The mixed feelings of coming home

When I woke up this morning, it took me a minute to realize that I was home. But when I did, it finally hit me that I am home and that I am so happy to be home. I never realized that I missed the sunlight streaming through my windows, the quiet sound of cars and the quiet tickings that goes on in my apartment. The softness of the light, the familiarity of the space, everything that I took for granted. It is with delight to open my closet and discover my things. It is like finding memories again. I have so much clothes!

Certainly, there is a certain amount of fear of coming back home, as I have also gone through this process many times. Readjusting back to a life that I walked away for a month. Realizing new perspectives on things that I took for granted (like my own apartment). Constantly wanting to share my own excitement about my trip yet unable for relate to others the wonders that I have seen. Finding out that my friends have moved on with their lives and knowing that I was not part of that for a whole month. These are all part of the reverse cultural shock aspect. I was actually dreading it all for the past two days, but the overwhelming happiness that I experienced this morning will keep me going in spite of it all. I won't forget that moment when I opened my eyes and saw the sun, the sound of cars in the distance and the happy faces of my stuffed animals. 

Bakeries in Da Nang: Where to find Banh Mi in Da Nang

I love baked goods. Perhaps it's my sugar addiction, perhaps it's the fact that baked goods evoke the image of happiness as cakes are often associated with celebration, but I found that bakeries are the perfect complement to cafes. Vietnam is also the home of the incredible invention of Banh Mi sandwiches, so of course, this became a stable in our breakfast while in Da Nang. 

Couple a nice crunchy and salty banh mi with a cafe sua da or a sweet and milky bac siu, this makes the perfect fulfilling breakfast. 

Unlike Banh Mi back home, the Banh Mi here all have mayo and pate as a base, with various meats or fried egg added, and also shredded papaya, leafy greens and cucumber. Then after all the ingredients added, a soup is drizzled over the contents. 

Our favorite place to buy Banh Mi is from a bakery on Le Loi, between Phan Dinh Phung and Le Yuan and next door to Molly's coffee. The beauty of this place is that it is located on our way to the hospital, and they have a cafe in it so we can buy coffee on the same go. Their business is frequently very busy as lots of local people tend to run in and buy large orders to go. As clumsy foreigners who takes forever to order, we frequently have to wait for the locals' larger orders to be fulfilled before our order goes through...

In addition to being sold in bakeries, Banh Mi are sold in portable carts in the streets. I have never tried one there as we are quite fond of the ones in the bakeries, but those are quite popular. 

There are quite a few choices of the meat used. We just order the standard thit, though there a few other choices of differently prepared meats as well as fried egg, which seems to be a popular choice. 

I am also a fan of breads and other pastries. Our favorite bakery happens to be just behind our hotel. 

HuongNam bakery is located on Tran Phu between Phan Dinh Phung and Hung Vuong. They are quite popular locally for their cakes, but I like them for their pastries. 

Pastries in general tend to fall under the pricier side, but also makes for a delicious breakfast. 

This is my favorite pastry of theirs. It is a very simple puff pastry with a layer of frosting on top and pastry cream in the middle. 

Their mouse cakes though! Quite something! This is the caramel mousse cake. Staring from the bottom, a thin layer of standard chiffon, then a layer of chocolate ganache, then a layer of chiffon, then another layer of mousse, then chiffon, then top off with caramel mousse. Mouth watering deliciousness!

This is their coffee mousse. Also equally as intricate and equally as good! 

The place where we get Banh Mi at, also sells baked goods as well, but my favorite thing about HuongNam's is that it is quite clean. Compare to the other places we visited, this bakery make sites everything is in a sealed storage environment and there are no flies or ants   The pastry cream is stored in the fridge until buying to make sure it is chilled. Definitely one of my favorite bakeries!

Goodbye Da Nang

As I wrap up my one month stay in Da Nang, we decided to try to eat at some of our favorite places, including getting Mi Quang (though Binh was closed...), cafe sua Da, Bac xíu and Oi xi muoi at Velo. We aspired to also get Banh Mi to go, but it got to be too much. 

Most places were still closed for Tet, but the sun was shining and the weather was warm, which left me with a lasting memory of the Da Nang river shining with the under the sun.

