OK we only went to Hanoi for six days but I have about 500 pictures I want to show you!! What an interesting and photogenic place.

Scott and I really wanted to go on a trip together (for once!), but could only manage to find six days we could take off at the same time. At first we thought we would go to Cairns or Darwin, but then my friend suggested that we YOLO and go to Vietnam instead. It was the same price to fly direct to Hanoi as it was to Cairns! Plus then we could stay at a really nice hotel and eat delicious things and shop and do whatever we wanted for less than we would have spent in Australia.

After our ten hour flight we arrived in Hanoi in the late afternoon. I organised airport pickup through the hotel ahead of time so it was quite simple to make it to our hotel, right in the middle of the Old Quarter. We dropped our bags and then immediately headed out to explore/find food. I’ll save all the food pics for a separate post.

Hoan Kiem Lake

There used to be a very notable Hanoi building in this spot but they recently tore it down to make a town square area instead.

We had two dinners and then got a massage with the sweet relaxing sounds of a very loud concert being held right outside the window.

The view from the hotel rooftop.

The next day we started to attempt shopping. Scott wanted to buy some mango chips and agreed to buy 500g for like $3. They kept scooping and scooping, it was quite funny.

We went to Dong Xuan Market to look at clothes but found it very overwhelming and none of the clothes were really our style. We found 50 million types of white sneakers, 50 million types of mens leather sandals, 50 million types of frilly skirts, an epic fabric section, lots of kids clothes. We got Scott one pair of shorts but that was it.

We were there right before Vietnam was celebrating 80 years of communism or something like that so there were a lot of patriotic decorations everywhere, and a lot of families dressed up in special Vietnam outfits. (Unless it always looks like this?)

Scooters everywhere. Apparently Hanoi doesn’t even have that many scooters compared to HCM but it still seemed like A LOT. Crossing the street was always interesting.

One thing we knew we wanted to do on our trip was get Scott some glasses. He already knew his prescription so we headed to Glasses Street and checked out a bunch of stores. He ended up getting a pair and some prescription sunglasses too, for significantly cheaper than Australia, and it only took a few hours. He is enjoying the glasses for things like watching football, and driving, but doesn’t like wearing them all the time.

In the evening we went to the Southern Train Street. I didn’t actually take any pictures of the train LOL! Only video. I’m sure you’ve seen it already. But basically you pick a cafe and then they bring you to their seating area where you have some drinks and food and wait for the train to come and then right before it comes through they pack up all the awnings and push everyone back and then the train comes zooming by super close.

We saw two trains go by, one in each direction, faster than I expected, and yes, I smushed a Hanoi beer cap on the track. Tourist trap but also quite fun.

Before the train came through.

The next day we went to the Womens Museum for some culture. It had some interesting parts. I liked the exhibits about the women’s roles in the wars.

More wandering around Hanoi.

Stopping for a cool drink on a tiny stool near a big church.

Scott loves this picture of me trying on shorts in the back of a shop, haha. We bought lots of activewear this trip. And some t-shirts, shoes, and backpacks. Everything was so cheap! I liked when you needed a different size (XL/XXL!!), they would ninja their way up into the ceilings and throw down new packets of the clothes from storage.

I managed to find us a social pickleball session that we could join. It was so fun!! The venue was huge, it must have had 24 courts, and it’s open 24/7. The guys were all super nice and very good at pickleball. We played for about 2.5 hours before we were about to die from dehydration. It was so sweaty! To make it worse, we forgot to bring towels!!! AHH!!

The pickleball place was in a different area of Hanoi that we hadn’t been to yet. It shouldn’t have been a big issue, we easily got a Grab there, and even though we knew there were going to be road closures due to a Practice Parade, the internet said buses would still be running and there was a bus that would bring us straight back to our hotel. However, this was not true, and after much confusion, Scott and I had to separate and take separate scooters back.

This was stressful because:

  1. The scooters are crazy fast, especially the Grab drivers.
  2. Scott didn’t have a Grab account set up so he had to quickly make an account, and then pay in cash.
  3. I realised after we split up that I didn’t have ANY cash on me.
  4. I did have internet though, but Scott didn’t!
  5. We only had one room key and Scott had it.
  6. SO MANY roads were closed.
  7. We can’t speak Vietnamese.
  8. I was still SOOOOOO sweaty from pickleball.

