Bai Dingh Pagoda

(PICTURE: My cousin Justin at the pagoda in October)

Back in October, on my road trip with my cousin Justin, we met a local in Nimh Binh who took us to Bai Dinh Pagoda. Bai Dinh pagoda is the largest pagoda in Southeast Asia. If you've been to Vietnam before and haven't heard of it, don't feel bad since it probably didn't exist -- the pagoda won't be finished until 2010.

This past weekend, Huyen, Sebastian (my friend visiting from LA) and I headed for a weekend away from Hanoi. Huyen's cousin was getting married and it gave us a good excuse to take in some sites. I told Huyen about the pagoda (she had never heard of it either) and we got there right around sunset. When Justin and I went we took a dirt road that connected to a large, empty, brand new road. This time the road was finished and there were even tour groups traveling to the pagoda.

(PICTURE: Huyen and I approaching the highest pagoda.)




(PICTURE: Sebastian in front of two of the Buddahs. Each Buddha weighs 11 tons. Yeah, those are pretty fat Buddhas.)

(PICTURE: Huyen and I in front of the pagoda after the sunset.)

Besides the nearly finished roads and the tour groups, a lot has changed in the six months since Justin and I visited Bai Dinh. One obvious change can be seen if you look at the first picture with Justin and the newest picture with Sebastian -- the Buddhas have mysteriously turned golden.

New Roommates

(PICTURE: Ryan's last time leaving our house.)

Within hours of Ryan leaving last week, my new roommates moved in. The new roommates are two couples who have been in Hanoi for quite a long time. There is a Polish couple who have been studying Vietnamese here for the last year and a half and a Polish/Korean couple who have been here for four years. In case you're wondering, the girl is Polish and the boy is Korean.

The new roommates are extremely nice and friendly but are making me really nervous. Why? Because four times in a week they've left the second floor balcony opened or unlocked. I am starting to feel extremely paranoid that I'm going to be robbed by ninjas my first and last months in Hanoi. That's the bad news.

The good news though is that the other day I took out the laundry of the Korean kid and hung his stuff on the clothesline. The first article of clothing I pulled out from the washing machine was a t-shirt that said: "Sex Instructor. First Lesson Free." I just hope he doesn't work from home. The second article of clothing I pulled out though was some kind of karate uniform. There wasn't a belt in the washing machine but I can only hope his rank is high enough to fight off the ninjas who he will soon be letting into my house.

Huyen and I miss you, Ryan!

(PICTURE: Our final goodbye with Ryan before he got into a taxi with Jessica.)

Policy

This will probably be the last post about Huyen's visa. Huyen and I have decided to wait till my next trip home to apply again for her visa. The guy from Waxman's office told me that it is an uphill battle to get a girlfriend a visa to the USA. He said that the state department doesn't give girlfriends/boyfriends visas because they want immigration to deal with those people. Yes, that's insane since Huyen is trying to visit the USA and not immigrate. I'm trying to think of a metaphor that is appropriate and the best I'm coming up with is going to the supermarket deli counter and ordering a half pound of honey turkey, only to be told to go talk to the people in the produce department because people like you usually like lettuce.

I wrote the guy in Waxman's office an email saying that as angry as I am about Huyen's individual case, I'm equally, if not more furious about the policy the embassy has of taken people's $131 just to sneak a peak at their bank account. The staffer in Waxman's office wrote me back saying, "Thank you for your email, and I wanted to let you know that I have forwarded it to Congressman Waxman and our legislative/policy aides in Washington DC for their consideration from a policy standpoint."

If anything this whole experience has cracked my rose colored glasses (that's an expression, right?) and opened my eyes. I have very little hope that Waxman will read an email from me but if he does, hell, that would be great. In the meantime though, I'll be writing an op-ed to the LA Times and New York Times.

Anyway, on to slightly less important things...

LETS GO ORANGE!!!! Win one for Huyen, Johnny Flynn!!!

Santa Monica Daily Press

On Sunday I wrote a letter to the editor of The Santa Monica Daily Press about Huyen's visa story. Included in the letter was a line saying that Waxman's office blew me off. The next morning I woke up with two emails. The first email was from The Santa Monica Daily Press saying they were going to publish my letter this week. The second email was from someone in Waxman's office saying he was on my case. The timing was extremely interesting from Waxman's office since I hadn't heard back from them in over two weeks. My gut tells me that someone called them about my letter (I had submitted letters to a few California newspapers). In fairness to Waxman's late effort, I emailed the SMDP back and asked them to remove the line about Waxman blowing me off. The editor, Kevin, removed the line and emailed me that my letter was being printed today.

