After spending the morning paying a visit to Ho Chi Minh’s dead body at his mausoleum (and cutting an entire city block’s long school group so that we could ditch the queue and get in faster), we boarded our flight down to Danang in Central Vietnam, and then spent the evening exploring Hoi An, a little ancient town that has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was exactly as it looked in photos I’d previously seen – a  small river with boats beckoning tourists to hop in for a ride, floating lanterns lit by candles dancing atop the water, old storefronts decorated with lanterns of endless colors. Each and every street was decked out with lit lanterns hanging across it. And while it was beautiful and worthy of many photos, it irked me that I heard so much English everywhere, not just from the swarms of tourists on the main drags, but also even from the shop owners and workers. I saw signs advertising menus and souvenir items fully in English and with prices quoted in U.S. dollars. This is not what I wanted to come here for.

One of the restaurants on my list, Morning Glory, is a reputed establishment in Hoi An, known for their mi quang and cao lau noodles, both specialties of the city. Unfortunately, when we arrived, there was a huge crowd of tourists waiting to get in and be seated, and when I tried to tell the host at the front that we were a party of 2, I was dismayed to see an Excel spreadsheet fully in English of all the dinner reservations by time and party size on her screen. While we were waiting, we briefly looked at the menu and noticed that everything was priced at about three times the cost of anything else on side streets that had a more “local” feel. So Chris insisted we not eat there and we wandered off to lesser traveled to streets and ate at three different spots for a third of the price. We didn’t  come to Hoi An to feel like a tourist and be around other tourists. We came because we wanted a local feel.

And a local feel we certainly got. After enjoying banh mi sandwiches at a local spot that was known for its house-made pate and mayonnaise, we both were overwhelmed by how light the bread was; crunchy on the outside, but probably the lightest and airiest insides that we’d had… ever. Even though we both ate a sandwich each, we didn’t feel full at all and instead were able to enjoy two more dishes at two other spots. We proceeded to a mi quang restaurant and had these noodles with mixed seafood and meat, and then ended the evening of savory foods in a tiny alley where of the three dishes they served, one was their main specialty: banh canh, a tapioca-noodle soup dish with fish cake and vegetables that had noodles with a chewy and nearly addictive texture. It was served with a baguette (delicious and airy, just as we expected), pickled chilies, and teeny tiny limes that had an orange flesh and tasted more like a cross between a lime and an orange. Yet while we were entering the alley to be seated on Chris’s favorite tiny stools, the camera bag he was holding accidentally knocked over some bowls, resulting in two getting damaged. We were apologetic, and I realized I never looked up the translation for “sorry.” So at the end of the meal, we paid 30,000 (about $1.30 USD) dong for the bowl we shared, and gave an additional 20,000 dong (about $0.86 USD) and waved towards the bowls we broke. The workers initially seemed confused at the extra money we put on the table and looked at us and each other quizzically, but when we motioned towards the bowls, they hesitated, then all broke into big smiles. And while we said “thank you” in Vietnamese, they looked at us warmly and said “thank you” in English.

And even walking out of the tiny alley as they closed up their food stall, I tried to take a photo of their stall sign, and one of the workers noticed me taking a picture and even adjusted the light so that I could get a better picture. When he looked at the frame on my screen and saw that another light was in the way, he adjusted it so that it pointed another way. He smiled at me, and I thanked him and said goodbye.

The little moments of travel when you have interactions like this are always enjoyable and heart-warming, and remind me that even when stupid things happen, the kindness of strangers is something we rely on. So many good people exist in the world and just want to be good to each other. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that, but these moments serve as a good reminder to me.

