Fun-filled friday

What a day. 

It was one of those days where you have so much fun and do so many things that when you get home, you are too tired to do anything else. 

Yes, that is an excuse for not blogging yesterday, but I am going with it. 

This weekend is the big Mission Halloween party. Scoff as you might, but this is a BIG deal. Our office team, a few volunteers and a few guys from the Facilities maintenance crew spent all morning and afternoon setting up the haunted house alone. It's gonna be good, really good. <Fingers crossed> *sidenote* I cross my fingers in the privacy of my home because that is considered a lewd gesture in Vietnam. 

In the middle of the day, we took a break to attend an "Americans in Ha Noi" ladies luncheon. 

It was exactly what you are imagining. I think this was the first time that I truly felt like a diplomat's wife. I made the acquaintance of several lovely ladies who live in Ha Noi, some are in the diplomatic community and some outside. One thing everyone had in common: they were all incredibly nice. 

We had a six course lunch at Au Lac House. I felt super fancy, and underdressed:

Seafood spring rolls

Banana flower salad

Grilled eggplant with peanuts

Stir fried rice with pork and vegetables

Grilled beef in a black pepper sauce

Baked salmon with julienned vegetables

We also had a fruit plate for dessert and it was so delicious, everything is so fresh. We rushed back and decorated the Haunted house and made a game plan for Sunday. Tropical storm Son Tinh was scheduled to make a wrench in our party, but this morning, it has all changed to hit on Monday instead. Thank You Universe!

After work, me and my super team of volunteers headed to Happy hour at the Marine house. I felt like I was at a very clean frat house, with more respectful gentelmen. The Marines are a great group of guys who work really hard to serve our Mission, I respect them a lot, and they are a lot of fun. 

We cut the happy hour short to have dinner with my "Language Class Family." The two men that I took language class in DC have been living here just a few weeks longer than me, but we are all so busy that this was the first time we could come together. 

We feasted like kings--once again, this is a theme I am finding--and shared several laughs and glasses of wine. It was sooo good to see them both, and to spend time with J's family. His two boys are quite entertaining, and his wife is lovely.

"Morning glory" aka Vietnamese water spinach and sesame seeds

Blurry tofu salad, spicy and delicious!

Believe it or not, this is not sushi. It was some kind of sea bass concoction rolled in seaweed. It was warm and delicious!

 Shrimp curry soup--the star of the show!

Dessert was another incredible fruit plate, which I opted not to photo. I cannot believe we crammed all that in, and also that the Hubs and the other J had the energy to go out afterwards. 

I sure like waking up to find random pictures on my camera.....

I'd share them, but I might disappear if I did....

Off to plant street today! Have a great day out there everyone!

Christmas in October!

Today was a good day. We were reunited with our HHE(Household Effects) shipment which has been in storage for the last year! It felt a bit like Christmas, except the boxes were much heavier, dirtier and harder to open.

Our bosses were incredibly understanding and gave us the day off from work to unpack, and I am so glad they did!

When we packed out of Denver a year ago, it was erratic and a bit unorganized. Unlike my smarter friends, we did not inventory everything when we shipped it. (We have since learned our lesson and inventoried everything in DC this time--those items we will not see until December, and it will REALLY be Christmas then!) Since we had no real idea as to WHAT was in storage(except for the choice items we were missing), I was a bit surprised when 20+ boxes showed up and it looked like....well, not much.

24 boxes of our life in Denver! Before......

However, when we finally unpacked, it seemed quite insane that everything fit into 24 boxes!

After! Hubs was tempted to jump into the pile, but we decided against it.

VICTORY PICK UP!

We called it a Victory Pick/Up and apparently, so did our movers. We were pleasantly surprised that not a thing was scratched, dented or broken. However, throughout the course of the day we managed to break: one shot glass, one red wine glass and a pair of the Hubs' favorite flip flops. 

Around lunchtime we decided to get out of the house and treat ourselves to an Indian restaurant that was recommended to us as "The Best in town"; Namaste I, of course, love the name.

We walked in and I felt pretty underdressed. 

However, in the Old Quarter, it is full of tourists so almost anything goes. 

Everything there was adorable:

Adorable table setting

Adorable sauce presentation

Adorable cup of soup. 

This was lentil soup, it was much prettier than it tasted.

Palaak Paneer, Naan, and the Pre-set Lunch Menu presentation

I ordered Palaak Paneer, and the hubs had the lunch pre-set menu; chicken curry, chick peas, and other goodness. We also ordered the cheese naan and the garlic naan. We definitely overstuffed ourselves after a long morning unpacking, but the food was so good we could not resist!