This was a trip of self realizations, experience, gluttony and of course, meeting some beautiful people. We made friends with some of the doctors at the hospital, and I was really sad to say goodbye to the Fulmar hotel staff. 

I am very glad my friend came with me as it is lonely and so much harder for me to be an adventuring spirit without her. It was nice for her to observe me and give me feedback that I will incorporate both professionally and personally. I really must be more careful with choosing my words and understand the implication of what I say and do and the effects on others. 

There were many times where I was angry and frustrated during my trip. It made me realize the attachment that I have to things which are familiar and that I definitely experience cultural shock everytime I move despite having had so many moves in the past. I really must be more open minded about experiencing hardships and not underestimating my own ability to adapt to my environment. Also, I have been humbled by my own ability to plan and take care of details. The frustrations that I experienced both in the initial Hoi An trip and the Angkor trip taught me to think twice about making a plan. 

In the more positive light, I hope that I can continue to hone my Vietnamese and also work on cooking Vietnamese cuisine. I also will continue to seek out another global health experience. I think there are certain things that can be lacking by going as a resident and that my next trip would be better if it was a medical mission trip rather than a learning experience. I would like to return to a country that I know better as I will be more useful, though I would like to experience what Cambodian people really live like as well. 

As far as traveling, this trip made me realize that I am not particularly found of sightseeing and being a tourist. Man made wonders are great for pictures, but I like to read about the cultural significance outside of the wonder. But looking back, I do appreciate natural beauty more, namely the Safari and biking through the Angkor to experience the Cambodian natural scenery was mor appealing to me than the temples themselves. I must visit Salar de Uyuni someday! 

Where to eat in Da Nang

After spending a month in lovely Da Nang, I have decided to compile this list of my favorite places to eat. This list follows my tastes and is limited to the walkable area around the Han Market as this was where we stayed.

Bin restaurant sits at the corner of Phan Dinh Phung and Yen Bai. There is always a crowd of motorbikes at the window next to the entrance buying Banh Mi to go. This was the first place we are at after arriving in Da Nang. 

Their Mi Quang is my favorite food from there. Mi quang is a local specialty, which is a thicker rice noodle with peanut and a soup like sauce and mixed with fresh vegetables. The above is the mi quang thit nuong, which is grilled pork. The Mi Quang quay lu is pork with the skin roasted to a crisp and is a bit fattier. 

This is their Banh mo Bo ne, which basically is a grilled beef with a bit of ground beef and a fried egg. This was mean to eaten as a Banh Mi by placing the mayo and pâté into the baguette and placing the cucumber and tomatoe as well as the beef and egg into the baguette, then drizzle the soup (the one to the right) over the Banh Mi. Unfortunately, being my first day, I totally did not get that point and just ate everything separately... T.T

Quan Phu Hong is a little family owned restaurant right next to our hotel. We have passed it many times and avoided it because it's the more grungy kind that caters to the locals. What a mistake! When we finally felt comfortable enough to try it, their bun and bo la lot blew us away! It was so good we made it our final meal in Da Nang. 

Bo la lot is some meat (beef? Pork?) wrapped in kettle leaves and grilled. I can't quite describe the taste, except that the meat has the flavor of mild spices with a hint of fish sauce and is a bit fatty, and the kettle leaves settle down the grease from the meat fat with a slight flavor of tea. This can be eaten alone, but I like to eat it with the self made spring roll as can be seen in the background below with dry rice paper, marinated papaya, cucumber, and assorted fresh leafy lettuce, cilantro and mint. 

Their bun thit nuong is served with peanut sauce, the same one that is used for dipping the Bo la lot and the self made spring roll with the dry rice paper. The meat is extra flavorful, but the peanut sauce is what makes the difference, and like Mi Quang, there is a bit of soup that is poured over the noodles. 

This is the wonderful peanut sauce. It is made from fresh ground peanuts and appears to have some taste of fish sauce/hoisin sauce, as well as chili sauce  and dried shrimp. It tastes amazing with everything! However, this place tends to run on the slightly pricier side. No price listed, but 2 bun dish and 1 Bo la lot ran about 120,000 VND. 

This is the Nem Lui, which is the same meat as in the Bo la lot, but is grilled on a stick instead. I think they do reuse the chopstick that the meat is on, so I would not recommend this. It is quite tasty as well but is less meat. 

