I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

...don't know when I'll be back again. My long vacation came and went, and now it's time to finish what I started in Vietnam. The end of my journey here is coming to an end, and I plan to make the most out of what's left.

Five months to go and plenty of memories to make. Before we get there, allow me to recap.

Excuse the potato quality, but screen shots are rarely pretty. The first thing I did after leaving Vietnam was head to Hawai'i for the Honolulu Marathon. After completing the race, I now know why they call Hawai't the "Rainbow State." No, it's not because there is a large gay community, it's because you truly can see rainbows all the time. But for there to be rainbows, there has to be rain, and there was a lot of rain that day.

I tried stand up paddle boarding for the first time at the beach behind our house. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of standing up for me...

After coming back from Hawai'i, Uy flew home for Christmas week. A San Diego road trip was one of the first things we did, of course, and visiting Stone Brewery topped the list. Of note, I found and promptly bought a massive growler's worth of a beer called Unicorn's Milk. Totally worth it.

After Christmas, I flew up to San Francisco and stayed with old friends. On NYE, we rented a hotel room, partied there, and then walked over to Coit Tower to see the fireworks at midnight. A good time was had by all, and I even got to relive an old college memory. Sneaking your friends into hotels is as hard today as it was 5 years ago.

San Francisco still amazes me. You could visit the place countless times and you'll find something new every time. This wall art was one of the many pieces I saw down Clarion Alley in the Mission District. I'm not an ardent supporter of Malcolm X, but I like what the artist had to say.

This is actually something I caught back home just before heading back to Vietnam. Notice anything weird? Let's just say someone was a little too eager to fill every space on that sign.

These were made roughly about half a decade apart. Not bad for a guy with no formal training, right?

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Chinese Chess - Cờ Tướng - 象棋

The latest interest I've taken in my quest to learn more about my Vietnamese heritage is the game of Chinese chess. It is a bit ironic to look for Vietnamese culture in a game that has the word "Chinese" in its name, but I found that it is only so for the sake of translation. I have taken to this game for a number of reasons. 1. The game has cool historical references that have survived even today. Let's start with the board itself. Unlike a chess board, which is played on the squares, Chinese chess is played on the intersections of lines. What is most recognizably different from normal chess boards, however, is the large gap in the middle of the board as well as the lines that form an "x" on opposites sides of the board. The square that contains the "x" is known as the "fortress," or 宮(gōng ) in Chinese. The center divider is the river where s ome Chinese words are visible. The words on the left say, 楚河 (chǔ hé ) , mean...

It's official!

"Within the first nine months of 2015, zero cases of corruption were found in this city!" "...but we're not saying that corruption doesn't exist, just that none of our inspectors caught anyone." Are you kidding me? Thank you for the freaking clarification, Ms. Nga.

It's Been a Long Time

....and what better way to start again than with a quote and fuzzy feelings. “To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed; Thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half of humankind." -Henry R. Luce, in collaboration with Archibald MacLeish

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