What do Munich & Nha Trang have in common?

We both ran away there last month. Well, not quite, Johnny went to Munich for Octoberfest and ate sausages, drank beer and bought lederhosen (sort of).

 Not to be outdone (who am I kidding, of course I am), and not wanting to be stuck at home alone, I jetted to Nha Trang a beach town not too far south of Hanoi. Think lots of seafood, mudbaths and weird Vietnamese tourist attractions.

As if that wasn't enough after we got back we both went to...Japan. So much amazingness I don't know where to start. Another post to come soon!

Autumn Moon Festival Hanoi Style

The most insane thing to do on any type of Vietnamese public holiday is to go into the old quarter- think massive pushy crowds and the inability to move anywhere. Last weekend was the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (something to do with a magic pill and a rabbit- who knows) and that's exactly what Chryssie and I did. 

Last time we ventured into the old quarter was on national day and we rode our bicycles in - that was hilarious in that it could only be described as "defensive riding". This time we walked in and it wasn't too bad. The moon festival called for lots of wearing stuff on heads (think Minnie ears and giant bows) and the buying of lots of cheap colourful "stuff". I even ended up buying a pink cardigan, red heart headband and exploding confetti tubes (that in itself is another post).

jjjjj

Sunset golf

Sorry to everyone who's visited before but we've just discovered the best way to spend sunset...(thanks to Stu for visiting and inspiring us to do something different!).

Tam Dao adventures

A couple of weekends ago we went to the Animal Asia Bear Rescue Centre in Tam Dao.  I'm not a person who's particularly excited about bears but I am one who gets excited about day trips. It took a couple of hours from Hanoi and surprisingly the roads out there are really, really good (I still flashback to the KOTO Ba Vi bike ride and the bum pain from the dirt roads).

Despite trying very hard to track down any sort of address online I couldn't find anything specific so I figured (hoped) that we would just "find it". Funnily enough, as we were driving up the mountain it was the first thing we came across. Phew!

The bears were awesome and so so cute. There were so many of them too! Some looked like little lions and some looked very hungover. My favourite of course was pensive tunnel bear. Biiiig night.

Afterwards we went up to Tam Dao and visited the Mela Hotel and the pool. Many of the things online mention this is an awesome place to swim. It isn't. Jade murky green. You do not want to swim in this pool/pond. On the upside it's an awesome place to sit and have a drink.

From here we walked behind the hotel down to what I though was the Silver Waterfall. Turns out there's the Silver Waterfall and Silver Fall. This was the less impressive one (I thought it didn't look as rad as the photos). It was pretty steep going down and painful walking back up. It partly explains why our driver laughed and said 'no' when we asked if he wanted to come down.

What you can't tell from the photos is that is smelled and there was rubbish and suspicious bubbles in the water. But don't we look happy?

We tried to do more touristy things after but after 1 temple fail (they do look all the same after a while after all) we headed back to Hanoi. Hungry. Very hungry. Just when we (me) thought we'd die of starvation I made us stop for corn by the roadside.

Sometimes you see 10 roadside shops selling the exact same thing and you wonder how they all compete. The secret? Inceptioning you. For example, 'hey look it's a corn stall', 'hey look it's another corn stall', 'hey look it's another corn stall', 'hmm I like corn', 'hey look it's another corn stall', 'maybe we should have some corn', 'that's it we're stopping at the next corn stall' etc.... That's how.

Anyhoo, as exciting as it was eating fresh corn on the roadside next to a cornfield is, the corn as actually pretty crap. It tasted like an old waterlogged rag. Ew.

To celebrate the most shoes Johnny has ever owned...

We took this photo.

He then proceeded to throw 5 pairs out.

This is what happens on Saturday nights kids.

A post on buying groceries

One of the things you'll hear expats in Hanoi commonly whinge about is that you can't just go to a supermarket and buy everything you need in one place. And it's true. For example, you have to go to Oasis for meat, Western Canned Food (BS Mart)- yes, BS Mart, for baking supplies, L's Place at Vincom for home stuff and Yuki's for fruit and vegetables etc. It sometimes even goes as far as having to go to specific place for coffee or Vegemite. Who would have thought that you'd be so grateful to a corporation like Woolworths or Coles.