You can see my letter at: http://www.smdp.com/Letters-3133.113116_Dream_deferred.html

The Santa Monica Daily Press isn't exactly the New York Times but it is in the heart of Waxman's jurisdiction. After feeling saddened by the lack of response by my congressman, it feels good to know that the first amendment is still in tact. When a person has a story to tell, they can tell it. Thanks for taking the time to read and to print my letter, Santa Monica Daily Press.

I'm Coming Home

On May 9th, at 9:35PM, I will land at Newark Airport. After going through customs, I will wrap my arms around the thing I have missed the most in my time in Vietnam...


...an Espisito's roast beef sandwich with roasted red peppers, balsamic vinegar and the works. Oh and I'll hug my parents too.

(Note: The picture above is of a Bay Cities deli sandwich in Santa Monica -- my second favorite deli in America. I will eat at least two of these sandwiches each day when I visit my friends in California.)

I've booked my flight home and much to my mother's happiness, I'll be back for Mother's Day. Starting on Mother's Day I will proceed to put on 10-15 pounds of good old American food. The binging will not stop until the first week of August...when I fly back to Hanoi. That's right, I bought a round trip ticket.

Congratulations Big Stu and Alyssa

(PICTURE: Big Stu and Alyssa. Note: they are sitting on a love seat, not a couch.)

Training for a bar mitzvah is hard work. I remember vividly being twelve years old and listening to a cassette tape made by Cantor Henry Butensky. Cantor Butensky's deep soothing voice was the complete opposite of my mid-puberty crackling baritone (okay, maybe I was an alto). I practiced my torah and haftorah portions every day, slowly gaining more confidence. On top of my unusually long responsibilities -- it was the first service of a new Jewish month which meant extra long verses -- I had an assortment of other prayers to learn. Thank god, I had a partner to share half the Saturday morning service responsiblities with. My partner's name was Russel Wachtler, a friend of some friend's of mine who went to the rival middle school across town. I didn't really know Russ but I was glad that I was going to be sharing the beema with him...

...but then one day about two months before my bar mitzvah, in my lesson with the cantor, I was given some terrible news: Russell Wachtler has "stage fright" and is going to have a smaller private service. I stared at Cantor Butensky blankly, wondering what exactly this meant for me. He quickly told me: "Since Russell won't be doing the service with you, you're going to have to do his parts too."

I can't tell you how angry I was. I wanted to yell at the cantor, "Fuck Russel Wachtler and his stupid stage fright!" but in those days I didn't really curse often and well, I really liked Cantor Butensky. In the end, I did the whole service myself, terrible voice and all. A couple years later Russell (AKA Big Stu) and I became good friends in high school and have remained good friends ever since. In fact, Russell is my East Coast beer pong partner. Yeah, we're that close.

So why am I telling you this story now? Well, Russell Wachtler just got engaged to his longtime girlfriend Alyssa Kessler. So yeah, Alyssa, consider this your warning -- keep the guest list small or else Russell might get "stage fright" two months before the wedding and you'll find yourself saying your vows in a nearly empty chapel in Atlantic City.

Congratulations to both of you. I have no doubt you're going to have a great life together! Please plan the engagement party for when I'm home this summer. Thanks!

(400) Days of Ahoy Hanoi

(PICTURE: Hanoi is celebrating Ahoy Hanoi's 400th entry! Ignore the wrong date on the bottom right of the picture.)

This is my 400th blog entry. Yes, 400th. I know, it's insane. The cool thing about hitting the 400 mark is that it allows me to post a lazy entry about my blog's data. Unfortunately I only signed
up to google analytics in September so these stats are for only for half the time the blog has existed. Yes, excuses excuses....

According to google analytics:

- Ahoy Hanoi has had 4,062 unique visitors.

- Ahoy Hanoi has had 27,675 page views.

- The average person spends 2 minutes and 55 seconds on the blog.

- Ahoy Hanoi is being read in 81 countries.

- In South America the blog has been read in Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Uraguay. Screw you Paraguay, Guyana (French Guyana too!) and Suriname.

- Ahoy Hanoi is being read in Iran but it is not being read in North Korea. Screw you Kim Jong-il.

- Ahoy Hanoi is being read in "48 States". However, Alalytics is also telling me that it has never been read in South Dakota, Delaware, Arkansas or Mississippi. It is including Washington D.C. and unknown IP addresses as states. I know in the past I didn't mention Delaware but come on, it's Delaware.

- Ahoy Hanoi has been read in 41 languages (I don't really know what that means but it's a figure on Analytics).

- 75.84% of readers are return visitors.

- The first inappropriate words googled to get to my blog are: "Hanoi Sex Massage." This is the 16th most common google to find my blog. I'm happy to report that out of the people who have found my blog this way, the average person has continued to read my page for 59 seconds. I guess they were literally able to wait a minute to have sex.

Thanks for everyone for continuing to read my blog!