Farewell Vietnam!

Whew – I have clearly been neglecting my blogging duties, but not without good reason! We had a whirlwind last couple months in Ho Chi Minh City before departing on August 2. Our timetable was moved up so that Nikki could complete some training in DC, which means all the preparations, packing, and last minute trips had to be crammed into a shorter timeframe. Vietnam was an absolutely fantastic first post with friendly people, beautiful sights, and delicious food. Nikki and I will dearly miss our friends there and hope we can return to visit them one day.

Here are a couple of highlights from the past few months:

• Although broke and busy, we managed to squeeze in a couple last trips. One was to Sapa in Northwest Vietnam, home to hill tribes and beautiful scenery, which we accessed by the swanky Victoria overnight train. Another was to Ayutthaya outside of Bangkok, completing our tour of ancient Southeast Asian capitals. Finally, we hit up Singapore one last time for some shopping, meeting up with our friend Andrew, and of course delicious char siu bao from Da Dong and dim sum at Din Tai Fung.
• We were excited to have some last minute family and friends visit in May – great to see you Darcy, Mike, Madhu, Amanda, Jeff, and Todd!
• The Tiger Team traveled to Hanoi for the annual mission cup. Sadly, we were defeated in a close, muddy game. Despite the loss, we had a great time on a subsequent 2 day team trip to Ninh Binh province, where we visited Vietnam's first national park (Cuc Phuong), a saw a huge temple, and boated through picturesque karst formations.
• We went to Phuc Quoc island with a bunch of friends to run a half marathon – I won in 1:19:06.
• I got a job in the HCMC Consulate as the Community Liaison Officer for a couple months. It was really fun and my office was right next door to Nikki's.
• I finally tested in Vietnamese and got a 2+ (speaking), 2 (reading). Not too shabby I guess, although I have to admit I was hoping for a little higher. After two years of studying almost every day, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the language and can communicate in most scenarios, so it was definitely worth it!
• We sold Mr. Mustard – our 1979 yellow Honda Cub. He was an awesome machine and we were sad to part with him, but we couldn't take him to Africa.
• We organized and ran a soccer clinic for kids at the US consulate called Tiger Tots. State magazine will be publishing a short article on it in October.
• We had a ton of goodbye parties – live band karaoke at the Hard Rock Café with Anh Joe and friends, Tiger Team and cheerleaders farewell, and an official goodbye party at the Consulate (where we drank the last of my latest beer brewing effort). Thank you to everyone and we'll miss you!!

As you can see, plenty of things going on! We returned to our sparse apartment after the last goodbye party, packed up 4 fifty-pound bags, and headed to the airport for a midnight flight out of Tan Son Nhat.

On the way home, we took a rest stop in Tokyo, and in classic Nikki/Evan style, crammed in as much sightseeing as possible - we visited Meiji shrine, strolled through Harajuku, dodged pedestrians at Shibuya, ate yakitori in a back alley of Ebisu, ate musubi at 7-11, gorged ourselves at the food show, and of course visited Tsukiji fish market. Tsukiji was my favorite – we arrived at 5AM to see the tuna auction, where a single fish goes for as much as $80k USD. On the outskirts of the market, we sampled some of the freshest sashimi in the world, before wandering the narrow alleys of the market crowded with purveyors of every kind of seafood imaginable.

So our Southeast Asian adventure is over and we are back in Falls Church, VA for a couple of months. It's a nice feeling to be home, and there are definitely things we've been missing – places to run outside, American chains, craft brews, and the ease of communication in a common language (my head nearly exploded today when I went to a nearby store where people were speaking Spanish, Vietnamese, and English). We're soaking it all up, since in a few more months it will be off to our next adventure – Africa.