Dad worked every day so Jesi and I were pretty much left to our own devices during the day time. We would get up early and eat breakfast with Dad before getting ready to head out for the day. We saw some pretty cool stuff while we were out.
Shopping
We, of course, love shopping so Ben Tan market was a big hit.
There was TONS of stuff there! The only thing we didn't like was how grabby some of the people were. I literally had people grabbing my arms trying to pull me in to look at their stuff. That was a little freaky. You can't really browse the shops without being "attacked by service" as I like to say. I understand that they really want you to buy stuff, but I don't really respond to people following me around telling me about how great every little item is that my eyes fall on.
Of course, I still BOUGHT stuff. DUH! I bought a pair of really cute wooden wedges that the lady put together right there for me. Cool!
They had fruit galore and among them was the infamous durian fruit. Never heard of durian? Well! Let me enlighten you. IT STINKS. Literally, stinks. Like, open sewer kind of stink. I don't get it. From what I understand, they are very sweet and delicious. Yum! Unfortunately, you have to get past the smell of porta potty to enjoy them. They were nearing the end of durian season so they didn't smell as bad as they might have, but every once in a while you would get a whiff. Whew!!
I love the row upon row of random treats in this shot. I have no idea how they are supposed to get to any of those things on the shelves because those bags are right against it!
Jesi was OBSESSED with these nasty looking things. She really wanted one. Luckily, it probably wouldn't make it through customs so we didn't have to deal with a freaky scorpion cobra ginseng bottle hanging around the hotel giving me nightmares. *shudder*
I saw this shirt and thought of my friend Mindy who designs websites so she knows a lot about design and stuff. I thought this was funny because, really? Write Helvetica on a shirt and it's not even Helvetica? I laughed. Then I cried a little because I could tell that it wasn't in Helvetica... I'm such a nerd.
Somehow, in spite of the 90 degree weather with, like, 80% humidity we managed to look totally adorable. Go us. Also, a day did not pass where I was told that I was white. Why yes. I am. Apparently Vietnamese really like white skin because people were constantly pointing it out. Jesi got all burnt so she didn't get as many white comments.
Fun Foods
We ate out one night at a traditional Vietnamese restaurant with Dad's team from work. It was really neat seeing all the people that Dad works with when he is in Vietnam. They were a really fun group of people. :)
We had some good food when we were there. First the waiter set out these peppers. Dad decided to try and impress his team by eating one. Jesi followed suit. Haha! Suckers! Dad totally cried. Jesi remained strong and just got really red.
We had these wrap... things that had rice and shrimp in them. The leaves are what they use to make horseradish with. It had a little bite to them. I lost control of mine about half-way through and it fell apart. Just as well... I really don't like shrimp. :/
This one was cool. It was morning glory greens! Like, the FLOWERS! It was super yummy. Tasted a bit like a mix between collard greens and spinach. Dad was disappointed that there weren't any flowers in it because he said they are really tasty.
Also, I ate snails. It was actually snail ground up and mixed with pork. It tasted good but... the snail parts were chewy.
Here's us all in front of the restaurant. Good times. :)
We also had dinner another night with some of Dad's other friends from work. We went to a pho restaurant. I had never had pho before so I was all excited to try it because Jesi and Dad always talk about how tasty it is.
It was super yummy! Occasionally I would get a big bite of cilantro which was gross, but overall YUM! For some reason, though, I COULD NOT finish my bowl! It was like the never ending bowl of pho!! I was dying! I finally gave up and it looked barely half gone. *cry* It really WAS delicious!
As we were reading the menu, we discovered something: there is the EXACT SAME RESTAURANT in Beaverton! Looking at the address, we realized that this was the Vietnamese restaurant that I used to work next to when I worked at the beauty supply store. Holy crap!! What a small world. By the way, their garbage really smelled bad, just so you know.
That same night, we saw the coolest little stand. They had dried squid hanging at the top and then bowls of water with various clams and snails in them just waiting for you to ask for them to be cooked up for a late night snack. Cool!
Spa
One day we went to the spa which was awesome. We got manicures and pedicures with bright blue nail polish. Fancy!
We also got hour longback, shoulder, neck, and head massages. I had never before had a real massage before. It was soooo good!! They even used hot rocks which sounds really dumb but feels reeeeeaaally good. And the whole thing (mani-pedis and hour long massages) cost less than $50 each! It was great.
Opera House
Not much of a story here. Just a pretty building. We had gone to the mall that day and Jesi wanted to walk around outside for a while to see what there was. So we walked a little and saw this really beautiful opera house.
As we were taking pictures, the couple in the bottom right of this picture spotted us and asked us to take their picture.
Then they took our picture! How nice. :)
The City
Going around town, we got some pretty nice shots of Ho Chi Minh. It is a very busy city!
Here is what we would see of the city from our hotel window.
A random shot while we were walking around.
THE MOTORCYCLES. There are more motorcycles than cars there. Seriously, they were EVERYWHERE. We were in the middle of the intersection here and these guys were just trying to go around us any way they could!
We were SURROUNDED!
I like this one. You can really see how many motorcycles and scooters there really are. They go all the way back, in between all the cars, knee to knee, wheel to wheel. So many!!
Random Pictures
Here are just a few random pictures from our trip that I really like.
On our first night in town we ate at a Thai restaurant. While there we saw this picture and heck if it doesn't look like my friend Anna's long lost sister! I think she's the princess of Norway or something...
We are such dorks...
Jesi's nick name is Chicky and she bought TONS of chicky stuff on her trip. These are the two from Vietnam.
Well, that's it for now. I have a lot more to show you from Vietnam including our trip to the War Remnants Museum and Na Trang. Stay tuned til next time! :)
Please don't wait too long until next time. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd Jen, *obviously* Helvetica is a sans-serif font, so anyone could know it wasn't Helvetica, right?... maybe I should start crying, too.