Field trip to the Temple of Literature

Bill took me to some of his favorite places today. We had breakfast at KOTO, a restaurant started by an Australian-Vietnamese man to train street and disadvantaged youth to work in the food industry. We then visited the Temple of Literature, the oldest university in Hanoi, which Bill wrote about earlier. It must have been field trip day for the school children because there were hundreds and they all wanted to say “hello.”




Each graduate of the university had one of these stella carved in his honor. Much nicer than a diploma.





This woman was working there with a broom made using a large palm leaf.


We met a couple from Germany who had come this week to visit their son. The wife tripped and broke her ankle her first day here and was very envious of my boot. We traded email addresses and I’m hoping I will be getting around well enough by next week that I can pass it on to her. I will miss it though when I am crossing the street because it seems like the motorbike riders realize that running into it would do a lot of damage to their bike.

We then walked halfway around Hoan Keim Lake, visited a pagoda, and had pizza, beer, and ice cream (James, we’ll bring you here). On our walk, we ran across a huge disturbance. It appeared that a foreigner angered a young Vietnamese man for some reason. The young guy kept chasing the older guy back and forth across this busy street, which backed up the traffic and attracted quite a crowd. After about ten minutes, the paddy wagon showed up and both guys were thrown in the back, which caused us to discuss what we would do if the same thing happened to us. Bill seems to think that I should jump in the back of the truck with him. I think maybe one of us should stay out in order to contact a lawyer.