The Green Goblin

Last night, after leaving the internet cafe, I showered and put on bright blue mesh shorts and my Krusty Krab employee of the month electric yellow t-shirt (thanks, Amanda!). The kids from the other program who live on the fourth floor had invited us to their party and I headed up there for an hour or so. Then we all went to the new club named "Toilet" for about ten minutes. It was way too expensive and loud so we walked down the street to our favorite club/bar "Dragonfly." I saw my favorite man from Sierra-Leone and smiled and introduced him to my friend Kathy. Enough of him. I danced with DiDi, Jackie, Leah, and the other usual suspects. At about 11:45 pm, a large paddy-wagon full of armed Vietnamese police drove by our club and they turned off the lights and we were very quiet. Here in Hanoi, there is a legitimate law that clubs (and all other establishments, for that matter) must close by 12 am. They passed us by without coming inside and ushering us all outside. As DiDi and I sat at the bar and chatted with some men from America, the fuse box mounted on the wall directly in front of us exploded. As smoke began to pour from the gray box, a bartender opened its small door and the fireworks continued until a small amount of the wall decorations were also ablaze. DiDi and I fled the bar and waited for about 15 minutes for the rest of our group to exit the bar as well. I caught a taxi home and spent from about 12:45-1:15 am trying to put an intoxicated Vietnamese friend to bed.

Waking this morning at 8:00 am, I got ready for the day and headed out to find my usual breakfast. Jill, DiDi, and I got egg sandwiches and iced coffee and we sat in the shop of the coffee ladies. They asked me what we're doing today and I told them we were taking a bus to go see Ho Chi Minh. They looked a bit confused, since I couldn't convey the fact that we were not going all the way to Ho Chi Minh CITY, but to see his dead body. After I mimed looking at his dead body without being too disrespectful, the ladies laughed and said they finally understood. They even gave Jill and me candies today!

At 9:00, we met the rest of the group in front of the dorm and boarded a coach bus. It took us about 20 minutes away to a large consortium of Ho Chi Minh buildings and memorials. We first left our bags with our tour guide, Long, as we walked around the giant mausoleum that holds Uncle Ho's actual body. We had to be absolutely silent as we entered the chilled building and walked around the body two by two, like the old cartoon Madeline. I was a bit creeped out, since he looked extremely waxy because of the lights aimed directly at him and his neatly folded hands. After being totally silent for a grand total of one and a half minutes, which is fairly tough when viewing a dead and waxy-looking famous figure, we exited and got our cameras back. We viewed the old something building which is now where the president does all his work. Today is Saturday, though, so the big guy was watching the morning cartoons and eating Lucky Charms instead of governing his commie country. We moved on to see Ho Chi Minh's house on stilts and it didn't have a bathroom or kitchen. He's too practical for that I guess.

We then stopped and took pictures and hydrated ourselves profusely. I took pictures of this really small pagoda that's dedicated to helping people give birth to male babies. I stayed far away from it and took pictures instead. :)

After walking for a couple hours in the blinding heat, we headed for the Ho Chi Minh museum for a few minutes. It had a bunch of awesome sayings about communism and pictures of Uncle Ho in many Vietnamese villages. We then boarded the bus and drove through the new quarters of Hanoi for about an hour. I crawled into the fetal position and slept the entire way there. We stopped for lunch and had great pho, which is beef and noodle soup. After another half an hour bus ride, we ended up at the first college of Vietnam. It was very pretty and historical and also doubled as a temple for Confucianism. We met at 2:30 and boarded the bus to go back to the Old Quarter of Hanoi. We walked around as a group for another hour before stopping at a small roadside stand for weird fruit smoothies. I took many pictures but felt all sweaty and disgusting the entire time.

We got back onto the bus at 3:45 pm and passed the bike shop where we can sell back our bikes at the end of our semester. I got off our coach bus with Oliver, Dale, and Bryan in order to purchase a bike. I picked a bright teal bike and we talked them down to 550,000 dong (about $30) and they threw in a basket and a lock. My bike is appropriately named the Green Goblin and it's amazing. It took the bike people an hour to attach the pedals and pump up the tires, etc on the four bikes. We drove the bikes back to the dorm at 5:00 and I got my stuff together and have eaten dinner at the internet cafe and been here ever since. Jackie and I worked on some lesson plans for our teaching internship for next week as well. I'm about to go back to the dorm and see where everybody is going tonight.

Comment time! :)