Traveling Solo

Generally, I don’t travel on my own; I am a fan of travel buddies.  One—or more than one—travel buddies add dimension and alternative perspectives to the travel experience.  Travel buddies allow the opportunity to share and the opportunity to debrief.

Now, I’m not talking about having someone with me at every moment and juncture of my travel time.  These days, more often than not, I actually meet my travel buddy in the airport or hotel of our first destination city.  Often, during the span of our travels together, we will separate to pursue an individual interest or activity and then connect again later . . . usually for a meal!  For instance, rarely do I have a travel buddy who wishes to accompany me on a morning run!

Although I have spent two or three days on my own at the beginning or end of a travel experience, I have never planned and then partaken of an entire travel adventure solo.  Until my spring break travels in April, that is!  For spring break I returned to Vietnam for a week, this time ALL BY MYSELF!

And I survived.  And I had quite a good time.

So, with one week of practical experience in my repertoire, I hereby offer—in no particular order—what I discovered to be some of the perks of traveling solo:

·         Both complimentary bottles of water in the hotel room are yours.

·         All the mango slices on the welcome fruit plate at the hotel are yours.

·         You can eat dinner at 4:30 or 5:00—no explanations or justifications necessary.

·         You can forget your dirty clothes in the bathroom after a shower minus the risk of grossing out the travel buddy.

·         The Swiss gentleman who checks out of the hotel just ahead of you invites you to share a taxi to the airport with him and then, once at the airport, refuses to split the fare because his “company will be happy to cover the expense.”

·         You can opt for the motor scooter day-tour—less than half the price and more story-worthy!

·         Two German guys  will momentarily amuse themselves on this gorgeous beach taking a brief photo shoot of you using your camera.

·         The couple from Australia you meet on the Mekong Delta boat will talk politics—Australia, USA, the world—with you.  Then she will be your comrade-in-arms for purchasing Vietnamese-style hats, and he will make the requisite photo documentation.

So, yes, this first trip traveling solo I would consider successful, even pleasurable, and certainly memorable.

Did I miss having a travel buddy?  Absolutely . . . pretty much every day.  And there are things I would have done with a buddy that I did not do on my own.  Like . . . on my motor scooter day-tour, my guide would pull up at a lovely deserted beach and ask if I wanted to take a swim.  Although I did have my swimsuit and all, I just didn’t want to swim there by myself.

So, would I travel solo again?  Maybe.

Dressing Up Is Over Rated

Sometime back—as in years now—I passed through the interval of time where I actually carried within me the “female” penchant to dress up, to “look good” in that notice me kind of way.  Confession . . . I haven’t purchased an actual dress in over a decade.  Granted, I occasionally experience a time travel moment backwards:  Four years ago I bought a pair of stilettos.  Except for a wedding and one or two church attempts, those shoes have resided in their box on a top closet shelf.  A month ago I examined the current state of false eyelashes and the application thereof.  NOPE, not going to happen!

At my school, the Korean teacher—who is Korean, by the way—is somewhat intrigued with me. . . maybe first of all because we are of the same generation, and she checked that fact out, too.  Koreans consider all kinds of questions polite American society would deem “personal” or “inappropriate” as fair conversation starters even with people you meet for the first time!  (I play coy, though, with her and others who ask, and I do not divulge my age, weight, etc., except in blurry general terms.)  And maybe second of all because I am more physically active than many others of “our generation” at school, and I’m not considered “fat.”  When I first arrived in Seoul, she was married, but she has since divorced.  Now she works with a trainer regularly, has the body to show for it, and she is an awesome dresser, to include footwear with noticeable height.  Kindly—but I totally know what she’s up to—she scrutinizes my appearance any time we chat at a break time or a meeting and offers positive reinforcement for anything she believes could rally me to a fuller consciousness, acceptance, and implementation of “looking good.” 

“You are a good looking woman,” she says.  “Show off what you have,” she admonishes.

So, pretty much I wear pants, and about half the time those pants are jeans. But in my defense, they are usually black jeans!  And I wear flats, or Uggs when it’s cold and nasty, or athletic shoes but mostly only on Friday.

