Polo Fried Chicken

We went out to Polo Fried Chicken last night, just down from the Embassy. We'd read a piece in the New York Times by R.W. "Johnny" Apple, who used to be a major Times reporter and now seems to be just traveling the world, eating lots and lots of food and writing articles about it. Latest was on Bangkok (found here: http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/12/dining/12bang.html?ex=1130644800&en=80e453d6b225a525&ei=5070) and included a review of the place. It's the closest to our place so we taxied over to take a look. Pretty sure it was the right place, though it didn't quite match the description in the article. We got the chicken which was fine but was pretty much just fried chicken. Great place, though, all Thai and even the menu was only in Thai.

Snow White in an Ao Dai

Saw this in a store window and thought it was fantastic. If Snow White had been a Vietnamese story....

Vespa Fan Club

We were walking down Hang Thuyen street by the Notre Dame Cathedral and noticed a few people hanging out on their Vespa scooters, then noticed it was really a whole bunch of people on a whole bunch of Vespas. Turns out it was a bit of a Vespa fan club that hangs out and drives their scooters around on Sundays. Usually the old restored Lambrettas and Vespas were big hits with the expats, but looks like it's catching on with Saigonese, too. Later we saw all the Vespas lined up outside the restaurant where everybody went for lunch after cruising time was over.

Back to Saigon

We took advantage of a three-day weekend here (Monday was Chulalongkorn Day) to head back to Vietnam. Dung may be starting work soon so we wanted to get in a good trip before it's too difficult to take a lot of vacation time. Colin and Susie were already planning to head up from Singapore that weekend and Trent and Julie came, too, to get a good look at Vietnam. It turned into an eatin' and shoppin' extravaganza, hitting a bunch of places around the city. The only downside was the lack of nightlife, things seemed pretty quiet for a Friday and Saturday night while we were there, not like it used to be.

Atticus

One of the bonuses of going to Manila was seeing Atticus on Saturday night. We drove out with him (and his driver, Dennis) to dinner at the Shangri-la Hotel and caught up. Atticus has been in Manila with the Asian Development Bank (on loan from Treasury) for about a month and a half, en route to a three-year tour, just like us. He worked hellacious hours at Treasury so hopefully this'll be more of a break. In the end we may end up seeing more of Atticus out in Asia than we ever did back in DC.

Manila

Dung and I travelled to Manila last week for a two-day conference at the U.S. Embassy. I'd warned Dung that Manila wasn't much to look at (despite that the rest of the Philippines is beautiful), not much to do and the food isn't anything special, but she wanted to see the country, at least a little bit of it. This is a shot of the old wall around the Intramuros area, built during the Spanish colonial days. It could be a nice area someday, but not yet.

Korean Food

We took a break from unpacking all our stuff and walked down a few sois to a little Korean area. Lots of little restaurants, golf shops and massage parlors, which give you an idea of what's on the typical Korean businessman's mind in Bangkok. We were looking for our favorite Korean soup, Sundubu, but no luck. Got some bulgugi and a few other things that filled us up nice. The best part is all the little side dishes that come with it, including a couple different types of kimchee.

Getting organized

Dung got to wash every dish and glass that got packed up and sat in boxes for two months. It's starting to look more like a home than a temporary rental.

HHE

Our HHE (household effects in FSO-speak) arrived today, a little more than two months after we packed it all up from DC. Not too bad in the end. I had a visitor in town for meetings so couldn't take the day off, Dung had to supervise the movers and get everything in and unpacked. First thing she did was get them to unpack the sofas and set them up, makes our place look so much more like our place. A couple things busted, including a vase and a serving dish, but strangest of all is we can't find the top of the desk. We've got the two bases, but the top is nowhere to be found.

Korean National Day

I got the nod late today to represent the Embassy (or at least the Econ section) at Korea's National Day reception at the Intercontinental Hotel. Korea put on a pretty big shindig, lots of Korean food and women in hanboks. I couldn't figure out why October 4 was the National Day and nobody else there seemed to know either (couldn't find any Koreans who spoke enough English to explain it). Google says it's the day Korea was founded back in 2333 BC, though how anybody knows it happened on October 4 is beyond me.

Khao San

Dung went down to Khao San Road with Julie to check out the scene. Khao San is the big backpacker street. Everybody traveling around Thailand and the region on a very limited budget usually ends up staying around here. When I backpacked through you could get a small room with a bed for $2/night, lots of cheap restaurants where you could get some food and watch a movie, small bars tucked down alleyways and lots of shops that would sell tapes, books, clothes and travel equipment. It was a good place to rest and reequip during your journeys in SE Asia. These days it's a bit more grown up from what I heard, there's even a Starbucks on the strip.