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It's been a nice break. Lots of sightseeing, lots of food.
Ho Chi Minh City is still as crazy as ever; next time I visit, I'll organise it better. My stepmother was once again "why don't you stay longer?!?" and insists that next time we go out to the coast, where one of her friends has a beachside house.
Good morning, Ho Chi Minh!
Above is the view from my room at dawn.
When we say traffic is crazy, traffic is crazy.
This is from the back of a motorbike I was riding (my dad was driving). It's fun, but a little nuts, too. And we pretty much went everywhere by motorbike, except coming from and going to the airport when we hailed a taxi, and for stepgrandma's birthday dinner, because she needed a wheelchair and you can't get that on the back of a motorbike. (Well, this is Vietnam, so I'm sure you can, but you probably wouldn't want to.)
This is near where my dad used to live. He and my stepmum had a place in a set of villas which were in a compound that looked like a teeny tiny American gated community (like, 8 houses, some with shared walls, some freestanding). The problem was that it was really popular among young American tourists who wanted to come for the parties, drinking, and probably drugs, and after one really wild party, the whole gated community got shut down.
My stepmum's family had a house just off a major road, and dad bought the house next door to that, joined the two houses, did it up, and added a lift. So now it's a bit like a five-storey terrace house.
Dad and the stepmum, stepbrother, her mother, two sisters, one brother, and the other brother and his family all live in the house. I kid you not. And there's a guest-room which dad says he hasn't yet done up. So, uh, the house is considered pretty luxurious.
Incidentally, I didn't see the brother-with-a-family all week: like, not even a peep. I didn't even realise they were there until the last night when Dad told me there was a family behind the door that had been closed all week!
I got what's technically the stepbrother's room, which has a proper bed and a/c with a desk and storage space and everything, but apparently he prefers sleeping on a mat in the front room/office. Which made Friday morning interesting, because he was sleeping in the main passageway out to the front door and didn't so much as stir when I gingerly stepped over him...
Fancy dinner place the second night. I arrived late Saturday night, got installed in stepbro's room, collapsed. Next day was a bit of hanging about until dinner, when we went fancy:
Small doorway: that door doesn't clear me, and I'm 1.6m...
Some fancier places in District 1:
It's a very different look and feel to the coffee place next door to my Dad's house!
But the traditional Viet coffee is coffee hot-dripped into a cup of sweetened condensed milk. It being regularly over 30C right now, with attendant humidity, however, I frequently just had it iced. (Pour into a glass of ice.)
singapore
Flight from HCMC into Singapore, wait at airport for friends, then straight out to dinner for chilli crab!
Getting to the restaurant involved walking from Downtown along the river to Clarke Quay, and some exceedingly picturesque bridges and buildings:
Next morning, we ended walking about 2km for some good coffee...which turned out to be the Aussie Toby's Estate, and more or less the kind of thing that you could get in Sydney.
On the way, however, K (friend who invited me to Singa) and I spotted an eatery that was chock-full of locals and looked pretty good. Plans for Saturday breakfast!
The food was pretty good, but we were slightly hampered by not speaking a lick of either major Chinese dialect (well, I speak a lick, but honestly, just a lick - like "table for two" and "please bring the bill/check") and the servers were busy and wanted our order NOW.
But it was good food - pork, beautifully cooked, and suitably fatty.
Over the four days, I basically ate my way across Singapore. It was absolutely spectacular, and also a little too much. I think one fancy meal per day in Singapore is manageable, but that's about it.
So far as sightseeing I was particularly interested in the cultural history of Singapore, so we went to see the Peranakan Museum (a history of immigration into Singapore, and the mix of ethnicities that make the city their home).
Also the Sultan Mosque, which was sadly closed to visitors due to 'an event'.
K and I were both pretty disappointed, b/c we love beautiful buildings and architecture, although she's more into brutalism - lots of concrete structures and 70s style.
Me, I am fascinated by the Eurotrash imitations:
(That pic's from Vietnam, near Dad's old place. It used to be puke-green with a psuedo-marble sheathing in a style that made it look like a cross between a mid-19th Century American gothic, and a Greek temple, if you can imagine that.)