This picture is the Banh Xeo, which we actually ate next door when we got confused by the restaurants (they all look similar from the street and serve the same food). This place is not as good, I think because their peanut sauce is not as tasty. But the Banh Xeo is actually quite delicious. 

It is made with rice flour and the outer crepe has rice flavor and is slightly sticky. The inside is filled with beat sprouts, marinated meat and shrimp. We dipped it in the peanut sauce as well, and because it falls apart rather easily, we wrapped it in the spring roll (same one as above) to help keep it together. 

Van Huong is a restaurant that specialize in Com (rice) dishes. Com is a stable of the Vietnamese locals and is usually served with a variety of premade items that one can pick at the stand at the front of the shop. We actually tried three different places, but this was by far the best and we were introduced to it by the ICU doctors. 

I am not very sure of what each item is, as the doctors ordered for us. It seems that one can pick whatever, though I usually seen it eaten with a grilled meat of a kind, an egg dish and a vegetable side (either picked or stir fried). 

The squid was stuffed and everything was very delicious. The Nuoc mam sauce is meant to be poured over the rice, but there is so much rice that I had a hard time getting all of it and did not finish most of it. The owner of this restaurant was Chinese, though he has lived in Vietnam a long time. 

This was from another meal where we randomly stopped at some restaurant on Quang Trung. It was a bit cold as we missed lunch hour. 

I am actually unsure of the name of this restaurant, but it is located on Thai Phien between Yen Bai and Nguyen Chi Thanh.  The owner speaks fairly good English, and they have a menu that explains what each item is, though it doesn't have all the menu items. 

This is the Bun Cha. This is a bun that is served on the side and is meant to be dipped into the soup that is served with it. I like to add the served leafy veggies (lettuce, cilantro, mint and basil, the usual) to the soup as well. The soup is extremely flavorful and there is a hint of Nuoc mam sauce as well. 

This is the bun rieu, which is a soupy bun made with tomatoes in it. I got the snails (Oc) with tofu! It was quite delicious, but is on the more sour side with a taste of fresh tomatoes in addition to the flavorful soup. 

Similar bun rieu with tofu and crab (that ground meat appearing stuff on top). It doesn't taste that much different, so I would recommend the snail over this one      

Nem cua be, which is a version of fried spring roll with crab in it. It also has vermicelli noodles as well as some other ingredients. 

Mr. Quang is another family ran restaurant. It was one of the better reviewed places on TripAdvisor, though after this trip, I had some thoughts about that (see below). I am not sure who Mr. Quang is as this place seems to be ran by females of the family... It is one of those places that is on the pricier side for foreigners, though they do have an English menu.

Their bun Bo hue is probably the only thing I would recommend from there. It is actually a local specialty of Hue city that we did not get to try due to our tight tour schedule. But luckily, Mr. Quang has all the local foods that foreigners would be interested in... This is actually thicker noodles, much like mi Quang with thick roasted slabs of beef (I believe). It is a heavier soup compared to pho, though with the added fresh vegetables, it is still quite good, though I like it with some red chili paste to give it a kick. 

We also tried their pho and Mi Quang, neither of which I would recommend as they were fairly subpar compared to the other restaurants, but still okay. 

There is a Hong Kong restaurant that we walked by from the train station and saw they sell roasted duck. Unfortunately, I somehow forgot the pictur of the front, but will update once I obtain it from my friend. This is their roasted duck, which is quite delicious, though somewhat different from the Hong Kong style that I have had in the past.

This is the really good stuff that I would recommend from this restaurant! It is the wonton noodle soup, which I ordered by accident when I tried to order the duck leg with noodle soup... But it was very delicious as the soup was more similar to a chicken pho soup and was very light with these delicious crunches that are floating on top, and the wontons were shrimp wontons (though the shrimp is a bit skimpy)...

As can be seen above, I am a big fan of noodles. We haven't tried too many of the restaurants around, but most have not been disappointing. But I do have some reservations about following TripAdvisor's reviews as most of the ones that were highly rated were somewhat disappointing. Instead, my recommendation would be to use it to find where most restaurants are located as they tend to be in a cluster. Many Vietnamese local restaurants tend to have a limited menu and usually will post their specialty on their name plate. Take a picture of their store sign as that will usually have their address in case you want to go back. 

