Nom Nom Nam

I told Alex I'd eventually title one of my posts this way. This week has been all about eating, so I think it's appropriate.

After my last post, there was a question about eating dog. When I first arrived, I was certain that I wanted to try it before I left. Then I heard about how the dogs are killed and treated in general, and I changed my mind. But, on Friday, John wanted to go and get some for lunch. I went along, not sure I would actually eat any, but wanting to see the event anyway. Anne, Julie, Polly, and Amy came along as well. When we got there we didn't really have a choice of things to order and dishes were just brought out to us, and there was way more food than John was going to be able to manage by himself, so I decided to have a taste (most of the others sampled as well). After the first dish my concerns were broken, so I sampled all of them. Overall, very chewy. There was one dish I liked which appeared to have been braised. But I don't think I'll go for dog meat again.

I rented a motorbike starting on Friday from the office manager of VPV. It's kind of crappy and has issues starting sometimes, but I'm getting its quirks worked out. I'm paying 1,000,000 dong for the 5 weeks I'm renting it, which comes out to just under $50. Pretty good deal. And because I'm both not going very far and motorbikes are fairly gas efficient, I don't have to spend too much on gas, either.

I had a few mishaps with it over the weekend that I won't go into detail about because I don't want to worry anyone, but I've got the hang of it now and I'm confident I can handle nearly any situation. But don't worry, I won't go looking for trouble. Bottom line - no one is hurt, and everything is resolved.

I spent the weekend in the city with several of my housemates, over half of whom left by the time the weekend was over. I hate goodbyes. Lavinia is off to the south and then Cambodia, but she'll be back in Hanoi for a bit before she leaves for good. Everyone else is gone for good from Hanoi... but I'm going to try to see Julie, also from San Francisco area, when I come back. And maybe John will make it up to the Northeast? But the others - Anne, Valentine, and Amy - I don't know if I'll get to see them again. It's very sad and I'm going to move on to happier thoughts now...

We spent the weekend mostly on a food tour of the city. On Friday night we went to a place that's got nearly every Vietnamese dish imaginable. I picked something random off of the menu that sounded good and was quite pleased with the result. It was some sort of egg cake, shredded pig skin (that ended up tasting a bit like noodles with finely grated parmesan cheese), and BBQ pork with rice. We went out to a few bars and clubs after, and had fun dancing and drinking and singing.

On Saturday morning I ate at Joma, ham and cheese quiche and a latte. Mmmm. It's nice to get a break from Vietnamese food. I love it, but not all the time. At home I eat such a variety of foods that the hardest thing for me here is not that it's different from my usual but that it's the same thing over and over again. I need a different flavor profile! After breakfast I went with John to the War (Army? I don't remember) museum. Some parts of it were interesting, some were silly ("this is the rope used for a bridge in... ") and some were just entirely in Vietnamese. I think it would have been interesting to be able to read the propaganda posters, but I only recognize a few words of Vietnamese here and there, which is not enough to decipher things.

For lunch, Julie, Lavinia, John, and I went and got bun bo, which uses the same noodles as bun cha but is prepared differently - less soupy. I think it's my favorite Vietnamese dish so far. We found Alice on the street after and then went for coffee - Alice was trying to get a dish she calls rice 'n' ice which I think has some sort of sticky sweet rice and ice cream together, but the place didn't actually have it. Most of us got ca phe sua da - iced coffee with condensed milk - while Alice got iced tea with condensed milk (tra sua da) and Lavinia got egg coffee (don't know the Vietnamese for this, but it's amaaaaazing. It's kind of like a latte, but instead of whipped milk, it incorporates whipped egg white. Like a cross between meringue and ca phe sua). I stopped and picked up a dress on the way home, which I bargained down from $30 to $12. I love it. I need to get more so that I don't just wear my one dress all the time.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant, and it was a bit different than the Indian food I'm used to at home. I have no idea what's more authentic, as I haven't been to India (yet?), but it was delicious nonetheless. Lavinia left us after that :( and then we went to a place called Hanoi Rock City, which is a bar/concert venue that caters to foreigners and puts on small shows. The acts that night were ok - the first group, called "Toothbrush" was rather uninspiring... they had some talent, but hadn't really practiced, so they were literally making it all up as they went along. The next group was Vietnamese, but had better melodies and at least had real songs. The final group was another English speaking group that covered several songs I recognized and maybe played some of their own? They were good, but the crowd didn't get into it enough for it to really be a great show.

