Running like crazy

Me and my friend Natalia love (I will have to explain this word later) running together. When I say love I mean we enjoy chatting together as we jog about 5 miles and we enjoy the feeling afterwards where your head feels all clear so you can concentrate and you have a burst of energy which is obviously not supposed to be used up doing homework!  Running in Hanoi though is an extremely difficult feat with many dangers and not exactly ideal conditions…

Here's her article about that:

http://trafficlightsareoptional.blogspot.com/2011/12/running-round-west-lake.html

There are the Red river runners in Hanoi who have events like the Song Hong half marathon.

Christmas time!

Here are some pictures of Christmas time in Hanoi. In recent years more and more people have begun to celebrate by decorating and listening to ABBA's 'Happy New Year'. I personally love the extremely tasteful Santas standing outside of shops! Go to visit some of the hotels where they put up amazing Christmas trees, in the Intercontinental the tree is made from conical hats and there is a gingerbread house, constructed from real gingerbread! - I know I tried a little bit...

Twilight - Breaking Dawn!

I just went to see this yesterday at the cinema, as although you can buy really cheap copies of films you don't get the experience: the buttery popcorn, the atmosphere and of course the life size card board cut outs! The acting was fairly bad near the start since the music didn't really match the film but later on the drama of the story was very melodramatic and tense, I love the way Bella and Edward never seem to have any form of normal conversation it's always:

Edward: I know we just met but…. I love you and I want to be with you for all eternity,

Bella: Oh my goodness I feel the same way!

Edward: But, dun dun dun I have a big secret… so basically I am a shiny vampire, 3000 years older than you, hated by werewolves and umm yep that's about all.

Bella: Well this was an interesting morning.

I may have exaggerated a little there but with her monotone voice and his wooden expression it's difficult imagine the real life situation. Overall an excellent movie though.

For all those who didn't read the books:

The Twilight films are based on the books written by Stephanie Meyer focusing around Bella Swan (played by  Kristen Steward) who moves to Forks a rainy town in Washington where she meets Edward (Robert Patterson) and they fall in love. The catch to the story is that he is a vampire (albeit a vegetarian one), her best friend Jacob is a werewolf who conveniently hates Vampires and rips off his shirt on a regular basis.

Main cinema's -

Vincom - http://www.megastar.vn/en/vct

L'Espace - http://www.ifhanoi-lespace.com/ - français

Public transport?

As I try out new things I also want other people to experience them with me, so in some ways the style of writing is also diary like, with my own thoughts and opinions. I just read this months edition of the word magazine which had an article in about blogs but mine was not included so I'm thinking of writing to them to ask them to feature it or print my letter like before when I wrote to them in May (I think it was May?). On my trip to town I took pictures of art shops and random street vendors since I previously said that I needed more pictures for my blog, so hopefully I can post these during Christmas. 

 (taken by me)

People squashed like sardines in a can faces pressed against the glass. Getting stuck between someone with extreme BO, pointy elbows, and dandruff and someone eating something disgusting in close proximity of your face. My worst nightmare. These were my initial thoughts on the bus, but bravely today, with a lack of cash, I decided to venture out and try it for myself.

 

(proof that I got on and took a picture!)
Today I took the cheapest form of public transport of my life (and the only form of public transport within the city until the tram system supposedly gets finished in 2015)! At only 3 thousand dong ( 10 pence) you wait in the freezing cold at one of the many stops throughout the city, in the hope that the bus will take you where you want to go, although with Vietnamese friends who can read the timetables I'm fine, and then every ten minutes one arrives. The bus doesn't actually stop so the last person clambering on has to do a run and jumping action through the doors like a ninja. Then there's disco music so you can bop along whilst you drive. It's also really quick because everyone is scared of getting run over by the bus since it's the king of the road!

Simplest Phô on earth!

Phô is the dish/ soup which everyone MUST try when coming to Vietnam but how simple is it to make your own? On the streets they boil the chicken carcasses for hours on end dispersing the flavours into the liquid. I tried to do the same thing for a few less hours and it makes the most tasteless stock on earth, you feel yourself reaching for the Swiss Bouillon stock cubes…

But then I finally came up with this recipe which works extremely well with leftover roast chicken, and you can throw in whatever ingredients you happen to have lying around!

STOCK:

1 chicken carcass

2 star Anise
1 carrot - diced
1 celery stick - diced into larger chunks
1/2 an onion
Black pepper
Water - enough to cover the chicken (roughly around 1-1.5 litres)

If it's not tasty enough add a stock cube (chicken).

