Merry Christmas 
Not surprisingly we woke up early this morning. It was quite hazy this morning due to the pollution.
We had breakfast at the hotel. It was a buffet that had American, European, and Asian breakfast foods. They had some interesting fruit. I had something that I initially thought was cantaloupe. It was the color of cantaloupe but it had the consistency of an apple or a pear. We also tried longan which is related to lychees. Delicious!
The wait staff were all wearing santa hats but it was more for the hotel guests. I don’t get the impression that many people here celebrate Christmas. About 20% of the country are Christians. The rest are mostly Buddhists, hence not much of a Christmas celebration.
Rick’s foot is hurting. We are guessing that his foot swelled up as a result of the long plane ride and then it was aggravated by a long walk in the Tokyo airport. So after breakfast we relaxed in the room while he elevated and iced it.
Eventually we decided to walk to the Hoàn Kiém Lake which is close to the hotel. There were lots of people out, many street vendors selling everything from fruit, vegetables, meat, prepared food, to flowers. We also saw a street based barber giving a man a shave.
After about a 15 minute walk we arrived at the lake. It was fairly small and the water was very green.
Here is the story of the lake—According to legend, a local god gave Emperor Lê Loi (in the 1400s) a sword that he used to defeat the Chinese. A Golden Turtle God surfaced while Lê Loi was boating on the lake and asked for the sword back. The emperor renamed the lake to Hoàn Kiém Lake which means return sword to commemorate this event (before it was aptly called Luc Thuy, meaning green water). The turtle tower stands on a small island near the center of the lake
Near the northern shore of the lake lies Jade Islet, on which the Temple of the Jade Mountain (Ngọc Sơn Temple) stands. The temple was erected in the 18th century. It honors the 13th-century military leader Trần Hưng Đạo who distinguished himself in defeating the Mongol invasions of Vietnam thrice. Jade Island is connected to the shore by the wooden Thê Húc Bridge, painted vermillion red. The bridge’s name is poetically translated as “Perch of the Morning Sunlight”.
At the lake we saw a lot of mostly young women dressed up, mostly in red having their pictures taken. We thought it might be related to Christmas but we asked at the hotel and they told us that it was just people having their pictures taken.
We returned to the hotel to review our lunch options. Our guide had sent us some restaurant suggestions. We decided to try a relatively safe option which turned out to be a steak place. Neither of us was really interested in that and Vietnam’s not known for it’s steak so we tried another place. It ended up being street food which seemed a little dicey for our first meal out so we just came back to the hotel and took a nap. Our nap lasted a little longer than planned.
We got up around 6 and went to dinner. I was a little nervous because the menu on google showed only dishes with small turtle and pigeon. I had pigeon in Egypt and didn’t really like it. As for small turtle, NO WAY! But luckily the menu had plenty of other stuff. We had a nice dinner, returned to the hotel and promptly collapsed. Overall a good day for starting to get over our jet lag, resting Rick’s foot, and exploring a little.