Hanoian Birthday Party!

This past Friday, my friend Phuong and I celebrated our birthdays with a big 'ole birthday bash. Phuong works at this bar/restaurant called House of Son Tinh up towards West Lake (a very posh neighborhood). Therefore, we decided to rent out the private floor and invite all of our friends. My friend Ryan has a band with three other Nigerian guys, and they call themselves The Only Reggae Band, which is very fitting because they are, indeed, the only reggae band in Ha Noi. They played a lively little set and had the whole party dancing. Upon my request, they gave a wonderful rendition of my favorite Bob Marley song, "Could You Be Loved", followed by a reggae-fied Happy Birthday. We had over 80 people show up to enjoy music, food, and drinks. The band brought a bunch of their Nigerian friends along, so we got to watch a whole group of them do some "native dancing", which was really cute and, naturally, I joined in. It was an awesome experience to have such a mix of Vietnamese and foreigners, and it turned into quite a lovely cross-cultural celebration. After the party died down, a bunch of us went to one of the few late-night spots in Ha Noi. The government has a curfew set in place, so most bars are supposed to be closed by midnight. Usually, "closing" involves shutting the doors and windows and trying to appear closed, and letting everyone stay inside. The bars only completely close when the police bust in and tell everyone to leave, which happens on a very regular basis. So, there is one "club" that is situated a bit out of the city center, bordering the Red River. It's hidden through a garage, and I have yet to see police close it down. So, given that this place was likely still open, we all hopped in taxis and made our way to Phuc Tan. There, were proceeded to dance to some out-dated techno or chat on the back porch when we needed a break. With ears ringing, we headed back out into the street and jumped into one of the taxis that was eagerly awaiting the arrival of white people.

The next morning, a couple of us met up at a favorite brunch spot, Cafe 129. This place calls itself "slow-food", which is not far from the truth, because you always end up waiting over an hour for anything to arrive... so you can only go here if you have time to sit around. This place makes the best "American breakfast" I have yet encountered; they make pancakes using imported Bisquik, which is really a huge improvement from all the other "Western pancakes" I tried before (which tend to be a lot more like tasteless crepes). After enjoying a much-needed brunch, I went with Son to his house to visit his father, who recently had knee surgery due to a motorbike accident. I had never been to Son's house before, and had been constantly warned that it was "really old", and "out of date". I think Son was a bit nervous for me to come since my house is brand new, super modern, and very clean. Given my propensity to love anything with architectural history, I had been hankering to visit his house for some time, since it had survived the war and was over 100 years old. So I finally got my chance, and really loved it. It was a very old, very traditional Vietnamese house. Small ladders took the place of stairs, and antique wooden furniture decorated the main living space. I particularly liked the kitchen, which had ancient tiles and a vast array of potted plants. Really, the whole house was a great lesson in traditional Vietnamese living; I tend to get pretty jaded living the "foreigner lifestyle" and I very much enjoyed seeing a house that had barely changed for over a century. Hopefully I will get to go back and take some photos, it had such lovely charm!

Well, my friend's band is now playing a little set down the street at Puku Cafe, so I am going to run over there and see if I can catch the end of it.

Christmas Fever

Yes, that time of year has hit Ha Noi... hard. The whole "Christmas Thing" is a relatively new phenomenon here; Son said Santa Claus and Christmas Trees appeared when he was almost out of high school, so between 5-6 years ago. Celebrating Christmas is a way to become more Western... and a way to spend some of the money that appeared after the globalization of Viet Nam's economy. I've been starting a project on Ha Noi's middle class, which is a pretty new thing as well (considering) and I'm thinking it goes hand-in-hand with the emergence of Christmas culture.

Stores have been playing English Christmas songs (although most of these tend to be techno versions, which are even more annoying than the originals). Christmas trees are appearing in the posh places in town, and animatronic dancing Santas have been lining the stores. I took a photo of a street-side Christmas shop for proof that

those scary moving Santas are unavoidable, wherever you may be. I was hoping that I would get a bit of a break from all the hokey Christmas stuff, but no luck. Since it's an even newer business here, people are really going all out. Ha Noi is covered in lights all year round anyway, but people are opting to add more, not giving much thought to discretion. It's all pretty cute in it's own Hanoian way, and I feel pretty lucky that I get to experience 2 versions of Christmas Time this month, since I will be returning with 4 days of the American Christmas frenzy to go.

I'm getting so incredibly excited to see all my family and friends, now I'm just contemplating what ridiculous gifts to bring home. Snake wine anyone?

