely happy that I came.

Anyway, I'm sure some of you are asking, "What is a Vietnamese wedding like?" Well, just based on this one experience I wold that the best analogy to describe a Vietnamese wedding is that it is like a sporting event. Here are some similarities:

1. People come dressed in whatever they want. Some people come right after work and wear suits and ties, others just wear jeans, sandals and t-shirts.
2. They have loud ear thumping starting line-up like music to announce the families (okay, we have that in the states too).
3. They have indoor fireworks.
4. They have a jumbo-tron of sorts.
5. People leave whenever they want. Literally there was a mass exodus as soon as the food was gone.
6. Like a game, it lasted about two hours.

Here's some classic video footage:

Happy Three Months, Lilah!

Three months ago Lilah August, my niece was born. I haven't been able to see her in person yet, but I get to see her grow bigger and cuter every day thanks to my brother's emails. I've had a couple requests from friends to see more pictures of Lilah so here you go. Happy three month birthday, Lilah!!!

Happy Vietnamese Birthday, Hannah!!!

Here's a short list of the things my sister is better at than me:

1. The SATs
2. Running marathons.
3. Helping to get Democratic senators elected.
4. Not eating meat.
5. Being a clutz.
6. Having imaginary friends until one is in their mid teens.
7. Being dependent on one's childhood blanket until their mid twenties.
8. Making spicy dips.
9. Patience.
10.Yearly/monthly resolutions.
11. Internet stalking.
12. Knowing people at Houlihans the night before Thanksgiving.
13. Singing.
14. Acting.
15. Dancing (we're tied though on making stupid frog-like faces).
16. Throwing up in cars.
17. Throwing up on boats.
18. Throwing up from smelling throw up.
19. Not leaving America due to a quarter life crisis (although she is leaving America exactly two weeks after she is turning 25. Hmmmm....)
20. Being amazing...and about a million other things.

Happy Birthday, Hannah! Have an amazing day and don't work too hard...it's not like the future of the world depends on what you're doing.

Vietnam Teacher's Day

Today is Vietnam teacher's day. My students yesterday gave me a few presents to honor my totally awesome teaching skills. I got:

1. A silver and white tie...exactly like a blue and white tie I was given by another student. I'm 90% sure both ties are from the Vietnamese equivalent of Costco.

2. A Vietnam travel book....which I'm 100% sure is from the Vietnamese equivalent of AAA. You know those books you always get free as a member? The ones that are 2% information and 98% adds for restaurants and hotels?

3. A dozen beautiful pink roses. This present was given to me by some of my former students. The present they gave their current teacher: one red rose. Yup, I win.

4. Two pairs of mittens from Huyen (she said everyone must appreciate teachers, not just their students).

5. A cup of coffee from Van, one of the three marvelous Language Link CSOs who are taking my Intermediate 1 class. I should mention that someone made Van the cup of coffee and she didn't want it so she handed it to me.

Ironically, I took Teacher's Day off today because one of my former students invited me to her wedding. Details on that tomorrow!

Six Months

On Monday I wore these pants:

(PICTURE A PAIR OF NORMAL GREY SUIT PANTS. MY CAMERA ISN'T WORKING AGAIN)

I had these pants made for me in Hoi An about seven months ago. However, the only time I ever actually wore the pants was on May 17th. How do I know that? Well, because it was my first day of work. While at school that first day I realized I was by far the best dressed and decided to scale my wardrobe down to dockers versus dress pants.

On Sunday night, while eating at the chicken speakeasy, I sloppily dropped about an eighth of a chicken on my legs. I was prepared to wear my pants again the next day but Huyen persuaded me to wash them. This was significant because my other pair of slacks was also in the wash. This left me with two options:

Option 1: Wear jeans. This is againt school rules. In fact, a teacher who wore jeans got fired on Sunday. Yeah pretty strict, right? (Actually he was fired because he showed up late like four Sundays in a row...while wearing jeans).

Option 2: Wear my dress slacks.

