Dear God

TO: God@godofweather.com
FROM: ahoyhanoi@gmail.com

Dear God of Weather,

This weekend I am the co-best man in my friend Brad's wedding. I noticed in your daily announcement on weather.com that you plan on showering northern New Jersey with rain and lightning tomorrow. Unfortunately your plans don't coordinate with Brad and his soon-to-be wife Kari who have planned an outdoor wedding for tomorrow evening. As co-best man -- and the author of a minimally popular blog -- I think it is my duty to ask you to postpone your tumultuous weather plans until Monday (nobody wants it to rain on Sunday either because it is Father's Day). Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Ben

P.S. Brad and Kari are going to Hawaii on Monday for their honeymoon. Their trip is well deserved and should be totally awesome...unless of course their is a nuclear attack from North Korea. I only mention this because I read on CNN.com this morning:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States could defend itself in the event of a North Korean missile launch toward Hawaii, and that U.S. officials were monitoring the situation carefully.

According to Japanese media Thursday, North Koreans are preparing to make such a launch.

With missile interceptors and radar equipment in the region, "we are in a good position should it become necessary to protect the American territory," Gates said.

So, ah, God, while you're up there in the sky holding back the thunder can you also stop any potential nuclear warheads. Oh, and while we're on the subject, if you're not too busy, how about a little world peace? That would be really great. Thanks again in advance.

Reverse Culture Shock #4

Without a doubt the biggest reverse culture shock there is for me, is money. I find that I'm constantly doing currency conversions in my and realizing how much more expensive things are in America compared to Vietnam. The result of this has been that I'm feeling extremely cheap these days.

Here's a few simple conversions I've done recently:

1. I paid $10 for breakfast at my local diner in New Jersey. For that same $10 I could have eaten 40 breakfasts at my local market in Vietnam.

2. In Pittsburgh we paid $150 a night for a hotel room. That is two weeks rent for me in Vietnam or FOUR MONTHS rent for Huyen.

3. Two weeks ago my friends wanted to rent a car for the weekend which would have cost almost $400. $400 is more than how much it cost to rent my motorbike for THE YEAR!

4. At the gas pump recently, it cost $35 to fill up the car. That is roughly three months worth of gas for my motorbike in Vietnam.

5. Yesterday I met my friend Lisa for a drink and two beers cost us $8. That is the same as 47 beers at my local bia hoi. 47 beers!!!!!

Like the picture above, I feel like I'm flushing money down the toilet. That said, I still always tip 20%...which is infinitely more than you ever tip in Vietnam since you don't tip there!

Puppets: East Vs. West

(PICTURE: The actors and Puppets of Avenue Q.)

(PICTURE: Vietnamese water puppets.)

Last night I saw the Broadway musical Avenue Q. It was fabulous -- and ridiculously funny. The show, if you're not familiar with it, is performed by actors and puppets. Watching the puppets on stage brought me back to Vietnam and the traditional water puppet shows there. As much as I love Vietnam though, Avenue Q was a billion times better than any water puppet show. For one, I didn't fall asleep in this show. Secondly, the traditional water puppets don't sing song like, "Everyone's a little bit racist" and "Internet is for porn." That said, Avenue Q is a little bit ridiculous because everyone knows the internet isn't for porn. It's for Ahoy Hanoi.  

Water Parks

(PICTURE: Huyen at Hanoi's Water Park.)

Yesterday Huyen emailed me some pictures from her day at Hanoi's water park. No, Huyen can't really swim yet but she's quickly learning to love water.

Personally, I love water parks. Nearly every summer growing up, my friends and I would go to Action Park in Vernon, NJ. Action Park -- now called Mountain Creek -- was the most dangerous place in the world to me. Every time we went there it seemed that someone required a band aid (or ten) or ended up walking with a limp for a few weeks after.

After my freshman year in college I was accepted to the Walt Disney World College Internship Program. I was given the highly competitive position of GST -- Guest Service Technician. What is a Guest Service Technician? It's a Disneyfied word for janitor. I basically cleaned bathrooms all day at Typhoon Lagoon Water Park. Yeah, it sounds pretty terrible but it was honestly the best job I've ever had. I mean, at 19, how could it be bad to look at girls in bikinis all day? Man, I love water parks!

One of the things on my "to do" list while I'm home is to convince my friends from NYC to take a day off this summer and all head to Mountain Creek together. We're all long overdue for a water park related injury.

Transformers

(PICTURE: A desk that turns into a bed.)

I've mentioned before that naps are part of the Vietnamese culture. Most workers take naps for an hour or so everyday around midday. This is also true at school. Students from K-8 take naps in the middle of the day at school. On a couple of occasions I substituted at public schools and was pretty surprised to see the layouts of the classrooms. Most classes had either one of two things to take naps:

1. Bunk beds in the back of the class.

2. Desks that transformed into beds.

The desks that turned into beds don't look anything like the picture above (and the students definitely don't look like the girl in the picture). The desks look like normal desks, the only difference being that the desktop flips open to form a hard wood cot of sorts. It's pretty simple but it's genius.

Happy Birthday, Big Bro!

Every day my brother Zev sends me baby pictures of Lilah. Now it's my turn to show everyone baby/childhood pictures of Zev. Happy birthday, big bro!

Pittsburgh Pirates

(PICTURE: Roberto Clemente, my dad's favorite baseball player ever.)

In 1956 my dad and his best friend Mark decided to stop rooting for the Yankees -- apparently they were too good -- and each picked a terrible team. My dad picked the Pirates and his friend Mark picked the Orioles.

Although the Pirates haven't had a winning season in fifteen years, my dad had lots of great years with the Pirates in the 60s and the 70s. My dad's favorite player was Roberto Clemente and when I was a kid I collected Clemente cards at baseball card conventions to show off to my dad. In turn, Clemente became my favorite legendary player.

Despite being a huge Pirates fan, my dad had never been to Pittsburgh. While living in Vietnam, I told my dad that I was going to take him to a Pirates home game when I came home. I asked my brother if he wanted to come along and well, I'm in Pittsburgh this weekend with my dad and brother.

Last night we went to PNC field -- a gorgeous stadium overlooking the Pittsburgh skyline -- and saw the Pirates lose 3-1.