Mapping: Hai Ba Trung temple

Let’s just call it The 2nd Amazing Race. Except for this time, no one had to “rush”. It was such a busy Friday for me. After work in the morning, I was finally home at 12.30. Lunch lasted for 5 minutes and I rushed to school in the bus number 21. There they were waiting for me in front of building A. Our lovely project team. Traveling to our destination (Hai Ba Trung temple) took quite a long time (about an hour) and we had to catch 3 buses in total (number 1, 9 and 30).
We arrived at the place at about 3 in the afternoon and everything was so quiet at that time. Our team decided to choose a path which would be the shortest to go all around the square drawn on a piece of paper – our drafting and “clumsy” map.
That was the first time I’d ever set my foot on Hai Ba Trung temple although I had been living in Hanoi for 3 years. And unfortunately, it was not open for visitors. All could be seen from the outside was a rather big tiled-roof house and a large ground in front of it. The feeling of intimacy and restfulness possessed myself whenever I walked into places like this. It was like somehow you was isolated from the busy world out there somewhere that seem didn’t even exist. The temple looked out a small lake where trees and benches to sit down were available. One thing which makes sense to me all the time is that if you have a lake view house, whenever you open the window for some air, you know for sure you’re not going to face a big brick building or congested and dusty road but a calm and green surface of water. Well, either you are too rich to afford one or you are living in a under-developed neighborhood like this where these water grounds are not yet filled up for developing purposes. What a trade-off!
We went around the lake-side road and explored lots of things there. We found a lot of cafes, groceries’ stores, phone-card stores and others where most of things could be done as well. We only had to walk around 3 or 4 corners to complete all of the missions. Asking seemed to be nice as people were just as friendly as we needed. And it was getting crowded when we expanded the scale.
Most of the things on the list were available from small vendors and family businesses. Mary and Kristine kept exclaiming surprises as every other footsteps we encountered a small shop. I started to find myself more interested in what they were feeling rather than what I was. These were already so familiar to me. I guess they’ve noticed that instead of getting everything in a mall miles away from home, people here walk around, just like the way we were doing. Instead of having pension and resting somewhere nice and clean, some old men and women in Vietnam still have to work or I want to say still play an important roles in their children 's lives. And there’re so many other things. I found myself viewing the life around me that afternoon different. I recalled the article about “private” and “public” and wow! Look! It was exactly what’s happening and I was like a child having its new toy and I thought: “I truly understand it, just for now. I also understand that this somehow is a part of what my country is going through. People need to make ends meet and imagine if the big word “development” came tapping at the door right away, some would suffer.” Sustainability seems to be the hardest thing, always and everyone better-off, well, I just have no clue.
I don’t want to live there although I enjoy its peace. Sometimes I tell myself if you live quietly for so long, then you will always be invisible for the rest of your life because even if you try, you will miss what used to be so simple. I want to go out. I want to swim out the ocean shores and find my waves. I don’t want to wait for it to come.