Vietnam- Ho Chi Minh

Along with Scott, Andrew, and Katie, we started out our 2 week vacation in Vietnam from Saturday, 1/16, to Tuesday, 1/19.


We took a 5 hour flight from Seoul to Ho Chi Minh, and were relieved to finally get out of the freezing cold of Korea. Mostly because we were seriously under dressed in our T-shirts and light zip up hoodies heading up to Seoul the night before our flight. That didn't, of course, stop us from venturing an hour away from our guest house to find an On the Border for some Mexican food. Even though we flew Vietnam Airlines, I was still surprised that the two primary languages used were Vietnamese and English, with very little in Korean. English truly is the language of travel.

Ho Chi Minh will always remain in my mind with two dominant images: motor bikes and power lines.

The power lines were so packed together- I can't imagine how the power can all be sustained. What would happen if one of these was hit by lightening?


Riding away from the airport, these were the two things that struck me immediately. There are remarkably few cars, and I felt like we were adrift in a sea of motorbikes until we washed up on the curb of our hotel.

Every bike comes with its own unique personality. It is not simply a road packed with motorbikes, it is a high-fashion woman sitting side saddle on the back of a dirty white bike, a wicker bar stool set up between the legs of a father with his infant propped in between him and the front of the bike, a man weaving through the streets with has balance alone while his hands grip his spaniel, whose paws are planted firmly between the handlebars.

Or a yellow scooter covered in cardboard panels.

Or uncomfortable children.

And several with large unsecured items rushing to their next destination.

Crosswalks were an adventure in themselves. Unless at a major intersection, although they are printed in their familiar block white lines, none of them have lights or walk timers. None of the drivers stop, but are very good at maneuvering. Crossing comes down to guts and confidence in a real game of Frogger.


Katie and I were insistent on getting in plenty of cheap shopping, which we did a lot of in and around the Ben Than indoor market and, our favorite, the nearby night market. Out of one of our shopping excursions came a phrase we continued to quote for the whole trip: "Only for ladies" in a kind of brisk robotic tone. It came from a very joyless vendor when Andrew tried on a pair of pink sunglasses.


Outside of shopping, we spent our time in Ho Chi Minh sightseeing. Our first big stop was to the War Remnants Museum. I'm not sure what I expected being in Vietnam, because in America the primary thing we are taught to associate with it is the war, but it was easy to forget about the war outside of this museum. For that, I'm glad we went. The other name it's known as is the Museum of American War Crimes, so we really had to go in there with the expectation of some bias. Not, of course, that inside or out the Vietnamese treated us with anything other than respect now.


Before entering the museum, a variety of tanks and planes were on display. Inside were guns and shells, grenades and mines, and the most disturbing, pictures of war victims. The most disturbing being the victims of Agent Orange, and I'm not sure how I managed to go my whole life ignorant of it. It was used as a herbicide to spray and reduce the density of jungles, but it has continued to effect the children born to those exposed to it. After leaving, it was much more apparent too. With millions exposed, it would be hard to miss. Everywhere are people with physical deformities on their faces, or with missing or abnormal limbs. Some of them even seem as young as me.


Ho Chi Minh has such a beautiful and unlikely collection of architecture. As it has been heavily influenced by France, there are several building that seemed to transport me right back into Europe. Cafes with tables spilling into the sidewalks, Romanesque arches, and stone carvings made it seem odd to glance away from a building and suddenly see a woman wearing a traditional hat and selling coconuts on the side of the road. It's a very charming mixture.


The most obvious was probably the Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral.


A lot of the buildings in Ho Chi Minh are also very tall and thin when you look at them from the front, stretching far back. Sometimes they weren't even wedged between other buildings so the choice seemed odd to me. I imagine them as buildings full of hallways.


We spent most of our time walking around the city, but one time we took a pair of Cyclos out to China town.

We didn't really care where we went because we were just along for the ride, but the China town market at the center of the district was actually fascinating. It was like an old mall converted to act as a street market, with everything so packed together that it seemed like one endless array. We arrived near the end of the day, so from a second floor landing we watched as vendors packed their wares into giant green bags. I can't imagine what it feels like to organize that every day.


