Wednesday morning

It's been awhile since the last blog entry. It is 8:30 a.m. here, and the neighborhood is awake. Yesterday, I awoke to the sound of sharp, high pitch hammering. I finally got up to see what it was. Two houses away (which is 20 feet away), there is a house that is being "reconstructed." They hollow it out, keeping just the floors in place, and remodel the whole thing. Yesterday, they were chipping out the bricks of the threshold, to replace it later with bricks, mortar, a long metal bar and cement. It was the chink-chink-chink of the removal of the bricks that woke me up.

I have been reading a travel guide of Dashal's and it is helpful in giving descriptions of what I am seeing and experiencing. Food and the eating of it consumes a lot of time and attention here. Most houses do not have ovens, as almost all food is cooked on stove tops. I was having trouble deciding what to call the places where we were eating - I now have four categories, thanks to the book. There are restaurants, bistros, rice-and-noodle shops, and street stalls. I have eaten in all of them. As well as some cafes that serve coffee and tea and beer and such.

So the bistro serves the traditional Vietnamese fare. Different ones specialize in different dishes. So you may go to a hotpot bistro, a Pho (noodle) one, a Bun cha shop (grilled chopped meat and rice vernicelli), etc. I'm never sure what I am eating, as in the name of it, but all of it has been very good. Here is a photo of one of the bistros we ate at.

You can eat inside or out. These chairs are slightly higher than the little stools that are in the street stalls. Today I hope to get a photo of the street stall at the end of the alley here. Many people eat "out" rather than cooking at home - the meals are very cheap, running a few dollars for a full meal.

I've also noted that while the city is very dirty, most of the dirt is from smog and the endless debris of construction. Everyone is required to sweep the alleyways in front of their homes. The streets generally have little trash. The sidewalks in some places are fairly smooth and broad tiled areas and in other places broken up cement. Motor bikes and scooters park on the sidewalk, where every section has some youth or man "watching" the bikes for a small fee. Sometimes there are so many parked that one is forced to walk in the street. Actually, more often than not. Apparently, there is very little theft here, although there is a lot of mafia type crime that goes on behind the scene.

One evening we went to the movies. There is a small theater that caters to ex-pats. You buy an annual membership, and then make a donation for each movie. We saw "Food, Inc." To get to the theater, first we went by motor bike. I rode with Nick, and Dashal took a motor bike taxi. She always gets to where we are going first, which tells me Nick is being a cautious driver with me as a passenger. Once you park your bike on the sidewalk, you go through a long alleyway to an interior courtyard. Here are "real" tables and chairs, a lovely latern hung, outdoor restaurant. There were Westerners from all different lands, primarily Europe and America. Some were people that lived in Hanoi, others were obviously visitors like myself. After having a beer, we went in to watch the movie - which every American should see and reflect on. We tried to order popcorn to take in, but they were out of that!

On Sunday, Nick and I went to the History Museum. Dashal had to work that evening, so stayed home to prepare her lessons. The tour book states, "The History Museam is the most powerful French colonial building in Vietnam, a masterpiece of the Indochinese style developed by Ernest Hebrard in the 1920s and '30s. Fortunately, the museum's exhibits, which survey Vietnamese history from 500,000 BC to the 1940s, are a worthy complement to the promise of the building's grandeur." Indeed, we saw many rocks, teeth, bones from the stone age, shaped into tools, jewelry, etc., moving up to pot shards and into more recent history (5,000 years ago or so) with far more recognizable artifacts, all the way to the French turning the government back to the Vietnamese in the 1940s. It was interesting. There were brief English translations of the different displays, which was helpful. Probably most famous is its collection of bronze drums, dating as far back as 100 BC. Each drum is unique, made with some lost wax technique that imprints intricate designs on each one. The top, or tympanum always features a sun or star design in the center. Concentric bands are engraved with Dong Son motifs, representing daily life activities, birds, deer, birdmen, dancing people, and geometric patterns. Some of the more recent drums added four bronze frogs on the top, which symbolize rain and fertility. Outside, there was a courtyard filled with stelae (stone tablets), stone gongs, and decorative critters. Also a model temple. Photographs of the building and courtyard below.

This is a stone gong!