I was thinking about this the other morning, cursing just how much it sucks and how it doesn't make any sense at all. However I started doing something recently, something I had long put off because I thought as a 'housewife' I should go to places. I've started...ordering delivery.

Yep, on the same day in which I was cursing not having a proper supermarket (a pretty done up one like the one in Broadway specifically) I had 3 loaves of bread delivered in 20 minutes, meat delivered on ice and three bags of fruit and vegetables that afternoon.

Should I still be able to whinge? Yes, of course. Maybe just a little bit less though.

On another note, something that popped into mind yesterday about missing supermarkets is that I can't wait to shop for food without fear of....well anything. How often do you buy food and think, even if it looks great, hmmm this food might be bad for me? Probably as much as if you wonder if you're a bad person. Here, it's every. single. time. I don't think I'm much of a paranoid person but Vietnam just hasn't caught on to the chemicals + food=bad equation yet. Or proper food storage. For example, the freezers in the supermarket across the street are never quite cold enough, so none of the food in it is properly frozen. And 99% is seafood. *shudder*

But what can you do? I'm just hoping for the best.

P.s. If anyone's ever wondered (which I'm sure you do at night) yes some things are cheaper here but things like tubs of butter, brown sugar and flour are $5 a pop! I miss 99 cent home brand items.

P.P.S. Most things come on little foam trays and too much packaging. They haven't caught on to that either (in a non-cynical, sarcastic way).

P.P.P.S. This Vietnamese new story is the BEST- actresses and beauty contestants pimping out girls.  Love a celebrity sex scandal in any country.

5 Things I found out in Hong Kong

ONE. I can't speak Chinese. Obvious I know, huh? However, this certainly became clearer surrounded by Cantonese and understanding lots, but not actually being able to put what I needed to say together properly. Life fail.

TWO. To my surprise there are Mandarin speaking people everywhere. This includes "has no idea" woman who replaced "onto it guy" calling out numbers at yum cha. You can't call out numbers only in Mandarin. Not fair.

THREE. There are heaps and heaps of people. Like, HEAPS. I certainly do not remember this from my trip there years ago. We were in Mong Kok and were shocked to be swept up in a tidal wave crowd of people. We even had to ask if it was "normal".

FOUR. I am not as weird as I thought- being in my 20's and still holding on to a passionate love of Hello Kitty and all things cute, you often get certain 'wow that's a bit funny/weird' vibes from people. Almost everyone has laughed at my Hello Kitty phone case *sad face*. Going to Hong Kong has confirmed my suspicion that Asians have an inbuilt gene to love cute stuff. It was everywhere- from an air hostess with bear earrings to old people with Mickey Mouse t-shirts to bank promotions. And I freakin loved it.

FIVE. It's really easy to get around. And the city isn't scary. The train is great and is almost on par with Bangkok's BTS. Their Airport Express puts Sydney to shammmme. I'm not even going to bother comparing Vietnam.

Chicken with no head please

Every so often I ask my maid to help me buy groceries and things from the market (even after all this time it's still daunting). This time I asked her to asked her to buy a whole chicken. I spelled it out in vietnamese and did a google image search and pointed to a chicken. She pointed to the rooster. I pointed to the chicken.

In this process as best I could I mimiced without the head. She totally got it. Of course, westerner, no head.

The next day she arrived with bags of things and took me through them. At the very end she said "chicken!". "Chicken!" I exclaimed in my own head. She pointed to the bag acted out a head being cut off before opening it up and pulling out...the chicken's head.

She looked at me again and mimiced the head being cut off.

That's what I wanted right?

*On a side note, it wasn't actually it was a rooster. Do not ever buy/eat rooster. Even after I steamed it, removing the meat off the bones was an Olympic event.

Drunk baby

We had dinner with the Dines last night and found out what happens when a ice-cream loving baby eats slightly alcoholic ice-cream.

This:

And now a slightly less "...now let me tell YOU something" shot:

As you can tell, Maya has lost alot of weight since last time.