It's been over a year since I stopped putting my life online. Back in April 2011, I randomly rented one of the employee picks from my local video store (yep, we still have one of those, Movie Madness, and it completely kicks Netflix @$$!).
With 2009's WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, Ondi Timoner became the only director to receive two Sundance Grand Jury Prizes by documenting the decade-long rise of a NYC internet reality pioneer, the subsequent descent down to dot-bomb-rock-bottom, and eventual reclaiming of real life in Ethiopia's cradle of civilization.
About the same time as the WE LIVE IN PUBLIC intervention, Bunny and the little ones were craving more of my attention, so I decided to take a big break from blogging and the internet. Remarkable synchronicities continued to reveal themselves, but I was waiting for an epic, grandaddy entry to close this blog and return to reality...
It started on the first day of school, September 2011. We sent Lilly off to 3rd grade, then Bunny and River took me to the airport for a 15-hour flight to Vietnam.
I had been to Hoi An once before in 1997 and was completely enchanted by its artsy, friendly culture mixed with historical remnants from hundreds (even thousands) of years of Cham, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Portuguese civilizations. Needless to say, I have always wanted to return and jumped on the opportunity.
Then behind me, a voice called, "People's Co-op."
I turned around and found Wana, a clerk from our local natural foods grocery on her way to the Phillipines. Good thing, because she helped me navigate my way to another terminal for my connecting flight to Ho Chi Minh City.
This is Part 1 of perhaps the craziest coincidence of my blogging history. I'll explain Part 2 later.
But first Vietnam.
The whole timing of this trip was particularly auspicious since my Mother recently decided to retire in her home country in June 2011, after 40 years of living in the United States.
She met me at midnight in the airport with a handful of family members. I LOVE visiting this side of my family.
Maybe because it's so rare (once in 1997, now again in 2011).
Maybe because they are so smily and beautiful despite their destitute circumstances.
Maybe it's curiosity for the Eastern culture that runs through half my blood.
Maybe it's the incredibly fresh culinary artistry that can't be reproduced State-side.
Or maybe a combination of everything.
My family dropped me off in Cholon, the old Chinese quarter, where I woke up the next morning to a buzz of street activity and walked through a series of fragrant alleys to a thousand year-old Bhuddist temple.
Monks welcomed me to the top floor for a 360-degree view stretching across Saigon and a connection to their Bhudda, who I was still nuptially committed through October (see the previous Newlyweds post).
Everything is so completely foreign in Vietnam except a random set of Campy velodrome racing wheels tilted on the side of a scooter and a couple of geared-out morning bicyclists riding off into an abyss of motorbikes and haze.
Returning to the hotel, Mom picked me up for a lunch visit with extended family. My aunts, Gi Nam and Gi Sau, are wizards in their pint-size kitchen.
We told stories, laughed, cried.
After lunch, my cousin Tai took me for a motorbike adventure into the downtown Saigon markets and ridiculously crowded and efficient rush hour commute.
An infinite variety of helmets are the most striking difference between Ho Chi Minh City circa 1997 versus 2011. But oddly and unfortunately, they are only required for adults...kids are typically without any head protection while hanging precariously from their parents' motorbike.
These wise grandparents knew better:
By evening, we caught a minibus 3 hours south to my Mother's new hometown, Cao Lanh.
I can see why she wanted to retire there considering Western standards...Cao Lanh hosts the burial site of Ho Chi Minh's father resulting in much public investment by the federal government into walkable neighborhoods, big grand parks, a modern farmer's market, and infrastructure for water and waste water services. At the same time, it's steeped in tradition and historic architecture. Plus it's tropical and small enough to have clean, fresh air. Who wouldn't want to retire here?!?
Cao Lanh is located along the massive Mekong River delta, and the next day I chartered a junk boat to take my family and Loc's on a cruise to the Rung Tram Forest, a cultural preservation and ecological restoration site one hour form Cao Lanh.
