The last things to see and say.
Goodbye endless paperwork! Good bye cheap and wonderful cappuccinos!
Goodbye Tết decorations and goodbye fancy altars inside of local corner stores!
Goodbye friendly strangers who drop in on your group while drinking alongside one another in Old Quarter and try to determine who is married to who!
Goodbye police shutting the party down at 11 PM!
Goodbye shady bars like Tom's, that lock you in and keep the party going long past when the police shut everything down outside!
Goodbye, Buddha!
Goodbye motorbikes loaded down with kumquat trees!
Goodbye superstitious citizens who burn money in the streets in the hope that it will bring fortune in the new year!
Goodbye Trấn Quốc Pagoda, though I never got around to visiting you until Tết when you were packed with worshipers you were still a sight for sore eyes every time I passed you!
Goodbye Hanoi Social Club, a calm and quiet hiding place in the storm that is this city!
Goodbye animal cruelty!
Goodbye West Lake!
Goodbye Soviet-looking architecture, propaganda, and public art!
Goodbye crazy nights in Old Quarter where the streets are so packed people just sit on their bikes and hang out in the streets!
Goodbye to beautiful performances and spontaneous moments like these!
Goodbye Green Lake and Cooffee 68/Cuong Henry, my favorite sidewalk cafe in Hanoi!
Goodbye coworkers and compatriots!
Goodbye local bodega/Tạp Hóa whose owners/employees never failed to laugh at me when I tried to speak Vietnamese but who always charged me the fair price for soda, junk food, toilet paper and toothpaste!
Goodbye ever-changing street light decorations!
Goodbye apocalyptic summer storms!
Goodbye random cats as pets in restaurants!
Goodbye motorbikes!
Goodbye night markets!
Goodbye temples and pagodas!
Goodbye rat-dogs!
Goodbye pub quiz, both those we attended and those (well, that one) we made ourselves!
Goodbye ILA!!
No comments:
Post a Comment