Dinner for 80

Oh, the traffic here! It's an oceanic ballet with a full cast. The roads are the currents, directed by the great canyon walls which are the matchbook buildings wedged next to each other. Little tributaries, or alleyways, feed into the deluge. Motorists are the fish; up close they all seems to have their own mission but, from afar, one sees a school of like minded travelers. Just as a school of fish operate, you can work your way towards the middle and use your surrounding friends to shield you from other packs of fish, being nosed by the sharks (cars), or slapped by whales flukes (side swiped by busses). I wobble about on my bicycle, disoriented and slow like the pufferfish, avoiding the speed and shimmer from my faster marine counterparts...

OK, enough with the poetic injustice... The traffic here is effing insane, bottom line. Sorry you all had to read through that sappy analogy.

Slowly but surely I am learning my way around the city. I have become comfortable with enough with direction: "if I cross train tracks I know I'm here", "I'm on the street where they sell ____", etc. The bicycle has been key to take things slowly and learn the "rules" of the road.
And the best part about the traffic is that there's no road rage. Seriously, I've watched drivers swishing between other motorists, going twice as fast as the flow around them, and then slam on their brakes to avoid hitting some other person driving on the wrong side of the street. Not an eye bats, and I'm 200 feet away ready for a brawl.

I received an invitation from my friend/"travel agent" Quynh to join him for the grand opening of his restaurant. It's located in a beautiful three story building. Traditional Viet lacquer paintings of girls and lotus flowers adorn the yellow walls of the multiple dining rooms. There's a buffet setup downstairs and Quynh, looking super smart in his pinstripe suit, hand me a glass of red wine and tells me to dig in. And I do. 4 different kinds of fried spring rolls, salmon and shrimp sashimi, cassava noodle salad, glass chicken feet (delicious, trust me), black pepper beef with cauliflower, steamed snail meat wrapped in dill (eww), char-grilled prawns, curries, unknown fruits, etc. There are images of roses painstakingly etched onto the surfaces of melons, the centerpieces for each table. It was quite the spread and very delicious. It was nice to take a break from the lower end Vietnamese food and eat some fancier local dishes. I made it clear to Quynh that it would be an honor to sneak into his kitchen for a few lessons.

Speaking of lower end food, I've been hanging out around the street stalls quite often. I try to stick to dishes that come out hot and meat that's been cooked to order or at least reheated. This isn't the case everywhere, as I am just recovering from a specific meal that has lost me some sleep. Nothing debilitating! If anything I think it makes me wiser. If it doesn't kill you... It might next time.

So it's been 10 days for me here... I am starting to feel a bit more comfortable with my surroundings; I don't have to get off my bike every intersectiong to figure out where I am. I've been meeting a bunch of people, many locals and westerners. I went to a sports bar last night to watch Manchester United v. Liverpool with about 18 Brits. Rowdy football hooligans! Good fun. Talked about teaching English which seems to be the choice profession here. I've put a few resumes out to teaching centers and a restaurant... no word yet. But that's OK. I've got to get into the swing of feeling like this is somewhat a vacation until I find real work.

Why did the American cross the road?

...to face one of the biggest obstacle courses of their lifetime! No seriously, this is a task that relies on finesse, patience, and faith (in both yourself and the motorbike drivers, which outnumber the cars 50 to 1). There are no traffic laws here; occasionally people may stop at a red light, but that's usually only at the roundabouts with six streets of traffic pouring into them. It's really just as simple a watching to your left and shuffling across up to 5 or 6 "lanes" of traffic; Think human Frogger. If you're lucky it's only on a oneway street. If not, you get caught between two way traffic. You're in the eye of the storm. Honking persists everywhere all the time. Pretty much just people saying "hello, I'm speeding by you now", it's not that you're doing something wrong. I guess the only thing you could be doing incorrectly is getting hit!