Not sure what came over me, but this past Wednesday I wore a skirt—you don’t even need all the fingers on one hand to count the number of times I have worn a skirt this school year—and hose, and Frye leather boots with an inch and a half heel.  (My hair has looked amazingly good for the past two weeks, and I have no idea why because I have not done a thing different with it, but Wednesday it was still behaving.)  She was ecstatic!

Me—not so much.  When all the students had exited the classroom at the end of the school day, I collapsed in my cushioned chair at my desk and did not arise until my legally contracted departure time.  Before heading home, I had to make a commissary run, and, the truth is, I was not as invisible as I usually am while engaging in this endeavor.  Two different geezers—okay, they were probably of my generation—both with wedding rings, I might add, chatted me up, and there was more eye contact and glances of appraisal than the norm from work staff and other patrons.

Not enough to instill any motivation for me to change my ways, though!  Before I could even put away my freezer goods when I arrived home, I had to strip down.  I could scarcely bear to have any of those clothes on me anymore.  Although I had major grading to complete, my recovery entailed a full evening appareled in pajamas while sprawled on the couch with popcorn, Diet Coke, and Netflix.

Dressing up is over rated.

TIA--This Is Asia: Vietnam, Korea, and Ginger Tea

Apparently, Leonardo DiCaprio said “TIA” a lot in Blood Diamond—a movie I never saw—but I stumbled on the acronym while reading reviews of various hotels located in Phu Quoc, Vietnam.  The reviewer acknowledged its more accepted interpretation—“This Is Africa”—but then added that it explicates an acceptance of the Asian cultures, circumstances, and situations as well and could just as fittingly mean “This Is Asia!”  For the here and now of this particular space, it expresses THIS IS ASIA! 

(TIA, by the way, is also a medical acronym but really not applicable to this post.)

Of the cities we visited in Vietnam, my favorite was Hoi An.  The light and color, the lines and shapes, the style and countenance—all mingle here to conjure an aesthetic jewel.

TIA!

The evening after our cooking class caper—yes, that event also occurred in this setting—Cindy and I booked appointments for massages at a spa down the road from our hotel.  Upon removing our flip-flops at the spa entrance, we were ushered to sit on a couch the waiting area.  Within minutes two girls began washing our feet in small plastic tubs full of water scented with herbs and lime slices, and another brought us cups of tea.  Now for me, tea—no matter the contents or purported flavor—generally tastes like hot water flavored with leaves or grass or twigs or some combination thereof, and milk, sugar, honey, and/or lemon fail to render it drinkable beyond a sip or two.  Except for that apple tea served in Turkey, I am no fan of tea whatsoever!  Supposing I would just hand off my cup to Cindy after she finished hers, I peered into the cup and took a whiff.  Several small strips of something floated below the surface, and the aroma wafting upwards was pleasantly spicy.  “Ginger tea,” Cindy said.  Curious, I took a sip; it was good—a gingery kick and just enough sweet.  I drank at all.  TIA!

After a 90-minute “Asian Style” massage—one of my top ten most amazing even if each of my calves had screaming moments—I nestled back down on a sofa in the waiting area and sipped on another cup of ginger tea while a girl figured up my bill.  The second cup tasted just as good as the first, if not more so.  In that moment, Ginger tea joined apple tea, and my tea list became two.

When I returned to my home in Seoul, Korea, I conducted an Internet search on how one—especially someone like me—could recreate ginger tea like the two I drank one evening in Hoi An.  I jotted down notes gathered from several Internet recipes and suggestions and convinced myself I could recognize fresh ginger in the produce section.  After all, TIA!

Now, winter in Seoul is bitter.  Whether snow falls or not, temperatures drop and then insist on dwelling in the nether regions for weeks.  Twenties and thirties signal a warming trend!  This winter has been especially brutal.  The cold arrived earlier and seems to plan on hanging out a while longer.  We have also had more snow fall this winter than the combined total of what fell during both of my first two winters here put together.  Honestly, though, I prefer the days the snow falls:  those days are actually warmer, so to speak because snow does not fall when the temperature is too cold, and, of course, there is something beautiful about falling snow. 

This week while grocery shopping, I remembered to look for fresh ginger.  I found it and I purchased it.  Today, after a night where temperatures dropped to single digits once again, I brewed some ginger tea.  The ginger part right I got right, but I still need to experiment with how to replicate the right amount of sweet.  I have time and place on my side in this endeavor, though, because I am here and . . . TIA!

Vietnam--Winter Break, 2012: My Tale of Two Cities

Two cities dominated my childhood visualization of Vietnam:  Hanoi and Saigon—command centrals for opposing ideologies as well as their assemblages of might.  Officially, only Ha Noi remains today as a place name on a map.  Except as a district designation in the city it once named, Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), although, perhaps another vestige of that earlier place name is that Tan Son Nhat, HCMC’s international airport, retains the airport code of SGN.

For my personal introduction to the land of Vietnam, Ha Noi became my welcome city.  Happily fascinated with even the entry procedures at the airport—visa on arrival, customs, my name on a placard in the hands of Thuy in the entry hall—Ha Noi had me fully captivated with my first foray into the neighborhood just outside our hotel.  Two weeks later I exited Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City after spending three nights in that metropolis.  I could very easily gush, “I loved Ha Noi!”  Although the same such gush would never slide from my mouth regarding HCMC, I loved the chance to spend time there, and I totally did like it!

The political center of Vietnam, Ha Noi has a population of a little over 2,000,000 in its provincial districts; add in the rural districts, and the population rises to over 6,000,000.  The economic center of Vietnam, HCMC has a metropolitan population of over 9,000,000.  Still, the only places in Vietnam where I did not awaken in the morning to roosters crowing somewhere nearby would be while on the cruise boat in Ha Long Bay and while staying at the Victoria Resort and Spa near Mui Ne!

Lonely Planet describes Ha Noi as “perhaps Asia’s most graceful, atmospheric, and exotic capital city.”  There really is this beguiling pastiche of French timbre and Asian tempo, the medieval and the modern.  We arrived at our hotel in the Old Quarter not far from Hoan Kiem Lake just before midnight, so our transfer from the airport occurred in the dark and during a timeframe without traffic congestion.  Our guide Thuy, who knew we would be venturing out on our own in the morning because we had only scheduled a half-day tour with him for the afternoon, took the time to specifically instruct us on the art of crossing streets in Ha Noi as a pedestrian:  “Walk slowly.  Don’t change your speed and don’t stop!”  So, yeah!  You just keep walking at a slow pace.  All wheeled traffic—from bicycle to bus—will maneuver based on your established pace and trajectory.  Granted, we spent most of our time in the Old Quarter of Ha Noi, but I never saw a stop light in Ha Noi at all, not even when we drove out of it to Ha Long Bay or back to the airport for our flight to Da Nang.  Traffic flow unfolds as a work of art, momentum and design informed by all participants and in constant awareness of each other—a nerve-trembling but memorable dance!

Two thousand kilometers south of Ha Noi—by road, anyway—Ho Chi Minh City is situated on the Saigon River and just north of the Mekong Delta.  Asian urban convened around stretches of wide, elegant boulevards and tree-lined avenues, it is somehow reminiscent of Paris but recast for another continent, climate, and culture.  It thrums with energy and possibility, traffic and commerce.  Until we arrived in HCMC, I rarely spotted uniformed personnel of any ilk except for some police/highway patrol types on two different stretches of highway between cities.  HCMC had a lot more visible uniforms and a lot more signage of the propagandizing sort.  We walked through several different displays of enlarged photos and text celebrating specific historical events or else touting current government and military endeavors in behalf of the citizens. Except for maybe a total of two or three KFCs, I saw no American fast-food franchises anywhere in Vietnam.  In HCMC I spotted a sign advertising a Burger King, and I read that Starbucks would open its first shop in Vietnam in HCMC in about a month . . . which means it could now be open, even as I type . . . which makes me feel like YIKES! and a little sad.  Vietnam has its own array of coffee house chains, as well as a fine reputation for the quality of its coffee, and American fast food cannot compete with Vietnamese cuisine, be it fast or slow!

