**pictures that are wide instead of tall are not showing correctly. to see the full picture, click on it!**

As a warning, this posting is very discombobulated. If I fully organized all events and thoughts, and tried to make quality writing out of it, you would be waiting until 2010 to hear from me. So much happened in 10 days- I can hardly keep it straight myself let alone write it all down!!

This was all written while I was in Thailand, with only some minor changes for the sake of coherence! After sharing what I wrote in the moment I will tell some other stories that I have not yet written :)

Day 1 - Phuket (pronounced boo-GET)

I can't believe I'm in Thailand at all. The whole time I was in the taxi to phuket town, I just kept saying to myself "WOW I'm in Thailand!" Being here does and doesn't remind me of Vietnam. IT reminds me more of Malaysia I'd say, with the same tropical feel as Singapore but without the organization. While Vietnam was a fishing place from what I saw, Phuket is a beach party place, where the main streets cater to tourists (we really went for hours tonight seeing only farangs [westerners], besides the people selling things to the farangs), and where taxi drivers drive unlabeled sketchy cars and try to overcharge.

A few things struck me today. For one, I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets ever on Karon beach. I floated in the salt water, with the setting sun warming me on one side, and the moon overlooking me on my other side. I could hear nothing but the sounds of the waves around me and the sound of my own breath. It was so surreal and beautiful that I couldnt believe I was actually experiencing it. Such an expanse of beautiful sky and water.

I faced a moral dilemna as I and my friends haggled for prices at the market and for a taxi. We literally walked around for 30 minutes fighting with taxi drivers to bring down the fixed price of a taxi from 500 baht to 400 baht. Granted, they were majorly overcharging tourists, whose only option for getting home from the beach at night is a taxi, but 100 baht divided between the 3 of us- that's less than $1 USD each. We ended up getting our ride for 400 baht but I had to question myself. I am so lucky that I don't have to worry too much about where I will get my next dollar. These people do, and yet we still had to haggle for the "local price". It just made me really sad when I said thank you to our taxi driver in Thai (kab-kum-kah!), and he gave me a huge genuine smile, after we didn't even trust him to give us correct change for a 500 baht note.

Writing this makes me realize how simple my life is. I feel so lucky that I can go on a holiday and swim on a beach and play with waves without worrying about anything. My phone has been turned off all day and I know that I am free from obligations- there is nobody that needs to reach me right now. I feel almost guilty that I can take a trip like this, so I need to enjoy it as much as I can while I still live a relatively obligation-free life. And as I said before, today has reinforced how lucky I feel that I don't have to worry where my next dollar is coming from. In one hour of teaching I make the same amount that some people here make in one week. It's something to think about..

Sunsets and beaches in Phuket:


My Phuket travel buddies

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Day 6- Second day in Bangkok
Last night I literally passed out- at 10:15 pm on my rock-hard bed, with my duffel bag, travel guide, maps, phone....everything! scattered around me. Still in the clothes I had been wearing all day, with the lights shining brightly on my face. I did not wake up again until 2:30 AM, at which point I confusedly knocked everything off my bed, turned off my lights, and fell fast asleep again till 8:30 AM. It's about time I got sleep like that!
When I woke up today I changed guesthouses. The one around the corner where I am now is much more nice and cozy, but now I'm finding that the main light bulb is burned out so it's dark, and there are no outlets. However, there IS hot water! I took a luxurious shower with the first combination of clean shower AND hot water that I've had so far, and took bus 44 to meet Ice at Wat Phra Kaew, the grand palace. (Ice is my good friend from school in Singapore. His full name is Kittiphan, but most Thai people go by nicknames since their full names are so long). After wandering around Bangkok by myself for 24 hours, it was so nice to see a familiar face. Ice and I went to the palace, and regal doesn't even begin to describe it.





