Today was cool

The weather was so cool today. It was still hot, but cloudy and occasionally I felt the cool wind blowing. It was a pleasant day even thou my body is still sticky yicky. Yikes.
This morning I went out for breakfast again with Hang, Ducky and Ken, just like yesterday, and we have plan to go out for breakfast again tomorrow. Haha. There's no homemade breakfast here, unless you cook instant noodles. It's always fun to eat out and everybody eats out. Well.. I have to eat lunch and dinner at home thou, that kinda sucks. We almost went to sushi for dinner today but Hang's mom was being moody, so we had to postpone it and my mom didn't make dinner for me.
This morning Hang mentioned that we should take dancing classes, and by noon my mom called: "5pm at Unesco there is a dance class you guys should come". So we decided to give it a try and we had fun. We learnt Salsa and Tango today.
It's not that fun at home you know. Curfew and such. I hate curfew. I hate having to ask to go out and all that. I'm so looking forward to HoiAn resort, we're planning on going sometimes in June hopefully, away from home. All we do is go somewhere and eat. Eat and eat all the time. After breakfast would be coffee or dessert for breakfast, i would love to go eat more but Hang and Ducky have to stop me. We're planning on buying membership at Horison hotel to go to the gym, swimming pool, massage and sauna and tennis, because we can't eat all the time and not exercising like that. Dont know how much it would cost but who cares, daddy is paying anyway haha. We want to go on a "jumping the bus" tour around the country too... but im afraid my mom won't let me go because it's like backpacking. Gosh!

Oh by the way, I just bought a new phone. Motorola Z3. Yeah for some reason I always use Motorola, have never had anything else. Awesome huh? And im not nuts. My phone in the US is locked and Verizon's phone doesn't have a place to put sim card, so i can't use it anyway. So it's a perfect reason for a new phone huh?

Here comes summer, and I'm home

Guess what, my flight from Chicago was delayed again, and I had to stay over night in Japan again, just like last Christmas. No more American Airline, next time i'm flying Korean Air, they're never late, and their food is just so awesome. (Bibimbop, my fav korean food of all time).
So i'm home finally, one day later than schedule. As soon as I stepped out of the plane, the hot and humid air almost suffocated me. It is so hot, all the time, hot and humid, my body is sticky all day long even right after shower. Just too hot to handle.
I've been really tired, probably from the heat. I can't get rid of the headache, Advil could not help at all, and when I have headache I just dont want to do anything. Hope fully i will be better tomorrow.

Fresh Springroll doesn't seem to be a traditional dish, or maybe it's not so popular in Hanoi, that I often found Fresh Springroll in the menu of restaurants, even a fancy one, rather than in the market or on the pavement.
One said, Fresh Springroll is a everyday snack in Ho Chi Minh city that you can find it everywhere, in a small market, in a small street vendor.
It is wrapped by the rice wrapper, a little more chewy than the one we often use for regular springroll. Inside is shrimp (carefully placed so that you can see the red shrimp through the wrap), pork, vegetable. The thing that looks like spring onion is hẹ, sticking out of the roll.
The art of eating Fresh Springroll is in the dipping sauce. In restaurants in Hanoi, they use Tương bần (peanut sauce), with smashed peanut, and chilly is added but not mixed. I've never tried this dish in Ho chi Minh city, so I don't know what sauce they use. Maybe some chilly sauce with peanuts on top?
Fresh Springroll is also a famous appetizer in every Vietnamese restaurants in the US. And it is also one of my most favourite snack.
There is another version of Fresh Springroll that we often make at home. There is pork, fried egg, vegetable, shrimp and rice noodle inside, and wrapped by the rice wrapper, dip in fish sauce mixed with a little bit of garlic, vinegar and sugar. Maybe this is the Hanoian version of Fresh Springroll.

Snails..hmm yeah snails

This snail dish is one of the most favourite snack of all time, apply to everyone in Vietnam. It is just a normal, cheap dish but somehow I find it really sophisticated in the way they cook the snail and mix the sauce.
There are so many kind of snail, big ones, small ones, twisting ones... And you can find snail vendor everywhere. Fancy restaurants cook it the fancy way, wrap in ginger leaves, steam with herbs. But the strong smell of herbs can not defeat the smell the snail, a special tasteless kind of smell. However, most people enjoy eating Ốc luộc on the street, sitting on the pavement one summer evening, with friends, family, just simple like that, as simple as the dish itself.
The art is in the cleaning process. The snails need to be clean, soak in rice water (some people put chilly in the water), then cold water, then wash as if you're washing pebbles. Snails are cooked with lime leaves or graphfruit leaves with a right amount of water.
The sauce is also the art of Ốc luộc. Only a very few places can mix the sauce well. It should be the expensive fish sauce, add a little bit of Ajinomoto, white vinegar, water, sugar, a lot of ginger and little bit of lime leaves. Sometimes, according to taste, people add chilly paste, and squeeze a kum-quat in. The art of the dish is here, in the sauce.

