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Published: December 30th 2009
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Merry Christmas
Dessert at the Vine Restaurant It’s very different experiencing another culture around this time of year. I am such a family person, especially at Christmas time, and love spending the day with family, laughing, eating, drinking, and being merry. Hanoi is a very busy city, everything is always moving, so it’s hard to stop on a day like today and really get into the Spirit of things. Especially when it’s just the two of us at home, and have to do regular things like go to work and shop for groceries.
There is still a little Christmas Spirit in the air, however; listening to Christmas Carols playing on a tape player by old men sitting around a chess board on a street; hearing Christmas Carol ring tones; seeing Christmas Trees put up in shop windows; watching Vietnamese Men driving around on their motorbikes in full Santa outfits; the streets of the Old Quarter lit up with Christmas lights; walking past shop keepers spraying frosting over Christmas stencils on their shop windows; my students coming to class in Santa outfits; sitting in class listening to the kids singing Carols; being tagged in Christmas Wish photos on Facebook from my new friends here; all manikin’s in shop
windows wearing red; seeing Christmas cakes in the bakeries; hearing squeals of excitement when I practice saying “chuc mung giang sinh va chuc mung nam moi” (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year) at work.
We spent Christmas Eve together, Santa shouted us lunch at The Vine Restaurant - before we both had to rush off to work for the night. The Vine Restaurant, is on Xuan Dien Street, in Tay Ho, and is absolutely beautiful. It was recommended on The New Hanoian website, a set menu for lunch or dinner, and we noticed they had a very large wine list, so we thought we’d splurge and check it out. It was definitely worth the money; we had delicious food, shared a bottle of beautiful wine all served by very friendly sweet staff. It was so nice to sit back and enjoy some fine dining.
I woke up very excited early Christmas morning, busting to call my family - 6am Hanoi time, 10am Australia time. The walls are paper thin in this apartment, and it wouldn’t have been fair for me to call so early - so I waited till about 8:30am and we called and wished everyone a
Turkey
At the Vine Restaurant Merry Christmas!
It was fun, having everyone poke their heads around to look into the camera - I loved seeing them, not quite the same as ‘Merry Christmas kisses’ in person, but it was so special seeing everyone together. For tradition, all us cousins got together and sang the 12 days of Christmas, it was very fun and corny; just how it should have been.
Luke left for work, and I was a bit sad to be alone, so I quickly got ready and went into his work - luckily, as he was in there by himself dealing with arrogant English drunks wearing undies and Santa coats / hats. So I helped take a bit of the pressure off him by taking meals out and doing the dishes. There was a fancy dress party organised for Christmas Night at the Drift - Sexy Santa, of course, and Tiff was adamant that Luke and I had to get our sexy on. So I hired a bicycle to go and try finding some dress up gear.
This was my very first experience riding anything on the roads in Hanoi, I was a bit wobbly to start with, finding my
Beef
At the Vine Restaurant ‘bike-legs’ again, and getting used to the Hanoi traffic was a little interesting, I rode out onto the main road, and ended up doing a full lap back around past the drift as I was too scared to try go against the traffic or cross over onto the other side of the road. I had such a fun time riding; I kept the bike for the afternoon, rode it to and from work and then back into the Drift that night. I stopped at a Bakery on the way to school and bought a big cake as a Christmas celebration, it was a huge cake, and I wasn’t really sure how to carry it while riding my bike - it wouldn’t fit in the basket, so I had to get a plastic bag and put it over the handle bars - where it was hit by my knee every peddle around.
My private class was so excited, wishing me a Merry Christmas and they even got me a present, a beautiful scarf. (Special mention to Luke) Luke got me two presents the week of Christmas, came home and surprised me with beautiful red roses, and another day he surprised
The Menu
The Vine Restaurant me with a cozy white scarf, very sweet.
We had such a fun night at the Christmas Party, by the time I had arrived though, everyone was fairly Merry, and the theme had turned from Sexy Santa, to a kind of Sexy Indian Santa with everyone’s faces painted at the door before entering. Luke, no doubt, was enjoying himself, and purely for entertainment purposes, decided it would be a laugh to light his Santa beard on fire. Us standing around him saw the scary side, before the funny side, and silly me blew it out and hit it with my hand - the plastic burnt my hand and I spent the rest of the night with my blistered palm in the esky. He still claims to have had it undercontrol - something about "Hendrix".........and he said he could see his reflection in the window the whole time.
We ended the night early morning, traditional Hanoi style, walking home, stopping for Pho at Food Street before heading home to say Good night to Christmas 2009.
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