My Helmet

After wearing the community helmet my xe om driver carries for longer than I even want to think about, I finally bought my own motorbike helmet. Now I can be like a local and wear it everywhere and at all times - regardless of whether or not I'm actually on a motorbike.

It's a good thing I look so awesome with it on.

Street Food of the Week - Bun Cha

Bun Cha is is another northern-region dish, which is lucky for us because that's where we are, and it's got to be in the top 5 of the most delicious meals here. It is comprised of a plate of cold noodles, BBQ pork that gets dumped in a bowl of some type of broth with some carrots, apples, and bean sprouts, and a basket full of leafy greens. You take some of each, mix together in your little bowl, and enjoy.

*Note - I realize the name of this post should probably be changed as I haven't been writing even monthly, never mind weekly, about street food. But Street Food of the Bi-Month just doesn't have the same ring to it so I'm not changing it.

What in the World Have We Been Doing Here?

Mostly doodling...

*thanks to Daniel for providing the inspiration for this one*

and coloring...

and drawing...

Thủy Nguyên

Thủy Nguyên (said like "twee win") is one of the 15 districts of Hai Phong. While some districts are very close to each other right in the main part of Hai Phong (for example, the teacher's house is in the Lê Chân district and the school, which is less than 10 minutes away, is in the Ngô Quyền district), others are quite a ways out from the city. Thủy Nguyên is one of the farther ones. I have a class at one of the schools there, which sucks because it takes almost an hour to get there and back, but is nice because it's so beautiful there. As I've said before, Hai Phong isn't the most attractive city - basically just as many houses as they can fit all crammed next to each other. But Thủy Nguyên hasn't been developed nearly as much as Hai Phong and you can actually see some of the amazing scenery that Vietnam has to offer.

Unfortunately I only get to see most of it from the window of a taxi, but here's some pictures I've managed to capture.

Another Cat Ba Trip

Awhile back we made another trip to Cat Ba, but I kept forgetting to post about it. So now that I've remembered here's some pictures.

The main drag at night.

Some boats and floating villages.

The view from the beach cabana where we spent pretty much the whole trip.

A floating restaurant where we went for dinner.

The menu at the floating restaurant. It's a bit blurry but there's basically some holes in the floor of the restaurant with whatever seafood they've caught that day. They bring you over, show you what they've got, you point, and then they cook it.

Steve at the floating restaurant.

The view of the main drag from on the water.

The Movies

Back home we pretty much had stopped going to the movies altogether because it got so expensive. Here it's so cheap it puts the fun back into going to see a movie. If the movie ends up sucking, it's not such a big deal because you've only spent about 6 bucks as opposed to about 25.

Aside from the price, the whole movie experience is just better here. The theaters are very clean, the seats are quite comfortable and are assigned so you can choose your seats and get the best ones available (which is usually almost all of them), and, as Steve is demonstrating in the picture below, you can enjoy a nice cold beer with your delicious popcorn (choice of salty or sweet).

Even More Bugs

I'm not a huge fan of insects. And as if I didn't have enough to worry about here in that department -what, with the mutant cockroaches, humming bird-sized moths, various kinds of weird flying things, and mosquitoes and fleas that want to eat me alive - apparently they have invaded my body as well.


The annual "kill the insects in your body" day just passed here in Vietnam. While I choose to not think too much about what this means (most likely they're referring to parasites and what, does everybody here have worms or something?), I did partake in the ritual of eating sticky rice with wine (the insecticide), just to be on the safe side.


Check out Steve's blog for the full story, and don't let the body bugs bite!