Random Things

Here are some pictures that we thought were interesting on a little excursion we took on the motorbikes. It is the new area of Hanoi, with big areas,wide roades, tall buildings and as you can see reminders of being in Vietnam.

It is a fun place to go out to and on weekends we have heard there are many people driving around just to enjoy the open space. While out in this area, Brittany and Ann took advantage of the wide open sidewalk and went walking.

The tall buildings remind us of Europe. The area is still being built but already has restaurants, and interesting shops. They are currently building houses with the same style as the tall buildings. Like most of the houses in Hanoi, the houses will be narrow and go up a number of levels (3-5).

Until the next excursion.

Terry Fox Run

I am not sure how many of you have heard of the Terry Fox Run. It is an annual event to raise money for cancer research. It all began by a young man named Terry Fox who was a cancer survivor; he determined that he would run across Canada to raise money for cancer research, with his one leg and a prosthetic leg. After 143 days and 5,373 km (3,339 miles) he had to stop because of cancer. He died one year later. He was an inspiration because of his heroic effort, birthing the Terry Fox Run which is held in multiple countries every year. Last year when Ann and Joseph participated, Hanoi had the 4th largest event outside of Canada.

This year we decided to go as a family, joining the Hanoi International Fellowship Team, and participate in this amazing community event. Brittany ran with Ann about two times around the lake (about 2.5 Kilometers total). Joseph went for speed and wanted to see how fast he could run around. His assessment afterwards was "I need to get into better shape", but after he figured his time he decided it was not too bad. For his time you will have to ask him. I, well, I could not be outdone by the rest of the family, so I went for the fewest laps and did one, while holding helmets, jackets and sweatpants for the rest of my family. I think I might have sweated a little? ha ha. For Joseph and Ann who were trying to run it was somewhat difficult, because there was so many people crowded together going around the lake.

It was a great family outing, while helping to raise money for cancer research. You can see the pictures soon.

Techy alert

Only read this one if you like computers and an interesting story. This will be co-authored by Mr. Tech in our family, Joseph.

This story begins about two years ago. That is when we decided that we would need a desktop computer sometime in the near future....well, after the two year time warp, we decided it was really time to get a desktop computer!

I (Joseph) had just gotten a new camera and had successfully researched about all there was to research about point and shoot cameras on the market... I thought hey how hard can it be to research computers? HARD!! Besides the fact that there are over 500 HP desktops alone that have reviews online (over 500 don't have reviews) I quickly found that researching computers is about 4000 times harder!! to make a long story short (I have to get off in 2 minutes) we ended up deciding that we would build our own computer... and I will have my dad fill you in on the rest (and I will add the techy details).

Joseph and I went to a Ben Computer to see what was available. We were surprised to find a busy, overcrowded, open air feel (quite typical here, as they do not close the big double doors) store. We talked to a sale agent and we were given a magazine with all the parts and prices the store carries, which is updated every 4 or 5 days. Joseph began to write some ideas down of what we needed in a computer to have one that would allow us to do video editing, plus all the other things we would use it for.

On the magazine it showed the address of another Ben Computer store, which was closer to our home. This store was bigger and had a nice sales agent who talked with Ann and I. He only spoke Vietnamese and our computer Vietnamese is quite limited. So it was interesting trying to describe to him the different items we would need. For example I think it took us 5 minutes to ask about the Ethernet port for internet. We found the right word eventually, it is in-ter-net (no tones). Just in case you needed to know. Fortunately most of the items we could point at and ask for his recommendations.

We were able to decide on all the components and have them begin to build our computer. But then everything came to a crashing halt when the salesman called and said that Ben Computer in all of Hanoi did not have the Western Digital (WD) Hard Drives we wanted. He recommended Samsung. After more research, we decided that we wanted to stick with WD. After several calls back and forth, and it was determined that they were not able to obtain WD hard drives any time soon, Ann suggested we try looking at another computer store. We found the hard drives. I called and asked if we could bring the hard drives we found at another store to the Ben Computer store so that the computer could be finished. He said, "sure". So our computer was built. But then came another issue, software...

Software becomes very complicated in Vietnam. It is very easy to obtain software that is "cracked" as they call it. We were able to purchase a real version of Vista, from outside of Vietnam. We tried to upgrade it over the internet (so Windows Media Player would work), but it is not offered in our area yet so we could not buy it. Those IP addressees our computers give out let Microsoft know we are in Vietnam. Amazing isn't. There is more to this story, but it is just hours of boring detail on fixing our computer from the way it came to us.