Perhaps the strangest thing we did was get blind massages at the Vietnamese Center for the Blind. It sounded like a good idea at first, until Katie and I were ushered down a creepy chipping hallway to the girl's section. I'm glad nobody could read the anxiety on our faces as we entered a dim, isolated, room and were greeted by a woman with one bulging white eye and one closed eye. Not that I want to sound insensitive, of course, but the general ambiance of the surroundings made me feel like we were just sent into a dirty hospital where our organs might be harvested for the black market.

Katie and I were put into separate curtained sections, and I was told "off" as the woman felt me and tugged at my clothes. I laid down on my bed and gripped the stained bear pillow reading "happy time," listening to an aged woman in the room next door repeating "are you OK?" to herself in a deep raspy voice that made her sound like a dying witch of old. After awhile I calmed myself and closed my eyes, and realized the whole place smelled like fresh wintergreen and everyone was very kind.

One of the biggest surprises of Vietnam was the coffee. It was by far better cold, but it tasted like dark chocolate, and never needed creamer. While most people our age might come to the city for cheep beer, we probably spent most of our time downing coffee.

Not that we didn't also sample the local beer. With our options of cheap beer being limited to three light varieties in Korea, it was nice to expand our palate. With countless options, we finally found a wonderful bar called GO2 with a section on the top floor overlooking the city. It was the most relaxed we were since we left Andong, chilling out in the company of each other without any itinerary.


The best meal of our trip was also in Ho Chi Minh, and I believe I can safely speak for all of us here. Down by the night market we stopped by an outdoor restaurant, lured over by the delicious smell of fish on the grill. Because the whole place was set up with cheap tarps and plastic tables, we knew that the place had to be all about the food. Correct. I have never devoured such a giant fish before. It was so soft, and each bit of it was dipped in a dish (right) with fresh squeezed lime and a kind of special pepper combo.

All of the food in Vietnam was incredible, especially the large pho noodles in a kind of soup. Most meals came with a plate of bean sprouts, fresh hot pepper and mint leaves to add. My only difficulty might have been my unnatural aversion to cilantro, which was quite plentiful.

I might still have dreams about dodging motor bikes, but Ho Chi Minh was a memorable city.

Weekend in Gyeongju

This is part 2 of my Gyeongju weekend (again, sorry for the delay. Rearranged scheduling and my own brush with sickness left me inattentive to my writing). This takes place after the EPIK conference Thursday and Friday. My boyfriend Scott also wrote about the weekend on http://www.fourteenhoursaway.blogspot.com/, so check him out for additional perspective and photos.


Gyeongju is best known for having been the capital of the Silla dynasty, and because of this, it might be one of the most interesting places to tour in the country. It is absolutely full of history and interesting things to see at every turn, starting with the burial mounds.

On Friday after the conference, Scott, Katie, and I decided that the best place to start would be to walk around and see these mounds. They are quite literally everywhere. Gyeongju is like a giant graveyard. They spread out over the whole city, hundreds of them, sometimes in their own designated parks, other times sitting alone on a city block. Some of them are double mounds, for a king and queen pair. They are similar to the Egyptian pyramids, the rising markers for the tombs of kings- only in earth and grass.

Being that there are so many of them, we started to wonder how they managed to find all of the dirt to pile up. My theory is that Gyeongju really used to be several feet higher.

After a long day of walking, we returned to our motel to see another ancient site: a well stocked VHS library and our very own VHS player!

Saturday morning, we rented bikes to get around. One of the wonderful things about Gyeongju is that most of the historical sites are within a reasonable travel distance. This is different from Andong, where everything is spread out. Biking is therefore highly accommodated, with additional bike lanes or wider sidewalks. The river that runs through Gyeongju has the best of these, so we could bike along the whole river without having run ins with walkers or in line skaters (who also had their own designated roads).

Biking around the city was beautiful, and with all of the traffic congested with tour buses and cars, it was really the least stressful and best way to absorb all of the scenery.

Many of the most beautiful roads weren't even accessible by car.