Like memorable cities anywhere on the planet, Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City each have a distinctive medley of traits, tone, and style.  Even so, each is also uniquely Vietnamese and an integral component of Vietnam itself.

Here is Ha Noi, the Old Quarter, Saturday, December 22, 2012:

View from our hotel room window.

 Cindy and I go for a cyclo ride.

Next is Ho Chi Minh City.  We arrived on Sunday, December 30, 2012, and stayed two nights, so we were there for New Year's Eve.  Then we left HCMC for a few nights to go to Mui Ne but returned again on Thursday, January 3, 2013, before leaving for Seoul very late Friday night.

View from the hotel room window in HCMC.

 Famous coffee place in HCMC where Cindy sampled the coffee and I . . .

had an iced chocolate--the best one I've ever had since the one in Tokyo!

This building was across the street from our hotel.  The platform is a helipad.

 This is Notre Dame in HCMC!

A 2012 Apocalyptic Moment

I attended—and bumbled my way through—a cooking class.  Oh yes, I did!  Let the record state that this one—the one who indubitably eschews any practice of the culinary arts whatsoever—participated in a Vietnamese cooking class in Hoi An, Vietnam, on Boxing Day, 2012.  And, I had a grand time overall. 

Okay, I was nervous pretty much the entire expanse of time I was expected to actually cook.  Compared to my tablemates—Cindy and two other women—I was always awkward and generally ignorant, obviously inexperienced and gracelessly inept with basic maneuvers and strategies.  I covertly scrutinized all actions of the lady next to me and openly aped Cindy, who was situated across the table from me.  (Graciously, they both aided and abetted me in my endeavors throughout.)  Did I mention I was nervous?!  Still, I really did have a grand time.

How could I not?  First of all, Vietnamese cuisine now ranks number one on my Asian listing, Thai and Chinese falling in closely behind.  And we got to eat everything we made.  Which, in my case, would certainly not always be deemed a perk.  But which, in this case, advanced most agreeably:  I devoured EVERYTHING I created, and EVERYTHING tasted nigh unto ambrosial.  (Granted, my photo documentary below omits one course—the Hoi An crispy pancake—because I could not convince myself to photograph the visual disaster:  pancake rent in twain and in a rather unsuitable state for rolling in rice paper . . . although I dutifully attempted to do so.  Ugly and unwieldy though it was, it tasted surprisingly marvelous!)  And our teacher Lu was an engaging mingling of knowledge, expertise, fun and funny.  And we each received this cool Vietnamese peeler to keep.   And, most of all, I learned stuff! 

Class commenced about 8:00 in the morning with a bike ride to an herb farm outside of Hoi An.  Herbs are critical components in Vietnamese cuisine.  Procuring some of them in other lands could be rather daunting, I suspect.  I grew particularly fond of anise basil and various kinds of mint.  The bike ride to the herb farm, though, fell fully within my skill repertoire; the rest of our class session was definitely more of a stretch.  Other than having my skillet catch fire while cooking my crispy pancake—yeah, that pancake really was a challenge—I muddled my way through an anxiously pleasurable learning experience and ate my way through one excellent Vietnamese meal . . . if I do say so myself!  And, in the end, not a second of it was less than memorable.  Maybe an apocalypse must always be so!

This is Lu, our cooking teacher.

Here I behold the first fruits of my labors.  (I cropped off my head because my hair was way crazy from the bike ride in a tropical climate and my expression already evoked "fully frazzled"!)

 Course 1:  cabbage soup with cabbage parcels  (The cabbage parcels were stuffed with shrimp mousse!)

 Course 2:  fresh spring roll with dipping sauce  (These are one of my favorite foods!)

Course 3:  Hoi An crispy pancake  (Sorry, no photo.  See above for the pitiful excuse!)