We now have a fine working machine that we hope will allow us to edit video to share with our friends and family back home.

Courage

Yesterday (Sunday the 4th of November) I sprained my ankle while playing basketball with Joseph. I went up for a rebound and so did Joseph. Joseph got the ball and I got his foot, well I landed on it anyway. Today I decided that I should go to the doctor as the foot was still quite swollen and I did hear some tearing sound when my foot rolled over. But how to get to the doctor?

This was solved by Ann courageously stating that she would take me....on the motorcycle. That meant me behind her, carrying my crutches (on loan from a friend). On the way to the doctor it was not too bad, as the traffic was relatively low. But on the way back it was the beginning of rush hour. This meant driving in thick traffic and coming within inches of other motorcycles, bicycles, cars and people, with me on the back with my crutches. I was impressed. Ann denies any bravery in doing this, but I really think she is courageous!

About my foot - I have trauma to the ligaments and have to wear a foot brace for three weeks. After that I need to move my foot in as full a range of motion as possible. My foot is still swollen, but I really do not have much pain. Right now we are trying to figure out how I am going to get to the University, as this is my shifting foot for the motorcycle and I am not supposed to move it up and down, or sideways for that matter. Someone suggested I just leave it in 3rd or 4th gear. I might try that. Someone also kidded that I could use a crutch to shift, I don't think that would work too well.

Please be thinking of Ann, as she will have to be driving the motorcycle more often since I am not able to for the time being. Thank you!

Strong 16

Joseph's birthday is today. Wow! It is hard to believe. Joseph has grown a lot this last year and has grown stronger in all areas of his life. We are extremely blessed.

How do you celebrate a 16th birthday here in Vietnam? Ann made him fudge brownies to begin the celebration. Then tonight we were all invited to a banquet as part of the REI delegation in honor of E Hospital's 40th celebration. It was a feast! Toward the end of the banquet, one of the Vietnamese doctor's was requested to sing some songs, both English and Vietnamese. We let them know it was Joseph's birthday, so the whole table (Vietnamese doctors and nurses, French Doctors, American Doctors, REI staff and of course his family) sung happy birthday to him. It was a nice surprise to the evening.

The rest of the day, in Joseph's words, "a massive amount of school". Part of the reason is he lost a morning of school taking the PSAT and due to taking two online courses, his birthday is no longer the Joseph Fryer Birthday holiday. We will celebrate his birthday more fully tomorrow, taking him to his choice of restaurant (within reason). For this year he has chosen a western restaurant that serves a buffet. Yum! It is not Ryan's (Joseph's favorite place in the States), but it is good and it is a buffet.

It is 10:00pm here and Joseph is trying to finish up a paper for his online English class. He has just been ordered to enjoy a little more of his birthday and watch a little of a movie he chose for him and I to watch together. So bye for now.

Rats

It has been a little while since I posted, but we as a family have been sick over the past three weeks. The worst was fever and bad sinus congestion. We are mostly healthy now and so I have time to write another post.

You may guess by the title that this post has to do with rats. If you have an affection for rats (which may have occurred watching the latest Pixar movie) this post is not for you.

We have seen multiple rats climbing around outside our house on fences, wires and up pipes into holes in our neighbors roof. We have also seen lots of little bits of evidence in our courtyard that rats have been there during the night. As we do not like rats and do not want them figuring a way into our house we took action.

A friend of ours bought us a rat trap. It is a simple contraption, with a door that lifts open and is set by connecting a thin piece of wire to a loop that is connected to a hook inside the cage. When the rat pulls on the food set on the hook, it pulls the loop off the wire and the door slams shut.

We managed to catch four rats this way. They loved the papaya. But after you catch a rat, what do you do. I will not go into detail, but let us just say I used water.

After the fourth one was caught (I caught three on three consecutive nights), the rats figured out it was a trap and I have not caught another one for several days. The night after I caught the last one, it seems we were visited by multiple rats in our courtyard, evidenced by those little pieces of evidence I mentioned earlier, but not a single one was caught by the trap.

Our Vietnamese friend who bought us the trap talked about how smart rats are and told a story from his home growing up about their intelligence. Our friend said there are other ways and that he would bring the next type of trap for us to try. I will let you know how it works.