After peeking inside each section and marveling at all the gold and beauty, Ice and I went to cross the river by ferry. We visited another wat on that side of the river, and then Ice bought some very cheap bread for 10 baht. After tricking me into eating it by calling it "special delicious thai bread" (!!), I realized that this stale bread was specifically for feeding the pigeons and huge koi fish at the pier. As I fed fish and birds by an ancient temple, with Buddhist monks, friendly dogs, and locals milling about around me, I felt so relaxed. It reminded me of the scene from Marry Poppins where she was feeding the birds. Later I had a vegetarian version of Papaya salad with Ice for lunch. It was so spicy that there were tears running down my face from eating it!





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I don't know if I will ever get used to carrying around my own tissues as a replacement for toilet paper. It's just something I never had to worry about before.
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To continue, Ice and I traveled to Siam Square in the afternoon and looked around there. It's very similar to Singapores' Orchard Road, but much less crowded, better prices, and a more unique variety of shops. Their Christmas decorations were much better than Singapores' and I love that they had one xmas tree constructed of recycled CDs and one of recycled coke cans.

[ I never did finish telling the story of that day! But here are some pictures!]
This is me with, from left to right: Su, Pom, and Mika. Pom is my friend from school's brother. Mika is his girlfriend, and Su is Mika's best friend. They were all so incredibly kind to me, took me for all kinds of food and showed me different places in Bangkok, and I am so grateful to them!

This is how they make milk tea- tossing it from cup to cup adds lots of bubbles!

A christmas tree from recycled CDs

Day 7- Third day in Bangkok
This trip is starting to make me really tired...!
I didn't sleep as well last night for whatever reason- maybe I was less exhausted? But today I feel kind of drained and I am getting a sore throat. Maybe I caught it from Su or Ice. I'm still so full from all of yesterday's food!


Day 8- fourth day in Bangkok
At the end of an eventful day, in which I made my way all over Bangkok completely alone, I have to wonder, why do I feel so safe? Everything went without a hitch today, besides some irritating taxi/tuktuk/motorbike drivers whose creepy voices will give me shivers for a long time. But even they were harmless.

After having a vegetarian late breakfast (I luxuriously slept in my big bed til 10- maybe the massage helped, or I was just that tired. As a sidenote, it's funny what the word "luxurious" means to me at this point. Basically, it means: comfortable and bug free!).

So I had my breakfast and took the bus to the historic area of Bangkok, from where I thought it should be easy enough to find the river and follow it to Chinatown- the way my complimentary yet sparse Bangkok map told me I would. Turns out I REALLY had no clue how to get around. And I could only look at my map for fragmented private moments, because as soon as I started looking at my map, I got harassed by every driver on the block, all of them trying to sell me a taxi ride! So, instead I had to walk confidently and look like I knew EXACTLY where I was going. Ironically, confidently walking in one direction took me a good kilometer out of my way. Finally, I saw a music store and talked to a friendly lady inside who spoke with perfect English,. She saved me by directing me towards the river. So I ran into bus 1, which Ice told me I could take to chinatown. I hopped on (literally- the bus doesn't really stop moving), and the lady in charge on the bus was so kind. She tapped me the second there was a free seat and made me sit down (even though I stand on the buses in Singapore allll the time), told me when to get off for Chinatown, and didn't even charge me for the 30 minute bus ride! The differences between public and private transportation here are amazing.

So, Su had eloquently told me that every Chinatown is the same. This Chinatown was a little more crowded than Chinatowns I'm used to, with less English and less tofu. But, it was still Chinatown for sure. I visited 2 beautiful wats and a hospital that mixes modern and traditional Chinese medicine. I finally built up the courage to smile and nod my head to a monk. I was always (always being...the past few days) nervous to look at them in case I accidentally did something wrong or offensive. Then I walked along the streets, took in the sights, and was very careful not to trip on people who were sitting on the ground selling merchandise laid out on the sidewalk.

