^_^Hanoi Old Streets ^_^

Spending the whole childhood in Hanoi, I’m quite familiar with many routes in this lovely city and therefore the two streets, Luong Dinh Cua and Hoang Tich Tri are not an exception. I got acquainted to them firstly through some wonderful yummy junk food stalls which are regular meeting points where I and a group of my close friends often spend time together., through many flower shops where I bought presents to my teacher on their Vietnamese Teacher’s Day. And so many other special occasions. Yet a little bit pity that there was no requirements listed as “buying a bunch of flower” or “eating a dish of boiled snail and grilled oysters” so that these specializations of these streets can be taken advantage of^_^.
Disregarding the weather forecast, we did enjoy our exploration trip on a rainy and wet morning. Nonetheless, bad weather condition couldn’t stop our enthusiasm and eagerness. The route seems to be more exciting when walking under umbrellas and making jokes with other lovely and friendly group members.
The two streets we did visit had a kind of architecture reflecting traditional and old features, a reminiscent of Vietnam a long time ago. Totally different from some kind of big and giant complexes arising recently as a consequence of urban planning and development like Ciputra or the Manor, they are the places mostly comprising of old residential housing and commercial stores. Along the long and narrow streets are parallel rows of various stores and small “kiot”, especially at the very first section of the street you can find many colorful and beautiful flowery shops that are extremely crowded in peak special occasions like Valentine or Teacher’s Day. Standing along the street are also a thick row of old and big trees that experiencing so many events day by day, where you can sit under for shadow on rainy and hot summer days. This is a good feature among many Hanoi’s streets where trees are gradually cut down for land acquisitions and the green space is being lost.
Spending time walking around, I did notice that these streets have full living amenities and services like the place within my house. There is a big market, called Kim Lien market at the end of Luong Dinh Cua where you can find everything to prepare for a delicious meal. I’m fascinated to live in an area where it just takes me a few minutes walk to the market as cooking is one of my hobbies and going to market every morning to buy fresh food has become on e of my habbits. Besides that, other living and learning services such as stadium, police offices for emergency of reporting a thief case, post office for monthly newspaper subscription, elementary school where my future kids can attend are within in a convenient way. Next to the area about 1 km walk is two famous hospitals, one of which is the workplace of my brother. At the very start of the main route next to Luong Dinh Cua is the location of a big supermarkets where electronic appliances can be found and a nearby is recreational center full of interesting entertainment activities.
The living expenses there are quite reasonable as our experiences suggested by interviewing a lot of people going around the market.
It is also a relatively clean street as we did notice there were several orange clad women descend on the city to sweep the streets and carted away the day’s trash.
From all of these, I feel it good to live in such a place where I can find everything for my life in an convenient way at reasonable cost. They are one of the most picturesque old cities in Hanoi undergone an exotic decay. Hopefully that these sceneries with such traditional architecture can still be kept as a way to make Hanoi more special in this so-called “urban development” age and time.