Due to kind of a weird schedule our flight back wasn’t until around 11:30 p.m., so we had lots of time to kill. We stashed our luggage with the hotel, and then met up with Hain one last time. She guided us through one more shopping trip at the grocery store to identify which hot sauces were the best to buy, and then we went to lunch at the Hanoi Hilton. Kuniko had heard that the Vietnamese restaurant there was really good, and it lived up to it’s reputation.
Over a pretty diverse and refreshing lunch we exchanged our farewell gifts. Lunch was relaxing and pretty leisurely (actually, the whole day was like that). We wandered from there to the original che place where we first had che and had “one for the road”. I had a slightly different version – one with green beans that was tasty. From there we said our final goodbyes to Hain and thanked her for all her help during the trip. I can’t imagine how the trip would have gone without her help and advice. She was one of the highlights of the whole trip.
So now we had lots of time to kill. Kuniko thought to avoid another taxi fiasco by making an appointment for an airport. This time we found the correct office after wading through a squad of taxi drivers. We picked a departure time, handed over $4, and it was done. Now just to make it back on time with our luggage.
We took a good long time to sit in the sun on a park bench overlooking the lake and tried to think about what we needed to get done when we arrived back home in Japan, and we talked about our highlights (and lowlights) from the trip. We drank one of my favorite Vietnamese sodas – “Twister”. We went for one last coffee at another branch of the touristy “Highlands” coffee shop, and we even tried some Vietnamese Thai food that met with our approval.
Knowing that we had a big night ahead of us at the airport, and an overnight flight back, we decided to have a couple of cocktails. The Hanoi Hilton had a nice bar that we had walked by earlier in the day, so we went back and settled in there. I stuck with beer but Kuniko had a variety of different drinks. Figuring it was about time to head out, we went back to our hotel, picked up our luggage and headed to the shuttle area.
Again the taxi drivers swarmed us, even more because we had suitcases with us. We fought through them and found the right minibus. I was a little alarmed because even though we were early we were the last two people there. They squeezed our luggage into the back, and Kuniko and I had to sit separately in the minibus, jammed together with a bunch of other passengers.
The ride to the airport was pretty crazy – the bus sped through town honking scooters out of the way, and everyone was squeezed in with each other so anytime you moved you pushed against someone else, and the night was full of interesting things to see. There were the barbers who worked outside by tying a mirror to the base of a streetlight and setting a chair in front of it, the old ladies selling bread on the side of the road inches away from speeding cars, and always the storefronts – everyone selling something.
It was a long drive but we made it more or less in one piece. The wait to check in for the plane was pretty long, and then afterwards we snacked at a cheesy airport restaurant called the “Lucky Cafe” that advertised things like “Hamburgers”, “Soup” and “Rice Office”. We never found out what “rice office” was. Once we cleared customs and security we were surrounded by even more shopping, trying to get the last minute shoppers. The prices were about ten times what they were on the streets, so there weren’t many takers.
The flight back was a piece of cake. It was a five hour flight, but I just closed my eyes right after take off and woke up when the wheels hit the ground in Osaka. I had vague dreams of flight attendants giving me strange looks, but that was it. We stepped out into the cold of Osaka in winter, cleared immigration and customs and we were back. We caught a bus back to Sannomiya, a train back to Okubo, and we were back in our house around 8 a.m.
The first thing we did was take a hot bath, and then we unpacked, heated up the house, and did odds and ends. I had to leave to teach three classes, but I wasn’t tired at all and they went well enough. Kuniko picked me up afterwards and took us to her parent’s house, and they welcomed us back and gave us our plants back (thanks for taking care of them!)
And that was it. It was a great trip – really an adventure. I’m so glad that we decided to go – the things we saw and did and ate will be great memories for a long time. During the trip we also got a chance to meet a lot of interesting people, and we could really feel how kind everyone was.
We’re already talking about our next trips, but with my job and school situation up in the air, nothing is solid yet but the destinations. Stay tuned!
