Su's in town!

(PICTURE: Going up! Su's first elevator ride!)

This past week, Huyen's brother Su (AKA: My future brother-in-law) stayed with me. Su was in Hanoi to take his university entrance exam which I'll blog about tomorrow.

Despite having to share my bed, it was great having Su in town and I imagine for him it was the trip of a lifetime. Imagine if you've been living out in the countryside with no AC, no internet, no ____ and then got to crash at a place in the big city for the first time in your life. In no particular order, here are some of the highlights I imagine Su is telling his friends about right now:

1. Air Conditioning. As I wrote the other day, it is HOT right now. Su would constantly come into my bedroom and beeline for the air-conditioning remote. He would quickly put the AC on at 25 degrees Celsius and usually blast it full power. One afternoon we had a power outage and I could see the flashback to an air-conditionless life in Su's eyes. Thankfully the power came back on within an hour.

2. The Food. For every meal except one, Su got to choose what we ate. Think back to when you were a kid and how awesome it was when you'd get to choose your birthday meal. Well, at least for me it was awesome because I'd always drag my family to places we usually wouldn't eat (Indian food, Sushi, etc.). Su wasn't quite as adventurous as me but he did seem very happy getting to choose whatever he wanted to eat.

3. Watching World Cup. If Su doesn't get into university I'm gonna feel bad about this one. Basically Su loves soccer but hasn't been allowed to watch any of the World Cup because he was studying for his university entrance exams. I made a deal with Su that if he studied all day, we could watch the World Cup at night. He hit the books hard and we got to watch a couple of games together.

4. Su's first massage. Huyen and I took Su to a local foot massage place that we like. Clearly Su had never been pampered like that before.

5. Shopping. We took Su to the supermarket so he could choose a bunch of snack food. While there, he ended up doing some clothes shopping too. I purchased him some hot new threads.

6. Su's first elevator ride. Check out the picture above. The first ride was kind of anti-climatic because it was a windowless elevator. For Su's second ride we took a glass elevator which he seemed to really enjoy.

7. Su's FIRST MOVIE! We took Su to see Toy Story 3. We had our choice to see it in 2-D or 3-D and I choose 2-D. Frankly, I'm not into the whole 3-D thing and I thought he should enjoy a movie like the rest of us have been for the last eight decades. On a side note, Toy Story 3 is AMAZING!


(PICTURE: Huyen and Su at the theatre. There was no backdrop for Toy Story 3 so we used this one for the Twilight film.)

It was great to have Su in town. Although, I did have a little bit of a nervous moment when I asked Su, "Where will you live in the fall when you begin university?" Su's answer, "I will live with you until you are married."

I'm single!!!!

RELAX, LADIES!!!! I'm not single single. I've just never been married. The second step in getting married abroad is to sign an affidavit declaring that you're single. To make this declaration I had to pay the US Embassy $30. Clearly a lot of Americans have gone through this process because the embassy has a form conveniently already written-up. I merely had to fill in the blanks with my name, Huyen's name and some other biographical information. My favorite part of the form though was this:



In the fill in the blank form I had to circle that, "I love her." I thought it would have been funnier if they had a scale with options: "Circle 1 if you 'like her'. Circle 2 if you 'love her'. Circle 3 if you 'really really really like her'. Circle 4 if you 'Love her soooooooo much'."

So I got my medical test and my affidavit of single status. Next up, a bunch of other forms and hurdles...

I'm Sane!!!!!

It's official -- I'm sane. Well, at least according to the Vietnamese government. Huyen and I are currently immersed in the process of getting legally married in Vietnam. The goal is to get married here and then begin the immigration process to go to the USA. Ideally we'll be legally married in about a month or so and then given the green light to enter America somewhere around December. In a perfect bureaucracy-free world, we'll be able to go back to America shortly after our wedding in December.

