Things One Might Not Want To Do On Their Wedding Day

(PICTURE: Ba Dinh Pagoda.)

After visiting the ancient capital of Hoa Lu, the giant pink bus headed toward the largest pagoda in southeast Asia -- Ba Dinh Pagoda.


(PICTURE: Various members of the honeymoon part at the temple.)

For you long time readers, you might recall that my cousin and I stumbled on to this place in 2008. When we came then, there wasn't even a paved road out to the pagoda.
(PICTURE: Justin with two people we met at the temple in 2008.)

I went again a year later with Huyen and Sebastian, and the place was still only half built.
(PICTURE: One of the many awesome photos Sebastian took in 2009.)

I had been told that the pagoda would finally be finished this year as part of the 1,000th anniversary of Hanoi. I should have realized that that didn't really make sense since the pagoda isn't in Hanoi but heck, I chalked it up to Vietnamese logic. Yeah, the pagoda wasn't even close to being finished.

On our wedding itinerary, we had written that we would make it to the pagoda in time to see sunset. Sticking to our schedule, we arrived about thirty minutes before the sun was scheduled to go down. However, there was a slight hiccup when we arrived at the pagoda; at the gate, a bunch of totally unofficial guys told us that our bus could not drive up to the top of the pagoda...at least not without their help. Basically, because it was a construction site, there was no way for our bus to drive up the road. However, these fine young gentleman told us that they would guide us on a back road to the top of the pagoda for a mere 350,000 VND. That's $17.50 or as they say in Vietnam -- highway robbery.

Some people might say that something you might not want to do on your wedding day is to follow a stranger on a back dirt road. However, I would say hogwash. Despite the road being a little too narrow and a lot too scary for some of my guests, we arrived at the top of the pagoda in about ten minutes. Everyone debarked from the bus and walked towards the pagoda. The reaction from everyone was just as I hoped it would be -- they were amazed at the vastness and beauty of the pagoda.

After taking in the highest temple on the mountain, we presented everyone with two options:
Option 1: We could take the bus down at that moment.
Option 2: We could walk down the mountain and meet the bus at the bottom.

Despite the sun setting, we chose Option 2...which led to a few fun memories:

Fun memory #1: As we began to descend the mountain, we quickly realized that there were no finished stairs. I'll never forget my mother and some other above 35s not willing to walk down a very slight dirt incline. This lead to to Huyen and someone else venturing off like Louise and Clark to find an acceptable path down the mountain.

Fun memory #2: Watching Huyen and ___ (I forget who else helped my mom and don't have a picture. This space will be filled in when Sebastian emails me the honeymoon pictures) help my mom down the half built stairs.

Fun memory #3: The look on a construction workers face as we made our way down the mountain. His face basically said, "Um, what the hell are you idiots doing?"

Fun memory #4: Somehow our group got separated into three groups. I was in the middle group and about halfway down the mountain when my phone rang. Here's the basic conversation:
BEN: Hello.
SEBASTIAN: Hey, uh, we're kind of lost. Where are you?
BEN: We're about halfway down the mountain to the right of the stairs on the left hand side.
HERB (who was standing next to me): Actually, they aren't called stairs. They're called ____ (my apparent lack of vocabulary is so bad I still don't know what the term is).
BEN: Okay, Sebastian we're next to the _____.
SEBASTIAN: What the fuck is ______.
BEN: They're the stairs. We're to the right of the ones on the left hand side.

Fun Memory #5: After it was officially totally dark out, my mother, Huyen, Hannah, Mark and some others got to the bottom of the mountain but couldn't find an exit door. Apparently my mother started to panic at the prospect of sleeping inside a pagoda all night and asked, "Should we start yelling for help?" My sister assured my mother that wasn't necessary and they soon found their way out.

Eventually we all boarded the bus and headed to Ninh Binh, the place we would spend our wedding night...and more importantly the moment I could finally get out of my wedding suit!

Remeber those who are suffering...

As I wrote the other day, there are seemingly 101 different interpretations as to what breaking a glass symbolizes at a Jewish wedding. I chose to focus on an optimistic interpretation; breaking the glass means your marriage will last forever. However, one of the more pessimistic/Jewish realist interpretations is that we break the glass to remember that even during our times of great happiness there are people suffering in the world. Unfortunately, shortly after the wedding, my wedding guests and I got to see some suffering first hand.

Shortly after leaving Phu Ly, the "honeymoon" bus was driving south down the two lane highway when it encountered a small traffic jam. I'm not sure who spotted him first but someone said, "There's a man in the road." It quickly became clear that there was an accident up ahead and everyone had the natural reaction of looking out their window. Being in the front of the bus and having perfect eagle eye vision, I was able to see that the scene ahead was extremely gruesome. I casually got up, walked down the aisle of the bus and told everyone to look away. Most people took my advice, turned their heads and averted their eyes. However, a couple of people didn't and instinctively muttered what they had seen. The first person said something like, "Oh my god he's dead." The second person added some description which I'll spare in this post. I'm writing this post a month after the wedding, and the image is still haunting me.

