Happy New Years!

It's new years here, and the city seems pretty much the same as yesterday. I'll try to some up everything while I am waiting for some people to go out and drink.

My flight from LAX to Taipei was delayed because of the earthquake in taiwan. That made me miss my flight to Hanoi. In taiwan, they told me to stand in a line with a bunch of other people who were also going to Hanoi. After 1.5 hours of not being helped I asked what was going on and they claimed to have been calling our names and looking for us. They had tickets for us to Saigon (southern vietnam) and in Saigon someone would arrange for getting us to Hanoi. Great, I was just happy to be flying, and I made friends with people too. I arrived in Hanoi and had to go through customs, not too bad. The best part of that was my line was clearly labelled "crew and staff only". After clearing immigration, I went to baggage claim. All the luggage was thrown on the floor, so we started searching (at this point I am travelling with Jennifer, who was in the same boat as me). I spot a VN airlines representative, so I ask him about what flight we are on. He tells us we have no time to look for our luggage and we have to run to catch the plane. So we stop looking and follow him. It turns out we got on a flight, and were upgraded to business class, so that was a nice consolation prize. Bad news, was of course, our luggage was in Saigon. The flight to Hanoi was nice, biz class on a 777, fancy food, fancy chair. Arrive in Hanoi, share cab to our respective hotels. The cab driver tries to rip us off, we just stop arguing and get out of the cab.

Day 1:
Luggage hasn't arrived. Walk around city with another woman from the Hostel Jennifer is staying at. Have a great time, see a lot, learn how to cross the street Hanoi style. Eat on the street. We made some old womens day by eating on the sidewalk with them. Apparently they were discussing why we would eat there. They decided that we were college students and poorer than they. By the way Melissa (other woman from Hostel) speaks vietnamese. Back to the hotels, still no luggage. That night we had dinner with more people from the hostel. I'll have to consult my journal for more details on what else I did. It was very full, and I walked enough to aggravate my knee injury that normally only hurts after I run for an hour.

Day 2:
Rented a motorbike and rode around all day with Melissa, Jennifer, and Pascal. An old lady selling dragon fruit told Melissa I was handsome. I prayed to Ho Chi Minh. Ate more great food. Saw a water puppet show. Have I mentioned yet that I love this place? It's just great.

Day 3:
Went to Tam Loc, to see some fantastic karst formations. I'll have to talk about it later when I am not so rushed.

happy new years!

Time to go drink. More later.
Anonymous posting has been anabled, thanks for pointing it out Pat.