It was the first time that my land-locked family from Saigon had been on a boat and quite hilarious to watch them transition into canoes for a paddle around the eucalyptus and water hyacinth forest.
The next day concluded the whirlwind family visit with espresso at the Cafe Tina around the corner from my Mother's house. Since Tina is not a Vietnamese word, it seemed as if this quaint cafe was named with the intention of bringing my Sister, Tina, to Cao Lanh.
I returned back to Ho Chi Minh City to catch a flight to Da Nang and meet the PSU team in Hoi An.
Our timing happened to coincide with the week-long Autumn Moon Festival, revered in Hoi An like Daytona Beach during Spring Break. We arrived into a paper lantern-lit street party full of lion dancers, dragons and random performers.
This continued every night as we spent our days collaborating with the Vietnamese sustainability contingent and exploring this lively ancient town.
On our first day, the PSU team ventured out to Cu Lao Cham Island (a UNESCO Bioshpere Reserve) to bond with eachother, acquiesce into Vietnamese culture and begin planning our Atelier workshop - on the beach. I couldn't dream of a more romantic place to start our work!
At one point, we were walking by a pasture and heard prayer bells coming from their local temple. I sat next to a pond surrounding their Bhudda statue, reflecting on my purpose in Vietnam while soaking in this sublime moment.
Hypnotized by a surreal lotus flower whose seeds will one day feed a grasshopper, who in turn will feed a frog, who then feeds the pond water snake. Just like Bhudda's renowned teaching, it's all interconnected. The cycles of life was witnessed in its beautiful simplicity under the meditative spell of bells.
My typical day in Hoi An would start with a bowl of street-side traditional Mi Quang soup for breakfast, followed by espresso with Hoi An's early rising calisthentics crew, and then a morning ride through the countryside with my fellow bikey fanatics from Portland.
Then a few hours of Atelier planning and collaborating on environmental performance assessment and project prioritization tools.
Break for lunch with a short jaunt out to the palm-lined beach for a refreshing dip and whole roasted fish.
Return for a few more hours of Atelier.
Ride through the maze of alleyways, cobblestone streets, water canals, shops and markets in the old quarter with its inspiring mix of Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese architecture (not to mention the mix of inspiring bikey setups).
Meet up with American and Vietnamese friends for a delicious dinner. Then hit the bars for American-banned, Cuban Havana Club rum on the rocks. Throw in a couple of late-night swims with full-moon reflections in a phosphorescent ocean, and you get the idea. A completely enchanting experience!
Vietnamese culture is particularly with conducive to collaborating on sustainable development.
And besides being collective by nature, they also provide much inspiration for a bike-dominated urban future.
This electric bicycle is the first choice of the next generation because it's much faster than a traditional bike, less costly than a motorbike, and much more convenient than the automobile.
And this one's just plain cooool!
Just in case you need to transport bikes, they have bike-powered bike trailers:
On our last day of the Atelier, I made a point to connect with a handful of local actors to say goodbye and wish them good luck in their efforts. I regrettably noticed that one translator was missing, but later randomly found her at home while riding the alleyways at lunch. Over tea, we talked about the future of green building and were joined by her sister, who recently started a solar photovoltaic contractor company with her German husband.
Like Portland, Hoi An has an emerging culture of sustainability that is fed by a network of serendipitous and inspiring connections.
On my last day in Vietnam, a handful of my compatriots from Portland visited My Son. These striking mountains frame a backdrop for Hoi An and also house religious ruins of the thousand-year old former Kingdom of Champa.
Deeply inspiring and reverent, the visit brought me back to 1997 when my Mother and I visited these same ruins.
Then it was back to Tokyo in route to Portland.
Despite being completely worn out during my 8-hour layover, I followed the advice of my new bike transportation planning buddy, Colin, and rode the 3-hour light rail round trip into downtown Tokyo and back to Narita.
With just a couple of hours to spare, I was able navigate through this traditional town to fun snacks, gifts for the family back home, and an expansive campus of Bhuddist new and ancient temples.
