Our couchsurfing host Marcus in New Zealand was kind enough to give Theo training chopsticks that his kids had outgrown. With our upcoming three months in Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan, I think they’ll be well used.
Yogurt Coffee
We have only just begun our exploration of the apparently vast world that is Vietnamese coffee. This is yogurt coffee!
(Also, after 35 years of shunning it, Brian is drinking coffee now. Crazy, right?)
Death, Ice Cream, and New Coats: Exploring Hanoi
We’re staying in Ecopark, a little outside of Hanoi. We’ve been feeling a little removed from the reality of the city, so we made it a priority to begin to explore central Hanoi this past weekend.
We were paired with a set of guides from Hanoi Free Walking Tours, who will match you up with a college student (or two, in our case) willing to show you around Hanoi in exchange for the opportunity to practice English. We registered for the Old Quarter Walking Tour, but between our rambunctious three-year-old and our lack of preparation for the freezing weather, we ended up less seeing sites and more wandering around trying to stay warm, fed, and sane. With the help of our very adaptable guides, we accomplished all three of these – along with a wee bit of sightseeing!
Continue reading “Death, Ice Cream, and New Coats: Exploring Hanoi”
Watch Your Step!
(Seriously!)
Crossing the Street in Hanoi
In Delhi, I didn’t really see many pedestrian crosswalks, which made traversing the road feel like a dangerous game of frogger.
There are crosswalks here in Hanoi. However, the cars seem to keep going to at least 5 seconds after the light changes. After that, turning traffic pours through the intersection, completely ignoring the crosswalk. All of this is probably makes crossing more dangerous than in Delhi, since I get lulled into a false sense of security by the familiarity of a crosswalk… that is actually ignored by the vehicles.
List of Preschools
Here is a running list of the preschools Theo has attended on a temporary basis on our trip. We were happy with all of them. Some schools, like Cheeky Monkeys in Bali and Kiddee House in Chiang Mai seem to more frequently take children on a short-term basis. For others, we just lucked out because they had an empty slot in their program.
Preschool As We Travel
For a little more than four months, we have been enrolling Theo in local preschools as we travel. Thus far, he’s attended school in New Zealand, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Vietnam.
We aren’t particularly worried about keeping up with the academic aspects of school. Theo is young and seems to be soaking up information from the wider world in a very sponge-like manner. Instead, we like that school gives him an opportunity to learn to socialize with people who aren’t us on a regular basis. Just as important to us, sending Theo to school gives us adults extra time to work and explore independently.
Shoe-free Playground
The nearest playground is two minutes walk from our apartment building’s front door. During dry weather, it buzzes with children from about 5 pm to 6 pm, as they burn off post-school energy. In wet weather, it’s almost empty.
It’s the first playground we’ve found where we’ve needed to remove our shoes before entering – presumably to keep the fake grass clean!
Working
“This is my laptop. I’m working. I’m doing Neo4j” – Theo
Chợ Tết
Vietnamese New Year (Tết) is approaching, and last weekend we visited a holiday market near our home.
Theo most enjoyed the faux fishing and the faux sandbox. (Instead of sand, it was some kind of grain, I think. It was better than real sand in that it didn’t stick to everything). Brian and I enjoyed the music and the opportunity to buy inexpensive, tasty local port that was funneled into a plastic water bottle for us to take home.