My First Lighter

The other day my coworker/friend Matt was in a motorbike accident. He got pretty banged up and ended up having to have ankle surgery at the French Hospital. As soon as he was out of surgery I jumped on my motorbike to go pay him a visit. Instead of buying flowers I decided to give him a more practical gift: The Wire Season 5. This was the perfect gift to give Matt for a few reasons:

1. On Friday night we were talking about The Wire and how he loved it and couldn't wait to see Season 5.
2. I just finished watching Season 5 the other day (not my favorite season but still genius).
3. Ryan had bought the Season 5 DVDs so it cost me nothing to pass them to Matt.

Despite being doped up on morphine -- or maybe because of it -- Matt was extremely happy to get the gift.

Forty eight hours later I went to visit Matt in the hospital again and brought him another gift: Bill Bryons's "A Walk In The Woods." I finished this book about a month ago and thought Matt might really enjoy it. Turns out he's a Bryson fan and hadn't read the book yet. Again, he was really happy to get the gift.

All that said, the greedy bastard wanted ANOTHER gift -- he asked me to go buy him a lighter. When I first came to the hospital the other day he was moaning for a cigarette. Well in the forty eights hours that I was gone a few packs had appeared on his hospital night stand. However, nobody had gotten him a lighter. Matt asked if I could get him one and I obliged. This was a tough thing to do because:

a) I was the Treasurer of Peer To Peer -- the non drinking, non drugging club -- in high school. Yeah, I'm that much of a loser.
b) I have never been an enabler to smokers. In fact, I had a reputation in college for drunkenly grabbing cigarettes out of people's mouths and throwing them to the floor. I obviously found this funny, others not so much.
c) I have never bought a lighter in my life.

All that said, I walked out of the hospital and found a lighter:



Here's the happy patient a few minutes later:

Cockroaches, Rats and Spiders Oh My! Cockroaches, Rats and Spiders Oh My!

Last night around midnight Ryan and I were watching "The Savages" when Ryan jumped up and yelled, "Jesus Christ! What the hell is that!" We flicked on the light and saw the largest spider either of us had ever seen. It was literally the size of my hand. Granted I have small girly hands but still it was really freaking big.

Hannah, please don't ask me to take any of these spiders outside and not kill them if they show up while you're here:

Zoo Part II: Monkey Petting Time

This was definitely funnier in person but it is still pretty ridiculous. This monkey was in the "children's zoo." It was literally just tied to a pole with a leash. By "leash" I of course mean an old nasty rope.

Please ignore my giggling in the background. I don't know why but I couldn't stop laughing. The closest I ever came to petting a monkey when I was two years old was my stuffed animal puppet that I won at some Harrison School event.

The Prisoner: Making A Comeback In 'Nam

One of the greatest things my brother Zev ever did for me was to introduce me to the 1960s/1970s tv series The Prisoner (www.imdb.com/title/tt0061287).  For those of you who know the series and wonder what the production ever did with the killer white orb, now you know:

For those of you who have never heard of the tv show and are just wondering what these balls are, well basically around a few lakes in Hanoi you can rent these things and go float on the water. From what I can tell their purpose is two fold: 

1. The majority of the people in Hanoi can not swim so this is their only way to get out on the water.

2. You would NEVER want your body to actually touch the lakes/rivers/streams in Vietnam which are highly polluted. 

Zoo Part I

(Video: Zoo Part I. Please no comments on my disgustingly sweaty appearance.)

Add this to things you can't do in America. That's Huyen literally lifting her nephew over the safety bars so he can feed a monkey. This is standard practice at the zoo. The good news is that he's feeding the monkey something the monkey might actually eat in real life. I can't tell you how many monkeys I saw eating candy bars while sipping from juice boxes.

I was complaining yesterday to some friends how heinous the zoo was and they all said the same thing, "Hanoi has one of the best zoos in Asia." Mental note: Do not go to any more zoos in Asia.