I went with Option 2. I know what you're thinking, "Is this really blog worthy?" Well, yes it is. I hadn't worn the pants in six months. Exactly six months. I wore them on May 17th and then again on November 17th -- the last day of my contract. That's right, I've officially completed my contract at Language Link. Six months passed in a blink of an eye. Some rough figures off the top of my head:

- I have taught over 400 different students.

- I have failed two students.

- I have skipped one student ahead a level. i.e "Skipped a grade."

- I have told eight parents their child is "naughty."

- I have told countless parents their child is bright and a pleasure to teach.

- I have received six gifts...but many more words and emails of thanks.

Although my contract has finished, I told Language Link I would continue to teach my Monday through Friday classes until the end of the month. After that...well, you'll have to wait for some upcoming blogs. But don't get too excited, I'm not leaving Vietnam yet.

The Blogger Becomes The Blogged

The other day I got an email from one of my former students:

Dear Ben,
I'm Long, Do you remember me ? I took your course at Language Link (PRE-INTER3). I very pleasure in studying with you and meeting with your family in the last class. I like you to send me some photos which you took that night in order to upload it to my blog. Please send it for me !

About my blog, I have created and written blog since September. I write blog when I have free time and it seems to be a relaxation. More over, writing blog regularly helps me keep a bright brain, do you think so ? And if you also have blog, can you share it with me ?

My blog address is : http://konansite.co.cc or if you can't access it, please try direct link : http://konan.vnjoomlas.com .

I write my blog in Vietnamese, but I have English corner where I publish my article in English. Also, it's one of the way to improve my English skill. However, I have only one article which wrote about our class at Language Link when I finished my course because it is not easy for me to write an English article . In addition, you can also see our picture in my album.
I hope you will enjoy reading my blog !!!
Regard,

Long

Yup, the blogger has become the blogged. In case you can't access Long's link I've cut and pasted it here:

By now, I have free time to write an entry about my first course at Language Link. There was a coincidence because my teacher was also my interviewer when I came LL for the first time - Mr.Ben. He is an interesting person and I can see him a lot of good point such as generous, honest, open-hearted when he's talking with each other. Also, he is great of fun, he sometimes tells us jokes to make something funny in our class.

I feel very comfortable when studying in this class. Mr.Ben seems to be concentrate on speaking and listening skill in our class. It's all of thing that I need because I'm not good at both of these skills. Talking a lot with each other helps me improve most of weak points that I encounter when I study in my university. Some people in my class think that it's not good for us to focus only two skill, but I think they are very important skill we need when we communicate with foreign people. Another skill I can learn by myself.

One point I like in my class is every body was so friendly. Almost of them was easy-going, easy for to me make friend. Even more one of the most active people in my class is Mr.Hoang, he was talkative. He always asks Ben everything he don't know without brainstorm to find out the solutions to solve problems. Another people usually makes me pay attention to him is Mr.Quan. I can only say that he is very interesting people like Mr.Ben. He usually tells us joke, like Ben, andl his jokes so fun that I laugh a lot. But, beside the fun of his stories, I can learn something which have a valuable experience. In general, friends is one of the point I like best when I study in Ben's class.

In the last class, I had the meeting with Ben's family include his parents and his cousin. They was so friendly and this thing has changed my mind about foreign people, especial the people come from the USA. And I was really impressed by Ben's cousin. He was a stylish man, and may be more handsome than Ben :D It was very lucky for me to sit near by him, and we talked a lot about everything such as family, favorite, even Internet technology because both Ben's cousin and I like World Wide Web ^^! Perhaps, that was the first time I communicated naturally with foreign people. I won't never forget that night, and I want to thank to Ben for making a chance for me to practice English more than ever.

In conclusion, I value highly Ben's class and I am really satisfied with my fisrt class at Language Link. I hope I will take the same class in the future.