UPDATE: Someone recommended peanut butter as a bait. So I tried it (crunchy) and it worked. I caught another rat last night. I am trying again tonight.

New sport, Bucketing

Well, we had another major rain and we experienced flooding again. Joseph and I accepted the challenge and went to work bucketing out the water from behind our house so that the water did not come into our kitchen. While we did this, Ann and Brittany soaked up the water that did come in and wrung out the towels into buckets inside the kitchen. While Ann and Brittany worked together, Brittany said, "we are a good team, it takes all 4 of us, two boys and two girls".

It is true, we could not have kept up with the water if we did not have all four of us. Having twice the bucket power made a huge difference in keeping up with the flood and Brittany, as part of the team, besides wringing out towels with Ann for a period of time, she also peeled boiled eggs for Joseph and I so that we could keep our strength up. She was a big help!

When the rain finally stopped, we discovered that water was coming back in through the sewage system, either from the flooded alley, or from our flooded courtyard. That is why we ended up bucketing for 2 and 1/2 hours. Needless to say we were sore the next day.

Joseph and I figure if we bucketed like this every other day we would be in really good shape (ha ha). Our landlord is supposed to come and see what he can do, but we just found out that our house sits lower than all the new contruction in our neighborhood, meaing that we are one of the low points, maybe the lowest point in the neighborhood, so we collect the water the sewars can't handle. Hmm. I guess our choices for now when we have a downpour are, run for the hills or, quick, get the buckets!

UPDATE: Our landlord came and is planning to build a small wall inside our kitchen door so that the water can rise, but not come into our kitchen. This seems to be the best option right now.

Fruit

These are pictures of dragon fruit. They grow on a cactus. The fruit is lightly sweet and has no pit or core. It has only the small black seeds, the black specks in the white fruit, which are eaten with the fruit. Delicious!

And we thought the traffic in Hanoi was difficult!

First Day

Today was the first day back to the University (ULSA). It was great to be back and see colleagues and friends. It seems like it will be an exciting school year. Thanks for thinking about this.

It has also been great to get back to speaking Vietnamese. I have remembered much of what I knew and have started studying. I have spoken with our landlord, with our friend who does repairs, to friends who own a shop and to people at the office. Overall, I was encouraged and I am encouraged to go to the next level of my language learning.

I was asked today how I felt being back in the Hanoi traffic, as many of their friends upon returning from studying abroad find it scary to drive in Hanoi. I responded that I got right back into driving without any problems. Of course the picture shows what I was up against in the States.

Brittany and Joseph started school today. Brittany is learning the excitement of History and Science. She was quite proud that she now has subjects like Joseph. Joseph started his online courses today and found out we are missing some information for his math class. He is waiting to hear back from the teacher to see what needs to be done. It is the course materials so we are hoping he will be able to download this.

Ann, being the teacher has had a busy first day, but it seems that it was a rewarding first day for her. Ann made a great discovery at our local shopkeepers. They are able to buy the milk for us. They have orders of milk brought on Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Before I had to ride to my friends shop around 20 minutes away (through an area that is not easy to get to and usually have to deal with bad traffic). So this was very nice surprise. We still go to my friends shop for cheese and other items.

This weekend on Saturday night we went to a concert at the Vietnam Opera building in support of an American friend who is a pianist and who has worked with the Vietnam Opera to put on that night's performance. Performing were a 25 children choir, opera soloist, a four hand performance on the piano and around a 30 person adult choir (made up by the opera singers). Our friend played the piano for all of it. It was fun to see the children perform and enjoy the talent of the pianist and opera singers. Believe it or not, the V.N.O.B. puts performances on for free. Certainly makes it affordable to take the whole family to.

Joseph got his first ride out in the streets (at night even) to ride the 50cc our friends loaned him to the concert. He did a great job riding through the traffic.

Life in the big house

Yesterday we had our first big rain since we arrived back. While we were gone our kitchen flooded twice, so we were watching the back area (behind the kitchen) closely. The water rose pretty fast. Joseph went and got our water pump just in case, but the hose to suck the water out was gone. We tried to makeshift with another hose, but it did not work. The rain stopped and the water was about an inch and a half from cresting the little step into the kitchen. I decided to bucket it out. Several of the neighborhood young boys peered in through the fence to see why I was bucketing water, then they continued to laugh and play hide-and-go-seek. Many of the motorcyclist, bicyclist and pedestrians were happy I saw them coming and stopped throwing the water out into the alleyway until they went by.

