Happy New Years (Eve)!!!

Ever since I can remember on December 24 and 31 my family has traditionally greeted my sister Eve with "Merry Christmas, Eve!" and "Happy New Year, Eve"! Since this is the eve of the lunar new year I need to continue that custom so, "Happy New Year, Eve!".

I am still in my hotel room so I do not know what to expect out on the streets of Saigon today. I have been told that most businesses and markets will be closed for the next several days, and I am hopeful the tourist places will still operate. If you think back to the days of the Vietnam war there was a major battle called the Tet offensive. This is Tet and it is the major holiday of Vietnam, so the logic was to catch the Vietnamese off guard during their celebration.

Well, to catch up with what's been happening, I took a city tour yesterday. So much of the tour involved the war which here they call the United States war. There War Remembrance Museum was very upsetting and presented from a very biased anti American position. There were many displays of photos of Americans doing bad things to locals and another section devoted to the effects of Agent Orange. What was worst of all were the actual barbed wire tiger cages which were cells for captured enemy. I was reminded of how I felt touring a Nazi concentration camp in Germany. Interestingly the tour guide pointed out the very pro Vietnam anti American presentation once we were back on the bus.

Another war related stop on the tour was The Reunification Palace, the capitol and presidential residence of South Vietnam now occassionally used for government functions. Built in the 1950's after Vietnam was liberated from France, architecturally it is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. If not a Frank Lloyd Wright design, it is definitely of that genre.

Of course gastronomy is among the highlights of my experiences. I have had pho- a noodle soup with some meat, veggies, basil and lemon grass- 3 or 4 times. My favorite restaurant so far is called Quan An Ngon where I had bunthitcha gio (I dare you to pronounce that!), crispy noodles topped with crispy pork and veggies, sauteed squid, crab soup, fruit and beer. This was a very fancy restaurant and the price was less than $10 per person.

It's still freezing at home. How glad I am to be avoiding that!

Photos at top---I hope as I work with this blog that I will learn how to better manage pics. Since I still am learning here are captions that I hope to learn to attach with the actual photo.

1- Uncle Ho bust as he is called here. In the Reunification Palace

2-Quan An Ngon Restaurant email: quananngon@hcm.vnn.vn

3-6' tall chrysanthemums

4-Tank at War Remembrance Museum

5-Pho at Pho24 Restaurant