Old Quarter and Turtle Lake

The oldest part of Hanoi, the aptly named "old quarter," grows out from the southern banks of turtle lake. Legend goes that, in the 15th century, the first Vietnamese emperor went to fight the Chinese occupiers and a turtle rose out of the lake bearing a sword which he then used to defeat the Chinese. Now, in the middle of the lake there is a temple dedicated to turtles and a tiny island only for turtles. It is supposed to be very good luck and quite a commotion if a turtle is ever sighted. The water is so murky and stagnant they should celebrate seeing any living creature in the water.

The pagoda island for the turtles on the left and  the temple island  is hidden by all the trees on the right.

The island solely for turtles.

The entrance to the temple for turtles on an island in the middle of the lake.

Depicting the turtle bearing a sword.

 The narrow streets of old quarter are lined with shops and congested with traffic. Shops of each street focus on a particular type of product to sell and those streets are creatively named after the things you buy there; i.e.: musical instrument street, lock street, metal street, luggage street, etc.
There are three ways to get around old quarter: walking, which I have already covered, on a scooter, and on a cyclo which is sort of like a backwards tricycle with a covered bench build into the front. The cyclo drivers target tourists offering a nice ride and promising to know the best and cheapest locations to buy anything. We employed three drivers for a day and it was a great experience, they take you anywhere and everywhere, pampering you as you go.

After a full day of driving us around the city, our driver, Ving, stopped abruptly and pulled me out and told me to drive my dad down the street. I got quite a few stares, cat calls and whistles from the people of Hanoi who are not used to seeing a round eye on the back end of the bike.

Our full delegation.

We stopped and had a beer with our drivers: Han 45, Ky 72, and Ving 34. All three of them  are from the same tiny village north of Hanoi and rent one room in the city together. They work for three or four months and then go home for a week to visit their wives and family who all work in rice fields.

(I shot video of riding through old quarter on the cyclo, but due to technical difficulties I will have to upload it some other time. Check back later, it's very exciting!)
Lastly, you can get around on a scooter, though I would only recommend riding with someone you know. There are scooter taxis, but I have been told that there is usually a pick pocket scam attached to that service. Being an intrepid traveler, I have a friend in Hanoi, Hang, who showed me her city by scooter. I have to admit that I was pretty scared walking up to her bike. I waited a few seconds for her to hand me a helmet, but one was never offered. My fear intensified, I climbed onto the back of her scooter, wrapped my arms tight around her stomach and held on for dear life. Suddenly aware of my own mortality, I asked Hang if she has ever been in any accidents. "Yes, a few," she replied. That made me feel safe....

Hang is a very good driver and didn't do anything crazy. Within a few minutes I had relaxed my vice grip on her stomach and eventually held her hips loosely. Eventually I felt comfortable enough to hold my camera up in the air to record a video as we drove and after a stop at a baking supply shop on metal street, I had to hold all my bags and nothing else.
(Again, check back later for the video of riding on a scooter.)

Evidence of War

Traveling through Vietnam with three Vietnam vets, I could not escape vestiges of the war if I wanted to. The whole purpose of our trip is to do some work in conjunction with Libraries of Vietnam Project, which is a group a friend of my father's started a decade ago. They build libraries in rural villages near the local school. My father says that he is still fighting the war, but with education instead of violence.
In Hanoi, the capital, which was heavily bombed and then reconstructed, is currently being taken over by modern progress. However, there are a few monuments to remind everyone of Vietnam's triumph over the "imperialist U.S," including a huge war museum which to our misfortune is not open on Mondays and that is when we had planned to visit. However, I think we managed to see the rest of them.
This is Ho Chi Minh's mosoleum. Like all other communist leaders, he is frozen and well preserved. I took these pictures on a sunset tour of Hanoi on the back of a scooter.

This is the monument dedicated to the crash landing of Senator John McCain in a lake in the middle of the city.

The central prison build by the French in the early 20th century to torture and kill Vietnamese and then used by the Vietnamese to do the same to Americans including John McCain.

A propaganda picture of US POWs having Christmas dinner.

This sheet of paper asks for help and safety in five languages.

This is a picture of John McCain being pulled out of the river .

John McCain returned to the prison where he was tortured in 2000.

And a tiny monument deep in side an urban neighborhood that you'd have to know about to find: wreckage of a B52 bomber

How to Cross the Street

Everytime I visit a country where traffic laws are sparse or loosely regulated, I say that it is the worst, most unorganized traffic I have ever seen. Hanoi is no different. Unlike Mexico where traffic just flows, or even in China where cars mostly go however they please, the traffic in Vietnam moves and scatters like ants whose anthill has just been destroyed (if they had horns). About 90% of the traffic are scooters, and they drive in which ever direction they want to: with traffic, against traffic, sideways through traffic, it really doesn't matter. However, this makes every street one big clusterf**k.


