Working in HCMC - but mostly eating and drinking!

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Thursday and Friday were overall pretty low-key. Finally I got a good night's sleep, so moving forward there should be no more jetlag :-) Thursday was a full day of work - I spent the first half of the day with my admissions counterpart and the second half leading a training for the whole Southeast Asia team. Lunch was catered by the restaurant I had gone to on my first day, propaganda, but they screwed up my order so instead of the duck curry I got duck spring rolls. Life goes on. After the work day was over I grabbed a Filipino beer with my trainee to kill time before our dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. Lebanese, Brazilian - Ho Chi Minh City has it all - can't say I would have chosen to eat either while in Vietnam, but it's always interesting to see other country's takes on international cuisines. The steakhouse was similar to others I'd been to, but the amount of food was much less, probably because I wasn't in a country full of fat Americans. After dinner a few of us went to the rooftop pool bar at the Renaissance hotel - great cucumber ginger drink and nice views of the Saigon river and city skyline lit up at night.

Friday was another full day of work, but it started off with a ride on a motorbike. My coworker Quan, the one I'm training, was kind enough to offer to pick me up for a bike ride and breakfast outside of the hotel. Riding the bike was less nerve-wracking than I thought, not that I was even driving, but it just seems so easy to crash and die at all times! While it's quite breezy it still doesn't explain why some people are legitimately bundled up with a face mask and helmet. Anyway, for breakfast he took me to Trung Nguyen, a cafe operated by Vietnam's largest coffee brand. My boss's boss, who has spent quite a bit of time in Ho Chi Minh City, actually requested that I bring him back one of their types of coffee, so that worked out super well. For breakfast I had another bowl of hot pho - very good, but not ideal given we were sitting outside and it was already above 90 at 7:45am. I also of course had a Vietnamese iced coffee, choosing the Sang Tao 8 variety that I had been recommended. This variety is actually made to mimic kopi luwak or civet coffee, coffee that includes partially-digested coffee cherries eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet, a weasel-type creature. This literal shit coffee is one of the world's most expensive coffees and supposedly has a sweeter, less-acidic taste. Others argue it's all a gimmick and just expensive because of the novelty. The coffee was delicious, but I do kind of wish it had been the real thing. The traditional way to have Vietnamese coffee is to brew one cup at a time in a small metal drip filter called a phin. The coffee then slowly drips into sweetened condensed milk, is stirred, and then in this case is poured over ice. I got both a set of the filters and the blend to take home.

The work day was nothing to write home about, just a lot of training and shitty internet connection. Lunch was at a Vietnamese chain called Wrap and Roll. We started with a few appetizers - green mango salad and noodle-wrapped beef wrapped in lettuce with herbs, then Vietnamese hot pot. Could not have been worse for me with actual flames at the table coupled with broken a/c, but I sweat through it! The hot pot was delicious - hunks of crab, tofu, fish cake, and some kind of lemongrass-infused meat with fresh herbs, noodles, etc. After a few more hours in the office I headed back to the hotel for a drink with my coworker before her flight, then headed to the lobby to meet Quan and another coworker who were taking me out for the evening. The destination was Vuvuzela Beer Club, basically Vietnam's hooters. It was actually super fun - we shared two towers of bud heavy, chicken wings in fish sauce batter, deep-fried chicken cartilage, and octopus - just your typical bar snacks! There were also complimentary wasabi peas, chips, tiny spicy fried fish, and peanuts. We ended up making friends with another table, and by we I mean they did because I obviously don't speak Vietnamese, but that meant two more beers and that we were getting shitfaced. The night ended with me in bed ordering pho and shrimp spring rolls from room service. Yay Vietnam!

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