Archive for April 2011

Hanoi in B&W


A few more random shots of Hanoi courtesy of Hipstamatic - above and below are from the alley we've been living in, near West Lake.  


The early morning vegetable market.




Scarecrows at the Museum of Ethnology: with all this free time in Hanoi, we are finally getting in all the tourist sights we never bothered with when we actually lived here. 


Another thing we never managed to see when we lived here: the remains of the American B-52 that was shot down during the Christmas Bombings in 1968. Though there isn't much to see, it's striking nonetheless to see such a physical remnant of the war sitting quietly in the middle of a busy square.




Oh, Hanoi traffic. There are more cars on the road now - big, expensive-looking SUVs in particular - which complicate driving somewhat, since they clog up the streets and disrupt the flow of motorbikes, making driving much more stressful. It also makes crossing the street a bit more difficult, since the big cars can't quite weave around you the way motorbikes do. Also, the endless honking from cars is way more annoying than the endless honking from bikes- possibly because no matter how aggressively they drive, they can't overtake you as smoothly as a honking motorcyclist, who fades in and out of earshot pretty quickly, which means you have to listen to their incessant honking for a lot longer as they trundle impatiently behind you. While rationally I know the sound of a horn here means something different than the sound of a horn back home, it's still pretty hard to disassociate - much like I was never able to get used to the "thank you" honks in Japan. One thing I didn't miss about this place: the Hanoise.*


* That was a terrible pun! I'm sorry. 

Mai Chau!



A few photos from our bike trip to Mai Chau earlier this week - it was Iain's fourth time there and my third, and I'm happy to say that it's just as awesome as it always has been. This was the second time I've gone there from Hanoi (the other time was on the loop back form our bike trip) and I definitely love the drive out - you pass through some seriously crazy truck-congested Hanoi roads through scenery that just gets prettier and prettier before you finally end up here:


The drive to Mai Chau marked my first attempt at driving on a motorbike since returning to Hanoi. I was incredibly relieved to find it still as much fun as it used to be, and no more harrowing than it was when I left - which is to say, a bit harrowing while dodging trucks trying to ovetake buses on the wrong side of the road, but nothing too traumatizing. I am definitely extra excited for Iain and my longer bike trip in two weeks.


I was also weirdly excited about roadside pho...


... and roadside coffee breaks! Roadside coffee breaks are probably one of my favorite things about bike trips, since you can sit back and take in more of the scenery than you do on your bike. Also, any excuse to drink yet more cafe sua is always welcome.




Mai Chau itself is one of my favorite places in Vietnam. We never do very much while we're there, just relaxing and taking in the scenery. As before, we stayed at Guesthouse Number One in Lac Village, where, amazingly, the super friendly owner Hoa actually remembered both me and Iain from our previous visits. If anyone going to Mai Chau doesn't already have a favorite guesthouse, I definitely recommend Hoa and Thu's place - I can't think of a nicer place to sit back and watch the rice grow.



We Mai Chau.



Hanoi!


It is so cool to be back in Hanoi again! After two years away, we were both worried we'd been seriously rose-tinting our memories of the city and would be horrified when we came back, but so far it feels very much as it was when we left it, albeit with more cars and higher prices. A lot of our favorite cafes and street food places are still up and running, and we've been able to see a lot of familiar faces, which has been great.


One thing that has changed is definitely my own relationship to this city. I stepped off the plane filled with confidence - I spent a year here, I know how things work! - only to realize that actually, leaving Vietnam for an extended period of time resets your street cred back to zero. I've forgotten my way around, a year in Japan has erased my ability to bargain - not that it was very good to begin with, and, annoyingly, crossing the street is way more scary than it was when I left. Oh, well.


We've been so busy eating street food and drinking cafe sua that I haven't had the chance to take many real photos with my camera; also, I've been too distracted playing with the Hipstamatic app on my birthday present. It's kind of like my Holga, but way cheaper - though I suspect soon the novelty will wear off a bit and I'll want the larger images from my SLR again. Still, it's nice to have something lightweight and - for once - unobtrusive. Though not as unobtrusive as it *could* be - it turns out that, because Iain bought the ipod in Japan where laws preventing sneaky pervy subway photographers are in play, it is impossible to deactivate the noisy shutter sound that clicks every time I take a photo. So, no sneaky pervy shots for me.



So anyway, that's Hanoi! More photos to come, hopefully.

ode to monkey sticks


above: yakitori at the Ishioka matsuri last fall

Entirely unrelated to all and any earlier posts about Lucky the monkey, I swear: I love all kinds of Japanese food, but yakitori - grilled chicken skewers - may be my all time favorite. They're cheap, decidedly un-fussy, and easy to order - which make me love them all the more in expensive, culinarily-intimidating Japan - and they fill the gaping void left in my heart by Hanoi's amazing, food-poisoning-logic-defying chicken street. Or maybe I just love them because they make awesome bar food, so I just associate them with beer, friends, and having a nice evening out? In any case, this post is my ode to our favorite yakitori haunt in Numazu, which Iain and I referred to rather unoriginally as Monkey Sticks: 


above: guess why.

Yuka introduced us to Monkey Sticks our first month in Numazu, and she was also the one to break the news that Monkey Sticks' days are limited: with imminent remodeling happening at nearbye Numazu Station, Monkey Sticks is closing down with no new location yet in sight. Fortunately, it stayed open throughout the end of our stay in Numazu.


