Ella Says, “Bye, But Now Bali!”

Hi! The next day we woke up early and drove to Hanoi. Our French-speaking driver picked us up and, for coffee, dropped us off at a large statue-and-other-touristy-stuff store. We drove until we reached our apartment for the next five days! We got to ride an elevator to the ninth floor of a building, our temporary home. When the owner unlocked the door and we walked in, I saw two bedrooms and a bathroom, and nothing else. The rooms were nice but very plain, so in my mind I was like ‘ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…’ We climbed the stairs to the tenth floor and found a kitchen, dining room, and living area. Phew! I continued working on Aba’s present until we decided to walk around. We went to a market and got Vietnamese stickers and stuck them to our faces because the AFF Championship was playing in Hanoi between Vietnam and Malasia. Therefore, the people were very excited.

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We ate a warm taffy coconut biscuit sandwich thing, which was amazing, and got to watch little kids drive around in tiny army tanks and old woman dancing. We decided to come back for dinner in order to see the reactions of civilians in accordance with the game but, after buying some fresh egg noodles, stayed home and watched tv (a bit of The Greatest Showman) instead because Aba and Troy were tired. The next morning we got up at nine o’clock and made our way to Ho Chi Minh’s Mosuleum to see his embalmed apparatus after discovering that Vietnam had won the game. We had to stand in a really really really really really really long line and had two stand in rows of two, keep our hands out of our pockets, and have to be silent at the end (meaning that we couldn’t giggle when uniformed guards marched while swinging their arms coordinately). Awwww!  Seeing Ho Chi Minh was kind of weird because he looked real, but also fake. I don’t know, it was just odd. I felt a little bad, though, because his wishes were actually to be cremated.

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Asher ate a donut on the way home and then I worked on Aba’s present while watching Moulin Rouge. We went out by the lake like the day before and I ate another thin coconut biscuit taffy sandwich.

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We ate at a restaurant, but our waitress wasn’t good and she didn’t remember to order mine and Troy’s food, so we didn’t eat. We went to the theatre and saw Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. Let me just say, it was awesome! Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it was actually incredibly well done! I highly recommend it. In addition, they included a dedication to Stan Lee!

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I ate some grilled corn and we walked home. On our way, we saw a flash mob in action and some old women line dancing. I was reminiscing about the flash mob because last year, my friend Summer and I had organized and choreographed a flash mob to Michael Jackson’s Beat It, but no one practiced but us… We ended up not doing it because you can’t have an intricate flash mob with only three people (another girl, Maya, showed up for rehearsal, but she hadn’t practiced before). In Hanoi, there was also a little girl building a really tall tower out of Jenga blocks that reached above the crowd’s heads. I blogged and went to sleep. 26-24-4-26  13-1-10-24-26, 1 18-6-26 26-24-6 7-6-9. Therefore, I didn’t get very much sleep. We woke up and ate a breakfast of pomelo and mango, then walked the city again. We stopped by some train tracks going directly through a neighborhood, then went to the Hỏa Lò Prison, more commonly known as the Hanoi Hilton. This is where Vietnamese soldiers were kept during the French war and where American POWs were kept during the Vietnam War. This was interesting to see, but not really noteworthy.

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After lunch at a place called Chops, a very nice restaurant where we rediscovered Asher’s Legendary Sandwich design, I crafted and ate a dinner of noodles. We watched a few episodes of Weeds and saw the end of Interview With a Vampire on tv. I forgot to mention, my grandmother, Savta, had an accident and injured her eye so she was supposed to have an operation that day. However, because of two emergency operations, it was rescheduled to Wednesday. I also forgot to write about another long travel blog that I found called Earth Trekkers. The family writing it went on a 13-month year-round trip in 2014 and 2015, but the reason I’m mentioning it is because of their ‘About’ page. I find it eery that the dad, Tim, is like Aba (a dad, “the sherpa of the family”, a triathlete, trekked the Everest Base Camp with his family); the mom, Julie, is like Troy (manages the blog, a photographer, recently quit their hospital job, started the blog “as a way to keep friends and family updated” during the trip); the son/brother, Tyler, is like Asher (was a “very reluctant traveler”, likes being comfortable, loves drones and YouTube, is learning Spanish); and that the daughter/sister, Kara, is like me (“got the wanderlust bug at a very young age”, is “naturally adventurous and open to new experiences”, “the most eager to leave everything behind for a trip around the world”, is homesick). It’s weird, right?! Asher started playing depressing music on his computer when I showed it to him because he saw that they were sponsored by National Geographic and NBC! The next day was fun because we walked around the city a bit more, but it was uneventful. We ate at Chops’ sister restaurant, Durty Bird, and I nearly finished Aba’s birthday present.

