Well, I said sayonara to Japan (literally) on July 28, 2025. And English student met me at a train station and stayed with me to the airport, and even treated me to a great lunch in a very crowded food court. The VietJet plane was a bit late getting off, but arrived a few minutes early. I was surprised to hear the CA say that a bottle of water was 5usd, and even more surprised to see that at the scanning tables you had to throw all your water bottles, but could buy later inside and take on the planes. Not a very smart system.
So after 5 hours of waterlessness, I touched down at a tiny airport which serves 9 million people. It reminded me a bit of the Nashville, TN airport of 45 years ago, but not so swanky. I had to fill out a long form, and could finally do it after waiting over 5 minutes for someone to appear at the counter. Then I had to pay 2usd to get my pic taken. My pickup team from the school had a problem, so after telling around 6 or 7 scammers trying to get me to use their Grab (like Uber) service, I decided to buy a little sandwich and a drink – nice, but not cheap.
In Hanoi!
Then my pickup team – yay! 
It was cool riding in their true Grab ride, and seeing the garish skyscrapers coming into Hanoi at night – like a disco. They dropped me off at the school, and my roommate and one teacher accompanied me to the apt which is on the 18th floor of a building around a 90-second walk away. Large apt. with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths. Bunk beds reminded me of when I was a kid! 
3 air conditioners! Loud noise from the nearby Thang Long road which is probably the biggest in Hanoi!!! 
Then the new roommate went somewhere, and I was left to figure out that I had no drinking water and no toilet paper. Ummmmm, OK.
The next few days were spent trying to get used to the new reality of roommates, having to be constantly on the alert that you don’t get run over by motorbikes, jumping out of your skin when someone comes up right behind you and blares their horn, etc. The church pastor kindly takes me to a shop to get my first-ever sim card, but I have to throw it away just a day later as he put it in his name, which does me no good for getting IDed by banks and everybody. I find out that I made a mistake bringing 20 year old US money, as no bank will touch it.
The school has very few students, so I spend my time painting and scraping paint. I’m learning that the Vietnamese way is somewhere halfway between the exactness of Japan, and the chaos of India. The new Brazilian directors view this as chaos, but when I mention some things about India, they admit that things do get sort of half done right here. One thing that bothers me, is that many places will charge more for their services than they originally stated. For example, the 2nd time I went to a phone company to get a sim card in my name, they told us around 11usd for 90 days of phone service with 1gb data per day. But when they had done all the paperwork and everything, they charged an extra $2. It’s still extremely cheap, but it’s just the idea of feeling cheated.
That worked a bit in the opposite direction too one day. I went to a convenience-like store and bought some stuff and when I got the change back I was flustered. I tried to explain to the woman standing by the cashier who had spoken to me in English, and she was looking at me like I was trying to cheat them. After about 10 seconds they caught on that they had given me 100,000 dong back too much (nearly $4), and that I was trying to give it back. They thanked me profusely as I left the store. 🙂
Feeling Lost
The first week I didn’t know where to buy food, and didn’t have much Vietnamese money anyway, so had to conserve what little I had. So every nite I would eat “banh mi” for around 80cents. It’s an iconic sandwich – think “Subway sandwich”. One of the teachers showed me a place and how to order it without meat, so I did that every day for a while, until one night when the young guys working there were laughing at me for always ordering the same thing (at least that’s what it felt like), and since I had plenty of vnd by then anyway, I went to little veggie/fruit shops by the side of the road, and to the Tops and Go supermarket, which locals call both of them “Big C” because that was their old name.
Which brings me to prices – I thot prices of things would be about 1/4 of America’s and about 60% of Japan’s, but instead, I find nearly all packaged things to be more expensive than in Japan! Even eggs are around 1.65usd for 10, which is basically the same price as in Japan. Bread is cheaper, and soy milk is cheaper (1L is 75cents). Oh yes, rice is MUCH cheaper than in Japan, only 80cents/kilo.
Health Problems
My back right upper tooth started hurting a bit in Japan a couple of weeks before leaving, but knowing how they take weeks to finish a project there, I decided to wait until coming here. The pain was pretty bad, so went to a nearby dentist two days after coming, and he took off the broken crown and put a new crown on. His price was 140usd, which is more expensive than in Japan, but he seemed to do a good job. Unfortunately, just 2 days later the pain flared up again. I had to go to Thailand for training, so left it for around 10 days, and it got to really hurting while in Thailand so that I could hardly sleep. I put charcoal on a cotton ball and inserted it between my gums and my teeth, and it seemed to take the pain away. So much so, that I thot I was done with this problem until one day when I bit down on something and the pain shot up into my brain so terrible I felt like I might faint. That impelled me to call International SOS, an organization that helps foreigners find medical treatment. They contacted a dentist, to which I went, and he showed that the tooth hadn’t been cleaned properly when the original crown was put on around 5 years ago, and a cavity had been slowly eating away at the tooth from the inside. He found another tooth that needs a root canal too, so now I need 2 root canals, costing over 1,000usd each! 
