Hanoi

Paul and I are hanging out in the Hanoi airport, waiting for our flight to Hue in about an hour. Paul is concerned about Canada's loss to Sweden, and I'm wondering when naptime is.

Yesterday, we visited the tomb of Ho Chi Minh - you can actually see his body guarded by soldiers. We had to walk quickly through the room (no cameras allowed); there were large red strips in the marble walls behind with the golden sickle on one red strip, and a star on the other. We visited his houses, which are right beside the mausoleum. Apparently, he lived rather luxuriously, but for the last ten years of his life, he lived in a more traditional Vietnamese house in order to not be 'above' the people. Both houses were beautiful in their own way.

Last night, we went to a Water Puppet performance. Though the pictures make it look hokey, it's actually a really entertaining art form. Musicians play traditional music while puppets dance and sing. Even my description makes it sound hokey. But it's not. We bought a turtle water puppet for our own water puppet show when we return to North America. The turtle is important in Hanoi because it caught the sword of a king coming back from battle. Now, there's a golden turtle in Hanoi who swallowed a sword - like Excalibur.

Today, we walked around the city. I really wanted to see the Opera House - one of the most important buildings in the city under French rule, and the place where they declared the August Revolution in... well, I can't remember. However, since it's New Year's Eve, they were getting ready to have some sort of event in front of the building.

Of course, I didn't even know it was New Year's Eve until we got to the Opera House.

Paul took lots of pictures of everything - I'm sure you're all shocked. We'll post when we get back to Korea.

Happy New Year. Make sure the ball still drops.