Homecoming in Hanoi and the Quickie Quickie Bang Bang Dance

This weekend in Hanoi was a little bittersweet for me because many of you know, back in Antigonish this weekend is homecoming at St.FX. As a new graduate this was my first homecoming and, realistically, I always knew I was almost definitely going to miss it because I can never really guarentee where I'm going to be six months from now. However, seeing so many of my friends posting on Facebook about being back there really got me thinking about how much I actually miss that place (aside from KP or course). What better way to cure the "can't be at X" blues than a night on the town in Hanoi?

My friends and I set off from the dorm to this place called Bucket Bar, which is a pretty literal name considering they serve your drinks to you in buckets (it reminded me a lot of Pail 'N' Shovel for any fellow Tiger alumnus that may be reading). As I may have mentioned before, the alcohol here is incredibly cheap. When we first arrived they had a two for one beer special on for the hour, so we got two large beers for about 30,000 dong. That's $1.50. Once that hour was over, we all ordered bucket drinks, which is something you kind of have to experience. The way that the buckets work is basically they have a big list of cocktails and you can choose either one to be made into a bucket drink. So for $5 you get about 7 shots of liqour. To make it even better, they had a two for one special on vodka redbull last night, so for five dollars you could get about 14 shots of vodka. Suffice it to say, it is not difficult to get drunk on the cheap at this place.

Early in the night when we were sitting outside chatting, I brought up how I was missing homecoming at X this weekend. Not everyone really understood what it was, but I tried my best to explain. For Americans, obviously homecoming is a little different. So my friend Lene from Denmark asked one of my American friends what homecoming is and she said something about flowers and a parade or something. So Lene apparently got up to see if there was a flower shop open somewhere around so she could get me a flower. When she couldn't find one, she went up to this random group of Scottish/English people and asked for a favor.

So I was sitting at our table outside of the bar when this guy taps me on the shoulder and says "are you Sarah?" When I replied that I was he said "your friend Lene says Happy Homecoming!" Then he ripped open his shirt to show me that Lene had written on his chest, in red marker: "Sarah, for your homecoming I got you this!" And, there was a big flower drawn as well! It was really funny, really random, and really sweet. They all then proceeded to tell everyone they talked to that it was my homecoming, and by the end of the night random people were coming up to me going "are you Sarah? I don't know where you're coming back from, but welcome home to Hanoi!"

Unfortunately the night ended a bit sooner than we would have liked because the police came and broke up the party around midnight. That's the thing with Vietnam, since it is a authoritarian-lead country things like that happen. It can be a little unnerving if you aren't expecting it, but I was standing outside watching the police pull up and I was just kind of like "oh well, time to go somewhere else." Apparently the police are cracking down pretty hard right now, so early nights can be expected at least for a while. After that most of our friends caught a cab back to the dorm, but myself, Lene and our new Scottish/English friends wandered the streets for another while looking for food before we finally decided to give up and caught a cab home. Somehow we managed to pick the perviest taxi driver in all of Hanoi who continually hit on Lene while I had my head stuck out the window yelling "mi oi, xin chao" to everyone we passed (what? I was having fun.) By the time we made it back, to the dorm we were quite glad to be rid of him to say the least.

So even though I couldn't be at X for my first homecoming, celebrating it in Hanoi was a pretty freakin' awesome replacement.

This morning, however, was not quite as fun. But that's the price you often pay with a night out, and once we went out and got some greasy food for lunch, I felt quite a bit better.

It's unusual for me to write a blog about just one night, but it was a pretty good night and I wanted to make sure I wrote it all down so I would not forget. Tomorrow it's back to work and I have a few projects due by the end of the week so I'm probably going to be quite busy for the next little while. Hopefully I will post a new blog about our West Lake adventures sometime later in the week.

Until then, remember that literally drinking buckets of alcohol is probably going to leave you with a pretty nasty hangover.

Sarah

"X is dynamite!"