Stuff from all over, and Vietnamese nightlife

The pictures in the post are slightly irrelevant to what I'm writing about. Just so you know.

First, a picture of some miniature pancakes that I made. One was shaped perfectly like a fishie. I was rather proud. And, of course, I ate it first.


I took a walk to the backpacker district to buy my boat ticket to Cambodia, and started thinking about the way nightlife works here. There are plenty of streets with shops on them, and giant markets where you can go and buy everything that you could possibly want, and yet...shopping happens mostly at night, out on the street.


For example, there is a street near my house called Nguyen Trai, which is lined mostly with clothing and shoe boutiques. These remain largely empty during the day. At night, these and other vendors spread out big tarps on the sidewalks and sell their wares--handbags, shoes, clothes, helmets, jewelry, wallets, belts, etc. And the street gets packed! On my walk back from getting my ticket, I had to a) walk in the street because the sidewalks were full (not an uncommon occurrence in this city) and b) be extra careful because people were cruising by on their motorbikes to check out the merchandise.

(This is an ox made of San Miguel cans, btw. It stands next to the Coke Castle pictured below.)

Moreover, in places like Ben Thanh Market, which is an ENORMOUS market that sells everything, the market itself closes at 5, but then all the vendors move their stuff outside to tents. That's when the market gets really busy, is when the shopping moves outside at night. I suppose this makes sense, if everyone is working or at school during the day; the only time they would be able to go shopping would be at night. I don't entirely understand why the markets don't just stay open later, but...maybe people just like buying stuff when it's "off the street" then when it's on a mannequin in a store window.

I'm usually too tired during the week to venture out and actually shop here. In general, shopping in this country is overwhelming and exhausting, simply because they don't really understand the concept of browsing. As soon as you approach a vendor, or walk into a store, you will have 3 or 4 salespeople bombarding you will "Hello! You want this? Or this? Or maybe this?" and if you even glance at something specifically they will be like "Oh, you like this?! We have it in a million colors and sizes! Here, try!" and I just want to run away.

One of these nights I'll muster up the energy to go out there and seriously check it out.