Saigon Seafood

The weather has been amazing this weekend, and I've been doing my part to get out and enjoy it. It's been a cool 75 degrees, no humidity, and lots of sun, but since this is Ha Noi winter, everyone is in down jackets, hats, gloves, and boots.

So Son and I were driving around West Lake on a lovely Thursday afternoon and came across some men getting their chickens ready to fight. Usually I'm not a fan of cock fights, but all these guys were sitting around in a beautiful lakeside park, and I figured I might as well enjoy a

typical Vietnamese past time. Son informed me that the men breed the cocks especially for fighting and feed them all sorts

of special food. These birds are definitely the ugliest birds I've seen, and they are fed rice soaked in alcohol before a fight, apparently it gives them more stamina. So, the birds were put in the circle and went at, all the while men were shouting out bets. After about 20 minutes, they took a break to wipe the birds down, give them water, and restore their energy for round 2. These fights can go on a long time so after 20 minutes I decided I'd had enough and was back on the road.

That night we celebrated Son's birthday in style, and all met up at this place called Vine Cellar Door, that has wine tasting every Friday. It costs about 10 dollars to get 8 glasses of wine, and if you come in a group of four, you get a free pizza next door. Since we had so many people show up together, we ended up with 4 pizzas and bottles of wine that cost us 2 dollars, all and all an incredible deal. Usually I'm not a big wine drinker, but this place was really nice and had a great assortment of wine and a really nice crowd of people. I think if I'm feeling classy I will head over there again. Here's a picture of myself and Son...

On Saturday evening, a couple of my friends got together to go to this incredible street seafood that is cooked Saigon style. They had an amazing assortment of shell fish and snails, and served crab claws in a really tangy sauce. They grilled oysters filled with a light sauce, chopped shallots, fried onions, and peanuts. I've definitely never had oysters this way before, but really really enjoyed it. I'm mad at myself for not taking more photos of the food, but I was too concentrated on actually eating it.

.

Freedom!

So I'm officially done with Singapore International School (well, not exactly, still have to pick up my last paycheck). The new teacher has taken over, I said goodbye to the kids and received some really cute "good luck" cards/poems/songs. I'm sad to leave some of the adorable kids behind, but excited to start living like an actual English teacher, rather than a full time classroom teacher... which is a drastically different life. All of my friends work at after school English clubs or teach English to adults. This mean they don't work every day of the week, so week nights turn into big party nights for a lot of the foreigner English teachers living in Ha Noi. Since I was doing a full-time gig, I was going to bed by 9:30pm on week nights and saving my energy for the weekends, the days that most of my teacher friends would go to bed early. So, the swap in lifestyle means seeing a lot more of my foreigner friends. Speaking of, Anneliese and Carlo officially left Ha Noi on Tuesday to go visit Egypt and then back to the states. Son and I decided to take a break from bit tet and do a different sort of street meat for their goodbye dinner. A bunch of us met up on Cau Giang road and sat down to some pans of hot oil atop a coal burner. Next, we proceeded to marinate our beef in a deliciously spicy sauce, then went on to fry the beef, along with eggplant, onions, and french fries. It was by far one of the best meals I've had on the street so far, and I will definitely be returning soon. Obviously, there is a trend developing here involving my love of street meat...Yesterday, I joined my friends Flip and Ryan for some lunch (something I was usually never able to do given my job at SIS). We met up around the corner from St. Joesph's Cathedral at the fried food lady. Here, we were taken into the "VIP room" (I think because Ryan was still in his teacher clothes) where we were able to dine with the big shots. Well, big shots were men on lunch break from some nearby financial office. You actually had to walk through the fried food lady's house to get to this room, which was slightly strange, but very typical. We had some banh goi (meat samosas), nem chua ran (friend meat rolls), nem ran (spring rolls), and bun noodles. After eating way too much fried stuff, we settled down to play some Phom, the traditional Vietnamese card game that I have mentioned in earlier posts. It is really quite addicting and I've found myself playing it at every opportunity. After I managed to win a little over 10,000 Dong, we decided to switch venues. We walked down to the corner and sat on little stools that are in the shade of St. Joseph's Cathedral. Since this is also directly next to a school, this "cafe" is called Sinh Vien Cafe (or Student Cafe, very creative, I know). Here we had some tea, played some more Phom, and watched Flip pass out tour package information to tourists. I was very much enjoying sitting next to such a lovely example of religious Architecture on a beautiful day, and thinking how cool it was that all these 8th graders have such a great after-school hangout. Honestly, I would hang out by the Drug-Fair, or Super Stop and Shop after school. These kids get to sit on the steps of one of the oldest and most famous buildings in Ha Noi... lucky.