The above list is places for Vietnamese food. See my separate entry for Pizza Hut and KFC as I think the Asian version of these chain restaurants tend to offer a different menu and tastes much better in comparison and is definitely worth trying. I will be posting a post on drinks as well as bakeries with recommendations for Banh Mi sandwiches...

As for food cleanliness, I never got sick even once in Vietnam despite drinking tons of smoothies and eating lots of fresh veggies. A lot of vendors tend to handle money and food at the same time, but I just took that without too much thought. Rats tend to be present and I usually see them in some of the more dirtier looking places. The key that I used for finding a place to eat has been seeing if their store front appears clean or not, as at least they have thought of being somewhat clean...

All in all, I will miss the delicious food in Da Nang and that if I was to return to Vietnam in the future, will plan on making a trip to Da Nang for visiting these favorite places of mine. :)

Angkor: the city of temples

Sadly, I first heard of the Angkor Wat when I played civilization 4. It was a great wonder that I always thought looked amazing. When I visited the Chichen Itza, that was the first time that I wanted to visit all the world wonders (or whatever is left). And the first world wonder that came to mind was the Angkor Wat.

I knew very little about the Angkor Wat before coming here. But the name Angkor Wat actually refers to the main and biggest temple in the ancient city of Angkor, which was the capital of the Khmer Empire between 10-12th century. It was the largest preindustrial city, larger than the next biggest city by the Mayans by several folds. 

While I always pictured it as this glorious golden temple, what exists today are actually ruins of the ancient temples. Everything else from the Angkor city have been lost through time with erosion from weather and forest. I did some reading on wiki travel, but did not do so much reading on the Khmer history. 

My initial thoughts of exploring said temple was trying to find a tour guide and driver through our hotel, but clearly that was not a good idea as our guesthouse had terribly reviewed tour company. The next option would be to venture out, but given that exploration should start early the next day, we though we could go to the office of tourism and try to find tour offices along the way.

This would have been a good idea except we went the wrong way... Totally missed the side street right next to us which had all the little booking offices and instead made the mistake of trying to head the tourism office, which was closed. We then decided, no guides, just a tuk tuk driver. There were two tuk tuk drivers just outside of this office, who asked for $20 for day going around the small circuit. At this point, we knew nothing except the price should be around $15, and that there were very few cars or tuk tuks on the street. After we walked away, we encountered another fellow who offered $16. This seemed reasonable and he seemed knowledgeable, so we hopped on. 

Off we go on said ride to the Angkor. The first stop is the ticket booth, which is in front of the main entrance, and traffic is pretty crazy right there because of all the tourists. The line wait is not too bad and turn around is pretty good for the picture taking.

The first thing we came upon was the moat that surrounds the Angkor Wat temple itself. What for? This was apparently part of the elaborate irrigation systems built by the Khmer people and remains with water even during the dry season, but it still does not explain why there is a moat around a temple. As you can see, this moat is very wide and certainly provides a barrier to entering illegally, though the walls surrounding the temple are not super high or have watch towers to fight off crossing invaders. 

The bridge leading to the entrance tower has the right side repaired and is smooth but the left side appears to be less recently restored. 

The entrance tower sits at the end of the bridge. It's fairly small, but upon first viewing it, I was very impressed by the sandstone structure and the intricate designs of all the reliefs on the stone. Between the moat, the bridge and the tower, we must have spent about 1 hour just taking pictures. 

We took the left hand exit to reach the temple proper, but just to note that there were lots of peddlers selling bootleg copies of the guide book. The initial asking price was somewhere between 11-18. I was able to bargain it down to $4 with the vendor at the far side of the left exit, but I wasn't able to reach this price the next two days earlier in the day. And I did not buy the book at the end as it was already getting hot, and the prospect of lugging a book around seemed terrible...

From the left side, we skipped the library as it didn't seem that great for pictures (and we were getting too hot) and instead headed straight for the water basin on the left side. A note here is that we were lucky to reach earlier in the morning as all the water lilies closed their blossoms around noon. 

