New Blog

OK...

So Apparently blogspot is regularly blocked in Vietnam, and is thus not accessible unless you are always using a proxy of some sort.

Since I have been routing  most (that is all) of my traffic through the TOR network I haven't noticed until it was pointed out to me by another Indevour That by blog is - in fact inaccessible to most people here.

SO Since I am going to be solution orientated, I am going to move my blog to a tumblr account - which has apparently better accessibility (it also will auto post to facebook - so that's handy).


What does this mean for you, dear readers?

Well.. Since blogspot and Tumblr seem to be incompatable with each other - and I am to lazy to keep two blogs - I will be moving back to tumblr.

This means you need to update your book marks: http://julianstravelblog.tumblr.com/

Good Bye blogspot. I will miss you.

Awesome Weekend of Awesome

Last Thursday Melody sent me an email asking if I wanted to go to Ha long By, and stay for an evening on Cat ba Island. She mentioned that we would have a stop at the "amazing cave". Of course i said yes.

The weekend started Friday night when we went out of Tacos and Sangria at the really nice and accommodating place in the old quarter. We got there at around 7:30 and stayed until just past midnight, drinking Sangria and Beer...  Both of which we may have really gone to town on. The food and the company were both awesome and I will defiantly be stopping by again in the future.

On Saturday we gathered to meet the tour bus a bleary eyed but awake. On the way out of the City we picked up on of the volunteers - Thang, who we have met, and who is like our impromto tour guide / translator.. and all around awesome fellow. Of course by now he has relised that our group likes to have a good time, when ever there is a good time to be had - so all he brought with us was fermented rice wine what he picked up at a mountain village.


That is all he brought. No change of clothing... No nothing.. Just a big Jug of booze. Yes... It was going to be one of those kind of weekends.

Here he is at the dock in Ha long. You can tell he is ready for a party.

We picked up the rest of our group on the outskirts of town and headed off four the four hour ride to dock. The ride was long but bearable and we stopped at a little artisan school where they had some amazing embroidery for sale. Super cool.

Once we got to the dock, we hopped onto this Boat and we where off to see the amazing cave.

Now amazing cave (you should probably Google this for your self) is a giant natural cave. The first one we went into, you could probally fit a couple of houses in. The second... Well.. they turned it into a concert hall. To put it into perspective.. Have you seen the second matrix movie? Do you remember when all of Zion gathers to have the last big party before they go off to fight the robots? That big cave... is basically where i was.

I managed to get alot of good pictures, but they all kind of look wonky because of the weird lighting conditions they had in the cave. There was alot of multi colored florescent lighting going on that made it really hard to get the exposure settings right. Alot of the pictures turned out really cool - but they don't really give the massive feel that the place had. Seriously - These are all raw photos - with out any editing or really any playing with the settings on my camera - other then trying different levels of ISO and flash.

 After we finished with the cave, we headed back onto the boat for some more touring around. Around Three we stopped and tied the boat off to a rock and went swimming. This was pretty awesome since we where jumping off the boat into probably 20 degreeish salt water. It was.. extremely awesome.  As the sun was setting we continued on our way to Cat ba island. I managed to get a couple of amazing shots of the sun setting over the islands. Again there is no post production going on with any of these photos

Once we got to the Dock at catba, we met up with a taxi bus, and they took us up and around the mountains and along the coast to the city where we where staying. Of course, us still full of awesome from the day where ready to party it up a little along the way. The Drivers obliged us, and played some kick ass dance music all the way. I managed to grab this video of the scenery of the drive. The music you hear in the back ground is what they played when ever they took us out and around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNkKOO-BIOk
We got to the hotel and settled in. But as soon as the bus stopped i booked it down to the wharf to grab some shots of the incredable sunset.

and then it was time for dinner. Dinner was uneventful, other then the fact that these two street massage guys showed up and wondered if anyone would be interested. There where a few takers from our group and it was apparently extremely nice. 

Our guide asked us what we wanted to do for the rest of the evening, and we came back with.. "well what is there to do". He offered us a choice of bar hopping or squid fishing. Really... this isn't even a choice when you get right down it... I mean how often can you go squid fishing in Ha long bay... and off we go

We meet up with the Fisherman, and the load us up onto their boats and we head off into the bay. In order to squid fish, it has to be evening, and you have to be away from the lights.  It just so happens that that there was no moon that evening so it was perfect squid fishing time So we headed off a ways into the sea to catch us some squid.


