Sorry I haven’t updated in a few days, I have been really busy with homework this week, and also there was a surprise party on Wednesday, well it wasn’t really a ‘surprise’ party as for me, but it was surprising in the fact that I had no idea it was happening. So without further ado, I give you the week in review. And no, it was not my intention to make that rhyme.
Monday was the mid-autumn festival, but I had already gone downtown to the festival the night before with my family, as it is actually more attended on Sunday. So after the day at school, I bought some moon cakes for my family and headed home to work on homework and dinner. The next day was very similar to the last, I’m sorry that my weekdays aren’t to exiting so far, there’s a lot more content during the weekends. I had a lot of homework to do on Tuesday night, there were a lot of complicated problems for economics (ECON, for future reference), and we had Quiz to study for on Wednesday also for AP environmental Studies (APES). But eventually I finished it, around 11 or so, and then talked to my dad on Skype for a while before drifting off into a nice sleep.
Wednesday started early, around 6:30, it was raining, and around 7:10 my host dad and I went out to get a cab. And since it was raining, everyone that would have been walking or riding a bike was now in a cab. There were none available. It was incredible; we stood there trying to hail a cab, and every single one, taken. All I could think the entire time I was standing there in the rain was, “AHHHH”. Eventually though after about half an hour we managed to fish a cab out of the river of motorbikes and cars. I arrived at school about 30 minutes late that day. So after I got home from school, I was talking to my host mom before I went up to work on homework, and she told me that a bunch of relatives were coming in for dinner at 5:30, and it was already around 4:30! So I hurried and finished, as much as I could, luckily there was not too much. At 5:30 the guests began to arrive, there were family members from in the city, and also out of the city. For dinner, we used the larger table in the other room on my floor, and we had a great meal, egg rolls, and a salad kind of dish, fish, rice noodles, rice, and, the kicker, DOG!! I had no idea what it was, it looked kind of like beef, well take a look at the pictures and decide for yourself. So before we started the meal, my host mom leaned over and whispered to me what it was. I admit I had a tiny little nibble just to be polite to my family and to say I tried it. But, I didn’t like it, mostly because I was thinking about what it was while I was chewing, but I got through it and can say that I tried it and will never have it again. Also they had a very expensive and fancy rice wine, they gave me a little splash so I could say cheers with them. At the table were some pretty influential people; two professors from the Viet Nam National University; my host dad - the dean; the project manager for the Hanoi Metro (elevated train) system that they are building in the city; and, a correspondent for the news. After dinner we went to a smaller table to have some tea, and peanuts. A little while later it was getting late, so I headed back to my room, and fell asleep.
Thursday I had a meeting with the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation people across town, at 4 o’clock. After a day at school I went directly to it from the campus, it was around 40 minutes by cab, the cab driver had a little trouble finding it, but nothing like the odyssey I had last week. It was down a side road where not a lot of cabs were, I was smart this time and told the driver to wait for me, since I wasn’t going to be long. During the meeting I talked to some of the head people of the organization, and just made a basic plan of what we wanted to do, and that we can work the details out in the next few weeks. The goal of the meeting being that I would work with the Blue Dragon kids and train them how to referee soccer so that they could start to make some money of their own by refereeing youth games for the Hanoi Youth Football League. Here’s a link about the organization and the director that I met with (http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archive11/michael.brosowski.html)
After my meeting was over, I got back in the car and was promptly slapped in the face by the rush hour traffic of Ha Noi, which starts at around 5, when I normally am already home. The cab ride that should have taken 20 minutes traffic free, turned into an hour and a half of stop go, bumper to motorcycle wheel traffic. It was insane in the membrane. Thankfully though, the meters in the taxis here charge by the Kilometre, and not time. But there is also a little timer that says how long you spent not moving, and by the time I got home, we had spent over half an hour, close to 40 minutes, not moving at all. Thanks for being patience and waiting to read this entry, FRI-SAT will be released for your viewing pleasure soon as well. See ya!
i do respect their culture and their food but i personal would never eat dog!
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