An Academic Abroad

Why am I in Hanoi?

Me at Hoàn Kiếm lake, Hanoi.

Đại học Bách khoa Hà Nội, or, the Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST), is the first and oldest technical university in Vietnam. Here, the university is usually just called "Bách Khoa", which roughly translates to "100 faculty", in reference to the large number of disciplines studied here. It was founded in 1956, with an inaugural class of 848 students of 14 majors from 4 cross-faculties (Mechanics-Electricity, Mining-Metallurgy, Civil Engineering, and Chemistry-Foods). Since its founding, Bách Khoa has been the engineering training center for Vietnam during its development process, and the primary provider of engineering education for the country’s modernization and industrialization.

Over the years, Bách Khoa has grown and modified its degree programs to keep up with the changing times. One of its most recent additions is an advanced program in Biomedical Engineering that is part of the School of Electronics and Telecommunication. Each year, they invite one professor from the US to come teach a 5-10 day course in a topic related to Biomedical Engineering. Last April, they reached out to our new Biomedical Engineering Department at SJSU to inquire if one of our faculty would be interested in flying to Hanoi to teach one such course. Since Biomechanics is currently a part of their program, I jumped at the opportunity to travel to Vietnam and teach.

Gates to the Hanoi University of Science and Technology.

About this blog

Really, this blog is just a way to share my experiences in Vietnam with students, faculty, friends, and family back in the US. I am hoping to show off some of the places I go and people I meet, and I am sure you will be seeing a fair amount of the food that I eat too.

Day 1: Arriving in Hanoi

(December 29, 2018)

After about 22 hours of travel, I finally landed at the Nội Bài International Airport in Hanoi. Unfortunately, it was a pretty cloudy day, and so I didn't really get to see much of the city or surrounding countryside as I flew in.

The good people from Bách Khoa had arranged a ride for me, so I got to enjoy a nice, relaxing drive to my hotel near the center of the city. The first thing you notice (or at least the first thing that I noticed) as we got closer to the city is the sheer number of motorbikes. These things are everywhere! Hanoi is a city of around 10 million people, and there are over 5 million registered motorbikes.

View from my hotel room. The university is just behind the yellow building in the right of the photo.

Phở đặc biệt (house special) and a beer over ice to kick off the trip (55k VND, or about $2.37).

Once I got settled in, it was about time for dinner, so I decided to go for a bit of a wander around the neighborhood in search of something to eat. Since the students here are on break as well, the Saturday night crowd was a little quiet. When I first set out around 5pm, there were relatively very few people around. However, by about 5:30, shops were beginning to open, and vendors were setting up their stations for dinner. By 6pm, the streets were bustling, and people were settling in and around the local shops for some food. Picking one somewhat at random for myself, I got my first taste of Vietnamese cuisine. Using just about the only Vietnamese phrase I knew to order (đặc biệt), I sat down with my first bowl of phở and a beer.

Day 2: Wandering the Old Quarter and Beyond

(December 30, 2018)

On my trip over, my hosts and I realized that there had been a little misunderstanding somewhere along the way, and campus would be closed for the New Year's holiday on Monday and Tuesday. So, rather than just getting ready to teach on Monday, I found myself with some time to explore the city a bit. At the suggestion of my hosts, I decided to start my adventure by checking out Hoàn Kiếm Lake and the nearby Old Quarter. Hoàn Kiếm Lake is bounded by the French Quarter to the east, and the Old Quarter to the north and west. These neighborhoods are almost always bustling, but the lake provides a somewhat peaceful reprieve from the (ordered) chaos. Since I first arrived at the lake fairly early on a Sunday morning, things were relatively quiet. It helped that several streets surrounding the lake were closed as workers were setting up several stages and pavilions for the New Year's festivities.

Turtle Tower in the center of the lake is one of the more recognizable landmarks.

Entrance to the Ngoc Son Temple on the northern end of the lake. In English, the name means Temple of the Jade Mountain.

The Huc bridge connects the mainland to the island that houses the Ngoc Son Temple.

Everything was relatively quiet in the Old Quarter on a Sunday morning. Things definitely picked up as the day went on, but for now, the narrow alleyways and even the busy streets didn't have too many people on them. This picture is still deceptively quiet, though, as just around the corner I had to weave my way through a sea of motor bikes, cars, and pedestrians. All in all, the relatively light traffic was the perfect situation for me to channel my inner Frogger and hone my street-crossing skills.

Without any real destination in mind, I found myself wandering for several hours. From Old Town, I walked to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the nearby botanical gardens. Unfortunately, the holiday weekend meant that the Ho Chi Minh museum itself was closed, and so I was not able to see the embalmed body itself. However, I did get to see the changing of the guard at the monument, which was pretty cool. At exactly 12pm, one of the guards blew a whistle, and three new soldiers in crisp white uniforms came marching out to relieve the two that were currently there. Once the new guards were in place, the lead soldier spent a few minutes adjusting their hats, rifles, ties, and uniforms to make sure they were presentable.