If driving through the streets seems like madness, then walking through and across them is pure lunacy; but it is nessicary. The sidewalks are cluttered with parked scooters and people sitting around drinking tea with friends. You must learn how to walk through all that madness. It requires a willful suspension of every safety lesson your mother ever taught you. If you wait for a clearing of traffic and then look both ways, your window will be closed.

Like plunging into a torrent river to get to the other side, you must boldly step out onto the street and without stopping, walk in a measured pace across the street. Scooters, cars and bikes will move around you. They slow down or speed up and weave through eachother to avoid hitting you. They have more to loose by hurting you, than you have to loose from being hit. If there is an accident where someone is hurt, their scooters are impounded for 3 months and if they kill someone, they have to pay the victim's income for the rest of thier lives. They won't hit you. To avoid this, they lay on thier horns to let everyone know where they are; the problem becomes that the whole city is a live symphony of honks, horns and beeps that meld together.

Your only job is to keep moving, do not stop unless there is a scooter directly in front of you. Also, do not run or rush, give the drivers enough time to figure out the best way to avoid you. The first time I stepped into traffic, it was surreal. It went against every instinct in my body and like a normal person I was watching oncoming traffic and half way through, froze like deer in headlights. We all know what happens to the deer... Fortunately, the drivers swerved around me, cutting off and almost running into everyone on either side of them and nearly caused a wreck. I found it nearly impossible to overcome the instinct to stop when I saw 10 scooters zooming right at me. My trick to avoid this, which adds a whole new level of excitement, danger and naughtiness, became to simply not look. I kept my eyes resolutely fixed on my destination across the street and ignored the horns I knew where directed at me. Sure, I squealed when a motor bike whizzed by so close it ruffled my shorts, but I lived to cross another street and the scooter driver got to their destination

If I Can't Travel Like A Muppet, I'll Travel Like A Korean

The day before I left, Thanksgiving, I was packed, anxious to leave and already dreading the long journey ahead. To distract me for a few hours, I went to see the new Muppet movie with my mom. The Muppets have always captured my imagination and there are many Muppet abilities that I wish I possesed, like: being able to crumple my face into those hilarious expressions and break into song.
One Muppet ability that is highlighted in the movie and I was particularly jealous of, is the ability to travel by map. You know, when in a movie, the character goes on a long trip and that trip is portrayed by a line moving rapidly across a map. It is much faster and cheaper than any conventional means of transportation.
At the end of the movie, I would have given anything to be able to travel by map! But I cannot and my plane tickets were already paid for.

My conventional, long, tiring journey began the next morning at 6:00am at the Kansas City International Airport and didn't end until 11:30pm on Saturday in Hanoi, Vietnam. First, My father, his BFF, Mike and I flew to Chicago to meet up with our final travel companion, Sam and catch our 13 hour flight to Soeul, South Korea. We had a few hours lay over in Soeul, then took a four hour flight south to Hanoi.

I thought I knew what to expect since I flew from Newark to Beijing on Delta Airlines just last year; however, Korean Air far and away surpassed my expectations about what a flight across the Pacific meant. The service from all of the Korean Air employees is nothing I have ever expirienced from any American Airline. Me and my needs as a passenger came first, anything I needed or wanted was available if I asked. At least I genuinley felt that way. The big, blushing smiles of the young and very attractive flight attendants also made me feel special. In short, I'd fly Korean Air over any American Airline anywhere in the world.

So, after taking two full days to travel alittle more than 20 hours and some drama at Vietnamese customs with my incorrectly stamped visa, we were picked up at the airport and taken to our wonderful hotel in the the heart of Hanoi. It is a brand new, small, boutique hotel with very comfortable amenitites and is surrounded by markets!
The next morning, we ate big bowls of Chicken Pho and set out to explore the captial city of Hanoi.

My Next Great Adventure: Vietnam!

Winter is upon us, so this Thanksgiving I am thankful that I get to escape the cold, yet again. Tomorrow I will be flying to Vietnam with my father to spend three wonderful weeks romping through the Vietnamese country side.
The main stops of our trip are highlighted with red dots on the map above. Check back regularly as I plan to post at the end of each night( internet connection and Vietnamese government permiting*)

A Tale of Oma's Determination and Haferflockenkuchen

Today is my Oma's birthday, she is 92 years young! So to honor her, today's post is another story from my fabled trip acompanying Oma across the land of her youth. It is actually the story of my 22nd birthday and how Oma yet again, inspired and influenced the direction of my life.

