Banana cyclo

Banana cyclo!

Bicycle truck...

Pretty floor in Highlands Coffee  :P

Heading down to the parking garage in the Manor...

(I liked this squashed flower... Nina thought that was kind of weird)  

Co Ba Vung Tau - restaurant

Patrice took me to a fabulous Vietnamese restaurant the other night! It's located in District 3 - just west of where I live. I'll definitely be back here soon.  :)

We ordered banh xeo (literally meaning, 'sizzled cake')... a thin pancake stuffed with whatever you order (Patrice got a mushroom one... mine had shrimp, sprouts, and onions). ...You tear a piece off, wrap it in a piece of lettuce, and dip it into a spicy sauce. ...Deeeelicious!

We also had a specialty from Vung Tau (the 3 circle pieces on the plate in the middle, shown below) - banh khot... a small, fried, coconut pancake with meat or shrimp on top.

Neighborhood Temple Time

There's a beautiful temple in my neighborhood, right along the river. There are a few by me, actually. I first visited the one shown below with my brother, Lenny, while he was in HCMC. There was some big event/day going... there were a ton of people and food all over the temple. We were even offered to sit down and eat!

I found this temple a while ago but hadn't gone in...

(you can see what the outside of the temple looks like in my past post, here).

Flip Flop Lost-and-found

There are a lot of things in this crazy city that I've grown accustomed to... but I still laugh a bit inside at all of the stray flip flops and baby shoes on the roads... mostly left in intersections or round-abouts.

Even funnier is when there is a flip flop on the road... and then a few meters away... the matching flip flop! Haha... If you lose one, you may as well kick the other off and at least someone will gain a new pair of footwear.

Flips flops of all sizes and shapes... even little baby-sized sandals all over.

After school deliciousness...

I paused by a fruit market on my way home from work to take this shot... I love the pink flowers on the balcony above the market and against the gray sky...

THEN I noticed that I was beside a street cart selling the coconut dessert shown below: 

I've tried looking into what this is called for a while... but am not finding anything. I asked one of my students and she wasn't sure of the real name for it but said that she refers to it as banh dua in Vietnamese. Whatever it's called... it's pretty delicious. It's made with coconut (or coconut milk?) and very spongy. 

You tear off a puffy section at a time. The piece above is about the size of a decent dinner plate. I paid 10,000 dong for it (about 50 cents)... which is definitely the foreigner's price.   :P

(Lenny - I wish we had seen a street cart with this while you were here, as it's great street cake!)

Valentine's Day in Vietnam

Happy Valentine's Day!

And happy 7-month anniversary to me and Vietnam  :D

(Wendy... thanks so much for the wonderful Valentine's decorations! 

They have been a hit in the library!)

Vietnamese lunches...

I realized I should post some pictures of 'traditional' Vietnamese food (more in the 'basic' sense than 'traditional' I suppose). ...Well, what better place than food from our school's canteen?! haha

Lately, I've been buying lunch from the canteen a couple times a week... it's cheap, convenient, tastes good, and is clean (which is a nice comfort here!).

Each day there are a couple choices for the students... like fried frogs (truly... they've served whole, fried frogs before and the kids love them). I choose to go with a plate of rice, cooked vegetables, and an egg. The veggies change each day and with some soy sauce on top, I'm all set!

I usually pay about 16,000 d for a lunch like the two shown below (...less than $1.00).