Huyen Sy Church & City Hall

The next day I was heading to City Hall to take some photos and I stopped and took some photos of Huyen Sy Church which was along the way and about a minute from my hotel.  In fact, in a previous post where I showed photos of my hotel, you can see the roof of this church from my hotel.  The church is one of HCMC’s five biggest.  In the old days of Saigon the wealthy and powerful Huyen Sy, who was the grandfather of Queen Nam Phuong, the wife of Vietnam’s last king, King Bao Dai, paid to have the church built.  Because he incurred the construction expenses, the church was named after him.  Huyen Sy Church is popular among Vietnamese Catholics to visit.  The church was built in 1902.  The church has endured two wars of resistance against the French and U.S.  The window area of Huyen Sy Church was reduced to keep out the hot tropical sun as well as to create a more atmospheric worship area.

I continued walking (and it was extremely hot) to City Hall (aka The People's Committee Hall).  The Hall was built in 1902-08 and it really is a striking cream and yellow French colonial building – and when compared to the area around it – really stands out.  It’s also nicely floodlit at night.  There is no entry, but the statue of Uncle Ho in front is a very popular place for photos.  In front of the Hall is a pedestrian road which was nicely decorated for Chinese New Year’s – or it may always be like that, I don’t know - but I doubt it solely due to so many dragon designs (as u can see in the pics below) I saw as 2012 is the Year of the Dragon.  It’s really a nice area with a lot of pleasant hotels, bars, shops, and restaurants.