First Impressions

Although the official trip to SEA has not started, a few of us (Kyle, Mark, Michelle and Mark L.) met in Hanoi. The details of the trip will be funny and amazing and I will let some of the other people that shared the flight with me to give some of the details also.(steven)
We were all excited to get to SEA and were assuming the flights would be boring, dull and repetitive. Little did we know that every flight we would get on, some of our seats would be stolen by non-English speaking individuals. From this point on, we knew this trip would go down as a trip we would all never forget. (Kyle)
Once in Hanoi, the first impression there was a sense of disorganization and chaos, but as time went on the chaos turns into a way of life and into the rules of engagement. The people were coming from every direction, left, right, diagonal, behind and in front of you, which apparently meant that you must have an owl’s ability to see 360 degrees. As we got acclimated to the environment, we quickly learned that people around you do just that, go around you. So the perfect formula for not getting run over by 50+ motorcycles and cars is to be predictable. What we all found extremely impressive is the fact that even though there is no rhyme or rhythm to the traffic, there really aren’t traffic jams. The only traffic jams we experienced were because of the three traffic lights that Hanoi a city of seven million (Proved) had. It may seem obvious at first, but when you are staring up a street full of cars and motorbikes zooming past you the first thing you want to do is speed up or slowdown, which is not a good idea. The best way to make it across is to be assertive of your moves. If you hesitate, you will lose the right of way, which means that you will not be able to continue walking, which means that you are not being predictable, and also means that you are going to get run over! In other words, just start walking and keep walking at the same pace. As I (Kyle) was walking across one of the roads I only was looking left and happened to notice a motorbike flying towards me so I stopped. Little did I know that to my right another motorbike had to slam on his brakes because I stopped and came within two inches of knocking me back to America. I quickly learned that the best way to complete the daunting task of walking across the street is to literally close your eyes and walk forward. I now know what it feels like to be the frog in frogger.
The markets are fantastic; people are friendly and make for interesting conversations (although nobody really knew what the other person was saying). As we tried to ask for things in Vietnamese they would look at us and try to respond in English; then we changed to English and they switch to Vietnamese. When things get really confusing the Vietnamese shop/restaurant owners usually just order for you which happened to us when we were looking for street food. As the group was walking down the street we decided to grab some street food, smart right? During our adventure to find street food we somehow ended up getting yelled at too sit down at a table with toddler seats and next thing we knew there was food in front of us. Too sum up the experience, as we were eating I (Kyle) looked down and noticed a dog eating food off the ground next to me. This is important because the day before our tour guide told us quote, “We have to chain up our dog every night because we are afraid our neighbors will eat him”. As soon as I pointed the dog out to the rest of the group they quickly set their reusable chopsticks down. It was interesting, fun, frustrating, and disorienting, but we all had a good laugh and went on to the next stop. There is so much to write about, but so little time to do so. When you are here you want to take advantage of every second you have in order to make the most of time. As an example, I (steven) got up at 5 am (woke up Kyle who later fell asleep again) to read emails, download pictures from my camera to my computer and reviewed them, and started writing this.
Today we will explore some of Ho-Chi-Minh City and will update you on more details. I am sure we will be comparing the two cities within Vietnam to see what the major differences are. Keep posted and you will learn about Vietnam through us.

Chao!