ZEV: Do Not Try This At Home

I often say to myself here, "I would never do this at home." Well, yesterday
I found myself doing something I would NEVER EVER do at home. Zev, do not -- I repeat, DO NOT -- ever do this with my niece:



Yeah, that's right, I drove my motorbike with Huyen and her nephew. Yes, three of us on a bike. Huyen told me she wanted to take her nephew to the park so I agreed. When I showed up at her house she said she wanted me to drive. I told her that it made me very uncomfortable and I did not want to because I thought it was extremely unsafe. Using her best lawyer skills she argued that it was much more dangerous for her to drive her nephew herself. Dammit, that's a good argument. I reluctantly agreed and drove us to the park. Hey, at least the kid was wearing a helmet, right? He's one of like 18 kids who actually wears a helmet in Hanoi.

By the way, on the way home, the kid fell asleep on the motorbike. I mean, really! These kids are a different breed. Can you imagine falling asleep on a bicycle in the middle of insane traffic and thousands of horns blaring?

My internet is back! I'll be posting all week....

He Has My Cheeks!

(PICTURE: Mr. Muoi, the man I rent my motorbike from)

One of my local friends is Mr. Muoi, the man I rent my motorbike from. He and his wife have taken an extra special liking to me over these past couple of months. Perhaps it's because I rented my bike from them, perhaps it's because I've gotten multiple friends to rent bikes from them or perhaps it's because I bought Mrs. Moui some baby clothes prior to her giving birth and sent a bunch of flowers to her hospital when the baby was born. Wow, that was a run-on sentence.

Anyway, the other day after telling Mr. Muoi that I was a c-section child -- like his baby -- he invited me over for a "party." Mr. Lou, his son, was turning one month old and he wanted me to come over. I strolled by right on time and well, there wasn't really a party. Waiting for me was Mr. Muoi and his older brother who took me to a street restaurant and ordered a bunch of food and drinks. He lined the tables with beer and looked slightly disappointed when I told him I couldn't drink because I was on medicine. So he screamed over to the waitress and had her line the table with sodas on my side. A few things struck me as odd at this point:
1. There wasn't a party. It was just the three of us celebrating.
2. The man who I rented my bike from wanted me to drink and drive.
3. I was expected to drink five sodas before the lunch was over.

The three of us did our best at communicating. Turns out Mr. Muoi is the youngest of nine siblings and was due for a kid. His eight year old nephew ended up joining us and thought it was a fun game to light a bottle opener on fire and press it against my calf. Let me tell you, it was hilarious...and the blister should go away soon.

In other news:

I had a thousand hits on my website over the last week. That's right, people like me. I haven't felt this popular since I changed elementary schools and all the hot girls wanted to date me.

The internet is still down at my house so I brought my laptop to school.

I had the RAT trapped yesterday. That's right, it's not a mouse. It's a full on rat. I walked into my house last night and noticed a few things:
A) The trap had been sprung for the third time. The food was gone and the trap was closed but there was no rat.
B) The sticky pads had all been trampled on. That's right, he stepped all over them but didn't stick. Gotta love Vietnamese products.

After shaking my head at my mortal enemy he actually appeared in front of me. He quickly ran up the side of the wall and hid behind a cabinet. I saw him and tried to act quickly on my feet. I put a bunch of the sticky pads on top of the cabinet and a bunch below. I figured either way he went he'd get caught (at least for a moment since clearly the pads didn't work that well). However, I must admit that I'm a gigantic wuss. If I had any guts I would have taken a long sharp knife and inserted it into the cabinet crack. He's quick but I probably could have gotten him. Instead I ended up putting a sticky pad on the end of a pole and inserted it into the crack. It didn't work. He scampered up the wall, jumped over the sticky pads I had placed up top and then jumped eight feet down to the ground...and THEN RAN UPSTAIRS!!! That's right he went up to the bedrooms. I followed him up but couldn't find him. Was he in my room? Was he in Ryan's room? Finding him was going to take a real man...and luckily Ryan came home. I told him the story and he quickly walked out to our porch on the second floor and said, "Yo, he's right here!" Yeah, the rat was sitting out in our garden...right by another trap that the previous apartment inhabitants must have placed there. Ryan chased the bastard and the rat quickly jumped onto a pipe and scampered to our neighbors house. Turns out that the door from our garden has about a two inch gap between it and the floor that the rat was going in and out through. I stuffed a towel into the crack and put some weights on it to try and hold it down. We'll see if it works. Man, I hate that rat!