Fan Zones

(PICTURE: The fan zone where we watched the France vs. Uraguay game.)

For those of you who were hoping for a blog about the USA vs. England game, I'm sorry to disappoint. Hopefully the USA won the game and I'll have a good blog to write about it soon. However, I'm prewriting this blog because we won't be returning from the game until probably 1 or 2AM. We're then taking off for Cape Town around 6AM to check out that city and to catch the Italy vs. Paraguay game.

Sooooo, this blog is about the Fan Zones. Throughout the country there are "fan zones" set up. As I mentioned yesterday, we watched the opening game at one of these zones. Basically they are public spaces which have resurrected huge TVs.

The cool thing about the zones is that you get to feel the electricity of the games without having to be in the stadium. On top of that, there are musical acts and entertainment between the games.

A funny little anecdote: We wanted to watch the first game at a fan zone so we headed to Melrose Arch, a promenade turned zone about twenty minutes from our hotel. We got to the zone about four hours early and managed to grab a table at a restaurant about thirty feet from the screen. The zone filled up and had probably a few thousand people finagling for a clear view to the screen. The zone was cool but I had expected something much bigger akin to the fan zones in Germany in 2006. Well, there was a zone much bigger and it was a two minute walk from where we were. We inadvertantly set-up shop in the smaller of the two fan zones at Melrose Arch. For the second game we headed over to the other zone which was much livelier.

Okay, I'm gonna grab breakfast, shower and then head out to the USA game. LETS GO USA!!!!

South Africa vs. Mexico

Yesterday was the opening game between South Africa and Mexico. Devin, Dave, Chris and I watched the game at one of the fan zones in J'burg. By now everyone who cares knows the score ended in a 1-1 tie. I was pulling for South Africa to win but a draw was a pretty good way for them to start their tournament.

Needless to say, the majority of the people at the fan zone were pulling for South Africa. However, there were a few Mexico fans in the crowd. In fact, the Mexico Tourism Board had a stand at the fan zone and were passing out Mexican flags to anyone who wanted.

To get a little glimpse of World Cup fever, check out the vastly different reactions to the two goals scored in the game:

Vuvuzelas

(PICTURE: South African fans blowing vuvuzelas.)

For those of you who are going to watch the World Cup, you're going to constantly hear a horn sound emanating from thousands of vuvuzelas. A vuvuzela is a long plastic horn and perhaps the most annoying sound in the world at the moment. It seems that every person in South Africa has a vuvuzela and love to blow it everywhere and at every time. During our first dinner last night, some British fans starting blowing their vuvuzela at their table a few feet away from us. There's nothing like a loud horn sound in your ear when trying to enjoy a meal. Then this morning, someone/dozens of people started to blow their vuvuzelas outside of our hotel around 4AM.

Here's a couple of my thoughts about the vuvuzela:
1. What's the point in just making noise? If both teams' fans have vuvuzelas how does one team know who is cheering? To me, it is noise for noise sake.
2. After coming from a safari, this noisemakers make everyone just sound like buffaloes (think cows with horns). Basically the buffaloes on the safari would just walk around and then let out a big moooooooo like sound. It's sort of the same thing with these horns. People basically raise the horns up and for no apparent reason give it a big blow.
3. These horns remind me of high school soccer. Randolph High School -- one of Livingston's rivals -- always had a bunch of fans in the stands who blew vuvuzelas. This was circa 1995 & 1996. I hope those fans invested in the horns because they'd be multi-millionaires after this World Cup.

I thought my experience in Vietnam with horn honking would have prepared me better for the noise of the vuvuzelas, but alas it hasn't. That said, I'm sure I'll be picking one up in the next day or so and tooting it to my heart's desire.

Day Off

I'm utterly exhausted after an incredible four day safari. I took way over 1,000 pictures and will try and put together a little montage of the best ones soon. However, today I'm treating myself to a day off of blogging...

Ben

Adoption Plane

(PICTURE: A random chart that came up when I googled adoption.)