Anyway I hopped on the back of my scooter and clung on for dear life as we zoomed back towards the Old Quarter. We got about 2/3rds of the way back and then had to stop because the Practice Parade was going through. It was incredible, we were all stopped in this massive intersection watching these military vehicles drive by with people waving, and the crowd was cheering a lot, but every minute more and more and more scooters were arriving and pushing forward and squeezing in. Like, tens of thousands of scooters in every direction.

Eventually there would be little breaks in the parade and the police were letting one direction of traffic through at a time, but it was taking a very long time. I was extremely concerned that when our direction was finally going to be allowed to go that it was going to be like a super crowded drag race. But I didn’t have time to find out because eventually my driver got fed up and just squeezed through the barricades and around the police officers and crossed the parade line!!! AHAHAHA it was crazy.

At least then the road wasn’t crowded after that, LOL. He drove me as close as he could to the hotel but then said ROAD CLOSED and I would have to walk the rest of the way. So I walked the last km back to the hotel on my own, feeling mostly safe, but wondering. And also wondering where Scott was and if he was ok and how far behind me he was. The streets were full of families celebrating Vietnam!

I ended up getting back to the hotel about twenty minutes before Scott, but his Grab driver managed to sneak in and drive him all the way back to the hotel! We both tipped our drivers well for this hassle. Finally we could have showers and try to relax after that ordeal!

The next day we went on a Ninh Binh tour, which will have its own post. The traffic near the hotel was terrible on the way back so we hopped out early and ended up walking through Beer Street at night for the first time. Every street looks totally different in day/night/weekday/weekend/dry/raining etc.

I loved this. Sitting on tiny stools on the street at night. Relaxed. Delicious food. This was such a better idea to come here instead of Cairns. :D

We spent our final day wandering around new areas, checking off a few more of the food places I had saved on my food map. This was Ho Tay, or West Lake.

More cool buildings.

It is impressive what these people can carry around on a bicycle! Who needs Ikea when you have a mobile crockery shop! There were lots of ladies selling amazing looking fruit by bike too. One time we were sitting somewhere and a mobile knife guys bike tipped over and Scott had to help him get it back up, he said it was extremely heavy.

We got some custom wooden stamps made. They look great and stamped perfectly when the lady did it but I have not managed to stamp mine successfully yet, lol. Maybe I should watch a Youtube video.

We ventured to another new area to try and get cheap pickleball paddles but the guy wasn’t home (probs playing pickleball tbh) and got caught in a huuuge rain storm. The weather was mostly cooperative for us on the trip but it did seem to like to pour just as we needed to catch a Grab back and the price would surge and the drivers wouldn’t pick up the fare. Instead we bought a cheap poncho and slow walked back on foot.

I paid to get my hair washed on the last day and it was the bestttt. Should have done that earlier!! She basically spent 15 minutes scratching my head and then 15 minutes massaging my head and then afterwards I felt sooo relaxed and my hair was soooo soft. Scott got a foot massage at the same place and this kid came in and played classical guitar while his mum got a massage and it was all so lovely.

Then the final day we had to head back to the airport and fly home! It was a whirlwind 6 days but soooo fun. I feel like we barely even made a dent in Hanoi, there is even more tucked away behind what you can see from the street!

Pat turned 70 and the whole family got together for a succulent Chinese meal in Boronia. It’s always nice to have the family together (only missing Michael and Luca), and I think Pat really liked it because he teared up a bit when he thanked us all for coming.

We had the girls over for a sleepover before Ava and Jess’s flight back to Sydney. We played some games and watched a movie and had snacks. I heard a lot of thumping and bumping coming from the living room over night!!

An elder millenial giving up her skinny jeans (for now). Ava is my style inspiration.

Geared up for an excursion into and onto the roof. A lot of the insulation had been thrown around during the renovations so we spent some time nestling them all back in place. It felt like doing every single hip mobility exercise in a row. I think it’s worked though (along with some of our other draft reduction projects) because this winter hasn’t felt quite so miserable as the last few.

Michael and Gina had us over for an excellent lunch. I felt like we were at a Japanese restaurant! We played Critter Kitchen and Nekojima. Critter Kitchen is really fun! Lucky that we won that from Sonika’s raffle.

Dumpling dinner in the city. Scott was very brave wearing his brand new hoodie, I definitely would have dropped something on myself.

Scott organised for us to do a printmaking class in the city for one of his #SMAJ activities. It was fun, although I felt very rushed, but maybe that is good for me, to not try to perfectionize every activity.

