This and that

Hello readers, so good of you to check in.

This past week has been relatively uneventful.  The first couple days of the week we spent just going to class and learning more about teaching. I will note that almost all of us felt strangely at home coming back from the serenity of Ha Long Bay to the chaos and insanity of Hanoi. I think all of us missed the traffic on a subliminal level.

So I took a whole bunch of pictures last week of daily life around Hanoi. These are not of anything touristy, but hopefully these should give you some idea of what life is like around here.

This is the way we eat pretty much everything. Freshly cooked, on tiny plastic chairs and tables.

The woman making the soup was literally five feet away from us

Combination bottle opener and lighter found at one of the street food stalls

More street food

Wandering the streets

Surrounded by motorbikes

A massive spice store

More street food!

A beautiful and serene pagoda, just out of frame is the usual chaotic melange of shops and traffic

Almost every store has a birdcage hanging for luck. Some have more than others.

Wandering the streets

Bia Hoi, or fresh beer that is brewed daily without preservatives, cheap and refreshing

The streets as the sun goes down

On Wednesday we got the day off, so we decided to go exploring. We went to both the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Temple of Literature. 

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum contains the mummified body of Ho Chi Minh as well as a complex dedicated to Ho's life. Whether you agree with Ho Chi Minh's political views or not, the Mausoleum is well worth a visit, if only to see the reverence in which the Vietnamese government holds Ho Chi Minh. 

The Presidential Palace

The Mausoleum. Cameras are not allowed inside.

Part of the exhibition is Ho Chi Minh's old garage and cars

Ho Chi Minh's Peugeot 

The dining room where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from 1954-1958

The famous stilt house, built in a style similar to rural farmhouses. He lived here from 1958 until his death in 1969

The office in the stilt house

The bedroom in the stilt house. The most powerful and influential man in Vietnam, and he spent his last days living by choice in a house with only two rooms.

The fish in the lake at the compound. When I came here when I was ten I remember feeding the fish. Now, guards won't let you.

Another shot of the Mausoleum

The One-pillar pagoda

Then we went to see the Temple of Literature. The Temple of Literature was a Confucian temple built in 1070 by Ly Nhan Tong. The Ly dynasty only established independence from the Chinese in 1006, so the Temple of Literature was one of the earliest independent Vietnamese projects. The Imperial Academy was founded at the Temple of Literature in 1076 and the center of Vietnamese bureacratic exams would remain at the temple until 1779 when the Imperial Academy was relocated to the new capital city of Hue. The temple was rebuilt by the Tran dynasty in 1442, and after suffering damage in the French and American wars the temple has been entirely restored.

Its a beautiful complex, with five different courtyards of gardens and pagodas. 

The entrance

First gateway

Gateway to the third courtyard

Every graduate of the Imperial Academy had his name inscribed on one of these tortoise stelae

82 total stelae line the third courtyard. And all I got for graduation was a diploma...

Standing next to a Chinese depiction of a phoenix. Gotta rep UChicago everywhere!

The roofs are begging for some Crouching Tiger rooftop-running

The drum they beat at every graduation ceremony at the Academy

I wish my school looked like this...

After seeing the Temple of Literature we were all pretty tired and we stumbled home. TOmorrow is going to be an exciting day, we get to teach in front of real Vietnamese students! 

We will be teaching at the American Center in Hanoi, I will be teaching a one hour class with Koua and Amanda. I've got my part of the lesson all planned out, but I'm still pretty nervous. Will keep you posted on how it goes!

Peace,

Jefferson

Just chilling over a few coconuts