After Hours

Well hello there, have you been waiting long? Have no despair, it's time for another update. The sun is shining outside - instead of what you people may think, it's not only mayhem, death and chaos here in Asia. There's been a couple of earthquakes and tsunami's (in the following order: Samoa, Sumatra, Sumatra, Tonga) and one typhoon that skirted Hanoi and made landfall a good deal south, but all is peachy perfect here.


We had a little bit of rain the last couple of days, but nothing serious; no torrential downpours, or streets turned into rivers, just a little drizzle that sucks monkey balls if your driving around on a motorbike.


But life here, though mistakingly Vietnamese and interesting, is quite mundane. I go to work, teach (getting better at it, if I might say so), go back and hook up with one of the many new friends I made the last couple of weeks. One beer leads to many and before you know it you wake up again, very late into the next morning. Damn those after hours! One more day relegated from the present to the past, from an is to a was.


Now to say that I didn't have any free time would be a lie, but fair enough, I'm getting a bit complacent with the blog and taking pictures. Lugging around a big photo camera is not something I do every day. But, yes, I do go out once in a while and shoot some photographic evidence of my stay here (including drinking buddies and friends).


But life is good here. Big city, bright lights and every day there's something new to do or to see. The Vietnamese are funny people; the crazy things you see. I was thinking about doing some short "Observations of Hanoi" the next time, but I guess I can't leave you with one as a teaser:

Little human kids abound on the streets and like their grown-up counterparts they need to do their "thing" every now and then: pee and poo. But the youngest ones get a little help from their mothers in quite an unusual way (from our viewpoint of course).

When the baby needs to go for a number one, the mothers hold the kid up, at least at chest height, take their pants (or whatever) off, hold their legs apart but supporting the butt and let them pee like that. And they do this facing the street. I think they like the spectacle it presents. It's quite a sight when you round a corner walking or driving and you have a split second to dodge a little arch of yellowish liquid emanating from a kid-devil aiming at your face.


Signing off on a happy note: I have become an uncle again! My sister Janina didn't give birth to one, but to a twin, a baby boy and girl! As long as she's not going to bring the kids up the Vietnamese way, pee-ing wise, I'll be happy. ;-)