now experiencing the fragrant aroma of saigon
Zoe has been enjoying her Jolly Jumper tremendously. I’ve been trying to find just the right music for her to bounce along with. So far my favorite is Jump Jack Jump by Wynona Carr. Other videos posted on YouTube include Paper Planes by MIA and Jump Jive and Wail by the Brian Setzer Orchestra.
Lots of cooking for Mother’s Day. Lunch was a home-made cottage pie and green salad all from the garden.
Dinner was more salad (tons of lettuce in the garden!) and fettucini with asparagus, fennel, mint and ricotta & parmesan cheese.
Zoe has been enjoying her first Mother’s Day, wishing Trinh a very happy day this morning.
Meanwhile, Yoshiki practiced his monkey moves as Rian explained the extreme ease of passing level seven of Mario.
Trang and Niall threw a barbecue for Niall’s birthday yesterday. After lots of sausages and lots of beer, Niall and Taka engaged in a bout of drunken Judo.
This man just destroyed our garden. He was cutting down trees on the lot opposite and let them fall right onto our garden. A dozen tomato plants, a dozen corn plants, a whole bed of lettuce and our entire herb garden are now defunct. We filed a report with the local police, but it seems unlikely that anything will come of it.
Monday was Lamma Day, in celebration of Tin Hau‘s birthday. We caught the tail end of the Cantonese opera and checked out the dragon boat races. Zoe loved all the colorful flags, carrying on long conversations with them.
We packed everything up and headed to Tan Son Nhut airport at 4:30 on Sunday morning. Back home in Hong Kong by noon.
Our final stop in Dalat was Prenn Falls on the way out of town. This place is a real Vietnamese tourist trap: concreted over, smelly, strewn with trash. Once you pay to go inside, there are many attractions in an attempt to part you with more of your money. My favorite was the ostrich rides. (No, I didn’t partake.) As I continued walking, I was so engrossed in the idea of ostrich rides that I didn’t notice as I passed within inches of two full-grown crocodiles on the other side of a three-foot-high chain link fence.
The next day, Di Yến, Chú Báu, Di Vân and Trinh threw me a surprise thirty-seventh birthday party. It was an amazing spread: steamed giant prawns, nem nướng Ninh Hòa, chả giò, xà lách trọn thịt bò, a bottle of surprisingly palatable Dalat red wine, and a milk and lá dứa gelatin cake.
