MY MEMIOR OF HANOI

My annual overseas trip with Jo turned out to be more memorable than I had earlier anticipated.

Though the days to the actual trip went without any pre excitments attacks for me, the actual trip was indeed far more exciting. An real eye opener for how 'alive' these people are and how the country is changing at breakneck speed. 

This is a country I won't mind coming back to visit  again in the near future.

STREETS OF HANOI

If there’s anywhere that lives life on the street, it’s Hanoi.

People around the city seem to just inch everything closer and closer to the side of the street.  Through business, food, and social life. Overall Vietnam  presents a much more acute definition of what it means to live on the street.

Truck drivers mumble with anger because of the congestion. Motor-bicyclers rush in the streets from every direction, making you feel like thousands of arrows are aiming at you, flying from their bows .I was told to just walk slowly and not wait for them to pass . It was their 'job' to avoid pedestrian.

I don't  know if it's compulsary to wear helmets but  almost everyone  have one . Not the big and heavy motorbike helmets but the kind of helmets that professional bicyclers usually wear.
Pillon riders were not restricted to one so even five people riding  one motor bike was a normal sight.
Riders lined in four or five rows..... every attempt they make to chat with each other fails completely as their merry voices fade under the roar of the vehicles in the street.


I saw women balancing shoulder poles skilfully like the artists working in the circus .

Everywhere people are buying, selling, hawking goods and offering services.

Six million people live in this former colonial metropolis; add hundreds of thousands more who jammed Hanoi as tourists. But no, it does not make Hanoi sound chaotic--a little exotic, perhaps, but very inviting, as well.

Many new buildings have been taking the place of some old blocks of houses built twenty years ago, yet many features of Hanoi remain true and modest. Still very 'Vietnamese'

Looking at it from a foreigner's eye....sidewalk vendors, people squating on  plastic stools a foot or so from the busy traffic, savoring the food , drinking green tea while exchanging gossips and watching the crush of 'lives' that goes by is their way of living here.

Throughout the day, these people seems to be enjoying their lives by doing just that.

Notable food-
The French influence is still found throughout Hanoi in a variety of places and theme but none so ovious than the ladies selling baguettes and pâté . It may not live up to the expectations of the bread loving French but you don’t have to pay much for a taste of home.
Everyone loves them and  vendors selling them were not only restricted to the sidewalk but also to the busy highways heading outwards of the city.
The only turn offs as I see it would be the way they were displayed in the open. The dust and dirt of the polluted city air...but then again nobody seems to mind .
We had ours at the hotel....but  'sigh'...who knows where they were bought from.



The one dish that defines the culinary culture of this remarkable city, I was told that it would have to be the flat noodle soup phở. This simple dish of noodles and either beef or chicken is forever popular with locals and foreigners alike and can be found throughout the city.

I tasted mine at the famed (??? I was told but really, I haven't heard of it) outlet named 24.

A small price of around 30,000 VND per small bowl .

Personally, they don't really taste any different from any other beef kue tiaw soup that we have here. Probably just the way they served it..i.e. with an additional plate of  fresh 'ulam' you can choose from to add into the soup.

Vietnam is one of the world’s top coffee exporters, and it’s known for the bitter, super-strong coffee, lightened with condensed milk.

Very aromatic but really really thick,bitter and sweet taste.

 A cup would actually mean half a cup when it is served to you.   I for one don't have a liking for strong coffee ( Im more into nescafe). I will always end up adding water to fill the cup before being able to drink it.

You may also see ads for ca phe chon, the coffee famously brewed from beans that have been digested — in one end, then out the other — by weasel-like animals known as civets. Real civet coffee is extremely expensive. Ones that we tried cost only around 15000 - 20000VND per cup.

Same road.....Long long time ago

Cruising down the old sim-sim road, I can't help but feel a little sadness. I had been passing this route so many time for so many years. So many years passed and it is still here.

I knew few people who had passed here and are not here anymore ... and yet the road is still here.
I too will be 'gone' one day and  I know this road will still be here.

Somehow with what I was feeling...i.e. sadness of getting to the 'end' by the day.... makes my mind wander to my memories of yesteryears.

We passed the school where I attended year one. Ah.. though so much upgrading and new buildings added through the years,  the old building where I studied was still there.

I don't remember the date but the year was 1969... my first day at school. The class was so crowded that they didn't have enough tables nor chairs for every student.

Mum send me to class along with a chair. I shared a table with another student. Those who didn't bring their own chairs were not allowed into class.

Memories of those days are vague but there are some moments that I can still clearly see in my head.

I had memories of being punished for not knowing my time tables and for being 'noisy' in class .

Those days the cane was allowed but I remembered my punishments were more to standing on the chair, pulling my own ears and walking around the class on my knees .

