Hi from Hanoi!

I'm a bit overdue on posts but here's a quick recap - hopefully I can get to the details later:

- landed safely on Hanoi yesterday morning (only a 2 hour flight from Ho Chi Minh) and was greeted by my great-aunt/uncle, who are 70-something and are cute as buttons and still ride motorbikes, which is hilarious to see them pull up with their helmets on. 

- it's hot as heck in Hanoi - if I ever complained about heat before, I take it back because now, it's really hot.  It's not the heat that's the main problem; it's the humidity. The last I checked, it was 44 C = 111.2 F. AH. 

- i'm meeting a bunch of relatives for the first time and it's eerie how similar they look to my relatives in the States/Canada. I have now perfected how to say the following: "I can understand a little bit of Vietnamese, but I don't know how to speak it well." I've also been practice my French (which is usually the other available language to use, if English isn't an option in a two-way conversation) and I'm definitely rusty - haven't used any French in the past 4 years.

- did i mention that it's hot and humid here?

- we switched hotels because the first one had questionable air conditioning status and that was a big NO in my parents' (and mine) opinions.  We upgraded from a backpacking hostel to a five-star hotel. I'm not complaining. 

- everyone here has dogs and none of them look like any of the dogs I've seen in the States.  Today, I met my great-aunt's dog, who looks like a mixtures of a yorkie/pug/shaggy rug/yoda. I might have to take a picture of it next time.

- family dinners lasts about three to four hours ago, which is good except I don't have much to contribute to the conversation due to my inability to speak fluently. But I'm learning a lot of about my family history, Eastern medicine (apparently, rubbing crushed garlic on your feet helps alleviate a stuffy nose and drinking fresh lime juice stops a cough - I'll have to look into that), and how cute my mom was as a little kid (I just went through a ton of old pictures of my mom's family during her childhood - it's crazy how little people change because I can instantly recognize some of my relatives in child-form). 

- I've always known that it's rude to refuse food or drinks that are offered by a host/hostess. But I didn't prepared how I would go about doing this here.  The water content is questionable here and I'm semi-allergic to certain fruits (as in my lips swell and itch after a few servings).  Well, it's polite to serve drinks and fruit as snacks or dessert and guess what is usually used? Homemade drinks with the questionable water (and I'm sure it's rude to ask if they boiled it first before accepting it) and the exact fruits I'm allergic to (melon, lychee, etc). So far, I've just chanced it and drank/ate whatever I was offered. Fortunately, all I've gotten is some fat lips (knock on wood). 


That's it for now - lots of pictures to come!