The Angkor Wat itself is best known for the extremely wide bas relief etched into the walls of the first tier. This is where a guide would come in handy as these involved a lot of mythical and historical references, which without a guide becomes boring after a while, though most guides I saw were giving a rather brief explanation and just pointed out the important figures in the reliefs. We had a good time interpreting the reliefs on our own and trying to understand the story. However, these do not show any everyday life and is mostly a tribute to the mythical figures and the god-king Suryarvarman II, whom the Angkor Wat also served as his Mausoleum. 

The second tier did not have the bas reliefs. One can see the architecture fairly well. Interestingly, because of the way the second tier is built, with walls surrounding a courtyard, I forgot that I was actually quite high off of the ground. It was not until the third tier did I realize how high the third tier is from the actual city grounds. 

The third tier appears to be the actual place of worship. This is the place that have been used by the local people since the time of Suryarvarman II to worship, so it is considered a sacred place and there are controllers at the entrance to deter tourists who are not dressed appropriately. Shirts without shoulders and shorts/skirts above the knee are not allowed. I was told to take off my hat as well. As can be seen above, the stairs leading up to the temple was quite steep, which was a prevalent theme for the rest of the larger temples. At the end of a tiring day, these steps can be an overwhelming challenge... 

There is a Buddha statue at the top of the third tier. Oh, I got scammed in this temple as there are all these people who hand you incense and tell you to pay respects to a Buddha statue and then ask you for a donation. Given I had no riels, I had to give a 5 rmb bill (that was the smallest in my wallet..). Otherwise the view was nice, and you can explore the 5 

towers up top. 

We probably spent about 3-4 hours exploring the Angkor Wat. I was quite dehydrated and exhausted at the end, so I caved in and bought this "palm juice", which really looked like the dirty moat water:

It tasted like bamboo leaves with sugar water, and I wasn't sure if I would be sick or not at the end of the day, but I drank it anyways. Other than some funny feelings in my tummy later that night, did not have any other problems. The drink was quite refreshing and was key to the rest of the day which we powered through without lunch...

This post is getting long. Alright, Part 2 to come. 

The Kingdom of Cambodia

On the eve of the last day of the Uear of the Snake, we departed from Da Nang to  Siem Reap. I thought only foreigners would travel on the New Year Eve, but I later found out we were wrong. 

The plane is a small four row seating plane with propellers! The first time I ever sat in one and am very amused. Did you know you can see Ling Ung Temple's statue from the sky?

Arrival in Cambodia was fairly easy. Prepared my visa form at the airport and give an extra dollar for the lack of a picture to go with the visa. But did you know? The visa application goes through a series of visa officials down this row of tables and your name gets called out when they are done stamping. 

Very interesting and rather efficient! Btw, it's $20 for the visa. 

Oh, apparently customs officer was on break:

Just leave your customs form there!

So the first sign of trouble came when there was no sign of our guesthouse when we exited the airport. Almost every single hotel/guesthouse here provides free pick up/arrival, and I double checked with our guesthouse about our arrival... Luckily, there was wifi (though pretty spotty) at the exit, and I sent them an email as well as a text (through Skype) AND called the owner's cell through Skype. Unfortunately the wifi was too slow for the phone call to make sense, but I believe my text got through. Just as I was looking for other hotels to stay (the hostel looked very tempting), the tuk tuk driver for our guesthouse showed up. 

I was already having some reservations about our guesthouse, especially seeing the area where it is located seemed fairly remote at night. I was also worried when the owner made me pay all four nights upfront and won't let me pay just for one night. However, their welcome smoothie was delicious!

Papaya flavored smoothie that was actually better than any I had in Vietnam!

I tried to look through the tours they offered. So the reviews online of their parent tour company, Capitol Tours, were terrible. They were however quite cheap. We would have considered a one day trip, except the hotel people were extremely passive aggressive about wanting us to book something. So instead, we just decided to see the next day after we leave about finding a way to the Angkor. 

And also, there were no mosquito nets in our rooms, which prompted some serious research into infectious diseases in the area. Apparently dengue is quite the problem here... And also after spotting 8 geckos on the ceiling on the common balcony, I decided to dose myself off with 30% deet. Never mind the neurotoxic side effects...

