My Everyday Life

It’s funny that I rarely post anything on Instagram or my blog about my daily life in Hanoi. My friends don’t post about their daily lives either, and that’s because it has become normal to us. My family and friends don’t really have any idea what Hanoi looks like or what a day here is like. When we talk on the phone and they ask me if I have anything new to report, I usually say “not really” because my weekdays are usually more or less the same. But they still love to hear about all the things I’m up to here, so I thought I’d write about what a normal weekday looks like to me.

Usually during the week I wake up around 7am. I do morning yoga (which is crazy because I’ve never been a morning person, much less an exercise in the morning person, or at all actually). After I’ve done that, I make myself breakfast, which is usually avocado and egg toast or overnight banana & peanut butter oats (or apple & chia oats). While I eat, I usually watch some Youtube or Netflix. After that, I start getting ready, pack my bag, and leave for work. Pretty basic day so far.

I try to get to work around 9am everyday, but my work is super flexible and nobody yells at me if I don’t show up until 10. As long as you’re doing your work, most people come and go as they please, or work in a coffee shop during the day. Work is about a 10 minute drive from my apartment, and I take my motorbike, which is parked in the garage downstairs. In Hanoi, a facemask is absolutely necessary, especially when driving a motorbike in rush hour traffic. When you’re stuck at a red light and there are 40,000 other running motorbikes surrounding you, I might as well have my mouth around the exhaust pipe in front of me. Everybody else wears a mask too, and if I’m being honest, it looks pretty badass and sometimes I feel like I’m part of a super huge motorbike gang.

At work, you leave your shoes at the door. I’m usually one of the first people to get there, besides one of my bosses. My work is one big room with multiple desks, but I usually sit at the same one everyday. CSDS is pretty chill, and also pretty social. Everyone is usually chatting and laughing. Everybody at my work also speaks English, but there are still times when there are miscommunications but we usually just laugh about it.

Also, when it’s somebody’s birthday, there’s always a cake and we don’t even bother cutting it.We just take forks and eat right from the cake, so I can’t complain about that.

When noon rolls around, it’s lunchtime. We have “nannies” that work at CSDS who cook lunch everyday. As soon as the clock strikes 12, and not a minute later, you can find me in the lunch room. Afterwards, mostly everybody goes upstairs for a nap or to a coffee shop down the street. Usually, I just sit at my desk and continue to work or scroll through the internet. In the afternoon, sometimes I’m lucky enough to be able to go on little field trips to social work centres, hospitals, or schools. Today, I went to the Vietnam Friendship Village, a place where veterans and children affected by Agent Orange come to stay and interact and learn. I got the chance to speak with the veterans of the Vietnam War, and they showed me their scars and told me their stories, which was a really cool experience.

My actual work involves a lot of the social media platforms, but right now I’m writing a grant proposal for the EU Commission, which is super interesting. Never thought I’d be into writing grants but it’s actually quite fun.

Most of the time, I leave work around 5, but again, this can be flexible. If I have nothing left to do that day, I’ll usually scoot out a little bit early. Once I get home, I’m usually hungry for dinner. Unfortunately, I only have an induction stove so I can’t cook as much as I would like to. (Update: I bought a toaster oven and it actually changed the game). Instead, I have a woman who cooks meals for me weekly and her son delivers them. They’re always super heathy Vietnamese dishes, like fresh seafood spring rolls, a lot of veggie dishes, tofu, and soup. Depending on the day and what I’m feeling, I might go to one of my friends houses to watch movies, go out for dinner, or just stay home and watch Netflix and read. The thing is that between 5-7, traffic is absolutely insane and it could take me anywhere from 20-50 minutes to get anywhere.

At the end of the day, I’m so grateful for my own comfy bed. 💤.