I'VE ARRIVED IN HANOI!
[Quick culture shock moment: turning on blogger and finding it entirely in Vietnamese. Ahh!]
The trip here was quite an ordeal. There were seven of us total, including me, and our flight out of LAX to Seoul got canceled because of “mechanical” problems. Something about our plane's wheel falling off during the last landing? Of course, we didn't actually hear what was going on, but instead two Harvard guys that we had befriended in the airport informed us that the announcer guy was telling the people going to Vietnam to go see him. Thanks, Harvard guys.
We ended up taking a flight five hours later than planned and arrived in Seoul at around 1 am. I slept about 10 of the 14 hours of the flight, so it wasn’t that bad. When we got to Seoul airport, we found out that we had to spend the night in the transit hotel connected to the airport (small scare where the guy thought that they had skipped my name when booking the rooms, but my ticket had actually just fallen under the table), and the rooms were pretty nice. Actually, it's a really sweet airport in general; it takes up an entire island, and since all the transportation had closed by the the time we arrived, we ended up just wandering the airport for a couple of hours (...taking pictures...) and then played Hearts in my room until we decided to try and get at least an hour of sleep before our morning flight. The airline gave us all vouchers for food, so I got a cute little Korean breakfast sandwich and salad set with coffee. Thumbs up, Korea.
[Another note about air traveling: Asian airlines are SO MUCH NICER than American ones. Not only do you each get your own little TV screen and much more food (normally, there's an Asian and a Western option), but they also come around with coffee or tea about every 30 minutes.]
When we finally, finally arrived in Hanoi, my first impression, honestly, was that it was a lot like the Bahamas: hot and humid, with lots of palm trees and colonial-influenced architecture. After about five minutes on the bus though, the traffic and the landscape started to resemble more of Shanghai than Spring Break '08 (...except with a lot less people and not that many skyscrapers). It's also a lot cleaner than I expected.
Anyway, my room is adorable and on the top floor of the guesthouse (which is like a hotel -- there's laundry service, they clean our rooms, etc.), and it comes complete with a tea set and a balcony. We're actually essentially taking up the entire hotel with our group, and there's also apparently a group from Princeton in Hanoi that we're likely going to be meeting up with at some point during the summer (I think the fourth of July was mentioned). I picked the window bed since my roommate isn’t here yet and, not going to lie, the "wet bathroom" thing is going to take some getting used to. I also opened up my suitcase to find a nasty surprise: apparently my aerosol cans of sunblock and my tub of body lotion EXPLODED while on the plane, covering my other bottles with a thin layer of grime. How pleasant.
So far, we've had a group meeting for orientation, a delicious dinner, and then a group of us went on a night-time impromptu walk around the area. Our directors told us about how it's common for same sex people to hold hands, but that a guy and a girl holding hands means "serious commitment" -- but that it's also not uncommon to see lovebirds intertwined in dark little corners of the city/the park. They weren't kidding.
It was drizzling outside a bit and incredibly humid, but otherwise it was pretty nice. We actually have a lot of freedom to go around and explore as we choose. The city closes down a lot earlier than I expected though, and we have an 11 pm curfew for the hotel. Most clubs/bars close by midnight at the latest, and a girl on the plane said that a common custom is to go out to dinner and then just stay out for the night, which I guess makes sense too because breakfast every day is from 7-9 am. Which means I have to get up at 7 tomorrow morning to meet the 8 am group breakfast time. Eek.
Good night!
