A New Place Has Us Seeing Red

 

                                         

Once again, our plans to hike were thwarted by air that was bad enough to stunt growth, and we can't afford that. So we hit the Rainbow Slide again. The only downside to that was the temperature. Now those of you in Utah or other wintery places in the U.S.--don't laugh, but we had temperatures in the low 60s with a brisk breeze, and when you live in a climate like Vietnam which is still very humid with its chilly breezes, you can feel like you're freezing. Once down the slide was enough for the best of us. (At least we're not having temps of 98 F with 80% humidity like our summer months; this is a wonderful break from that!)

Creative ways were used to keep warm...

And the bunnies are always a big draw...

The flowers must like the cold.

They were very pretty.

Tuesday, January 6, was a day worth celebrating--Allen became a 69-year old missionary, so we marked the occasion with a homemade chocolate cake and ice cream with our district.

The evening of his birthday, Allen was invited to help with a lesson. The friend came late, so it ended up being a date for dinner instead, and we walked to get pho together. The lesson was taught with a soccer game on the TV in the background and scooters noisily rushing past just feet away out the open front of the restaurant...a unique experience for a unique man.

And then we hurried back to the church for the game night that was about to begin. 

And our R.S. president surprised Allen with another birthday cake! It was a very nice way to be remembered on his birthday.

Wednesday was free; the only thing I had was a R.S. presidency meeting in the evening, so the obvious choice was to go for a walk. We made our way to the underground mall--Cho Mo--near our apartment, where we found an axolotl we could buy, if we wanted a pet axolotl in Hanoi. We don't.

We also found a lovely young lady in an Ao Dai shop who was willing to help me choose fabric for my second Ao Dai, which she will make for me! There are so many beautiful colors and patterns, and so many different shops in that mall; she was the lucky one whose English made me feel comfortable enough to converse with her. We will pick up the Ao Dai this Saturday.

That mall is a fascinating place, with livestock in one area where you can choose your dinner, and a restaurant in another area where you can choose your dinner, and then shops of everything you can imagine. We find ourselves over and over again wishing there was a portal from Hanoi to our house so that we could purchase things here and immediately transport them home. It's probably a good thing there's not such a portal, or we would have way more than we need. But then again, we would also have a lot of things that we do need that we would love to have the Vietnamese version of.

We continued to walk, and looked for places we hadn't been before.

We walked past multitudes of street markets and iconic Vietnamese sights: scooters, loaded with everything imaginable; restaurants with scooters parked inside; a Happy New Year sign from 2024; crowded streets; narrow streets; murals on walls of places that we are beginning to recognize that we've been; and often lakes in the middle of neighborhoods.  

Dinner that night was at TacoGa (Taco Station). We were up for trying something new, and it was new...not very taco-esque, but it was quite tasty.

Thursday was the activity that had us seeing RED. Allen had discovered a tour that would take us to an  incense village and a conical hat village.  They are called these villages because they are dedicated to the production of those articles; it is their specialty. So we boarded a tourist-y van at 8:30 am and headed out on an hour long trek to see how they make incense and then how they make conical hats. The drive was about an hour; the tour was half a day.

As we waited for the tour van to navigate the heavy traffic in the morning to pick us up, we got to walk around the streets and see how the trees had made a way to survive in a concrete jungle.

I wonder how long this tree has been here, to grow around the fence like that?

Once we arrived in the village, we were shown that the first step in making incense is to shave the bark off of bamboo.

Then there are various steps in cutting the bamboo sticks into smaller and smaller sticks...

Then the sticks are dipped into dye--whatever color is needed for the order.

Next, there is a machine to coat the colored ends of the sticks with just the right amount of whatever scent is desired. One common scent is cinnamon. This machine saves hours and hours of coating them by hand.

The wet sticks are set out to dry for a day until the scent has hardened.

Now we were free to wander and take pictures. This area was created with only painted incense sticks for photo ops; they were not covered with the incense powders, and they were all different colors to make pictures more interesting. Toward the end you will see dark green sticks; these are in the shape of the country of Vietnam, but we didn't see that until we took pictures from a first-floor balcony. It was pretty spectacular!

The green outline below is the outline of North and Central Vietnam. Right behind me is a yellow bundle of sticks, which represents the capitol of Hanoi. And above our heads is the flag for Hanoi. It was really beautiful, and we had a sunny day for it, which made it even better.

 

The next part of the tour took us to the conical hat village. Conical hats are called Non La in Vietnamese, and are made from palm leaves that are dried in the sun and from bamboo sticks.

These are the leaves drying in the sun...

We went into a shop where we were shown how they iron out the dried leaves, then stitch them onto a bamboo frame. It takes 70 leaves to make one hat, and they are water-proof. When made correctly, they will last 3-5 years. 

These are the palm leaves; we had to carefully stretch them out, as they are all folded up. Below, Allen is ironing his palm leaf. 

Then it was our turn to be creative! We were allowed to choose any size hat and paint it as a keepsake of the tour.

The finished product!

Not too bad for a couple of old missionaries!

When the tour ended in the early afternoon, we were taken back to Hanoi and dropped off at Train Street, and then we walked to Hang Ma Street to see what decorations they had up for Tet. That is one of my favorite streets, and it's no wonder that Tet is everyone's favorite holiday.

It's the year of the horse.

We found a few more lanterns to buy for our gazebo...                                                                                 

Look! It's the inspiration for my Non La! A perfect representation!

I'll go easy on the pictures of Tet; I know in the coming weeks we'll make it back here again and there will be even more pictures.

After Hang Ma Street, we walked over to Hoan Kiem Lake to see what was going on there, and found--to no one's surprise--that the young women were out in their Ao Dais taking beautiful pictures once again.

Allen surmises that in the next few weeks, these will be turned into large picture frames. Perfect.

Friday was Date Night! Woot! Woot! When people here in Vietnam ask me and Allen what is the secret to being a happily married couple, we always include Date Night as a necessary ingredient.

Saturday was a good day. In my piano class I was able to teach one new student, who learned very quickly, and I was able to explain to my longest student why her playing of the keyboard doesn't sound as good as me playing the piano. And the answer is in the instrument, so she got to experience the piano in the chapel, as opposed to the small keyboard that she learns and practices on. It was good for her to experience the difference. 

Saturday evening, we attended a District R.S. meeting in Cau Giay at 5:00 pm that should have been about 40 minutes to get to, but which took us 1.5 hours to get there. It took us 25 minutes to get home at 8:30 pm. And that is Vietnam.

Our sweet friend Hoa gave Allen a birthday gift that we will treasure: 

And that brings us to the end of another week.

The month is already flying by, just like all the recent months have done. 

We are grateful to be here! We are grateful for all the experiences we are having--even the bad air just makes us appreciate clean air all the more. 

And we are grateful for all of you, our family and friends!

Have a wonderful week!