The guards were very strict about people maintaining the proper distance from the monument. Anytime somebody got too close, they blew a whistle and pointed to tell them to step back.

From there, I wandered over to the nearby botanical gardens (which I found completely by accident). For a small 2000 VND entry fee (less than 10 cents), I got to go in and see what they had to offer. The centerpiece of the gardens, or so it seemed to me, was what I called "Pigeon Island", due to the numerous pigeon houses that were built on it. It seemed fitting, and as far as I've been able to find, there is no other official name for it. Pigeon Island it is. Apparently, the gardens were founded in 1890, and used to be much more extensive, but large parts were cleared to make room for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the surrounding Ba Dinh Complex.

Pigeon Island!

Mandatory selfie with Pigeon Island.

One of the temples near the center of the gardens.

By this time, I was getting hungry, so I decided to walk back towards the Old Quarter. Once I got there, things were really picking up, and the streets were now filled with people. After much deliberation and indecisiveness, I picked a spot for lunch and sat down to a Hanoian favorite: Bún chả. Bún chả is a broth of fish sauce, vinegar, and sugar, served with grilled pork and noodles. Paired with a bia Hanoi, this lunch really hit the spot. Even though New Year's Eve wasn't until the next day, the festivities had already began with various groups getting up on stage to perform. I still have no idea whether it was a talent show or competition, or something else entirely, but there were definitely a wide range of performances.

At this point, I was pretty wiped, so I headed back to the hotel to rest up and get a little work done to prep for the class. When I looked back at my day's activities, I saw that I'd logged about 16 miles of walking. Not bad for a day's adventure.

Bún chả and Hanoi Beer. Awesome.

These guys were dancing to Gangam Style. Fully choreographed. I have no idea why they were dressed as Snow White style dwarves, but somehow, it worked.

My full day's walking route. Definitely earned that Bún chả.

Day 3: New Year's Eve

(December 31, 2018)

Monday, New Year's Eve, was mostly spent getting some prep work done for the class. In the afternoon, I got to meet my first contact from Bách khoa, Dr. Dao Viet Hung, who is helping me organize the class activities while I am here. We chatted over Vietnamese coffee for a bit, and then he showed me around campus. I will provide some picture updates of the campus and classrooms in an upcoming post!

Turtle Tower lit up at night. The whole lake are has a very different feel after the sun goes down.

In the evening, I headed back up to Hohàn Kiếm and the Old Quarter to see how everything looked at night, and to check out the New Year's Eve festivities.

At night, the lake and streets of the Old Quarter are a whole different world. The streets were packed with bikes and cars like I hadn't seen before, and there were people everywhere! Plastic stools and tables spilled onto the streets as people sat outside shops eating, drinking, and just having a good time!

Overall, western New Year's is not as big of a deal in Vietnam as the Lunar New Year in February, so there were no fireworks. Even still, everybody was having a good time!

Huc Bridge all lit up for the evening

Even the kids like to drive around the streets of Hanoi when given a chance

St. Joseph's Cathedral in the daylight on Sunday was pretty spectacular...

But at night it really came alive!

Day 5: First Day of Class

(January 2, 2019)

Not too much to tell for yesterday (New Year's Day). I spent more or less the whole day finalizing some course preparations. Today, I got to meet my class for the first time, and gave my first lecture. My lectures over the next couple of weeks will be delivered out of Room 105 of one of the newer buildings. In fact, the building is still being completed, so there are a lot of signs of ongoing construction.

There are about 30 students in my class, and they are a mix of second and third years from the Biomedical Engineering program here at Bách Khoa. I will post a picture of all of my students sometime soon!

In a lot of ways, Bách Khoa's campus is very similar to SJSU. They are both right in the middle of the city, and so the campus marks a stark contrast from the surrounding area. The main driveway into campus looks much like the 7th Street Plaza, in that it is surrounded on either side by academic buildings, and that just off the main driveway you can find the academic quads.

Room 105. Looks a little empty without all the students, but they'll be back tomorrow. I think...

My classroom is on the first floor of this building. You can see that it is still under construction!

The main quad on campus. Bách Khoa only has about 64 acres of space, compare to SJSU's 154.

SJSU and Bách Khoa are similarly sized, with around 30,000 students, but Bách Khoa has less than half the land-space as SJSU. Bách Khoa is also a technical university, so all of the students here are in STEM-related fields! There is not a specific college of engineering. Instead, there are 27 different schools, with each school having its own discipline, in much the way the Engineering College at SJSU has departments.

