If this is Saturday, this must be...

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m in Hanoi now for a week and a half.

This is the alley/street from my little balcony on Nam Ngu Street, Hoan Kiem District.

Just to show me what I’m missing at home, my father sent me this great shot of the fall colours, taken a day or two ago outside Deroche, BC. Makes me jealous to see what I’m missing!

I’m in a small family run inn made up of furnished bachelor suites. I’ve stayed here many times before and like the large open space, and that I can make tea when I want, not to mention a desk by the window. There’s high speed Internet, a great local restaurant down the end of the alley, and across from that a French pastry shop where I go for morning coffee and breakfast.

At the end of the alley, across the street, is a new café/bar with a huge sign "Made in Canada", complete with large Canadian flag! I'll have to try it, but with no expectations of anything remotely Canadian.

The ex-pat grocery store is two blocks away, in the ground floor of a new office tower that occupies much of the site that was formerly the notorious “Hanoi Hilton” prison (now a museum, on a site reduced two thirds in size from its original).

Those of you who are political junkies or history buffs might remember the Hanoi Hilton (started in 1886 by the French colonizers of Indochina as “Maison Central” and “Hỏa Lò” prison by the Vietnamese ) as the place where Senator John McCain spent his years as a POW after being shot down over Hanoi.

Historical trivia - - The name of the prison originated from the street name phố Hỏa Lò, due to the concentration of stores selling wood stoves and coal-fire stoves along the street from pre-colonial times.