The Celebration Begins....

It's that time of the year again....Chinese New Year! Lots of things to do...make clothes, buy shoes, get ready to go back to Singapore...

CNY is also celebrated in Vietnam as the Chinese population in Vietnam is quite substantial. You can see all the flowers popping up everywhere, artists appearing on the streets waiting to write the 'chun lian' for customers, fortune tellers setting up stalls waiting to tell your fortune and of course, all the shops and stores putting up the red decorations.

But dont' try to go out unnecessarily as the roads are jammed packed with people going around buying their wares. And in the night, it gets worse as they are out to admire the flower exhibition in the city area....I didn't even dare to step out of the car for fear that I might be runned over by a motorbike!

My aunties were also in the full swing of things....buying fruits, sweets, hanging little dangly red lanterns and gold ingots and spring cleaning the whole house. But one thing really kind of took over the whole house...FLOWERS! They were everywhere!

There were the crysanthemums, cherry blossoms, pussy willows, those red flowers that is a must have in every household, kum quats and the special dragon fruit plant! Yup.... the dragon fruit plant. Am sure you have probably seen the fruit in the supermarkets but have you seen the plant? It's like a cactus that can grow quite huge, but here they've kept them small so that you can bring it home...

With all the festivities in the air, how can we not feel the atmosphere and get into the mood?! I can't wait to get back to Singapore to gamble, receive the ang pows and most importantly eat all the new year goodies!! hehe...

Here's wishing everyone a Happy & Prosperous Chinese New Year!

It's Rain-ing in Vietnam

It's raining men! Hallelujah....it's raining men! Yeah yeah....

So as you can tell, Rain is coming to Vietnam! The Korean singer Rain that is...yup, he's coming to Vietnam as part of his world tour. And guess what....the tickets here are so much cheaper than that in Singapore!

S$250 for the VIP seats compared to the S$888 in Singapore! Since there was so much hype and write-up about his concert back in Singapore, I decided to 'entice' my auntie to go watch with me! Am not really his fan...but then cannot waste such an opportunity to be able to watch a good concert right?! hehe...

Yup...am going to the Rain concert...and my seat is like 4 feet away from the stage! Hope that I don't have to strain my neck watching him....or maybe I'll be close enough to touch his 6-pack! :P

Me going PSYCHO!

Ok....I just gotta let it out of my system!!! Hormones raging and going haywire!!! :}

Was watching a new Japanese Drama last night and boy am I glad that I chose to buy this series even though I didn't know what it was all about....bought it based on the DVD box cover....featuring the lead character of course...


Hayami Mokomichi.....HE IS FREAKING CUTE!!! Wah lao eh....it was major drool time for me! Tall, tanned, nice body, bloody good-looking....damn...why can't we see such fine male specimens in Singapore?? Or wherever we are!!??! And the show was about Regatta (some boat rowing sports thingy) so you could see all the muscles, wet bodies....ARGH!

Yes yes yes....I know... Old already still behaving like a crazed teen....But hey, I'm still a female and I have every right to admire excellent works of nature!! Yummy I tell you....yummy...hehe...

Ok...got it out of my system....back to normal now....back to my dignified and poised self.... :P

My first wedding....

Yup....t'was my first wedding....that I attended here in Vietnam. It was one of our staff's wedding.... Was quite interesting actually....

It was held in a restaurant which I think also operates as a caberet/dinner performance venue. It's somewhat like the Neptune restaurant back in Singapore. There was a huge stage in the front and there were 4 split levels for the tables. When we walked in, there was already a live band going on and there were 2 huge screens at the side showing the couple's wedding pictures.



That's me, Amy (my cuz) & Tata (who works for another auntie of mine in Cambodia)....enjoying the experience....



And our picture with the happy couple....can you tell which one is the bride? I tell you....she looked soooo different! Sooooo much make up until even my auntie couldn't even recognise her! But the culture here is a little different, they hardly dress up or make up for work but when it comes to events such as dinners and weddings, they undergo like a major transformation!


But the 'best' and perhaps the most memorable thing for me that happened during the wedding was that they aired a live soccer match of Vietnam vs Thailand (some asia cup or something...) during the dinner! Yup....a live soccer match during a wedding dinner....


You can imagine that everyone was cheering and booing throughout the whole game.....while the couple was making their way around all the tables for their table photos. Damn sala lah....the couple wasn't the highlight on their special occasion! If something like that ever happened during my wedding....somebody's head will roll! DONT MESS WITH ME :)

On our own...

