Day 1: Hanoi

The first night we spent in Hanoi, and toured around the city the next day for a few hours. I had heard great things about Hanoi, and I still love the energy and friendliness of the people. We stayed around the "Old Quarter" where there were a number of narrow streets representing different types of shops. We managed to find the painting street, and Gabriel and I bought some interesting paintings. I will need a lot of wall space that I currently don't have, but better to have options, right? (That only works in certain circumstances, do not take that out of context!)

We wandered around the lake, enjoyed some good local food, and just took in the craziness of some of the market streets and the bunches of mopeds. It was definitely calmer than Saigon, but not on the way to the airport. Our cab driver (I think the first female cab driver I ever had) turned around in the middle of a one-way street to get out of traffic. Needless to say, we decided that Hanoi was "too far" to visit on our return with our 5 hour layover back to Seoul. 2 hours to go 20 km (or so it felt) was just a little too much to ask!