Day 109

It’s not a weekday but I still wake up with the chicken... as I can’t sleep anymore, I decide to get up and shower and get ready to breakfast whenever it will be. I go downstairs and Xuan’s teacher and her friend are already awake and they’re sat at the table talking. I wish good morning to both, I go to the fridge, grab a yogurt and ask if they want one, as they say no, I eat mine in silence and then head back to my room. It’s too early and besides them no one is awake so I guess I’ll just lay down on my bed and rest my eyes for a while. Around 8 am Thach Thao and Phuc and when Xuan is ready we go for breakfast or at least we try… Lady Bulldog is not on her days today and just tell us hat she doesn’t want to sell us noodles today… no comments… there’s no point on stressing and get irritated at the beginning of the morning, let’s just grab bread and eat some eggs…

At home we eat the eggs and the bread, I ask Xuan what she wants to do today and as she needs to take the teacher’s to buy some stuff I tell I’ll go for a walk by myself. At 9.30 am I leave the house with my backpack packed with 2 cameras, a computer, a charger and an external hard disk and I start walking. I know where I want to go, I want to go near the river so with the photo camera ready I walk my usual way.

Go by the park where I’m asked to answer a survey by two girls that are doing it for university, which I gladly answer. I continue walking through the park and when I almost arriving to big roundabout near Ben Thanh market 3 other girls come to ask me the same things as the two prior girls. These 3 girls where very nice and lovely and it was a pleasure to talk with them. I even took a couple of pictures with them and, later I learned that by giving my blog address one of them would find me on Google+ (Miss Hiền Phạm and Miss Như Nguyễn it was a pleasure to meet you both!). =)

At the roundabout of Ben Thanh market, instead of going towards the opera house and the highlands coffee shop, I go right towards the Bitexco Financial Tower.

Unfortunately this street I chose didn’t inspire me and beside a couple of photos to people resting their eyelids nothing was more interesting until arriving to the tower. There I got informed about the opening schedule and the prices and decided I’d like to go there twice, one during the day and another one during the night, so I grab a pamphlet and walk towards the river, my first objective.

It’s really hot and near the river there’s almost no trees and nothing to see except some restaurant boats and a beautiful hotel.

I make a couple of pictures and head back towards this open avenue full of trees, towards the opera house. You can notice that while walking here you’re walking towards an upper class part of the town…

when arriving to the opera house I turn left to go to my favorite Highlands coffee shop where I drink a my beverage of election while updating a couple of stuff on my blog and around noon I start walking towards home as lunch will be lau…

When I arrive home all the ladies are already there and before lunch I only have time to leave my stuff upstairs and seat at the table.

Lunch runs smoothly and everybody enjoys the time together or at least I think so as I can only understand the smiles and the laughs between them. After lunch I decide to rest because later I’m going to meet my friend Thoung for dinner.

At 5 pm I start getting ready and one hour after Xuan gives me a ride to the restaurant. As it’s still too early I make a couple of photos at the park in front; I’m even able to catch a rat!

I text Thuong and she’s already at the restaurant. When I see her she takes me to her table where her ex-husband and her son are already sat. Everyone’s very nice with me and we have a couple of laughs together while eating a very nice steak.

When we finish we decide to go for ice cream and we go again to the coconut ice cream place. While eating the ice creams we also play with Kahn’s ipad and have lots of fun.

Then Thuong asks me if I’d like to go see and hear some flamenco and I’m all in so she books us a table at this place called Carmen and around 8.30 pm we head to the bar.

The bar is amazing, very beautiful, with red lights that create a very intimate environment.

We order our drinks and a plate of fruits and shake our shoulders while the performances don’t start.

Then the band comes to the stage and this girl with a microphone starts singing.

She has an amazing voice! She sings in English and in Spanish and her accent is really good; I have to confess I wasn’t expecting it.

After a couple of songs, she leaves the stage and another singer fills in. this guy starts with Ricky Martin and stays in that register, he seems a guy full of life that really loves what he’s doing. His energy is passed to the audience and that’s very good!

Mr. Vietnamese Ricky Martin finishes his performance and it’s time for these 2 guys go on stage: a Philippine and a Vietnamese singing Gypsy Kings songs and some other great scores.

When I entered Carmen I never thought this would be so much fun!

At 11 pm is time to go home so Thuong tells the taxi driver where to take me, I thank her very much and tell her I wanna see her again next weekend. The taxi driver takes me next home; I pay and wake up Chi Lam to open me the door (yes, I didn’t take the keys with me and now I have to disturb poor Chi Lam, I’m a bad girl!). In my room I’m still able to talk a few minutes with my parents and wish them a good night. It’s late and tomorrow I have to wake up early so it’s time for bed…

Night night peeps!