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!