INGREDIENTS FOR PHÔ:

1 inch fresh ginger finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1/2 or more birds eye chilli - to taste
1 bunch of spring onions - just the green part
Roast chicken left overs OR 2 roasted legs skin removed; chop into small pieces
Fresh coriander to season
A little butter and olive oil for frying
Rice, glass, or egg noodles

METHOD:
Heat the butter and olive oil in a pan and fry the  ginger, garlic, chilli and spring onions till soft.
Add chicken stock and bring to the boil
Add chicken
When it is boiling add enough noodles for each person, these usually take 2-4 minutes to cook but check the packaging just in case.
Lastly add the chopped coriander.

SERVING:
I really recommend it with the traditional condiments of chilli sauce, lime, peanuts and soy sauce. You can eat it with crunchy bread as well.

An overdose of meat

Finally this week I handed in my copy of Lord of the Flies after analysing every symbol and line for what seems like a century, in my English class and now we're moving on to all fresh topics! I love having a new start and here it really seems like it as check out the weather forecast:

It's amazingly cold so we can pull out all our woolly winter jumpers and socks (a revelation after wearing  flip flops every day of the week) and get round to decorating for CHRISTMAS - more on this soon!

(Credit for photo goes to t_yos21 - works cited)

Yesterday I went to a Brazilian restaurant for my boyfriend Cian's birthday which was called "Au Lac do Brazil" as soon as you are seated they bring round the first salads and you think "oh good, salad starter" and you get a large portion and chomp through that, whilst all the experienced people watch you and smirk. Then there's the meat round so you add in some lamb, or beef or chicken or sausage to your plate as an accompaniment and even add some pepper sauce. Delicious meal, great company and Spanish music. But no they're not done they come round again and again with what looks like thighs of all sorts of seafood and then some vegetables thrown in. After about 10 rounds I was so stuffed with the equivalent of a whole cow that I didn't think I could ever eat meat again (until today around lunchtime). It was fun since we had a private room, the only thing I didn't love were the giant skewers holding the meat and the knives the waiters used for carving since I felt that if I experienced a violent sneeze and whipped my head round I could become skewered - just like the Lord of the Flies really. Oh dear… it seems that this book is really affecting my whole life!

Restaurant details:

Au Lac do Brazil

Address:

6A Cao Ba Quat,

Ba Đình.

Zumba!

This week I joined a new class at school called 'Zumba' which is a combination of different spanish styles of dance plus some modern movements. We danced crazily for an hour: kicking, punching the air, doing salsa movements etc. At the end I was exhausted but hummed the song for two days straight. Who knew excercise could actually be fun?!

This song is actually  in french, but it's really catchy (Mam)!

Can you hear those wedding bells?

(taken by me)

Everywhere you go there are motorbikes, pregnant people, and most often where I live: wedding photos being taken. The brides adorned in traditional white or red or less conventional florescent green dresses pose next to the statues of Ciputra as a symbol of their wealth. These pictures often costing around  $500 just show how much marriage means in a country where people are poor yet buy these ridiculous dresses. The hair is perfectly permed and sprayed into place and the make-up plastered on so their complexions glow ghostly white.

(taken by me)

This picture shows the traditional wedding costume.

In the west people are getting married later and later but here if you reach 25 and you haven't tied the knot you'd better hurry it up. In the countryside the Black Thai tribe women tie their hair into knots on top of their heads when they are married. The average woman get's married between the ages of 18- 25. The busiest wedding season is just after Tet where there are many wedding buses with the symbol of double happiness on them - an ancient Chinese character.

Moon bears

Last year I went to a bear sanctuary to learn about these beautiful animals which are almost critically endangered. The bears are often confined in cages disproportionate to their huge size and they have their bile removed. This bile is then used in the production of so called natural medicines which supposedly remedy all sorts of different conditions.

(Taken by me)

There is actually nothing chemically in the bile which is proven to be effective in aiding any of these conditions therefore the making of these medicines must be stopped.

(Taken by me)

In the sanctuary there were rooms stuffed with different types of foodstuffs including peanut butter, fruit and nuts. The carers are experts on each of the different bears personalities and there are even charts of what type of treat will provoke a bear to swallow a disgusting medicine (marshmallows, maple syrup and apple puree were very popular). 

(Taken by me)

The trees are covered in plastic so the bears cannot use their claws to climb them and therefore escape out of the enclosure.

