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Health & Fitness

Out of my element in Hanoi

Patch's skateboard blogger is giving us updates from his trip to Vietnam. In his first post, he admits that he is a little jet lagged, so hopefully it makes sense.

Andy and I arrived in Hanoi Vietnam yesterday, I have never been this far away from the Tacoma dome.

 

I've been to New York, L.A. and Boston. I have never seen this many people in my entire life. To cross the street is like being in a live version of the game Frogger. I'm starting to feel like I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this motorcycle trip. To get used to weaving in and out of traffic, I woke up early and skated around a bit. Everyone continuously moves here. It looks chaotic but the system works. No one seems to mind that I've been skating wherever I want here.  One guy let me hold onto the back of his moped and pulled me two blocks before I let go. I still feel a bit scared to take a bike and ride it down the Vietnam coast, but I'm sure it will work out fine, if not I purchased travelers health insurance.  

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Andy and I found something called a "water puppet show" I could not understand what the actors were saying, but there were a ton of puppets jumping around and lighting things on fire. It was like the Muppets show, but they were diving into water and dragons were flying into the audience. I loved it.

 After the puppet show, we found a shop and bought two Honda wins 100cc. Right now they are welding brackets on the back of them for our packs. They are real nice people at viet motor shop, they are welding on an additional rack for my skateboard! Andy and I found the shop in an allyway in old town. We are buying Motorbike, helmet (1970's style open face ), custom racks, aditional mirriors, maps and bike locks for about $500 US. The owner of the shop said we can stop by the shop to pick them up anytime because his staff lives in the shop. I had a confused look on my face so he took me in the back and showed me where they sleep (on a rack above the motor bikes). I was a bit jealous because everytime I asked my boss Fiona at UWT if I could just sleep at the school, she would just laugh and then say no, It would have been nice for finals week.

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 Its nice here but when on the bikes the wind makes you a bit cold so we went out and bought Northface and Colombia Gortex knock-off jackets for $40 US for driving on the freeways. These are snowboard jackets that cost about $350 - $400 in the states. The woman that sold them too us said that we looked very handsome in the Western style jackets. I really wanted something that looked more Eastern but I spent 3 hours finding anythoing that would fit me at all. I hade to find a  shop that had a "big and tall" section. The shop was very narrow and packed with jackets, then you move a few jacket over and pushed through the back section were the "big and tall" jackets are. It was like Narnia.

 As crazy as everything is in this city, everything is so accessible. They cook great pho right on the side walk and beer is no more than $1 U.S. It does seem hard to find wifi spots but other than that everything is quiet convienant.

Tomorrow we will pick up our bikes from viet motor shop and drive for Ha long bay, it will be about a three hour trip. Hopefully these knock off gortex jacket keep us warm.  

I'm still jet lagged and my camera work is shotty at best. Andy has a fancy camera and I will be sending better pictures soon. Let me know if there is anything in particular that you would like to see!

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