Pho.
Pastries (Hanoi), and this is killing me a little bit. Not pictured on the shelf beneath: real baguettes, thanks to France.
Wide, tree-lined boulevards and sidewalks (Ho Chi Minh City) (again, thank you France).
Public parks (Ho Chi Minh City), and/or places to sit quietly in public in general, and/or a climate conducive to spending the afternoon outside.
Jameson Irish whiskey.
Ridiculous Christmas decorations.
Offerings quietly stuffed next to an electrical pole…
….or a bridge.
Guys who try to glue your friend’s shoes back together when you’re not looking.
Kids who sit on chairs propped on their parents’ motorbike.
Stylish but ridiculously unprotective motorbike helmets.
Chinese-style emperor tombs (Hue – this was worth a blog post all to itself…).
Trees that look like this (emperor’s tombs, Hue).
Winter coats (it’s so cold here! Or have I been living on the equator too long?)
Salted coffee (Hue): A layer of thick syrupy coffee, condensed milk, and salt, which you mix together once the coffee drips and serve on ice.
Mi opla (Hue): Eggs cooked on a hot plate beneath a thin layer of a tomato cream, onions, cilantro, stuffed into a baguette and eaten like a sandwich.
Pork!!
Shark meat (Phu Quoc Island). (Yes, i tried it, but i still hate seafood.) (Those who love it still couldn’t swallow the shark liver.)
Egg coffee (Hanoi): Thick, syrupy coffee served beneath a super-whipped layer of eggs. And for that matter, backdrops to enjoying egg coffee which look like this:
I don’t remember what this is called (Hanoi): Crispy egg omelette with pork inside, which you roll up with greens in rice paper and eat like a spring roll.
Public parks, certainly with pagodas in the middle (Hanoi).
Old men who wear berets and sit in the park to contemplate (I love them!).
Toddlers playing tug-of-war in said public parks. Well OK, Indo has toddlers, but still — tug at my heartstrings a little more, Vietnam.
And till December 17…. me!
mcljava 