Early on Saturday morning, Scott, Katie and I took off early on our newly acquired bikes to see more tombs and National treasure #31, Cheomseongdae, the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia. Remarkably, still intact from its first construction (around 632-647).

Soon after, we were joined by our dearest most wonderful best friend Andrew (Do you feel satisfied now Andrew?), and formed a kind of cycling posse:

We were definitely the coolest on the streets, though the competition was fierce:

Our first stop was the Gyeongju National Museum.

It is home to the divine bell of King Seondeok, which is the oldest known bell in Korea and has a sound that promises to "stir the deepest emotions." Alas, we didn't get to hear it ring.

Being the capital of the Silla dynasty meant a good look at the treasures of ancient royalty, which prominently featured comma-shaped stones and accents of very thinly pressed and etched gold.

Near the museum was the Imhaejeon lake and gardens, which was originally erected as a site to raise rare plants and animals for the palace, as well as hold banquets for foreign dignitaries. The whole place was very circular- with an island in the lake, and a round pathway around the lake.

Our biking journey carried us south and east of the city into the countryside, where we found the Bunhwansa stone pagoda next to a small temple. It's the largest I've seen in width, and apparently it used to be about 7 or 9 stories high. But, like everything in this country, it too was destroyed by the Japanese and had to be reformed.

While I love all of the pagodas and temples, I was most fascinated by this bell ringer. Bells here are rung by fixing a log on two chains, pulling it back, and letting it fly forward to hit the bell. This one appeared to be retired. His face does look like its flown into a giant iron wall one too many times.

Saturday was wrapped up with an intense battle of pool. The pool hall even provided bright pink or black spandex gloves, for the truly serious players. We were.

Sunday was reserved for the biggest draw to Gyeongju- the UNESCO designated world heritage site, Bulguksa temple. It was the center of Buddhism during the Silla dynasty, but was burnt down by the Japanese and had to be restored.

Its entrance is now very well guarded.

The restoration was remarkable though, and it is one of the biggest and most beautiful temples in the country.

Unfortunately, this meant it was crawling with tourists. Not that I can blame them- after all, we were there too. Though the copious amount of vendors selling corn dogs and plastic dung-on-a-stick toys on the surrounding temple lawns did damper the serenity a bit. It was amazing to be in such a heavily populated place after the relative calm of cultural sites in Andong. Though inside all of the temple buildings, a natural reverence was maintained- especially in one large central structure referred to as the "Hall of Whispers." Shoes off, no cameras, and total silence. Even in a place crawling with noisy people, there were ways to find a soothing sense of harmony.

("Keep off")

Up the mountain from the temple was Seokguram Grotto, the home to a giant stone Buddha carved from granite and housed in an enormous chamber, surrounded by the carvings of eight guardian gods. Photos weren't allowed- but Scott found a good one from the Internet on his blog.

The view from the top of the grotto was extraordinary.

We ended our weekend with Gyeongju's signature food- sam bap, which literally means rice wrapped in lettuce. It was more like an enormous number of side dishes from whole fish, to soup, to various vegetables and mildly spicy pork; the most I've seen on one table since I came to Korea. It was delicious, once I found a place to start.

Saturday in Daegu

On Saturday it was decided that we should spend some actual time in Daegu. Scott and I have only been down there to go to Costco, so we teamed up with Andrew, Katie, and Alice who also haven't spent much time there.


Yangnyeongsi Herbal Medicine Market


The guidebook described this street as a place to go for all sorts of strange old remedies, to find antlers, magic mushrooms, and lizard tails. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but I think we all had it in our mind that it would be some dusty backstreet with cauldrons and witches. It was surprising, then, to find that it was a very well organized road with regular store fronts and regular people. There were also traditional clinics on this street, for herbal treatments as well as acupuncture.



Although that's not to say there wasn't oddities to be found for sale. Deer antlers, seahorses, turtle shells, and dried frogs. Andrew tried to ask one shop owner if he had any "secret" items that can't be sold on the regular market, but I think both the translation and the joke were lost on him.