About half way out Lindsey turns to me and Asks... "Are we seriously going squid fishing in ha long bay, in the middle of the night? " in a way that isn't really asking - why are we doing this, since she knows that it is awesome.. but she is really saying OMG this is a surreal experience how did we manage to be here at this point in time surrounded by this much awesome?

And yes. It really was awesome.

Once we got ourselves situated in what was apparently a good squid fishing place, we set up shop and started fishing. Thang, our buddy - of course brought his rice wine jug... and we started drinking while we where out there. He was extremely happy because as he said "this wine comes from the mountains. We are on the sea drinking it. We are at the place where the Ocean meets the sea." Awesome.

here are some snaps of us fishing and drinking the mountain wine.

The next day we headed out to the Old Cannon fort that was used by the Japanese during world war 2, and then later the Vietnamese.  This point basically over looked the whole bay area where we where staying - so i grabbed some more shots of the vista's before we headed back down to the beach.

I recorded this video while we where at the beach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAq5Z7RjuNk

We headed back to Ha noi later that afternoon on a sea taxi. It was kinda cramped and loud, but i popped in the ear buds and cranked the Trans Siberians Orchestra album:   Beethoven's last night, and enjoyed the sea spray.

That peaty much warped up the weekend.

Now you may have noiced that alot of my pictures don't have any people in them... Well that is because I am not particularly good at taking pictures of people.

But Lindsay Wolfson is, and she got alot of good ones: check out her blog here for some pics with people.

http://lindsaywolfson.tumblr.com/

First work week

I started my job this week on Monday. It turns out that office, hence forth referred to as SPIN , is a 5 minute walk  from my residence. This is extremely good since, my house is kinda dodgy.

By dodgy I mean it is ok – but it doesn't have a kitchen, and uses Wireless internet, with a bad router.

Whatever, at least is a ton of places around to eat and drink, and there is direct bus route to downtown.

Anyways.

The SPIN office is designed as a Green office. It uses a lot of wind power to keep the place cool. This is extremely important, since in Vietnam is extremely hot and humid.  It turns out that their design saves a bunch of money, since they don’t need to turn on the air conditioners often.

Most of the people here are young and speak some level of English – mostly very good. This makes working with them a whole lot easier, since I am not dependent on a phrase book.

I spent most of the week working on an action plan, which will consist of an itemized list of what I will be doing while I am here. It is still incomplete – but once it is I will post if for all of you to see.  I also spent a lot of the week reading their research, and progress of their various projects.  Over all it was a productive week, and a lot of fun at the office.

Other then office work, I have taken up playing badminton. As one of two hell ass popular sports here (the other being football – soccer) it seemed the one I was best suited for. Since I hadn’t played since high school – I got my ass handed to me a lot by the ninja quick Vietnamese I was playing against. Perhaps I will get better as time goes on.

Other then badminton, I spend most of the week just walking around the area and seeing whats what. There is a lot to see and I will be possibly uploading photos to my facebok account later on.

This weekend, the plan is to travel to Cat Ba island out in Ha Long bay. We are taking some kinda tour so it should be pretty good. Again expect photos to follow upon my return. 

What else what else…. Uhh Nothing really else.. It was kind of a routinely boring work week… I mean other then the fact that it was taking place in Vietnam.Of course I have been practicing my Viet, and can now confidently (and with less luck) order food and not look like a tool.

A night on the town.

Oook So I haven’t blogged in awhile.. but that is because I have been so busy. 

Most importantly, today I met with the people where I will be working – and it is super awesome so far. Nearly everyone there has some English language, and they are doing some interesting work. Hopefully I can contribute as much as I can to this wonderful opportunity. 

I also saw where I might be living. While it doesn’t have a kitchen, since it is a residence for forign students there  ought to be some English speakers around. The room itself is nice – and it is close to work. I don’t like the lack of a kitchen, so I may try to look around a bit to see if I can find something with a kitchen.

Last Tuesday, we went on an excision to the old city to a local hang out that was supposed to have really good live music. So we all piled into cabs and drove down to find this place.

Now, since Hanoi is full of wibbly streets, what initially appears to be solid buildings, are often honey combed with little court yards full of nice shops and markets. It just so happens this resurant/hippie cinema place is in one such location. So we start walking down this kinda sketchy looking ally looking for this place… and I am thinking to myslf – ‘ for sure we are going to get jacked’.. but all of a sudden the ally opens up into this really nice little covered court yard full of happy looking people. 

