We arrived safe

We began our adventure to Vietnam at the Rockridge BART station by catching the 10:10 a.m. train to SFO. The ride was smooth and everyone was in high spirits despite knowing we had something near 24 hours of travel between us and Hanoi (Vietnam's Capital). Check in at Korean Airlines had a long line but it went quickly and we were through security and waiting at our gate with a half hour to spare. The first leg big of our transpacific trek involved a twelve hour hop to Seoul S. Korea. Our seats were comfortable and the food was better than adequate for airline meals. Many of us enjoyed Korean cuisine -- as they say "when in Rome act like the group traveling with Nina and Peter"). No one sleep much and many of us watched several films on the back of the seat in front of us we regret seeing. Nevertheless the twelve hours flew by and before we knew it we were landing in Seoul. That was the last time the distortion of time acted in our favor. On the runway in Seoul, as we looked out the windows, several Maybeck students thought to themselves: "I didn't pack clothes for this -- why did I listen to my teachers?" Seoul was being gentle sprinkled with a soft blanket of snow as our captain informed us that it was zero degrees Celsius outside. Jim tried to reassure the doubting students by saying Seoul to Hanoi is like Seattle to Baja. These tired young students from the other side of the Pacific rim were still cautious in their hope for warmer climes. At the Seoul airport we were directed to many long lines and eventually got to a remote transfer security check where we kept our shoes on and didn't need to empty our water bottles. After boarding our next flight to Hanoi, we were excited that we only had four hours left in the air before we reached Hanoi. We were due to touch down at 10 p.m. Monday evening in Hanoi (that's 7 a.m. Monday back in Berkeley). The Captain announced something in Korean and the Korean speakers around us moaned. We knew something was up and we waited an eternity of two minute to hear what he had to say in English. "Attention passengers due to delays in air traffic caused by the weather we will not be taking off for another hour". What was promised as an hour turned out to be two and one half. More exhausted than we ever thought we would be, we were on the last leg of our journey. Deprived the luxury of the transpacific entertainment center on the seat in front of us, our fitful sleep was disturbed by glimpses of some strange teen werewolf saga program produced in New Zealand. When we landed in Hanoi we were tired but not too tired to feel restored hope that it might be soon that we could once again sleep in a bed. It was only a hour long van ride through the thick pungent 73 degree air to the Hanoi Golden Plaza Hotel and those slightly lumpy mattresses were golden indeed!

We have not yet introduced all the cameras to the laptop computer so we're a little behind on uploading photos to this blog. The one's above are from our dinner on Tuesday March 23, 2010.