the ice delivery truck that has been dropping off the ice blocks in our neighborhood.
we meet old friends pinky and bernie cupino.
joy with prof. ruben trinidad and pom.
there was ice on the corner melting away.
she can sure use some ice.
she takes exercise seriously. and i have an excuse to slow down and not sweat so much -- i have some clicking to do.
this beggar speaks fluent english.
there was ice on the tree.
an early store.
the beggar yesterday and he wears the same clothes as the day before.
ice on the tree on another day.
joy waits patiently as i shoot the ice from different angles.
and ice in the park sidewalk.
and, she still has some energy for a wacky pose.
we can be so neat with things like these.
ice on the pavement.
ice on the tree on still another day.
and finally at the clinic consuming the last few shots of my film.
i have 2,000 of them! actually, i only wanted a handful but the vendor was giving all of them at half price. he wanted to clear his garage. i found out later that in the collection were gems that each can fetch five times the total amount it cost me. one is an elvis presley philippine bootleg edition and a couple of 1911 copies of pinoy artists. and all still shiny and clear on playback.
leica iiic
leica iiic back
canon (leica copy).
titop island
according to vuong, our tour guide, titop was the second russian man in outer space. he even said that ho chi minh, during titop's visit to halong bay, dedicated this island to him. actually, the real name is vladimir titov; it was vietnamized to titop. other tourist materials say that this island hosted ho chi minh and titop together. but my little research got me baffled. ho chi minh died in 1969 when titov was a year short of becoming a pilot. and his first space flight was in 1976 -- a year after the Americans were booted out of Vietnam and ho chi minh was already bones and ashes.
prices are reasonable.
the presidential palace in hanoi
the frugal study room with his "idols".
he preferred to stay in his stilt house and shunned the palace. it has a bomb shelter at the back.
one of two cars he owned.
A small group of peasants were marching along the sidewalk bearing banners and posters of protest. 
two young vietnamese (the one in stripes crossing the street and the girl behind him) were driven out of their ranks by uniformed soldiers . they looked like students. there was a woman in her 50s ranting against the soldiers who did this. but the two kids just crossed the street away from the march. we were headed for halong bay on a coaster and i asked our tour guide what it was about. i could not tell if he didn't want to or could not explain. he just shrugged his shoulders. people on motorbikes stopped and looked and created slowdown in traffic. but the soldiers allowed the protesters to proceed with their march.
hardly seen, policemen and soldiers do appear within seconds of an incident. one occasion was a vehicular accident my son and i witnessed. a woman in her 70s was hit by a speeding motorbike in front of the ding xuan market. her head hit the pavement and a pool of blood appeared around the head. i did not intervene and decided to stay on the sidewalk with my son to observe. within minutes, a police car came. the woman was able to stand up eventually. the biker who hit her seemed to know what to do. he used his cellphone to call up authorities. after a while, visibly shaken, the victim walked to a waiting police car and was brought out of the scene.
there was a persistent light gray haze in the air, even in the suburbs. i suspect this comes from the coal plants, the ubiquitous motorbikes or a heating economy. above is a cemetery with a horse-driven carriage passing and the haze in the background.