While waiting in line to check in for my flight on Friday, Huyen and I quickly noticed something -- we were surrounded by newborn babies. Usually being on a plane with lots of infant children is a flying nightmare. However, this plane was the opposite -- it was a dream flight for about 20 families. You see, we were surrounded by European couples all with their newly adopted Vietnamese babies.

Seeing the new families was quite an interesting experience. You could see a range of emotions on all of the parents' faces. I know the process of adopting is a long and frustrating one. However, the end result is obviously priceless for the families. For Huyen, adopting is a strange concept. In Vietnam, people don't usually adopt children...let alone foreign children.

Do any readers know if American can adopt from Vietnam anymore? Last year I received an email from a woman who had adopted a Vietnamese baby in the past and was saddened that the US had stopped allowing Vietnamese adoptions.

Motorbike Injury Hospital

(PICTURE: Just a random picture to get the point across.)

Motorbikes are dangerous. Yes, I know you all know that because I've mentioned it a hundred times on my blog. However, recently I had a chance to see exactly how dangerous bikes can be.

I mentioned the other day that Huyen's grandmother was recently in the hospital because she had foot surgery. You may recall that I've talked in the past about how the hospitals in Hanoi are organized by specialties. There’s the eye hospital, the heart hospital, the nose/ear/throat hospital, etc. Well, Huyen's mother was at the Orthopedics hospital specializing in foot/leg/arm injuries. Upon entering the hospital for the first time (I went three times to see her), I immediately realized that the place should be called the Motorbike Injury Hospital. Nearly everyone in the place had been in some kind of traffic accident.

Frankly, the place was gruesome. Nine out of twelve people in Huyen's grandmother's room were wearing some kind of archaic looking cast on their surgically repaired legs. The worst case in the room -- STOP READING HERE IF YOU GET NAUSOUS EASILY -- was a twenty-something-year-old boy who had his leg run over my an automobile. The car or truck (I'm not sure which) had ripped off all of the skin from the boy's calf area and presumably broken his bones there too. The surgeons had had to take off the skin from the boy's thigh to replace the skin from his calf.

As horrible as that story is, it doesn't compare to a patient in the other room who everyone was whispering about on my second visit to the hospital. In the other room was another twenty-something-year-old boy who had gotten into a motorbike accident with a car. I'm not sure what exactly happened but the boy had to have both his legs amputated.

I think I'm writing this blog because I'm clearly a little spooked out after going to the hospital. I've felt awful for the second boy for a week now. On my third visit to the hospital I saw the boy laying in bed and could literally feel my heart sinking for him. Later that night, Huyen and I had dinner with our friends David and Elissa. David has been trying to work-over Elissa for a few months to allow him to get a motorbike. Elissa, rightfully so, is nervous because David had a minor motorbike accident last summer which resulted in some knee surgery. Having come right from the hospital, I basically shot David's chances of getting a bike to hell by talking about all of the motorbike injuries. Elissa had a brilliant idea upon hearing of the hospital. She said that all high schools should have to take a field trip to the hospital to meet patients and hear/see their stories.

Now, Mom, I'm sure you're gonna be a little worried after reading this post. However, the vast majority of people who drive safely on motorbikes don't get into accidents. That said, I'll be just as happy as you are once I give up motor biking for good...

Experiment Over

(PICTURE: These are the temporary walls the city put up at major intersections.)

Last August I wrote a blog post on how Hanoi had changed many of the traffic intersections during the three months that I was away visiting my family. You can read about the genius city planning efforts in my August 10th, 2009 blog post titled, "Cha Cha Cha Changes." Basically the city had decided to get rid of many major intersections by putting up barriers to force people who wanted to go East/West into turning North/South and then making a u-turn. I thought this solution was, well, not so smart. It did more or less decrease traffic jams but also probably led to a lot more accidents as motorbikes/cars/bikes/buses had to now u-turn into faster traffic.

Well, after a little less than a year, the city has seen the error of its ways and officially re-opened the intersections. However, there's one small problem I've noticed so far with the "new" intersections: they forgot to install traffic lights in some. Yeah, I'm serious.