 So far, we had celebrated Easter with the Pope at the Vatican and spent a week in Oma's birth city, Meran, Südtirol. There, we stayed in a 300 year old house as guests of Father Eugen, the man who replaced Oma's brother, Father Stefan, who had been the presiding priest there for 60 years.

Oma was giving me a short tour of the cavernous 300 year old house where her brother lived for 60 years with his fellow priests. I then went around and tried to pry my way into every room, sure I was going to find and entrance to Narnia!

On a freezing morning of April the 18th, in the tiny Alpine village of Teisten, Südtirol where my Oma grew up, Oma and I set off on a walk to the tiny city of Welsberg, just down the mountain from Teisten. From there, we walked back up a rather steep hill to reach the 17th century castle and 11th century castle ruins on the opposite hill behind Oma's childhood home. I was deeply concerned for Oma as even though she was bundled up in a heavy coat and wrapped in a scarf, her whole face was blue! I chidded myself for bringing and old woman yet again beyond her limits. However, stubborn and determined not to let the hills of her childhood defeat her, she trudged along and climbed that hill up to the castles! In the month that Oma and I spent in Tiesten, we walked everywhere and even spotted an 97 year old, former class mate of Oma's riding her bike up a hill that I had trouble walking! I'm not lying! The fountain of youth must trickle down from the tippy tops of the Alps.

This Oma and said school friend looking at an old class photo circa 1925. I swear on my life, she was riding her bike around town!

When we reached the 17th century castle, still occupied by the relatives of the Duke that employed my great grand father to rebuild the outer castle walls and gave him the opposite hill as payment, we were saddened to find that the draw bridge to the entrance had collapsed that winter from the wieght of the snow, so the castle was not open for visitors. However, Oma was able to share her own stories from the outside of the castle, carrying stones to the building site and picking mushrooms in the woods to feed the family.

It is difficult to see, but that is not a complete bridge.

The easiest part of the wall to see that my great grandfather rebuilt.

From there, there was a trail leading up to the 11th century castle ruins. Oma was a little tired and I encouraged her to sit on a wooden thrown just off the trail. I promised to run up to the ruins, take a few pictures and return shortly, which I did. Oma however, even at the age of 90 was never one to sit around. When I returned to the wooden thrown, I found it empty! Panicked, I called out for her and she responded by yodeling half way up the hill to the ruins, which I had just run down! So I started running back up the hill, which quickly became a walk and found her much farther than I ever thought she could have climbed. She angrily accosted me for leaving her to rot on that chair! A lesson, I quickly learned was that my Oma would rather die in action before she sat idly by, letitng me have an adventure.

The 11th century castle ruins directly opposite Oma's childhood house.



The 17th century castle from the 11th century castle ruins. 

 We returned to our rooms to rest and warm up before my birthday lunch with Oma's only two remaining spinster sisters: Pia and Miranda. Their friends and care takers Frau Anna and Frau Rose were also joining us for dinner. We had a simple platter of Speck, the specialty cured meat from Südtirol garnished with quail's egg and cherry tomato "toadstools." My great aunt Miranda insisted on baking my birthday cake rather than letting Oma buy one at the bakery, she made a Haferflockenkuchen, which means "oatmeal cake." It is a dense butter cake with oats and topped with powdered sugar and more rolled oats. Oma, who usually makes her very special multi layered Rum cake for our birthdays, brought 22 candles because she was not sure that the Europeans would have them. They did, but Oma was prepared anyway. So, Oma and Miranda set my Haferflockenkuchen, ablaze with 22 lit candles in front of me to blow out. I drew a great big breath to blow out all of the candles, which I did, successfully; however, I also blew all of the powdered sugar and rolled oats off the top of the cake all over the table! Frau Anna laughed hysterically. Somehow, someone should have seen that coming....

Haferflockenkuchen

Frau Anna, Oma, and Frau Rose crossing the street.

Oma's last surviving siblings, Miranda, Oma, and Pia.

So my 22nd birthday was low key. I spent it with Oma, roaming the hills of her youth and eating at the table where she ate many meals growing up. Oma proved that day and all throughout the trip that age is just a number. May we all be so blessed as to be capable of half of Oma's accomplishments at half her age! As for inspiring the direction of my life, my birthday just happened to occur during that trip, however, every year since then, I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel abroad during my birthday. I hope to continue that trend for as long as is reasonably possible.

