This is the stir-fry that I've told many of you about. This woman has a cart across the street from where I live, and she just has a big skillet where she fries potatoes, noodles, pork, eggs, greens, and onions in soy sauce. Then she put a huge amount of it (see below) in a to-go container and sells it for 12,000 dong. 16,000 dong is a dollar, so that's about $0.75 for dinner. It is sooooo good, and allows me to be lazy without feeling too guilty. There is also a cart selling spring rolls (the cold kind, not the fried kind) for 1,000 dong each, if I want to feel healthier.
That was my Saturday night dinner, that I had before going out with Thi to a few clubs (it was kind of a bust; we kept having weird guys dancing with us, so we had to stragetically position ourselves on the dance floor for maximum space with minimum sketch factor). Sunday morning Thi took me, still in my pajamas, to an alley nearby that is a market in the mornings. She bought stuff and helped my buy stuff, and the Vietnamese women kept telling her (she translated for me) that they loved my skin. (Also, someone this morning whizzed by on a motorbike on my way to work and like, rubbed my arm for good luck. It was super weird. All my life I've felt like being pale was a bad thing, but now people are rubbing me for luck! It's a crazy world.)
So the market had meat, vegetables, rice, noodles, household items, clothes, everything (More photos on Facebook).
I had no idea this many kinds of rice existed, or what the difference is, beyond the price.
Once we got back home and cooked brunch (fried eggs and bread and fruit for me, fried noodles with pork and greens for Thi), I went to the Hash (http://www.saigonh3.com/) to get some exercise and be outdoors. Here are the runners taking off:
This is a strangler fig tree, also known as a banyan, also known as a Bodhi tree, because according to legend the Buddha found enlightenment under one of these (I know SO much about Buddha now!). I think they are the coolest things ever, since their roots grow down from branches to reach the ground for water. They grow over statues, temples, other trees, anything that stands in their way.
This is J.P. Met him on the first Hash that I did a few weeks ago, and this week he was the Hare, which means he set the course. They made him drink a lot of beer as a reward/punishment.
Beer time. "Drink it down down down down, down down down down..." (This is called the "Down Down" song, to chug along to.)
That was my weekend. Got home from the Hash around 7:30, just in time for the power to go out again. This time, it was a circuit or something, because all we had to do was flip a few switches to get it back. Unfortunately, I did not know this until Maraj got home, so I ate dinner by candlelight.
Happy Monday, everybody. (Groan)
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