If I learned one thing today, it is that some experiences for engineering students are the same no matter where you are. After a brief introduction and some lecturing on the basics of biomechanics, we came to the portion of the class where we get to apply engineering statics to the human body. As soon as I mentioned "Free Body Diagrams", every student in the room groaned, sighed, shook their head, and/or put their head in their hands. Some experiences really are universal. Yay FBDs! Uniting engineering students worldwide, one headache at a time!

Day 6: Day 2 of Class

(January 3, 2019)

Class is in full swing now, and we are in lecture about 4-4.5 hours each morning. Somehow, the students manage to put up with me, and (mostly) pay attention throughout. I give them credit, because paying attention to me at 8am must be hard for anybody! Since they've already had a Statics class, we focused a lot today on stress and strain, and Hooke's Law, after which we moved on to see how we can model bone as an engineering material for mechancial analysis. Things are moving fast!

One more morning of lecture tomorrow, then a couple days off for the weekend. Sometime over the next couple of days, the students are going to take me out for a tour of Hanoi. Looking forward to it!

Here's the crew! Everybody likes a selfie!

Day 7: Day 3 of Class

(January 4, 2019)

Stress transformations today. Students are getting some practice with everybody's favorite... Mohr's Circle!

It's Friday! Not that I haven't loved teaching, but Friday means it's almost time to do some weekend exploring! After a pretty full couple of days, the students are quite ready for a short break as well. The class is moving along quickly, and we've covered a lot of material. Since we are almost halfway through all of the lectures, it's just about time for their midterm exam. The test is not until Tuesday afternoon, but already I'm getting questions about it!

It's about time I introduce you all to one of the most important people on my trip, Dr. Hung Viet. Hung is a lecturer in Biomedical Engineering here at Bách Khoa. He has been appointed as my Course Assistant for these couple of weeks, which means he is the one helping me most with course logistics, showing me around the university, and making sure that I don't make too much of a fool of myself. Hung has been a lot of fun to hang out with, and he has been incredibly helpful in getting this class going. Today, we got to enjoy a long Friday lunch to celebrate the end of Week 1.

Hung and I are joining a group of our students to go check out the Bát Tràng pottery village tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun!

Here's Hung. Not only is he a lifesaver in organizing the Biomechanics class, but the man can also order a pretty fantastic lunch spread.

Days 8 & 9: Bát Tràng & Cooking in Hanoi

(January 5-6, 2019)

One of the shops in Bát Tràng. These are all high-quality handmade vases produced in Bát Tràng. They range from small drinking vessels (about $20 each), to >6 ft. high decorative vases (>$7000). As the Lunear New Year approaches, many people are out buying various urns, vases, and other decor to prepare for ceremonies honoring their ancestors and asking for good luck in the coming year.

Saturday

With three days of class behind me, it was time to head into my first full weekend Vietnam. The students and Hung were kind enough to arrange a field trip of sorts to take me out of the city, see some history, and have a little fun. Bát Tràng, which literally means "bowl workshop", is a small village on the outskirts of Hanoi (about 13 km from the city center). Since the 14th century, Bát Tràng has been producing high quality porcelain for all of Vietnam, and is famous for its beautiful craftsmanship and hand-made ceramics.

Nowadays, the village is full of shops selling pots, bowls, dishes, etc., and is a popular spot for shopping and weekend excursions like ours. The students also informed me that it is a common field-trip destination for elementary school kids, and I was impressed with how much they remembered about its history. Not to be outdone by their old school teachers, I tried to start some discussions about the mechanical behavior of ceramics, and their applications in biomedical engineering. However, I was quickly (and vehemently) told that this was the weekend, and it was no place for class-related conversation. You win this round, elementary school teachers.

The Bát Tràng crew. We got a better group shot, but Hung hasn't given it to me yet. For now, a selfie will have to do.

The highlighted activity for the day was the opportunity to throw our own pots on the traditional potter's wheels. After a quick demonstration by the shop owners, who created some pretty spectacular vases in a matter of seconds, we were each given a chunk of clay and a wheel to begin creating our own.

Now, I have some experience working with clay, as I took a semester of pottery/ceramics in high school (shout out to Mr. Lorenz!). So, going into this activity, I was looking forward to wowing the students with my bowl-making prowess. I was sorely mistaken. Whether it's due to the 15 year gap since the last time I did any clay working, operating a manually-powered potter's wheel (as opposed to an electrically-powered one), or some combination of those and more, try as I may, I could not get a quality bowl for the life of me. However, I was in good company, as everybody was having more or less the same struggles. Luckily for us, the owners were nice enough to help guide each of us in making a cup, bowl, or vase (read: made them for us), so we weren't going to go home empty handed. Backs aching and covered in clay, we decided it was time to adjourn for lunch while our "handiwork" dried.

