We’ve been walking a little slower, trying to savor, trying to memorize, and still, at the same time, trying to stay in the present. We know that we are looking at things we’ve grown use to for the last time. So many streets we haven’t walked down and restaurants we haven’t eaten in. We have gotten better at crossing streets with and without traffic lights and drivers of motor bikes and cars that consider lights, lanes and one way signs as mere suggestions. We are regulars at that pho restaurant on the sidewalk half a block away from our apartment and enjoy so much all the fresh fruit juices that we drink every day.

Lots of flowers were planted during out week away in Hoi An. So nice to see them.

An octopus on a bakery’s roof, a gray washed miniature of Notre Dame, views of the Lake of the Restored Sword, a pretty woman posing in tradition clothes, teenagers dancing in the street to K-Pop, and the roof top gardens of Hanoi. All in a day’s walk.

At the Museum of Contemporary (lodged in the bottom floor of a massive mall.) we saw an incredible installation by Chiharu Shiota.

At the Museum of Fine Arts, we saw classical Vietnamese art much of it inspired by and depicting aspects of the fight from independence first from France and later from the USA. I was captured by the painting on silk — strong and delicate. Lots of enamel that I want to learn something about, fabulously bright carvings, poignant bronzes, and ancient depiction of gods and holy people.

And us.