Bluejake

We've reached Hanoi, somewhere up North in the land of rain and fog. The airport is forty-five minutes outside the city-- on the ride in, you see ricefields dotted with huge billboards for Asian technology brands. The city itself feels larger and more European than Saigon-- Paris of the East, they say. That's an exaggeration, of course-- you can still tell that you're in Vietnam by the swarms of motor-bikes and streetside food shacks. In the heart of the city there's a small lake, and above that, a teaming neighborhood filled with retail monocultures-- sneaker-street, pillow-streets, tin-street, ghost-money street, etc. We've been walking around, and eating the local cuisine-- grilled pork, grilled fish, possibly grilled dog-- it's sometimes hard to say.