Arrive in Hanoi... Mostly

Although this is the same day as my previous post, my computer is not resetting to the new time zone, and I don't feel like figuring out how to get it to do so. This should be the only confusing day. Just remember, we woke up in Japan this morning.
Our flight went well, and we arrived in Hanoi safely. Unfortunately, our luggage didn't, and the airline that we took is saying that it is not their responsibility, although they are trying to locate it. Right now, we just need to get some new clothes so we can change out of the ones we put on Monday at 3 am. The plane was very nice, but the most interesting thing was electronically tinting windows. You press a button, and the windows got dark. It was very cool. There is a video of it below. Note that the tinting speed was increased by a factor of 4. It took about a minute to go completely dark, which is not shown here.

Hanoi is a crowded town, with very narrow buildings. It just celebrated it's 1,000th anniversary in 2010. Lanes don't seem to mean much when driving, and crossing the street is rather scary. You just start walking, and hope that the constant stream of cars and bikes don't hit you. Sarah made the apt comparison to Frogger, and now we make little bleep bleep noises as we cross. The most interesting auto I saw today was a moped with two people on it, and the one in the back was holding a 4'x6' framed canvas. Imagine seeing a person sitting on the back of a moped with their arms spread as wide as they can go, grasping a huge framed painting that completely blocks the driver and the front of the moped. Perhaps you had to be there, and I unfortunately didn't have my camera.

The view from our third-floor hotel room.

To relieve some of the stress, the whole family went for a massage, which came out to around $8 per person after tips. Tomorrow we start our tour of the city.