I have memories of one teacher who was very close to me . He had a house just beside the school.
I remembered we even exchanged photographs  for rememberance purpose before the family moved to Beluran a year later.
Years later ,I heard he got married but was still living and teaching there.

My regrets will always be the fact that I didn't  pay him any visit all the times when we moved back to Sandakan three years later.  He lived a very short life as I was told he passed away around that same time.
Looking back at mum's old album, I still have that photograph .

Wow...those are memories back to when I was just six. That would be forty-two years ago.

Crap....I can't help but feel so 'old' now.

REASONING

Just as you feel bad when people judge you, you should also learn how to put your beliefs aside when judging people and not making any conclusions before you gather enough information.

"Only you can judge you" A fact that tells us that we are only allows to judge ourself.

The human mind was designed to fill gaps. People assume the intentions of others when they lack information and this leads to incorrect judgment most of the time .
People's judgement does affect me in a way ...initially ...BUT that's just the initial feeling.
I  have always comforted myself  knowing  that most of these judgements are based on nothing but wild guesses of envious people.
And most of those times...I am right.

I don't 'butt' into unwanted 'territories'....
I have nothing to do with your life even if your 'off track' story says otherwise, so why are you so interested in mine?
What do you really get out of this?
I have been letting your disparages get by for months now but I strongly now believe that retaliation is what you really want from me.

I  live the kind of life that allows me to sleep easily at night, knowing I have lived another day to its fullest without hurting nor distroying my fellowmen.
I wonder if you are able to do that since it pretty clear that hurting and distroying are the only things you're capable of doing.

MOTIVES

What is the motive behind trying to make another person feel jealous and perhaps even inadequate?

It’s not always easy to know someone’s ethical and moral conduct, until we ascertain the motive behind the actions. Every person  has a motive for doing something, or acting in a certain way .

 

People who are nice to you in front of others, but behind your back really hates you?. 

Looking good in front of people; even  perceived as your true friend when everyone’s lookin?

I knew 'friends' like you....`

They are in actual, suffering from low self-esteem and bad moral habits.

It's pathetic to think that someone would do something so 'low' just to make herself feel better.
.

A FRIEND'S PASSING

Just as we were settling down at the airport awaiting for our next flight, I looked at my phone.
Four unread messeges. None but one made my heart missed a beat.
It was from a long time friend in Melaka relating the passing of another friend...Ravi.
He had a heart attack. Surprisingly for we had known him to be very 'fit'. He was afterall Melaka's state hockey coach and had just been transferred to Sabah prior to his passing.
A lot of questions built up on my mind  as to the hows and whys...but somehow all  won't matter now.

My eyes well up and my throat gets a little lump that is hard to swallow. It dawns on me that he was no longer with us. The idea that there can't be any new memories formed with someone who's 'gone' forever sadden me.
I don't quite know how to react to his passing, but am most thankful that I had the opportunity to be friends with such a good man eventhough for just a short time.
They were very meaningful times which might not  be measured up against any scale of importance to others, but to Jo and me , they were quality times. Moments that we would always remember.
Human, all too human, he was and Indeed we loved him as a friend and respected him as an intelligent human being.

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
- Hilary Cooper

I hope that his soul finds peace. I wish and pray his love ones find peace and comfort in the knowledge that he had touched many lives ...mine and Jo's included.

.

WOW!

Oh wow.... my holidays hardly over and someone has been 'blogging' about it.

'There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it hardly becomes any of us
To talk about the rest of us.
~Edward Wallis Hoch

THREE OUT OF THREE

Woooooo..... three out of three.
I have forgotten that two would be going home this week because of Casey's save last week.
Doesn't make much different anyway as I got them 'picked' out all the same.

Tonight saw Naima and Thia leave.
It's sad when one by one of them get sent home but this is just how the 'game' goes... and they knew the risk of their dreams being shattered each week.

It'll get tougher to predict as the journey gets nearer and nearer to the end.
However,  next on the list to go should be Paul, Haley, Stefano, Jacob, Casey.....not in any particular order yet.
Wherelse still on the safest list would be Lauren,Scotty, Pia and James.
Yeah..they are actually my  picks for the final four.

Scotty and Lauren perform an amazing version of “I Told You So.” One of my favourite country song. Imagine my two favourite voices doing a duet... awsome.
They were as good as  Randy Travis and  Carrie Underwood's live performances on idol.

Lauren’s performance tonight was another A+  and Scotty was sweet and nice.... as always he melts my heart.

All praises for the AI boy band  of Casey,James, Paul and Stefano too. I thought they performed very well .They even look like a real band.

Steven  thought they were good too. Good enough to be going on tour with Aerosmith  on their up coming tour.