A Breakfast to Keep Me Warm

As I have expressed before, I absolutley love and thrive in hot weather. This summer was no exception, and as always, it has come and gone too soon. Many of my summer activities were worthy of a blog post and occasionally I even considered writing, but the long, sunny days and warm, fire fly filled nights always kept me away from my computer.
While I was off-line, the blog stayed afloat without me, recieving 1-6 pageviews a day from readers all over the world; there have been three pageviews from Algeria this week alone. Most of them were looking for wedding cakes. The post about the royal wedding cake and traditional wedding cakes from all over the world is by far the most popular post with over 400 total pageviews and coming in [a close] second with 49 total pageviews is the Cinco de Mayo post.

 Last week I sensed a chill in the air and secretly pined for all things autumn. The summer heat, which I enjoy so much must have caught my betrayal, because its gone. It left town overnight, litteraly. I am left wrapped in jackets and sweaters; the old adage "be careful what you wish for" comes to mind. Luckily, the weather in Kansas City is famously fickle. It can be 70 degrees one day and 90 and humid the next. The forecast for the entire week is for mid 70's so I am going to indulge my autumn fantasies and hope we have a few more 90 degree days ahead.
Chief among my cool weather yearnings was a bowl of oatmeal, specifically, the wonderful chewy, vanilla laden steel cut oatmeal at the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe at the Culinary Institute of America where I spent every morning as either a server or breakfaster.
So that is how I began my week of cool weather indulgences: with a hot bowl of steel cut oatmeal.. MMMMM my insides are still warm just thinking about it!

On the right, is a pile of steel cut oats as you buy them in the store. On the left, are the oats for my breakfast which I have toasted; it gives an extra nuttiness to the oatmeal.

Toasted Steel Cut Oatmel with Vanilla Maple Caramelized Apple Cubes and Pecans

While the oatmeal was cooking, I also decided to fry some bacon, potatoes and an egg. A complete breakfast.

A Proper Kansas Education

My second grade year book photo.

The class photo: I'm the second from the right in the front row.

My second grade teacher, Mrs. Young who was undoubtedly the best elementary school teacher ever, put a sweet spin on the curriculum. She taught us fractions using recipes for hard candies and then made them in class. She brought an entire Thanksgiving meal to school so that our class could use the Thanksgiving poetry place mats we made. At Christmas, she baked and assembled a gingerbread house for each student to decorate. (She didn't believe in mini milk cartons smeared with frosting and covered with graham crackers.)

Our Kansas Day celebration was no less sweet. You see, an elementary education in Kansas, at least when I was there, includes a celebration every January 29th of Kansas Day, the day that Kansas became a state of the union. It usually involved decorating a manila tab folder with the top right corner cut off in a way to look like the state of Kansas. Inside the folder, were worksheets filled with fun facts about Kansas: the state bird: western meadow lark, the state insect: the honeybee, the state tree: cottonwood, the state flower: sunflower, and the state reptile: the ornate box turtle. (obviously, the indoctrination worked, because I just spit all those facts out from memory) However, Mrs. Young had the most unique celebration of all five Kansas Days I ever celebrated.

Before I tell you about Mrs. Young's celebration, I should explain some pioneer history for all you non Kansans. Kansas is one of the "Great Plains" states, it is large and flat and at the time covered wagons rolled through, there was only grass as far as the eye could see: no trees. This provided a problem for the people trying to cross the state and especially for the people who settled there. How can you build a fire to cook if there is no wood and how are you going to build a house? The answer to both was right on the ground: houses were built by packing sod around shallow pits in the ground making the houses half under ground; (and you thought green roofs were a modern idea!) fires were fueled with what the french called "buffalo wood" and the English called "buffalo chips." What ever you called it, it was a buffalo turd that had dried out in the sun for a few weeks and it was the children's job to collect enough to keep the fire lit. It might sound gross, but "buffalo chips" burned more efficiently than grass, which produced mostly smoke, and were an abundant fuel source, until they almost killed off all of the bison.

Getting back to Mrs. Young's Kansas Day celebration: she read a great story about Pioneers and then she split the class into groups and sent us all on a Kansas themed scavenger hunt to find... buffalo chips!(no-bake cookies piled on a plate)

Believe it or not, I still enjoy no bake cookies. You might think I was traumatized by having a cookie compared to a dried buffalo turd, but you would be forgetting how awesome it is to an eight year old to joke about eating poop. My unique history with these cookies endeared them to me; I have a private chuckle every time I eat one.