Getting High In Hanoi

Last year, when my friend PJ visited, we climbed to the top of a the tower at the War Museum and were treated to a pretty amazing view of the city. The tower was only about five or six stories tall which is high enough to look down on most of the surrounding area. Well, that was last year. Since then, tall building have been spurting out of the ground like weeds. Seemingly everywhere there are now "Vietnamese sky scrapers." I'm not sure why I put that in quotes since I just coined that term.

The other day I started to teach two kids in an apartment on the 24th floor of a building. By New York City standards 24 floors isn't ridiculously tall. However, in Hanoi it is behemoth. When I exited the elevator, I was immediately drawn to the "window" (the quotes this time because the window had no glass. It was more of a hole in the wall.). From the window I got a spectacular view of Hanoi:

After looking back towards the center of Hanoi, I adjusted my view a little to the right. If you look closely at this picture you'll notice that there is barely anything on the right side of that major street and nothing for a few blocks after that one tall building. Well, that's because they're about to build rows of tall buildings.


In fact, I would estimate there are no less than thirty tall buildings starting construction at the moment. I often annoying harp how this city is changing before my very eyes and well, here's more proof:


Both of those building behind Language Link (Lang Ha) WERE NOT THERE 9 MONTHS AGO!