Day 1
Took a bus straight to KLIA, had lunch and on the plane we went haha.
Goodbye Malaysia! Looks nice from the plane leh.
And hello Vietnam!
Seems like such a big difference huh. All highways and buildings in KL but paddy fields everywhere outside Hanoi.
Okay first thing upon arrival was: Ahh sangat cold and no wifi in in the airport! Seriously! Hahah. Just too pampered by the wifi in KLIA already. Ordered an airport cab to take us to our hotel. Toyota Camry leh haha so big. They drive on the right side in Vietnam, and they just love to hoot for nothing. Btw the vans and mini buses have this really annoying hoot which is like two quickly alternating notes which even fade away at the end lol! Another first impression was wah very hazy seriously it's like just bare everywhere and more motorcycles than cars. A little bit depressing actually.
Random pic of one of the main roads. There's actually someone selling Valentine's Day flowers way at the back :)
First day was quite uneventful, checked into the hotel which has a mini rubbish dump in front of it lol! Hanoi Imperial Hotel, by the way. (Later found out we were staying in the old quarter, which is like our old town) Went for dinner at a nearby restaurant (food was not bad but kinda oily, Vietnam style!) and then walked around for a while. They treat the sides of the pavements like rubbish dumps! It's like, don't want this? just throw it onto the street lol.
They still carry they're wares around like this! And those are not chicken eggs.
Mum bought some little tangerines by the roadside on the way back to the hotel and the woman wanted 100,000 VND for them but mum only had USD in large notes with her because for some reason she decided not to change to Vietnamese Dong =_= So anyway she was like I don't want ady I don't have so much I only have 1 USD. And the woman was like ok lah ok lah. So mum only ended up paying 1/5 of the original price. That woman must really make a profit if people usually pay what she asks for. o_O
Also went to this DVD shop (pirated, obviously hahah) and the DVDs are like dirt cheap omg! You can get a movie for like RM 3 there. Three or four seasons of your favourite tv show for RM 30-45. Mum and dad went a bit crazy with the buying, we spent such a long time there. :O I think I only bought two DVDs and both cello related so guai leh so guai leh hahah.
Day 2
View of the street from the breakfast room.
The weird skinny buildings o.O
Walked out of the hotel and it was drizzling but their rain is so different from ours! The rain was really fine, kinda like a not-so-good humidifier. Tak payah use umbrella pun haha. Not like our rain which comes down in giant droplets >.<
The streets were already muddy since they have like an insane amount of dust and like the clever person I am, I didn't bring shoes and only brought the slippers I was wearing. =_= So we had to find a shoe shop to buy shoes for me. In the end randomly bought a pair of Adidas (fake, probably lol!) shoes. The salesgirl actually brought a sock for me to put on before trying. And let me tell you it was a really disgusting looking sock urgh @_@ Told her I didn't need it no way I was gonna put that thing on no siree. Anyway she spoke Malay! Hahah. Dunno how she knew we were Malaysian but she suddenly asked me whether I spoke it and started speaking Malay to us. Much more fluent than her English wow.
New shoes. Lolllll.
I didn't even ask to take a picture with her stuff! Didn't want to actually. She saw mum's camera I guess and just walked up and dumped her hat and basket thingy (no idea what it's called haha) on me and was like take picture no charge o_O Just her way of getting tourists to feel obliged to buy her stuff =.= Look at those tiny pineapples btw!
Hoan Kiem Lake. Apparently there are giant tortoises inside. But they don't appear very often.
Hahah look at lame dad looking at the chicken thingy the woman was trying to sell to him. He actually bought it.
Lunch beside the lake. The waitress was really snooty gah. The pizza was actually really good :)
Went for the water puppet show after lunch, which apparently is what everybody goes to see when they go to Hanoi. And you have to pay 1 USD if you want to take pictures during the show. Just another way to squeeze more money out of people =.=
The main instrument is the Vietnamese Dan Bau. Apparently long ago young girls weren't allowed to listen the guy playing the dan bau in fear that they would fall in love with him haha! The rest are just chinese instruments because Vietnam itself doesn't have many traditional musical instruments. You can see the erhu, yangqin and dizi right there. They guy playing the guitar also brought out something like a ruan lol!
Water puppets! There was a story line to some of it.
Otherwise, just synchronized 'dancing' haha.
I actually wasn't too entertained almost fell asleep a couple of times. Maybe I just don't know how to appreciate it XD
Went to the temple in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake after the show. They used all chinese characters there! Apparently they used to use chinese characters in their writing but with their language before they started to use the roman letters.
Nothing of significance just thought this was pretty haha.
Just, you know, standing there with an umbrella
Hey hey it's a tortoise :)
Giant tortoise that lives in the lake o.o Not sure if it was a real one but if it was.. WHOA.
Big fruit! Mum made me stand next to it for comparison =,= It was a very short plant in a pot, mind.
Walked back to the hotel! They have trees growing everywhere.
Just cooking the chicken on the street! LOL.
We decided to have tea at a restaurant just opposite our hotel. Eat, eat and eat it's all I do. I think it was called Rainbow cafe or something like that. :)
Had bananas wrapped in pancakes and drizzled with chocolate sauce :) The pancakes were really thin and the chocolate didn't really taste like chocolate. O.o
Forgot to add that Vietnamese people are mostly very good looking! All the random (young) people you see on the streets, in the shops, wherever. And all so slim not an overweight person in sight. But old ady not good looking anymore hahahah. Oh and most of the girls wear their hair in neat ponytails. The trend there possibly? o.O The receptionists and bellboys also quite good looking mannn. The girl at the reception counter was so pretty and sophisticated looking! :))
We went to a very highly rated restaurant for dinner after resting for a while. Madame Hien I think it was called. Took us so long to find the place!
The outside! Nice rightt.
Just like a house haha.
It's like 95% ang mohs dining there. Maybe too expensive for the locals but the prices are all very reasonable/cheap, at least compared to fine dining in Malaysia.
Not so very good picture of my meal, beef noodles. Doesn't look much right? But very tasty aghhh! Originally didn't plan on eating much but I polished off this whole dish because it was too good :)
Soo full after that meal luckily still had a chance to walk some of it off haha. The local teenagers don't hang out in shopping malls or whatnot like us they just sit around on the streets! Lol. They just sit on little stools and eat kuaci sambil chitchat. So many people out on the streets lor!
The stools they sit on. So little right!
Okay so I think I'll leave it here for now. Gotta finish The Hunger Games first and finish up my other work! Lol.
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