We happened to be in Hanoi for the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnamese war. With no real plan for the day and no real way of knowing what would be open or closed or whether there would be anything different happening we set out for the morning after our final pack up to give away the kids new balloons. After painstakingly going through all of the options for our new balloons (popping, releasing, deflating, attempting to sneak on the plane) we figured that paying it forward to another kid was the best thing to do. After some convincing for Nora we finally found our first recipient. It was surprisingly difficult to give away the balloons – most likely because it’s weird to have a bunch of little white kids come up and give you something without being able to communicate at all but with enough hand gestures we finally got to make three kids day.
After all the hard work it was time for a croissant and more coffee. We had read about the note cafe and hopped in line. The coffee was standard but the experience was neat. There’s really just this very narrow (and constantly narrowing) tall cafe (over 5 storeys) that’s covered in post it notes. We added a few before beginning our wander around the lake.
It turns out the kids had so much fun giving out the balloons that this became our new activity for the day. We bartered our way to 10 Vietnamese heart balloons and slowly handed them out on our walk. The kids got their picture taken a few times as the heroes of the day and we were even gifted some random green cookies in return.
We eventually found a restaurant for a late lunch – we got a bit turned around and walked a long way down a somehow deserted street before we ended up back in the French quarter. We had some of the best pizza I’ve ever had and finished off with some ice cream and one last egg coffee before making our way back to the hotel to start the journey to Japan.
Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids 
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