Day 2: Hanoi City Tour

We awoke around 8am to have breakfast.  The breakfast was provided by the hotel and when we went downstairs there was a spread of veggies, spring rolls, cereal, toast, and some other small vietnamese things.  We had our fill and then checked out of the hotel by 10am.

Our travel agency, Vega Travel, was close by and they allowed us to store our luggage at their office because we were heading out for a tour with them at 8pm.

We went upstairs to drop off our bags in a very "secure" room and noticed there was a small washroom.  I think Iwao was the first to use it and he came out laughing after washing his hands.  I guess the sink isn't actually connected to anything so when you turn on the tap, the water flows from the facet, but then just goes through the hole in the bottom of the sink and splashes all over the floor. lol!  best plumbing ever.  I also used the toilet next and when I went to close the door, firstly there was no doorknob and the door wouldn't even close, and secondly, I touched the door nub, the ring of the doorknob fell off onto the ground.  haha best.  (I'd like to finish this by saying that I still would highly recommend Vega Travel to anyone reading this thinking of going to Northern Vietnam.  Everything is done this way and that's just how things work in Vietnam.  We left our luggage in this room many times over the duration of many days and had no security problems).

Ok so we left our bags there and headed back out onto the streets.  This was our first look at Hanoi in the daylight.  WOW so many scooters and people bustling about.  I really felt like I was in the Amazing Race and we really were in another world.  We exchanged some USD into Vietnamese Dong and proceeded to walk along the road for maybe 30 min until we reached the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.  Along the way here's a few things we saw that are better described with some pictures!  (pics to come when I get back to Taiwan)

The Mausoleum was... sort of just a bit square looking building.  There was a big grass field with stone paths running through it in front of it, and as we tried crossing it to get closer, we got whistled at from some military people.  I guess we weren't allowed to walk across the field on the stone paths.  The confusing part was that some people would walk across and NOT get in trouble.  Some people were even sitting in the middle of the field eating.  What the heck!  Anyways, we walked all the way around the wrong way, and then back the right way to get to the front.  It wasn't really all that impressive but I guess I'm not sure what I was expecting.

Next we walked around the side of the Mausoleum and saw the One Pillar Pagoda.  It's exactly what it says it is.  Just a 1 story pagoda on a pillar.  Once again not that crazy. 

We were getting hungry and we saw an area labeled "Delicious Area" on the map, so we made our way there with plan to stop by the Literature Temple.  We got to walk through some really local areas selling hardware and household wares.  It was a real eye opener to see these people on the streets all dirty selling stuff from their garage.

We made our way to the Literature Temple but it really didn't look like much so we decided to have lunch at this all-u-can-eat hotpot place.  The place was really busy and we appeared to be the only foreigners.  We sat down at the bar style ledge and started picking food from the conveyor belt.  I was feeling like veggies so probably 75% of my food was different greens.  Our server was very friendly and helpful and she recommended some different places to check out on the map, because we didn't have any plans after lunch.  I shouldn't laugh at this, but her name tag said "Bich Captain"  lol... I TRIED to get a photo but she was moving around too much and the lighting wasn't so great.

Anyways we left the hotpot place ($7 each) and headed around the Literature Temple.  We passed by a part of it that we had not seen that looked interesting, so we went around to the front side and paid 50cents to go in.  It was actually really neat inside.  There were many many of these "doctors slabs" resting on large tortoises backs (all carved in stone).

At the back of the temple grounds was a tourist shop, and a temple with incense. I picked up some small gifts and we checked out the temple and headed out.

We continued towards the delicious area because that was our original idea even though we weren't hungry.  After crossing some gnarly busy streets we made it there.  There were a lot of small little restaurants and small shops with tons of stuff on display for sale.  Very neat to see.  Here's some more pics to paint the picture:

By this time it started to get dark.  We thought it would be nice to walk around the lake in the middle of the city, and then eat diner.  Before we started our walk around the lake we stopped off at Papa Rotti, "The Father of all Buns."  They sold these ... buns that were really tasty (50 cents).  They were sweet and had some sort of really light... almond butter paste inside.  I'm craving one was I type this!  After the Papa Rotti we grabbed another fruit drink from Yummy.  I had a layered drink of Aloe jelly, coconut milk, and mango. SOO good ($1).

It was dark now so we made our way around the lake.  Not much crazy stuff to see but it was definitely a nice walk.  As we crossed the 3/4 mark we noticed some lights coming from a big piazza and it looked to be some sort of talent competition.  We watched a whole bunch of kids dancing to music, and then a boy band singing some song.  It was a nice 20degrees outside and watching and listening to the music was just really... neat.  I love experiencing these sort of cultural events in different cities.

