Hanoi Day 1 - Happy Birthday Hanoi, You're 1000 Years Young!

My friend Kim and I tried to organize a girls' trip to Hanoi, Vietnam, but after everyone else had things come up and couldn't go, it ended up just being the two of us.  No worries, we were planning on having a great time anyway!

Hanoi is located in the northern part of Vietnam, about a 3 hour plane ride from Singapore.  Our trip happily coincided with the 1000 year anniversary of Hanoi-as-the-capital, and the place was crazy.  Kim was used to it, having just been to the south part of Vietnam a few months before, but this was my first time.

As soon as we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we took off to take in our first sights - a city of six million people and three million motor bikes.

Here is the official seal of the city.

And here is Hoan Kiem Lake, just a couple of blocks from our hotel.  The small pagoda in the foreground is the Turtle Tower (more on this later), and the balloons are for the birthday celebration.

St. Joseph's Cathedral, located in the Old Quarter, is quite a spectacular sight after wandering through the low lying buildings and crowded streets.

If Hanoi is still considered "unspoiled", the kids texting is probably not a good sign of things to come.

The flags were everywhere, and made some good shots around every corner.

I have to mention that Kim was 6 1/2 months pregnant, but she's pretty hard core and it didn't seem to slow her down a bit.  We both also love taking pictures, so we made a good pair.  [Her dad is Vietnamese, and my uncle was a Vietnam vet, so individually we had different perspectives of what Vietnam represented.]

Here's a quick video of what a typical intersection is like... note the lack of any "stop" or "walk" signs, you pretty much have to just go and trust that everyone will motor around you.

Next up - Cooking in the Kitchen and Baking on the Street.