The last unpleasant thing was the hot water issue. Later the next morning we found out that the hot water doesn't come on until after the water had been ran for about 30 minutes. On the Wikipedia web page about the preservation of the Angkor Wat, the over usage of underground water basins is threatening the destabilization of the structures, especially during the dry season. This and the fact that I do not support wasting water is the reason for my dislike of this guesthouse. 

The free breakfast had the choice between bread with different variations of egg, noodles with soup (basically instant ramen), and fried noodles (stir fried ramen in pad see ew sauce). 

Yep, this is instant ramen, in hot water, not even stove top cooked. The veggies must have been cooked separately. 

The fried noodles were quite delicious, as  I loved pad see ew. But, my friend who had it the next day said it wasn't very good as they didn't put enough sauce in. 

The coffee was quite delicious. It wasn't Vietnamese coffee and didn't taste like the watered down instant coffee, but also didn't quite taste like it was from beans either... But, I had it with sweetened condensed milk, which makes everything delicious. :) 

Alright, next entry on the ancient Angkor city. And the name of our guesthouse? Ta Som guesthouse. 0/10 would recommend. They do clean our room daily and appear to offer new towels daily and are usually pretty nice, but I still feel that location isn't good, I am having difficulty with help for finding tours, and the hot water issue REALLY bothers me. For $17/day, I would rather go to a hostel where at least I can more help and not scammed on some bad tour. 

Hanoi: The capital of dragon country.

Making our way to Hanoi was fraught with challenges. Number one, we are traveling just before Tet, so while the train would have been a beautiful experience, there were no trains tickets left. According to our doctor friend here, one will need to book at least one month ahead of time before Tet... But we were able to book airline tickets from Vietnam Airlines' website for relatively cheap (about $60-70 each way). And the airline allows 20 kilo for check in for free, so no need to worry too much about luggage! 

Upon arrival, I made a mistake. There are these airport transfer shuttles, which are located to the right further up from the taxis that costs 40,000 VND to go to the old quarter. Should've taken those instead of paying 300,000 VND for a taxi that didn't even drop us off at our hotel. The initial asking price was 350,000 and some guy wouldn't even take my offer for 300,000, but given that there is a cheaper alternative, there's really no reason to take an overpriced taxi. 

Just an aside on the airport transfer, these are provided by Vietnam Airline and will take the passengers to the south end of the Old Quarter. The Old Quarter is mostly walkable and there are tons of motorbikes and little bike carts offering rides once there. You don't need to book the shuttle and just pay once you get on. The only problem is that there is no space for luggage, so it would be difficult to fit large luggages in to as these tend to get packed to the brim. 

The traffic in the Old Quarter is waay crazier than Da Nang. The motorbikes are head to head with the cars and the streets are narrow. Traffic lights are only at some intersections and most motorbikes don't obey them. 

In some ways, Hanoi reminds me of an older version of Beijing, but Beijing banned motorbikes about 20 years ago, probably due to concern of safety and noise. So the craziness is partially due to motorbikes. Apparently traffic is significantly better as a lot of people have left for Tet, but being a major tourist scene, the Old Quater's businesses are going strong. 

The Old Quarter is full of these skinny houses as in Da Nang as well, though the ones here are more similar to French style with the decorative side rails. This is our hotel, the Holiday Gold Hotel, which like many is squeezed in one skinny anterior. 

The inside is fairly old with winding staircase (no elevator). The service as usual, is fairly good and friendly, though we only took advantage of the free map, which was what I depended to navigate as the streets are at all sorts of angle to each other and quite confusing!

The hotel provided free breakfast, which was meh in my opinion. They had toast with eggs, Vietnamese noodles, or creeps. This is the apple crepe with lemon sugar and honey. The coffee provided is American style, which at this point is quite tasteless to me. 

So Hanoi is known for the Pho Ga (chicken pho), which is lighter compared to Pho Bo. There are lots of little shops in the streets, but out of concern of having diarrhea on board a ship and sharing rooms, we opted to a slightly cleaner looking restaurant. 

This place offered chicken pho and a chashu dry pho, which we did not get to try. 

This was their cooking area with the chicken and other meats.

The pho is a bit pricier in comparison with Da Nang at 40,000, though considerably cheaper than the tourist shops, which all runs about 50,000-60,000. 