The vastness of Vietnamese cuisine can be surprising. When thinking about how large the country is in terms of land, it really doesn’t seem like that big of a place…  until you think about the fact that it a densely populated country of over 95 million residents, plus a healthy number of visitors who arrive from around the world every single year. People often talk about the diversity of cuisine in China and India, but Vietnam, though far smaller in both population and size, is quite different depending on the region you are in. For example, com ga tam ky, which is Vietnamese style chicken and rice, is really found everywhere mostly in Quang Nam province, or in its city by the name of the rice type, Tam Ky. Pho has regional differences between the north and the south. Bun bo hue, or spicy lemongrass beef noodle soup with pig’s feet, is a Hue dish, but much beloved throughout the entire country. In Northern Vietnam, you can find goose (well, they call it goose, but I read that it’s technically called Muscovy duck, which can be likened to goose in terms of what they eat and how they live). In Southern Vietnam, the banh mi cold cuts are far more varied than in the south due to historical reasons — since in the past, meat was more readily available in the south vs. the north.

During this trip, I’ve been surprised by a number of dishes we’ve come across. We tried  the grilled muscovy duck, which was delicious, rich, and fatty. We also had a dish I’d never heard of before called pho chien phong, which is basically flat squares of fresh rice noodle battered, then deep fried, and tossed with stir-fried greens and beef slices. Rice is the king here in Vietnam, whether it’s in pure rice, broken rice, or rice noodle form, and here was just another way of eating it. We could hear each component being prepared as we waited for our food. The fried squares of rice noodle, beef, and vegetables came on a plate that was nearly towering over. It was a hearty and filling dish, one that overwhelmed Chris. The fried noodle cubes were like poofy little pillows, hollowed out when you bit into them, revealing the light and soft rice noodle square inside.

This is one of those dishes that seems like it’s Chinese, but given the use of rice noodle in this manner, is most definitely Vietnamese. The amount of preparation to cut each of the noodles into shapes like these and then to batter each is only a Vietnamese thing given how painstaking it was.

Since we’ve arrived in Vietnam, Chris has been excited and eager to try the food, but depending on how simple and hole-in-the-wall the restaurant or food stall is, he’s been dreading the seating situation… as in, do I actually get to sit in a proper chair, a normal-height stool, or a teeny tiny stool that barely clears one foot tall?

For whatever reason, the first time I came to Vietnam in 2008, the tiny sitting stools didn’t phase me. I just accepted them and sat on them. The more no-frills the place was, the more likely the establishment was to have these small stools for sitting. As several people we spoke with joked and commented, “Vietnamese people are a small people. We are not tall.”  Even my dad, who is the same height as Chris at 5’9″, found them comical 11 years ago when we came together, reminding him of the past, and commented that they weren’t great for his back. But he didn’t complain at all and just took it all in.

At this point in our trip, it’s hard to count the number of times we’ve had to sit on these tiny stools while eating. Then when we arrived at a much anticipated banh cuon shop (these are steamed Vietnamese rice rolls typically stuffed with minced pork, shrimp, cloud ear mushrooms, and shiitake mushrooms, then dunked in nuoc cham dipping sauce; one of my absolute favorite dishes on earth), Chris immediately whined and whinged. “Are these people trying to kill me?! I don’t know how long I can sit like this. Order quickly so we can eat quickly and go.”

We ordered our banh cuon, Vietnamese cinnamon meatloaf slices, pork and lemongrass skewers, and freshly pressed soy milk. Although Chris usually doesn’t care for soy milk, he has been really enjoying the soy milk here, which is what I call real soy milk as it was meant to be prepared and enjoyed: fresh pressed from steaming soy beans, with just a touch of sugar to sweeten. I have fond memories of enjoying this beverage almost every morning off the streets in Shanghai, and also on the last Vietnam trip. During my childhood, my mom frequently bought fresh soy milk from a reputable Asian shop on Clement Street in San Francisco. So the taste and texture have been with me forever. So while I still like soy milk in the U.S. out of a carton, even with its added preservatives, thickeners, and who else knows what got added into it, I will always have a soft spot for real Asian soy milk. And now I know I can get Chris to drink soy milk if I get him the authentic stuff.

As soon as we were done eating, Chris pressed me to pay as soon as possible and leave. I guess this is just another one of the small benefits of being petite: the tiny sitting stools don’t bother me as much, and I could probably sit all day like that without any pain or knee buckling.