Scott and I did a pickleball tournament at Eastern Indoor Centre and managed to come second! The tournament ran very far behind schedule and we had to wait AGES in between games so it was a weird evening of warming up and then getting cold and having to warm up again. We only finished second in our pool to make it into the semi finals, but played very well in the semis to make it into the final! And then we got smashed in the final, haha.

We had a family birthday dinner at Jemma’s. Myles and I made lots of origami shuriken, which he later combined into a ULTIMATE SHURIKEN. Love it.

Tiny bit of progress on the cable knit blanket.

Unpictured stuff:

  • So much pickleball. Social sessions, drills, and private lessons. I also did a DUPR session at Eastern Indoor with a random old man partner to try and get used to the courts/balls before the tournament. Good thing I did because I was hitting everything out of bounds that day. Sorry partner.
  • Scott worked hella overtime running exams. Very long days for him. He has a lot of TOIL.
  • I went to a Discord meetup. Was nice to see everyone again and meet a few new people as well. The highlight was the apple caramel slice that one person brought. Delicious.
  • I started doing Bodypump classes at the gym near my house. It’s a bit silly and I spend a lot of time flailing around, but it’s also fun and at least I am doing something. Gym motivation is very low these days.

    Another one! Here we go!

    I voted in the Australian Election! Very different than the Canadian ballot, haha. We went in the afternoon and they did not have any democracy cake left.

    After six long months, Scott was finally allowed to play sports again! It was very exciting and he managed to come back to pickleball without immediately hurting himself, something I was very worried about. He is now back into everything, and doing well.

    The Friday night pickleball crew has started going out for dinner together afterwards sometimes. We actually went out for dinner twice in May! The first time we had DIY hotpot, and the second time we had Korean fried chicken. Delicious and fun. There’s a whole strip of great cheap Asian restaurants nearby which is very handy. Always great to hang out with new friends in a different location and get to know them a bit better.

    We went over to Scott’s friend Kerry’s house for dinner and games. We played Azul with Sophie and Wingspan with the grownups. (She started off helping me but lost interest.)

    We went to Sonika’s board game charity event that we went to last year as well. It was a very fun and successful afternoon. We played two new games with Bis, Lara, Jen and Robert: Verdant and Micropolis, which were both simple and strategic games. And then Scott and I did very well in the raffle! We ended up getting three of our tickets pulled, including one very close to the beginning, so I got to pick off the best shelf. I picked a game called Critter Kitchen, which we have only had time to play once so far but seems cute and fun. We also got a dexterity game about cats, and a cooperative game (oops, lol).

    I went to a big nuclear medicine conference (in Melbourne). It had been about 12 years since I’ve been to a big national nuc med conference (the last one was in Vancouver). I found this one pretty good and useful… sometimes they can spend too much time talking about experimental PET tracers and theranostic stuff that we will never get to see in real life… but this conference had a lot more common day stuff. I learned some new things and got reminded of some things I had forgotten, and caught up with some old pals from other hospitals. The food was pretty good too!

    The craziest thing was one morning I was going up the escalators for an early breakfast lecture, half asleep after going to the sponsored event the night before, and I really recognized the person in front of me, but it wasn’t making sense. I was so confused. I followed him into the session and went to the same table and took a peak at his name tag… aha… it was the doctor I worked with in Vancouver!! I told him who I was and asked him what he was doing here and he said he came to visit his daughter who lives here now/come to the conference! We got to have a really nice catch up and he took a picture of us so he could show it to the team back at VGH and it was all really random and cool!

    Because I went to a conference on the weekend I got to have two days off work later on (pretty sweet eh). I used one of them to drive to Brunswick to get tailored jeans at Dejour Jeans, and vegan ice cream. I got two pairs of wide leg jeans and the ice cream was toasted almond caramel flavoured from Luthers Scoops. Delicious.

    Do you like the onesie that Scott got me?

    Knitting Updates:

    I finished the mohair fingerless gloves and then realised that mohair gives me the ick. It doesn’t bother Scott though so he has claimed them.

    PS I don’t like how it is really obvious where I’ve caught the floats in the middle of the light squares and blocking didn’t really help get rid of it… any tips?

    I also finished the drab sweatshirt! I think it’s my favourite piece of clothing I’ve made so far (although Rosemarie’s sweater is also really nice). I’ve been wearing it a lot, it’s nice and warm.

    I started a cable knit blanket. It’s going to be couch sized, so this will be a long running project.

    Unpictured stuff:

    • We had a Mothers Day dinner at Brett’s house with erryone.
    • We signed up for the Fitness Passport program through my work so now we can go to tons of different gyms. I’ve tried a couple metcon classes and Bodypump, and Scott has been dabbling in pilates.
    • I got called in to work. Very rare. Cha ching.