We headed home and I am really proud of us for how much we got done today. We cleaned and dried every piece of kitchenware we own and did a few loads of laundry. Believe it or not, it was exactly as exciting as it sounds: not much, but it feels great to have a stocked kitchen again. 

After a huge lunch, we opted for a light dinner, so I made Caprese salad:

YUM!

It was pretty delicious and absolutely perfect after a long day of unpacking, cleaning and organizing. 

I am sure we will both sleep very well tonight. 

BOON BOH NAYAMM BOH!

Once upon a time, in language training, I came across this video: Sh*t expats in Ha Noi say.

Ever since then, I have been itching to try the "Boon boh nayam boh"...mostly because I wanted to master being able to say it, well, tonight, was the NIGHT!

Here it is: Bun Bo Nam Bo

Vermicelli, sprouts, carrots, Vietnamese basil, fish sauce, lettuce, jicama, cucumber, peanuts, fried onions....and other delicious unrecognizable things!

I am really not sure why Pho is the dish that Vietnam is known for. This dish was a Vietnamese flavor explosion in your mouth. We will definitely be back. A couple of good friends from DC took us here tonight to introduce us to it, it was really amazing. 

You may be curious: do these two do anything except go out?! Yes, we do. As many of you know, we love to cook, but we haven't had the time to go to the market. In Vietnam, there are no Super Targets or Safeways, if you want to do your grocery shopping, you go to several stores. This is one of the main reasons why we hired Mrs. H, our housekeeper/chef/errand lady. She started today. We gave her a list of 10 items and she went to two stores to purchase everything. One of the reasons why we hired her is because she said she will teach us how to cook Vietnamese food, we cannot wait! 

We hope to post those pictures soon.

On another note, I had a cultural awakening today. I asked Mrs. H to buy salsa while she was out, since I had seen it at the store.....well, I came home to this:

She made me salsa, I think I am in love with this woman!

Then I got to thinking, is this REALLY so odd? Then I remembered the episode of MadMen where Betty Draper gets really upset about eating frozen food. I wonder whatever happened to us. Our culture, when did we switch from fresh food to frozen/processed food? There has got to be an anthropology study somewhere out there. Maybe we all just got too busy. Regardless, I am grateful to live in a space where we can afford help to enable me to make better choices. 

Once again, tonight I got to bed well fed and happy; Life is good.

Time phlies when you're having pho-n.....

Vietnam is known for a lot of dishes. However, one of the most famous, which you have probably heard of, comes from our new territory: the North:

PHO

(fuhhhhh)

Pho Ga

We consumed a lot of Pho in DC, mostly because it's delicious. Tonight we had our first taste of Pho Ga(Chicken Noodle Soup) in Vietnam. We reunited with some friends from DC whose nanny prepared this for us tonight. It was delicious. I am continually blown away by the fresh herbs and the taste here!

We had a lovely dinner. It was one of those nights where you forget where time has gone. 

Dessert was pomelo slices--think grapefruit meets orange, so yummy. We may or may not have also had haagen daaz bars since their kids had shots today, so we benefitted from their bravery as well :)

I LOVE lilies. I wish there was smell-o-vision on the blog so you could experience this scent! It was lovely. I am hoping that our housekeeper<who starts tomorrow> can find me the same ones!

I am always excited for a time to use puns, tonight was one:

Time phlies when you're having pho-n....and that it did!

Dinner AND a show!

Happy Monday!

This week started off splendidly, I finally got to meet my boss and we got word that the shipment of our goods from Denver(which we haven't seen in almost a year) will be in our possession by the weekend. Life is good.

We decided to be adventurous and try a place all on our own, it was recommended by a friend.

My $3 dinner; brown rice noodles with prawns, mushrooms and crab with a side of iced beer.

It was decent. The most exciting--if you can call it that--part of the meal, is when Hubs looked over at me and said "DON'T MOVE!" I, of course, moved. He informed me that I missed a giant rat running up the side of the pipe behind me. I moved seats, and continued to drink my beer. Then we heard a strange cackling from above us and looked up to see a pack of yellow geckos eyeing us. We decided it was time to leave. It was an exciting meal, nonetheless, and I cannot remember a time that I ever experienced dinner and a wildlife encounter for less than $5. 

After dinner, we walked along the lake to learn more about our neighborhood. 

Vietnamese version of a drive through: vendors on bikes sell sweets, sodas, coconuts, balloons and more on the side of the road. People stop by on their motorbikes, pay and ride on.

Naturally, we were intrigued, so after our third walk by, we decided to stop:

bò bía ngọt

Rice paper, sugarcane, jicama and toasted sesame seeds. Two for fifty cents--Delicious!