Today, we finally enjoyed pho at a local spot called Pho Thin in Hanoi. We’ve been fortunate to stay at beautiful hotels with lush and extensive breakfast buffets complete with local Vietnamese dishes including pho, but I really had a need to try pho in at least one spot in the north during this trip. Pho is said to have originated in the north, somewhere near Hanoi. From what I have studied, both in eating and in reading, I’ve learned that there are two types of pho, northern and southern. Both region’s basics are the same in that they use the same spices, the same charred onions, and cook their bones down to nothing so that their soups are fully flavored, but the difference is in the level of sweetness and the herb additions. In the south, a sweeter broth is preferred, so a tad more rock sugar is used. In addition, herbs like bean sprouts, basil, and Vietnamese greens are added to the noodle soup while at the table. The northern pho stands alone with perhaps a sprinkling of green onions and a squeeze of lime on the top. Since the majority of the Vietnamese who fled Vietnam were from the south who now reside in the U.S. or in Australia, it then makes sense that the pho we are accustomed to is the southern style soup.

From a historical perspective, it’s been said that the regional differences of pho have to do with what was available in each region. In the north, food scarcity was at many times an issue. In Vietnam overall, beef is considered a luxury meat vs. pork or chicken. Whereas in the south, food has always been more plentiful, perhaps due to the warmer climates and the terrain. This resulted in the additions of many herbs and vegetables in the southern pho, and even variations of beef, including tripe and other cow parts.

I did a lot of food research on this trip, and Pho Thin was supposed to be one of the top local favorites for pho, and since, has been discovered by tourists, as well. Pho Thin was kind of what I imagined it to be. We arrived at around 9am (as pho is typically eaten for breakfast in Vietnam; some popular places close by 9am because they run out of noodles and broth!) to a crowd outside, waiting for their bowls of pho bo, plus a fully packed dining room of boisterous and soup-serious slurpers. This little hole-in-the-wall is bare-bones with little decor, long metal tables, and short stools. The front is open, with the workers busily stirring and scooping out the broth, noodles, stir-frying the meat, and dishing out long, fried Chinese donuts so that diners can enjoy their rich broth with a dip of crunchy fried savory donut. You line up at the front, place your order (you have the option of pho bo, pho bo, and pho bo. Oh, and if you want the donuts, you have to tell them. But they don’t speak much English at all). You pay, they give you your change, then you find a seat inside, where they will bring you your pho. We shared one bowl after a hotel breakfast, and as soon as it came, I knew it was going to be a delight. The top of the broth had a nice film of beef fat (my mother would not approve; she would have taken a spoon to that and quickly scooped it all out to dispose of it), a thick layer of chopped spring onions, and lean stir-fried beef on the top. The first thing I did was put my spoon in and take a taste of the broth. It was full bodied, rich, complex, and fragrant of beef, star anise, and charred onion. I could really have sipped that soup all day long; it was so good. These are the moments I’m so happy I have not given up meat. The noodles were fresh, not dried, and were soft and springy, but with a little bite. We devoured that soup in just a few minutes. And then it was gone.

As we left, I took photos of the outside and watched the workers in the front scoop out the broth from one vat to the next. I saw another worker quickly speed walk and deliver steaming hot bowls to diners two storefronts down. Another was barking out orders for the server to bring to tables. This is my kind of eating when I’m in Asia; quick, delicious, cheap, no frills, and all about the quality of the food. One does not go into Pho Thin for the ambiance or to socialize. Nope. They go there to inhale the pho, have zero conversation while eating, and leave. Your company is really just the pho, your chopsticks, and the spoon. Your dining partner, if you have one, is just a silent partner in eating.

I have only made pho ga (chicken pho) and not pho bo given the amount of effort it takes. But maybe now that I have an Instant Pot, this will finally be my chance to take a stab at my absolute favorite soup in the world. I’m going to remember this visit for a long, long time.

