Swan lake

The Hanoi Zoo has a lovely lake that you can walk around, or float on in a swan boat.

hif meeting place

For those who are involved in the barneys rebuilding project - take a look at our local environment! we have HIF meetings weekly in the grand ballroom of one of the prestigious hotels in hanoi - there are some perks to living in VN!

Museum of Ethnology

Hanoi has an excellent museum of ethnology which has displays from the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. Here are some of the displays, including household scenes and artifacts.
This is a bicycle carrying fishing baskets - the man who used this bicycle donated it in the 1990s to the museum.

our youngest taxi driver yet

Summer heat and fruit

For the last few weeks the weather has been warming up and we have consistently had mid to high 30s all this week. The humidity is high too so as soon as you walk out the door you start sweating.
On the plus side, some amazing tropical fruit is now is season - so cheap, so delicious. Here is a sample of some of our favourites...

Korean dinner

One of the joys of being an ex-pat in a multinational city is being invited to friends houses who cook different food. We had a lovely dinner with our Korean friends who live near by and go to HIF with us.

Temple of Literature - Văn Miếu

This is one of the earliest universities established in the world. Founded in 1070 as a Confucian temple, in 1076 Vietnam's first university was established in the temple grounds. Royals, nobles and bureaucrats (known by their formal title of Mandarins) studied here. The examinations were very tough, with only a few students passing each year. Their names are engraved on stone steles in the complex. The university ran for over 700 years until 1779.

Dak Lak province

One of the last stops on my (stef) trip was Dak Lak privince in the central highlands. It is renown for many coffee plantations, which you can see stretching out before you as you fly in. We visited Buon Me Thuot, the lesser known of the cities in the region (the other being Dalat - an old French colonial town and wine growing region?!).
(this photo was not taken by me, sadly I was not quick enough out the aeroplane window)
The very kind local health staff gave us some of the good stuff and we have since been enjoying our Vietnamese coffee at home. I still have some work to do on making the perfect cup, but will sweetened condensed milk its hard to go too far wrong!

Australian dinner

We have made some lovely friends over here in Hanoi including some from the old country. We were kindly invited to Rachel and John's place for an australian dinner - with home-made lamingtons!

Phil and Anita visit from Cambodia

We had a lovely long weekend with Phil and Anita - friends from home, who are currently working next door in Cambodia. We did some classic tourist things - like visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum - which is designed to look like a lotus flower and is very formal. No cameras, shorts, water or stopping to pause while going through there. The guards are amazing in their white uniforms but you don't want to mess them around.This is Hoan Kiem lake at sunset - probably the most recognisable if not the biggest of the many lakes in Hanoi.