Cafe life

Hanoi must have thousands of cafes. Every street has at least a couple of them, where you can sit down on a small plastic stool to sip a sweet iced Vietnamese coffee, see life pass by on the street and breathe motorbike exhaust.
By Truch Bach Lake there is a small gallery-like cafe, housed in one of those narrow tubehouses, its three floors filled with ceramic sculptures and other fragile objects. It also has a nice, extremely child-unfreindly, roof-top terrace, but it is still just too hot to be outside.

Ice cream melting fast when it's 35 degrees hot inside as well...

Born Yogis

Someone had this great book, called Born Yogis, about children's natural readiness to yoga poses. While Kai always preferred the tree, it seems like Hana's favourite is going to be downward dog.

Water Puppets

Wooden figures dancing around in a pool, a Vietnamese orchestra with ladies singing monotonously, and strange Vietnamese voices in hidden loudspeakers adding some kind of dialogue to the whole spectacle: Yesterday we went to the Water Puppet Theatre to see a show, Kai was fascinated by fishermen trying to catch fish and dragons dancing around breathing real fire. I was looking for the fire exits, but the colours and the atmosphere is nice.

Once a traditional show, played in ponds and rivers around the country, today it is an attraction mainly for tourists and children. And, of course you can get your very own water puppet in the souvenir shops around town. I am thinking of whether I should get a dragon or a traditional doll. Or maybe a turtle or bull with some figure riding on it.

Home alone II

Kai is in school, Hana just went out with our nanny Thoa on the regular morning play date, today at little friend Veronica's house, and Keisuke has been away somewhere down in Southern Vietnam since Tuesday, visiting Unicef projects and enjoying getting out of the city a little.
Fortunately our Spanish visitors - Ines and Victor - are still here (now beginning to wake up, about four hours after me and the kids...), otherwise I would have had to invent some important activity, like reading a book, go getting pedicure, paying a visit to the new furniture shop or posting something important on my blog... Maybe I can find some random pictures.
And, its raining anyway.

"It's better for you..."

... to not have a ceiling fan in the living room, to pay extra and get things we dont want for the new motor bike, to book a flight on a day we cannot leave, to not at all have the dining table made anylonger, although I paid deposit two months ago and was just waiting for delivery. Et cetera. There is so much I dont understand in this culture, but by now it is pretty clear that whenever you here the "it's better for you"-phrase - and you do quite often - you can be sure it's not.
And I try to not get frustrated, as I wont be able to get upset, much less angry, anyway. That will only make the already strange stranger look even more silly!
Then, I am reading. "Geography of Thought. How Asians and Westerners think differently... and why" and think I learn some. Not only about context and detail, group belonging and individualism and why strangers are being seen as so strange, but also about Confucianism, Taoism, the old Greeks ... and Buddha, of course.

Oooooooooooooooooommmmm.......

Perfume Pagoda

The Perfume Pagoda is a couple of hours by bus south from Hanoi, then an hour by rowing boat and a steep climb up a mountain. With friends visiting you get to do a lot of those touristy things you would never do otherwise... Fortunately they just installed a cable car a la Swiss ski resort, which at least makes the last part easier.

The Pagoda itself is in a huge cave, but I liked the kind of pre-Pagoda at the entrance - just where the climbing part (or now the cable car entrance) starts - more. From Tet and during three months ahead millions of Vietnamese visit the Pagoda, and there are about 5,000 rowing boats constantly going back and forth the river, the cave itself packed to the limit.

There were also a lot of extremely kitch souvenirs for sale.

First day of school

Last Monday, school finally started again. Kai got upgraded to Blossoms class in the big building and now starts every morning with play in the big garden. And he got a new teacher: Mr. Greg from Australia who knows all about Ben10 and other cool stuff.
Kai learns new words and expressions in English every day, and never wants to come home with me in the afternoons when I come to pick him up. After autumn break Hana will start as well.

First day of school everyone got their picture taken by the headmaster paparazzo and second day of school pictures of all kids were on display at the entrance. We had lots of fun finding both Kai and me.

Altars

Every little store, no matter how tiny, has its own in-house altar, where offerings are being made every morning. An orange, a couple of cigarettes, a couple of hundred dollars (fake bills though), a few bisquits or a cup of tea or something else some special ancestor would have liked.

Temples are everywhere and they are full of altars, propped with offerings, as well.

Typical shop altar.

The Quang Cong altar at the Chinese assembly hall in Hoi An.

Detail from unknown small street temple altar.

Tailor made

In Hoi An, you just have to go get some clothes made at one of the many tailors'. I brought some t-shirts to be copied, but left with two new skirts, two pairs of trousers and a wonderful chinese style dress. Now just have to wait for a fancy party invitation!