After an amazing hotpot lunch, we returned to paint our dried ceramics. Turns out, these students are all quite artistic. Once this was all done, we got a chance to wander around all of the porcelain shops and see some of the professional works for sale. While there were very expensive pieces for sale, the majority of the items for sale were only a few hundred thousand VND (<$20), with even the very large pieces only being a couple hundred. If only I had a better way of carrying things back home...

Everybody failed at making any functional pottery. Everybody except Hung. Hung made a bowl. Way to go, Hung.

I was impressed by the students' artistic abilities. Poor Quân (blue shirt on the right) broke his vase immediately after painting it. He wasn't too heartbroken.

Sunday

With Sunday rolling around, I still had a fair amount or prep work left to do for the upcoming week. However, before I got to that, I had a couple more things to check off my weekend to-do list. The biggest of these was a Vietnamese cooking class!

However, first things first on any Sunday morning: I needed some coffee. One of the things I'd been dying to try since I first got here, was a Cà Phê Trung, or egg-coffee. While it sounds strange at first hear, it is a crowd favorite here in Hanoi. The story goes that in 1946, a Hanoi bartender named Mr. Nguyen Giang was working at the Hotel Metropole and had run low on milk, due to a nationwide shortage. Not wanting to sacrifice the creaminess of the hotel's coffee, he added egg yolks and sugar to help the sweetened condense milk go further, and whipped it all to a froth and poured it over a cup of strong coffee. Thus, the Cà Phê Trung was born. Mr. Nguyen capitalized on his invention and started a whole chain of cafes dedicated to serving Cà Phê Trung and its various spin-offs. Figuring I should try the (supposed) original, I ventured back towards Hoàn Kiếm Lake to visit Giang Cafe.

I was a little skeptical of the cafe when I first arrived, because the entrance to the cafe was just a small sign in front of a dark alley, assuring customers that the cafe was just a little ways down. However, I did see a few people on the other end of the alley, and so (with a Far Side comic on my mind), I ventured in.

"There's coffee down here, I swear!"

Cà Phê Trung. Just as good as advertised.

My apprehension proved in vain, as the far end of the hallway opened into a nice little cafe with a second-floor seating area. I sat down and ordered my hot Cà Phê Trung (you can also get it iced, with chocolate, or with rum...). After a few minutes, I was brought this marshmallowy-looking goodness. It was rich, sweet, and creamy, just like everybody said it would be. I was an instant fan. Not saying I could have it every morning, but not a bad Sunday treat!

With my stomach full of decadent goodness, I set off on foot again for the nearby Long Biên Market to meet up with Chef Duyen, who would be hosting my cooking class for the morning. Google served me well in finding this class, because Chef Duyen was awesome. The class started with her taking me and my classmates, Ari and Leon, on a walk through the market, where she told us about many of the different herbs, produce, and meats that were used in various Vietnamese cuisines. Since it was the first weekend of the last lunar month of the year, there were many special treats on sale in preparation for the New Year activities. These included an array of colored and scented sticky rices, cakes, and other foods to be burnt as offerings to family ancestors.

Chef Duyen was great! Here she is in action at the Long Biên Market telling us about the different types of sticky rice, what they are used for, and how they need to be prepared.

Crushing soft shell crabs into a paste at the market. The paste is used for a variety of dishes, such as Bún riêu.

Vendors selling everything from seafood to rice, and meat to produce. Many will cook it right there for you if you want.

I could go on for a very long time about all of the different sights and smells of the market, and I really wish we had more time there, but we had some cooking to do! Since there were only three of us, we were going to do a "mixed menu" of dishes hailing both from Hanoi and the countryside village where Chef Duyen was born. So we ventured back to her house where she had a full kitchen set up and waiting for us to get started.

Rolling up ground meat in Xương sông leaves for Bun cha.

I like to think we had a well-deserved cheers before we tried the fruits of our culinary handiwork. Chef Duyen's son made sure our beers opened properly.

Here's the whole spread! It was all delicious! From bottom to top: Fried spring rolls, rice noodles, bun cha, (herbs and greens), prawn cakes, caramelized pork, grilled pork (for bun cha), papaya salad, dipping sauce with pickled veggies, other grilled pork for bun cha, and banana leaf salad.

Chef Duyen explaining the finer points of frying spring rolls.

I wonder of something was funny about my technique...

Chef Duyen and her two sons. The younger one was very enthusiastic about opening beers for us. He even went overboard and opened an extra, but nobody complained

You've probably all had enough of me talking about food, so I'll keep this short. Getting the chance to cook in a professional Vietnamese home-kitchen was really a fantastic experience. It was a lot of fun seeing how the different herbs worked together and how many of the dishes I'd been eating over the past week could be prepared. I am definitely looking forward to tracking down these ingredients and trying my hand at cooking these up back home! If you're ever in Hanoi, definitely check out Chef Duyen's class (http://chefduyen.com/)!

