good social. bad spider

Yesterday, while showing Michael how to operate the washing machine, I discovered my first major spider here. It was about 4 inches across and between the machine and the bedroom door. It was quite startling and though Michael felt it a good idea to use bug spray (laughing on the inside because it would only piss it off) I got a broom and pushed it away and it went under the machine. More about that later...

Last night we took a taxi to the West Lake area to take part in an expat social for business and such. Michael found it online and we thought it was a good idea to mix and mingle on a social level and see what life is like in Hanoi. It was a good time and glad we went. It was on a roof top and hot as hell because of the bbq going and not air flow. We were all sweating like pigs on a spit. I met some great people. One in particular, the owner of the cafe, is starting an interesting art project and was excited to have me a part of. Also, a man name Thomas, from London, who has his own company to help entire countries with there branding. (i.e. image of a whole culture asking the question "When you think of Vietnam, Qatar, Mongolia, what comes to mind...what products, the history, good or bad things?) Malaysia is dealing with an especially bad image right now with the whole Malaysian Air issues.

That rooftop was like a mini United Nations and we realized that this was the area we needed to live next if we remain in Hanoi. The resources, people, grocery, civility, etc. is more what we want in this crazy city. The area we are in was a shock to most people and we had to make them understand that we needed it for location to the school. Yes, more challenging, but it would be hell to commute every day to school from West Lake. It is only three months.

Back to Spider....

....this morning it was back in the same damn place. I decided to be more aggressive with its departure and never intended on killing it...but I did. It may have been all the pent up aggression or my sheer hate spiders that are alive and not in specimen boxes. There was respect, but it was him or me. I felt bad for 2 seconds. I was thinking of Liu Ce of course. I wanted to spare you the actual photo, so I thought I would include a google one. Enjoy!