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For dinner, we ate at a local restaurant but were reminded of Thailand because of all the people selling stuff. However, there was one guy in a Santa Claus outfit selling Christmas merch, but his toy sack had the Vietnam flag on it so I had to take a picture! It was awesome!

We finished Weeds that night, amazing by the way, and watched the first episode of Prison Break, which I was already starting to love. Savta’s operation would be the next day. The next day we went to the mall! It reminded Asher so much of the United States that he felt homesick. We ate some pastries at the food court and found the bakery Tous Les Jours, the bakery with the delicious chocolate cupcakes in Saigon that Asher loved so much, but they were out of the cupcakes. Asher and I laughed at all the weird ads that can be found in malls, but at the supermarket, we were saddened to see a bucket full of tied-up live crabs. They were looking at us, and one who was flipped on its back was frantically kicking its legs in the air. Asher and I tried virtual reality for the first time (well I did anyway, Asher had tried it in a show-and-tell at school once), and I thought that even though it wasn’t the best quality it was still cool.

We ate lunch at Chops again and by the end of the night I only had to put finishing touches on Aba’s gift and I started on Asher’s present. While Asher had his Spanish lesson, I studied using some videos that Dad gave me. I like them a lot and they’re really helpful! I forgot a lesson with my tutor, Martha, last week and she hasn’t responded to any of our messages, so Aba says she doesn’t want to teach me French anymore. However, even though I liked her, I’m okay with this because I’m actually starting to learn more now. Savta’s operation was a success, though it took a bit longer than expected, so yay! We blogged and went to sleep after listening to Wicked a little! We woke the next morning and Asher and Troy sat on some benches by the lake while Aba and I searched for some string stores we had seen the day before, but we got lost and it took a while to find them. We joined Asher and Troy at the lake, but we had to share our bench with this kind of creepy lady. She was wearing all grey and black and her hair was one giant dreadlock that I’m not even sure was real. It was also black and grey! She wore beady dark grey glasses and half of the time she stared at us and the other half she slept sitting up. It was weird… I wrote two postcards for my friend Una who collects postcards, one from Vietnam and one from Cambodia (I’d forgotten to write it in Cambodia but I still had the postcard), and two postcards for my Hebrew teacher in Colorado and her two kids. I used to babysitt them and they have a special place in my heart. We went to the post office and had them mailed, then ate at Chops. 4-23  1 5-17-3-23-23-6-9 26-24-6 23-26-17-6-6-26, 4 12-4-13 3-13 4 12-3-26-3-17-7-1-15-6 14-3-3-15-6-9 12-6 21-11 4-13-9 9-3-18-13 4-13-9 26-24-6-13 14-3-3-15-6-9 12-6 1-13 26-24-6 6-22-6 4-13-9 14-1-5-15-6-9 24-1-23 14-1-11-23. We tried to find our way to the train tracks we had seen a few days before, but we got lost and missed the train. However, because we got lost, we found ourselves in a dog-roasting area. Asher covered his eyes, but I saw the dogs on barbaques and spits, their gleaming white teeth contrasting sharply with their crisping skin. Their tails were still held erect from fright. We went back home and I worked on Asher’s Christmas present. We blogged and settled in for our last night in Vietnam. In the morning we woke up early and ate breakfast in profound silence. The air was lacking the sounds of the children attending school in the building next to us! After checking out, and after the owner literally counted the plates in the kitchen to make sure we hadn’t taken any of them, we got in our long-awaited-for cab and drove to the airport. The only thing to mention about the three-hour flight to our layover in Singapore is that there was a screaming toddler incessantly kicking the back of my seat! We had departed late from the gate so we also landed late and only got a glimpse of the Singapore airport. I wish we had been able to spend more time there because it looked pretty cool. During security, an irritating Indian woman confiscated two of Asher’s math compasses and then delayed us even longer by unpacking our bags over and over again. Another staff member had to come looking for us and told us that the gate was about to close and that they had already been holding it for us, but the woman still wouldn’t let us leave, so we had to check our bags. We ran onto the tube connecting the plane to the terminal, but there was a line. They hadn’t even opened the doors yet!

After picking up our duffel bags, we were driven to our villa, where we were greeted by a woman called Ayu. She showed us our private pool, two bedrooms, kitchen and dining room, and extra room. The place was very nice. It was only lacking a good living room. Aba was surprised by a poster Troy had designed for him of Trixie and Bruno and fruit and flowers for his birthday, and we all smiled to see rose petals in our bathtubs.

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We took a night swim and showered, and now we’re blogging and will go to sleep. I know Asher and even Aba tired of being in Vietnam for so long, but I sincerely enjoyed it and had a wonderful time. Now, rest!

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Ella