You can also have shoes made, or chose from fantasic and colorful homemade ones, with a purple Nike logo on one side and yellow Adidas stripes on the other...

Ugly faces

Hana and Kai got new cool t-shirts from Japan, and we wanted to take a cute picture of the two of them. It didn't quite work out, but we got lots of ugly funny faces...

Cua Dai Beach

Our hotel was a couple of kilometers outside Hoi An, but next to the beach, and it even had its own slice of it, with comfortable sun beds and wide parasols. Kai kept ordering fresh coconuts from the bar, I had pina coladas...

The beach at sunrise, at six o'clock in the morning. While Kai used to sleep in, Hana decided not to, and Keisuke and I took turns going for morning walks on the beautiful Cua Dai beach, full of Vietnamese taking a morning swim or doing some exercise on the cool sand, before heading for work and the beach being invaded by tourists. Best time of the day!

Hoi An town

About an hour's flight from Hanoi, lies the small ancient town of Hoi An, hundreds of years ago an important harbour and stop on the Silk Road, continuously invaded by the Chinese, Japanese, French and even Arabs, today filled with good restaurants, millions of tailors and nice pedestrian streets. In the evening the town is lit up by thousands of silk lanterns.

Hoi An Beach Resort

Last weekend we flew down to Central Vietnam, and stayed four days at the nice Hoi An Beach Resort, enjoying long swims in the pool, enormous buffet breakfasts by the river, lazy strolls to the beach and some excursions in to Hoi An town. It feels like we have been on a long vacation to some exotic country far away, so different from Hanoi.

Hana, munching donuts by the pool.

View from the breakfast table.

View from my sun bed by the pool - where I managed to finish reading almost an entire book!

Creeps

For eating? I don't know.
Because, they are not silk worms, are they?

She just sat there, by the market, slowly cutting them up with a large pair of scissors, and as usual we couldn't ask her.
Vietnamese is just too complicated and I will never manage to learn the most simple phrases, much less to pronounce them, and we just have to continue living with the language barrier and the limitation of only communicating with people who know a little English. But its fine, we get to make up interesting stories about what things acutally are and mean.

Old friends

For the first time, our third floor guest room is now booked, for three weeks! Ines and Victor are here from Madrid. Last time we met was in Barcelona almost four years ago, but just as happened to me several times in Sweden this summer, it really does feel like it was last week!

Catching up, at a street cafe in Hoi An.

Roof top terrace

We have a large roof top terrace, with a nice view and great evening breeze. Almost every house in our neighborhood has, and as almost everyone else, we never use it. Kai loves to check out what's happening in the pond and Hana to look down at the neighbors dog. Its perfect for an after work drink or a beer after dinner and we have bought mats and lanterns and furniture. We have to get up there more often!

Little friends II

We have to have two kids, Keisuke used to say. That will mean less work, because they will play with each other, he added. Up until now it hasn't been totally true, but maybe we are getting there...

Kai and Hana taking a break, between the pool and the beach, at Cua Dai beach outside Hoi An.

Happy birthday, Keisuke!

Today we celebrated Keisukes birthday. By staing indoors all day, with aircon on full speed. And we had curry and cake and beer and a good time and visitors, too.

And he got yet another Buddha statue. Can never have too many!

Constructionmania (back in Hanoi)

Back in Hanoi and Tay Ho, our neighborhood, I am really surprised about the construction mania that keeps going on with a frenzy I have never seen in my life. On every street, houses in perfect conditions are being torn down over night, only to immediately be replaced by new, bigger and taller ones. Rather than lower the rent this is what happens to houses that aren't being rented in a month or two, in an area where land is as expensive as in Tokyo and the credit crunch something that happened far away in the West.

But - who needs five floors in stead of four, four in stead of three, yet another bathroom and even more fancy (ugly) tiles in the kitchen?

And it is still sooooooo hot...

Pippi & Putte in the blueberry forest

When I had double checked the tickets and realized we actually had one more day - were not supposed to leave on the 29th as I had thought all summer long, but on the 30th - we went to the forest, picked loads of blueberries and hallonberries, ate almost all immediately, brought back very few to mormor and morfar.

Big bad wolf?

And some pictures from other nice moments this long - if not endless - summer.

Wheels&wings pizza picnic with Nakamura family.

Visiting Vilmer & Alma in Göteborg.

Tvååker girls monthly meeting in Vicke's greenhouse.

Amanda & Hjalmar visiting - the wildest lego playdate ever...

Bye-bye morfar & mormor! See you next year! (Landvetter airport)