Through thick wafts of incense trails and a giant bell, another sublime spiritual experience closed out this incredible trip to Asia.
This brings me to Part 2 of my crazy coincidence. A few days after settling back in, I took the kids out to see the migrating Vaux swifts put on their spectacular sunset show at the Chapman School chimney (check out Equinoxing Under the Autumn Moon for a similar Asian/bird posting).
With an entire field full of bird enthusiasts, I asked Lilly to find a good spot to setup our blanket and dinner basket. She unknowingly (but instinctively) guided us to sit right behind none other than Wana, who I had last since at the Tokyo airport (and had not since for several years prior). We reveled in the uncanny connection and shared stories about our adventures in Asia.
Then, my friend Marnie stopped to say "hello" as she was sitting nearby. She had just dropped her husband, Bwana, off at the airport in route to Tokyo! What's more, Wana realized that she was a former neighborhood friend of Bwana, AND Bwana painted the chimney swifts drawing hanging in our laundry room. We were all doing double takes and scratching our heads at the odds of this chance encounter. Meanwhile, the swifts were swirling above us forming an array of beautiful geometric patterns, all flying together as if they were magnetically guided by a common spirit. Yes, it truly was that magic. 
When I gave up blogging last year thanks to WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, bicycling and rebuilding bikes became my hobby of choice. I feel so grateful when I'm in the saddle and love breathing new life into old bikes. To make things challenging, I target two net-zero goals: no new parts, and no out-of-pocket expense from my wallet. That means I have to find old bikes, rebuild them with used parts from Citybikes, and then sell them for a little bit of profit toward my own bike projects.
Just before leaving for Vietnam, a-friend-of-a-friend gave me a good deal on a Surly Cross-Check bicycle with a smashed-in frame. The parts were still in tact though, and I had seen a similar Long Haul Trucker frame & fork at Citybikes. Unfortunately, that frameset sold, and I spent the last 9 months sifting through Craigslist in search of a similar frame to rebuild my own dream all-around touring/cross/commuter.
Meanwhile, Bunny kept reminding that I really need to sell a couple of bikes before starting another project.
So a couple weeks ago, I posted three bikes for sale on a Saturday.
One sold on Sunday.
Another on Monday.
My dream frame, a 2012 limited edition vanilla SOMA Double Cross, was posted to Craigslist in my size on Tuesday.
I bought it on Wednesday.
Built out half of it on Thursday and swapped out a few parts at Citybikes.
Finished the rebuild on Friday.
And rode to the Gorge with Colin (my Hoi An riding buddy) on Saturday.
It was a truly unfathomable turn of events over the course of one week considering that I had been searching on Craigslist and trying to sell my projects for nearly a year. I'll spare any non-bike geeks the details, but there was a whole series of coincidences that accompanied all of these bike transactions leaving me in complete awe at how the world organizes itself. Bunny reminded me that it's all about imagination and connection. I'll have to agree!
Here are the bikes that I resurrected for second lives:
And here's the new project they funded (with River's pirate swords and without handlebar tape - the new tape is oh-so-comfy-honey-colored SOMA cork wrap):
I started oggling this SOMA frame a couple of months ago after initiating a set of Soma Institute body rolfing sessions and engaging with the SoMA EcoDistrict development in downtown Portland.
I even considered breaking my rule of only reusing previously-owned frames and parts. SOMA had sold out of this limited edition frame earlier this year anyhow, so I came to peace with the fact that I would probably never own such a rare find. Still, I continued to (literally) dream about its build out.
And somehow it arrived like clockwork. I plan to ride it on my first century down in California's Wine Country on Cinco de Mayo with my long-time-Reno-buddy, Kenny.
And with these nested sets of coincidences, I bid farewell to my blog and thank you to all who have shared in these silly stories. I hope you are finding much inspiration in this strangely chaotic yet randomly ordered world, too.
Bon Voyage!
