I've Experienced That And Been Through Those Moments. I, Therefore Took A Selfish Vacation For 1 Month From 07-January-01-February-2015. My Original Purpose Was To Relax, Wake Up With Nothing, Clear My Head From The Job That I Love But Slowly Kills Me. I Don't Want To Stay In Bangkok Or Go Back To My Hometown. If I Did, I Would Only Have Slept All Day Without Doing Anything. I Wanted To Go Away Somewhere To Take Some Rest (in peace) lol And Of Course, The City That Pops Up Firstly In My Head Was "HANOI" My All Times Favourite City.
Why HANOI? You Have A Month Off Why Don't You Go To The Other Places, Too? Do You Have Something In HANOI? Why You Keep Going There? My Friends Started Questioned Me :)
Well, The Answer Are I've Been Here Many Times And I Love Walking Around Taking Photo Of Their Classic Lifestyles In Old Quarter. I Have Friends That Work In The Hotel Which Could Always Assist Me Whenever I Need Help. So I Could Be Ensure, I Would Be Fine. I Have Some Friend That I Really Wanted To Meet, But That Person Was Very Busy And Has No Time. But That's Fine, It Was Not Fine But Well, I Was OK! We Should Respect Everyone's Privacy..:'(
Everyone Loves The Difference And The Difference Makes Interests. I Have Seen How Big City Life Is, How People Live Their Daily Lives. BANGKOK Let Me See Everything. And BANGKOK Gets Me Lazy Because Its Convenience. However, I Have To Say "BANGKOK" Is Still My No.1 Preferable City To Live. Well, Now We're Gonna Talk About HANOI, The Different City That I Really Really And Really Love.
I Started My Trip To HANOI On 07th January Without Booking The Ticket Back. I Have Planed Nothing. Just Let It Be, Relax And Easy. This Time Was The First Time I Landed At The New Terminal In NOI BAI Airport Which Was Just Opened Fews Days Prior My Arrival. It Is Hugh And Well Organised. I Still Could Smell The New Furniture, New Carpet And All New Things :)
It Was Funny At The Immigration Control. The Lady Looked At My Passport Then Looked At Me. She Smiled And Said, I Like Your New Hair, It Is So Cool. I Smiled And Said Thank You. Then She Started To Check My Passport. She Looked At Me With A Nice Smile And Asked "Why You Come To Vietnam So Often? Your Passport Is Full Of Vietnamese Immigration Stamped. She Was Smiling So I Thought It Was Not A Serious QuestioN. I Replied That I Was "A DRUG DEALER" Then She Laughed And Asked Me "Are You Serious?" I Replied "No! I'm Just Travelling. I Love Vietnam" Then She Returned Passport To Me And Say "ENJOY YOUR TRIP" Wow! This Is The First Time That I'm Very Impressed With Immigration Officer. Nice Service Ever. Normally, They Only Look At You, Check Passport, Return, Say Nothing And Hardly Smile. So It Was Such A Great Start For Me.
I Have Chosen To Stay In My Favourite Hotel Where All My Amazing Friends Are Working.
It's RISING DRAGON GRAND HOTEL. Staffs Are Fabulous And We Are Now Like Friends And Family. Makes Me Feel Warm And Happy During My Stay.
I Was Warmly Welcomed Upon My Arrival. I Was So Much Happy To Be There And See All Of Them Again. The Only Negative Thing At That Time Was The So Much Different Weather. I Left BKK With 32 Degrees and Arrived HANOI With 16 Degrees. So Freezing Cold And My Body Was Not Yet Adjust To It.
The 1st Day Not So Much Going On. I Walked Around And Had My Favourite VietnamesCoffee At My Favourite Place, MIU'S CAFE' Then Later On Walk Around The Town, To The Lake As I Always Did Before. I'm A Kind Of Person That Keeps Doing Same Things, Eat Same Food, Go Same Place, Being The SAME Boring Me :( I Couldn't Be Anything Else. I Could Only Be ME.
I Was So Tired And Overslept. Suddenly My Telephone Rang, I Picked Up And So Happy. It's BELLA, One Of The Receptionist. She Called To Check If I Was Alright Because It Was Already Afternoon And I Was Yet To Leave The Room. (Normally I Left The Room Early For A Walk But This Time I Was On Vacation And Have Almost A Month Not Fews Days Like Before) It Was So Great They Have Checked. It Shows Their Care And Attention. I Feel Much More In The Right Place.
The Next Day Would Be One Of Staff Birthday So They Will Organise A Small Party And Of Course, I Was Invited. I Have Given ELEPHANT Pillow To Yen (Birthday Girl) For Her Birthday. We Had Fun In A Small And Warm Party. What A Memorable Day. All Of Them Are Staffs And I'm The Only One Outside Guest. But We Are Friends And I Feel Honoured They Have Me Joined Them. Feel So Much Happy Again And Again.