I wandered onto a soi that was selling lots of shoes. I turned 1 or 2 corners and all of a sudden I was hit by the most insane outdoor market area I've ever seen! There were tons of shops on each side of a narrow path selling extremely cheap-looking things for extremely cheap prices. Often sellers had food carts set up in front of the other stalls, making the path seem more like an obstacle course. Motorbikes barged through as well as people carting huge boxes of merchandise, so the crowds were squeezed even more to the sides. The crowd consisted of school children, moms with their kids, the local chinese population- And ME! It was too crowded to actually shop, in my opinion, so I just went with the flow of the crowd and looked around.
While walking, an extremely nice lady at a food cart grunted until she had my attention, took my empty plastic drink cup that I was still holding, and threw it in her little trashcan for me. Little gestures like that just made me love the Thai people. I can't imagine any other place where people are so helpful that they want to give you free bus rides and even throw out your trash for you!





I then found Choa Phraya express and took a lovely ferry boat ride to the center of the city, where I could take the sky train to wherever I pleased. I called Su, who was luckily free to hang out, and we went to an area of Bangkok called Nana to have Indian dinner. I had such a great time with Su. She is the perfect person for me to eat with, because she is also vegetarian, likes healthy food, and since she is a pharmacist she knows all the properties of food and what is and is not healthy! We had a long and comfortable dinner- Su was starving because she had not eaten lunch, and I was pretty hungry from my long walk around Chinatown, so we ate a ton of food and relaxed together!



That evening, I roamed around more of the city, and took a long walk in the beautiful Lumphini park. There was a running path along a huge pond (or what the guide I just gave a link for called an artificial lake), and many people of all ages were running after sunset. So for a few hours I walked around, watched families and friends and school children as they went about the park, looked at various monuments and buildings, and even ran into a mother dog and her litter of puppies!


I listened to a free concert for a while, and found the bus I need to take to get back home, and made it back here with no problem.

Now I am back on Khao San Road by my guesthouse, enjoying a green tea latte and writing about my day in a 24-hour coffee shop!


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Well that was all that I actually wrote while on the trip! But I have to at least describe the other places that I visited!

Krabi a province in Southern Thailand, about 2.5 hours away from Phuket, that is supposed to be home to Thailand's most gorgeous beaches and islands. So, of course I could not pass up the opportunity to see that! I won't say that I was disappointed with Krabi, because it certainly did live up to its reputation of being beautiful. However, I have to say, it was only a little more beautiful than the beaches of Phuket, and a lot more difficult to get to!! Everything in the area was extremely touristy and expensive, but the sights made it worth it!

My personal favorite picture from my trip:





Nakon Si Thammarat
After four days of what felt like a spring break party among the beaches, my next destination was well off of the tourist path. My friend Lara, whom I have known since I was four, is teaching English with her boyfriend Will in this city for a year. Both of them went to my highschool and we graduated together, so I had to visit them!! Nakhon si Thammarat was a nice change. Instead of locals trying to use me for all the money I might have in my pocket, these locals followed us around the street calling us beautiful in English or Thai. I don't know if I was more interested in them, or if they were more interested in us! Any time I smiled or waved at one of the people in the city, they were thrilled! It was like being an instant celebrity, which is a very funny feeling. However, it was nice to feel a mutual fascination with each other.

Shadow puppets is a very important and historic art in Nakhon Si Thammarat

Weekend market

Lara, Will and I!

Oh, and another highlight of Nakhon- I had my first ride on a motorbike!! It's the only way of getting around!

And one last picture- This was me with Mika's family and friends on my last night in Bangkok. Mika and her sister and her sister's husband all play vital roles in a string ensemble, whose performance was that night. After their concert, we celebrated until 3:30 am!

