Why I came to Vietnam

Shinchao! It’s Yomoken.

※ = Shinchao, in this case it’s not “new bridge” in Chinese, but “Hello!" in Vietnamese.


Yesterday, we came to the city of Hanoi in Vietnam, all the way from Dalian in northeast of China.

Incidentally, we flew on China Southern Airlines from Dalian to Hanoi, stopped over Beijing and Guangzhou. 

It took 11 long hours to get to Hanoi and checked into the hotel after we left Guangzhou around noon.

They are a member of Sky Team.・ ・ ・ quality is so so.

Eventually, I was to leave China from Guangzhou, and during the passage of immigration there, a woman officer, flipping through my passport, was frozen at the page of Mongolia visa.

And she whispered to the officer nearby.

Then sadly I was restrained Σ (゚ ゚ д;)

and I was taken to the airport police.

It was nothing happened after about 15 minutes of checkups through my luggage, but I was truly wimped out when looked at jail like bars at the police station….


After leaving Guangzhou in China, our flight went quite smoothly to Hanoi which took about 2.5 hours.

We were so hungry after checked in at the hotel, although it was after midnight we immediately went to look for “Pho” noodle.

This rather fancy restaurant, the noodle cost 25000 Don (150 yen), which is higher than average.

The main purpose of this visit to Vietnam is to meet up with my former boss in the past I worked for.

Like me in a way, this guy has retired from a consulting firm in Japan, then came all the way to Vietnam, determine to run the businesses.

I wanted to see such “live images of succession” with my own eyes.


In fact, the hotel, where I stayed, is a part of his businesses.

Two-shot with the Japanese hotel manager

This is Little Hanoi, a mini-hotel. There are five hotels in this hotel chain, including "Little Hanoi DX" where I stayed.

“DX” in particular, their services included Japanese speaking reception, a 24 hours help desk and Japanese language PC. 

It’s the hotel’s unique selling point and for any Japanese people not fluent in English that they can stay here safe and inexpensively.


Apart from hotel operation they also have restaurant business to support. They offered to take me to restaurants.

The first shot was in this restaurant, the famous Vietnamese cuisine.


This is the owner’s suggestion, “soft crab”. The crab is so soft you can eat it just like that.

The best garlic seasoning

After that, we headed to the currency exchange.

A jeweler is doing exchanging business!

 I suspect they make more money than as a jeweler.

This is me, exchanging from China Yuan to Vietnamese Dong.

 Who do you think I am??


And again at dinner time, I was taken to a recently opened sushi bar called “SAKURA”.

It opened on August 1. A real bar atmosphere there is.

It reminded me that there were plenty of restaurants called SAKURA in Mongolia and China. Fine, "Sakura" is synonymous with Japan, I think, and the wording is kept a good brand image of Japan in overseas.

Here is the link to their website. Click. 

Menus are with French twist for some reason – Yummy.

Whoops, we haven’t been to sightseeing yet, other than seeing restaurants.

Oh well, this is my 3rd visit in Hanoi after all. I guess the last time was at Asian Cup in 2007.

Talking and listening to local people and local businesses people in the world is by far more interesting than usual sightseeing I suppose.

After we returned to the hotel and took a shower, I wrote this. Outside is a collaboration of torrential rain and violent thunder storm.


In a clear sunny day, you feel like being in the sauna after 30seconds walk here in Hanoi, I still hope for a clear sunny sky tomorrow. Good night.