Lazy Sunday

Ok, so today I'll introduce you to one of my favorite things about Vietnam.

Earlier this afternoon, I walked down the street to one of my favorite little places, a little Vietnamese tea house called "Ochao".

 
It's a very nice, very "Zen" cafe with a terrace that overlooks West Lake.  West Lake also happens to be the name of the district where I'm living.

There are times I'm kinda reminded of Minneapolis, especially at night.  In Minneapolis, though, the most critical components, say, um, color, are bright and vivid, even in the winter, I think.  Here, not so much.  The lake and sky, for example: blue in Minneapolis. In Hanoi, both are just various shades of gray.  Always.

And I guess there are a few other differences.  I'm not sure you'd see anything like this on Lake Calhoun:

Or this:

                                                 Or this:

Dinner!

So anyway, back to the Vietnamese Tea House.  They have a million kinds of tea, which are all totally lost on me (Sorry Buns!  Sorry Bill!).  They do, however serve up a commonly found beverage here called "ca phe sua da".  It's Vietnamese coffee, which is outstanding unto itself (and I'm not even a coffee drinker!), but it's served over ice with sweetened condensed milk!  YUM!!

So they bring you each serving which is brewed in its own little "pot".  Once it's done, you pour it over ice and add all the condensed milk you can handle, stir and voila!

Nirvana in a cup!

(Try not to notice the difference between the color of the brewing coffee in the first pic and the color of the end product above.  I'm sure it's just different lighting and has nothing to do with the volume of condensed milk I added)

I try to limit myself to one of these a day.  A couple of weeks ago, however, I managed to have five. 

Before noon. 

Yeah.  So I'll need to watch  that.

Tonight, a new friend from work, Ms Hang, has invited me out.  She won't tell me what the plan is: "we'll be spontaneous", she says!  But I think we're planning to head to the Old Quarter in downtown Hanoi for the Night Market.  She said to plan on walking, so that'd fit, since it's huge. 

Anyway, I'll report on that in my next post.  Wish me luck!