Catholic Churches in Hanoi

You would not expect it but there are quite a few catholic churches in Hanoi. The French missionaries must have done a great job of converting the locals when they were running the country.

On the top left-hand corner of this post is a picture of St. Joseph's Cathedral. It was built in 1886. It conducts mass in Vietnamese. I happened to walk by there one Sunday afternoon and the church was full. There was an overflow crowd outside the church sitting on plastic chairs. Loudspeakers broadcast the mass to those outside.

You can google "St Joseph's Cathedral Hanoi" and you will see quite a lot of information about the church and also more pictures.

The church sure needs some power washing on the outside. I've never been inside but I heard it's quite well kept. It's only about 1/4 mile from the Camellia Hotel where I was staying.

The top-right picture shows another Catholic church about 5 minutes from my current apartment.

The bottom-left picture is that of a student cafe, which is just on the left side of St. Joseph's church. I mentioned it in one of my earlier posts about young men and women sitting on foot-high stools drinking lemon tea and eating sunflower seeds. This is one of the popular spots and in the evening will be filled with these young people. They just ride their motorcycles there, have the valet park it for them and sit with a few friends and chat for hours.

This is one of my favorite spots when I was staying at the hotel. They serve these "milk drinks" for mostly 10,000 dongs, or about 50 cents. I always order the mango milk, which is like a mango smoothie. The last picture above is their menu. I should try the durian milk one of these days.

One of the waiters/valet always try to practice his Mandarin on me. By now, all of them know me quite well although I can't communicate with them.