I've stood on my soap box a few times on this blog and I'll do it again -- wear helmets!

The Graduate

(PICTURE: JR and I at Hoa Lu, following the wedding.)

Do you ever have a moment where you feel like you're doing something right out of a movie? Well, that's sort of how I felt after right after the wedding. You see, after the party was finished, I was running back and forth between the two buses making sure the right people and right luggage were where they were supposed to be. Some of my entourage were going back to Hanoi (Barry, Donna, Mark) and others who had just arrived were joining our "honeymoon" trip (JR, Lilly, George and the Salter parents).

As soon as everything was sorted, I ran back into Huyen's house to use the toilet. Everyone there was already cleaning up and a little surprised to see me run in. After using the bathroom, I gave everyone a hug and then yelled in Vietnamese, "Goodbye Mom" to Huyen's mother. Everyone laughed as I sprinted back out of the house and down the alley. I then waved goodbye to lots of kids and jumped on the bus. As soon as I was on I told the bus drive to go and he turned on the engine and drove away. I think sat down in a chair next to Huyen (who had taken off her wedding dress) and let out a huge deep breath -- the wedding was over. As I was sitting there though, this movie feeling came over me and there was something very "The Graduate" about it. Granted it was completely different circumstances than the movie but we were departing a wedding on a bus. There was something very cool about it as you always picture people departing their wedding in a limo.

Anyway, the bus was headed south to Hoa Lu, the ancient capital of Vietnam. This was part one of our "honeymoon."


(PICTURE: Hannah in front of the entrance to Hoa Lu.)

(PICTURE: JR, Hannah and Dana at Hoa Lu.)

My brother-in-law's essay

Here's a short essay by Su, my brother-in-law, about the wedding:

Despite having to travel quite a lot but I am still very happy. At night before Ben's wedding we and everyone had a wonderful evening. Ben' family members who are very interested in dancing and his sister sang very well. His friends is very friendly they are good dancer and singer. At wedding, I was very busy that day. I have lot of thing to do. I and my friends drived motorbike a lot of time on the way to bring something for wedding and we started lunch very late. Ben's parents gave me a gift, It's a cap in Ben's high school.

Essay About My Wedding #2

Here's another essay written by one of my students about the wedding. This one has some funny anecdotes in it:

That's the first time I've received a invitation which invites me to a wedding without my parents; I'm really flatter. Saturday morning I woke up soon, prepared a wasitcoat, a necktie, and my inseparable watch.

When I've gone; my mother called me about the box on the table. Oh! I forgot the camera! That's necessary to capture some unforgettable moments. I was really flutter.

I drove my motorbike to the bus meeting place. But on the way, I had some troubles with a policeman. It took me a long-long time, so I must drove too fast to the final stop of the bus. Fortunately, I caught the bus.

The first thing I saw when I got off the bus was the friendly smile of the groom :x Then about thirty Europeans froom's friend - shaked his hands in turn. We came to the bride's house where they were organizing the wedding. There were a lot of people. Someone were cleaning tables, other person was hanging on some beautiful flowers. The scenery of a united family. Three Thaos, Nhung, Thu, Tung and me were excited and went upstair to visit Su's house. After the father of the bride told the opening speech, we came to the offering's act. The bride gave oneself up to the groom and the groom too.

And, I couldn't see anything because of too many big visitors. I tried to capture some photo. I wish I wore a high heels. Then I saw groom's parents and bride's parents were drinking a cup of wine in turn, through the camera. Finally that was the "step on the cup" of Ben. I like that action, and the sound when the cup has broken. Everyone sang a song (without groom).

We ate some chicken, some steamed shrimp and went back home. I was tired, but happy too much.

Essay About My Wedding

I had my student's write essays about the wedding. Here's one of my favorites (without grammatical fixes):

Last Sunday, it was Ben's wedding. Ben and Huyen were married in bride's hometown, Ha Nam. The wedding was celebrated on 19, December, the same day with my birthday.

First, about wedding card, I received it from Huyen in the last class before wedding with invitation: you and your lover. This was the first card I've ever had. It made me laugh and I thought the wedding was complicated from writing the card.

Then, on wedding day, I and my classmate caught the car that Ben hired to go to the party. It was awesome. There was a lot of people, Relation by Ben's side was foreign people, Ben's family was American, Ben's friends was American, Japanese or Korean (I'm not sure). Ben's cousins were friendly and had sense of humor. I was impressed about Ben's sister. She wore a red "ao dai." She looked so pretty. Relation by Huyen's side was her family, her neighbors, her friends. It was very crowded. Huyen's house wasn't large enough to see the whole wedding. The wedding had karaoke. The sound was too loud so I was headache a little. Their friends sang and danced together. It was exciting from the morning I ate too much but shrimp. Vegetarian pork-pie was strange, it included bean. Last, I and my classmate took photos with Ben and Huyen. They were great.

Breaking The Glass

My sister shot this video with her digital camera. It gives a good sense of the crowd but not a great sense of the audio levels. Anyway, I'm really just posting it to show how badly I kicked the crap out of the glass!