More pictures part 2

Yeah i have too many pictures to show.

Yes those are not chinese characters. Actually I don't know. Like the Japanese have chinese characters but with slightly different meanings, we have those too. We have Nom characters, because we didn't want to be like the chinese and did not want to use the chinese characters. Ugh hate them. Anyway, I think those are Nom characters.


Highland cafe looking out to Hoan Kiem lake. Aw miss you guys soo much.

I'm going home this summer. Can't wait. I'm extremely home sick, i'm missing Hanoi so much. And Ducky, she ditched me, urgh! First she wanted to go to Europe, i was all excited. Then she changed her mind, let's go to Bangkok. Fine. And now she's staying here for the summer. What the heck. Make up your mind. She can't make up her mind.

More pictures part 1

More pictures more pictures. Today is actually March, I was too lazy to post anything. But... well.. just sitting here being lazy cuz spring break is boring



The moment of truth... or.. just a moment of craziness. That's vietnamese vodka, the strongest thing ever. I can't even taste it. And if you're a vietnamese guy who goes to school in the US, and try to compete in drinking with a vietnamese guy who stays in the country, he will win for sure. They dont do beer, they drink vietnamese vodka, and that thing is killer.


My farewell party at Hang's. Yeah they were celebrating because I would be gone the next day, back to the states. We had fun. We had good food (again, FOOODD). We had beer and wine and vodka.


At Van Mieu. The first university of the country. It looks like a temple to me and it is a temple right now. That was my first time going there even thou I've lived in hanoi my whole life. Ehe. We went there to pray for good luck in schools (im not religious, just a thing to do).


The giant drum at Van Mieu. Ducky was trying to make some sound but she couldn't. Ehe she's too small.


At one of the gate. There are multiple gates in Van Mieu. In the past, students often study outdoor, they lined up and have class in the court yard, that's all I know. Im not very good at history. But the color, the red color of columns is so beautiful.

Dec 24: FOOOODDDD!!!

One word: Food.
All I did was eat and eat and eat. We went to eat breakfast, then went to Highland, then to lunch, then to Nem chua ran, then dinner, then... who knows. Usually I would just stay at home after dinner, rub my stomach and fall asleep because I ate too much.
But that's the whole point of coming home: To eat
Heavenly home. The heaven of food. As long as I get to eat I would be happy. Haha.

Here are some pictures. I didn't bring my camera around with me much, so... but promise to bring it from now on so I can update every single moment of happiness haha


At "Quan An Ngon", aka Delicious restaurant, at Phan Boi Chau street. 3 people and a pig's meal. When we finished orderding, and when the waiter repeat our order, we were like "Opps! We are pigs". Yeah, 1 chicken noodles, 1 chicken noodles with bamboo shoot (it's not like american chicken noodles, absolutely different), 1 green bean sweet rice, 1 beef salad, 1 Hue cake, 1 pudding.... bleh can't say the english name for all of those food but... We ate them all, super girls.



Christmas night. We gathered at Lakeside cafe. No one was drunk (maybe except for Giang), no one was crying haha. It's a good idea to stay inside because it's extremely crowded everywhere. Toilet pub is packed you can't even open the door.


Just wandering around (actually we were going to lunch/breakfast/snack, whatever)


The motobike, or moto scooter, whatever. Love them.

Today is Monday

Today is Monday and I'm supposed to go to the Citibank to pay $100 and get an appointment for visa interview.
Why do I need a visa to enter the US? Because I don't have one. And my mom freaks out because a lot of people had been rejected, and it's always very difficult to get a visa to the US for Vietnamese people. I don't know why, it's just not as easy as other countries, it might be the most difficult visa to get. But in my opinion, and in their explaination too, they wouldn't reject as long as everything is crystal clear. And as long as you don't intend to stay and apply for a green card. Well, I have nothing to fear, I don't plan to get a green card at all, then why should I be worry?
And it often takes a while to schedule for an interview, after I paid the money this morning, they gave me an appointment for the 27th. No way, that's too late. My friend told me they gave him an interview for the next morning, and I was hoping the next morning too. I'm leaving on the 31 so what if they reject i will have to reschedule and it would be very late to do everything all over again. Fortunately, mom got some Emergency interview request form and this afternoon they approved the request and I have the interview in the morning. Need a lot of luck for that.

