Hanoi - Nov. 15, 2010

Senne's Summary: We had a pretty mellow day in Hanoi, which included a nice walk around the lake in the centre of the city.

Today was a pretty mellow day. After our breakfast of Pho (Noodle Soup), we went for a walk. Steve dragged me across another very busy road. I held on to his arm with what he likes to call "The Death Grip". We walked around the lake, which is in the centre of Hanoi and then went into a temple. We didn’t have our camera, but are pretty sure they will include the same temple on our city tour tomorrow, so we can take pictures then.

After our walk we had to stop for a little snack at a café overlooking the lake…ice cream…mmmmmm.

After this we walked back through the streets to our hotel. It’s interesting. The streets are similar to Saigon, but different at the same time. I’m having trouble putting my finger on exactly what the difference is. There are definitely more upscale shops and restaurants in Hanoi, but there are also some really basic shops and restaurants. It seems like there are less people actively trying to get you into their shops/restaurants/spas than there is in Saigon. I may be wrong but it seems like the people in Hanoi have a bit more money than the people of Saigon.

Hanoi is VERY smoggy!

We had a pretty quiet afternoon, and then went out for a late lunch/early dinner of Italian food. I know it seems like you should be eating Vietnamese food in Vietnam, but we’ve eaten Vietnamese food for over two weeks in a row now and were definitely ready for something different!

After dinner we walked a bit more, looked in a few shops and then returned to our hotel.

I should mention that I won the ultimate honour in our card game today… while ITunes was playing the song “Unbelievable”…so that’s my new theme song. I keep asking Steve, “What am I, honey?” to which he responds, “You're unbelievable, Lisa”. Well actually he wasn’t sure the first time and tried all the other things I like to be called: Princess, Supermodel, Beautiful Mermaid, etc… but then he caught on 😉 Tomorrow we go for a city tour of Hanoi.