Vietnamese Pool

Tired of solids vs. stripes or traditional pool? Well, the Vietnamese have a great variation on the game if you're with a couple of friends. Here's how it works:

First, you need a deck of cards. You shuffle the deck and deal out 7 cards to each person who wants to play. Each card represents balls on the table: Ace is the one ball. Two is the two ball. Three is the three ball. etc. etc. until you get to... Jack is the eleven ball. Queen is the twelve ball. King is the thirteen ball. The fourteen and fifteen ball are free balls (however it is a scratch if you hit in a free ball before you hit in one of your own balls).

When your ball is sunk in a pocket you get to throw down your cards. The first one to no longer have any cards wins. It's that simple...minus a few other little rules:

Rule 1: You can't throw down any cards until YOU hit in one of your balls.
Rule 2: If you scratch two times you're out of the game...and must do ten push-ups.
Rule 3: If someone throws down all their cards before you have made any shots you must do ten push-ups.
Rule 4: If you scratch you must pick up two more cards. If the corresponding balls for those cards have already been sunk, you have to pick up two more cards until you get ones that represent balls on the table.
Rule 5: Whoever has the most cards left after someone is out must do a push-up for each card in their hand.

It's a fun game and if you suck at pool like me, it's an easy way to get a good chest and triceps workout.

Chicken Speakeasy

Last night was an interesting one. After working all day, Huyen and I went to her friend Tu's birthday party at a hot pot restaurant. Following the birthday feast, Huyen's friend Hien and her boyfriend Dzung asked us if we wanted to shoot some pool. I agreed with the clause that I'd only like to play for an hour or two since I had some work to do. At this point it was just about 8pm.

Well, we got to the billiards hall and met up with three of Dzung's friends where we proceeded to play pool for the next couple of hours. Just as I was getting ready to depart, the owner of the billiard's hall invited our group to the VIP room. Everyone was so excited to get VIP status -- including myself since I didn't know you could be a VIP at a billiard's hall -- that I decided to stick around for "a half hour more."

We followed the owner up a metal winding staircase to the upstairs VIP lounge. Basically the room was VIP because:
a) It had plush couches.
b) Fancy pool cues.
c) Waiter service.
d) A clean, quietish bathroom.

Two hours later, somewhere in the ballpark of 12:30 AM, we asked for our bill to leave. As we were taking off one of Dzung's friends invited us to get some "very good chicken." I asked him where he wanted to go since it was already past midnight and the city wide curfew was in effect (the front gates of the pool hall were already locked and we had to exit through a side door). He told me there was a chicken place up the road that was open all night.

Well, he wasn't lying. We rode our bikes about a 1/4 of a kilometer up the road and stopped on the side of the street where a man was sitting in a chair. One word was exchanged: "Ga?" The man nodded yes and motioned for us to turn off our bikes. Just then a few teenage boys came hustling out of an alley and collected our bikes and ushered us through a door which was slightly cracked open. Inside the door was an all white room with two tables set up in the middle. From what I could tell it was just a garage that had had its walls painted and tile put on the floor. For all intensive purposes we were in a speakeasy...that served chicken.

A minute or two went by and a woman brought us out a couple plates of chicken. I can honestly say with no exaggeration it was by far the best chicken I've had since leaving the states. I now have my Thankgsiving plans if no turkey pans out.

Huyen's Visa Story Part 1

Huyen is officially invited to two of my friends weddings next June. In order to be able to go to America she's going to need a tourist visa. As I'm sure you can imagine in this post 9/11 world, that's not an easy task. I have read all the literature about getting a visa and combed through all the information online and I know it's going to be an uphill battle to get Huyen her visa. Basically Huyen has to be able to prove that she's not going to land in America and skip out on her flight back to Vietnam. This requires tons of documents, copies of bank account information, property ownership papers, work contracts, etc. etc.

The first step to getting Huyen her visa though was for Huyen to get her passport. Like 99.99999% of Vietnamese people, Huyen has never gone to another country and thus had no passport. Well, check it off the list because she's now got a brand spanking new Vietnamese passport. Huyen even bragged to me that she, "Has more blank pages than me which means she can travel to more places than [I] can."