So we settle down for some dinner waiting for the show to start. While the food wasn’t the greatest I have had here.. there made a decent attempt at a hummos.  But man once the music started I was blown away. I am not really sure how to describe it –since I havnt herd good cover music from an independent singer in awhile.   Regardless – she was awesome and the night was a success.. and no one got  jacked.

The best thing is that, since she plays there every Tuesday – it could become a regular way of meeting up with everyone for a nice little night out during the week.

Getting lost in han oi

Getting lost in Vietnam is apparently an easy thing to do even if you know where you are going. Since this section of the city has no real pattern to it, it is a maze of highways, secondary streets,  side streets and  alleys that are often not labeled, or the labels are few and far between. 

We got lost on the way to the WUSC office, which is about a ten or so minute walk from out hotel.  We ended up missing a turn and ended up a wee bit past where we should have been.  Overall it wasn’t to frustrating of an experience, since we had a pretty good idea as to where we had to go, and how to get there… It was just irritating since none of the streets had names, and most of the secondary or tertiary streets are not on the map. Asking for directions is also difficult, since there is a bit of a language barrier – despite having a fairly decent translation book. We did eventually make it to the WUSC office, but we where a bit late, and because of the constant rain yesterday – extremely wet. 

On the Brightside, getting lost and finding your way is one of the better ways of learning about new places, since it forces you to look and remember landmarks.  You also get  to see more of the city, then you would get just walking around your immediate area. 

Overall, this time getting lost wasn’t that bad of an experience.

After the Meeting, our larger group broke off and went for a bit of a wander around – shopping mostly. I feel that I am going to have a hard time finding readymade clothing that will fit me here, since the majority of the population is a foot to a foot and half shorter than me… and much much thinner.

I don’t think I will ever find shoes for me here.

I am still looking for a tailor – but no joy yet.

I was, somewhat successful though – and found some shorts and two shirts that fit fairly well. 

On the bright side, this city seems to be full of cheap originals – and apparently really nice, well made knock offs.  The girls seem to be interested in these things – but it really isn’t my cup of tea. I do find it interesting though, that the girls seem to get excited for a really well made knock off…

I keep meaning to upload pictures, but it just doesn’t seem to happen…. Mostly because the internet here is kinda dodgy. But rest assured once I get around to it… there will be plenty of pictures.

Bus mobbing

When we woke up this morning we decided to go for a coffee… and the coffee here is unbelievable good. The use some kind of condescend milk.,, and it is just so awesome – I cant even accurately describe it.  All I can say is, it will be hard to go back to Timmies.  Or starbucks. Or really… any kinda Canadian coffee.

We met up with some SWB volunteers for another jaunt through the City. Today we went to the Vietnamese Ethno cultural museum for a few hours. The museum showcased all of the major traditional viet cultures and show cased all 0f their differences and similarities. 

One of the cooler things we saw was the history of the Water puppets, and we even saw a water puppet show, which was an interesting experience. A water puppet is a wood sculpture that is hand carved out of fig wood, and painted bright colours. The puppet floats on the water and is controlled by the puppeteers with long wooden polls. The Museum also had some traditional looking housing that is built on stilts, with woven read floors. They are surprisingly cool to be in, but climbing up and down them is a bit of perilous experience.  After a delicious meal at the Museum we headed back to the hotel for some rest and dinner.

We ended up buying some fruit from a street vender. We picked up some lychlee, dragon fruit (tastes like kiwi) and some mangos. They were all excellent. 

Around 6ish, we headed to the Old quarter for some touring around. We walked around This big lake and saw a lot of posh looking shops. We stopped for some Ice cream, and wandered down the book selling street.  We also headed into the Market area, which was so packed full of people, that it seemed to me that moving would be impossible. But, like the traffic, everyone seems to know what’s going on, and where to go. Apparently the market was so busy because the market is only held once a week, and  coming soon is the moon festival.. So this combo seemed to kick everything into hyper drive. 

Since we have been touring around, we have been using the public transport system. It is interesting, in that that buses seem to run on a schedule, that is not set… but they still come fairly regularly. At the bus stop, the bus dosnt really stop to let people on or off… but just kinda slows down as people hope on and off.  It is about 15 cents to ride the bus- but they give change which Is awesome.  

Another odd thing is that no one seems to line up. They Mob. It is all very polite and all… but the queue does not seem to exist here is any sort of way.