We arrived in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, this late morning around 10:30am. As we took a Grab ride and headed towards District 1, the city felt very much the same and different from the first and last time I was here in January 2008: the roads were still narrow, the street signs were in Vietnamese and English. The buildings were anywhere from two- to five-stories tall, all just as skinny as I remembered from before and was surprised by. But what shocked me was seeing a very different skyline: far more skyscrapers and multiple-storied, modern buildings were there today, not to mention Landmark 81 and the Saigon Skydeck/Bitexco Tower, which were built just in the last couple of years. In 2018, the tenth tallest building in Asia is Landmark 81 right here in Ho Chi Minh City. Endless Starbucks abounded in different neighborhoods. Many bubble tea chains from Taiwan and mainland China dotted the streets. Even major well-known Korean cosmetic brands like Innisfree have brick-and-mortar shops here. We’ve arrived in one of the fastest growing economies in the world, one of the top 20 globally and depending on the source, one of the top 5 in Southeast Asia. This is a world my mother never would have dreamt of coming into existence given what she saw and knew from the 1960s and early 1970s before she left the country during the Vietnam (American) War.

I took a picture of the skyline from our hotel room along the water and emailed it to my dad so he could see it and show my mom. I looked out at the view and marveled at it. In just 11 years, this much growth has happened. But since 1975 when the war ended, who from that period, like my mother, could have imagined Saigon to look like this, to be this prosperous? Who could have fathomed that the city would be this developed, that Wi-Fi would be available at even random hole-in-the-wall restaurants, or that pretty much every young person in a major city like Saigon, Hanoi, or Danang, would own and regularly use a smart phone? My mom always insisted, no matter when the conversation happened, whether it was in the 90s, in 2000, in 2008 when we came, or even last year, that Vietnam was the poorest country in the world. She liked to say often, “there wasn’t even enough rice to eat! We were so poor!” I never agreed with her in her absolutes, but what was the point of arguing? When I show her these photos, she will know she is wrong. But more importantly, she will see that the country that she once called home, a country where she and many of her family, friends, and extended relatives, witnessed heartbreak, tragedy, violence, and terror, is actually moving forward. It is growing. It is thriving. It wants and has stated goals to be a “developed” economy. And she will have that to smile about, knowing that life there has moved on, and at a relatively quick rate.

In Christmas celebration depictions and decorations seen around the world, you can expect to see a fat Santa Claus riding in his sleigh with reindeer, traveling atop the clouds, above snowy, wintry towns around the globe. But what you rarely see, unless you are in the Southern hemisphere in December, is Santa wearing shorts, sunglasses, a “Santa” hat, standing on a surfboard in the ocean waves or standing by a barbeque grill. This is the normal picture I see when I am in Australia during Christmas time. In the beginning, it was a bit strange for me given that I never knew a warm December or summery Christmas. But to be fair, it’s not like white Christmas is a norm in San Francisco where I grew up, or really anywhere in California or on the west coast of the United States. It’s normal in the Northeast, in Boston and New York where I’ve lived and do live now. But I didn’t grow up with that, so I never “missed” something I never had. In fact, I embrace summer Christmases. I love that when everyone else in New York or on the east coast is complaining on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter about how cold or icy it is that I can chuckle a little because I get to soak up anywhere from 70-100 F heat in Australia (or last year, in South Africa). I get to bask in the glow of the Australian Southern hemisphere sun, only to grumble a little that in a couple weeks, I will return to that negative-zero temperature, wind chill, and snow, grounds that will be covered in ice, and streets that will be slushy with snow semi-melted, but not quite. I mumble and groan while thinking about the short daylight hours we have and the early darkness that descends across New York city around 4-4:30pm. Short daylight hours – the absolute worst.

It’s funny to me that others who have never experienced a summer Christmas would immediately reject it. It reeks of ignorance and small-mindedness. I’ve had many a colleague across companies I’ve worked at say it’s weird, that they wouldn’t like it, that it’s not “normal.” But then, what is “normal” to you is different from “normal” to me or to Chris or to anyone depending on where in the world they grew up. It’s a common theme that comes up no matter what the question or situation regardless of whether it’s in a work or social environment. For whatever reason, people seem to reject what they are not accustomed to regardless of how much background information they have on it. And… well, from my perspective, that’s kind of their loss. California doesn’t experience snow period unless you are on the border of California-Nevada during the winter time; is that “abnormal” or “wrong”? I was used to 40-50-degree F winters in San Francisco – is that “bad”? Or then I have a friend who grew up and now resides in Arizona, so all she knows is an 80-degree F Christmas, which she deems as “mild” weather in terms of warmth. Is she a weirdo then?