Eating time!  We made our way back to a restaurant that we saw that's situated right on the lake.  We went inside and got great seats on the outside patio facing the lake.  I had the Luc luc pork (pork on top of rice with veggies) which was very tasty and cost $5.

food never looks good with a flash but it was far too dark without it

restaurant patio

We only had an hour or so to kill before heading to Vega Travel for our Sapa tour so we slowly made our way back to the travel agency through a local tourist night market.

We arrived at the agency on the dot at 8pm and it looked like we were the last to arrive.  We quickly grabbed our bags and threw them into the back of the bus that drove us through the bustling streets for 10 minutes to the Hanoi train station.  There, one of the managers gave us our train tickets and explained how things were going to happen.  We would board the train and it would depart at 9pm.  It would arrive in Lao Cai (close to Sapa) and then we'd meet with some of the Vega Travel people on the other side.  It all sounded good so we walked through the station, across the train tracks, and up into the old train.

The rooms were small but relatively clean.  Iwao and I slept in the bottom bunks and Rob slept up top.  This is where we met Sebastian.  He was from Quebec and would be sharing the room with us.  We made our introductions and got to know each other.  Sebastian was on the start of a long 6 month tour he was doing around all of south east asia which sounded really cool!  I believe this was his first time to Asia in general he said he really liked Hanoi.

With the train arriving in Lao Cai at 5:00am we thought it would be best to get some rest early so we turned off the lights and listened to the ricketing of the train tracks as we all fell asleep.

Day 1: Arrival in Hanoi, Vietnam

After some running around at the Hanoi airport getting my visa I picked up my bag and headed out into the arrivals area.

I walked towards some seats and set my bag down on the ground. There was a Japanese guy who I played staring games with who was standing beside me and then he aked if I was Justin, and we realized who eachother was. Iwao was my new travel buddy. He had been traveling with my friend rob in japan. Rob was joining us later in the evening but iwaos flight and mine arrived at the same time around 4pm so we left the airport together to check out the city.

Getting a cab at the airport was pretty dodgy I'm not gonna lie. So many cabbies approaching from everywhere trying to get us to use their service.  We had read that many of them try to rip you off by taking you to fake hotels or driving you out to the middle of nowhere. We eventually picked a cab that looked safe and negotiated a ride into town for 13USD.

We got in and the cabbie was off to Hanoi. I thought that the airport was only max 15 min from town, so once we had been driving for 30 min I started getting a bit nervous. To add to my anxiety, my gps for some reason wasn't working so I was freaked out to say the least. Thankfully after about 45min we arrived in the heart of Hanoi city at the entrance to the Blue Paradise Hotel.

This place had been highly recommended on trip advisor and I could see why. When we pulled up a bag boy grabbed all our things and put them inside. The desk clerk was very friendly and the hotel only coated 34USD for the night split between 3 people.

The room was quite large and had 2 king size beds. Iwao and I dropped our stuff off and then headed out to check out the city. By this time it was maybe 6pm and it was now dark outside.

The first thing we noticed was that there is non stop honking and generally it's chaos on the narrow streets. I thought traffic was crazy in Taiwan but they rarely even have traffic lights here. Even at large 5 point intersections!

I had plotted a walking route from our hotel to vega travel, our tour agency, the night before bccause we needed to pay for our tours. It was surprisingly easy to find the place and we fit ourselves paid up quickly.

We now had a few hours to kill before having to pick up rob at the airport so we decided to just walk around the area and soak up the Vietnamese vibe!

I tell ya, the vibe was great :)  crazy bustling and honking traffic with locals wearing straw hats and carrying straw baskets on their back or balanced along a beam that they have propped on their shoulder.

I bought a banana from a local for 5 grand dong (25cents) and in exchange we got to take a photo looking like a local.

We wandered around the bustling streets for a while until we came across an outdoor food court.  It looked pretty sketch and dirty but there were many people eating there so we thought we'd give it a chance. I ordered the beef on fried noodles and a local Hanoi beer.

When the food came it started with a fresh salad with no dressing but was absolutely delicious. It had cilantro, mint, basil, and some sort of lettuce. It also came with this cucumber salad in a fish and vinegar sauce.

The main course came next and it was delicious. The noodles were nice and crispy and the sauce was tasty. The best part was the whole meal plus the beer was only $2.50.

We then continued wandering for a while, making our way to what seemed to be the main night life area.  There is a large man made lake and many fancy restaruants in close proximity to one another.  The way the buildings are set up actually reminded me of English Bay and the Davie and Denman street crossing in downtown Vancouver.

Iwao and I stopped at a place called "Yummy" for some drinks; killing some time before having to head to the airport.  Iwao ordered a mango smoothie and I ordered a coconut and tapioca jelly drink that was served in a coconut.  It tasted great!  And I had a spoon for carving off the coconut flesh inside.  The drink was $2 I think.  So you could tell this was the more "expensive" area of town.

