Early Morning Walk

I'm here! Had to leave the country to get onto blogger again- (it's blocked in Ch*na now)... we're in Hanoi, Vietnam. It's the National Day holiday in China right now, which means school break for the kids and no work for Scott, so we're off adventuring with our friends the Allens for a few days.

We got in very late last night- actually I think it was in the wee hours of the morning- so we moved back the starting time for our tour of the city this morning to give everyone a bit more sleep. I couldn't sleep in, though. I woke up early to the sound of many, many horns blowing. They weren't too loud, with windows closed, but I could hear them none the less. I laid in bed for a little while, trying to sleep, but finally I got up and dressed and slipped out the door to go check out the city.

We're staying in the Old Quarter, a local housing area of three and four story narrow homes and shops all packed together. Many, many motorbikes. Not the mix of bicycles and motorbikes like in China... this is all motorbikes! Lots of ladies with conical straw hats, balancing baskets full of precariously arranged pyramids of fruit hanging from either end of a stick balanced across their shoulders. Lots of childsized tables and short little stools set up on the sidewalks, with full grown men hunched over at them eating their noodle breakfasts. Dogs and cats. Kids in crisp with school uniform shirts with red scarfs around their necks heading to school. Booths opening selling everything under the sun.

I made my way along the street, intending to go just one direction and then turn around and come back to the hotel so I wouldn't get lost, but I saw a lake and an arched red bridge in the distance when I looked down one cross street and I had to go that way. Down that way I saw lots of older people out playing badminton, nets strung across an open area where one street divided into two. I found a temple, carved and painted with brightly colored tigers, with sticks of incense burning and floating out over the lake.

And everywhere, people. It's amazing how many people there are in the world. Seems obvious, but it is overwhelming to realize sometimes the sheer numers there are living on this earth. God gave me a little glimpse of His love for them all as I walked through the Old Quarter this morning. He is especially fond of each one of them. :-)