We tried something different this trip and broke the long flight into two segments on the way here. I’m way to old to do 17 hours in a plane all at once. So we flew to Narita Japan and spent the night at the Hotel Nikki Narita in Tokyo. I have to say we were pleasantly surprised at our short stay in Japan. Our flight was uneventful which is a plus when flying out of the Okanagan in January and we breezed through immigration and customs which for us is extremely lucky, one of us usually gets searched. The hotel was very close to the airport and the shuttle was free. That is a bonus in Japan as everything is very expensive. Our room was lovely, the bed was comfortable and it was very quiet.
We arrived at around 6 pm so went for dinner at a restaurant called “Serena”. The raw tuna was very good and the tempura just right. Bill was exhausted so we called it a night at about 8:30 which was about 1:30 am our time. The problem with that was I was awake at 4 am this morning.
Oh well I remembered to bring my Starbucks instant coffee and Baileys because you only get tea in Japan. So we had coffee in bed at 5 am. We couldn’t check in online with Vietnam Airlines so went to the airport early. Hence the noodles and beer for breakfast at 8 am. (this tasted much better than it looks)
It still amazes me that Narita Airport has smoking rooms! As a matter of fact so did the hotel. Bill went for a smoke outside the hotel and was told “ no no no sir you have to smoke inside”. WTF!
As we say good by to Japan and head to Vietnam I leave with a better memory than I did previously and will use it as a stop over on future trips to Asia.
We are really excited to get to Vietnam this afternoon as we have a street food walking tour booked in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Walking around the city for 3 hours eating Vietnamese food is going to be good for my body, soul and belly!
We arrived at the Hanoi airport after about a 6 hour flight with Vietnam Airlines to a very full airport. Getting our entry visa was an experience I do not want to repeat. We handed off our paper work and passport and waited in line for about 2.5 hours to receive our visa and make our way through immigration to then discover Bill’s backpack was not on the carousel. With a little investigating we found it and walked through customs without even scanning our bags or filling out any declaration forms. By this time I really didn’t think our driver would still be waiting for us, but he was, which was a relief. Half an hour later we were checked in to Hanoi Little Town Hotel just in time to join our walking street food tour. I was really looking forward to this so was thankful we had made it on time.
A young tour guide named Derek picked us up and we were joined by another couple from San Francisco and a mom and daughter from Australia. The tour was 3 hours long walking through the very narrow and busy streets of the old quarter. Good thing we had Derek as I was lost with 2 blocks. We weaved our way from stop to stop eating the most amazing food from little stalls that were no bigger than our entry way in the house. All the food was cooked by family members who lived on the upper floors, they used tiny little stoves at street level. Good thing we both have good knees as the stools and tables we sat at were only 12 inches off the ground. Squats are the main exercise of the evening.
The food we ate was a variety of noodle soups called Bun bo and Pho ga. One was beef and one chicken with rice noodles. We then watched a lady make us Banh cuon, a steamed rolled pancake filled with pork,mushrooms and black fungus (different kind of mushroom). We dipped this in fish sauce with basil and cilantro.
Next was a pork egg roll and Banh cha which was rice noodle with bbq pork.
Next was a pork egg roll and Banh cha which was rice noodle with bbq pork.
Afterwards Derek walked us back to our hotel and we rolled into bed. Our challenge will be to find some of these places when we get back into town after our boat tour in Halong Bay.
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