Get Over It, Pete Cullen

One of the great things about the blog is that it has put me back in touch with a bunch of old friends. Well, this morning I awoke to find an email from an old friend -- Pete Cullen. For those truly avid readers, you'll recall me mentioning Pete in a post back in May (http://ahoyhanoi.blogspot.com/search?q=Pete+Cullen).

Long story short, in 1997 I tied Pete for "senior athlete" in our senior superlatives at Livingston High School. Some people considered my tying Pete to be an obvious case of voter fraud (mostly my close friends and family). Even now many people think my tying Pete was more disturbing than Bush winning the Presidency in 2000 despite losing the popular vote.

Over ten years have passed since we posed together with _______ (I can't remember which girl one it? Jill Gordan maybe?) in the school paper. You would think that a decade plus would be enough time for Pete to get over me tying him but apparently he's gonna need some more time. Check out some excerpts from his email he sent me this morning which is SEETHING with bitterness:

Hi Ben,

I just wanted to say hello, and let you know that I am an avid reader of your blog (TRANSLATION: You should stick to blogging and not playing sports, pansy). Everyday when I get to work the first site I go to is yours, and it is great to see your adventures day in and day out (TRANSLATION: I just want to check every day that you're still not living in America because if you were I'd challenge you to the sport of your choice anywhere, anytime). You are really doing something special out there, and I am sure your family is so proud of you despite you being more than halfway around the world! I enjoyed reading all the recaps of the days they were out there visiting you. I missed seeing your father at all the football games this year, and I hope he is feeling better. Tell him I said hello (TRANSLATION: I bet your dad wishes he spawned a real athlete like me).

I hope everything works out with Huyen, you guys really seem to genuinely enjoy each other every second of the day (TRANSLATION: Huyen doesn't seem like the athletic type so any kid you two might have will be inferior athletically to any kid I'll have). It’s so great to see you having a once in a lifetime experience out there (TRANSLATION: You know what else is once in a lifetime? My LHS basketball scoring record).

Keep up the great work, stay safe, and continue to enjoy yourself (TRANSLATION: If you know what is good for you you'll stay away from NJ until our 20 year reunion) .

From an old Livingston pal, (TRANSLATION: Your nemesis)

Peter Cullen

Great to hear from you, Pete! Oh, Dad, Pete says hi!

Huyen's Grandfather

(PICTURE: Huyen and her Grandfather)

I've met Huyen's Grandfather a few times and every time leave with a growing fondness for him. The man is one of the nicest, most genuine people I have ever met. Every time he sees me he wants to make sure I'm comfortable and has personally taken it upon himself to teach me Vietnamese (using the same resources he uses to teach Huyen's 2 year old nephew).

Huyen recently told me a story about her Grandfather which I think is worth repeating. About two months ago Huyen's Grandmother had surgery at a hospital in Hanoi. Huyen's Grandfather stayed with his wife for the whole seven days she was in the hospital. He literally slept on the cold hospital floor to keep her company. Well, one night while he was sleepig someone picked his pocket and stole his wallet (Yeah, what kind of scum of the earth robs people at the hospital?). Besides his money being stolen, Huyen's Grandfather lost his ID cards and other important information/documents he kept in his wallet. Well, about two weeks after the incident a package arrived in the mail for Huyen's Grandfather. In the package was his wallet with a note from the person who sent it saying they had found it near their house. This wouldn't be so strange except for the fact that their house was 300 kilometers away! Huyen's grandfather was so thankful that these strangers sent him his wallet that he bought them presents and drove 300 kilometers on his motorbike to personally deliver them. Yes, this 70+ year old man drove 300 kilometers there and 300 kilometers back to say thank you. That's the type of man he is.

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

(Huyen and her 97-year-old great grandmother. She isn't blind, I just caught her while she was blinking)

In another time space continuum leap, today we're going to travel back a month or so to when I visited Huyen's Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle, and Great Grandmother. I would have posted this sooner but I didn't bring my camera that day and it has taken me a long time to figure out how to get Huyen's camera to work on my computer.

