Happy New Year....again! Most people only have the priveledge of ringing in the New Year once a year, but we are lucky and have gotten to do it twice this year.
We arrived back in Hanoi early yesterday morning, just in time for the Tet (Lunar New Year) celebrations. The whole city had a buzz to it, similar to how things feel on Christmas Eve. Everyone was in the market,buying food for their parties, trees to decorate, and gifts to give. It was fun to walk around and soak in the excitement.
We spent some time in the morning browsing through some of the shops that were still open. 
We're not sure what people do with these "bamboo trees". They were quite popular though!
A traditional New Years orange tree. The hotel that we are staying in is great....actually, the family who runs it is really great! They cooked a traditional Vietnamese New Years meal for us and some of the other guests staying at the hotel (and they didn't charge us anything!) We had spring rolls, pork, and New Years cake. The cake isn't what you're thinking though. It was made of rice and filled with chicken and beans. A little different than what we're used to, but it was great being a part of a real Tet meal!
Enjoying some great hospitality!After our dinner we wandered down to the lake to take in some of the New Year festivities. Despite the cold and the drizzle, there were a lot of people there to take in the sites. We were able to see some really cool acts on one of the stages. The pictures don't do it justice.
A big Tet Coke Ad. See if you can see the latern in the middle of the picture. People were lighting fires under the laterns and like small hot air balloons they were floating up into the sky. It was really pretty, until they caught fire and started falling to the ground onto houses, trees and people's heads.
The area around the lake. You can see the laterns lighting up the sky.The night climaxed with fireworks around the lake at midnight last night. Unfortunately our view of the fireworks was obscured by couple of trees and we found it better to watch the reflection of the fireworks in the lake. Afterwards, we joined the millions of celebrating Vietnamese trying to escape the area around the lake and the cold temperatures!
We woke this morning to quiet streets. There was almost no one out walking around. It's quite a change to the normally bustling city. Most of the stores, restaurants and attractions are closed today, but we did manage to get tickets to see a water puppet show that we hope to enjoy this afternoon.
5 comments:
Wow, that is so beautiful. What an honour to be a part of the celebrations! I love the floating lanterns - amazing!
Cool stuff! Strangely enough, the pallet of colours that are on the buildings in your first photo remind me of St. Johns, NFLD. Streets there, and in other Newfie towns, are a beautiful splash of colour. I'm assuming that you guys are writing the where-to-eat travel book.
water puppets eh?? i'm interested to hear about that...
Definitely blog about the water puppets! Beautiful pictures, too.
I'm glad you enjoyed ringing in the year of the Ox! Over here, Scott was hit by a firework in the arm, thankfully only leaving a bruise :) We never did get to see the water puppets because they were sold out! have fun!
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