In Laos

Last Sunday I took off for three weeks in Laos, two of work and one of pure vacation with my family who will join next Sunday. This first week I have spent way out in the countryside in the montaneous northern province of Phongsaly, and next week I will be in the just as remote northwestern province of Bokeo. A lot of hiking to small villages, fresh air and interesting food. When I'm back in Hanoi again early December I will post some more photos. The place is completely amazing.

Hiking through the bush to meet with the village goat farmer.
Dupkajok village, Khua district, Phongsaly province, Lao PDR.

Karate Ishin

Every Sunday Kai practices Karate with a bunch of Japanese kids. Yesterday they performed in front of 3000 people on the big stage at the annual Japanese Autumn Festival at the Japanese School.

Getting ready with some cotton sugar.

Quite an audience.

Warming up, getting organized.

The show. Well done!

Trick or treat?

Halloween again, and tonight we went "trick or treat"-ing down the little alleys of To Ngoc Van, all packed with scary monsters and little princesses. Almost all our friends were there, and loads of people had opened their houses for a visit, some so scary even brave Hana refused to go inside. Lots of fun and lots of treats.

Best costume: Hosea. Daddy Ben, baby brother Tobias and unknown girl admiring the outfit.

My little artist

Focus is to 99.99% on princesses, adding an odd flower or a cat, but still. You can see how incredibly talented she is, cant you! ;-)

Princesses, princesses. Princesses everywhere.
And, in the left corner, me with a cat*.
(Kai added some explanatory notes)

This one looks more like a scary underground manga character. But it is a princess.

* About the cat:
"Mum, its Teto" (the little kitten that moved into our terrace last Tet)
"Ok"
"But he moved. To another family" (he now lives in Ciputra)
"Yes"
"But he is still OUR cat!"

Lazy weekend

This weekend we're not leaving town, but enjoying very typical activities. Saturday soccer, Sunday karate, a playdate, a birthday party, breakfast and lunch in the garden, just hanging out at home. Autumn is here and weather is lovely.

Hanoi in slow motion

As I havent really seen much of Hanoi lately, this clip gave me a reminder of how aestetic it actually can be. Especially in slow motion. And with background music instead of background motorbike noise.

Hanoi - Vietnam (Slow Motion)

Home sweet home II

Finally I am back. After a really hectic week passing Beijing, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City I will now stay in Hanoi for three whole weeks! Yepeeee!

My schedule was so tight, I hardly took a picutre. This one, inside Peking University's enormous campus.

I came back Friday evening and jumped straight into the weekend activities. Saturday soccer and excursion with a bunch of new friends to a river not-so-far away and Sunday a big UN picnic. Lovely to be home.
Jungle boy.

By the river with newly found Thai-German friend Maxie.

Hana and her Venezuelan-Japanese friend Lucia, chasing princesses.

Getting caught by the Venezuelan traffic police.

UN picnic with Unicef friends.

Greening the One UN. What Keisuke has been working with lately.

Home sweet home

After a ten days tour to Europe it was nice to get back to an all sunny and autumn fresh Hanoi again, if only for a few days.
I went to Antwerp

and Lund

and Borås.

On the train, on my way somewhere.
And I actually had time to squeeze in a weekend in Varberg and Göteborg. And it didn't rain all the time.
But it was nice to be back home again.

Birthday boy!

My baby has turned six. And I can't believe six years have passed since that day, that sometimes feel like yesterday, sometimes like from another life. In either case, time really flies, on Saturday there will be a party and on Sunday I will be off again for yet another job trip.

Morning celebrations at home

Then mummy showed up in school with cake and ice cream. Totally popular.

Six candles!

Sri Lanka

Last week I went to Sri Lanka for a few days of work. The place was beautiful, the air really similar to Dominica and I got to travel around the North and East with a bunch of Tamil men, to places you thought you'd never see. Would love to come back as a tourist, see a little more of the beaches and the mountains in the south though... and spend less time in the car on bumpy village roads.

Views from my back seat window:


A little bit of work:


And some more:

I'll be back!

Blossoms 2 visit

In school Hana's class is busy with a house project. They have constructed giant cardboard box houses in the class room and also decided they wanted go visit someone's houes. Today they all came here, but seemed more interested in playing than counting windows or checking if we had frogs in the garden and all other kind of things they had decided they wanted to check. Then they had snack and went back to school.

Exploring third floor guest room...

... and Hana's bed room.

A brief rest in the "cave" (this room has no windows).

Taking over the kids play room.

And having snack.

Thank you all for coming!

Rainy days

This week started off with loads of rain, even the traditional Moon Festival Dragon Dance had to be cancelled yesterday - I didn't even have any moon cake this year. And going to school is an adventure, very muddy (dirty) puddles everywhere.

The little alley leading to the new school's entrance.

Tam Dao

This weekend we escaped to Tam Dao Hillstation, about an hour and a half from Hanoi. We decided to do it the local way and took the bus up on Au Co, and then stayed at a "Nhà Nghỉ", a local guest house, at the very end and top of the village. Nothing wrong with the view and close to the National Park entrance.

Waiting for the bus. On busy Au Co street, two minutes walk from our house.

Going up, up, up...

View from the terrace at our guest house. Looking down at Tam Dao village and the Red River delta.

Exploring the surroundings.

Breakfast - cháo and phở; rice porrage and noodle soup, down by the market. Very yummy on a chilly morning in the mountains.

Then - a walk into the national park, of course.