Today is Saturday (I think) and it's New Years Eve. Local people spend time with their families and the stores, restaurants and bars are closed. We ran on the treadmill again, and around 10:00 took a cab to the Opera House and met Carie and her family (mother, brother, sister-in-law and 1-year old nephew) and walked down another flower street. You just can't imagine the beauty of all of the flowers. Of course it was very crowded and quite warm so they took Sushi the 1-year old home and Ron and I ate lunch at Chao. When we got back to the apartment we sat by the pool, did a little swimming and after our showers, Ron said we should walk down the street so he could show me the university where he will be teaching.
It's very difficult to cross streets here because motor bikes are everywhere, and they don't stop. I was instructed to walk carefully but swiftly and make eye contact with the drivers. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was a possible motor bike on the sidewalk and as I made a quick turn to my left - WHAM - I was hit on my left leg by a woman and man coming full speed. It surprised me more than anything and the driver came over and grabbed my leg to see if it was broken. I felt sure it wasn't, so we kept walking. About 2 blocks later, my leg began to swell and burn like crazy. I felt like I was going to pass out, and Ron set me on the grass and I put my head between my legs. He hailed down a cab and took me back to the apt. In the lobby there just happened to be a family going out to dinner. The husband was a Vietnamese doctor from Australia and he examined my leg and suggested I go to the hospital to have an X-ray just in case. The manager of the apt got a wheel chair, and a cab and off we went. Ron has a list of recommended hospitals that Fullbright published and one of them was fairly close. They couldn't have been nicer at the hospital where they were waiting for me with another wheelchair and took X-rays of my leg. No broken bones thank goodness. They prescribed aspirin and an anti-inflammatory and the whole bill was $165! The manager of our apartments stayed with us the whole time too. They gave me an ice pack, wrapped it up and sent us home. As we were waiting for a cab, I said to Ron, "OK, you can hand me my other shoe now." There was a startled look on his face and I knew right away that he didn't have it and probably left it in the cab on the way to the hospital! We also left the wheelchair from our apt in the trunk of that same cab. The manager called the cab company and they said they'd try to find it, but good luck with that! They were brand new running shoes too.
I propped my leg up the rest of the evening with ice and Ron fixed me a nice dinner with some of the pork we had bought at the market. It's New Years Eve and at midnight there were fireworks, and noise in the streets everywhere. We looked at all of the apartments across the way and everyone was out on their balcony lighting candles and ushering in the new year!
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