The week's highlight was a midweek trip downtown (yet another fruitless venture to the HSBC bank branch; I may never be able to retrieve the millions - in Vietnamese Dong, that is - I've made here!). While we were there, Chi thought of another dish we had yet to try, so we wondered around the corner.
(Yes, we ate here. At the blue table in front)
Today's dish was Bun Moc (which I apparently missed on the awning as we entered).
But it's not. Bun Moc has mushrooms! And pork! Minced Pork shaped like boxes and pie pieces! And neither of which you'd ever find in a respectable bowl of pho!
It was fine. Of course, I dutifully cleaned my bowl, not wanting to offend my culinary hostess. I left the pork shapes, however. And I'm afraid it won't make the "Craig's-coming-to-Hanoi-next-week-and-I'll-take-him-here-and-here-and-here" list.
Meanwhile, it was the birthday of Air Mekong's CEO, Les, my boss (and the guy who's rearend was often featured in pictures I posted of our first weekend drive a couple of weekends ago). There was nothing particularly Vietnamese about the celebration we had at work, except the small Vietnamese fortune Chi spent on this 3D cake, which was truly fantastic!
That night, the Board of Directors took Les and I out to dinner at a restaurant on Ho Truc Bach, a small lake adjoining West Lake. It was a delicious meal featuring shark fin soup (very tasty), several "Putinka" brand (?) vodka shots and a bocquet of flowers for Les which would have made any pageant queen proud!
In the meantime, Tropical Storm Haima threatened to wreak havoc at the airline yesterday. Instead of making landfall at Hanoi, however, it veered south where it did quite extensive damage and killed 14 people (including four by lightening strike).
What that meant for Hanoi, however, was tons of rain. This morning it was coming down in sheets the likes of which I've never seen. I'm not sure what volume of water's fallen in the last day or two, but the Sudanese Embassy next door serves as a pretty good barometer.
Apparently residents of the Sudanese Embassy here aren't big swimmers because their pool is empty. Or at least it was two days ago.
That's a regular size pool which I would guess is at least six feet deep. It's at least 2/3 full now. Anyone care for a swim?
Lastly, I finally ran out of a few sundry items, so had to run down to the FiviMart for some supplies. No problem with the bar soap, laundry soap or tooth paste. Not so for deodorant!
The FiviMart suffered no shortage of male hygiene products...lotions, colognes, soap...the whole works. As I was searching the aisle for what looked like deodorant, I kept grabbing like-sized containers, only to find out that they were bottles of lotion. Chi happened to be with me and pointed me instead to a vast selection of tiny dispensers that looked more like small chess pieces.
(Small floss container provided for scale reference!)
That's all they had. Plenty of selection, just all in teeny-tiny armpit sizes. And in spite of their appearnace, I don't think these were designed to be single-use! Its like putting on deodorant with a ChapStick dispenser. :o/
Assuming the weather clears, tomorrow we'll be taking another Sunday drive, this time to Cuc Phuong National Park, southwest of Hanoi and in the same neighborhood as the limestone karsts Les and I found on our first venture out. If all goes as planned, I'll have more pics to post early next week.
Those tables are pretty tiny too!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the pics!
Shark fin soup!!!!!
ReplyDeleteBun Moc is the first food you have mentioned that didn't quite cut the mustard! And that swimming pool looks quite green from that height, don't you think? I assume the photo was taken from your apartment window? And what the heck is all that white stuff thrown around under the little blue table where you ate???
ReplyDeleteInteresting blog once again :-)
I'm still chuckling over the title of this blog :-)
ReplyDelete