So Vietnam blocks Facebook. Fortunately I was able to find a way around that in about 2mins. It's not perfect and lacks some functionality so photos will have to wait til I return to the worLd of laptops and fully workin Internet, but it's all good. Also this next week will be mostly holiday blogging.
So yes, this week is a holiday for us so the only work I intend to do is a little reading. But really that should be interesting in itself. Usually reading of journals etc for me is a completely interrupted pasttime. It always gets shunted to the bottom of the importance pile - so holidays are a great opportunity to make up for that.
First stop will be the theoretical biology journals, then I'm going to hit the infectious diseases journals. Should be good.
Oh what have we done so far here in Saigon? Well we've been here about 24 hours now and mostly we've eaten and drunk! First stop, naturally, was pho. I had beef, Chaz had chicken and the boy had spaghetti bolognese (which oddly was very Italian tasting!). We also had some fresh pork rolls and I had some BGI beer which I didn't realize was mid strength - but it was fine. Cool and fresh as they say at cafe pp in Margaret St :P Dinner we had something different - Chaz had some noodles with beef (not sure of the name) and I had vermicelli with a beef soup which was unreal. It was both slices of beef and meatballs and the meatballs were like some magical cheetoh of cow. The soup, although simple, was probably the most amazing non hop based liquid that I've eve tasted. The people at lunch were so nice too - they gave little Dan a banana when we left and even let me take him out to the kitchen to wash his face and hands (he was very messy). Dinner was in a less touristy part of the area and nobody spoke English so the drinks we ended up with were not exactly what we wanted and it took quite a while to get some bottled water for D but we got there.
Breakfast was at the hotel which means it was pretty western. Even the fried rice reminded me a little of Ipswich ;-) but they did have some nice almond croissants. After that we went over to Cong Vien 23 Thang 9 which I think means park 23/9 which I guess refers to the district we are in. Lots of people ove there playing badminton and doing aerobics and tai chi and so forth. Very cool. I guess probably something left over from the stricter communist days. We walked up the length of the park eventually arriving at Ben Thanh market where we wandered a little showing little Dan all the fish and seafood being sold - really great. He loves this and always wants to see more "shish". I don't think he realizes what the women are doing to the frogs and eels and fish that are being gutted, but it's ok - that's how life is and I don't think he should be afraid to see that even if it isn't so normal where we live.
I just wish we had somewhere to cook because I'd love to buy some of the food and cook a heap of things. Maybe they should do that - hire out cooking stalls to whiteys looking to get their cook on! :P
On the way back we stopped at a stall on the street to get a drink. A bit pricey really at this particular place - 50000 dong only got us three drinks ($2.30) but they made up for it by moving a massive heavy umbrella to shield us from the sun. Very nice again. It was only then that I realized I was hitting the beer at 9am. Nice - gotta love holidays. We went back through the park again and I tired the little guy out by racing him up the path for about a kilometer. He's asleep now and his mum has gone for a massage. I think this will be a great week. Sorry for the lack of photos, but I haven't figured how to post from my phone - as soon as I do, they'll be here. No Facebook. :-(
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