{"id":4336,"date":"2025-12-24T12:16:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T20:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/?p=4336"},"modified":"2026-07-30T07:34:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T14:34:43","slug":"xmas-eve-in-hanoi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/2025\/12\/24\/xmas-eve-in-hanoi","title":{"rendered":"Xmas Eve in Hanoi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s our last full day in Hanoi, so we are going to do all the art museums we can handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We got a morning pho near \u201cbeer street,\u201d which is much quieter in the early hours than late at night. The hot and pungent broth makes a great breakfast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024434780\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024434780_477e736852_z.jpg\" alt=\"Pho Ga with Quail Eggs\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Pho Ga with Quail Eggs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A quick car ride took us to the <a href=\"http:\/\/112.com.vn\/?q=en\/node\/366\">Batrang pottery village<\/a>, which has an excellent modern museum and community center, and several older factories where they make large scale ceramics. Ruth got some glaze ideas, and I enjoyed the architecture and the shade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024095461\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024095461_2e83b5c1ee_z.jpg\" alt=\"Batrang Pottery Museum Courtyard\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We got lunch at <a href=\"https:\/\/guide.michelin.com\/en\/ha-noi\/ha-noi_2974158\/restaurant\/tam-vi?utm_source=tripadvisor&amp;utm_medium=partner&amp;utm_campaign=restaurants\">Tam Vi<\/a>, the cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant in the world. It had exceptional food, and we ordered a ton of food for $40: banana leaf salad, 5-spice pork belly, fried goby fish, garlicky greens, snail bun cha, watermelon desert. The quality was exceptional, but I did feel like the other diners were marveling at the price instead of the food itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We were near the Temple of Literature, which is featured on the back of the 100,000 dong note. It&#8217;s where scholars had their final exam with the king, and current doctors are still hooded. The shaded courtyard has lots of stelae featuring turtles, an apparently auspicious animal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Across a busy street was the <a href=\"https:\/\/vnfam.vn\">National Fine Arts Museum<\/a>, which had great examples of ancient sculpture, impressive lacquer, and more modern paintings. The building is also a fantastic example of colonial architecture, now repurposed for national preservation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-8f761849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024280353\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024280353_d89c3452ab.jpg\" alt=\"Turtle Stelae at the Temple of Literature\" width=\"334\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Turtle Stelae<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024423090\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024423090_5499268218_z.jpg\" alt=\"Farmers Struggle Against Taxation\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Farmers Struggle Against Taxation, 1960<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a short car ride via Grab and a long nap, we took a quick outing around lake Hoan Kiem for dinner. I got a delicious skewer of meat on a stick and a walking beer. The streets are full of people, and there&#8217;s a great light show on temple. We&#8217;ll be back here for New Year&#8217;s, but the crowds are already pretty dense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024098091\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024098091_8e0d103541_z.jpg\" alt=\"Hoan Kiem Lake\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s our last full day in Hanoi, so we are going to do all the art museums we can handle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vietnam"],"geo":{"latitude":20.973341,"longitude":105.9154968,"description":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4336"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4376,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336\/revisions\/4376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}