Hugo had his first beef noodle soup breakfast today: rating 10/10! I opted for the omlette, not yet getting my head round noodles at breakfast. Although I suppose to a lot of people a full English seems pretty unusual.
We then walked about 6 miles in exploration, passing-among many other interesting stalls- a market stall selling birds. There must have been hundreds of caged birds and dozens more wild ones eating up the fallen food. It was amazing to see, yet filled with a sadness of sorts. I imagine the birds are seen as luck- a cage hangs from many shop fronts. Then in walking we found a huge western style shopping centre half open. I had an avocado ice cream smoothie (amazing-no one does smoothies or fruit juice drinks like the vietnamese) on the 7th floor, hence the view out the window.
We walked back via a different route, coming across a quite rich area, with lots of luxury shops and maintained french style buildings. There is a beautiful opera house fashioned after the one in Paris. We want to go to a performance next week for 150,000 vnd:about £4.70 we peeked in the windows- it looks absolutely amazing.
Not far on from that we stumbled upon a monument in a park where there must have been almost a dozen bride and groom pairs all having wedding photos taken. I couldnt work out if they were being taken after the event, as I seem to remember hearing that, similar to the west, it isnt good for a man to see the dress before the wedding. Also, i think that brides here (if they can afford it) tend to have about three different outfits for the occasion.
Then, back in the old district ( our 36-street neighbourhood) Hugo was accosted by the shoe shiners. Boys and men with their cobblers bag of tricks in tow (consisting of tools, flip flops, rubber soles and replacement insteps all in a well-worn small hard plastic tote) roam the streets determined to not only grab your attention with a cheap shine, but then decide you need a complete service and charge more.
Hugo unwittingly (once they start they certainly dont stop) got the works- they rerepaired his father's St. Michaels' M&S leather shoes to near-newness by sewing the soles to the shoe again where they were coming apart, cleaning and shining them as they went. Of course there was a huge price debate which the boys tried to act incredibly upset about, but as we walked away, Hugo was smiling and i turned around and so were they- i dont think they saw me :)
We returned to our favourite place from yesterday to have a cold drink and some spring rolls (total cost £3) and then walked back to the hotel for an afternoon sleep- where i write from now. This jetlag is quite a pain- just when we think we feel fine it creeps up and droops our eyes- reminding us how far weve just come....
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