He’s a Japanese man who used to play golf in the little suburb where I used to live, so we have a great time speaking in Japanese.
Go to Thailand
From August 4 to 8 we had Adventist Volunteer Service training in Muak Lek, Thailand, where our SDA Asian Pacific International University is. Of the 40 or so attendees, around half were from Brazil, and around 1/3 from the Philippines. Pastor Joni, a Brazilian, was the speaker, and it was mostly good except for the “Don’t judge” part. I think he probably meant it in the meaning of “Don’t criticize”, but then he said there is a lot of gray in life so we shouldn’t judge, which was the only thing I didn’t agree with. If something appears “gray” to us, it means our eyesight is not exactly in tune with God’s, as we know that there is no darkness in him at all. Everything was white and black to Jesus, and the closer we are to him, and led by his Holy Spirit, the clearer we will discern the difference too. Being together with so many like-minded missionaries was a great experience, and the best thing was that I could meet my Vietnamese pastor friend who works at the Union office just a few steps away from the health center. 🙂 We were taught about digital evangelism, and our team won first prize in the contest! You can see it here: Adventist Volunteer Services training video first prize We got a tripod stand with professional light to our own digital evangelism, and I thot there was no way this big steel rod poking out of the director’s backpack would get thru screening at Bangkok airport, especially since the sign showing prohibited items at the check-in counter specifically showed a tripod, but nobody seemed to care about anything except plastic water bottles. Steel water bottles – no problem. Nail scissors – no problem. Over 2 foot long metal tripod stand – no problem. Water bottle – Problem! yet, after entering, you can go straight to a convenience store and buy a bottle of water and take it on the plane – no problem. So weird.
I hadn’t flown since 2012 until coming to Hanoi, and then going to Thailand and back, it was just fascinating to me to think that I’m doing something that no one could have possibly done 125 years ago. Incredible. And everyone around me is sleeping. This pic of where 2 rivers meet was interesting to me: 
I remembered a bit how I felt in the 5 years I travelled around everywhere between 2005-2010 trying to spread the 1858 Great Controversy book. 
Hanoi Walker
Hanoi is said to not be a walkable city. I’m trying to disprove that. After going to the dentist, I walked for nearly 5 hours. Here are some pics of what I saw on my walk:
You can see that the sidewalks aren’t really made for walking. This looked ridiculous to me, until I saw a nice broad sidewalk with motorcycles running all over it! So yes, maybe this kind of sidewalk is safer for pedestrians.
Lots of Pics
This is “Tay Ho” or “West Lake”. It is very big. Actually, Hanoi is built on swamp land, and has been flooded many times by the Red River in the past. The lake size is around 1,235 acres (500 hectares), with a shoreline of 11 miles. The northern area is where the new foreign monied people like to live. That’s also where my expensive dentist is located.
One thing the French could do very well – design beautiful buildings. Fortunately many of them have been preserved, and most of the nicer ones seem to be government offices, like this government publishing house.
The people here are very patriotic, and you can see flags everywhere.
This old pagoda looked interesting.
This is St. Joseph’s Cathedral in the Old Quarter. Many people see the two or three big churches with crosses publicly displayed on them, and think that everyone has freedom of worship in Vietnam.
A beautiful hotel.
This is the Temple of Literature. Some say it is the first university in Asia. They taught Chinese classics here at first, but as the times changed, they taught other things. This is where the elite of the elite were trained in Vietnam, and the names of those who could pass the difficult exams are still engraven there.
This is the Vanh Dai train station. It cost 50cents to go 5 stops. It was built by China, while Saigon’s was built by Japan.
Old Colonel Sanders is very popular in Hanoi. The mix of Western and Eastern in this pic intrigued me.
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And no story of Hanoi would be complete without a mention of one of it’s “delicacies” →
“Thit cho” directly translates as “meat dog”. Yes, in the markets you can sometimes see a hot half-dog on the table.
Then, literally just 50meters away from that restaurant, you can see this pet shop selling dogs and “meo” (which you can guess), giving them a spa etc. Surreal.
Well, that’s all for today. I’ve been in Hanoi almost one month now, and have started to learn how to move about, where to get things I need, how to interact with people at the school and church, but haven’t improved hardly any in Vietnamese language yet. I tried to ask for salt for my director at a vegan restaurant the other day, and the server brought a ladle. I found out that “muoi” with a rising tone is salt, but with a flat tone is ladle. I knew that with a falling tone it means “ten”. So confusing.
Please pray for us here, that we can get many students, and that we can be a light in this community.