The older I get, it seems the less patient I am becoming with ignorance and lack of openness to what is new. I am less inclined to hold my tongue and more likely to ask deeper questions, which could result in discomfort for those around me. If anything, when we learn about new things, we should be pressed to ask more questions and explore it rather than to outright reject it. Otherwise, how do we ever grow and evolve?

We’ve been quite spoiled for food and drink the last few days here in the Adelaide area. Without even really trying that hard, we’ve had delicious and fresh Australian, Malaysian, Argentinian, fish and chips, and of course, wine. All the vegetables and fruits were brimming with richness and flavor. We had a tasting menu with a wine pairing last night (the latter of which we almost never do because of how expensive it is in the U.S.) that I loved every bite of. We even had a flat white today from a random coffee shop in the Barossa Valley that Chris marveled over while drinking. “Ugh, I’m going to miss having good food without trying hard when we go back home,” he grumbled on our drive back to Adelaide.

He’s kind of right. You could rarely just pass by a random Malaysian hole-in-the-wall back in New York and just trust that the food was good without looking up reviews.This place we stopped by on a whim made its roti dough from scratch every single morning, and while we just stopped in to grab a snack, a queue quickly formed after we sat down, proving how popular and delicious the place was to locals. Back home, you also couldn’t stop in for a coffee at a discreet coffee shop and just assume that the coffee quality was high. Even after we finished our shared flat white, the creaminess and well-roundedness of the coffee still lingered on my tongue. I enjoyed it for the time that it lasted.

Whenever we are here, I always tend to eat more bread. I rarely eat much bread back home because I just don’t really care for it that much as a food group. I’d much rather have rice or noodles. Bread in the U.S. is the same as with most food; you have to know the company and the brand in order to trust that it will be tasty. Here, any random grocery store or market will have delicious and fresh multigrain bread that would be amazing as toast or a part of a sandwich. Maybe it’s just higher quality wheat, lesser sugar, and higher freshness here.

For most Americans, visiting a winery is about doing a formal winery tour, looking at barrels and being photographed with them, taking whiffs of different scents that are associated with wine grapes and other flavors that you get when tasting wine. You go for tastings or a full fledged wine tour. They tend to feel a bit formal. You might feel like you will be judged for liking or not liking a particular wine. You will inevitably have to pay for that tasting (and in Napa or Willamette Valley, you will certainly have to pay at least $20-30 for a very simple tasting with average to mediocre-sized pours). It is not value for money that you are getting. You’re doing what the average person would consider something that higher-brow people do… because wine is a luxury for the well-to-do, right, unless you are buying 3-buck-chuck from Trader Joe’s? One of my cousins even said I was “acting like a white person” by drinking wine and visiting wineries; so nice of him.

In Australia, wine is just kind of part of the culture. The Europeans brought their vines (from South Africa) and settled in South Australia, and the rest is pretty much history. Most wineries here do not charge for tastings, and when they do, they will waive the fee or apply the fee to a bottle purchase. The pours are generous, and the feeling is not even remotely pretentious. It is casual and fun. Even the rule of thumb Americans typically are told, that you can generally trust that the cuter or funnier the wine label, the worse the quality of the wine will be — this does not exist here. A few of the best wineries have whimsical names and even funnier wine names (e.g. “Floozy” or “Mongrel”).

We spent the day visiting wineries in the Maclaren Vale region, just 40 minutes outside of Adelaide. The most interesting cellar door (as they are called here) that we visited today was the D’Arenberg Cellar Door, also known as “the cube” in Maclaren Vale because if you had to look at it from the outside, it does not appear like any winery you’d ever see in the U.S.; it’s a very modern building shaped like a blue, white, and black-patterned cube. And the inside of it is like a museum, full of interactive exhibits, scent-testers, and even a bathroom that begs to be photographed, with “human mouths” as urinals and flora covering the walls from floor to ceiling.

Wine drinking shouldn’t be perceived as pretentious or so serious; it should be fun and playful the way it is here.