So I've moved into my apartment. For those of you who are Google Earth savvy I live on De La Thanh street. Check out my 'hood! I've only been here one night and it's a pretty nice place: A bed, a TV, a bathroom. There's a public kitchen downstairs (Damn! Public!) which is shared between the 6 or so tenants, all Westerners. Anyways, the first thing I did this morning was the first thing any sensible Behr/Alpert would have done in a new environment... find my coffee shop! My choice style of drink has been the "ca phe den nong" (for those Vietnamese students out there I can't do the tones on this keyboard), or hot black coffee. This stuff is ridiculously strong. I'm used to drinking my coffee black in the states, no added sugar. This tiny cup takes about three spoonfuls to actually be drinkable. But after that it's like "angels crying on my tongue".

The Vietnamese language is something else. I can actually make an attempt at the words, being that the lettering is Roman, but pronunciation is everything! And I suck at it. I already have sort of a teacher, an art student names Huy (pronounced as if you are saying "who-ee" while getting punched in the stomach) who has been very patient with me. He'll tell me how to say something which I then say back. He'll say it again shaking his head, and I'll repeat it. This could go back and forth five or six times before he's satisfied. "Didn't I say it like that the third time?" I wonder. Now use it in a sentence with 7 other words...

http://picasaweb.google.com/alpertj/20091021?feat=directlink

I believe this link above will take you to my photo album on the web. If lost, just click on the "My Photos" tab towards the top, this should take you to my albums selection.

Until next time! Giu lien lac nhe! (keep in touch)

Morning Excersize

I decide to take a jog around the lake this morning as opposed to anymore tossing and turning in my hostel dormitory. I'm out there by 6:15am and it's swarming with people. Grouped tai chi led by boomboxes, weightlifters, and badminton are some of the activities. There's a lot of people doing their own routines as well, involving repetitive arm swinging, head scratching, ball balancing, and just all around "booty shaking". After three laps (I'm thinking 3 miles, or 4.8 kilometers) I'm soaked with sweat. The humidity here in October isn't awful although it's nothing like I'm used to.

I finish up with some breakfast, a steaming bowl of noodle soup (why not? Something hot!), the ever famous pho ga (chicken style)*. It's a minimal scene: 8 plastic stools are setup on the sidewalk. No menu. I sit down in line with everyone else. I look up and I'm facing..... a wall. There's a communal table and atop sits a fistful of wooden (and recycled) chopsticks, tin spoons, conveniently sliced thumb-nail-sized limes (the fruit part is the color of egg yolk), and a vinegar infused with chillies (hottest damned things) and garlic.

From a nook in an alleyway is a lady spooing the hot broth over a heap of flat rice noodles, her stock pot a sweltering scene of liquid, chicken's feet, and scallions. To finish up onto she uses shears to portion out the chicken (skin on), tosses in some diced green onion and cilantro and a dash of black pepper. A "waiter" relays my meal to the plastic bench in front of me. The silk-suited man next to me, he's drinking some sort of liquor from a plastic bottle, gets up and takes a bowl of MSG from the "kitchen". It's all about personal garnishing.

I love it.



*For all you other "pho-oodies" out there the proper pronunciation is something like fer, almost like "fur", shortening the "r" sound as much as possible. Pronunciation here is EVERYTHING.

In the begining...

Geist = "a German word usually translated as mind, spirit, or ghost but can also be associated with drive or motivation. Some English translators resort to using "spirit-mind" to help convey the meaning of the term. Closer approximations include the Greek word πνεύμα(pneuma), the Latin animus and anima, and the Chinese medical 神 shen (all quite similar in meaning)."

- Wikipedia

36 hours into my "migration" and it feels like I've been here for weeks. I'm not convinced that's a good thing. My brain needs to slow down and process, much like my gut is doing with the local cuisine... which looks and smells fabulous (I'm only a couple meals in). Motorbikes everywhere, honking friendly warnings to my knees as the spokes whiz by. I was honored by the acsent of a giant turtle today at the historic Hoan Kiem lake. I'll take that as an omen to come out of my shell more often. Or to slow down, to enjoy the novelty of my situation. Day by day, one step at a time, and not to end up on my back.