(Taken by me) - This bear looks almost thoughtful staring out into the distance.

The zoo keepers provide medical care but also attempt to improve the well being of the bears by entertaining and training them using different games created from wood and other random items. This simulates the bears natural environment where they would have to scourge around searching for food. I'm hoping to go again soon since I here they have baby bear cubs freshly rescued!

DON'T LET EXTINCTION HAPPEN!

A funeral

Last year when attending a funeral I drank a little too much rice wine and my advice to all those planning to pay tribute to their Vietnamese friends dead relative... do not start drinking because one drink leads to another as you have to drink to every single member of the family and boy are Vietnamese families large!

Four funerals and a funeral...

When your Vietnamese neighbor loses a family member you will undoubtedly know by the sounds of the shrill wailing from the mourning relatives. There will later be a procession in the streets where family members are adorned with headbands of different colors (a different color for each different generation). One glance will tell you just how many generations of family are present if there's many they've obviously been drinking a lot of milk. People are not going to find this joke funny but it is - people in Vietnam think milk cures everything. 

Before the person has actually died the whole family must gather around their bed in silence and one member will lean in to hear the persons last words. The daughters and sons of the person do not accept the death and they place the body on a mat on the floor with a chopstick between the teeth in order to bring the soul back to life. Then the shirt is waved like a flag whilst the relatives sing for the soul to return to the body. After this the body is washed and cleansed, wrapped in white cloth and placed into a coffin amongst rice, gold and money - I suppose this is only for the rich. 

The colors of the flowers are also important and white flowers are the symbol of death especially the white lotus which symbolizes complete purification. 


The body is then buried - anywhere will do in the countryside. 90 days of mourning takes place where people wear special clothes and in the past certain things were not allowed to happen during this period of time such as marriage. 

Three years after the burial the body is dug up again and "cleansed". This involves washing down the bones with pure water, herb infused water and flower infused water. I don't know about you but I wouldn't really want to have to say hello to my dead parent or grandparents skeleton again...
Then the bones are rearranged back into order - they must pay a lot of attention in biology and the skeleton is placed back inside the coffin and reburied. This is actually quite a big issue in the city as every day there are people down at the grave yards digging up bones I suppose.


In Vietnam there are a lot of wandering souls from the war of people whose bodies were not put to rest and cannot be prayed to. 


If you have no family then your photograph gets taken to the local pagoda for the general public to pray for you. 

The difference between sửa chữa and sữa chua

The book I have just picked up entitled 'Vietnamese for Beginners' (Gioung) tells me that I first need to start off learning the alphabet. Well that sounds simple enough. In fact the learning of the alphabet may take me 6 months, maybe even the rest of the time I have here since I cannot devote my full time to learning it. When asking a friend who has lived in Vietnam her whole life the exact number of letters she said "well it's hard to know, ask the internet". ASK THE INTERNET! This seems crazy but on further research  even Google (yes I know Google is not a person, but it's nice to think that there is one system with all the answers I will ever need) cannot give a definitive answer. There are 29 letters and then letters with dots and squiggles and little hats. I think I gave up after that.

(taken by me)

When asking for milk it's "sữa" and yoghurt is "sữa chua". Well that seems quite logical doesn't it. Well sửa chữa means repair shop, I bet your thinking "Woah that's weird the same word for yoghurt and repair shop" but no it's like this for all of the words. Since most are very short there are multiple meanings depending on the tone, there is a lot of confusion in my daily life because of tones.

I would recommend being able to recognize but not speak. Especially since everyone wants to practice their English skills on you anyway; why waste that opportunity for them?

If you add accents to the word "ma" you get the following words (Gioung): Ghost, cheek, but, rice seedling, tomb and horse. A random selection of words with not much in common really. Imagine going up to someone and trying to say "What a beautiful horse you have" It could end up as "what a beautiful ghost/rice seedling/cheek or tomb" and still make sense (except the other person would think you were really weird).

