This has not been our best week. Don't worry, we're fine. But several things this week have not worked out as we planned. That includes me blogging right now, but I will get to that.
It all began on Sunday, February 1. Our plan was to go to Hoi An, a city about 45 minutes away with lots of historic sites and great food. We specifically chose February 1 because it was the full moon. Each month on the full moon, Hoi An has a lantern festival at night. We went in the day, planning to stay through the night and see the lanterns.
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| The (very crowded) Japanese Covered Bridge of Hoi An |
But things didn't work out that way. We made it to Hoi An without a problem. But it was raining. We had brought our umbrellas, but when you have to carry an umbrella, it is so much harder to also hold and use a phone for pictures or looking at a walking tour map. The sites just weren't nearly so neat to see in the rain. We saw a few. Of particular note is the Japanese Covered Bridge, but man was it crowded (with people who wanted to be out of the rain, I suppose.)
We did have an excellent lunch, but we found it pretty boring in Hoi An. So we ditched early. Not a super successful trip.
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| Taking a lesson from this sculpture in Hoi An. shrugging and saying "Whatevs." |
On Tuesday, February 3, we visited a vaccine clinic. It isn't that we specifically needed any vaccines, but we wanted a couple. They are affordable in Vietnam and we figured we may as well get vaccines for Japanese Encephalitis and Yellow Fever. Again, there is no real danger right now that we are going to get those diseases. But there are some places we could travel in the future that require Yellow Fever vaccinations, and there are parts of East Asia where one can, if out in the more rural areas, get Japanese Encephalitis. From what we had read online, the people at the clinic were excellent English speakers. That turned out not to be true. Still, we communicated enough to make it clear what we wanted. They didn't have any Yellow Fever vaccines available. And they told us (I think, assuming I am interpreting it correctly) that if we wanted Japanese Encephalitis vaccines, we had to go to a hospital. However, it wasn't a total loss. The building had a very decorative banister for the staircase. (I'm really stretching to find the bright side.)
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| That is quite the banister, am I right? |
Taking a break from griping, I did see a few amusing and interesting things this week.
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| Did you know Baskin Robbins makes soda? |
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| The store is called Mickey & Minnie, but the character is Hello Kitty! More shrugging. |
I understand that because the number 13 is unlucky, they don't have a 13th floor. But unlike in the USA, they don't just skip it. They call it floor 12A. But if you look carefully at the elevator buttons, what I don't understand is why there is a floor 36A. They have both floors 36 and 37. Why the extra?
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| 12A, okay, but 36A? Huh? |
But the most annoying nuisance of the week began last night, or technically early this morning. Alrica had a work meeting at 12:30 AM today, Saturday, which seems weird. But consider time zones. That was really 9:30 AM Friday in Pacific Time. The point is, she happened to be up at that time. And during her meeting she got a text from our landlord. The landlord sold the apartment we are staying in. And they wanted us to move, today, Saturday.
The landlord has another apartment on the top floor of this same building. Maybe that sounds great! But the downside to being on the upside is that you wait so much longer for elevators. We saw the other apartment this morning and we said, fine, we will move. (We could fight about it, saying the new owner has to honor the lease agreement, but given I know almost no Vietnamese, and it would probably cost me something to get an attorney, it's easier to just move.)
So we were supposed to move about 1.5 hours ago. We had everything arranged, and we had packed everything up. You might think, "Big deal, Erich. You and Alrica pack all the time. This can't be that hard." And you are right. And you are also wrong.
Yes, we do pack all the time, but we only pack our permanent things. Our clothing, toiletries, electronics, etc. But when you are staying in an apartment for five weeks, you buy food for the refrigerator. You buy cooking oil and salt and rice. (And when you buy rice in Southeast Asia, you are buying at least five kilogram bags which is around 11 pounds for those not in the metric know.) And then there are things that can't easily travel by plane, like liquid handsoap and lotion. And perhaps biggest and heaviest of all: water. You don't drink the tap water in Da Nang. So we have bottles of water and they have to get moved too. The point is that there is a lot more to move than when we are relocating from one city to another.
We had agreed on a time to meet our landlord and move up to the other apartment. We packed everything. And she didn't show up. Now we aren't moving until 3 hours after we had agreed to. But I can't just leave the items from the refrigerator and freezer packed. So we had to unpack. And I got my computer back out. And I needed a charger. And so on. We're doing the landlord a favor by being easygoing about this. But right now I am frustrated. This is not how I planned to spend my entire Saturday.
Hopefully next week will be less fail-y. You know the saying, there's nowhere to go but up. Two problems with it though: I'm not that low. It wasn't a terrible week, just had a few unsuccessful moments. And I'm moving to the top floor. So really there's nowhere to go but down. What does that portend?