And the blend of traditional Asian style forms, combined with the European need for solid walls rather than mere screenage:
Also Chinatown and the Museum of Chinese
Maxwell Road hawker markets, near Chinatown, where there's a place that has 1 Michelin Star for their Hainanese chicken, which was, indeed, pretty spectacular (although I'm not convinced about the Michelin Star). The queue was some 40 people deep, but they had it down to a fine art, and got me through it in the same time that the other Hainanese chicken place managed to get through 6 people (my friend was waiting in that line, and she reached our table with the food a minute after me).
The hawker markets can look pretty dingy, but the food in them is excellent.
The hawker markets at La Pau Sat, near Marina Bay look a little more reputable, and the food is still very good!
You could eat here every day of the year and not run out of dishes to try.
Also, it's crazy cheap - $5 SGD ($5 AUD/$3.8 USD)
A view of Singapore from the top level of our hotel:
The Singapore Gardens By The Bay:
The gardens are both educational and wonderful, but I'm surprised there aren't more picnics in them (maybe it's not a Singaporean thing to do - so very hot, you'd need to do it early morning or late afternoon).
Also, I pissed off a southern European tourist who insisted on stopping the lift from the skywalk to the ground so he and his g/f could get in, after a Chinese tourist (whose annoying girlfriend was playing her favourite K/J-pop loudly on the skywalk) did the same thing two seconds earlier. I muttered "oh, for fuck's sake", and he got grumpy about that. Made eye contact and did the whole "I am staring you down" thing, which I held for a while, then largely ignored.
Easter Day Dawn Service in St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral in downtown Singapore. 6am!
It was a full liturgical service, which was very new to me. The churches I've attended in Australia have always been very casual, rather than 'high' - modern services, with prayers picked from the prayerbook, not the full liturgy. It's not bad, just different, and not my style.
Gorgeous church, lovely music, good Easter message, communion (luckily, it was the 'dip the wafer into the wine' kind, not the 'drink straight from the cup' kind), and breakfast afterwards.
Also: the church bells woke me at 5am with renditions of my childhood church hymns. Which was at once very cool, and somewhat annoying.
And then I came home by the overnight from Singapore...
It's kind of nice to be home, but also a bit terrifying to walk back into the house and realise just how many things need to be done around the place.
Ho Chi Minh City is still as crazy as ever; next time I visit, I'll organise it better. My stepmother was once again "why don't you stay longer?!?" and insists that next time we go out to the coast, where one of her friends has a beachside house.
Good morning, Ho Chi Minh!
Above is the view from my room at dawn.
When we say traffic is crazy, traffic is crazy.
This is from the back of a motorbike I was riding (my dad was driving). It's fun, but a little nuts, too. And we pretty much went everywhere by motorbike, except coming from and going to the airport when we hailed a taxi, and for stepgrandma's birthday dinner, because she needed a wheelchair and you can't get that on the back of a motorbike. (Well, this is Vietnam, so I'm sure you can, but you probably wouldn't want to.)
This is near where my dad used to live. He and my stepmum had a place in a set of villas which were in a compound that looked like a teeny tiny American gated community (like, 8 houses, some with shared walls, some freestanding). The problem was that it was really popular among young American tourists who wanted to come for the parties, drinking, and probably drugs, and after one really wild party, the whole gated community got shut down.
My stepmum's family had a house just off a major road, and dad bought the house next door to that, joined the two houses, did it up, and added a lift. So now it's a bit like a five-storey terrace house.
Dad and the stepmum, stepbrother, her mother, two sisters, one brother, and the other brother and his family all live in the house. I kid you not. And there's a guest-room which dad says he hasn't yet done up. So, uh, the house is considered pretty luxurious.
Incidentally, I didn't see the brother-with-a-family all week: like, not even a peep. I didn't even realise they were there until the last night when Dad told me there was a family behind the door that had been closed all week!
I got what's technically the stepbrother's room, which has a proper bed and a/c with a desk and storage space and everything, but apparently he prefers sleeping on a mat in the front room/office. Which made Friday morning interesting, because he was sleeping in the main passageway out to the front door and didn't so much as stir when I gingerly stepped over him...
Fancy dinner place the second night. I arrived late Saturday night, got installed in stepbro's room, collapsed. Next day was a bit of hanging about until dinner, when we went fancy:
Small doorway: that door doesn't clear me, and I'm 1.6m...
