Endless Night

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Ok, so it has been a few days but hey I've been busy.

After getting settled into the hotel, went for a walk with one of my colleagues that knew the area. This was quite useful as I quickly realised how close everything was. Traffic here is constant and heavy. Trying to cross a road is a bit like a game of Frogger, except you only get one life. The trick is not to wait for a gap (you will be waiting until about 2am when the traffic takes a short rest), you just have to go but maintain a steady speed and direction. Follow this advise and the bikes will avoid you. Cars, buses, vans etc do not follow this rule though, so don't stand in front of one for long. Also be careful because bikes will hide behind larger vehicles and surprise you just went you think you are safe. Every so often the traffic seems to up the level though, and it will come at you from the opposite direction or worse still on the footpath. There does not appear to be much highway code here, or there is little attempt to enforce it (which to be honest would be impossible anyway). Keep your wits about you and you will be fine.

Decided to have an easy meal at The Refinery, a lovely French bistro. The beef fillet minion was excellent, served medium rare with vegetables and mashed potato. Had a few drinks and continued to walk around in order to get familiar with district 1.

Returned to the hotel and decided to get my head down to sleep. Only sleep decided not to come. Lieing in bed with the sound of traffic outside, I tried to sleep but it took a couple of hours before I finally drifted off. A couple of hours later though I was awake again. Jet lag is a bitch. When the alarm went off at 630, I arose with only a total of 3 hours sleep (combined with the 3 from the previous night, things did not bode well).

I got through the day with strategic use of caffeine. Much of Monday was a bit of a daze, but at least I did not have much to achieve other than meeting with the team in the office.

Monday night was a mixed oriental meal at Sam Yung. I good selection of foods, although some surprisingly chilli. A good low budget restaurant, two can easily eat for around $30.

Monday I slept very well and arrived at the office refreshed the next day. I still needed the strategic caffeine, but not as frequently.

Tuesday night was gym night. The Cali Wow gym next door to the hotel is a very high end gym with excellent facililties. Their sales person kept trying to sell me 24 and 12 month memberships. Clearly she did not understand the concept of me only being here for 6 weeks. I think I will probably go for the 1 month membership, much more cost effective for a short stay.

Of course, I might as well continue the trend and explain where we went for dinner. Tuesday was 3T, a japanese BBQ. There is a hot (and I mean skin would burn crispy quick if you touched it) plate in the middle of the tables. You then order up a selection of meat, fish and vegetabes to cook on the plate. This was good fun, more so once the waiter stopped spoiling the fun and let us cook for ourselves. The only real shock was the live prawns served on a skewer. They really objected to being put on the hot plate, but despite how much they wiggled their legs there was not escape. Rather messy to eat, but very tasty nonetheless. My favourite dish was beef wrapped in dairy lea cheese (odd I know). The cheese melted nicely and went well with the very tender beef. The main downside of this restaurant is the lack of air conditioning, which meant you really looked forward to the electric fan finally spinning back in your direction albeit only briefly.

Today I am at about 98% after another good nights sleep. A hectic day in the office though, I think it will be an early night again.

Anyway, that pretty much gets us up to date.
Statistics:
Days - 3
Photos - 0 (shock)
Vietnamese phrases mastered - 0
Vietnamese phrases learned kind of - 4
Vietnamese phrases attempted to learn - 4
Amount of rice eaten - who knows

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