Better than the iPhone! (Well kind of… well actually...no not really)

So after moving here you may want to buy a phone to keep in touch with all the great new friends you've made, however your trusty iPhone simply no longer works! Why go to a proper shop when you can walk out the gates of Ciputra to a little stall and buy a phone and sim card with the cheapest phone being around 20 British pounds.

 I have this phone which although not the most aesthetically pleasing electronic device ever is completely indestructible. I have dropped it numerous times without worry as each time you just slot the parts back into place and it still works. You can call and text people! For me that is all I will ever need… none of this attachment to my phone.

Crinkly hair and clothes...

(taken by me)

On Wednesday I went to school in an crinkled skirt (the iron wouldn't turn on) and messy hair (straighteners) as at precisely 7:03 the electricity in the whole of the estate ceased to work. Why was this? I did a little research and came up with two articles which I posted below in case you are especially fascinated.

On a second search I found the site of 'Tuoitrenews' (third article posted) which is apparently the news gateway of Vietnam? Well I've never heard of it. To sum up this yawn worthy article for you it basically says that the reason for the annoying power cuts is because there is less water in dams to be used for hydroelectric power. Well whoever sung the 'rain, rain go away song' should have thought about it first, shouldn't they.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/features/article_1563332.php/Power-cuts-cause-resentment-in-Vietnam-Feature

This article was written last year but these problems still haven't been solved.

http://newhanoian.xemzi.com/en/aska/answers/qid/3826

This is a question and answer feature from the 'New Hanoian' website.

http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/society/hanoi-to-seriously-lack-electricity-in-mar-may-1.23568 - The article with the answer.

The stereotypical post

The first thing anyone notices when they first arrive is the traffic, it's only after living here a year that I noticed that there are in fact many trees in town, whereas for the past twelve months I've been so focused on not being killed either by a speeding vehicle or by falling deep into a manhole carefully disguised by a pile of rubbish that I never had the opportunity to look around me.

If your new to Hanoi crossing the road without clutching someone else's hand and closing your eyes can be a little hard, especially if you're used to a country where people don't drive on the pavement so here's a video created by some teenagers for you to watch all about crossing the road…

(How)

Now that you've laughed a little, take a look at these pictures I snapped on a recent walk (albeit and extremely long one) into the town center. It's really hard to capture the speed and the noise of the horns in these pictures however hopefully I'll look at these in ten years’ time when people drive in one direction only and wonder whether it was ever really like how it is today.

 (taken by me)

This was taken with a film grain setting. I especially love the contrast between the patterns on the mosaic wall against the plain bus, as well as all the rough marks on the road.

(taken by me)

Here you can see the trees and lanterns as well as the fact that there is absolutely no space to walk on the pavements.

(taken by me)

I love the way the windmills are moving faster than the motorbikes in this photo as nothing else usually does.
I took this one with the movement setting on my camera.

(taken by me)

I really want one of these scooters!

I hope you liked these artistic shots of traffic, it's changing all the time so you'll probably see many more of my pictures in future!

Guide to Hanoi

'Weird and Wow Hanoi', written by Christina Minamizawa, is a great book for all those people who want to know what Hanoi is ACTUALLY like. So many of the guides out there give references for hotels and bars which are useful but tell you nothing what so ever about the place. This guide gives you an insight into what you will experience when you live here and helps you to learn more about what to expect before you arrive. Don't feel you have to read it cover to cover either; just skim though and read whatever you're interested in!

For more information click on this link to the author's website: www.WeirdandWOW.com

An empty house

If you look at a photo of my bedroom the majority of items were purchased in Vietnam from one place of another. Since we didn't ship anything when moving we arrived last year with no furniture and not many knick- knacks to fill up our shelves with. However over time you accumulate a lot of stuff living here. I got my photo frames, jewellery box, lamp, poster, picture and desk all from Vietnam, and once you know where to buy things you can really kit out a whole house.

Bamboo is one of the cheapest types of furniture and you can get things custom made any way you want from one of the little shops all over Hanoi. Some are cheaper than others but this shop we used (pictured) had a good selection of random things which were so cheap we couldn't resist buying so many wicker bathroom draw sets that we're going to have to turn our house into a beauty salon with any of hope of trying to fill them with products. The address of this shop is 17 Xuan Dieu street, Tay Ho.

 

They said they delivered and true to their word they drew up on a motorbike with all our furniture piled up on the back. When you're new this seems strange but after a while you hardly notice people carrying all sorts of things on their bikes. I will try my hardest to take pictures of anything interesting I see.

The flood

Here's Take That's  song to listen to as you read.

 After a long plane journey we finally moved into our new house which was so dirty, and hot. We spent the whole day cleaning the floors and the bathrooms and finally we went out to dinner with some friends however once we returned: shock horror the whole of the bedroom full of boxes was completely flooded with water from the heavy rains.

Just as I was curling up to go to sleep I could hear this noise which sounded like people shouting to each other. I went out on the balcony but it wasn't people it was hundreds of frogs! On further investigation we have a pond full to the brim with tadpoles which are soon going to turn into more frog/ toad like amphibians. I don't want to be a tadpole killer!

Then yesterday I had a relaxing bath and just as I'd let out the water I heard this giant splashing noise coming through the ceiling downstairs. All my bathwater had miraculously fallen into the downstairs bathroom. Maybe we should build an arc. Anyone have an instruction leaflet?