Day 4: Just a relaxing Sunday

Well, actually i'm not very relax right now. I'm very full from eating too much, my stomach hurts.
Let's see. I didn't sleep that well last night even thou i was very sleepy. I decided to get up at 5am and read Memoir of a geisha and went online and took an unpleasant shower. Mom really needs to buy a new shower head or fix the water pressure.
Around 9 my best friend came and we went out to eat breakfast at the nearly market. It was super good but expensive. Dad laughed at me later when I told him i spent 28000 dong (Vietnamese money) for breakfast, he said "That's not even $2 why are you complaining". Well, yeah I was paying for 3 people so... But back in the days (haha i sound so old), one bowl of noodles was like 2000 dong, and later on it was 5000. Now, after 2 years, the price double. Basically the price for every single thing doubled up, except for the cab. (FYI the currency exchange rate is approximately 15000 dong = $1)
And then I ate lunch at 12. It was a very big lunch, with 2 boiled chickens (small thou) and my mom's squid cake and more Pho. After that I took a nap and it was the best nap ever, well yeah because it was night time in the US. Mom woke me up at 5 cuz Ducky came, and I had a hard time getting up, just like when I had to get up early to go to class. Went downstairs, my grandparents were back from the trip to my grandpa's birth place, and bought a lot of corn.
They sell corn along the highway, new cut corn, for a very cheap price. They usually cut it right there cuz the corn fields run along the highway. So everytime we go somewhere outside of Hanoi and see people selling corn, we always stop to buy some, i mean a lot.
So I went downstairs and people were eating corn. Mom gave me a custard apple (see picture) to eat, and i was still full from lunch, but I ate it anyway. Then I ate a corn and 3 hours later I was at my other grandparents' house to have dinner. So... 2 days and 3 Pho meal, awesome. In 2 weeks, I will gain like 10 pounds with being fed like this. People just keep feeding me and feeding me and I can't say no. ( you are too skinny, she looks like a stick, have you been eating at all, you never eat anything, gosh that's not enough you need to eat more, eat more, eat more, eat this, and this too, eat more...) Man i'm going nuts of being acused that I don't eat. My body can not get fat no matter how much i eat, ok? No one wants to understand that :(

Day 3: Finally home!!!

Day 3 morning, my friend woke me up by calling my room. I picked up the phone and could not understand anything. I had no idea who that was on the phone and what he was saying. For some reason I thought Pj was calling until when I get into the shower and made up my mind.
"er, who, what?"
"hmm.... " he was confused too "is that Ming?"
"yeah."
"Then get the fuck up."
"Ok.(*&#$(*@#"
I can't remember now what I said, something with the F word.
Still drunk. I took the shower and blew dry my hair and went down for breakfast, still drunk. I was walking funny and tried my best not to tip over or bump into anyone or spill the food. After breakfast I was awake and felt much better, but the hang over kept me from enjoying the food thou.
So... now I'm home, feeling so good. It's always good to be home. Mom forced me to go to sleep, but no, i'm not that tired, just still hung over. The weather is so nice, so cool, not cold at all. Dad gave my whole bunch of money, guess mom won't give me any cuz Dad gave to me in front of my mom. Gosh. I will spend all that money in less than a week for sure.
---------------

Vietnam is still the same. The grumpy faces at the immigration box, the crowded street with people turning right in front of your car without any signal. I see a lot of cars :p yeah, people start buying cars a lot for personal purposes, especially that tiny tiny car that I don't know what it's called. Dad bought a big Ford and I freaked out when I saw my little brother (5 years old) in the front seat without seat belt.
Hanoi hasn't changed much, or maybe because I haven't been around at all. For 2 days I just stayed at home and went visit my other grandparents. For 2 days I've been eating like 4 meals a day, ate a lot and sleep after lunch and could not sleep at night. Oh well, jetlag.
The weather is so nice, not too cold but everyone would make me wear a lot of clothes and keep warning me about the cold every five minutes or so. Hello, i'm taking the cab every where, so stop saying that the wind is very strong.
Anyway, cab is very cheap. Cheaper than my breakfast this morning. So i guess i will be taking the cab to go everywhere.