Day 11: Midterm Exam Day

(January 8, 2019)

Exam day! Here everybody is hard at work.

The second week of classes (a.k.a. the second half of the "semester") is in full swing now. Students had their midterm exam today. Crazy to think that I already have to start preparing their final exam now for Friday! This trip is flying by!

Tomorrow we will wrap up our discussions about soft-tissue mechanics, and then finish strong with a couple days of dynamics! I'm sure the students are excited as I am...

I am going to wrap things up with a dinner pic for today. Had some delicious Vietnamese pancake (bánh xèo). Special shout out to SJSU's own Quynh Ho for the recommendation. Thanks, Quynh!

Who can say no to fried pancakes stuffed with shrimp and bean sprouts? Not a bad way to finish the day!

Day 12: Soft Tissue Mechanics Today

(January 9, 2019)

Here's a biomechanics factoid: Contact forces in the hip can be has high as 18 MPa. That's about as much pressure as an elephant standing on a hockey puck! Good thing the friction coefficient between cartilage is less than that of ice on ice. (1)

Muscles and tendons and ligaments, oh my! I guess we can't forget cartilage as well. Today we learned about how muscles generate force, and how soft tissues like tendons, ligaments, and cartilage transmit that force to other parts of the body. We even showed how Laplace Transforms can be used to solve the differential equations governing viscoelastic models of soft tissue! Doing so, I learned another universal truth about engineering students: They all rue the day old M. Pierre Simon Laplace walked this earth.

Day 14: Last Day of Class

(January 11, 2019)

These last couple of weeks have just flown by, especially the last 2-3 days, and I can't believe it is already the last day of classes! Today the students took their final exam just a few days after their midterm (poor them!), and we had one last lecture covering the process of inverse dynamics. Don't worry, I didn't put that material on the exam. I'm not that mean.

After the exam today, it was nice to be able to hang out and talk with the students without any of the course material hanging over us any more. They were even kind enough to throw a little going away party for me, although some of it might have just been an excuse to eat and drink a little! They really do know the quickest way to a professor's heart, because I am coming home with more coffee than I know what to do with. I'm sure I'll manage, though.

It wouldn't be a party without a little cards, either! Students were quick to break out a couple decks of playing cards and dealing some games of thirteen (called Tiến lên here, and "Big Two" in Canada, at least according to Karen). Players back home will be happy to hear I held my own and won my share of hands. I only once had to remind them that I hadn't yet graded their exams.

Across the board, Hanoi has been a fantastic place to visit, and this is due in large part to the awesome students and faculty here at Bách Khoa. So I want to give a huge internet thanks to them, and I am looking forward to more teaching excursions here in the future!

Even though I'm leaving Hanoi, the trip isn't over yet! Tomorrow morning, I fly south to meet up with SJSU BME's own Hoang Nguyen and Shawn Bhinder in Nha Trang (southeast coast of Vietnam) for a couple days, and then on to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). HCMC is about 714 miles, as the crow flies, south of Hanoi, but is a little over 1000 miles by driving. This is comparable to driving from Portland to Los Angeles. However, the 21 degree latitude of Hanoi changes to 10.8 degrees at HCMC, so long story short, it's hot in the south! Time to pack away my coat and break out the sunglasses.

It sounds like Hoang has a whole plan for us over the next few days. Here's hoping a professor can keep up with those two.

While the drive from Portland to LA usually takes 15-16 hours, to drive from to Hanoi to HCMC would take about twice as long!

Day 15: Nha Trang

(January 12, 2019)

Here we are right after lunch at Uncle Duong's. For those who don't know them, from left to right: Hoang, Shawn, Uncle Duong, me.

After a mid-morning flight out of Hanoi, I landed in Nha Trang just before lunch. I met up with Hoang and Shawn at Hoang's uncle and aunt's house, and was treated to a fantastic homemade lunch. The whole city has a different feel to it, since it is warm here more or less year-round. Houses are mostly open-air, and seem to only get closed off if people want to turn on the air conditioning.

Uncle Duong, as we were soon to call him, is one of the most welcoming and hospitable people I've ever met. Right away he offered up his house and time for anything we would like, now or on any future visits. I am probably going to have to take him up on it!

One of the highlights of the day was a trip to the local massage parlor... run entirely by blind men. For a little less than 100k VND each (about $5), we got an hour-long massage. These guys are amazing. Hands down, probably the best massage of my life. All of the knots built up from long flights and hours in front of the computer seemed to melt away.

Nha Trang is a coastal town, and apparently has grown a lot over the last ten years. The water is warm, and the beaches are white and sandy. Nha Trang is a popular vacation spot for many people from Russia, China, and Australia. Here is the view from the hotel room.