ESSENTIAL ITEMS FOR A LONG HAUL FLIGHT:

I usually have long rants on every plane flight I go on about people annoying me, stress about being late for the plane and even worse having to put up with my own family for more than 14 hours. There's no direct flight at the moment to Hanoi from England so we always have to stop somewhere on the way like Bangkok or Seoul, this means that there are at least three airports to navigate through with my lack of a sense of direction. After many years experience flying to Asia here are my top ten items that you must carry!

ESSENTIAL ITEMS FOR A LONG HAUL FLIGHT:

1. A pashmina/scarf - It can be used as a blanket when it gets cold or to try and block out the disgusting plane food odour.
2. Blindfold- to block out light so you can get a good nights sleep.
3. IPod + headphones - an endless source of entertainment an IPod or IPod means you can read a book, listen to music, watch a good movie or write to do lists (my personal favourite thing to do on the plane).
4. Earplugs- To block out the noise of other people talking and the plane engines.
5. A small bag with toothpaste, toothbrush - It's horrible to have that grimy teeth feeling , moisturizer - the air conditioning is very drying, and make-up so you look great at the other end.
6. A snack such as crisps which fills you up when you're starving because you refused to eat any of the place food.
7. Warm flight socks - there's nothing worse than cold feet.
8. All your passports and documents in one clear plastic wallet so you don't have a panic thinking you've lost them.
9. Comfy pyjama bottoms, hopefully there will be no one you know on the plane.
10. Your own pillow so you can snuggle up without an aching back.

It is absolutely guaranteed that in my next post I will moan about the flight….

Best of The Week

So as I'm on holiday I've been doing some extra reading, watching films and of course watching of YouTube videos. All of these things I still do in Vietnam, as films are very cheap (and yes quite illegal) and somehow people always tell me about YouTube videos which I simply must watch; so here is my 'Book of the week', 'Song of the week' and 'YouTube video of the week'...

I LOVE this parody all my friends are rapping in parseltongue, and as someone who read all the books and even dressed up (cool) to see the final installment this video made me laugh a lot (Harry).

Me and my sister watched some expressive dancers perform this and convinced ourselves that we should also make up a dance to it. Try some expressive dance it really is fun if you have nothing else to do (but not in front of people becuase you look ridiculous if you're like me and actually cannot dance) (Adele).

I'm reading the book 'Junk' by Melvin Burges which is a Penguin classic. Someone once told me about this person who tried to collect every single penguin book with the traditional orange covers not because they were and avid reader nut simply because they wanted their library to have a colour scheme. Vain or what?

Anyhow I bought this book a few years back and didn't get into it in the first chapter so gave up, but on my second try of the book I ended up reaching the end and thinking that actually it was a worthwhile read. Not one of my favourites but it really portrayed drug users in an interesting way by giving you their stories of why they had turned to drugs and how they try to give up but can't.

The Calmest Place in Hanoi

At the moment I'm still in England on summer holiday but I thought a great way to start off my blog would be to tell everyone about my own personal favourite place in Hanoi (other than the ice cream shop - more on this at a later date): The Temple of Literature.

I've also put some information for those of you who know nothing at all, and want to enlighten yourselves, important and interesting facts are highlighted in case you are extremely busy (if you are then why is this??? It's the holidays)!

What is it?

The Temple of Literature was the first university of Vietnam. It was founded as a Confucian temple in 1070 and functioned as a school for over 700 years.

The front entrance is called the great portico and the eight stelae (which is basically a posh word for giant stones with commemerations on) warm visitors that they must dismount off their horse before entering.

This photo is really bad and I have no clue where the eight stelae actually are but it shows you the front of the Temple.

It was established to educate Vietnams mandarin (Mandarin) class which is basically a bureaucrat: the elite of society. Nobles and royalty were also taught here.

Only the king was allowed to walk down the central path.

This is the giant drum, in the courtyard and I always wonder where you would get a beater big enough to hit it with.... anyone know anywhere?

What can you see there?

This area is called the garden of stelae (giant stones) and the large central pond which looks nothing much is called the well of heavenly clarity. Surrounding this are statues of 82 stone tablets with the names of graduates written upon them in ancient Chinese (which was studied by the students) (Oxford).

One of the many turtles.

The turtle is one of Vietnams four celebrated creatures along with the dragon, phoenix, and unicorn. It symbolises longevity which is why everyone comes to see the endangered turtle of Ho Kiem lake.

In the final courtyard objects used by students are displayed, these are things such as: clothing, utensils, books and inkwells.

This is an artistic photo of some incense (well artistic by my standards).

What did they study?

Ancient poetry, literature, ancient Chinese and often they wrote poetry of their own. The final royal examination was posed by the king himself and he would determine what grade you should receive from the answers you gave him. It took students between 3 and 7 years to graduate (temple and vietnam).

When can I visit and for how much?

Open: Tuesday - Sunday

April 15th - October 15th: 7.30 am - 5.30pm

Rest of the year: 8am- 5.30pm

10,000 VND entry - dollars

Brochures are available for 3,000 VND and guides can be requested to give tours in different languages. (vietnamonline)

 More articles about the temple:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Literature,_Hanoi - a lot more information if you're interested

http://www.vietnam-beauty.com/cities/ha-noi/4-ha-noi/69-temple-of-literature-van-mieu-quoc-tu-giam-.html - Another actual article about what a great attraction this is.

http://www.vietnamonline.com/attraction/temple-of-literature.html - has a map so you can find where to go.