This trip was extremely rich for me in so many ways. It forced me to grow up a lot, as I had to handle so many logistics and decisions completely on my own. Once again I got a painful awareness for all the wealth and opportunities that I do have, and that others unfortunately do not (as a side note, I was very happy to see that Bangkok has such a large middle class- it is not only extremely rich people and extremely poor as I had feared) .
Overall, this trip gave me a deep appreciation for human kindness- its definitely NOT the case that everyone I met during my ten days was an angel. Some people were unfriendly, and many wanted to take advantage of the Western traveler in any way possible. However, my friends that took me under their wing, random strangers who gave me small but vital help, the 3 sisters who ran a guesthouse and spent a good part of their night telling me about Thailand, the children who let me take their pictures, the many people who clasped their hands in prayer every time the bus or train passed by a temple (which, in Thailand is ALL the time). These are only a few examples of the beauty I saw, and the spirited energy of Thailand will stay in my mind for a long time.

Oh, and for those of you who were wondering- no, I did not see a single protester in Bangkok! :)

Happy New Year everyone!!

This Semester

Hi everyone,
I'm sorry that the blog postings are nowhere near as frequent as I had hoped. It is so hard for me to convey the contrast of my routine day-to-day normalcy with the random adventures or new sensations that pop out of nowhere. I guess what I mean by that is that every time I think I have something figured out, or get a little more comfortable in Asia, something completely new will jump out at me to remind me that I still have so much to learn. Every time I start to write, I end up stuck for several minutes trying to think of the right words to help share my experiences.

The other day I was walking around Clarke Quay, a kind of pseudo Disneyland in Singapore, waiting for my friends to meet up with me. I passed by the same bridge where I met so many people on the night of July 30th (which I described from my post on August 2). And looking at that same spot that I stood as a newcomer in Singapore, I said to myself, "Am I a different person now?"

The reassuring answer is that no, I am not a different person. I am still the same Leah with more variety of experiences to soak in. For example, last week I spent 30 minutes at Borders reading a book about Islam- don't worry, not because I'm thinking of converting :-p, but because I see so many Muslim people and deal with them on a weekly basis, but know so little about such a fundamental part of their life. It wasn't until I put the book down that I realized how odd I would have found it, even six months ago, to go to a bookstore to read about Islam.

However, I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to meet so many people from all over the world that give me cause to read about things I never needed to learn about in the past. Before I came here, I had never met a single person from Malaysia! Now I know several of them, and they are so "Westernized" in some respects that I constantly forget that most of them have never been to the US. I have a huge amount of respect though for my Malaysian friends- they all speak English, Malay, Chinese and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect). They are so hardworking and yet they still like to enjoy life.
At the beginning of this semester, I never would have predicted that I would feel comfortable hanging out as the only Caucasian in a Thai night club. My Thai friends are some of the funniest people I know. They can joke around for an hour straight, but they are still very sensitive people with generous hearts.
I go to sing karaoke with my Chinese classmates who, although they are so quiet in school, let loose and go crazy once they hear some pop music from their home! I watch my Persian friend's eyes light up as she talks about the beautiful nature, architecture and people of Iran. I chat with the children in my neighborhood who get so excited about the small (third-hand? forth-hand?) scooter they were given by their parents. I talk to people from Israel and learn about how difficult it is for them to travel to so many countries around the world because of their Israeli passport. I talk to Chinese and Indian friends who have the same problem.

So I talk to all these people, and learn from them, and what surprises me the most is that, even with all my ignorance, they think that I am the interesting one, because it seems to be every Asian's dream to go to the United States. But what makes me even happier is that we do not have to talk too much about where we are from; people are people, and instead we talk about music, other subjects, our life goals, or just have fun together.

Many people call Singapore "Asia for Beginners", I am a bit frustrated that there really arent' that many adventures to have Singapore, (and even if they were, school and teaching keep me so busy that i would not have time). However, the people who are here constantly keep me on my toes, and I love it.