On our walk we found some more spots to try on later dates. The general restaurant rule that we have learned in our last ten days is; look for a place that is busy, with a lot of Vietnamese people there. We should have known better when we went to dinner, there was only one other table that was full. 

Now we know!

nom nom NEM...and more....

Our internet went out this week, my first thought was "Oh NO! The blog!" My second thought was "Maybe I should just stop...." But alas, I opted to document my weekend in a word document. It's much easier to give up than it is to keep going.

This friday my assistant V took me out for Nem aka spring rolls. We went to a place near the Embassy, a place that has been rated by CNN. 

What it is rated for exactly, I am not sure.

This is what lunchtime in Ha Noi looks like. 

This is on the sidewalk, which is where everyone parks their scooters. 

This place only had three things on the menu, which is pretty normal at most places. We ordered the specialty: crab spring rolls. As you can see, there are MUCH larger than the average spring rolls that I am used to. They came served with sauce, vermicelli noodles, and a plate or herbs. I also ordered a coconut water, which comes served in a baby coconut. YUM!

V taught me the "correct" way to eat a spring roll. Put some sauce in the cup, some noodles and a load of herbs(basil, mint and a few more herbs that I didn't recognize). Then place a piece of nem in the bowl, mix and enjoy.....And I did. We definitely over-ordered, but we couldn't waste it. 

On friday night we joined some of our new friends for street food. As expected; it was delicious.

Cucumber salad with fresh cilantro and garlic.

Grilled baby squid. 

Nonna was the only one who enjoyed these. They were decent.

Vietnamese fried chicken. 

Yes, that is a chicken head. I accidentally ate the chicken neck. It was ok. Chicken here is prepared by chopping it up whole, without any real reason. Any bite can contain bone, gristle, skin, etc. 

One has to be very careful when eating chicken here. 

When you are done eating, you just throw the bones on the ground. 

This was my favorite thing, yet I have no idea what it was called. It was spicy and sweet and delicious. You roll it in rice paper or banana leaves. My assistant V says that I am very brave because I eat raw vegetables from the street. I was a bit nervous to eat it again, but it was just too good to pass up!

Friday night feast with twenty of our new friends, so fun! We called it an early night because another new friend had jet lag and needed to go to sleep. 

Saturday morning we woke up to a truly beautiful day in Ha Noi. As you can see below, it was just a smidge less smoggy than most days have been, but it was lovely.

Above you can actually see most of the other lake.

Most days, the smog is pretty bad and you cannot see the other lake. This is because the rice farmers are burning their stalks after the harvest, so the pollution is bad. Most people do not wear contacts here because their eyes are irritated. It's not the worst in the world, but it's definitely been surprising.

We had book club in the morning, then I met up with some girlfriends to go see a tailor about our Marine Ball dresses. My girlfriends lucked out, but the tailor ladies told me that the dress that I wanted what too expensive, I tried to haggle, but they weren't having it. 

Therefore, the hunt continues this week....

We met at the local "expat" coffee house. They have bagels and lattes and everything is in english. Their chai tea lattes are the happiest lattes in all the land, mostly because they are the only ones, but they are ok. 

Saturday night was an embassy event. We call them Wine and Cheeses, which frankly, sound way more pretentious than they are. It was really just a casual Halloween party with kids and families. Near the end I got "kidnapped" by the wives and went out for some bubbly. It was a lot of fun. We have met so many fun and interesting people, I think Ha Noi is definitely exceeding our expectations. 

OI GIOI OI!

In Vietnam, there is a saying:

 "Oi Gioi Oi" 

It's pronounced "Oy zoy oy"--it basically means anything between "OMG" or "Uff da" or "Oy Vey"

You can see more here; in this awesome video:

Oi Gioi Oi!

I love it. 

Tonight I thought to myself, "Oh, I need to blog--Oi gioi Oi!" 

Try it on and see how it fits ya....

How can you use it in a sentence?

For example: "We went out again and had amazing Vietnamese food...oi gioi oi!"

This is pho cuon, so delicious, grilled beef rolled in rice noodles--we sat on our little plastic chairs again and loved every minute!

I forget what this what called. Pho something, but it tasted a lot like funyuns! 

Yummy wontons and beef with a delicious gravy-esque sauce.

Imagine Vietnamese beef stroganoff, this is what this dish was!

Yes. What you are seeing you must believe. For the past two nights we have enjoyed beer on ice. 

I know, I can hear your brain saying "oi gioi oi!" 

Isn't it fun? Yes. It is. 

Okay, your homework is to use "oi gioi oi" in a sentence today, I promise you this: 

it will make you smile.

You're welcome and goodnight.

See you tomorrow/Mai gap lai!