I must admit, this was quite delicious, but was definitely on the lighter side. But after adding the garlic sauce (in the background here), the pho was super yummy! Definitely one can taste the hours that the chicken has been stewing and the lightness of the pho noodles themselves. The garlic sauce added a hint of sourness to kick up the taste which was much appreciated. 

This is Nuoc Mia, sugar cane juice. Unlike most juices here which is mixed with water, this was straight up sugar cane pushed through a Pressor to squeeze out the goodness. It is not incredibly sweet like I imagined and instead is very refreshing with the taste of the sugar cane plant itself. 

There is also a stand selling sticky rice balls, but as if you can see the sign in the background, this shop is located at 77 Hang Dieu and opens from 9a to 7p as evident by the fact that we could not get any before leaving for Halong Bay. 

I actually have no idea what this is called. It is spring rolls wrapped in rice paper and deep fried. It's usually eaten with bun and Nuoc mam sauce, which I would recommend over eating it along as it can get very greasy. We walked by several little street stands selling this around noon, but could not find any stands after 7p. But, the tourist restaurants still sold it, which was where we ended up eating it. This plate costs $50,000. 

Now this! Best find in Hanoi! (Second is the sugar cane drink). This is Banh goi, which translates to pillow cake apparently. At 9000 per one, it is not bad. We found this by chance when walking by this place with tiny stools and lots of Vietnamese people. We initially made the mistake to take away, but you should sit down as it is very hard to dip in the delicious sauce when it's in a little bag! 

This is Nem Cua Be, which translates to crab cake apparently. It is pretty good but I cannot identify what part does it tastes like crab... 

This is the shop and they specializes in deep fried goods. The fried sweet doughnut looked similar to some of the other stuff we ate, and the salty doughnut was basically a Vietnamese meatball in dough... 

But this shop is probably the busiest shop that I saw in my little time there. There were hardly enough chairs, they have 6 family members working and there were people on motorbikes waiting to get their portion to go too!

This was just some fried doughnut that some lady forcefully put in a bag and shoved in or hands. It tasted very similar to the ones I have had in Da Nang and Hoi An, but the little ones had caramel and sesame covering instead...

Hanoi Beer tasted different from Bia Saigon and beer Larue in that it is stronger and bolder in flavor, and not as flat as Bia Saigon. 

The only smoothie I had in Hanoi. It was pricey at 40,000! The avacado smoothie tastes significantly different from the ones back home, but I suspect that is because most Vietnamese people in America are from the south where they like their foods much sweeter...

Okay, enough on food. Some of the other craziness in Hanoi was mostly on the Tet preparation. There were three popular items that I keep seeing over and over again on the back of motorbikes being transported: roosters, peach blossom trees and kumquat trees. 

There is a whole market dedicated to selling the trees that it was quite hilarious to see lots of motorbikes carrying minitrees on the back. 

How does one drive with that?

Here is a peach blossom tree on display. While it supposedly is a twig, the size of this makes me think they just moved the whole tree. 

In fact, it is apparently so popular that people, including airline stewardesses were taking them on the plane! How does one bring back a small tree with flowers on it? :O

And roosters of corse. I have no idea what they are planning for these... I am sure they would be tasty but apparently they can also be used for cock fighting?

These two birds certainly aren't in any shape to be fighting... 

After dinner, we also strolled by Hoen Kiem lake, which was right in the heart of Old Quarter. It was nicely decorated for Tet as well. 

I have no idea what that super shining structure in the middle is, but the light pollution is certainly incredible. I swear LEDs probably have the best business in Vietnam. 

We took the airport shuttle back to the airport. But as the shuttle stops running at 7pm, and our flight was at 10, we took the earlier 6pm bus just to be safe. We were very lucky that the airline agent offered to move us up to the 7:45pm flight! Love the flexibility of Asia. :)

This was a case of confiscated items behind the security point. There were lots and lots of scissors, but also other items like screwdrivers, knives (wha?), forks, wire cutters and other sharp and plastic items... It provided us with a good 10 minutes of amusement. 

And off we went, back to Da Nang!

Hello Da Nang! Actually, Da Nang is probably as equally filled with LEDs...