The journey to Huyen's Uncle's house took us about an hour or so....minus natural obstacles. After driving for a while Huyen told me to turn down a dirt road. At the end of the dirt road was a large river I was told we had to cross since our destination was on the other side. At the river bank was docked an old boat. There didn't appear to be anyone in charge of the boat or for that matter anyone else in the vincity who needed a boat ride. Huyen pointed at the boat and told me that it was our transportation and we had to wait for some other people to come before the boat would leave. I asked, "How long will that be?" Huyen shrugged her shoulders. After about ten minutes an elderly woman rode up on her bicycle. She proceeded to talk to Huyen and then handed me a little plastic bag. The woman thanked me and rode her bike away. I asked Huyen what just happend and she said the woman's relative has diarhea on the other side of the river and this was her medicine. Yeah, I was crossing the river with some ladies Immodium AD.

Eventually we made it across the river and found Huyen's Uncle's house. Despite not being able to communicate with anyone except her six year old cousin who spoke five words of English, I had a lot of fun. It probably helped that I spent the afternoon taking shots of vodka with all the male members of her family.

Blue Jeans

I've lost a couple pounds in Vietnam and decided it was time I bought some new jeans rather than tightening my belt every time I want to wear pants. So on Saturday, Huyen and I went to four different clothing stores to get me some new threads. After about two minutes, something became quite obvious -- they don't make my size in Vietnam. The largest pair of pants at any store was a 34-30. Two problem with this:

Problem 1: I haven't been a 34 since I was a junior in high school. I've been a solid 35 (which few companies make) or 36 for nearly a decade.

Problem 2: Pants that are 30 length end slightly above my ankles. And well, that's not the look I'm going for.

Despite the numbers, I decided to try on a few pairs of pants anyway. Out of three pairs that I put on I was only able to get one above my thighs. Once on these pants looked like spandex. Huyen asked to see how they fit and nearly hyperventilated from laughing.

Sometimes it takes trying on jeans to be reminded that I'm a Giant who has come down the beanstalk to Vietnam.

"My Dad Would Like To Buy You A Drink""

Last night one of the stranger ever happened to me. No, not one of the stranger things in Hanoi...but in life.

I was at a restaurant drinking and eating with my frisbee friends when I felt the need to go #1. I walked over to the WC and saw that the bathroom door was partially open. Having been in this bathroom twice already during the evening I knew that if the door was open that meant nobody was probably inside since it was a one person bathroom. My thinking was wrong though and it turned out there was a man -- who I'm guessing was around 58 -- taking a piss. The man quickly blurted something out in Vietnamese as I quickly muttered an apology in half English and half Vietnamese. About twenty seconds later the door opened and the man, who was clearly drunk, gave me a big smile and gestured for me to use the bathroom. He opened the door and I stepped inside. The man didn't exit the bathroom and began to wash his hands. Frankly, I had to pee so badly that I didn't even give a second thought to the man standing behind me. Well, that was a mistake.

As I was "making water" (as Huyen would say) I looked down and saw a hand reach through my legs and grab my thigh. I yelled out "What the fuck!" as I instincitvely jumped up and clenched my fists. I turned around to see the man laughing maniacally behind me and quickly darted out of the bathroom. It took me a second or two to grasp what had just happened. I finished peeing, washed my hands and walked back into the restaurant. Immediately I went up to my buddy Long and said, "One of the weirdest things ever just happened to me." Long's interest was peaked and asked me what happened. I started to tell Long my story but I was interupted by a tap on my shoulder. Standing over me was a 20-something Vietnamese English-hooligan-wanna-be who said in broken English, "My Dad would like to buy you a drink." He then pointed to his table and sitting there was the man who had just fondled my leg in the bathroom. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Flood Video: Day 2

The Hanoi flood continued for a second day. When I woke up I could still hear rain falling outside. What I could also hear was the sound of water falling into puddles. Turns out, puddle was my whole street. The water level kept getting higher and higher and the rain seemed to be getting stronger and stronger.

We called our landlord and asked her about our garage door. She told us there was a chain we could pull to manually get the door down. In the darkness from the night before we could see the chain was was coiled up on top of the garage door. I piled up the kitchen chairs and unwound the chain to open the door. I then went over to the neighbors and moved our bikes back into my house. After that Huyen and I had a new mission -- go to her apartment and get her stuff.

