Walking Bridges

Walking bridges are springing up all over Hanoi. Seemingly on every major street now are these silver bridges. In theory these are a great idea since there's nothing quite as dangerous as people crossing busy streets wherever the hell they want to. However, in reality, I've only seen a few people actually use the bridges. Here's a typical empty walking bridge:

1,000th BLOG!!!!

If you had told me on February 2, 2008 -- while I was typing my first blog at JFK airport, waiting to fly to Syndey -- that I would eventually type 999 more entries, there's no chance I would have believed you. No, I definitely wouldn't have believed that over the course of nearly three years I would write 1,000 blogs. I also wouldn't have believed a heck of a lot of other things that have happened to me over the last 1,043 days.

I surely wouldn't have believed that I'd be robbed by ninjas during my first week in Hanoi. It also would have seemed unbelievable that I'd get detained overnight with two friends for accidentally going into the "frontier zone" near Laos. I also wouldn't have believed that my friends and family would have donated enough money to Habitat for Humanity to build two families' houses. I might have believed that I'd make some good friends but I would have doubted that I'd make as many as I have in not only Vietnam, but also amazing friends in Japan. I surely wouldn't have believed that I'd open my own school which would seem just about as likely as being evicted from a house (both which happened). I also wouldn't have believed that through the blog I was typing I would meet so many people and keep such a detailed account of my adventures. I definitely would not have believed that my parents would come to visit me in Vietnam twice, especially considering my mother's aversion to flying. Also, there's no way I would have believed that I'd end up spending nearly triple the amount of time in Asia that I had originally planned. But clearly, the most unbelievable thing someone could have told me while waiting for my flight to Australia over thirty months ago, was that I was going to be marrying the love of my life in a small village in the Vietnamese countryside. Yeah, I definitely would not have seen that one coming.

I guess if there is a lesson to be learned through my first 1,000 blogs it's this: Always keep an open mind because everything is possible -- and that's a truly amazing thing.

1st is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest!

Remember that poem we used to say as children:

First is the worst,
Second is the best,
Third is the one with the hairy chest.

Well, apparently this coffee shop think it's true:


Every time I drive by this shop I find myself smiling. I'm assuming the address of the shop is #2 something (it's on the corner of two streets so I'm not sure what the actual address is). However, in Vietnam you never know. Perhaps the owner once heard this childhood poem and took it a little too seriously.

New Life Resolution: Eat Slower

(PICTURE: My new role model.)

I feel like I don't have too many vices. I don't smoke, do drugs, drink in excess (0-4 beers a week), or gamble (minus the occasional fantasy football league). However, one vice that I do have is that I eat really really fast. Yes, I admit it -- I'm a super fast eater.

My whole life I feel like people have been telling me to slow down when I eat. Whether it is my mother, grandmother or friends, I've been told to take my foot off the accelerator when I eat. I could blame my dad for this bad life habit (it's his only vice too) but I'm old enough now to shoulder the responsibility myself. Recently Huyen has been getting on my case a lot about slowing down when I eat (it's a wife's job to get on her husband's case about something, right? I mean, I should have seen this coming as soon as I proposed). Every time I have any sort of ailment, Huyen tells me it is because I eat too fast. Well, I'm sure my tennis elbow isn't from eating too fast but perhaps my lifelong history of a volatile stomach could be attributed to my speed eating.

So, as of today, I'm going to make a concerted effort to eat slower. I won't be turtle slow but I will be much much slower. I'm not sure I'll hit the 30 chews per bite level (which a woman at a restaurant suggested to us recently) but I will bite my food more.

For extra motivated I just googled "eat slowly" and the first entry listed five reasons to eat slower:
1. Lose weight (yeah, I could lose a few pounds).
2. Enjoy your food (I do enjoy my food but hopefully I could learn to enjoy it for a longer period of time).
3. Better digestion (This is the one I could really use the help with).
4. Less Stress (So chewing slower will help us get through immigration faster?).
5. Rebel against fast food and fast life (I don't like fast food so this isn't a problem...although I could go for a McFlurry every once in a while).

Eating slower for now on,

Ben

T-Shirt Of The Month

(PICTURE: Your typical teenager riding recklessly.)

In what seems to be a daily occurrence, today a teenager, with his helmet loose on his head and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, flew by me on a motorbike. As usual I found myself rolling my eyes at this jackass as he swerved in and out of traffic, nearly causing a half dozen accidents around him. However, the photo gods quickly brought a smile to my face as the kid slowed down his bike just enough for me to read his t-shirt and to get a photo:


(PICTURE: "This is what a little princess looks like.")

Hey, Little Princess, if you're gonna try and act tough by speeding and smoking on your motorbike, you might want to consider buying a new t-shirt.

Blue License Plates

(PICTURE: Typical blue plates on a nice-ish car.)

In Hanoi, there's thousands of cars -- almost always luxury cars -- that have blue license plates. These blue plates are supposed to be for diplomats but, in reality, everyone and their mother has one. In a culture of corruption, it's surprisingly not that hard to get your hands on a special plate. In fact, the other day I was looking at online classifieds and saw a posting for a motorbike with blue license plates that promised, "If you have these plates, you'll never get pulled over again."

Today though I had a good chuckle as I was driving my motorbike and saw a piece-of-crap car (which are rare here) with white United Nations decal stickers on the side of it. Clearly this was not a United Nations car but rather an ingenious attempt by the cars owner to try and get the benefits of blue license plates without actually having the plates.

Another thing I've seen twice recently are people who put blue-tinted laminate paper over their license plates. On first glance the plates look like diplomatic plates but on second glance they're clearly not. Again, a genius attempt to get the benefits of blue license plates.

Huyen and I are planning on taking a big motorbike trip before going back to the states; I'm gonna need to get blue plates or at least a UN decal or blue laminated paper before we set off.

Spit or Swallow

Everyone's done it. Sometimes when you're driving, you hock-up a big loogie and you don't have a cup or a tissue to spit it into. Instead you roll down your window, spit it out and inevitably watch it splat on a back window of your car. Sure it's disgusting but it's equally as disgusting to swallow it.

I don't mind someone spitting out their window when the only thing they're likely to hit is their own car or, worse case scenario, the car behind them. Okay, okay, occasional it'll spray the person in the backseat if their window is down too. However, it's not that common. Anyway, I do have a BIG PROBLEM with someone on a motorbike spitting since they're most likely going to hit the person driving behind them...which is exactly what happened to me today. Some douche bag sped up in front of me today, hocked a loogie, and spit it towards the grass barrier in the middle of the road we were on. However, a significant spray headed my way and landed right on my bare knuckles. Yes, vile.

You know how every week it seems like an NFL player spits on another NFL player and the victim claims it is the worse thing in the world. Well, it is the worst thing in the world. Being spit on awakens some animal force inside of people. As soon as my knuckles got rained on, I felt this incredible urge to kick the guy's ass who had just sprayed me. For about five seconds I started to speed up my bike with the genius plan of passing him and spitting in the air...however, I quickly heard my mother's voice inside my head: "Two wrongs don't make a right." Why does my mom always have to be right?!