1,000 years and a small coincidence

Ha Noi is celebrating it's 1,000th year anniversary all this week!!! Imagine that! How many cities can make that claim?

Here is a coincidence to ponder but I suggest you do not make too much of it, just enjoy it for a moment:

The celebration officially began on Friday, Oct 1, 2010 and will last for ten days. I happened to have chosen my starting date on the same day out of pure ignorance. I am not planning on staying for such a long time at this job.
I also will celebrate my B-day on Oct 4th in my country of birth and in the capital city.

Ok, enough navel gazing and onto what's happening with the celebration and it's effects.

Saturday evening as I was walking to dinner on a four lane one way street, I ran into a massive moped traffic jam and I mean jam. Every available centimeter of road surface was taken up by a slowly moving mass of two wheelers. The mopeds then all of a sudden, started jumping the curbs and riding on the sidewalk on both sides. It is quite disconcerting to have them buzzing in all around you and not knowing if at any moment now you are going to get clobbered and there is nowhere to go.

Apparently they were all heading towards Hoan Kiem Lake for a celebratory show and fireworks, so in effect all the streets heading north towards the center of the city were equally jammed.

So I ducked down a side street after deciding that I am not going to take any chances of getting run over and found a place to eat and wait out the moped mob. An hour later you could almost cross the street without encountering any  moving vehicle.  Well, ALMOST is really relative here.

Today I walked to the lake in the morning to take advantage of the breezy and cool conditions. The streets were strangely quiet, I found out, due to a race around the lake and the police were out in full force ticketing people who do not habitually obey traffic rules like: red light means no go, NOT go slow into the intersection and then speed up through while dodging cross traffic.

The cops also blocked of the sidewalk in sections so you can only walk a short distance along the shore of the lake and then have to turn around and jaywalk across to the other side to get around the barriers to continue on. By the way, they were carrying long and nasty looking batons.

The runners were mostly Vietnamese men and women, quite a few of whom were running barefooted while others were fully geared out in the latest running shoes - now made mostly in Viet Nam for Nike, Adidas etc...

I left the lake area and meandered into the Old Quarter spending quite a pleasant morning getting lost in the narrow winding streets that changes names every so often.

Tonight I will brave the streets again and go out for dinner since I gotta eat again.

 Around the lake, relatively speaking.

 An oasis of calm.

 Ok, I think I can use the sidewalk.

Karaoke anyone? Everyone? It's very popular and all concentrated in one part of the city.

 So I made it out to see the mad, mad traffic heading towards the lake for the evening festivities. Decided to turned around after a few blocks due to the noxious fumes. Will try again tomorrow night via a different route. I am determined to at least get a close up view, after all how many chances in a lifetime does one get to celebrate a 1,000 year old birthday.