Jan 23, 2009 - Ming

Blogging from the plane:

Well, we should really have gotten to the airport earlier, the line at the checking was really looong, it took us 50 minutes to reach the agent’s desk. I think Lindsay liked it, because it meant she could spend more time with Mike. My main concern was that we would not be able to get 2 seats together, but the agent found us some… right behind the divider, which means no seat in front where you can stash your bag when taking off or landing, and no footrest. Still, I got the window seat, which has some bins right beside it where I stashed my pack for takeoff, then took out once we were airborne so I could put my feet on it. The top of the bins makes a convenient shelf for laying all our things when we are done with them before the air attendants come by to pick them up.

We were late in taking off, we actually left at 1:45, then we got some food – a surprisingly good spicy chicken breast (avoid those chilies!!) with rice and gai lan. Beats Safeway roast chicken all to heck. I tried not too successfully to sleep through the night with the temperature cranked up high (Mike had to zip off his pant legs). It was more of a doze on and off while listening to my MP3 player read me audiobooks, and I tried to sleep in as long as I could, because when we land in Taipei it will be 2PM our time and 5AM their time. Hanoi will be brutal, meeting up with Dad and probably heading off to the dreaded market to sightsee while on Vancouver time. Ugh. These airplane seats are really not made for sleeping. I wonder how my parents do it, and I’m not surprised my mom wants to take a break from this for a while.

Mike and I have cracked open our EEE PC’s and are working away for as long as our batteries will let us, since there is no power outlets in economy class. These little lappies are perfect for the seat trays. He caught up on an episode of Battlestar Galactica when I was sleeping.

The pre-sleep spicy chicken meal was hilarious, with Mike dropping slimy gai lan on his lap and not being able to find it, finding it and dropping it again. He said he often feels like Mr. Bean – trying to do things without disturbing others and failing miserably. The person sitting on the aisle seat has to squinch over while determinedly trying to ignore us every time we need to go to the bathroom.

Blogging from Taipei layover:

Hey we have a few hours to kill. Let’s go find our gate. Oh look, an electronics store… a duty free shop… Oh look, a giant Hello Kitty store and sitting area all done up in pink and white. Take a picture!! Oh look, the giant pink and white sitting area with annoying music piped in is our gate! Let’s go find somewhere else to hang out for a few hours…

We sat outside the Hello Kitty gate and stared at it in disbelief while waiting for our flight, watching the passerby’s. One woman was quite arresting in appearance, from head to toe, she was wearing: a pink cashmere floppy beret, a pink puffy vest, what looked like bulky knitted black shorts with shiny sequins on the front, black leggings that don’t go all the way up to meet the shorts, and gold colored pumps. She saw the Hello Kitty shop, squealed, and ran in. I tried to get Mike to take a picture of her, but she ran into the shop too quickly. We waited for her to come out, but she stayed in there forever. I guess she had found a store she really liked.


Blogging from the hotel:

My, but it’s been a long day. It always is when we go to VN. 17 hours of travel after we left Vancouver (at 2AM), we landed in our hotel room, internal clocks reading the following midnight and wall clocks reading 2PM. The sleep in between was fitful at best for me, trying to get comfortable enough on cramped plane seats to fall asleep is not as easy as it was when I was younger. Mike had no problems. He slept a lot and is feeling not too bad.

Later…

Well that feeling lasted all the way until the lights went down in the water puppets show. Dad planned our itinerary starting with our arrival here, and the first evening included the very famous and unique Vietnamese Water Puppets. It’s a show unlike anything that I’ve seen of heard of before. I think there is something about it happening on the water, the movements of the puppets makes the water move, which gives more life to the puppets, and soon they start to look very alive, you get absorbed in the show, and forget that these are animated hunks of wood, though prettily painted, that you are looking at. There is the wow factor of some of the ways in which the puppets are articulated though, that will make you suddenly think – hey, how did they do that?

The show consisted of little vignettes of VN traditional village life and legends. There was a funny scene with 2 phoenixes dancing, soon there was an egg dancing with them too, and then the egg exploded and there were 2 phoenixes and a little baby phoenix dancing along too. Hilarious. The puppets were accompanied by a live band in traditional dress playing traditional instruments. I had seen the show before in Montreal in the fall and remember it feeling magical then too, but also feeling bad for the musicians because the show was held outdoors in the fall, it was kind of chilly, and the puppeteers had to stand waist deep in water for the whole time. Mike tried to get some photos, but I think video would be a better medium for recording the show.

When we came home from the show, we were stumblingly tired. We retired for an hour of sleep, set 2 alarms, and managed to drag ourselves down for dinner 1 and a half hours later. I had no problems falling asleep that night.