Hanoi Revisit
I was in Hanoi a few days back for business trip. The trip was fruitful. Agenda and objectives were met. In addition to that, I had great time exploring more of the city together with my colleague.
English is not widely spoken in Vietnam. Some of them understand a little bit, but communicating in English was a challenge. It really tested my lingustic skill, especially when we asked the direction to a place which I googled and found out. Not too bad, I would say, as most of the time, it's sign language and gesture. We explored a food stall near the roadside, with squatting table and chairs. We tried going around the Old Quarter in trishaw for an hour, stopping by in between to check-out some stuff. We managed to buy some winter clothings for our love one, and managed to bagain for lower price for one of the items, as well as getting new stocks rather than the displayed. We went in to watch the Water Puppet show, one of the famous attractions in Hanoi, where we were surrounded by lots of European. Fantastic show...only it's a bit too long...an hour.
There is a huge demand for English in Vietnam. The last visit, I saw Petronas offered scholarship for final year university students to study English, part of their corp social responsibility program. This time, I saw Australian government advertised for English teacher to teach the Vietnamese Arm Force.
The road in Hanoi was very busy that week, as Chinese New Year is approaching. People went around to deliver gifts. Was amazed too by the long stretch of flowers and lime trees for sale along the road. Even more amazed that the Vietnamese tied huge pots of flowers and trees at the back of their motorcycle, and still able to weez thru the road swiftly.
Weather at this time was cooling and at night a little bit chilly.
Posted in: My Story on Saturday, January 24, 2009 at at 9:56 PM 0 comments