Days Gone By So Fast And The Weather Was Getting Warmer. I've Been Through My Days By Walking To Different Places, Taking Some More Photos And I Have Found My New Favourite Coffee Shop. It is "CASA GATTO"
The Party Was Full Of Delicious Foods. I Bought Thu A Baby Elephant from CITYOWLS and wrote her a card. It's A Small Thing But Full Of My Intention and Valuable Friendship For Thu.
Party Was Fun And I Had Too Much Drinks lol. Everybody Are Like The Family. I Was So Glad To Have Known Them And Then I Started Crying (What A Shame) I Cried And Told Them That I Didn't Want To Go Back To BANGKOK. I Love Them And Want To Stay Here. I Actually Feel That. I Didn't Say That Because I Was Drunk Or Said It Just To Please Them. I Really Do Value The Friendships Here.
On 22nd January Anney, My Super Beloved Sister Who Is Now Working For Japan Airlines Has Flight To HANOI (Active Crew) So She Has One Night Stop Over Here. I Was So Happy To See Her Again. We Have Met On 23rd At Her Hotel. So 3 Of Us, Me, Anney and Nueng Have Started Wandering Around Hanoi. I Took Them To Say Hello To My RD GRAND Staffs, Then Miu's Cafe For Vietnamese Coffee And Then Walked To HOAN KIEM Lake.
We Had So Much Fun, Taking Photos, Having Ice-cream, Walking Around The Lake. The Only Negative Thing is Sky Was Not Clear. After Enough Fun Around The Lake, I Took Them To my Favourite Place "CASA GATTO" We Have Some Coffee And A Bit Food. Later On, We Went To LONG BIEN BRIDGE. Such A Wonderful And Classy Place. We Took Some Photos And Then Back To Hotel Since It Was Almost 1900hrs And They Should Have Slept And Ready To Be Picked Up By 2100hrs.
It Was Such A Perfect Day. Brought So Much Of Memories. Smiles, Laughs And Joy. Once Again I Have To Say Goodbye To Them And Then Back To The Hotel.
Another Fun Night Begins. Paan and Solo From Thailand Have Visited Hanoi And We Went Out Together At Night.
We Had Such Weird Ice Tea With Lime (NEVER AGAIN!!!) Anyhow, The Night Was Fun. Having Fews SAIGON Beers Then Of course, Going Back For Some Rest.
The Next Day, We Spent All Day Together. Having Egg Coffee, (It Took Half A Day To Find Hahahaha) Went To Kitty Shop (Not My Style lol) Then Going To St.Joseph Cathedral. We Noticed That In That Area, Many Teenagers Were Having Ice Tea And Eat Sun Flower Seeds.
It Was Some Kind Like Meeting Point For Socialise. Moreover, The CarS That Parked In The Cathedral Are Are Mostly Luxurious And Expensive Like BMW, Porsche, Audi, Lexus, Benz and etc.
We Went To LONG BIEN Bridge For Sunset Picture. The Taxi Took Us Around The World. We Have No Idea Weather He Knew Where We Wanted To Go Or He Just Wanted To Take Us Around To Get Meter On and On. We Eventually Were At Where We Would Love To Visit. However, The Light Of The Sun Almost Gone ( Wasted So Much Time In Taxi OMG!)
We Had Street Food For Our Dinner Near The Bridge. Then Later On, We Went To Irish Pub Where My Disaster Began lol. Solo Started His Glass With Guinness, Paan Started With Sambuca and I Wanted To Bring Back My Memories Of The Greatest Year Of My Life 2005, By Having "IRISH CAR BOMB" While We Were Having Fun, The Electricity Of The Whole Area Suddenly Has Power Cut And It Lasted More Than 30 Minutes. This Has Turned To Be Special Moment For One Vietnamese Teenagers Who Were Having Birthday And Singing HBD Song With Lighted Candle On BD Cakes. Solo Made A Joke By Saying " The Birthday Girl Must Have Been A Daughter Of The Important Person In HANOI That They Have To Turn Off All The Lights For Her While Singing Birthday Song. After The Lights Came Back, We Continued Drinking More And More Until The Club Closed Around Midnight. Solo Ended Up With 8 Glasses Of Guinness, Pann Ended Up With 1 B52 And 8 Sambuca And Me, Terribly Ended Up With 5 Irish Car Bomb And 2 Sambuca. So Much Drunk. We Took A Taxi To The Hotel. Solo and Paan Dropped Me At My Hotel First Then They Went Back To Their Hotel. They Had Appointment With A Tour Guide From Hanoi Kids At 0900hrs The Next Day. I Supposed To Join Them Too, But I Was Soooooooo Drunk That I Couldn't Wake Up. So Much Irish Car Bomb And They Have Bombed Myself Hahahahahhhahaah.