Two of my favorite yakitori sticks: liver (リバ) and kashira (okay, I am not entirely sure what part of what animal that came from, but it was delicious). 


above: a sign of a successful meal




Maggie also approved.

animal park


You know how awkward it feels when you bid goodbye to someone and then bump into them ten minutes later? That's sort of how it feels to blog about Numazu after writing my too-long and rambly goodbye post. But in any case, the weekend before our last, some of Iain's students took us out for one last excursion, to the Fuji Animal Safari Park.



The safari park is half zoo, half "safari" - in which you board one of these buses, and drive through a Jurassic park-esque safari filled with bored-looking wildlife.


On the bus, you sit safe behind the bars armed with a pair of metal tongs and a bowl of carrots and  raw meat...


... so that you can FEED the lions and bears. No big deal. 


You can also forgo the raw meat and the bus and drive your own car through - stopping periodically at heavily fortified gates that separate the different types of animals. Iain's students wanted to drive through twice. Though it seems like a perfect storm for a disaster, we made it through with only one tiger-induced traffic jam.


It seemed like a lot of lions for such a small place? 




In the "zoo" part of the park, there was an alarmingly wide array of animals we were allowed to feed by hand. The highlights were the wallabys...


You were allowed to go INSIDE the cage. So weird, and yet, so cute.


... and also there were hungry squirrel monkeys! For 50 yen, you could feed them a handful of sunflower seeds.




Don't say you weren't warned?


There was also an area where children could manhandle pick up and pet guinea pigs and rabbits. Not as exciting, but it did yield a truly awesome sign.

sayonara


above: Numazu and Senbon Beach, from our last climb up Kanuki!

It was so hard to say goodbye to Numazu, though fortunately we were so busy that we didn't have much time to dwell on being sad. Our last week was spent saying goodbye to all the students - most of whom we'd seen every week for the last year, frantically cleaning up the apartment, making runs to the post office and trying to leave things in order for the future teachers (whose arrival was delayed by the earthquake, so we never got to actually meet them!), all amidst rolling blackouts and goodbye festivities.


The last three days in town in particular were a complete blur: there was a takoyaki (octopus balls) party at Satoshi's house on Saturday...


above: oishii! 

And then on Sunday, the official school goodbye party at our favorite karaoke place: 


For some of my students, their last memory of me will be of me realizing that, other than the title phrase, I do not, actually, know the words to Kiss Me. (NOT a song I chose to sing - Yuka made me do it!) Sorry about that, guys.


Iain and Satoshi sang the song from Totoro (in Japanese!) much more successfully.

When we arrived a year ago, the karaoke welcome/goodbye party was fun, but a bit overwhelming, full of people we didn't know. One year later, we had so much fun we didn't want to leave, although - several beers later - we reluctantly remembered we had one last day of work tomorrow, and wobbled home on our bikes around eleven.


We drove past this hot pink car EVERY DAY for a year. 

We were amazingly not hungover the next morning when we drove to work one last time. 


above: the apartment, looking cleaner than it ever did all year.

After that, there wasn't much to do except finish scrubbing down the apartment and trying to wedge everything into our backpacks. In three days, we had somehow managed to go from this: 


... to this:


boom.

We bid farewell to our boss and Numazu, and hopped on the shinkansen to Osaka, where we were able to say goodbye to Yuka, who just moved there. On Tuesday morning, we flew in Ho Chi Minh City in time to have a bowl of pho for dinner:


It felt amazing to step off the plane into Vietnam - and very intensely strange to go from our home in Numazu to the streets of Ho Chi Minh City in just a little over 24 hours. In all the excitement of being in Vietnam again, Numazu now feels really far away, but looking through the pictures that I've haphazardly thrown up on the blog (not the best photos, sorry) is definitely making me miss it much more now. 


There are so many people we will miss horribly: our awesome friend Yuka, who made us feel welcome the minute we arrived and who was always up for a coffee and cake, or a night of yakitori, or a photo-taking excursion; it's been a long time since I had someone to geek out about cameras or crafty stuff with! Also her husband Kenji, who spoke very little English but who was always hilarious; our lovely boss Kiyoko, who was always so kind, patient and helpful to us, and who is partially retiring herself, having sold the school, so hopefully she can enjoy some well-deserved relaxation. It was a pleasure to work with her, and also her husband Eiji, who patiently drove us both all around the greater Izu area; ALL of our students, but especially Satoshi, who often joined Yuka and Kenji on excursions or nights out; and Daisuke and Toshihiko, who invited us out to some seriously amazing dinners and whose lovely families we were always happy to spend time with. We also worked with some really nice part time teachers, particularly Susan, Paul and Michel, who could always be counted on for early morning banter over the copy machines. I will miss all my classes, but especially my super-cute nursery school kids and the amazing students of my Friday evening Advanced class, who were collectively the most interesting, intelligent and hilarious people ever. We were so lucky to have gotten to know everyone, and we will miss them so, so much.



But mostly we'll just miss life in Numazu itself: getting to know some of the friendliest people in the world, the pretty drives to work in the mornings, the beach, the mountains, our small apartment with its tiny garden, the nomikai (drinking parties) with our students. We never got tired of it; we were always happy to be there in our sleepy city under the shadow of Fuji-san. Early on in our year, one of my students said that the sight of Fuji let him know he was home. For one awesome, full, too-fast year, the same was true for us. Sayonara, Numazu - we'll miss you! 

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