A belated photograph sent by our French friends, Marie and Jonathan. We met them back in December on this Halong Bay cruise where we stayed for two nights on a traditional Chinese "junk boat."

Photography of Car Poolers

by Alejandro Cartegena 

Radiator Love

The other night I caught my radiator typing, with its syncopated steam, a love letter, perhaps to the dog, but she was napping on the yellow armchair. Her twitching paws signaled to me that she'd left, gone searching for some field beyond this room.

"Art Hotel: Touching Emotion" in Hanoi (this is the funny slogan of our hotel)

Here in Hanoi, time seems to work in multiple and sometimes paradoxical ways. On one hand, the city might seem to take a teeny-weeny catnap (at best, maybe late, late at night) but it never truly reaches R.E.M. Even Michael (a New Yorker) agreed that Hanoi has an energy that feels so palpable and virtually unceasing. On the other hand, the city seems to abide by unspoken rhythms--meal times served during certain times, the dizzying criss-crossing of rush hour traffic, folks sitting on plastic stools to enjoy a refreshing evening drink with friends--daily rituals that remind me of each day passing by.

Some of my favorite moments so far (sorry but I'm not sure how to type Vietnamese accents):
Not surprisingly, enjoying Vietnamese cuisine, which is perhaps my absolute favorite. While the Lonely Planet has been helpful in some ways for locating cultural sites, Michael and I have found that the best restaurants so far have been small places that LP didn't mention and ones that tend to specialize in one dish but seem largely overlooked by the tourists for some reason (does it have something to do with their location or seemingly less-inviting facade?). A few examples: Bun Cha on Duong Thanh (god help me, a bowl of this stuff is heroin for my belly...I'm already missing this place), Hanoi-style pho at Pho 49 on Bat Dan (large cuts of brisket hang from the counter and tonight the owner/employee smiled at Michael as she scribbled down the price in a wet puddle of broth on the table...fantastic, especially with a side of the bready things called "quay" that are shaped like dog bones). THE best pate EVER from a tiny shop on Ly Quoc Su...a slab of this pate on a fresh baguette keeps me a very happy carnivore and I noticed a healthy line of folks ordering fat slabs of it to take home. And then our latest find last night--Bun Bo right next door to our hotel on Hang Dieu Street (a bowl of vermicelli noodles with beef, bean sprouts, mint, lemongrass?, some broth, and sprinkled with peanuts). As Michael said blissfully after we ate this dish, "Bun bo will be the death of me." And of course, Vietnamese coffee and banh mi pate sandwiches from several vendors around the city(sometimes we carried two at a time from different vendors to eat later!).

Other dishes I've especially loved: banana flower salad at Koto, Banh Cuon on Hang Bo Street (banh cuon is made of steamed rice rolls filled with pork, mushroom, and shallots, served with a dipping sauce called nước chấm); Banh Xeo from a place on
Huy Chu; beignet-like donut things that we ordered with the bun bo; and from Quan An Ngon restaurant on Pahn Boi Chau Street, Banh hoi chao tom Cuon Banh Trang, a pounded shrimp hash fried on sugar cane served with rice vermicelli rice paper and vegetables.

Well, after last night's performance at the Hanoi Opera House (an incredible venue that's reached its 100th birthday this year) which showcased about a dozen musicians who performed from a range of musicAL genres, from classical compositions and Spanish ballads, to opera and jazz, Michael and I are hankering badly for more live music, so we're about to head over to Minh's Jazz Club where live jazz shows apparently take place every night.

I've also enjoyed the times we've had the chance to talk with the locals here, whether it be a group of Vietnamese college students taking a survey of what foods foreigners like most (we've been asked to participate in this survey twice now, at different places), or chatting with a guy at Pho 49. He was born and raised in Hanoi and he explained that many young adults in the region commute to Hanoi for work (which adds to the sense that Hanoi is a young city). I'm always amused to hear the impromptu guesses by folks about my ethnicity. A couple times now, people have expressed difficulty in reconciling my Asian-looking face with my American nationality. The results are in: I'm either Japanese (60%), Chinese (10%), Singaporean (5%), or other (5%). Don't folks know how many Korean telenovellas I've been exposed to over my life? :)

More soon (including non-food related)...hehe...

Patchen's An Astonished Eye Looks Out of the Air

Favorite lines from Kenneth Patchen's An Astonished Eye Looks Out of the Air (1945):

The poems were printed in a conscientious objectors' camp, red and black typography layered over on white and olive-green pages with white type. The symbolism and motifs remind me of a modernist version of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.

from "The Dimensions of the Morning":
I will allow you respect for
Red apples and countries warm
With the races of men; peep pver
The transom at China if you like;
But I will have no hatred or fear
Entering this poem.

from "A Letter to the Young Men":
When the days grow teeth at last and games
Are done; when sunset stills our eyes and search
Is at an end--the ways all blocked, the wind's
Majestic house gone slack to the crush
Of quarreling planes in all their blue skies...

from "The Origin of Baseball":
There weren't enough birds around
And the hills had a silly look
When we got on top of one.
The girls in heaven, however, thought
Nothing of asking to see his watch
Like you would want someone to tell
A joke--"Time," they'd say,"what's
That mean--time?", laughing with the edges
Of their white mouths, like a flutter of paper
In a madhouse.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So he wanted to throw something.
And he picked up a baseball.

from "'Keep Life'":
Town on the back of a hairy
Fish.



from "'Joined Together by the Rule of Peaceful Love'":
Their bodies writhe as that mating
Frees bulls down lanes
Of sweating roses. But a wall
Circles some grim town; and the
Reason for winter
Puts hooves on the sparrow.

from "The Naked Land":
A beast stands at my eye. //
I cook my sense in a dark fire.

from "What is the Beautiful?":
The narrowing line.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Unrest in the outer districts.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Perhaps the shapes will open.

Multiorganed, the Footnoted Confession

“The dream was marvelous but the terror was great; we must treasure the dream whatever the terror."

"My most favorite of things are optical illusions."

"I know why the line breaks: it is because something dies, and elsewhere, is born again..."

"She folded her bed sheet like a love letter....she should rather that the world remained extremely life-like....The paraphrase would always be bad, her antennae bent and remorseful....I must spit in the keyholes....How she so believed she alone was meant to discern the signs and omens, the secret addressee."

--Excerpts from Jenny Boully's The Body: An Essay.

Chest my Nut

Isn't the chestnut a prettier version of a wood-paneled room? I hope the chestnut would take this as a compliment...