Today I wandered. I strolled in and out of streets just watching the people and lives around me. When I got tired, I stopped at a cafe for a fruit juice or a beer and read my book. I meandered around the lake. I ate ice cream. I watched the Vietnamese people eating ice cream (it was a hot day). I basically did nothing today - and it was perfect. Today was what I am going to call my "do nothing day". The biggest decisions that I had to make today were what...

I saw a woman kill a chicken this morning. On the street. On purpose. She took it out of a cage, broke it's neck, and started plucking feathers. Just like that. Like it was just a regular, everyday occurrence (which maybe to her it was). I suspect it was meant to be part of breakfast, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out. I suppose that's what you get when you get up uber-early to go exploring....good to know...I discovered that th...

Hello! It's me! After 20 hours of flying, I have arrived safely in Hanoi, Vietnam. The flight...sucked. Hard. It was ten times worse than the US to New Zealand flight. Here is why:When you fly to NZ, you typically leave the US between 9 and 11pm. You get settled on the plane, maybe watch a movie. They feed you and ply you with wine, and then they turn off all the lights and basically tell you to go to sleep. You then magically arrive in NZ around 6am....

I was told this morning by the owner of the guesthouse that they are three million motorbikes in Hanoi. Three million motorbikes in one city is a difficult concept to wrap you brain around, but I'll tell you something....I think I saw all three million of them today. They are, literally, everywhere. And, because there are three million of them, traffic in Hanoi is a cross between chaos and utter insanity. It took some deep down soul searching just to get...