White sandy beaches! In the background, the left-most mountain is called Núi Cô Tiên, and is known for looking like a fairy woman lying on her back. The picture really does not do it justice, but the part of the mountain between the two buildings really looks like a face.

Seafood feast! On the left, from front to back, are cousin Tam Nghiem, cousin Ut (who is just fixing her glasses, shame on you), aunt Le, and of course, Uncle Duong!

Being right on the coast, Nha Trang is known for having fantastic fresh seafood. The restaurants all have tanks right out front, where you pick out what you want to eat, and they grill it up fresh for you on the spot. Or, if you prefer it even fresher, you can have it raw with some lime juice. The whole family, plus Shawn and myself, sat down for an amazing dinner of squid, oysters, sea urchin, fish, and some refreshing Tiger Beer to wash it all down.

Day 16: Ho Chi Minh City, Part 1

(January 13, 2019)

It's been an action-packed few days since my last update, so I've got a lot to show! After our seafood feast on Saturday, we went back to the hotel to catch as much sleep as we could before our 6am flight to Ho Chi Minh City the next morning. The reason behind this early flight was that we wanted to get some exploring done in the city prior to attending the wedding reception for the daughter of one of Hoang's mom's old family friends. Hoang, Shawn, and I were to be the delegation representing the San Jose Nguyen family!

A short flight and a bit of a taxi ride later, the three of us arrived in Hoang's family's village on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. This village, it seems, is populated almost entirely by people related to Hoang in some way, shape, or form, and I've had the privilege to meet a couple of his grandparents, as well as many of his aunts, uncles, and cousins over these past few days. Whether it has been providing accommodations, meals, rides, or simply suggestions on what to do, everybody has been incredibly kind and hospitable, and has really gone out of their way to make sure we are having a pleasant stay.

With a few hours to kill before wedding, we braved the tropical heat (> 90 degrees Fahrenheit and 85% humidity) to see some of HCMC and meet some more of Hoang's family. This outing included checking out some of Hoang's old stomping grounds, like his middle school he attended before moving to San Jose. Shawn and I also wanted to get fitted for some custom-tailored suits, which are a bit of a Vietnam specialty. Using one of Hoang's family's connections, we were able to meet up with an awesome tailor, and get set up with some high-quality, hand-crafted clothes! Keep an eye out for us looking good at this year's Bay Area Biomedical Device conference!

Hoang remembers this school being a little bigger...

Uncle Thự and cousins Quynh and Tam were excellent hosts, and were a real pleasure to get to know.

All this walking in the hot weather had really tired us out, but luckily Hoang's uncle Thự and his family lived close by, so we stopped in to say hello. Thự and his family live in a beautiful house in the middle of HCMC. true to form, they were incredibly welcoming and we quickly cooled down with some cold beer and water. After chatting for a bit, Uncle Thự even broke into some of his own stock of home-made banana liquor. He makes it by soaking a special variety of dried local banana in rice liquor for a few months, then putting it through a laborious filtering process. It had the color and smoothness of the XO Courvoisier cognac he also shared.

From Uncle Thự's house, we headed to the Windsor Plaza Hotel for the wedding reception. As it turns out, Vietnamese wedding receptions center around a 7+ course meal with lots to drink, followed by music and dancing. Apparently, the groom was a real Vietnamese foodie, so we dinner consisted of an excellent array of seafood, soups, noodle dishes, and braised short ribs. However, after a very long day and plans for another early start in the morning, we were all pretty wiped, so we bowed out shortly after dinner. Really it was too bad, because the party looked to be just getting started.

The real story of the night, took place shortly after we arrived. There was a second wedding reception taking place right across the hall from the party we were attending, and guests were arriving at the same time. We got caught up in the flow of the crowd, and before we knew it, we were signing the guestbook, as people do when arriving at a wedding reception. The only problem was, that immediately after we finished signing, we saw Hoang's mom's friend (mother of the groom) on the other side of the hall near the other table with the other guestbook. So our names are now immortalized in some random Vietnamese couple's wedding guestbook. Congrats to them!

The reception was slated to get started at 6:30, but it turns out that the official start time and the real start time to Vietnamese weddings are not at all similar. We showed up right on time for the party to begin... at 7:30pm. The usher had a hard time trying to figure out where to sit us, and so we ended up at a table of the bride's coworkers. They were good sports, and welcomed us to the table with smiles and cheers.

The Windsor Plaza Hotel in downtown HCMC is a really fancy place!

Day 17: Ho Chi Minh City, Part 2

(January 14, 2019)

The next morning we ventured back into HCMC to meet with another distant relative of Hoang's for coffee. This one, Professor Nguyên, is on the faculty of Chemical Engineering at the HCMC Technical University, and she was kind enough to take time out of her day to meet with us and talk about university life here in south Vietnam. Our conversation ended up extending past coffee, and then she was kind enough to treat us to an excellent seafood lunch at a nearby favorite restaurant. The streak of excellent food continued!

