We biked along rice paddies and rolling hills. The countryside was gorgeous, and to be honest, the kids were great! They cycled without any complaints. And we didn't have any accidents. We were incredibly lucky with the group of students we were assigned. [View Full Entry]

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The food wasn't as good as I expected. I guess I had quite high standards because the food on my previous PEAK trip was soooo delicious! This time there was a lot of meat and seafood, and the vegetarian food was often an oily omelet. That's alright... I didn't starve. The fruit was gorgeous and so was the fresh coconut! Our kids' favorite day was when we had a picnic lunch of cold cuts, peanut butter, white bread, chips and Oreo cookies. The first - and only - non-Chinese meal of the trip. [View Full Entry]

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Hainan Island is lush and green. We biked through pretty rural areas. Here's a selection of some scenes from our route. Can you believe I actually got off my bike to take photos? [View Full Entry]

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Aside from people we saw along the way, part of our trip involved a service component. We visited a local school and taught them how to play hopscotch and 4-square. They sent a kid to climb a palm tree and throw down some coconuts, which they then cut open for us to feast on the juice and coconut flesh. We also met up with the employees and students of a school for students with disabilities. We hung out at the beach together, and it was beautiful to see our kids trying to help these kids out. [View Full Entry]

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I spent a brief 5 days in Hanoi. My first mishap occurred at the passport control when the kind man behind the desk who spoke little English pointed his pen at the date my visa was to begin. It was for October 1st. Of course, I was standing in front of him on Sept. 30th at 10:30 p.m. Luckily, he eventually gestured that I could pass. I went to meet the taxi driver sent by the hotel I had reserved just hours before, but no luck. There was no sign with my name on it as I had been promised. After [View Full Entry]

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There's lots to do in Hanoi besides shop, though somehow I do equate Hanoi with shopping. I have some photos here of the Temple of Literature, which was a university hundreds of years ago. It's a quiet escape from the honking vehicles outside. Beautiful trees and ponds, a temple and hundreds of stellae for each of the graduates. Turtles are a sign of long life, so each stellae has its own turtle. It's easy to forget that Vietnam is a communist country. In fact, I asked just about every other tourist I saw if they had found any indication of communism, [View Full Entry]

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You can easily say goodbye to an afternoon watching the streets of Hanoi. It's a very fast paced city. Scooters are abound heaped with passengers or wares, driving without rule of law and yet surprisingly not having many accidents. (I did see one, but nothing serious.) The sidewalks are filled with people, many selling bananas, donuts or other treats. You can walk by and watch people in the midst of their work, making gravestones or repairing scooters. It's a very busy place. A few blocks from the Temple of Literature, I saw some food on a street corner that looked picture-worthy [View Full Entry]

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These photos may look repetitive, but I can't help it. I adored walking around the streets of Hanoi and seeing these apartments everywhere. I just don't get anything like it in Hong Kong, where everything is so big, clean and new. And well, I seem to prefer structures that are quaint and small and falling apart... I love the dirt and discoloration, and the plant-life creeping through the cement and wire. So... you're stuck with tons of photos of the buildings I was just so happy being surrounded by. [View Full Entry]

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Between the language limitation and the fact that I spent much of my time meeting other tourists, I didn't get to speak to many Vietnamese. There was one time I was verbally abused by a vendor for not wanting to buy a photocopied Lonely Planet for 10 USD. This sparked a conversation with the Vietnamese man sitting behind me who turned out to be a tour guide. He had a lot of ambition and wanted to learn from tourists how we thought he could offer better service. Other than that, my interactions with Vietnamese were via eye contact... and camera... [View Full Entry]

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I went to Shanghai for a conference called Learning 2.0 (as in Learning 2008) about bringing technology into the classroom. It was quite cool, actually. I learned about voicethread, using copyright-free photos from flickr, how to use the smartboard in my classroom (!!!), and that videogames involve a lot higher levels of thinking that I had realized. And, I also got to see this famous Chinese city. I have to say that I really liked it. First, it's a lot flatter than Hong Kong. You can look out in front of you and see... lots of stuff! I also liked the [View Full Entry]

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