The two of us decided to walk to her house since the roads were a car/motorbike graveyard. Everywhere you looked were cars stuck in the water. The two of us trecked through the streets for about forty five minutes until we came to a slight obstacle: the road to Huyen's house was about waste deep and by far the dirties water I've ever seen. Huyen asked a woman who was walking towards us about the conditions ahead. It didn't take Vietnamese language skills to read her body language. Huyen turned to me and said, "Okay, lets go back. She says it is much worse ahead."

So Huyen and I turned around and gave ourselves a new mission -- finding food. We went into a couple of markets and little side grocery stores and bought all the food we could carry. We had no idea how long the flood would last and wanted to be safe rather than sorry. Here's some great video from the second day of the food. Check out the overflown lake!!!!...that's where the fish in front of my house must have come from.

Flood Tidbits

(PICTURE: The leak in my ceiling)

Two other small anecdotes about the flood:

Anecdote 1: While cooking dinner yesterday a mouse scampered across my kitchen floor. He darted from behind my refrigerator towards the front door. After comforting Huyen who is deathly afraid of mice and rats, I went looking for the critter. There are only a couple places he could have gone to and I deduced he must have gone down a drain in the 1/2 bathroom on the ground floor. I went outside, found a loose brick and placed it over the drain. Problem solved. Well, not quite. I clearly deduced wrong because while eating breakfast the next morning the mouse sprinted out from behind the refrigerator again. Once again I had to comfort Huyen and then went looking for the mouse. For those of you who have been avid readers for a while, you'll recall this is my second rodent problem. Huyen and I figure this mouse must have come into my house the night we couldn't put down our front door. Fortunately this mouse is about 1/3 the size of the rat at my old place. Hopefully stick traps will do the job.

Anecdote 2: I have a small leak in my roof which has been dripping on my nicely polished wooden steps on my fifth floor. As you can figure out water + polished wood equally a slippery surface. Well, I'm officially an old man because I slipped on the stairs yesterday and fell down eight steps. Both my arms and my upper right butt are really bruised. The stupid thing is that I walked on the slippery step about twenty times prior to slipping and every time thought, "Put down a towel." I've now put down a towel.
(PICTURE: The set of stairs I fell down)

Flood: Night 1

Question: What's worse than having water slowly rise on your street?
Answer: The power going off in your neighborhood so you can't really see the water.

That's right, at around noon on the first day of the flood the electricity went out in my section of the city. As the day went on we kept thinking it would come back on...but it didn't. One major problem with not having power is that my front door is basically an electric garage door (You may recall it from this blog entry: http://ahoyhanoi.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-more-ninjas.html ). When we moved in we asked the owner what would hypothetically happen if our electricity went out and we, you know, might want to leave our house. Our landlord, Thanh, told us that the door had a battery and would still work without power. What she didn't tell us is that it would only work roughly 3 3/4 times.

For some reason my school wasn't canceled (as you saw in yesterday's video) and in the midst of my second class (with two students) I got a phone call from Huyen. Normally I don't have my phone on during class but in this situation I answered it. Huyen said to me, "Ohhhhh, something very bad has happened. The front door won't go down."

Turns out our battery ran out of juice as the door was about a foot and a half from closing. A foot and a half is enough space to climb under BUT it's not enough space to get our motorbikes under. With the water level rising our bikes would have been ruined if we kept them outside. Huyen went over to the neighbor on the left of our house and asked if we could park our bikes in their house for the night. The neighbor said no (and with no shame asked me 24 hours later if I could teach her children English). Huyen went over to the neighbor on the right side of our house and they showed some neighbourly love and said yes. When I came home from work at 9:15 I pulled into the neighbors house. The neighbor had a slight look of panic on his face when he saw me. I'm guessing it was because my bike was partially smoking from driving through thigh high/engine high water.

After parking my bike I crawled under our stuck door and was handed a candle. Our night of darkness was starting...

