Our next stop was Hanoi, a fascinating city where life seems to be lived intimately and communally in the streets. A beautiful large lake lies in the center of the city, surrounded by a park where locals and tourists enjoy excercising, relaxing and dating. The sidewalks and the actual streets are coated with merchants selling their goods: meat, vegetables, tofu, noodles, radios, stuffed animals, soup, beer. You name it, it's for sale on the street here. And in the Old Quarter, where we stayed, the actual stores on each street boast one product, so one street offers shoes, one street, clothes, one street, mechanics, one street candies, and so on. So much for lessening competition. One street sells Chinese decorations and fake money, which is burned in little piles on the side of the street. Once,
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