A few of the people in our group left the venue earlier than the other two that I stayed with and went to get coffee. It was Anne's second time drinking coffee in her life, and she went kinda nuts (see Facebook). The antics lasted until about 3 am, and then we all finally went to sleep.

On Sunday, we again had Joma breakfast. I got a tuna melt which was HUGE and lasted me all the way through dinner. It was delicious, though, and has inspired us to make tuna melts at our house for breakfast during the week, because the standard breakfast of bread with maybe some peanut butter or jam and some fruit is so uninspiring.

Several people went to the spa, but I opted not to, not feeling either the need for spa treatments or a desire to be stared at naked by the Vietnamese ladies that run it (which I hear happens, according to the others who have gone) or a desire to spend money, even if it is quite cheap. So instead I (finally) picked up postcards, and wrote them... but they have not yet been sent. Soon. Very soon. It was just a generally lazy and relaxing day.

We went out for coffee when everyone got back from the spa and sat at a little cafe that had a seating area overlooking Hoan Kiem lake. We then went for smoothies that are served as chunks of fruit mixed with condensed milk and coconut milk, that you then mash together. Delicious. We went back to our room at the hostel for a bit while a few people got foot massages, and then we were off to dinner! We tried to find a place to get another bun dish, this time with spring rolls (bun nem?) but after failing for about 15 minutes we decided to go to a Thai place called Thai Express. It had more of a Western restaurant feel, but the food was delicious and I was not disappointed.

After dinner we went back to the hostel and then had to say goodbye to John... and again, it was very sad. We sat around at the hostel for the rest of the evening, drinking a bit from the bar downstairs, eating popcorn and some sort of onion flavored puffed rice type snack and singing songs from Ric's very girly list of music. A few of the girls and Ric put together their own versions of Vietnamese pajamas, and then after a photo shoot in the room, went downstairs to show the people who run the hostel (who know us quite well now, since we show up most weekends). We didn't stay up quite as late as the previous night, which is good, because I had work in the morning.

Monday morning I got up by myself and went to Joma again for breakfast, this time for a small chive and cheese scone. I picked up my motorbike from the lot, this time without incident, but they remembered me from the day before (again, details intentionally omitted). Everything went smoothly, though, until I realized that I'd managed to get myself lost again on the way to work. I still haven't quite properly worked out how to get out of the old quarter. Getting in I've got figured out, but getting out is trickier. I figure I can only get lost so many times, though, before I have the whole city figured out. And I've seen quite a bit of it at this point. And I also always carry a map at this point, so even if I am lost, I can figure out where I am and how to get back. Anyway, because I got lost, I didn't go back for lunch with everyone as I had planned but stayed at work and met up with everyone for dinner at a place called Little Hanoi that was back in the old quarter. I shared veggie spring rolls, a delicious garlic and eggplant dish, and fried garlic noodles with vegetables. I find the vegetarian dishes here in general to be much more appealing than the ones with meat, and so, while I won't eliminate entirely the option of eating meat, I think in general I'm just going to choose vegetarian when given the chance.

After dinner we went back to the hostel one last time and said our goodbyes to Amy, Julie, and Anne. So sad to see everyone go! We took lots of pictures together before they left, though. Sara, Ric, Alice, and I then had to make our way back to our house, and Ric and I both have motorbikes, so Alice and Sara hopped on as our passengers. It started raining as we were leaving, and what started out small quickly turned into downpour. Extreme downpour. We were all soaked head to toe by the time we got back home, so given that we were already drenched (and it never actually gets cold here even when it's raining at night), Ric and I went for a walk around the area by our house in the rain. We explored a side road off of our main road and then went around to the back side of the technical college that's nearby, splashing each other with muddy puddles as we went. We found a cafe/bar that looks nice that we want to visit sometime with a big group from the house.

I woke up with a bit of a cold the next morning, but I had already begun to feel it on Monday morning when I arrived at work, so I don't think it had anything to do with the rain. I stayed in, though, and rested, and I feel better today. Not 100% yet, but better.

One last food thing to report is that we made bruschetta for breakfast this morning to spice up the usual bread that is provided for us. For $1, I got enough tomato and spring onion for the bruschetta and tomorrow's tuna melts. Some things are so marvelously cheap here.

And now I should do some actual work.

Tam biet!