Thank You, America!!!

Just got back from watching 8 hours of CNN at the bar (which coincidentally was on the same soil that McCain was imprisoned in). I'm proud to say that I wasn't the only person with tears running down his cheeks during Obama's speech. What makes me really excited is that my friend Matt, a kiwi, was also choked up.

Way to go, America!

The World Is Watching: Vote Obama

Over the past eight months I've traveled to Australia, China, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia and obviously Vietnam. I can honestly tell you that every foreigner/non-US citizen I have met has the same opinion about the US election: "I hope Obama wins."

For the most part, everyone I have talked politics with has respected America but feels that over the last few years our country has been headed in the wrong direction. Echoing Obama's message, people from around the world want to see America change for the better. Sometimes it takes an outsider to get a fair and honest opinion.

I'll keep this short and sweet: GO VOTE FOR OBAMA!

Flood Videos: Day 1

On Friday morning I went out at 7:30AM for my usual pho breakfast. As I turned the corner though I noticed something -- the street was flooded. My little alley must be slightly elevated because it was completely dry versus the neighboring street which had about a foot of water. I looked at a girl who happened to turn the corner at the same moment as me and raised my eyebrows to say, "Whoah." She gave me an equally surprised look. I turned around and walked to my second breakfast spot in the opposite direction. When I got the restaurant choice B I was equally surprised to see that only three people were on the street. Why is this so surprising? Well, my second restaurant spot is in the middle of a lake-side market which generally has at least a hundred people buying and selling food. Luckily one of the three people there was my breakfast lady who served me a delicious hot breakfast.

A couple hours later I went back outside and noticed that my street was now flooded. Only about a thirty foot section of my street was still dry -- luckily my house was smack in the middle of that section.

Anyway, my camera has officially dried and is being recognized again by my computer. I put together this little two minute video of the first day of the flood:

Flood Pictures

So how bad is the flood? This picture was taken about fifteen feet from my front door:


Perhaps you're asking yourself what that is? Well, it is a dead fish. Yes, a dead fish. The flood is so bad that the local lake overflowed and fish were swimming on my street. This one must have choked to death on the garbage that was floating everywhere.

I'll have a whole bunch of video I took up on the blog soon. However, to hold over the tide (pun intended) here's some pictures I got off a Vietnamese news website.

(PICTURE: Our Mai Chau stilt house)

(NOTE: You may have read on the news that Hanoi is completely flooded. Well, it's the truth. About 60-80% of the roads in the city are under water at the moment. I've got some GREAT footage of it BUT my camera, which got pretty wet, isn't uploading photos/videos. Hopefully my camera will dry out tonight and I can blog about the flood of '08 tomorrow). But until then, back to Mai Chau:

The ride from Hanoi to Mai Chau took Justin and I about six hours. One thing I've learned a few times is that Honda Waves are meant for short trips/city driving. After about an hour or so my hands and feet became numb and my back was aching. To fight the body pain we were both experiencing we stopped a few times on our journey.

At one of the stops, a pretty strange thing happened. We went to this outdoor cafe and sat down at a table in a gazebo. The owner/waiter came over and asked us what we wanted. Using my best Vietnamese I asked for two iced milk coffees. The waiter looked confused -- clearly not understanding my accent -- until I heard somebody behind me repeat my order. The person's voice was pretty high pitched but the owner/waiter understood him and went to make us our drinks. A few minutes later I turned around to see who had repeated my order and was surprised to see that nobody was there. The only thing there was a PARROT. Yes, a parrot understood my Vietnamese better than any Vietnamese person I've met.

Anyway, we eventually got to Mai Chau and I decided to do something pretty stupid -- ride and film at the same time. Here's a little of the footage:



You can't fully tell, but I almost nailed that cow. I had a last second swerve to avoid it.

After pulling into the village we found the stilt house (AKA adult tree house) that Ryan and Jessica had stayed at a couple months ago (see the picture at the top). Overall it was a great ride to Mai Chau. There was tons of beautiful scenery and best of all, no accidents!