Spent the afternoon walking around the Old Quarter. The art of dodging oncoming traffic is important if you don't want to get run over, I find out. It is important to walk slowly when you go through any intersection so that oncoming motorcyclists can see you. There are no traffic lights or pedestrian crossings at most intersections. Although dangerous, giving yourself up to the unwritten rules is pretty liberating.
I found my way to Hoan Diem Lake, which is the central landmark of the Old Quarter. In the middle of the lake on an island stands the Ngoc Son Temple. The legend behind this temple is that a powerful tortoise rose out of the water in the lake carrying a sword, which was the power that the people needed to conquer their enemies. A red, wooden bridge leads from the island to the mainland.
After visiting the temple, I wandered through various markets (a street of only shoe stores, a street of colorful lantern stores and kite stores, a street where I heard and saw blacksmiths pounding away at steel to fashion it into something of use). My favorite market was the food market of course. Here, I bought a fried spring roll stuffed with pork and veggies that was delicious.
For dinner, I ate a banana flower salad with shredded beef, cold vermicelli noodles, cilantro, some veggies sliced thinly, and garnished with lots of lime juice. It was a good way to cool off from the muggy weather.
More tomorrow, including Vietnamese Water Puppet Theater and a visit to the Ho Chi Minh Mauseoleum.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Airport Ride from Noi Bai Airport
Fly into Hanoi over wooded mountains shrouded in clouds, rice paddies, and villages of houses that the rice paddies are centered around. I forego the taxi hawkers for a local bus that goes down a one-lane-road in both directions. The bus is really quiet even though it's full of people. It is also air-conditioned, which is nice. The weather is humid but doesn't really feel that different or worse than the humidity in Seoul.
There are a lot of people riding bicycles along the street wearing straw conical hats. There is a lot of water near the road in the form of ponds and rivers. This area seems really green and fertile. The water looks clean.
Soon, businesses start to become visible on both sides of the road. They look like really, big multi-storey houses. There is also a lot of space at least until I get into Hanoi city, which is refreshing after the urban sprawl of Seoul. Lots of motorcycles and lots of honking that other riders don't really seem to be responsive to. Soon, we enter Hanoi, and I am dropped off near the train station. I wasn't sure I had boarded the right bus, but apparently I did.
There are a lot of people riding bicycles along the street wearing straw conical hats. There is a lot of water near the road in the form of ponds and rivers. This area seems really green and fertile. The water looks clean.
Soon, businesses start to become visible on both sides of the road. They look like really, big multi-storey houses. There is also a lot of space at least until I get into Hanoi city, which is refreshing after the urban sprawl of Seoul. Lots of motorcycles and lots of honking that other riders don't really seem to be responsive to. Soon, we enter Hanoi, and I am dropped off near the train station. I wasn't sure I had boarded the right bus, but apparently I did.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Engagement photos
Elena at the table of the restaurant where I proposed to her...I was checking my camera for pictures that I had taken so that I could have a clean memory card for my trip to Vietnam when I leave on Saturday. I was surprised and delighted to find some photos that Elena and I took on the night we got engaged (March 24, 2007). Here's a link to my Flicker page for some more pictures of that night.
As Elena mentioned in the email she sent, we went to dinner at the resolving restaurant at the top of Namsan Tower, which is a tower on a mountain that is pretty much in the center of Seoul and so one can get outstanding views on clear nights. She already related the story of our engagement, which if you don't remember, I have included below:
Hello,
I just wanted to respond to Ajay's announcement to say that he's being very modest. It wasn't just a simple proposal in a revolving restaurant. Although I knew what was coming (or maybe because I knew what was coming), Ajay managed to plan such a special evening that I felt like I was on a first date and acted accordingly. I told stupid stories, played with the flowers on the table, said every small and insignificant thing that came to mind (including a summary of a scene from Sex and the City) and went to the bathroom two times to stare at myself in the mirror to make sure I looked okay. After returning from the bathroom the second time I pulled my chair into the table so hard that I almost disrupted everything. The waiter gave a little jump and Ajay excused himself to go to the bathroom. I wondered for a short moment if he would come back.
After putting me through a difficult hour or so, he finally sat beside me after returning from the bathroom and asked me to close my eyes.
I asked, "Why?" (dumb thing number 3,456 said by me that evening).
"Just close your eyes."
I closed them and started crying. He put a box in my hand. I opened my eyes.
He said, "Will you marry me?"
I made some sobbing and choking noises and hugged him. I think I said, "yes" eventually.
He said, "I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you."
When I opened the box I said, "It's perfect. It's sparkly." (number 3,457) We both laughed about that one.
Most people would think that the person proposing would be nervous, but no! Ajay was at his smoothest and most confident. He also looked very handsome that evening. I'm a very lucky woman.
