Not much exciting today. Paperwork with Thuy for immigration and eventual passport application. Still planning to return to orphanage tomorrow.
Today was breakfast with the superbowl. The restaurant in the hotel we are staying at is the host for Hanoi's Super Bowl viewing party. So along with our meal there were 30-50 people in the adjacent bar cheering and eating. I am not sure how much beer drinking was going on, nor how many of these people were planning to go to work after the game.
We went to the Supermarket today. Big C Hanoi, which is about 7 km away. 7 km is about 30 minutes by Taxi in Hanoi's traffic. Imagine a store 3-4 times the size of your typical Costco with 3-4 times the people density, and full of products that you cannot identify and you have some idea what this was like.
I am still struck by the differences between Hanoi this visit and HCMC 3 years ago. Hanoi is very busy with ridiculous traffic but everything is just less than HCMC. Less noise, less traffic, less crowded etc. This is partly due to the smaller size of Hanoi and maybe partly due to us being more prepared for it. I get the feeling that our hotel is in a slightly more affluent district this time. Life is not really that cheap here -- whereas it appeared amazingly cheap last time-- but again that may be more to our location and how much we have ventured outside our immediate area. In any event, less culture shock this time around.
Need to go stroller shopping and try to have a typical Vietnamese meal tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment