Interesting culture and places in Hue, Vietnam; as featured in the 3rd episode of The Amazing Race Asia (TARA) season 3.
Hue City
Huế is a historic city in central Vietnam and was the imperial capital of Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945). Hue is located about 1100km from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s capital city. It took about 25 hours of bus ride to travel from HCMC to Hue.
Complex of Hue Monuments
The Complex of Hue Monuments is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Sites; the complex comprises of 16 historic monuments from the Nguyen Dynasty. Among the monuments that featured in The Amazing Race Asia were the Khai Dinh Tomb, Minh Mang Tomb and Hue Citadel (the pitstop).
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Lý Thái Tổ (974-1028) was the founder and first emperor of Vietnam’s Lý Dynasty (1009-1225). After ascending the throne, he moved the capital to Đại La (which he renamed as Thăng Long) in 1010, which in the end becomes present day Ha Noi.
The Ly Thai To statue above is located at Indira Gandhi Park, nearby Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi to commemorate the Vietnamese emperor.
Trafalgar Square is just a few minutes walk from Piccadilly Circus. The square was under renovation when I was there; in normal days it should be pretty crowded.
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I believe most tourists have heard of Piccadilly Circus, but I doubt many of them know the name of the iconic fountain located at the famous traffic intersection.
It’s officially named the Shaftesbury Monument Memorial Fountain, or Shaftesbury Memorial.
The winged-nude statue on top has a name too… Angel of Christian Charity, popularly known as Eros after the mythical Greek God of Love.
Piccadilly Circus is a busy place; surrounded with theatres, shops, malls, hotels, restaurants, pubs and endless traffic. China Town is just a few blocks away as well.
The neon signboards at Piccadilly Circus are quite a scene at night; probably not as splendid as New York’s Time Square, but spectacular regardless.
When I visited London a few years earlier there were lots of pizzerias and Kebab stores around, but only a few of them remained in the area. I still managed to grab a pizza nearby, but disappointingly it wasn’t as good as it used to be.
London & UK travelogue
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