Day 63: October 22, 2014

Today started off just like any other day; I woke up and headed to history class, in which we watched a movie. Usually on Wednesdays, I take a taxi to get to my next class, but today I decided to walk. When everybody else heard I was walking to class, they all decided to join me. Instead of having lunch, we all grabbed some fruit for our half-hour journey. I got fresh, delicious, and sweet pineapple for 10,000d as well as a banana cake for 10,000d. The banana cake reminded me of thick banana pudding in both texture and taste, and it was so good I'll probably have to get it again.

After all of our classes were done for the day, it was time to come back to the dormitory. We've wanted to take bus 50 back for a few weeks now, but usually after class it is raining. Not today! We got some last minute directions from Vien before heading out. Thankfully, the bus stop is neither far away nor hard to find, so I will definitely be taking it back on Wednesdays instead of a taxi. It's different from bus 6 in that you pay the driver, but we were able to get everything figured out okay. After about 30 minutes, we had arrived at the Co-Op Mart, where the bus stop was.

I spent the afternoon trying to get myself to work on the history paper due tomorrow. I basically finished taking notes and will write the paper tomorrow. A man also came to drop off mail today, and I had 4 letters, all in orange envelopes waiting for me. I think both the guy and I were surprised at how much mail I received!

I had plans to meet with Thao for supper at 7pm. She can't believe that I don't like noodles, so she said she was going to take me to a noodle place. I had explained to her earlier that there is just something about long, thin noodles that I can't stand, but she basically told me I needed to get over it. So tonight, kind of nervous about where she was taking me, I hopped on the back of her motorbike. She took me to District 3 and we pulled up to a little street restaurant where there were lots of people eating. The only dish they served was "mi xao bo", or ramen noodles with beef. Thankfully, she had understood when I said I especially couldn't stand the rice noodles. Thao ordered one mi xao bo trung (ramen noodles with beef and egg) for us to share. If I'm being completely honest, it wasn't bad. But there is no way I could have finished the entire thing by myself. It was huge! I still prefer the macaroni style noodles, but at least I now know of other options.

After we finished eating we hopped back on her motorbike and she drove down some side streets until we came to an alleyway. In this alleyway was the most crowded sweet soup place I have ever seen. On the far left were the people dishing out the sweet soup with 12 big metal pans between them. In the center were probably about 15-20 little plastic tables, each with two to four people crowded around them. The far right had a woman who was washing dishes as fast as she could so that they could be reused. We pulled up, and I'm not even exaggerating, all of the customers turned to stare at me and Thao. We were directed to a table where Thao ordered five, yes FIVE, different sweet soups. In a matter of seconds we had our dessert, which included corn sweet soup, potato sweet soup, two kinds of bean sweet soup (this one and this one), and sticky rice. Each came in a little bowl like you see used at tea parties and were served warm. Not surprisingly, the corn was my favorite, followed by the potato. I realize that this vegetable dessert combination sounds rather disgusting, but it is so unbelievably sweet. It was hard for the two of us to finish five dishes, but all around us were people ordering "trays", or one of everything. Thao and I watched these two boys order a tray, which includes around 12 different desserts, and only eat about three each before getting the rest to go.

After everything was paid for (each sweet soup was only 4,000d) Thao took me back to the dormitory and we called it a night. I had planned on going to the English Club meeting but they were not where they were last time I went, so instead I went back to my room to finish some homework.