I hope to see you all very soon,
Elena
As Elena mentioned in the email she sent, we went to dinner at the resolving restaurant at the top of Namsan Tower, which is a tower on a mountain that is pretty much in the center of Seoul and so one can get outstanding views on clear nights. She already related the story of our engagement, which if you don't remember, I have included below:
Hello,
I just wanted to respond to Ajay's announcement to say that he's being very modest. It wasn't just a simple proposal in a revolving restaurant. Although I knew what was coming (or maybe because I knew what was coming), Ajay managed to plan such a special evening that I felt like I was on a first date and acted accordingly. I told stupid stories, played with the flowers on the table, said every small and insignificant thing that came to mind (including a summary of a scene from Sex and the City) and went to the bathroom two times to stare at myself in the mirror to make sure I looked okay. After returning from the bathroom the second time I pulled my chair into the table so hard that I almost disrupted everything. The waiter gave a little jump and Ajay excused himself to go to the bathroom. I wondered for a short moment if he would come back.
After putting me through a difficult hour or so, he finally sat beside me after returning from the bathroom and asked me to close my eyes.
I asked, "Why?" (dumb thing number 3,456 said by me that evening).
"Just close your eyes."
I closed them and started crying. He put a box in my hand. I opened my eyes.
He said, "Will you marry me?"
I made some sobbing and choking noises and hugged him. I think I said, "yes" eventually.
He said, "I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you."
When I opened the box I said, "It's perfect. It's sparkly." (number 3,457) We both laughed about that one.
Most people would think that the person proposing would be nervous, but no! Ajay was at his smoothest and most confident. He also looked very handsome that evening. I'm a very lucky woman.
I hope to see you all very soon,
Elena
The Strange Saga of Nabi
Nabi and I in March...So, earlier this year Elena decided to take in a co-worker's cat because cats aren't allowed in the university housing where her co-worker is living. The cat's name is Nabi, which is Korean for "butterfly." Nabi is probably the smallest cat I've been around, and a couple of times I very nearly stepped on her because she had a habit of running in between mine or Elena's legs as we were walking, especially if she was at the top of the stairs waiting to be let into the apartment after having been let out. She is quite a feisty cat, as evidenced by the growls we sometimes heard when she got in arguments with the other cats in the complex or the strays in the neighborhood that sometimes hung around the complex. We once found her guarding a bloody, dead bird at the landing of the basement stairs. We weren't sure if she had killed the bird herself, but she sure had enough blood on her fur to make it seem like she had. We waited most of the day so that she could clean herself up before coming back inside. She is quite a gentle resident of the apartment and quite craving of attention, as you can see in the photo above.
The strange part of this story happened the day on Easter Sunday when Nabi was let out and didn't come home that night or the next night. Finally, I recommended that Elena ask Harvey, who has a couple of cats of his own and lives in the apartment complex's other building, whether he had seen Nabi around. He told her that he had been meaning for some time to round up the strays that hung around the apartment buildings and drive them up to the mountainside so that they would be in a place where they could find food yet no longer bother the residents of the apartment buildings with their howling and random pissings on doors and hallways. He finally carried out his intention on the Monday after Easter, and, when Elena described Nabi's orange and black appearance to him, he realized that he had mistakenly included Nabi in his roundup of the strays, not knowing that Nabi was not a stray but a cat that Elena was taking care of. Understandably, he was quite broken up about taking Nabi away from Elena and putting the cat in some unfamiliar place, even though we both insisted that it was a mistake that anyone could have made.
Anyway, we have been up the mountainside at least 20 times since Harvey accidentally released her up there. Harvey made notices in Korean with pictures of Nabi and our phone numbers on the paper, and we posted them all over the neighborhood near where Nabi was released. A couple of people have said that they have seen her, but Elena and I think that they have just seen a cat that is similar to Nabi in appearance but not really the same cat. We haven't caught sight of her since Easter among the many other cats that hang out by the river at dusk. We hope that she's doing okay, and we still have her litter box, the pot of catnip, and the scratching post if she comes back.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Casey must be happy...
...because the Cleveland Cavaliers are one win away from the NBA Finals.
I managed to catch the end of the Cavs-Pistons Game 5 starting from about the 3rd Quarter, and boy am I glad that the game didn't go on to 3OT, otherwise I would have missed the end of the game because of class.
What I saw was greatness. It was really satisfying for me to watch LeBron destroy the Pistons single-handedly after taking so much flak for difficult 4th quarters in Games 1 and 2 of the series. Maybe people should have just shut up and cut him some slack, since he's only 22 years old. Well...those critics are probably mighty quiet now.