Some fancier places in District 1:
It's a very different look and feel to the coffee place next door to my Dad's house!
But the traditional Viet coffee is coffee hot-dripped into a cup of sweetened condensed milk. It being regularly over 30C right now, with attendant humidity, however, I frequently just had it iced. (Pour into a glass of ice.)
singapore
Flight from HCMC into Singapore, wait at airport for friends, then straight out to dinner for chilli crab!
Getting to the restaurant involved walking from Downtown along the river to Clarke Quay, and some exceedingly picturesque bridges and buildings:
Next morning, we ended walking about 2km for some good coffee...which turned out to be the Aussie Toby's Estate, and more or less the kind of thing that you could get in Sydney.
On the way, however, K (friend who invited me to Singa) and I spotted an eatery that was chock-full of locals and looked pretty good. Plans for Saturday breakfast!
The food was pretty good, but we were slightly hampered by not speaking a lick of either major Chinese dialect (well, I speak a lick, but honestly, just a lick - like "table for two" and "please bring the bill/check") and the servers were busy and wanted our order NOW.
But it was good food - pork, beautifully cooked, and suitably fatty.
Over the four days, I basically ate my way across Singapore. It was absolutely spectacular, and also a little too much. I think one fancy meal per day in Singapore is manageable, but that's about it.
So far as sightseeing I was particularly interested in the cultural history of Singapore, so we went to see the Peranakan Museum (a history of immigration into Singapore, and the mix of ethnicities that make the city their home).
Also the Sultan Mosque, which was sadly closed to visitors due to 'an event'.
K and I were both pretty disappointed, b/c we love beautiful buildings and architecture, although she's more into brutalism - lots of concrete structures and 70s style.
Me, I am fascinated by the Eurotrash imitations:
(That pic's from Vietnam, near Dad's old place. It used to be puke-green with a psuedo-marble sheathing in a style that made it look like a cross between a mid-19th Century American gothic, and a Greek temple, if you can imagine that.)
And the blend of traditional Asian style forms, combined with the European need for solid walls rather than mere screenage:
Also Chinatown and the Museum of Chinese
Maxwell Road hawker markets, near Chinatown, where there's a place that has 1 Michelin Star for their Hainanese chicken, which was, indeed, pretty spectacular (although I'm not convinced about the Michelin Star). The queue was some 40 people deep, but they had it down to a fine art, and got me through it in the same time that the other Hainanese chicken place managed to get through 6 people (my friend was waiting in that line, and she reached our table with the food a minute after me).
The hawker markets can look pretty dingy, but the food in them is excellent.
The hawker markets at La Pau Sat, near Marina Bay look a little more reputable, and the food is still very good!
You could eat here every day of the year and not run out of dishes to try.
Also, it's crazy cheap - $5 SGD ($5 AUD/$3.8 USD)
A view of Singapore from the top level of our hotel:
The Singapore Gardens By The Bay:
The gardens are both educational and wonderful, but I'm surprised there aren't more picnics in them (maybe it's not a Singaporean thing to do - so very hot, you'd need to do it early morning or late afternoon).
Also, I pissed off a southern European tourist who insisted on stopping the lift from the skywalk to the ground so he and his g/f could get in, after a Chinese tourist (whose annoying girlfriend was playing her favourite K/J-pop loudly on the skywalk) did the same thing two seconds earlier. I muttered "oh, for fuck's sake", and he got grumpy about that. Made eye contact and did the whole "I am staring you down" thing, which I held for a while, then largely ignored.
Easter Day Dawn Service in St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral in downtown Singapore. 6am!
It was a full liturgical service, which was very new to me. The churches I've attended in Australia have always been very casual, rather than 'high' - modern services, with prayers picked from the prayerbook, not the full liturgy. It's not bad, just different, and not my style.
Gorgeous church, lovely music, good Easter message, communion (luckily, it was the 'dip the wafer into the wine' kind, not the 'drink straight from the cup' kind), and breakfast afterwards.
Also: the church bells woke me at 5am with renditions of my childhood church hymns. Which was at once very cool, and somewhat annoying.
And then I came home by the overnight from Singapore...
It's kind of nice to be home, but also a bit terrifying to walk back into the house and realise just how many things need to be done around the place.
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