Today, we discovered termites behind our couch. They were transferring eggs from the couch to a hole in the floor by the wall (wood baseboard). So I sprayed all those lovely termites carrying eggs, pushed the couch back further and found the eggs and termites lined almost the whole back of the couch. We hired our friend to bring more traps for the termites. The traps are boxes filled with easy to chew wood. After about two or three weeks, he will come back and put poison on the wood. The theory is the termites will like this wood because it is very easy to eat. After it becomes a source for the colony, the poison is applied, which will then kill the colony including the queen. Our friend has done this over the summer in other areas of our house as well. He informed us after we returned that it resulted in killing lots of termites, showing what he meant by cupping his hands, with is fingers spread, with actions suggesting that it would be overflowing.

Today we picked up a 50cc motorbike. Our friends who are in the States for the next year have loaned it to us so that Joseph could have a motorbike to ride. Joseph took it out for a little ride already. Needless to say, he enjoyed the ride. We were honored that our friends trusted Joseph to be responsible with their bike, especially as it is hard to find these type of 50cc's anymore. They are built by Honda and they last forever it seems. In Vietnam, you do not need a license for a 50cc, but you do need to be 15 or older.

Almost supper time.

Back Home

It is good to be back home here in Hanoi. We certainly wish we could bring all of our family and friends with us, but we would settle for a visit (hint, hint). All you have to do is go west and head south and eventually you would reach Hanoi. ha ha.

Brittany had a play date yesterday at a friend's house and today she has the same friend over to our house. Needless to say this is helping her to settle back in well. We are thankful.

Joseph, today will be loading up items on the computer for his online courses. He starts August 13th.

Ann is working on a shopping list. We will head out later today and go grocery shopping on the motorbike.

Joseph and I played basketball yesterday (we usually play on Sunday afternoons). We could tell our bodies were still dealing with jetlag. So we had two reasons for missed shots, jetlag and the fact that they set the rims at 9'9" (around 3 meters) instead of 10'. Even with the missed shots, we had a great time, especially seeing some friends that usually play basketball with us.

Overall, it seems we are adjusting to the time zone difference (12 hours) quickly. The humidity, well it will take a little longer to get used to.

California

We have enjoyed in just a few days, time with some friends and family out here in California. Ann's family is gathering for a family reuinion during out time here. Tomorrow we all gather to take a tour of Stanford University (It may be different, but we like touring Univeristies). Ann and I continue to be reminded of the reality that Joseph will be going off to college in two years. We also hope to get a tour of HP while we are out here, courtesy of a friend.

Brittany is loving the time she is having with her girl cousins. Tomorrow, 5 girl cousins that are two years apart from the youngest to the oldest, will be together. A sleepover is also planned. Strategies have already been discussed on how to keep the noise and squeel level down.

HANOI......

As we read about the plight of street kids in Hanoi on another blog (yesterday), especially about the real threat of ending up being a victime of human trafficking, our hearts and minds think of how we might be a part in being a cure for this plague in Vietnam.

21 days until we return.

Growing

First entry - July 10th, 2007

We are less than a month from going back to Vietnam. We have enjoyed visiting friends and family immensely and look forward to our final visits.

We are also shopping (well, mostly Ann) for things we need to take back with us to Vietnam. Clothes, shoes, and as many of you know cereal.

Our time in America has also allowed us to evaluate what has transpired this last year and a half in Vietnam and to crystallize what we are looking for this coming year.

Brittany celebrated her birthday with a princess theme. She has grown a lot this summer, just like Illinois corn.

Joseph has also grown this summer. He is giving his dad big challenges on the basketball court. With Joseph still growing, the future for Russell's chances of winning is looking dim.

Ann, for all of you that have wondered about her headache, still has one, but it has decreased while we have been home. One of our friends has recommended and generously supplied Ann with something that is helping her with the allergy that seems to be causing the headache. Please do continue to remember her. Thank you.

Russell, besides driving the car over 7,000 miles this summer so far, has enjoyed playing basketball and frisbee golf. Russell has put on some needed pounds this summer (maybe a little too quickly), but hopes to continue working out in Hanoi to continue working on being in shape (one motivation is to prepare for Joseph, ha ha).

That is all for this first entry. More footnotes to come as they happen.