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After a ridiculous amount of travelling on Saturday, I arrived in HCMC, we had dinner and came home, and I crashed.
Like, it was all I could do to change, plug my devices in (priorities), and smear myself with insect repellant before I conked out.
I left home in 8C chill:
And arrived in Singapore's Changi airport to 25C heat:
I had four hours to kill before my connecting flight to HCMC and I spent much of it wandering through Changi Terminals 1 and 2. Including into this lovely tea shop which sold delicious-sounding teas, but mostly in canisters, or sets of five.
Some of those teas smell delicious. But no sampler set, alas; all or nothing.
I walked out with nothing. (Particularly because they didn't want me taking photos of their teas.)
Some of the more interesting moments on the way over:
- sitting next to the couple I stood in line with when boarding @ Sydney...and then discovering they were going on to HCMC, too!
- a Captain America's shield Samsung phone charager in Changi Airport
- an electrical storm in the clouds to the east of HCMC as we were on the descent - alas, I didn't have my phone with me (it was in my luggage) so I missed the opportunity to get some SPECTACULAR shots
- the Vietnamese immigration officers don't give a shit - they chatted and gossiped and laughed, and didn't seem to care that the lines were piling up. While the Americans are SRS BSNS MAKE NO JOKES OR WE SEND YOU HOME, the Vietnamese are YEAH YEAH WE'LL GET AROUND TO YOU SOMETIME THIS CENTURY. MAYBE.
And then there was dinner. At a place called Cow Express. Yes. Cow Express.
Fast food steak/meat things. For reals.
Cow Express had an Iron Man pic on the wall done in the 2008 Obama 'HOPE' poster, and a giant "Cow Express" mural on one wall. With a giant cow statue standing in the middle of a 'city' of little cow people. It was kinda cute....until you started looking closer at it, and realised that here was a little cow person being fried by lightning, and there was a little cow person mugging another little cow person, and a Super-cow-person was having a conversation with...a Lois Lane cow-person? And other slightly odd things that I can't remember anymore, but which were pretty funny.
Less funny (but still amusing) were the rodents visible in the lighting casings over the counter of the place.
By that time we'd already had dinner, though. Hopefully rodents were not involved because EW.
To finish off, we walked past the most unfortunately named "KARAOKEFYOU" karaoke place. My 11-year old stepbrother explained that they intended it to mean "karaoke for you", and I pointed out that usually English-native speakers use the '4' for that.
So, Saturday. :)
Sunday was pretty much one thing: STARK TOWER, HCMC.
Oh wait. Waking up in Vietnam:
Or, not.
That's dad and the stepbro, Minh.
But, on toStark Bitexco Tower!
You cannot look at this and tell me that it's not the inspiration for Stark Tower:
Of course, mention this on Reddit and cue all the racist American comments EVER. Because Vietnam is only full of prostitutes and cheap labour, of course. And nothing that is depicted as having been built by The (fictional) Ultimate American Capitalist Playboy could possibly have taken its inspiration from anything built in a city populated by slanty-eyed brown people. America is better than that, dontchaknow?
Anyway, we went up to the 51st floor which is a restaurant where the food was okay (but not great; I'm a terrible food snob), you can access the helipad level by stairs (the helipad is on the 52nd floor) but you can't go out on the helipad itself.
Not that the helipad is active.
My dad, an architect who's worked in Vietnam and through SE Asia for the last twenty-five years, explained that Bitexco - the company that built the tower - wanted a monument to their power. So they built and designed Bitexco Tower (the tower's actual name) with a helipad that was supposed to be used for the powerful to come and go.
Except that they couldn't get the helipad safety-rated: the winds off the river (directly below) and around the tower are too unpredictable for anyone to risk trying to land a chopper there. So they have a helipad...which can't be used.
In addition to which, the design above the helipad is problematic, on account of the floors growing smaller, and the elevator column not leaving a lot of space for offices or meeting rooms or anything that a multinational who'd want to set their HQ in a shiny and bright building could fit.
Not that unrented spaces in Vietnam is considered a bad thing by the Vietnamese, so my dad explains. It's built; if someone comes to rent it, all well and good, but otherwise...it's there and it's owned, and it's a sign of the power and money the organisation/corporation has.
Lunch took about three hours, because it was a buffet, and because a rainstorm whipped up while we were there, and the fog blew in, and the windows went grey and wet.
Anyway, getting home, I pretty much conked out again. The humidity is something AWFUL here and it just saps your strength.
Speaking of which, getting around in HCMC - mostly by motorbike, although occasionally taxi. But mostly motorkbike:
Motorbike in HCMC is not for the fainthearted. My best description of the rules is "First, you are not the only rider on the road; second, be aware of others and make others aware of you by honking your horn; third, the rules are rather more like...guidelines..."
They do have plenty of crashes and injuries, so I hear, but it works.
Will write the post about today tomorrow. Went swimming this afternoon before dinner and am now exhausted. PLus, going to see the War Remnants museum, so I think I'll need my sleep...