And the smells leaping out of these shops and following us down the street were intoxicating; so many that I couldn't possibly figure them all out. Ginseng, certainly, but also a number of fragrant herbs and wood smells; they all blended together to become something unique and distinctive to the street as a whole.

Museum

We were a little lost out in the street. Apart from the obvious language barrier, I'm not even sure the average Korean would know what all of this stuff was. However, we did find a museum at one end of the street. It appeared to be recently built, with the latest in technology and fresh, clean carpet. It spanned over two floors, the top being for dioramas and videos, mostly, with a few display cases.

Although I'm still not sure what instruction on medicinal properties some of the items on display might offer.

The videos had four language options, and were actually very well done. The latest animation, and perfect English- I was surprised by them. They mostly detailed life and the process of diagnoses in the past, when this was the standard of medical treatment. A lot of the practice is still alive today, with the health benefits in Korean food. They are still using many of the same herbs for cooking; where they originated to prevent and treat ailments, they also happened to be tasty supplements.

The next floor offered a more hands-on experience, ending with a room where we could check our blood pressure and BMI. This floor was devoted to learning about the body from a traditional perspective. I learned the hours of the day that each organ is at its strongest, and what should be done. For example, between 5-7am it is the time for the colon, so that is the best time to have a bowel movement.

In one station, we could figure out which of the four typologies we were (they use Sasang typology, classifying you by elements of your mind and body). I came out as a Soyang type, but I'm not sure how accurate my answers to the questions were because I'm not really sure if I have a "strong waist." It was interesting all the same, and I learned that by being Soyang, beer is very beneficial to my health.

Most of the rest of the day was spent walking around downtown Daegu. We checked out the Kyobo bookstore, which actually has a pretty big English book section: everything from bestsellers, to teen, to a case devoted to Penguin classics. The most interesting perhaps was a screenplay section, where English movie and TV show screenplays were sold as books with both an English and Korean translation on the opposite page.

Free Hugs.

Just when I was starting to get disheartened by the whole H1N1-makes-me-look-suspect-and-untouchable issue, something amazing happened on the streets of Daegu. A small group of university students stood in the middle of downtown with signs reading "FREE HUG." They even grabbed us and pulled us over, we didn't have to go to them. I almost melted with joy; they weren't even wearing surgical masks.

But not all of the hugs of the day were found on the streets...

Dinner and Hookah

There is a restaurant called the "Holy Grill" with a picture of the Holy Grail on the sign, and in going it did indeed feel like coming to the end of a great quest. It is owned by two Canadian guys, and I'm convinced has the best burritos in Korea. Not that I've had many burritos in Korea. The whole place is devoted to the food expats miss so much, and all for a very reasonable price inside a classy place.

After dinner, we went in search of a a hookah bar we'd caught wind of, located next to a bar made from an old bus.

Inside was very dim, but set a relaxing mood by the flickers of lanterns and candlelight. We were seated in a small raised alcove set apart from the main room, cozy and perfect for the five of us.

We ordered a bottle of red wine, which seemed to be the main draw to the place, as I think we were the only people there with a hookah. It was the perfect way to end our time in the city.

Taxi Ride Home

We were slightly mistaken, however, in our methods of returning to Andong. We called a number to get information on the bus times, and a woman speaking perfect English told us that the last bus to Andong was at 9:50. At 9:50 the bus station was very closed, and it seemed a little suspicious when a taxi driver parked outside looked at us and said "Andong?" After some time, it was decided that it was the cheaper option at 80,000 won (plus at 3,000 toll) than all of us finding lodging and morning bus fair.

When we finally piled into a taxi, all five of us, we expected it to be a long hour back home being crushed together as we were. In the end, it took 40 minutes. We hadn't the opportunity of movement until we got home, but as soon as we emerged gasping for air and thankful for the gift of life, we translated on our phones what 140-160km translated to in mph. We knew it was fast, as the speed limit was posted at 100, and his GPS speedometer would give protesting beeps every time he crossed 160. The man had been going 90-99 miles per hour the entire way home.

But, since my mother is probably reading this in horror, I'll leave off with a photo of relaxing ginseng.