It was nearing 10pm so we walked back to our hotel where we had a private car arranged earlier to pick us up and take us to the airport.  We arrived at the airport around quarter to eleven and headed inside the arrivals area.  There we saw Rob waiting for us!  (Rob is my good friend from university)  I'm glad it was so easy to find him.  We said our hellos and got back into the private car and drove back into town.

By the time we arrived back it must have been close to midnight and everything was closed.  We checked Rob into the hotel and then headed to sleep.

Off to Vietnam!

Cool! Another mini trip. It feels kind of strange going on all these mini trips from my big trip.  It almost feels like nothing that I'm going to Vietnam tomorrow. Normally on previous big trips to Europe or Asia or somewhere I'd feel all hyped up and be rushing to prepare and super excited. But with this trip I don't feel anything haha.  It doesn't feel real. Perhaps because everything was planned and booked months ago so I'm just literally putting some shirts into my backpack tonight and then taking the bus to the airport.

Though I know I'm gonna have an amazing time because even my short trip to HK turned out to be a big success so while I don't feel anything now, I know I'm gonna have a blast!

And I should also say that I do realize how lucky I am!  I've been traveling all over the place in the last 6 months, seeing some incredible things and meeting even more incredible people and I know that many people are not as able or have the opportunity to do so. So I thank my lucky stars for this blessing.

As for the blog, i'll be writing it on my smart phone the whole time but probably won't be posting stuff until I get back unless your lucky. On our second day we are hiking into the back country villages of Sapa so I doubt there is Internet. Then for the later half of the trip we are going cruising on a junket in Ha Long bay for a few days. Should be rad!

That's it for now and see you when I get back!

Western Cuisine and McWTH...

Had a fantastic meal today at a secret restaurant in Nankam (north of Cingpu and West of Taoyuan).

We ordered several dishes and split everything.  It was delicious!  10/10.  I haven't had much pasta/western food so it really reminded me of all the things I can't wait to eat again when I come back to Canada.  Plus the prices at this place were very reasonable.  It came to around $12 per person.

The chicken kiev was probably my favorite because it had a really nice.. lemony thing going on in the sauce inside of it and it came with mashed potatoes!  I've been craving these since I moved out here in the summer.  I think this is actually my first time having them since Canada and omg I forgot how much I like them!

Greek Salad

Chicken Kiev, Salmon Alfredo, Scallop/Sea Urchin Pasta

Creamy French Onion Soup au Gratin

Apple Pie

After lunch we went to wander around TaiMall, a large newly rennovated mall close by.  Not much to report except these ridiculous pictures we took at McDonalds.  I don't think we've done something this childish in a long time... hahaha

ps - no fries were wasted in the making of this ridiculous portrait.

Summer weather in Nov + new glasses + more

Summer weather in mid November. I love it!  Today I went to Jhong Li with Niki and Ali to buy me a new pair of glasses. The glasses are so much cheaper here than Canada so Eliza and I thought it would be a good idea to get a second pair.

I already had a good idea of the type I wanted and I actually ended up buying a pair of gucci's that I had tried on before when Eliza bought hers a month ago.  The total came to about $175CAD which is pretty good for designer glasses with high quality lenses.  Plus they checked my eyes for me too.

After the glasses we went for sushi lunch and then picked up Ashley.  We didn't really have any plans so we just hung out.  We went to Toys R Us and goofed around there for a while...

Next was food so we parked at Ali's parents place and went to one of the Taoyuan night markets.  This particular night market is special to me because it's the first real authentic night I ever went to in my life back when I came to Taiwan in 2007.  As we walked around I spotted familiar vendors so it was really cool that not much had changed in the past 3 years and it gave the place a "timeless" feel.  There was even a video game vendor that we walked by and Ali said that him and Johan used to play video games there when they were kids!

We stopped at two places for lunch.  The first was a deep fried stinky tofu place.  The deep fried stinky tofu is a lot less stinky than when it's in a soup.  This one was a tad bit too sadly but it came with some pickled cabbage and I enjoyed it overall.

Next we had some fried oyster omlette.  It's a Taiwan specialty made from egg mixed with some diced greens with oysters folded into it with a pink semi-sweet sauce on top.  I haven't had it since the first time I had it in 2007 and it was better than I remembered :)  I'd order it again!

Thanks for the great day out guys!  It was about time I went outside of the cave at home.

Android Games Launched!

Hey!  We launched our first Android games :D  At this moment in time there's a bit over 3000 downloads for our free versions and they're rated around 4-4.5/5 stars.  Not to shabby :)  The games are called Willy In The Cup and Willy's Roulette.  Support us and buy them!  It's only $1 for the full version.  I'm proud that I've been able to learn enough programming on my own to make these two games.  They're fairly simple but we're proud fathers!