I'm not a LeBron fan by any means, but this was playoff greatness that only comes along once every ten years. The last time I can remember something like this was when Michael Jordan single-handedly kept the heavily underdog Bulls in it against the championship Celtics team of 1986. Jordan scored 63 points and was unstoppable, sending that game against the Celtics into overtime before the superior Celtics finally ended up winning the game.
The difference between that game and this one is that the superior team didn't win, but the superior player did. The teams with the superstar performers are usually the solid pick in the NBA to advance to the next round, and this Cavs-Pistons series is a strong bet to live up to that pattern as well. Even if the Pistons steal Game 6, is anyone going to count out another LeBron performance like the one we saw Game 5? I didn't think so.
ESPN.com - NBA - Watching LeBron go on and on
I managed to catch the end of the Cavs-Pistons Game 5 starting from about the 3rd Quarter, and boy am I glad that the game didn't go on to 3OT, otherwise I would have missed the end of the game because of class.
What I saw was greatness. It was really satisfying for me to watch LeBron destroy the Pistons single-handedly after taking so much flak for difficult 4th quarters in Games 1 and 2 of the series. Maybe people should have just shut up and cut him some slack, since he's only 22 years old. Well...those critics are probably mighty quiet now.
I'm not a LeBron fan by any means, but this was playoff greatness that only comes along once every ten years. The last time I can remember something like this was when Michael Jordan single-handedly kept the heavily underdog Bulls in it against the championship Celtics team of 1986. Jordan scored 63 points and was unstoppable, sending that game against the Celtics into overtime before the superior Celtics finally ended up winning the game.
The difference between that game and this one is that the superior team didn't win, but the superior player did. The teams with the superstar performers are usually the solid pick in the NBA to advance to the next round, and this Cavs-Pistons series is a strong bet to live up to that pattern as well. Even if the Pistons steal Game 6, is anyone going to count out another LeBron performance like the one we saw Game 5? I didn't think so.
ESPN.com - NBA - Watching LeBron go on and on
28 Days Later
What with the coming end of the world when oil runs out and our blood boils inside our skins from global warming, whichever comes first, I've gotten into watching post-apocalyptic movies as a way of researching for the inevitable time when I can put to good use the wisdom that is imparted from those movies.
Since there are a bunch of mediocre sequels for movies out this summer, I thought I would personally revisit some of the better originals, especially 28 Days Later, the original for 28 Weeks Later. I remembered the original as a dark, at times completely horrifying movie that lost its fizzle at the end for me. But, when I watched it again last night, I was amazed at how much I had forgotten about what actually happens in the movie. I guess it's been five years and some missing brain cells since I saw the original in the theater.
The shots of a deserted London that occur in the beginning of the movie are fantastic, as powerful as they were when I first saw the movie. But, as I watched the movie again, I saw it as less of a horror movie and more of an action thriller that just has the infected zombie context of a horror movie. A lot of the gruesome material is left off the screen and only implied to, which is an effective way of making the violence all the more disturbing. Perhaps the most disturbing parts of the movie for me were the recollections from the various characters over what happened in London the first few days after the rage virus broke out, none of which the audience actually gets to see.
There are also a myriad of eerie shots throughout the movie that speak to either the overarching madness of the human race within the movie (a thirty-foot-tall fort of shopping carts that has replaced the landing for an apartment tower stairwell) or a return to the times before humans ever existed (a family of horses that have gone from stabled to wild). All in all, it was a lovely, although very dark, film the second time around, and the ending is actually more uplifting that what you would expect from a regular horror film.
Since there are a bunch of mediocre sequels for movies out this summer, I thought I would personally revisit some of the better originals, especially 28 Days Later, the original for 28 Weeks Later. I remembered the original as a dark, at times completely horrifying movie that lost its fizzle at the end for me. But, when I watched it again last night, I was amazed at how much I had forgotten about what actually happens in the movie. I guess it's been five years and some missing brain cells since I saw the original in the theater.
The shots of a deserted London that occur in the beginning of the movie are fantastic, as powerful as they were when I first saw the movie. But, as I watched the movie again, I saw it as less of a horror movie and more of an action thriller that just has the infected zombie context of a horror movie. A lot of the gruesome material is left off the screen and only implied to, which is an effective way of making the violence all the more disturbing. Perhaps the most disturbing parts of the movie for me were the recollections from the various characters over what happened in London the first few days after the rage virus broke out, none of which the audience actually gets to see.
There are also a myriad of eerie shots throughout the movie that speak to either the overarching madness of the human race within the movie (a thirty-foot-tall fort of shopping carts that has replaced the landing for an apartment tower stairwell) or a return to the times before humans ever existed (a family of horses that have gone from stabled to wild). All in all, it was a lovely, although very dark, film the second time around, and the ending is actually more uplifting that what you would expect from a regular horror film.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