Course 4:  green mango salad with marinated barbeque chicken on skewers

For the website of the cooking school I attended in Hoi An and information on the cookbook available for purchase (yes, I did buy one), go here.

These next photos are from our bike ride to the herb farm.

Vietnam--Winter Break, 2012: A Preface

The Vietnam War pretty much encompassed my childhood.  Hanoi, Saigon, Hue, Danang, Gulf of Tonkin, Mekong, Ho Chi Minh Trail—these are words I knew about even in elementary school, and I learned they were places in a land called Vietnam, where there was a war, and in that war there were soldiers from my own country fighting in it also.  On television I viewed footage filmed in this far-away place, and in magazines I saw photos—most all of it war related but set in an exotic landscape framed by mesmerizing tropical beauty. 

My family lived in New Jersey when I was in junior high, and I remember some of the girls my age attended an anti-war rally one weekend.  I overheard their discussion Monday morning before the tardy bell rang in first period English, and one of them wrote a poem about it.  It was in her notebook and I listened to her read it aloud to them.  Boys my age were never drafted, but I recall how controversial the issue of the draft became.  In my twenties I saw the film version of Hair—with my brother Phil, by the way—in a theater with a bent for showing artsy movies.  Later on I watched Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and The Killing Fields.  I also met my friend Tien.

During the summer of 2002, after completing my master’s degree in Thailand (at an overseas campus for Michigan State University), I had the chance to travel in both Cambodia and Laos.  We had no time left to fit in Vietnam that summer, but I realized then that Vietnam now occupied a premier position on my very fluid list of places I needed to see. 

Finally, this past December, I entered the nation of Vietnam:  Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi—the city of “the enemy” back in that war of my childhood.  And—technically speaking—there is no city named Saigon anymore; it is Ho Chi Minh City, named after a now revered leader, one lovingly referred to as “Uncle Ho.”  And, by the way, in Vietnam, there never was a Vietnam War; there was an American War.  Still, a rather fascinating twist in this ongoing evolution of all our lives post-war is that today, in the country of Vietnam, American dollars can often be used as payment in lieu of Vietnamese currency.  What would Uncle Ho think?!!

The two weeks I spent in Vietnam added both color and a narrative for the light and shadow images of childhood memories.  It introduced me to a land of magical beauty and such amazing people.  I would return in a heartbeat.

A Thanksgiving Week Back in the USA

For the second time in twenty-five years of living overseas, I went home for Thanksgiving.  The first time I did so was over a decade ago, but I have always remembered the experience with tangible fondness.  And this second time was no let-down either.  In fact, I believe I prefer being “home for the holidays” at Thanksgiving rather than at Christmas.  That may be a blasphemy to an earlier self—way earlier, as in my 20-something self, who was totally a “Christmas spirit”—but Christmas in the USA becomes so frenetic and choreographed when I do the fly-in for two weeks thing.  (Another perk of a Thanksgiving foray to the USA—airfare is markedly less expensive at Thanksgiving than it is at Christmas.) So, between personal days, a medical day, and a Thanksgiving holiday, I could finagle about eight days away from my life in Seoul.

The plane out of Seoul lifted off about 6:40 Saturday evening, and I arrived at Salt Lake International about 7:00 on the same Saturday evening—and that’s with a four-hour layover in San Francisco!  (Gotta love the time/space mathematics involved with crossing the International Date Line!)  I picked up my rental car and drove to my dad’s place in Stansbury Park, announced my arrival, and promptly headed to the Walmart in Tooele.  With such a limited stateside timeframe, I figured why not complete my Walmart moment of the trip that Saturday night and be done with it!  When one lives the greater part of one’s life outside of the USA, one develops an appreciation for certain Walmart qualities and offerings.  However, that appreciation does not negate my amazed consternation amassed through multiple sightings of Walmart shoppers clad in pajamas—and I’m not talking about children here either!

