Today we plan to visit Dist 1. I have uploaded a couple of pictures into yesterday’s post for fun! Just waiting for my hard-working friends to rise and shine.
Bill and I grabbed a cab and disembarked at the Opera House. From there we essentially walked in circles, which gave the fascinating perspective of seeing the same locations as they transformed over the course of the day.
We winded through streets and the occasional park (often repeatedly as noted) watching the people and with me snapping pics at every turn, talking about life and living as only old friends are able, laughing the mad laugh of camaraderie.
At one end of a long narrow park was a statue of Ho Chi Minh himself.
And of course it’s really all about the friends we made along the way.
We stopped into a couple of local breweries (taprooms) in part because I wanted a baseball cap. The first had the trucker style (plastic mesh back and plastic snaps for adjustment) and those are the saddest of all caps never to adorn my head. The second has a decent if thin cap, but it was all white. That’s just asking for trouble. I suggested the should make a black version.
Bill spotted a lonely epaulet on the sidewalk and pulled the aluminum bit from that and added it to his shirt.
Then Bill dragged me (unwittingly) into a red light district. At one point as we winded our way through these tiny twisting alleys a group of a dozen young ladies descended upon us in their all-white attire offering all the good times one can imagine. I tried to assure them I could not sustain them all, even on my best day. We did manage to extricate ourselves with our junk and our wallets intact.
The sky was warning of rain so we ducked into a Japanese noodle place about the size of a closet and took seats at the bar (the only seats were bar seats, duh). Excellent ramen.
Thought the rains were done so we left there and wandered through this labyrinth of alleys more, but we still were getting wet. Eventually it was raining pretty heavily again, so we ducked into a gelateria. Always a good time to have ice cream. We sat on the second floor, where no one else happened to be, next to the window watching the rain pound down.
Back out on the main streets again Bill pointed out a building with balconies all they way up and businesses on each, so we walked across that boulevard and started up the winding stairs to see what all was in this building.
It was several stories tall (a dozen?) and each floor contained some number of restaurants or cafes or shops. After exploring the lot of passageways and alcoves, we descended from the top floor to where we found a coffee shop. Bill had coffee and I had passion fruit tea. We watched the rains subside from our balcony.
There was some thumping music happening at the steps of the Opera House as we walked past again. We had seen the trucks setting up all the music gear from the balcony.
After this we stopped into the second brewery looking for a cap. Seven Bridges is the one with the white cap which I also rejected. (It’s ok to be picky.) But we did stay for a beer. I had a Fire Eater, a stout with cocoa and chilies, and Bill had a Tangerine Sunset (he likes the hoppy citrus beers).
Still it was raining so we ducked across the alley to another Japanese eatery. We had grilled pork-wrapped asparagus, thinly sliced and grilled beef tongue, and yaki udon.
Finally grabbed a cab back home but went through the mall and explicitly Decathalon where I did finally get myself a cap (more a military style that baseball but nice). The bathrooms have tiny yellow pucks in the urinals and the bathroom smells strongly of lemon. Never have figured out that our pink pucks are supposed to smell like.
