here, there, everywhere

One last day of frantic errand-running in Hanoi before I take the night train to Sapa and the northern mountains, where I'll be for at least a few days, maybe more. I'm still a bit exhausted from the last stretch of the CELTA course and then a fairly busy-but-fun weekend. On Saturday I went to the Perfume Pagoda, along with everybody else in Vietnam. I was warned it might be a bit crowded after the lunar new year, but had no idea how crowded that would actually be. In the two hours we were given to explore, it took me one about forty five minutes just to get to the base of these stairs from the cable car point, all the while sandwiched in to a massive, slowly-moving sea of fruit-and-fake-flower-bearing families, and then it was so crowded that I didn't have time to really explore the equally packed cave. It was a bit like being on the 6 train leaving work at rush hour, except everyone seemed to be in a good mood, and people were smiling and laughing as they pushed past you.

I don't think I've ever been in a crowd quite like that, and so it was a cool experience, though I think I'll have to go back to the Pagoda this summer when it'll be less crowded and I can actually see some pagodas.

Leaving the crowds; we got to and from the Pagoda via a deceptively small metal boat, in which the rowers managed to cram all sixteen or so people from our bus.

Anyway, I need to make some travel plans, see if I can get some visas for Laos and Cambodia, find a place in Hanoi where I can buy a new nose ring, figure out how to send mail home and clear out of my hotel room, among other things; there seems to be internet access in Sapa, but possibly not as much beyond there, so I will try and post more from the road as soon as I can.

Friday was our last day practicing on the volunteer Elementary-level students, and I'm really going to miss them; I didn't get a chance to take photos of every single student of the seventeen who were nice enough to let us practice on them, but working with all of them has been the high point of life in Vietnam so far, and even if the CELTA class itself is extremely challenging, I really, really enjoyed getting the chance to hang out with the students in a less rigid setting for a bit. For the last hour of class, everyone broke out their cameras or cell phones, and there was a mad flurry of photo-taking and peace-sign-flashing, along with cake and some random party games (have you ever seen a roomful of adults play musical chairs? They do not mess around). Anyway, goodbye practice students! Thank you for making my first two weeks of practice-teaching so much fun.

Anyway, I'm taking a slight break from the intense pace of constant studying/practice teaching, and am going on a daytrip somewhere south tomorrow to see ruins and caves and possibly a river; I'm sorry not to be posting more (I had it in my head that I was going to post a photo a day. A new photo! Every day! Hahaha) but I'm literally at school from around morning till night and am too tired to do anything except crawl into bed and watch iTunes episodes of Jericho, which I have gotten weirdly addicted to lately. Which probably doesn't make me sound quite as much like the intrepid jet-setting free spirit I wish I was, but oh, well. While I'm at it, I'm going to blame the fact that I look haggard and disheveled in all of these photos on the fact that I'm going on about fours of sleep and still not used to the heat and humidity here (though you'll notice the students all look bright and sparkly and are wearing jackets.)

So anyway, that's here, more or less; I haven't had the chance to just hang out in Hanoi as much as I would like, but I am trying to venture out at least a little every evening and explore the streets around my guesthouse; it was also my goal this week to stop relying on restaurants and try some of the street kitchens around here, which has been a lot of fun; I think I found my new favorite pho place yesterday morning around 6:30 am when the xe om guy randomly dropped me off a block away from my school - it's actually good enough to make me consider waking up ridiculously early more often.

Anyway; I will try to post more soon, though I think the photo-a-day thing may have to wait till I actually have the time to do things other than shower, which I think everyone can agree is a good thing.