Vietnam Exercise

When I go running in the morning it's very interesting to see a lot of people out biking or walking. It's mostly older men and women that are exercising from what I have seen so far. In the parks they have  Zumba classes with upbeat music that a lot of the women do. Another class is directed by a man who wears a traditional white tunic. The class is a mix of karate and meditation.

One night we went and joined a few of the older ladies in their dancing! The dances are hard to pick up on, and I'm not a dancer! They were doing a type of salsa dance mixed with something else but was fun to learn.  It was great to just look like an idiot while they are looking at you like you're crazy for joining them. We had a lot of fun and plan to go back again to make our dancing skills better!

I have seen what I call bicycle gangs; they consist mostly of older men. They bike around West Lake and will stop at different places along the way. They will all stop and have smoking and drinking breaks which I find funny because I feel like it's canceling out the exercise.

In Hanoi they have these groups of machines that are like many different workout stations. I honestly don't know how effective they are in the sense of getting a good workout. I think its pretty funny to watch these old grandmas and grandpas on these machines but I admire them for getting out and moving! Some of them are interesting in the movement that it makes people do while using the machine.

I went to one park on the other side of town that had a weight lifting section; it reminded me of a muscle beach in California. All the weights were connected to chains so no one would steal them. All these tough looking buff guys were working out together. I thought it was pretty funny!