Fun and action in Hanoi :) (Day 92 of the world trip)

05.12.2019

The evening was quite funny as one of the hostel staff members, Daisy, showed a lot of interest in our blog. She has been living in Hanoi for 6 years but when we showed her the photos of our sightseeing, she laughed and realized that she still hasn't seen some of them^^ But well - that's how it is when you actually live somewhere. Jonas and I also hardly know any typical attractions in our area ;-)

The night was good but not as silly as before. The others in the room simply used the two bathrooms on the floor one level below, which actually belong to the 10-bed dorm^^ Quite clever :p

After breakfast, we planned the day a bit and off we went - bouldering!!! Especially Jonas has been looking forward to climbing again in Hanoi for weeks <3 And now the time had finally come :)

The way to the bouldering hall took a little longer than half an hour and mostly led along a main road. Fortunately, this road is surrounded by noise barriers, so we could walk on the quieter road behind. There are many buses and small vans there, all being supplied with goods.

In front of a certain small truck there were about 3 motorcycles and four other vans, which then blocked almost the entire road and a poor guy had to stack all the boxes by hand^^ It reminded us a bit of the picture of our vegetable bus - everything was very hectic and packed up to the ceiling ;-)

The last part of the way then led us through a pretty run-down area with broken roads but also the first street market we saw here in Vietnam. There were also a handful of gated communities on the left and right.

Based on our experience (that sounds like we have a lot of it :D :D), bouldering halls are always either in a really expensive district or in a not so beautiful industrial area. Here we got a mixture of both^^

The bouldering hall itself looked like almost everywhere we have been so far - an entrance area with a bit of equipment for sale. There are mats, a hangboard and there is chalk everywhere on the floor. So it's exactly as it should be :)

The bouldering hall itself was not as big as expected from the pictures on the website :D Unfortunately, there was not a big selection of routes either. For me, there were five or six routes on all the walls combined that I could climb at the difficulty level. Otherwise, everything was way too hard, and often I couldn't even start :p

But I had plenty of time to watch Jonas and the other climbers (almost all Europeans/Americans) ;-) Most of them were women, some of them students, who informed each other about their training goals and number of sessions like real professionals. But they were actually pretty good and as I later found out, one of them was the one who sets the most routes in this hall :)

Jonas had more routes available than me and he enjoyed it too - but he was a bit "disappointed" that there weren't even more routes available. But okay, it was sufficient for one day there and at least we could boulder again <3

After about two hours, we started back and only stopped briefly for some apples and a small pack of toast bread before heading back to the hostel.

There we were greeted directly by Daisy, who asked us with interest what we had done and what we were planning. When we told her our plans, she suggested that if we wanted to do something fun, we should watch the football match at 3:00 p.m. in a bar.

There is currently the Southeast-Asia-Cup of U22 and since the Vietnamese seem to be very passionate about football, they apparently watch almost all games as public viewing :)

We finally found a place in a cafe where the game was projected on a screen. The source for the first half was a YouTube livestream. Cool^^ We arrived 10 minutes after kickoff and it was already 1-0 for Thailand :O Oh no!

As time went on, the cafe filled up and the atmosphere was great when Vietnam scored a goal. Yay! The celebration, especially from the female fans, was really funny. They were as thrilled as we were during the final game of the World Cup :p

By the way, the cafe was not particularly fancy, but it was funny. There was smoking in the kitchen, the dirty dishes piled up while the staff did something other than washing them, and people casually sat on the shelf above the work surface :D :D

We were not served, but that was completely okay. During halftime, we went to the counter ourselves and ordered an ice cream at least <3 It would have been uncomfortable to sit in the cafe without buying anything^^

In the second half, for some reason, another live stream was selected and it was constantly buffering at the beginning. But unlike in our country where a beer can would have flown already (some football fans can't control themselves :p), everyone stayed calm while the staff tried to get everything running smoothly.

After the first minutes of the second half, the picture was somewhat stable. By the way, the cup takes place in the Philippines and the grass seemed to be very wet and muddy. When the ball bounced or when a player ran, it immediately left a big imprint that could be seen on the grass. Oh my^^

The best situation was then at 2-1 for Thailand in the 70th minute or so. A foul in the penalty area (which honestly didn't look like a real foul :p) led to a penalty kick for Vietnam. By the way, the Thai goalkeeper had looked really good throughout the game and even with this penalty kick, he jumped in the right direction and was able to save the ball. Not bad! :O

For reasons that Jonas and I didn't understand due to our lack of football and language skills (the commentator spoke Vietnamese and not English), the referees discussed briefly and then allowed the penalty to be repeated! Based on the flashbacks that were shown, we interpreted that the Thai goalkeeper had left his line too early or something like that, but who knows if that's really true^^

So to the delight of all Vietnamese in the cafe, there was a second penalty kick and this time the ball went in. Well... bad luck for Thailand, because after this equalizer, there were no more goals... Vietnam is now the group leader and Thailand is only in third place behind Indonesia, so the Thais are now out. Too bad that the perhaps questionable penalty kick decided the game and the group stage ;-)

After the game, we had about 45 minutes until the movie we had bought tickets for in front of the cafe started. In the corner of the cafe, there was only one store that served hot food. After a bit of unsuccessful searching (there were banks, cafes with snacks but no restaurants or food stalls), we went to this place that specializes in a specific noodle soup :)

On the menu, there were maybe ten different dishes, almost all with beef. But since I didn't feel like eating that after yesterday, I asked cautiously if I could have the soup vegetarian. To do this, the waiter held out his phone to me so that I could type in the English word. Very nice :) "Okay, I understand," he said politely and Jonas ordered the same as me for simplicity.

Shortly afterwards, we got a soup with rice noodles and vegetables/salad/bamboo shoots. Hmm. Really delicious!! <3

At 5:36 p.m. we were done, paid, and I hurried across the street to the Plaza. The building is huge and very pompous. Outside, brands like Dior, Cartier, and D&G are advertised and on the chic sidewalk (which is free of motorcycles :O), couples in evening dresses or wedding dresses take professional photos^^

When entering the building, a man in a suit opens the door for you and of course, everything is full of Christmas decorations - a big glittering tree, a sleigh, balls, and gifts. It feels like being in the USA^^

On the fifth floor of this upscale mall, there is the cinema. After seeing how fancy the building is, we were curious what the cinema would look like from the inside^^ Since money didn't matter today (and since the soup was tasty but not quite filling ;-) ), we bought a pack of popcorn as well <3

The film of our (or rather my) choice was Frozen II :D I love the first film, even though it's a children's film, and luckily I managed to persuade Jonas to watch the second part. The cinema had only 28 seats, more than half of which remained empty. Among the 12 guests, however, there were only two children :D :D

The children came with parents, but there were also three couples in their twenties like us. Ha! Not just a children's film^^

The film was, as expected from Disney, really cute, partly cheesy but also really nice :) Even Jonas had fun watching the film. However, one father couldn't quite manage it. In the middle of the film, he drew attention to himself by snoring loudly :D :D When we noticed that and turned to him, his wife quickly nudged him and that silenced him^^

After the cinema visit, we happily returned to the hostel, where I wanted to crawl straight into bed. We watched some YouTube for a bit, but since we had to get up at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow, I didn't want to go to sleep again at 11 p.m. :D

So it was a successful day :) Even if you didn't have to be in Hanoi for that, such "normal" activities that you could also do at home are really good once in a while. It's a bit like the great things you can do at home - bouldering, eating ice cream, watching football, and going to the cinema. What more could you ask for? ;-)