During the immersion program, we cooked our own meals to save money. On the sixth day, it was my turn to cook for all the students who stayed in the same building as me. My group decided to cook eggs with potatoes. It may sound like a strange dish, but we found the recipe on Instagram a few hours before cooking. One of our supervisors bought all the ingredients for us.
To be honest, the food was not very delicious. Our first attempt was a complete failure because the food did not even keep its shape. However, we learned a lot from the experience and had fun cooking together.
In the afternoon, we joined a sharing session with PPI (Indonesian Students Association). This activity is usually held during the immersion program if there is a local PPI in the country.
It was also Friday, our first Friday in Vietnam. Because Vietnam is not a Muslim-majority country, there is only one mosque in Hanoi, called Al Noor Mosque. Many Muslims from different countries come to pray there, including people from Indonesia.
This was our first Friday prayer in Vietnam and also our first time praying at a mosque during the immersion program. Before this, we always prayed at the accommodation because the mosque was quite far away.
A unique thing I noticed was that the Friday sermon was delivered in two languages: Vietnamese and Arabic. This Friday prayer became one of the most memorable Friday prayers I have ever experienced.
After the prayer, we had some free time to explore the area around the mosque. The mosque is only about five minutes from the Old Quarter, one of the most famous areas in Hanoi. There were many tourists walking around the streets.
One famous place in the Old Quarter is The Note Coffee. It is well known because its walls are covered with colorful sticky notes written by visitors. I saw many videos about this cafรฉ on TikTok, but many people said it was not worth visiting because the main attraction is only the sticky notes. For that reason, I decided not to visit it.
Instead, one of my friends wanted to buy a hoodie, so we went to a Uniqlo store. Unlike most Uniqlo stores in Indonesia, which are usually inside shopping malls, the Uniqlo in Hanoi has its own four-story building. It was very large and had a wider collection of products.
After visiting Uniqlo, we returned to Al Noor Mosque, performed the Asr prayer together, and then went back to our accommodation.