Both my aunties are back in Singapore so we were on our own for the first time! It was just my cousin, my auntie's staff from Cambodia and myself....It was quite an adventure because I had to put my Vietnamese, however limited, to the test! No one around to help us translate when we went shopping or to tell the driver where we wanted to go next. But I must say that I'm getting pretty good! hehe...at least we didn't get lost and the sales people understood us when we wanted to bargain....lucky they knew some English too! :)

The first Gloria Jean's coffee opened on Dong Khoi street (their upmarket shopping area, like our Orchard Rd) and I had to have their Oreo Cookie Mocha Chiller! Yummy!

And also a slice of cake....but it was too sweet for me... :P

We also ventured out for dinner, wanted to try something other than our regular haunts. Wanted to have Korean food so asked the driver to go along the street where there were a lot of Korean restaurants. Stopped at the first one we saw because there were quite a few people inside....thought that it had to be good to have so many customers. Turned out that we were right, the food was yummy!

My favourite bi-bim-bap...

After dinner, we met one of our staff for coffee and headed over to this newly opened cafe & pub called MGM.

It was quite a wierd experience actually..... The first 2 levels was the cafe while the next 2 levels was the pub. It looked really nice from the outside, very relac-jack ambience but once you enter, the place was packed, chairs and sofas were placed back to back to accomodate the big crowd and they had this DJ that was blasting house music! It was so freaking loud that I dont know how people can actually talk to each other. It felt really wierd sitting there, drinking coffee in a rather brightly lit environment having the loud house music pounding through fibre of your body..... and there were kids around too....wierd to the max!

We went up to the pub upstairs after that....the music was even LOUDER! It was actually more like a mini disco with a dance floor in the center but as usual, people were just sitting around, drinking alcohol...they don't dance and can't talk 'cos of the music....so all just sitting around and people watching. Wierd again.....

So we left shortly after.... half deaf....couldn't wait to get home and watch my DVDs.... :P

Crepes

Had a night out with my auntie and her friend.....First we went for dinner at this French Restaurant called Le Cordon Bleu. Since they dared to call their restaurant Cordon Bleu, we expected to be served exquisite food...but alas...decor was real old (cushions on chairs were stained!) and food was only so so.... Will be the first and the last time I go there!

Wanted to go karaoke after that but all the decent places were fully booked. They love to karaoke here.....maybe there's a potential to bring over KBox or PartyWorld as there isn't anything like that over here....hhmmmm....

So we ended up going for desserts....at this really charming place called Creperie & Cafe. Here's how the place looks like...

But then.....their crepes suck big time! It's awful! The crepe was soft and not cooked thoroughly so it tasted really 'raw'! However, their other desserts were quite nice, quite ironic isn't it? We had ourselves the warm chocolate cake and creme brulee....quite yummy...

Even though we didn't get to karaoke, we were also thoroughly entertained that night! Because the cafe was by a little park, we saw lots of 'action' going on! It seems like the dating scene here is to 'pak tor' on their motorbikes by the park or any secluded areas. Because they are quite poor, they can't go to the cinemas or restaurants or beach (no beach in city area) and their homes are usually also out of bounds 'cos there are too many people so they just park their bikes by the park and they just 'action action' on the bikes! I'm serious! And they are truly not shy!Some of these parks are just by the main roads so it is free show for all! Ok ok....don't get all to excited, their 'action action' only got hugging and kissing, no home runs....but I was told that some of them actually do their homeruns on the bikes but it's usually at the more secluded parks and much later into the night when there are less people around.

Wanted to take some pictures but scared I kenna whack by them! heehee....

A cozy little restaurant

Went out for dinner last night at this new restaurant called Dong Pho. It was really quaint and the decor inside was really pretty.

They also had these really cute tables! Really pretty drawings lacquered onto the table tops and each table has a different design. See what I mean...

The restaurant serves Hue food. Hue (Hueh) was the old capital of Vietnam when there was still royalty, so Hue food was the kind of food the Emperor used to eat. Tho I can't figure out what so 'exquisite' about it, it's basically a lot of items made from rice flour and salads.....

Very healthy food....not much fried items and 'cos mainly 'floury' items, you get full quite fast. On the whole, the food here was pretty good and you can stuff your face without feeling too guilty!