"Vinnie"

My friend Vinnie (or Vincent as he likes to call himself these days) came to visit for a few days. Vinnie and I met in September 2003 in New Brunswick at a pizza place called Skinny Vinnie's. A friend of mine and I went there for an "RU for Howard Dean" meeting and he just happened to be sitting there doing some homework. We asked if he was there for the meeting. He wasn't, but decided to join in anyway. Since then we've been friends. He's been teaching English in Japan for a year and a half. This month he's off for vacation, so he's decided to make a voyage to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and then back to Thailand where he will meet up with another college friend of his. He arrived in Hanoi on Tuesday, dropped his things off at my apartment, and showed up at Language Link nearly scaring the crap out of me in the teacher's room. It was nice to have someone here who has known me for so long, and who can remember every stupid story or conversation that was said back in college. I haven't seen Vinnie for over two years, but it seemed as if we haven't missed a beat.

The plan was to leave Wednesday morning and take a tour bus to Ha Long Bay for a 3 day 2 night trip that included swimming, kayaking, trekking, cycling, and sunbathing. I would say that Ha Long Bay is one of the most touristy sites in Vietnam, so the bay was flooded with many other junkets just like ours filled with tourists. When we arrived on the boat we were served lunch which actually kind of sucked. The other people on our boat were just other transients just passing through Vietnam on holiday and they were not particularly to our liking, so Vinnie and I just stuck to ourselves for the majority of the trip. It was great for the first few hours, until it started to rain. We were able to tour through the beautiful islands that are up for nomination for one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World. We also saw the "Amazing Caves" and swam a bit in the bay. After about 3 or 4 hours it started to rain, and rain, and rain some more. The next morning it was still raining and our tour guide said that we were going to return to Hanoi due to a typhoon. Great. All morning we sat around by the port waiting for our bus to arrive. When it finally did we were taken to a half-rate restaurant for lunch and then we returned to Hanoi. We were asked to change to another bus with a different tour group because there wasn't enough room on the new bus with the group we came with, and we were perfectly happy to do so. We met some really cool Irish girls and a French guy who we chatted with for the 3 1/2 hour trip back to Hanoi. Vinnie and I definitely felt some self-satisfaction to say, "Oh, I live in Hanoi...I've been here for 3 months", or "I live in Japan, I've lived there for about a year and a half." There's just something really cool about that, or maybe we're just expat snobs. When we arrived back in Hanoi we went to the tour office and asked for a refund. I said that we basically only got to do one day's worth of activities. The woman behind the desk said that they do not normally give out refunds for "natural disasters", but she was willing to sympathize with us and return about 25% of what we paid. I don't think that I will be going on any more tours from now on.

I've posted my pictures from our abridged tour here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jpgreenbaum/HaLongBay

Since then it's been raining the whole time in Hanoi. We were able to get in some of the big sites in Hanoi: Hoan Kiem Lake, The Ethnography Museum, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and Museum, The Temple of Literature (Van Mieu), B-52 Lake, and we wandered around the Old Quarter for a bit. While in the Old Quarter I bought a DVD set of 44 of Woody Allen's movies for less than $10.00. It's legit too because Vinnie and I watched "Annie Hall" without a problem!
Also Hanoi is a city for eaters, and since Vinnie was willing to eat wherever, I took him to all of my favorite places: Pho Cuon, Bun Bo Nam Bo, Chim Sao, the awesome Pho Bo place around the corner from me, this great little pastry cafe near Ryan's house, and one night we ordered take-out from FoodShop45...an amazing Indian restaurant in West Lake.

Some pictures from Vinnie's time in Hanoi:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jpgreenbaum/VinnieInHanoi

Around noon today (Sunday) I dropped Vinnie off at the train station where he will be headed to Danang and then Hoi An to get some suits made. It was great getting to see someone familiar, and being able to see Vietnam through virgin eyes all over again, but now it's good to have my apartment back to myself to just relax for one more day before I go back to work tomorrow.