The most useful words I recommend learning are:

Directions  for taxis-

(taken by me)

Left-  rẽ trái

Right- rẽ phải

Straight- đi thẳng

Stop -dừng lại

Food- check out my "Fallback food places post"
Shopping-

 (taken by me)

How much money (does it cost)? - bao nhiêu tiền

Too expensive - Đắt quá

Supermarket - siêu thị

Market - chợ

Numbers -

(taken by me)

One-một

Two-hai

Three-ba

Four-bốn

Five-năm

Six-sáu

Seven- bảy

Eight-tám

Nine-chín

Ten- mười

After this you put 10 then 1 for 11. 2, 10 and 1 for 21 and so on.
Thousand- ngàn
Hundred- trăm
Million- triệu

(taken by me)

Greetings and being polite-

Hello- xin chào - Actually a lot of Vietnamese people simply say "allo" whilst speaking on the phone.
Bye - chào
Thank you- cảm ơn

Vietnamese

Most words are consisting of one syllable and are tonal meaning that the same word with different accents on it can have many different meanings depending on the way it is pronounced (falling, rising, short, flat and kind of combinations from what I can see). It is a common misconception that the language comes  directly from Chinese however this is not so. However Chinese characters were used in literary texts due to Chinese politics being prominent for around ten centuries. There are also many similarities between the two languages as well as with French and English. For a start the words are formed from letters not characters (Vietnamese).

The language is spoken in subject verb order however since in a sentence there are very few words and no words are marked by gender (as in for example French or Spanish), number or tense it is very important that you say everything in the right order otherwise no one will understand you (Adoptvietnam).

Here are some words similar to French and English, which a few of my friends (Newell)  thought of:

Savon - xà bông (sabon) - soap

Chemise - sơ mi (so me) - shirt
Carrot - cà rốt
Radio - radio
Chocolate - sôcôla
Antenna - ăng-ten
Film - phim
Café - cà phê - coffee

My fallback food places

The food - there are literally hundreds of restaurants here serving phô (noodle soup) costing less than a dollar to those with the finest cuisine. Having a bit of a sweet tooth my personal favourite place is the ice cream shop 'Trang Tien'1 where you can get amazing coconut ice lollies for 5 thousand dong.

(Whilst taking this photograph I was almost smashed over the head with a glass by the angry owner of the shop;, buy the ice cream but do not mess with her!)

There is also 'Fanny's' ice cream2 shop with free wifi which my sister calls "free whiffy".

My top 5 food stops which you should make are:

1. 'Little Hanoi'3 - There are actually two of the same restaurant on the same street but all the food tastes delicious and I highly recommend the aubergine dishes.

2. 'Phô 24'4 - Phô 24 is phô for the upper class, but since it's so cheap everyone can afford it. Most of the things are delicious so be experimental however I always avoid anything involving chicken feet!

 (taken by me - she's looking a little shocked isn't she!)

3. 'Pappa Roti'5 - here you can buy a kind of cake/bread which tastes like coffee and butter, it is indescribable yet mouth watering I wouldn't say that it is especially Vietnamese food but definitely worth a visit.

(taken by me)

4. 'Rainbow café'6 - this is situated somewhere in the old quarter but if you go upstairs often there is a  breeze and you can watch people walk beneath. Also there is a DVD shop really close where I always stock up on the latest movies.

5. Roadside stalls - Lemon juice, Bun Bo Nam Bo and people-watching, what could be more sublime? Pick any roadside stall (if there are Vietnamese people eating there it's bound to be fine) and drag up a plastic stool; guaranteed to be one of the highlights of your trip.

The first time I went to a local restaurant we decided to have the hotpot, a bubbling cauldron of stock in which we added cabbage, and what seemed like a chicken recently scraped off the road. Me and my sister identified a lot of the organs of that chicken therefore I feel it was actually a very educational experience, plus this is the story I recount most often to people back home.

Make sure you know how to use chopsticks!

USEFUL VOCAB-

Gà - chicken

bò is beef.

cơm / gạo is rice

Kem is ice cream

Bun bo nam bo - A bed of green leaves with noodles, strips of barbecued meat, coriander, chilli ,lime and peanuts.

Chè - tea

bia - beer-  obviously I don't drink any at all but just in case you need it!

I would recommend speaking English since trying out your newly acquired Vietnamese skills may mean that you end up with jellyfish (Sứa) instead of milk (Sữa).

These are the only food related words I frequently use so hopefully they will help anyone either visiting or moving here.

Restaurant locations -

1. No. 35 Tràng Tiền Street - this is the original shop therefore it is extremely busy all the time however there are some other shops in other districts of Hanoi.

2. 48 Le Thai To St., Hoan Kiem Dist., HANOI
3. 21 Hang Gai Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi.

4. Since this is a chain it is hard to only name one restaurant but there is one in Vincom towers and one in the middle of town - to find one closest to you they have a search tool on their website:

http://www.pho24.com.vn/htmls/index.php?f=store.php&cur=3&city=3&district=39&language=en

5. 34 Hang Gai, Hoàn Kiếm - this is the most central however like phô 24 it is a chain so there are many spread throughout the city,
6. Rainbow café - Hang Hanh street near Hoan Kiem lake.