Around 1545hrs, The Telephone Rang In My Room, Bella The Receptionist Informed Me That My Friends Came To See Me. Yes, Paan, Solo and 2 HANOIKIDS Tour Guide. I Told Paan That I Really Could Not Because I Had Headache. But Paan Wanted Me To Meet One Of The HANOIKIDS, "Shui" She Loves Arts And Very Great In Drawing And Super Funny.
I, Decided To Go And Never Regret. Shui And Phoebe Are Great Tour Guides. We Went To See Sunset At WEST LAKE And Had Some Coffee, Visited The Temple Then It Was Time To Say Goodbye To Our Fabulous HANOIKIDS Guide, Shui And Phoebe. They Are Super Cute And I Have One Drawing That Shui Drew For Me. I Kept As A Memory Of The Trip. Perfect Day Again.
We Were A Bit Hangover, So No Alcohol For Tonight :D Times Was Slowly Passing By. We Realised We Enjoyed This Trip So Much. Some Difference That Always Interesting. During The Way Home, Paan Bought A Kitty Balloon Just Because She Loves Kitty. Then While We Walked In The Night Market, We Saw A Girl Looked At The Kitty And Was Like Begging Her Mommy To Buy It. But The Mom Didn't. Then Paan Gave The Balloon Kitty To The Girl. It Was Such A Cute Moment. Remind Me Of My Childhood When I Wanted Something And My Parents Didn't Buy It For Me.
Our Last Night Ended. Hanoi Chapter For Paan And Solo Was Closed But Mine Still Continue Until The End Of The Month. They Walked Me To My Hotel, We Said Goodbye...Once Again Goodbye. I Hate "GOODBYE" I Was All By Myself AGAIN......
I Have Spent My Day As Usual. Waking Up, Having Coffee, Going To Walk Around The Lake. The Weather Was Getting Warmer So It Was Pretty Great. I Have Written Email To HANOIKIDS For A Tour Guide On 27th And I Had Wonderful Young Guy "DUNG" To Show Me Around But Only Half Day From 1400HRS - 1700HRS. Anyhow It Was One Of Such A Memorable Day.
When I Met Dung, I Pretended That I've Never Been To Hanoi Before And I Wanted To Experience The Local Life And Eat What Local Eat. Dung Took Me To Eat "NEM" Near The Cathedral. It Was So Great And Many Teenagers Were There Fir It, Too. After That, Dung Took Me To Have EGG COFFEE Near The Lake. It Was Small Shop. You Couldn't Tell It Was Coffee Shop By The Entrance. It Was So Cool and Delicious. I've Also Tried Coffee With Yoghurt. Wow! Greatest Ever. I Love Vietnamese Coffee. Dung Told Me About The Story Of EGG Coffee. Hmmmm! Having Great Coffee And Great Knowledge At The Same Time. It Seems Like Coffee is Part Of Vietnamese Life. You Can Find Coffee Shop Everywhere. This Is Very Good Because I Love Coffee :)) Thank You HANOIKIDS That Brought Me So Much Impressions And Knowledge. Special Thank To Dung For Being Such A Perfect Nice Friend And Wonderful Tour Guide :)))
Great Times Surely Go So Fast. I, Finally Have Had Finished My Unforgettable Vacation. I Have To Fly Back To Bangkok On 31st January In The Afternoon. Anna Took Me For Breakfast "Super Yummy Beef Noodle" Then We Went To Miu's Cafe' For Coffee And I Also Said Goodbye To Them. After That I Went To Say Goodbye To All My Friends, A Nice Old Lady, 2 Securities Guys And Lovely People At CASA GATTO. Quite Sad But There Must Be Time For Saying Goodbye. At Least, I Left HANOI With Good Memories, With The Feeling That I Wanna Come Back.
1400HRS, I Have To Say Goodbye To All My Nice Friends In RD Grand. I Was So Sad And Didn't Wanna Go Back. Saddest Part Is When I Was In The Car And Everyone Waved The Hand To Me For Goodbye. I Hate Saying Goodbye. The Wonderful Trip Ends Only MEMORIES That Last.
"There Are Place I Remember
All My Life Though Some Have Changed.
Some Forever Not For Better
Some Have Gone And Some Remain
All These Places Have Their Moments
With Lovers And Friends I Still Can Recall
Some Are Dead And Some Are Living
In My Life "I'VE LOVED THEM ALL
- In My Life: The Beatles-