I already mentioned that Hoang's village, Dong Nai, is on the outskirts of HCMC. While there is a bridge that can be taken across the Soài Rạp river to get here from the city, the fastest way to get cross is by ferry. These ferries run back and forth every 10 minutes or so all day. Each one packs in dozens of cars and hundreds of scooters. Watching them all

This ferry stretch also made for a few interesting trips back to the village at the end of the night over these past few days, since most taxi drivers didn't want to cross the ferry. We ended up taxiing to the ferry, crossing, and then trying our luck with cabs on the other side. Luckily, Hoang's family was always willing to come pick us up of we didn't have any luck. As I said before, Hoang's family really is awesome.

The river crossing was a nice respite from the hustle and bustle from the city. The cooling river breeze definitely helped too.

As soon as the gates of the ferry open, cars and motorbikes stream out and up the ramp to shore. Seeing all of them packed onto such a relatively small boat is is really a sight

The War Remnants Museum offers an interesting perspective on the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese point-of-view. Some of the central exhibits on display while we were there focused on the long-term effects of the Agent Orange defoliant, and a tribute to war photographers and journalists killed (from all sides) during the conflict.

After lunch, we headed out to District 1 in HCMC, which is generally considered one of the more walkable of HCMC's 24 districts, and also contains many of the museums and historic places. Some of the most popular sites are the War Remnants Museum (containing many pieces of artillery and other military equipment left by the US at the end of the Vietnam War), Independence Palace (former presidential palace for South Vietnam), Notre Dame Cathedral, old French Post Office, and Bitexco Tower. Since we were a little short on time (and it was very hot), we did a quick walking tour of some of the major sites in the afternoon.

Very meta photo of Shawn taking a photo of Hoang in front of the Notre Dame Basilica Cathedral. The church was built by the French from 1863-1880. It is currently undergoing some much needed restoration, hence the scaffolding

Independence Palace, also called Reunification Palace was the presidential building for South Vietnam until its fall in 1975.

At the end of the night, we took a short trip to the 49th floor of the Bitexco Tower to get a 360 degree view of the city. You can see the tallest building in HCMC (Landmark 81) behind Hoang's head.

In addition to all of our walking around, eating, and drinking, we decided we should partake in a little culture as well. To this end, we stopped by a water puppet show at the Golden Dragon Water Puppets Theater. The show is pretty much what it sounds like. Colorful wooden puppets dance over a small pond of water in an indoor theater, and tell various stories from Vietnam's ancient history and mythology. The whole show is set to live music performed on drums, flutes, stringed instruments, and voice. The stories involved a wide array of characters (puppets), ranging from the central story-teller to dragons, cranes, turtles, warriors, farmers, ducks, dogs, and lions. Since the stories were all in Vietnamese (and since Hoang fell asleep, so he couldn't interpret), I didn't really follow many of the stories particularly well, but the show was very enjoyable! I did, however, recognize one story - the legend of the Hoàn Kiếm turtle (remember the lake from Hanoi!), in which the Golden Turtle God gave a heavenly sword to the new emporor Lê Lợi to help defeat his enemies and found the Lê Dynasty. Way to go, Puppet Theater, tying this blog all together!

Water Puppet Theater telling the story of the Golden Turtle God, Emperor Lê Lợi, and Hoàn Kiếm Lake.

Full-size statue of one of the water puppets

Since there hasn't been any food updates in awhile, I thought I should include a shot of some street food from HCMC. On Monday night, we stopped for some Cơm tấm, which literally means "broken rice". Fried egg was served with pork chop, rice, and dried pork. Served with some chili sauce and eaten on a tiny stool, this dish was another winner

Day 18: Vung Tau

(January 15, 2019)

Tao Phùng mountain is home to the Christ of Vũng Tàu statue. Fr. Thảo is Hoang's uncle and Director of the mountain. The statue was started in 1974, but all building operations were stopped after the fall of the South Vietnamese government in 1975. The statue was left unfinished until 1992, when construction was allowed to resume

After a few days in the heat of the city, it was time to give ourselves a break and head towards the ocean. This time, we headed southeast to the Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province and the city of Vũng Tàu. Since Vietnam is home to some four million Catholics, Vũng Tàu is most famous for its 105 ft Christ of Vũng Tàu statue, which is situated on top of a mountain overlooking the city. Luckily for us, one of Hoang's uncles (okay, at this point, I need to clarify that "aunt", "uncle", "cousin", "grandpa", etc. can refer to any number of relations) is the Catholic priest and the Director of the of the statue and the surrounding shrine! Fr. Thảo Nguyễn was kind enough to give us the inside story on the history and day-to-day goings-on at the statue.

