Vietnam Part 2- Tet

So sorry if this post is a little muddled, I wrote it super fast but I wanted to get these photos up! XO

 A photo of an alleyway in Hanoi, Vietnam.  We spent endless hours walking around this city.

I'd heard that you can't leave Hanoi without seeing a traditional water-puppet show. It's supposed to be a charming, picaresque entertainment accompanied by a traditional Vietnamese pit orchestra.
Well, apparently we chose the wrong theater.
Water puppetry was one of the most ridiculous pieces of live performance I've ever sat through.
And I've seen both Bret Michaels and Michael Bolton in concert, so that's saying something. 

 At first the show was promising, starting off strong with a touching scene between a dragon and phoenix.  The two puppets flopped around, fornicating in the water, until a giant egg rose out up amongst the mist of a fog machine then dramatically broke open to give birth to a bunch of little dancing Vietnamese men, symbolic of the beginning of Vietnamese civilization.  It was all down hill from there.

Poor little chipped puppets bopping around in the water without purpose.  I feel like the puppeteers were even bored.  But since we only paid about $5 for our tickets we didn't lose much, just an hour of our lives we'll never get back.

After the lack luster water puppets we went for a walk around the city.  It was New Year's Eve (called Tet) and the city was alive with people out celebrating.  We stumbled upon this outdoor stage where a free performance was happening.  We stood there for at least an hour watching one fantastic song and dance act after another!  The most that we could figure out was that it was some kind of fine arts school bringing their best stuff.  I was totally enthralled.  

The greatest thing ever were these three little boys in white tux and tails that sang in Vietnamese (they were amazing!) and mixing their performance with intermittent pop and lock dancing.  I was instantly in love with them.   

Beautiful decorations and lights everywhere for Tet!

We saw these Tet trees everywhere!  People had them strapped to the backs of their motorbikes and were taking them home to decorate and bring good fortune for the New Year.

So I've tried and tried to flip these pics vertically and they just won't post that way to my blog.  So tilt your head a bit and enjoy them!

The best dinner that we had in Vietnam was at this restaurant in Hanoi where we sat in a dug out in the floor and were served ostrich, flaming beef, and pigeon with prawn flavored crackers.  The pigeon was the fantastic, I actually loved it!

We ate and went for some drinks at a Vietnamese bar that plays an endless cycle of Cher songs and of course plays a lot of "Happy New Year" by ABBA (which we heard absolutely everywhere in Vietnam) and then walked down to the lake to get a good spot for the fireworks. We were packed inside a crowd of people and just as the show started we realized that we couldn't see a thing, the spot we were in had too many trees.  Immediately, everyone started running.  We found ourselves sprinting down the side of the lake with a 100 Vietnamese, trying to catch the fireworks before they were over.  They ended up being partially obscured but still pretty.    

   
Walking home we say people everywhere with tiny fires on the sidewalk.  They were ceremonially burning paper to honor their dead ancestors. 

After midnight at our hostel they'd roll down this garage door leaving only a few feet open. So every night we had to get down on our hands and knees and crawl under to get into the front door.  SUPER secure.

Welcome indeed. ;)

A taxi and some delectable bar food

The other night Ben and I got off work and hailed into a taxi to go for some drinks.  Ben jumped into the front seat of the cab to tell him where to go and the cab driver was a husky middle aged man with a snarly face and a smoker’s voice.  Ben gave him some directions and we were off.

We hadn’t even driven 50 feet when the cabbie decided this would be good time to start singing.   

And when I say singing, I mean fully serenading Ben is a booming, husky voice complete with dramatic hand gestures and awkward eye contact.   We’re pretty sure he does this to everyone that gets into his cab in case they are recruiters for China’s version of The Voice.  He wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to get discovered.  (Or he does this whenever he has foreigners in his car because he knows that we have no idea how to tell him to shut up.)

Here’s a super crappy video of him singing.  You can’t see him but you can definitely hear him.  Awesome.

I had heard about a Chinese bar in Ben’s neighborhood that has live music on week nights so we went there to check it out.  It was a cool space with interesting art and a band (probably Pilipino, almost every bar in China has a  Pilipino band).  We made our way through a lot of upper class Chinese to sit on this cool loft and of course we were followed to our table by two over attentive staff members.  It’s typical in China for the servers to hover next to your table and stare at you until you order.  This time one of the hoverers seemed to be a manager, which kind of makes feel a little pressure, like you have to hurry up and order because he’s standing there waiting for you!   We were fumbling fast through the drink menu when Ben said, “Can I just order tea?”    

Manager: “You can only order tea if you have cake too.  They are together.”

Ben: “Uhhhh…well…ok, that’s fine. I’ll just do that.”

A few minutes later they brought me my beer....and this is what they delivered to Ben:

 Now I thought that the crumpets, scones, and tiny little teapot covered in country roses and warmed by a small candle was the greatest bar food I'd ever seen...but Ben was a little self-conscience.  I'm not sure if we made a bigger spectacle by being the only foreigners in the entire building or by sitting there with a full tea service laid out in front of us at 9:30 at night.