(Finally) In Hanoi

Hello all!

Well, I'm finally here. I left my house at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning and I finally made it to the hotel at 3 p.m. on Saturday. I'm now in Hanoi, where I will be staying for the next month training.

It still feels surreal that I'm here. I had one of those "wtf is going on" moments when Josh and I (my travelling buddy and co-Fulbrighter) were zooming in a taxi the wrong way down a major street- how did I end up in Hanoi instead of going to law school in New York?

Essentially, I applied for a Fulbright in Vietnam on a whim, without any expectation I would get it. I got waitlisted and so instead, I deposited at Columbia, ready and excited. Then, Fulbright received some more money, and offered me a spot (weird, I know, but I'm rolling with it).

So, here is the plan for the next 10 months:

1. August- spend with the 13 other Fulbrighters in Hanoi, learning Vietnamese and training in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)
2. September-May- teach in Lao Cai Gifted High School
3. May-June- travel around SE Asia and New Zealand (I have to check off that 6th continent!)

I'll post more about the fact that I'm teaching English later (where and how, and the irony that I of all people would become an English teacher) but I want to focus on Hanoi for now.

Josh and I got into Hanoi after about 30 hours of travelling yesterday at noon. It was raining. We took a harrowing taxi ride to the hotel. (I had heard traffic in Vietnam was insane, and it was. Cars and motor bikes zoom in and out of traffic. Right of way means nothing. Street signs mean nothing. Lights are sometimes obeyed. Pedestrians move throughout traffic perpendicularly. Horns are used to signal 'Hey, I'm behind you and going to pass you by swerving into on-coming traffic.' I can't believe there aren't 500 accidents every hour. But somehow, it all works.)

Once we got to the hotel, we met up with Alvin, a Fulbrighter from UCLA who already speaks and reads Vietnamese and promptly took a nap. After napping, it was time to explore! We walked around the lake in Oldtown Hanoi, had coffee with egg white in a rooftop cafe (on the 5th floor), saw the old Cathedral and had dinner in a place called "My Pho." After that, we got Viettel Sim cards and saw where Alvin's dad used to live before it got "re-appropriated" and became a local police station.

A couple notes:

I had been told that I would be a celebrity/circus freak while I was here, but it wasn't too bad in Hanoi- lots of white people here. The only incident I had was a 20 something year old woman (with her boyfriend) came up to me by the lake and said "Picture?" I agreed, and reached for her camera, thinking she wanted me to take a picture of her and her boyfriend. Alvin grabbed my arm and said, "No, she wants a picture with YOU." So, Alvin took the picture of her, Josh, and me (wearing her conical hat, at her request). She seemed happy, and Alvin said it wouldn't be the last time something like that happened to me. I figure I'm the equivalent of either Yao Ming or Robert Wadlow...probably just Robert Wadlow, haha.

I was wondering how far my stipend ($1000 per month or 21 million VND) would go in Vietnam.  Well, dinner last night (Pho and a soda) cost 3 bucks (or 60,000 Vietnamese Dong VND). I ended up covering dinner for Alvin and Josh, because the Vietnamese don't really do split checks, and Alvin had been really helpful getting my sim card set up, and Josh had had a rough day discovering his brand new Iphone didn't have a Sim card slot (necessitating getting a new phone). Dinner for all 3 of us was a whopping total of 160,000 VND ($8- I know, I'm a generous guy ;) )

I'll post some updates about how training is going hopefully in the next couple days. Also, if you want my Vietnamese cell number, so you can Viber or WhatsApp me, shoot me a facebook message and I'll send it to you.

Onward. Always Onward.
Daniel

P.S. I should mention that this blog is in no way affliated with the U.S. Department of State. All of the views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program or the Department of State

P.P.S. The only pictures I've downloaded so far. (I have more, don't worry!).

I had to sneak my Northface backpack into Japan! (Maybe?)

Josh and I at approximately 4 am Tokyo time (and who the hell knows EST)

View of my room (single room!)