Myanmar compared to Hanoi

Since Myanmar (formerly Burma) is just around the corner we decided to pop over for the autumn break. My mum kept telling everyone she met how similar it was to Hanoi but actually I thought it was pretty different as well. Here is a collection of our pictures from the trip showing you similarities and differences between the two countries.

Differences-

Like India the buses were packed full of people like sardines except they were also all sitting on the roof which is something you don't see here,

This picture was taken at a monastery at 10 o'clock in the morning since monks cannot eat after lunch,

 There were hundreds of temples covered in this gold leaf, (the umbrella is because the sun was burning me),

Buddhism was very important and there were Buddhas everywhere,

They wear a white sandalwood make-up which is made by rubbing the wood on a stone with water to form a paste. You can't really see it on my porcelin skin but it was obvious on everyone else there,

The dress in Myanmar was a lot more conservative with long skirts and trousers respecting the Buddha whereas here there are a lot more see through items...

I have never seen horses and carts here not even on my trip to Ba Be which I would consider pretty rural.

The food was amazing a combination of Thai and Indian food (unfortunately I didn't take enough pictures of my dinner as it disappeared too fast), in some ways it reminded me of here, but in other ways it was even more backwards and different. Even the language was softer.

Does anywhere remind you of Vietnam?

It's not just strangers who talk about the weather

Only strangers talk about the weather but here I really do think it's very necessary. In summer it is absolutely boiling, humid constantly so you drip with sweat and it's actually hard to breathe properly. Then the rainy season where it tips it down at every opportunity especially when you've just left the house with no umbrella and suddenly there us a huge drop in temperature as winter approaches and you need a huge coat that you didn't pack because no one told you Asia could ever be cold.

Just the other day we were bracing ourselves for a huge hurricane which only blew a few branches lopsided.

The weather is perfect for approximately one day, and boy is that day  good.

The busiest week of my life

This week I'm doing my two posts combined. I think it has been possibly the busiest week of my life and it was all because of this one event. At UNIS UN day is where everyone where's their national costumes and brings in food from their home country. There are huge tables stacked with spring rolls, sushi, and sweet treats. This year there were these adorable children from Sapa who danced and sang in their traditional clothing.

Here's some pictures from the day:

We were both in pretty bad moods when this was taken so I'm not really smiling but these dresses were really cool!

Here are the cute Sapa children performing their dance,

Singing on stage was one of the scariest moments of my life!

There were hundreds of people there, and check out all the flags - over 66 different nationalities are represented.

Soon I'm going to have to do a post about being really busy and coping with all the stress! I find strawberry tea usually helps - with a huge number of oreos :)

Culture shock

Obesity?

Grandmothers chase around the young children, not as some sort of game but to try to feed them so they grow strong. This comes from the days when food was scarce and parents had to force feed their children whenever they could to help them to survive. These days though food is plentiful  and slowly but steadily more fast food chains are beginning to pop up throughout Hanoi, yet the grandmothers are still chasing the children around: this is the beginning of a newfound problem; obesity.

Sometimes in the streets you will see a portly Vietnamese businessman or spoilt rich child with a protruding belly and dumpy arms and it makes you wonder "eventually will Vietnam become another fast food nation?"

A random rant about balls tea

Technically called bubble tea this beverage is found all over Hanoi and it is AMAZING! Things that I love about it are:

1. The bubbles remind me of black frogspawn or black pearls or something else mysterious and I love the feel of them.

2. There are literally around 50 different flavours (I'm not exaggerating) including mint, chocolate and durian (bleugh!)

3. There is a cool lid machine which seals the plastic to the cup and there's always an adorable character on the lid.

4. They give you giant coloured straws  and who doesn't love those!

5. The place I go to is in the centre of town: perfect for quenching the thirst on a long excursion and I would never have gone and tried it myself (someone dragged me along and forced me to try).

I recommend everyone trying this Vietnamese drink as it's perfect any time of the year!

Fabrics

It was quite overwhelming with so many different fabrics stacked up but I got to practice my "too expensive" shouting in Vietnamese. I got some quirky rabbit material and some cotton for a dress but I have hundreds of potential items I want to have made!

You need about 1m for a top of 2m for a short dress so next week I'm popping to the tailors with some pictures from magazines and one of my dresses to try and get them to make it right.