Dvorak Night

(PICTURE: Back row from left to right: Sebastian, Mark, Huyen, Me, Masumi, Kensuke, Herb, Anthony and Mark. Front/Middle row from left to right: Barry, my mom, Donna, Pat, my dad, Heather, Paul and Urszula.)

By the 16th, fifteen people had already arrived in town. As a present to the early arrivers, Huyen and I took everyone to see the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra at the Hanoi Opera House. As I've written on the blog before, going to the opera house is one of my favorite things to do. You can often see amazing performances for extremely low prices. When the Opera House announced their December schedule, I quickly snatched up tickets for everyone thinking it would be a relaxing way to adjust to the craziness of Vietnam. Well, between jet lag and the calming sounds of Dvorak, it turned out to be too relaxing for some. At some point I turned around and saw no less than half of my guests sleeping! Yeah, I guess listening to classical musical on a few hours sleep isn't the best idea.

In a case of it being a very small world, the conductor of the performance that night was Honna Tetsuji who is the music director and principal conductor of the the Vietnam Symphony Orchestra. When I emailed my guests to see who wanted to go to the symphony, I got a very excited reply from Masumi and Kensuke who told me that Honna Tetsuji was from Koryama, the city they're from and that I lived and worked in last year. Masumi and Kensuke actually emailed Honna Tetsuji and then briefly met up with him backstage after the show.

With just a few days to go before the wedding, everything was really coming together!

First In Town

Whenever there is an out of town wedding, people always arrive at different times. Our wedding was no different as everyone made their way into town over the course of two weeks. The first person to arrive was my friend Mark from Los Angeles. For those long time blog readers, you may remember Mark from our adventures together at the World Team Table Tennis Championships in China in 2008. Between the enthralling ping pong matches, Mark and I dove head first into Chinese culture. One thing that we quickly became obsessed with were Chinese hot pots which I later learned are exponentially spicier than Vietnamese hot pots.


(PICTURE: Mark figuring out the enigma of Chinese hot pots in 2008. I was across from him sweating my face off do to the hundreds of chilies in the pot.)

It was great that Mark was the first person to arrive because he's extremely self sufficient and always up for absolutely anything in the name of cultural discovery. Mark was in and out of town for the first week but while he was here, we did a whole bunch of eating, a little suit shopping and some overall exploration of the city. At some point, I mentioned to Mark about the traditional massage calling "cupping" that I was eager to try. Well, the next day Mark went to a massage place and got cupped. Cupping basically involves having your skin sucked through a tube, sort of like a putting a high powered vacuum directly on your body. Supposedly it's good for circulation but more famously, it's known for leaving giant red rings on your flesh. Here's a picture of Mark's back three days after getting cupped:



Besides being "DFW" all the time, Mark is also an extremely talented director/shooter/editor/producer who has worked on many awesome projects. While traveling he shot some footage of his Vietnam adventure. You can check out some very cool videos on his website. Mark was quickly appointed by wedding videographer so hopefully in a few weeks or months I'll have some sweet wedding footage to post.

About a week after Mark arrived, people started to pour in...and many are still here as Huyen and I will more or less have someone in town until the middle of January!...which despite being exhausting, is pretty awesome.

Christmas In Vietnam

(PICTURE: Santa's motorbike helpers.)

I apologize for the extended hiatus but starting today Ahoy Hanoi will be up and running again. I've got about 1,000 potential posts from the wedding but before I begin those, I'll just comment on Christmas in Vietnam.

You might be surprised to hear this but Christmas is a big deal in Vietnam. Sure Christianity is a minority religion but that doesn't stop the majority from feeling Christmas spirit. All over Hanoi, Christmas lights are twinkling from the trees, telephone poles and cafes. There's even a temporary Christmas decoration street in the Old Quarter where you can buy Santa outfits, Styrofoam snowmen and basically anything else you could imagine for the holidays.

Last night, we tried to get a taxi to go to dinner with my parents and were told that all the taxis were busy for Christmas Eve. Eventually Huyen got us a small taxi which meant that Su and I had to ride on our motorbike. From the best of my understanding (and questioning), people here just like to celebrate Christmas as a chance to go out to dinner and drive around. No Vietnamese people I know give each other presents, they just say "Merry Christmas" and leave it at that. Being a Jew, In America I never totally got into the Christmas spirit. Sure I love the decorations and the movies and the parties, but beyond that I always felt like an outsider on the holiday as I ate Chinese food with my family. However, in Vietnam we're almost all outsiders so it's fun to smile at one another, send texts and wish each other a Merry Christmas. So, Merry Christmas everyone!

Two Day Hiatus...

We're off on a quiet honeymoon in the middle of nowhere with about 20 family and friends. Ahoy Hanoi will be back in probably two days. To pass the time I suggest going back and rereading some of the old blogs about Huyen and me. I think it'll be like watching the first few Star Wars movies again before watching the new ones.

Ben

Childhood Obesity

Last week Obama signed the Child Nutrition Bill. No news flash here, but Americans are some of the fattest people in the world. Coming from the US to Vietnam was a slight shock seeing how skinny and seemingly fit everyone was. However, that was three years ago. Recently, I've noticed something around Vietnam -- there's a lot of chubby people here now.

A couple of years ago I had no heavy kids in my classes; now it's irregular not to have a few. I've been noticing this change recently and brought it up to a few friends who have been here for a while. Apparently I'm not the only one noticing the waist lines increasing out here especially on children. Huyen and I live by a high school and every day I see some kids who would definitely be considered obese. I'm not a nutritionist but I don't think it takes one to know that it can't be a coincidence that KFC and other fast food places have been popping up all over the place over the last couple of years. Furthermore, I constantly see kids snacking on packaged foods like chips and candy which clearly are contributing to the problem.

Clearly I don't have a say in Vietnamese governmental policy but if I was was the Vietnamese government, I'd start putting together a child nutrition bill of their own ASAP.

Off getting married...

Here's the first picture Huyen and I ever took together:


And today we're getting married...

It must have been my totally awesome wrist band.

Hanoi Citadel

(PICTURE: Huyen at the Citadel gate.)

This year the Hanoi Citadel was named a world UNESCO site. Why? Well, I'm not totally sure since it definitely doesn't seem to be one of the more historic places in the city. That's at least the opinion I came to after scouting it out to add to our "Tour of Hanoi" for wedding guests.

Neither Huyen or I had been to the citadel before and well, we probably won't be going back after we take the wedding guests there. There just seems to be a hole lot of nothing at the citadel. Sure there are a few things that are a pretty old, but in general it felt like a lot of empty space and just a little bit of history.

The cool thing about the citadel though is that:
1. It's free.
2. It's next to the Army Museum so you can just walk over.
3. There's some good picture opportunities to be had there.