Vietnam {Hanoi}

Last Sunday morning we headed to the airport at o'dark thirty to catch a string of flights to Hanoi. After a couple of hiccups at the airport (they wouldn't exchange our rupiah for VND. . .wish we would have known that before we got there! Somehow we managed to leave the airport with visas in hand. PTL) we got to our hotel and were so warmly greeted by the staff that we almost forgot about how badly ripped off we were at the airport. We checked into our rooms, and then started exploring Hanoi with our little maps in hand, and several suggestions from Mary, the sweet hotel hostess.

Sunday (night)

- Tried our first bowl of pho. Sadly, it was not the best. . . smelled like wet dog. Don't worry, we weren't permanently scared, and had better pho later.

maybe we should have realized this was the kitchen first

This is the way they do it in Vietnam. Plastic kiddy tables and chairs on the sidewalk. everywhere.
Meet Jordan, Erik's brother (can you tell!?) who is visiting for a month.

We managed to fit five us around this tiny table

- Then we headed to Hoan Kiem Lake. This was the place to be! It was surrounded by all sorts of people, not just tourists. We walked around the lake surrounded by families, dating couples, exercise classes (zumba by the lake anyone?!), circles of break dancing, cute little old ladies in their matching floral outfits, and lots of kids (without nannies -- how refreshing!). We felt like we were taking part in everyday Hanoi life, and it was great! So family oriented and active. Quite the change of pace from Jakarta. 

lovely and lit up at night.

People hanging out everywhere.

Monday & Tuesday

- We had an early breakfast at the hotel, and were picked up by a tour bus at 8:00 to head to Halong Bay. On our way there we stopped at a place where hand sewn paintings are made. They were beautiful, and took hours on hours to make!

 

- Then we made it to our junk boat where we spent the night and next day floating around Halong Bay, one of the "new seven natural wonder of the world".

Our boat!

SO.

AMAZING.

I did not get to spend enough time in that spot.

cave exploring

View from the entrance of the caves.

Kayaking around the bay

 fishing for squid into the wee hours of the night

the lone catch of the night

snatched a picture with our "flamboyant" guide

Smiling, but sad to leave the boat.

- We got back to Hanoi, and went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. It was such a cool place to be at night. And again, the courtyard was full of families hanging out together, and people walking/running. A healthy culture!

We were taking pictures of the Mausoleum. They were taking pictures of us.

- And don't think our night finished there! Then we went to the Water Puppet Theater. The Vietnamese have been perfecting the art of water puppets for hundreds of years, and the show told of their origin (legends and reality).

quite the graphic scene. . . the dragon and the peacock made human babies. . .

Wednesday

 - We spent the morning going to two Hanoi museums. The Army Museum, and the Hanoi "Hilton", a prison, sarcastically named by American POWs.

Collection of plane pieces that fell after being shot down by Vietminh and Vietcong soldiers.

The liberation flag that was put on top of Independence Palace (in Ho Chi Minh. . . next blog)

"Hanoi Hilton"

- Then we flew to Ho Chi Minh, and left our traveling buddies behind in Hanoi (they left for Singapore the next day). We had dinner at Pho 2000 (opened in 2000 for President Clinton, the first US president to come go to Vietnam since the war). Can't believe we forgot to get a picture! 

Phew! This is only half of the trip. . . and is already probably the longest blog post ever! The Ho Chi Minh half of the trip will be coming up soon!

Chris in KL

If you saw Chris' comment on facebook about envisioning Sean Connery hanging in between the Petronas Towers by a rope. . . this is what he was talking about.

Kuala Lumpur? What/where's that? I only recognize the buildings. . .

Well, Chris will now have another reason to remember this city. He's been there for a day and a half already, and has a day and a half left of getting economics smart :)

Chris and three other teachers from our school, went to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, for an IB conference. He definitely felt a little weary of going and being the 23 year old, brand new economics teacher, who would rather be there because he was teaching IB history. I got to skype with him last night though, and he said it's been good so far. They began by introducing themselves and their experiences, so there was no hiding his novice situation. He told me he felt good about understanding about half of the economics jokes. . . I just told him he was a nerd ;) 

His brain is a sponge, and I'm sure it will be full of new ideas, teaching strategies, and grading methods when he comes home. Not the most thrilling content as far as I'm concerned, but I'm thankful he's getting the chance to do this, and further his understanding and experience. 

But like Chris said, wish I could be there to experience it with him! The city that is. . .

Chris said it's like Singapore meets NewYork. 

He has a view of the Petronas Towers from his hotel room. . . pretty cool!

KV Eagles!

Check out our school's new sports logo!

We're the SPH Eagles of Kemang Village!

And the best part is that Chris designed it! 

He's designed three different jerseys for our three teams this year! They got delivered just in time for the first tournament today!
(well, most of them. it's jakarta, so things like that happen)

Story time: 

When Chris and his brothers were younger, they would occasionally hang out at Corban (western baptist then) after school hours while their dad (marty) was grading or attending late meetings. Their mom (linda) would draw large blank helmets on computer paper and let them draw away! It started out as just copying NFL logos onto the helmets  and progressed into designing new team logos/jerseys as they got older. Chris is always the first to notice a team's new jersey design, and clues me in on the pros and cons of each. It's only fitting that he gets a chance to design his own! They look awesome! Here  are the boys sporting their away jerseys. 

The grade 7-9 boys team coached by Chris and Karl

All the 7-9 players

 Each of the teams played three games today (against the other SPH schools). The girls won all three of their games. The boys played some better competition and won one of three. It was a good day overall for Kemang Village basketball, and I give SO much credit to all the coaches! They have been working so hard with these kids, and its really showing.  The level of the game is rising for both teams, and you can just see the kids having fun and feeling proud of themselves. We love it! 

ps. I'm coaching the grade 5-6 girls team. For the most part, none of them have ever been coached before. It's been awesome to see them improve in just five weeks (two practices a week). I don't think we'll get to play any games until November, but I'll let ya know how that goes when the time comes. Right now we're just working on the basics :)
(and waiting for our cool uniforms designed by Chris!)

Bandung Part 2 : Angklungs

The other main part of our day in Bandung was visiting the Udjo Angklung factory. We were treated to an hour and a half long show of music and dancing, and even got to participate! The angklung is a traditional Indonesian instrument made of bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. Each one plays a single note on the scale, so you need many players to get a full sound. You can also see them put on stands that hold an entire octave. You have to be pretty talented to play those! It brought back fond memories of playing tone chimes at Pratum.

The guy conducting these angklung players holds the world record for the largest angklung performance. He conducted over 5,000 players last year in Washington DC, playing the song "We Are the World". 

The video below is of all of us in the audience getting to play. The little boy conducting us, is the older conductor's son. He used the solfege hand signals to direct us. I remember trying to learn those in choir, and learning with one hand was hard enough! This little guy was using both! All we had to do was memorize what hand symbol represented our individual angklung, and play ours when we saw our sign. It was such a neat experience for us to play together in a large group of people who had never played, and still be able to play a song well enough to recognize! I can't remember the name of it, but the first song we played was a well-known Beatle's song.