Anyway, to get legally married here requires lots of steps. One of the first steps was to take a medical/psychological test at a Hanoi hospital. I'm happy to report that Huyen and I both passed with flying colors. Check out my report:


It's nice to know that I've got no respiratory, cardio-vascular, mental, contagious, hereditary and sexual diseases. I must admit though that I had always thought it took more than listening to someone's heart and taking their blood pressure to come to medical conclusions like these.

Heat Wave

I know there are heat waves all around the world right now and Hanoi is no different. Today it was forty five degrees Celsius or, for us Americans, 113 degrees Fahrenheit. If you think that's bad, it was 116 degrees the day before! Every time I go outside I feel like my exposed skin is on fire. Even worse, when I park my bike out in the open, I then have to sit on the hottest seat ever when it's time to go somewhere. It's so hot that I actually covered my seat with a raincoat this afternoon and found that it had absolutely no affect on stopping my seat from scorching my tush.

So yes, as you can figure out from this posting, I'm back in Hanoi. I got back a week ago and have been extremely busy with teaching, marriage preparations and hosting Huyen's brother for four days. It's been a whirlwind and I can predict with confidence right now, it's probably not gonna stop until the end of the year.

Over the next couple of weeks I'm gonna rotate between what is going on in Vietnam and some flashback posts to the World Cup/South Africa. Stay cool and drink lots of water!!!

Ben

Sabi Sabi Soccer

I think these pictures speak for themselves...but in case they don't: I STILL GOT IT!!!!!

(PICTURE: Check out that awesome defense!)



(PICTURE: No, Pele didn't teach me those dribbling skills.)


(PICTURE: Four on one? No problem!)

One of the highlights of my trip to the World Cup in 2006 was playing pick-up soccer in a suburb of Frankfurt. Devin, Chris and I completely dominated a bunch of cocky Germans. Seriously, they couldn't hold a candle to us and it had nothing to do with the fact that they were about eleven years old.

While on our safari, it became pretty obvious that the four of us were soccer fans. Besides the fact that our trip was timed with the World Cup, the conversation of soccer kept coming up. It turned out that the Sabi Sabi employees all played soccer daily. We asked if we could play with them and before we knew it we were teamed up with the Guides in a game against the Trackers. Unlike Germany, we didn't so much dominate this time. Sure, I totally dominated but there's no I in Team, right? We ended up losing the game 2-1.

WARNING: IMMATURE PICTURES

I've had a couple of immature posts in the past and this one definitely tops them all. It is nearly impossible to go on a safari and not take a few immature pictures. I've also been encouraged to post these from all the people who have seen them and have found themselves laughing. Also, generally in the past, my immature posts have garnered lots of comments from readers which is always an incentive to post more...

(PICTURE: A five legged Rhino.)


(PICTURE: Close Up.)

On a serious note, the Rhino was showing off to tell us to back the hell away.


(PICTURE: Those aren't two trunks.)


(PICTURE: So you come here often?)

Other Animals

Out in the bush, it's not all about elephants, lions, leopards, buffaloes and rhinos. There's lots of other animals out there:

(PICTURE: My brother's favorite animal.)


(PICTURE: Check out the horns on that guy.)


(PICTURE: Impalas are "the McDonalds" of the bush according to Crimson. Every predator eats them and they have a big M on their tushies.)

(PICTURE: Crimson spotted this guy as we drove home at night.)


(PICTURE: Toys 'R What?)


(PICTURE: Birds of a feather don't always flock together.)


(PICTURE: The animal I'm the most scared of.)


(PICTURE: A hungry hungry hippo.)


(PICTURE: One of the co-stars of The Lion King.)


(PICTURE: This huge bird co-starred in Horton Hears A Who.)


(PICTURE: A wildebeest strutting his stuff.)

I've got many many many more pictures of animals...which you'll eventually see in a montage on my blog. However, this was just a taste. After having been on safari, I'm not sure I can ever go to a zoo again.