Around town

Monday, July 23, 2007

Today was a low-key day of hanging out at home and sleeping in!!! After lunch, I went shopping with Trang (“Chuung”). We went to a store to have clothes made. I picked out fabric and styles for 4 different items—an “alsii” (I need to check on spelling), a blouse, a reversible jacket, and a dress. It was fun choosing colors. They will be ready for me on Sunday.

For dinner, we met friend of Sandy’s at this very fun restaurant. There we food “stalls” all around the patio that had all types of “street food” from various regions in Vietnam. It was like eating at an open air “food court” except we were seated, had a menu, and were waited on. There is a phrase here: “Same, same, but different.” That was definitely the evening. We had lots of different dishes that were the same, but different. I had Vietnamese Spring Rolls, which I love in the US, but they (of course) were different here. We had lots of shrimp dishes, but my new favorite food was tonight. It is call “banh cuon nhan thit” and it’s a mushroom, pulled pork thing wrapped in spring roll wrapper with the equivalent of Durkee fried onions on the top. Sandy and I are going to hunt for it in the US. We also had a dessert with something like a custard around bananas which was delicious. Tomorrow, we’re off to the pottery village!