First Days in Hanoi

Well, having arrived it is time to start walking around the city.  There are millions of people in Hanoi and everywhere is crowded.  When we first arrived we stayed in an apartment hotel, which is kind of fancy.

The entrance has big glass doors and a guy to open them for you every time you go out and back in.

The elevators have mirrors all around so when you look to the sides it like there are thousands of you going into infinity and beyond.

Of course no hotel can be truly cool unless it has a pool.........

Our first trip out we took a taxi to go explore.  There are cars everywhere.  But.... most people here ride scooters.  There are thousands of them like big motorcycle gangs.  They jump all over the place and weave in and out of cars.  They also can carry all kinds of things on them.

The city is very pretty and has trees everywhere, which is kind of strange for a big city.

There are also little parks all over the place.  You see people there in the morning doing Yoga and Tai Chi and little exercises.

What is really cool though is that everywhere you walk there are coffee shops and juice bars.  On our first big walk we stopped in to have a fresh juice.  It was Passion Fruit and was the best juice I ever had.  It tasted just like eating the fruit.

After our juice we went walking again, it was a really long walk and very hot.  But.... just as I was getting really bored this big amazing rooster was suddenly walking down the side walk.  It reminded me a lot of my little rooster in Aurora "Chicken Joe."

Turns out there are animals all over the place... I'll say more on those in a different post.