    A busy month, but I mostly only took food pics? Oops.

    We went out for gnocchi for my friend Jen’s birthday. Our group took up almost the whole restaurant. I had vegan gnocchi and it was a fun and delicious evening.

    One of Scott’s #SMAJs was to take us to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. We walked around a lot and saw lots of stuff, like the elephants, hippos, zebras and gorillas… but we didn’t go on the safari bus! Which is apparently like the best part of the zoo!! Because we didn’t know that it was free!!!

    (The key part of SMAJ activities is that Scott is supposed to do all of the planning and research and I just get to show up, so I had not talked about the zoo with anyone ahead of time because I didn’t know we were going.)

    So a little bit of a SMAJ fail. We still did have a nice enough time, but maybe didn’t see everything there, and definitely not as close. It did make for some funny conversations at work the next day when they told me that the bus was free. I guess we have to go back some other time.

    We went to see the Crash Test Dummies! I thought it was funny when they asked “Who listened to us in the 90s??? Who are the adult children of people that listened to us in the 90s???” (Me.) The dude still has a super low voice. They are one of the few bands that I know most of the words to their songs.

    I voted in the Canadian Election. At least I think I did. The envelope has one of those Postage Paid printed stamps… I don’t know how high priority that gets sent through the postal system.

    I woke up on a Saturday morning desperate for a cold cut sandwich. So we headed to Saul’s Sandwiches for lunch and had a lil picnic in the sun. It hit the spot.

    Damien cooked up an epic Easter lunch for the whole family, with lamb and potatoes, and we all brought salads. Jemma made a delicious carrot cake. I feel spoiled.

    Another #SMAJ! This time he took us out to try Burmese food, under recommendation from his new Burmese coworker. We just ordered things that we hadn’t heard of before. Everything we tried was tasty!

    We had a very spontaneous afternoon games sess with Michael and Gina. Maybe it’s better to do it this way? Short and sweet and no pressure to clean and prepare everything perfectly. We played Finspan.

    KNITTING UPDATES:

    I started a pair of fingerless gloves because I wanted to try knitting with mohair, and finished the pair of slightly tweedy ribbed socks. I really like how the mohair looks, and how the socks turned out.

    I nearly finished the drab sweatshirt, and then ordered a bunch more wool for a blanket and a cardigan and realised that maybe I am always drab.

    Unpictured stuff:

    • Between Scott and I, approximately one million medical appointments. There was some concern that my heart was going too slowly but turns out everything is fine, I am just healthy.
    • I went to Hawthorn to watch the Oceania weightlifting comp. Enjoyed how supportive (aka LOUD) the Samoan team is of each other. Nice to catch up with a few of my old weightlifting buddies, but they did not manage to convince me to start weightlifting again.
    • Scott started working!!!!!!!!! He is enjoying the job and they seem really good and organised!
    • We planted 50 bulbs of garlic. If they grow properly, you may receive garlic as part of your Christmas gift.
    • I started going to pickleball drill sessions where we just do drills for two hours. Some might find it boring but it’s been really helpful for me and it’s very physically and mentally challenging. Ana is very strict about technique. I now do 2-3 social sessions a week and one drills session.
    • We went to watch the movie Sinners which I enjoyed quite a bit! I think it was good that I went in blind as well.

    Just a quickie little post.

    Scott made chocolate shortbread cookies with the wombat cookie cutter he got at the Lost Trades Fair. He made them again another time with a shredded coconut “fur” as well. Adorbs.

    I continued to play pickleball three times a week.

    And I continued to minorly injure myself at pickleball. This was from my partner crashing his paddle into my hand when we were both going for the same ball. Lesson learned: remember to call the ball.

    PS the bruise is gone but there is still a lump underneath the skin from this… several months later… should I be concerned??

    I finished one ribbed sock. I think they look quite professional if I do say so myself. My most successful socks so far.

    I continued working on my drab sweatshirt. Pretty happy with this one as well.

    I went to a board games night at Bis’s where we played Rosemarie’s copy of Finspan. For a first time playing, five player game, it went quite well, it didn’t drag on too long. Finspan is simpler than Wingspan.

    Unpictured stuff:

    • We did a barefoot bowls session at Scott’s club with my work team. Scott came and helped. We had a good turn out and the bbq was great and everyone enjoyed the cheap prices at the bar.
    • Scott had an interview at UniMelb and ended up getting the job! Hooray!!