Like, it was all I could do to change, plug my devices in (priorities), and smear myself with insect repellant before I conked out.
I left home in 8C chill:
And arrived in Singapore's Changi airport to 25C heat:
I had four hours to kill before my connecting flight to HCMC and I spent much of it wandering through Changi Terminals 1 and 2. Including into this lovely tea shop which sold delicious-sounding teas, but mostly in canisters, or sets of five.
Some of those teas smell delicious. But no sampler set, alas; all or nothing.
I walked out with nothing. (Particularly because they didn't want me taking photos of their teas.)
Some of the more interesting moments on the way over:
- sitting next to the couple I stood in line with when boarding @ Sydney...and then discovering they were going on to HCMC, too!
- a Captain America's shield Samsung phone charager in Changi Airport
- an electrical storm in the clouds to the east of HCMC as we were on the descent - alas, I didn't have my phone with me (it was in my luggage) so I missed the opportunity to get some SPECTACULAR shots
- the Vietnamese immigration officers don't give a shit - they chatted and gossiped and laughed, and didn't seem to care that the lines were piling up. While the Americans are SRS BSNS MAKE NO JOKES OR WE SEND YOU HOME, the Vietnamese are YEAH YEAH WE'LL GET AROUND TO YOU SOMETIME THIS CENTURY. MAYBE.
And then there was dinner. At a place called Cow Express. Yes. Cow Express.
Fast food steak/meat things. For reals.
Cow Express had an Iron Man pic on the wall done in the 2008 Obama 'HOPE' poster, and a giant "Cow Express" mural on one wall. With a giant cow statue standing in the middle of a 'city' of little cow people. It was kinda cute....until you started looking closer at it, and realised that here was a little cow person being fried by lightning, and there was a little cow person mugging another little cow person, and a Super-cow-person was having a conversation with...a Lois Lane cow-person? And other slightly odd things that I can't remember anymore, but which were pretty funny.
Less funny (but still amusing) were the rodents visible in the lighting casings over the counter of the place.
By that time we'd already had dinner, though. Hopefully rodents were not involved because EW.
To finish off, we walked past the most unfortunately named "KARAOKEFYOU" karaoke place. My 11-year old stepbrother explained that they intended it to mean "karaoke for you", and I pointed out that usually English-native speakers use the '4' for that.
So, Saturday. :)
Sunday was pretty much one thing: STARK TOWER, HCMC.
Oh wait. Waking up in Vietnam:
Or, not.
That's dad and the stepbro, Minh.
But, on to
You cannot look at this and tell me that it's not the inspiration for Stark Tower:
Of course, mention this on Reddit and cue all the racist American comments EVER. Because Vietnam is only full of prostitutes and cheap labour, of course. And nothing that is depicted as having been built by The (fictional) Ultimate American Capitalist Playboy could possibly have taken its inspiration from anything built in a city populated by slanty-eyed brown people. America is better than that, dontchaknow?
Anyway, we went up to the 51st floor which is a restaurant where the food was okay (but not great; I'm a terrible food snob), you can access the helipad level by stairs (the helipad is on the 52nd floor) but you can't go out on the helipad itself.
Not that the helipad is active.
My dad, an architect who's worked in Vietnam and through SE Asia for the last twenty-five years, explained that Bitexco - the company that built the tower - wanted a monument to their power. So they built and designed Bitexco Tower (the tower's actual name) with a helipad that was supposed to be used for the powerful to come and go.
Except that they couldn't get the helipad safety-rated: the winds off the river (directly below) and around the tower are too unpredictable for anyone to risk trying to land a chopper there. So they have a helipad...which can't be used.
In addition to which, the design above the helipad is problematic, on account of the floors growing smaller, and the elevator column not leaving a lot of space for offices or meeting rooms or anything that a multinational who'd want to set their HQ in a shiny and bright building could fit.
Not that unrented spaces in Vietnam is considered a bad thing by the Vietnamese, so my dad explains. It's built; if someone comes to rent it, all well and good, but otherwise...it's there and it's owned, and it's a sign of the power and money the organisation/corporation has.
Lunch took about three hours, because it was a buffet, and because a rainstorm whipped up while we were there, and the fog blew in, and the windows went grey and wet.
Anyway, getting home, I pretty much conked out again. The humidity is something AWFUL here and it just saps your strength.
Speaking of which, getting around in HCMC - mostly by motorbike, although occasionally taxi. But mostly motorkbike:
Motorbike in HCMC is not for the fainthearted. My best description of the rules is "First, you are not the only rider on the road; second, be aware of others and make others aware of you by honking your horn; third, the rules are rather more like...guidelines..."
They do have plenty of crashes and injuries, so I hear, but it works.
Will write the post about today tomorrow. Went swimming this afternoon before dinner and am now exhausted. PLus, going to see the War Remnants museum, so I think I'll need my sleep...
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