While having a statue on top of a mountain makes it visible from far and wide, it also means that seeing the statue up close requires that one climbs said mountain. So, Hoang, Shawn, and I joined the crowd of people ascending the 1000 stone steps to the base of the statue. Along the way, there are several stopping points with statues depicting various biblical stories that serve as places for quiet contemplation (and catching your breath!).

When we got to the top of the mountain, we were greeted with 360 degree views of the ocean and the surrounding countryside. After exploring the top for a bit, we decided to go into the statue itself and climb the 133 stairs to that lead to observation platforms on the shoulders. While the base of the statue is fairly large, the inner staircase quickly narrows to a tight spiral with barely any room for people to go up. This predicament leads to lots of waiting in the (more spacious) corners while people come down before you can proceed upwards.

One last stretch of stairs left to go!

Before the Catholic Church bought the land, the mountain was used as parts of the French coastal defenses. Some of the original defense systems are still around, which makes for an interesting juxtaposition at the top of the mountain. The gun itself is no longer operational, but would be too difficult to take down, so it stays as a historical reminder

1133 stairs from the bottom of the mountain, we made it up to the shoulders!

The statue was not there when the French were using the mountain for coastal defense. Neither was Shawn.

View of Vũng Tàu, the surrounding mountains, and the oceans from the shoulders of Jesus.

After we returned to the bottom of the mountain, we headed to the nearby beaches for some ocean swimming and relaxation after all those stairs. When we were all done, we returned for some lunch with Fr. Thảo, and then while Hoang stayed to visit, Shawn and I headed across the highway towards the ocean to check out an old navy radio building and the surrounding coastline. We had excellent views of the ocean, mountain, and Vũng Tàu itself.

The old naval radio station seems to be still used at least a bit. Out in the ocean, we could see container ships and a few oil rigs. The rigs are all fairly new, and not 100% well received by the locals.

Looking back towards the mountain and statue. Shawn was very popular, and got asked to be in a couple peoples' photos.

Bún riêu is another favorite in both north and south Vietnam. There are many different versions, but a tomato-filled broth, vermicelli, and minced freshwater crab are necessities in all of them

When we were all done in Vũng Tàu, we drove the couple hours back to Saigon. At this point, it was time to pack and get ready for my morning flight back to Hanoi, and then my evening flight to head back to the US. Since we were still in the land of seafood, we settled in for one last bowl of bún riêu in Dong Nai. As always, the hot bowl of noodles, freshwater crab, veggies, and fried tofu really hit the spot at the end of a busy day.

Day 20: Back to Hanoi

(January 16, 2019)

This trip absolutely flew by, and already it was my last day. So hard to believe!

Since traffic can be very unpredictable in HCMC, we had to leave Dong Nai for the airport around 6am for my 10am flight. Shawn and Hoang accompanied me to the airport, since they were planning on catching a flight to Da Nang around the same time. We said our goodbyes, and caught our respective flights, and after a couple hours in the air, I found myself back in the cool rainy weather of Hanoi.

With about 10 hours to kill before my flight to Seoul (then onward to SFO), I wanted to spend one last day wandering the Old Quarter and seeing some of the sights there. Namely, I wanted to check out the Thăng Long Imperial Citadel, which served as the capital of Vietnam and the seat of the Vietnamese court for 700 years (1010-1810)! Not only was the citadel a home for the emperors, it was also a training place for scholars and military officers. Today, the ruins are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The main entrance to the citadel. There are currently ongoing archaeological digs on inside, which are open to the public for viewing on the weekends. Unfortunately I visited on a Wednesday.

While the flag tower is technically part of the citadel, it has been incorporated into the Military History Museum

The citadel today is located right in the middle of Hanoi, adjacent to both Ba Dinh square and the Military History Museum. When the French conquered Hanoi in 1885, they fixed up some of the citadel and even added their own buildings to its interior to house their government personnel. These buildings were also improved as styles and technology changed over the 1885-1954 span. Then, when the North Vietnamese re-took Hanoi from the French in 1954, they added their own buildings and used the citadel as their base of military operations. They also added a series of underground bunkers that were used to protect senior military officers during the US bombing campaign of North Vietnam. All in all, a very interesting mix of architecture!

Today, the Thăng Long Imperial Citadel is open to the public as a museum showcasing both military and cultural history of Vietnam. When I was there, people were busy finalizing some new exhibits and preparations for some Lunar New Year celebrations. It looks like there is going to be a pretty big party!

Hậu Lâu (Princess Palace) is located near the back of the citadel. It is one of the few early-era buildings left standing. The center room on the top floor holds a Buddhist shrine.

Until next time, Hanoi!

Day 21: Bonus day in Seoul

(January 17, 2019)

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