My day-to-day life is nothing like the dreams I had of studying in a far away exotic place. Days clump together in routine, and things tend to get boring sometimes. My goal this semester has been to fix my technique- a daunting task anywhere, but especially when surrounded by Chinese violinists who can play Paganini caprices perfectly without even warming up. From the help of my teacher, lots of hard work, and some really amazingly patient classmates, my fingers have developed much more confidence! I ended my semester by performing Beethoven Sonata No. 1 for my studio class, and for the first time ever I did not doubt where my fingers were supposed to go, and for that reason I was much less nervous than I had been performing in the past. Because I was not worried about my technique I was able to focus on the music, which is the ultimate point of performing. I still have a long way to go, but I am excited to see where new revelations will lead me. Next semester I am preparing for my solo graduate recital and I also decided to audition for the sublist of Singapore Symphony Orchestra- even if I don't get accepted, the auditioning experience will be good!

Anyway, here are some highlights of my semester:

The Singapore Sun Festival: For 2 weeks in October, 7 Peabody students and 6 students from Guildhall school in London came to collaborate with the Yong Siew Toh Orchestra for the opening of the Singapore Sun Festival . Our orchestra played Peter and the Wolf with actor Geoffrey Rush, and accompanied the Vienna Boy's Choir and Kiri te Kanawa! I had an amazingly fun time with my friends from Peabody and YST. It was really my one time to be a tourist during the semester, and we did things like go to the Botanical Gardens, Chinatown, and even had a crazy night of karaoke!
Our orchestra rehearsing Peter and the Wolf with Geoffrey Rush. See me? :)

Girls in my studio before the Sun Festival Concert- from left to right, Zhao Yi, Chiaoyin, Qi Hong, Szuyun, and me. We all study with the same teacher and they've all been wonderful to me! Two of them are Taiwanese and 2 of them are Chinese.

Swans at the Botanic Gardens
Karaoke night!

Also, the Boston Brass came to our music school for a week long workshop. I know very little about brass, but I didn't need to know anything about the instruments in order to soak in their incredible musicianship and listen to them talk about making music, having musical careers, and professionalism. I learned so much from them, and was lucky enough to go out with them and some brass players to a hawker center (outdoor foodcourt) for a dinner after their brass concert at the school! And a feast it was- I think about 15 of us racked up a $500 bill, but it was so much fun!
Boston Brass at our school

Thanksgiving was a holiday that I was dreading. I thought I would be depressed, since in Singapore, Thanksgiving is just another Thursday. Luckily, I have a wonderful network of American friends here that refused to let Thanksgiving slip away! At our friend Rosie's place we prepared a full meal, complete with a 12-pound turkey and pumpkin pie! It was a warm and fuzzy night where we all realized how lucky we were to start off in a new place and make such great friends so quickly.
All of us around the table for Thansgiving
So much food!!


When I am not at school being a student, I am hopping onto trains all over Singapore to teach. I have 12 students now, ranging from age 4 to adult. I'm learning just as much if not more from being a teacher as I am from being a student, and it's a really special experience for me. I get so excited watching their progress- figuring out what suggestions click in their head and how to work with each student to get them to accomplish different things. Oh, and as an added plus I get to hear the song "Lightly Row" about 5 times per week :-p. One of my students- a 7 year old Malay girl- was so excited at her last lesson to play her songs with piano accompaniment, that she asked if we could schedule another lesson on her public holiday!

So hopefully this is enough to give you all a picture of my life here. I promise the updates will become shorter and more often- there is so much more I want to say right now , but I am leaving on a trip for THAILAND tomorrow morning, and I still need to finish packing!! Look for another posting around Christmas time. I hope everyone has very happy holidays! Say hi to the snow for me!

~Leah

Vietnam!

Hi everyone! Things are busy as ever in Singapore as the semester is starting to draw to a close. I see Obama Mania all over the internet, but right now I feel so far away from it all. It is very surreal for me sometimes to experience everything going on at home through a computer screen, but I am so glad that I at least have the internet to communicate across the world. I did send in my absentee ballot, and my friends and I will be watching TV starting at our time Wednesday 8 AM! I am hoping for the best! 

