Day 3 in Hanoi

10/9/2006

This morning I woke up at 6 am to go exercise with the locals at the lake (picture at right) near the Old Quarter. Every morning much of the Hanoi population goes to the lake to do morning exercises, which consist of anything from walking and stretching the badminton and aerobics. I ran with Emma for about 25 min or about 3 times around the lake. I was quite tired at the end, and the pollution was becoming bad even at that time in the morning. After the run I just walked around observing. It was quite interesting. I particularly enjoyed watching the badminton as well as this game where they used their feet instead of racquets to get the shuttlecock over the net (kind of like volleyball except using your feet and a different ball).

After watching and participating in the morning exercise, I went with the group to the Temple of Literature, which had been Vietnam's first university. I liked the Chinese influence on the architecture, but besides that it wasn't too interesting. However, the second largest drum in the world is located there (see left). They didn't play it for us, but apparently it makes the sound of thunder up to 5 km away when struck. After the Temple of Literature, the entire group went out to lunch at this place called KOTO, which stands for Know One Teach One. This organization was founded by a guy from New Zealand, and the restaurant takes in kids from the Hanoi streets and trains them to work in the restaurant. There are several places like this in Hanoi.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon emailing and blogging. I had a quick dinner at that Bun Bo restaurant (see right), and then I had to get packed up for our night train to Sapa. Hanoi has been a very interesting and exciting city, but I feel like I've seen enough of it.