Saturday Tourist

We have started a new routine lately: get out of the house on a Saturday and embrace this crazy country with both hands! Its hard because we are both usually entirely knackered from a busy and long week at school. But once we are out we usually find great things or just get loads of bargains in the shops...or eat plenty of yummy food (seriously...food is like a religion here).

This week we needed to go into the heart of madness that is Ben Thanh Market in Town. I can't believe I haven't even been yet as it is the home of bargains apparently and I certainly love those. Today we needed to go to get some fabric to make a Barbados flag for International Day on Friday and this is where they tell me I can get what I need.

Olivia was not in the bestest of moods and cringed at my bartering and banter with the 'market people'. Everything I do is utterly embarrassing these days....we have reached this point.

I could not even look too long at the sheer mountains of fabric as I started to feel a bit faint. I am deeply passionate about fabric. The most amazing thing I found was mens shirting fabric by the roll....ahhhh I wanted it all to make massive artworks with about gender issues and feminism - brain went into overdrive!

I found somewhere to get a nose stud. Saw two people I work with. Score. Always feels like a total victory over this vastly populated city to see anyone I know. Actually I do usually see someone :)

Oh, and I got the blue and yellow fabric to make the flag too...

We took refuge in a lovely Japanese restaurant and had very non-Japanese food: bacon and eggs, and pork sandwich?? But good to get out of the market and watch traffic of people, cars, bikes. It was so hot today.

Erm yeah...then shortly followed by cupcakes and coffee at L'Usine's on Le Loi...wowsers! felt like New York in there. A very cool shop lower floor and gorgeous cafe above. More food: diet fail.

Tried to take a picture of a cute girl in yellow wings but she was a bit freaked out by a random stranger...don't blame her I am a bit weird (ask my child).

So a great Saigon Saturday in all, even with my moody teenage companion. Even she managed to have fun in the end as she got loads of new stuff and we looked at Go-Pro cameras together.

What you up to today?

Do you do tourism at home?

Love, me x

other places we visited today:

gorgeous quilts....*sigh*

beautiful hand made things

cameras galore

art shops

lusting after tablet devices in air con shops

Since we last spoke...

I have been getting used to a new life in Vietnam: teaching, orienting...a lot of orienting, working out where to get just about everything and then how to get to that thing in a country that speaks very little English, discovering new things and how to get a lot of old things in a new place; very little tourism has happened. I am tired beyond belief, quite homesick looking back at the pictures I have ONLY JUST transferred over to my new system...but utterly astounded and happy to be living and working in Saigon:
the people and places are what I want to share with you today :)

still to come...

the weather 

the lifestyle

the cost of living

and other stuff...

It's good to be back in the Blogsphere. A little piece of my own home in cyberspace.
What have you been doing for the last few months?
Love, me x