I promise to give some large updates about Singapore soon, but, as you can see from the size of this update, I have been working on this post about Vietnam for a long time. I haven't even begun writing about the food or the people I met, but I think I need to post this and move on with my life! If you get bored reading, scroll to the bottom for pictures!!

Emily and I left for Hanoi on the evening of Thursday September 18th, and when we got off the plane I felt like I was on another planet. Gone were the big bright multi-language Singapore signs; the well-structured efficiency that is everywhere in Singapore seemed to be completely absent in Hanoi. Emily and I shifted through crowds of rushing people and finally found our "airport shuttle" outside- a small poorly labeled van that would take us to the center of the city. For $3 USD each we got a 45 minute trip to the stop near our hostel, and for 1 more USD they brought us to the door.
This ride showed me two staples of Hanoi society: the first was CONSTANT loud honking from cars, trucks, and motorbikes as all the vehicles attempted to pass each other and go as fast as possible. Safety definitely seemed like a secondary concern, but luckily all the drivers seemed quite well versed in their swerving style of driving, so maybe I shouldn't have worried so much. The other fundamental of Hanoi that struck me right away was the "roadside life". It might be safe to say that more people gather outside their homes and shops than inside them. Locals all sat and had late night meals on the side of the road on the smallest little stools I think I've ever seen. They looked like chairs for toddlers, but everyone sat on them- when I later tried to sit on them I didnt find it so comfortable, but it seemed to be the chair of choice in Hanoi.

In describing my trip, I will have to use the word "seem" a lot. There is very little that I actually KNOW, because I was viewing the place completely through a visitor's eyes with very little input from those who live there. I guess I was more surprised than I should have been that the Vietnamese people we met knew very little English. What surprised me even more was that those who did know English were only interested in talking to us if we bought whatever they were selling. Unlike the locals in Malaysia(see entry from August 9th) who were enchanted by talking to foreigners, locals in Vietnam seemed to see Westerners merely as "money making opportunities", as Emily so eloquently put it. This is understandable considering that a luxurious 3-course meal there costs about 70,000 Vietnamese Dong but only $4 USD- to them we are very, very rich. The only Vietnamese person I was really able to talk to and ask questions was our tour guide on the second part of our trip- and the fact that he spoke fluent English and had a job in tourism already put him, I believe, in a much different class than most of the locals we saw in Vietnam.

All that being said, there was a lot of beauty in Hanoi as well- not only in the picturesque temples and the serene lake and greenery, but also in the arts- painting galleries, silk shops, porcelain shops and other craft shops were almost as plentiful as the motorcyle and sewing machine shops (for some reason those two are often sold together!). The daily life that we were able to observe on the streets was also quite nice. Women set up their fruit baskets on the street corners to sell produce while they brushed their daughters' hair and made food. Men took naps on their motorcycles, but usually woke up just in time to chase us down and shout "MOTORBIKE!", offering a ride for a fee.

On our first full day in Vietnam Emily and I visited the Hoa Lo Prison, or "Hanoi Hilton" - the prison used by French Colonists in the 1800s and also for American POWs in the Vietnam War. It is now converted into a museum. Visiting the prison was very depressing and certainly showed the darker side of Vietnam's history. We read a lot of ugly stories and various pictures and artifacts really brought the place to life. I was slightly amused by the celebrity status John McCain seemed to have there- since he was a POW at the prison, they proudly display his flight suit in a glass case, and show pictures of him in the prison as well. I haven't figured out if this is making a proud statement for capturing him back in the day, or if it is to attract Westerners to visit the prison. Either way, it is interesting.

I may be wrong, but aside from the prison I saw few remnants of "the American war" (the name of the war of course changes depending on where you are). My Vietnamese friends in Singapore confirmed that the Vietnamese have no ill feelings towards Americans who visit Vietnam, although the small percentage of men who you see on the street with missing limbs might feel differently.

