i m back from the trip. a long 11 days and i fell sick eventually on the second last day. lol... was having a bit of cough. many of my frens were sick too. virus is spreading!!! :O and... i fell asleep while watching the afternoon 4.30pm show just now. and i woke up having a cold. bleah.... down with a serious flu only after i come back! Here's the first part of my trip -- to Hanoi:

It's a long trip there. We took the 1230 flight and reached at 2000plus. is a transit flight and the flight was delayed twice. once in sg and the other in hcm. (we transited at hcm) the customs there is very laoya... maybe coz it is a lb cty, that's y. haiz... so we had our dinner very late in hanoi. at ard 9plus. it was already very dark and it was the same for the other two cties. the sun set very quickly! was very very tired back at the hotel but we could not sleep. had to prepare for our presentation the next day coz we were meeting our client. so we slept at ard 2am which is 3am in sg. *throuout the trip, i had less than 8hrs of sleep each day. it was so tiring. and my dark circles came back! to think that i wasted so much $$ to lighten them b4 the trip!!!!* our meals are like wedding banquets... 9 courses per meal for lunch and dinner. occassionally, we had buffet too...

company visits are always on the second and third day. so, our own shopping will be done at night after dinner. heee.... taking taxi there is quite cheap. here, we are allowed to bargain the fare! lol... we shopped two nights at the night market and bought quite a few stuff... in hanoi, i bought stuff like keychains, jackets, food pdts, purses, handbag.

for sightseeing, we went to the presidential palace. first, we went to look at mr. hcm preserved corpse. then to the buildings that he had stayed before. there was two trees that were joined together with their branches. they were two individual trees but as they grow old, they somehow joined to become like one tree with two trunks. but i did not take the photograph of it. now i so regretted.

next is to temple of art literature （文庙门). it was quite a nice place. and there are big plaques where the names of the scholars were carved on and placed on the big tortoise. our tour guide, linh, told us that pple will touch the head of the tortoise that look very alert with big eyes so that they will do well for the exams. heee..... so we went to touch. the heads were very shiny. you noe y ah~ the very big tortoise is on the other side by itself. the photo is not with me, so i can onli show this.

we went to the floating cafe on the second last day in hanoi at west lake. is highlands coffee. i think the coffee is not thick enuff for me.

left: chocolate mocha and white mocha

right: opera cake

the day before, the four of us went to the west lake by ourselves. but we went to the wrong side for the restaurant. anyway, the scenery was nice too.

we also went to the prison where the prisoners-of-war were kept. i gave my brochure (which is the entry card) to uli.. so i dun noe the name of the place. i dun wan to mention so much on this place.

lastly, we went to the water puppet show. linh told us that this is a show that every visitor should see coz it is only in vietnam (or is it hanoi?) anyway, it is a very special show where it cannot be found anywhere else. the orchestra musical was very nice and the puppets too. except that the smoke smell was too much for me... combination of cigarettes and the "show smoke" used. heee... dunno what it is called.

this is my experience in hanoi. pple are rough and inconsiderate where they tend to squeeze their way through the very crowded places or push you to pass by or to go to the front of the stall. there are many many motorbikes there and honking will make you mad. but it was fine for me after two days. and it was exciting to cross the road coz you have to have the right timing and the guts. the drivers are trained to avoid knocking you down! lol...