tuesday february 16

the young man from hanoi kids arrived right at 9 after a nice breakfast of pho. he was happy to practise his english as ha says english study in school is boring. sound familiar? we started at the temple of literature, the first university in hanoi. i am not sure of the start date but hanoi will be 1,000 years old in october. the students all visit the temple at the beginning of the new year and rub the heads of the turtles(bronze)for good luck. then it was off to the pagoda where every person in hanoi was visiting and making offerings for a new year. there was even beer stacked up. we had some street food there, more pho, but also these deepfried shrimp on a crispy cake of some sort. yum. we tried to ask questions but there were things that he would not discuss. he would not even tell us what his father does. quite interesting.
in the afternoon we wandered over to the army museum. luckily it was open, but oh my,such propaganda. it actually becomes a bit tiring. very intesting to see the other side mind you, and vietnam has had a lot of oppression in it's lifetime. then we wandered aimlessly...actually i was in charge of the map and managed to go in the complete wrong direction. big whoop, it wasn't like we had anywhere to be.
i think that we will go to a little tapas bar near the lake for dinner. it looked cute, and was reasonably priced. tomorrow is our last day in hanoi before we climb aboard the slow train to hue.