Next we went to the Temple of Literature in Hanoi. The link I gave covers the gist of the place quite well, so I won't be redundant explaining it here. It was very beautiful though, and I appreciated that a university from over 1,000 years ago was still in pristine condition, despite the littered and chaotic state of the rest of the city. That is one thing I definitely noticed throughout the trip- the sacred things were kept sacred. While the streets, as I mentioned earlier were filled with roaring motorbikes and the gutters filled with trash, the Hoan Kiem Lake and the temple by the lake seemed like it could have looked the same centuries ago. The French theater where we saw water puppets was also in fantastic condition. Water puppets was our last cultural essential that we viewed in Vietnam. The stage is filled with water, and from behind a screen puppeteers control wooden puppets with stunningly elaborate choreography. Meanwhile, the audience also enjoys Vietnamese traditional instruments and singing to go along with the show. Since a picture is worth more than I could ever describe:


After our adventures in Hanoi, Emily and I met up with my roommate Jolene and our friend Kirstine, and took our trip to Halong Bay. This area is filled with sparkling blue water and deep caves and limestone boulders that have been around for thousands of years. When I first saw the beauty of Halong bay after a day in the bustling density of Hanoi I thought, "wow! here is a place that hasn't been taken over by people!" Unfortunately, I was a little wrong about that, as Halong bay, being one of the most popular tourism spots in Vietnam, was teeming with other tourists. While the huge lineup of other tourist boats stopped me from completely enjoying the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere, Halong Bay was certainly beautiful enough.

My friends and I spent 1 night on a boat and then another night on Cat Ba Island, where, unfortunately we spent most of the day in the hotel due to torrential downpours!! We visited caves, went swimming, hiked up the limestone, went kayaking, and just enjoyed the beautiful sights. Emily and I, instead of sleeping in our room on the bottom floor of the boat, slept up on the deck, so that we could open our eyes and take in the scene any time of night.

Spending an overnight on the boat ended up being a great time. I had to bring my violin to Vietnam to practice for upcoming performances at school, and all the other travelers begged me to give them a performance on the boat! I was reluctant at first, but when one of the travelers from England offered to buy me a bottle of wine to share with my friends in return for my violin playing, I couldn't refuse! So, I played some fun songs on the boat, and then the concert expanded to our Vietnamese tour guide and boat crew. I provided a drone on my violin while they sang traditional Vietnamese songs and love songs. I think it was really a special night for everyone, and a very new cultural experience for me!

What I may have loved the most about Halong Bay were the Fishing Villages- or "Pishi Villag" with the Vietnamese accent. These were literally villages of fishermen who lived in tiny houses among the limestone. Whole families lived in tiny one-room houses IN the water, and often they had a dog live with them too! Space did not seem to be an issue to them, as they still had room to cook, room to sleep, and a little bit of room to play. Children who could not be more than 5 or 6 years old went out in rowboats that they rowed with their feet if their hands got tired, and helped their fathers or older brothers with the fishing. It really was a whole different world.

I want to write more, but as it's been over a month since I've been home, I think I should post this in its current form, and stop before you all get tired of reading! Here are some pictures from the trip. Click on any photo to enlarge-

Typical Street in Hanoi

Porcelain being sold on the side of the road

Outside the Temple of Literature

Shadow Puppets for sale!

small house inside temple of literature

Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi (my Vietnamese friend from school saw this picture and said he lives very close by!)

HALONG BAY!

Halong Bay

Boats like these keep tourists and fishermen alike in stock

The boat crew after our first night in Halong Bay

Jam session on the boat :)

The fishing village are those little tiny houses in the background

Kids off on the boat

My travel companions!! Roommate Jolene, friend Kirstine from Denmark, and Singaporean school buddy Emily!