A few words of update before I disappear back into the mysterious
orient for a few more months! Since my
last post I enjoyed a wonderful white and slightly above freezing Christmas in Minnesota
and then got promptly back to work in Japan.
2019 is off to a smooth start with no major changes to my classes or
work schedule. In case you were wondering
I was back for a total of three weeks before I went on vacation again! Phew, I was getting worried about burn out
there. This week I took a short trip to
Vietnam with two friends from work (Sam and Emily the same two as Malaysia in September). It was supposed to be four days, but we
applied for the visas too late and it wound up being only three. We got $250 tickets out of Osaka for an early
Monday flight, so we took the train three hours on Sunday and stayed in a
little town to the airport. Then after
getting up at 6 on Monday we were denied boarding due to lack of visas and had
to spend another 24 hours in Osaka. Who
knew you needed a visa to visit counties the United States formerly
bombed? So on Monday we went back into
Osaka and spent the day visiting the instant noodle museum. It was like Asia’s version of the Spam
Museum! Then three trains back to small
airport town, get up at six, make the flight by five minutes due to visa
printing difficulties, blah blah blah.
Anyhow, we got to Hanoi at 1pm, messed around with immigration for an
hour, took an uber for an hour, checked into the air BNB and then literally ran
a mile to the start of our 5pm food tour.
Running through the old quarter of Hanoi was probably the most dangerous
thing I’ve done since trying to drive a moped in Indonesia in 2010. Very invigorating. Hanoi has roughly 100 pedestrians, 200 street
vendors, 400 mopeds and one square meter of open space per block. Also no stop lights of traffic laws. You gotta just stop thinking and go baby!
So the first night I had like three dinners of bomb ass
Vietnamese street food like Pho and Banh Mi.
I also learned that Hanoi is super touristy with plenty of English
speakers and also that Vietnam is like totally communist but also totally
capitalist. Our 27 year old tour guide
was totally stoked about Ho Chi Minh, Lennon and one party elections, but also loved
Americans and accepted visa. So you wind
up with a country with free health care and no homeless people or beggars, but Americans
can go anywhere, say anything and even pay with US dollars. No surprise it’s one of the fastest growing economies. Anyhow that’s just a first impression, I don’t
really know anything.
Anyhow, the second day we explored on foot (literally one
foot as we were hopping over squatting-sidewalk-coffee-drinkers all day) and
checked out a couple of temples and a water puppet show. If you want to know what entertainment looked
like in an 11th century rice field I recommend this! We also caught a show at a Jazz club. The next day we did an art museum and tried
to check out Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, which sadly closes at 11am. We wrapped up with the 65 story Lotte tower,
where we watched the sun set through the hazy polluted sky. Then we caught a red eye home
followed by a miserable and heavily delayed 4 hour train ride home.
Overall it was a crazy but great trip. The air BNB was gorgeous, almost like a hotel
room, but tucked in skinny four story building on a back alley. The weather was 60-70 degrees the whole trip,
but unfortunately very hazy and polluted.
If I could do it again I’d get my visa on time and spend a night or two outside
the big city. The people were so
friendly I don’t think it would be a problem, even with zero Vietnamese.
So I’m back now, and getting ready for a 9am free lesson
tomorrow (Sunday). Take care and keep in
touch!
