what an afternoon.....

our first purchase in vietnam (other than the bus fare) was the lonely planet guide book for vietnam. i had looked in book stores in seoul to find nothing--sold out. then paul and i also checked in the three book stalls in the airport before leaving seoul, and again--nothing. argh. we took the bus from the airport to arrive in the backpacker's part of town to find a place to stay. as we were walking down the street i noticed this guy with a huge stack of books all bound together. they were on display and he was selling. books tend to be more expensive in seoul, but i also knew what the lp book would be on amazon and it was on the cover too. i checked to make sure it was the most recent version and bam, we made our purchase. it ended up being about $17 US. well, we stopped for a refreshment before picking a hotel and i opened the thing up to realize that it was a pirated copy. crazy. it totally would have fooled anyone i know, but in the guide book it does mention these sales folks selling pirated books in this area. oh well.....it was cheaper than seoul even if it is a pirated copy. the only way you can tell is that the maps aren't as clear b/c they were copied. too funny. paul had a dragon fruit shake and i had a mango one before going out to find a place to stay.

after selecting a place to stay (saigon comfort hotel), which is only $26 a night, we rested for a bit before going out again. in this time is when i posted an update and such. yes, the hotel is safe, clean and reasonable. we are not staying in a rat hole. i promise, mom! i have taken pics that i will upload later.

we both changed into some cooler attire, and we went out to walk about to see what we could find. we were getting hungry, but did not want to go to the first place. we walked down this street that i had read had many options and figured we would troll and see what looked good. we went for italian at a little place called stella. it was good. we were both pleased with our meal which ended up costing less than the travel guide book for both of us. nuts. we each tried a local beer--paul had larue and i saigon red. we both decided we prefered the larue.

after dinner, we walked toward the city center but did not get too far as we both were getting tired. we ended up at highlands coffee and each had an iced vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk. amazing! we chilled in the comfy chairs and watched the activity outside. the streets are non stop place of action. crossing the street is totally nuts....i took video of two people doing it so you all can see the game of frogger in real life.

since we have been out walking around i have been pondering some thoughts and questions which will be in a seperate post. i am anxious to start some dialogue about my thinking and see what people think, feel, and want to discuss. more on that later.........

don't forget to check out my flickr page for photos.......