With a diminishing shopping gene in my current DNA coil, I usually can only sustain brief, focused shopping sorties these days.  Target and REI rated positions on my week’s itinerary, and I did a speedy reconnaissance of Fashion Place Mall.  Of course I supplemented most errands and wanderings necessitating a car with a stop for sustenance at Café Rio.  Mexican cuisine remains a consummate craving while I live abroad, and Café Rio assuages it so well.  I could never quite fit in Chipotle Grill or Rubio’s but there’s always summer!  Three movies, too, were viewed, nestled within the framework of my comings and goings:

(1)  Life of Pi – I loved the book when I read it six or seven years ago.  The movie truly captures the essence of the book, so I quite liked the movie, too.  It is a visual feast, as well, because much of the cinematography is so beautiful..  I can’t decide, though, how successfully the movie will connect with those who have not read the book.

(2)  Breaking Dawn, part 2 – I read the entire Twilight series and saw all the previous movies.  I felt I was entitled to movie closure!

(3)  Lincoln – Absolutely amazing!  Powerful performances and a riveting story arc.  There are many parallels that could be drawn between the political period represented in the movie and the one in which we are currently entrenched.

At my medical appointment, the doctor diagnosed the pain in my left foot as plantar fasciitis.  We discussed shoes, stretches, and exercises to mitigate the pain, and he gave me a prescription for a mega pain-killer since over-the-counter options had failed to noticeably alleviate my pain.  (I am happy to report that since instituting my now nightly mini-routine of stretches and exercises, I have had no more episodes of pain in my left foot, and I have a mostly full bottle of prescription pain-meds forthwith unneeded.)  I also requested a tetanus shot—one I consciously keep current because many of my travel destinations warrant such diligence—and the doctor suggested I get the tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis booster . . . for my travels and my profession!  (He informed me that last winter he treated three different adults for whooping cough!)  I got the shot he recommended.

Despite the diagnosis of plantar fasciitis, three different mornings of my Thanksgiving week I went running.  Quite exhilarating runs, too, if I do say so myself.  In truth, running has never triggered any of my bouts of foot pain.  Days in succession where I’ve done lots of walking and standing seem to be the actual triggers.  Go figure.

Family, friends, and holiday festivities filled the rest of week gloriously.  My niece Jalayne visted Sunday evening, and after a Sunday dinner, she provided the necessary reteaching for the four of us—Dad, Clarine, Jalayne, and I—to compete in several rounds of the Domino game “Train.”  (Jalayne also reminded me that I originally taught this game to the family…back in the day!)  Carolee and I celebrated her birthday a couple weeks early with a leisurely lunch at Chili’s.  I accompanied my dad and Clarine to “Pie Night” at the church.  Dad and Clarine ate chicken pot pie and dessert pie; I reveled in the season and dined on only dessert pie!  My brother Phil had promised his daughter Sheridan one of his cheesecakes for her November birthday, and they waited until my week in-country so that I could also partake of this masterpiece of gastronomy.  Although I’m not a big fan of most cheesecake—too rich and too sweet—I think my brother’s cheesecake is cheesecake perfection.  On Wednesday the cake was pronounced ready.  When I arrived at their home that afternoon, Sheridan cut me an embarrassingly large slice, and I consumed it all, leaving nary a crumb. 

On Thanksgiving Day I commenced the holiday by arriving at my brother Phil’s house just before noon to feed (and, yes, that is the operative verb, I’m afraid) on a magnificent spread of hors d’oeuvres plus, I confess, another slice of cheesecake.  Sheridan and Zack, my niece and nephew, taught me how to play Canasta, and on my initial round Phil also offered significant support.  Afterwards Max joined us for the game Minotaurus—kind of like Chinese Checkers in  Lego format with the addition of a Minotaur option that can be loosed to devour an opponent’s playing piece, which will subsequently be sent back to the beginning.  Later in the day I meandered over to the Cahoon’s for the full traditional Thanksgiving feast.  Bounteous good food and exceptional company.

I took my leave of the USA beginning early on a Saturday morning.  When journeying westward, the International Date Line crossing does not work in optimal mode for a traveler: I arrived in Seoul late Sunday afternoon.  The next morning at school my students expressed joy and relief that I had returned.  Nothing like absence to clarify for students the impact of a teacher!