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."