Running like crazy

Me and my friend Natalia love (I will have to explain this word later) running together. When I say love I mean we enjoy chatting together as we jog about 5 miles and we enjoy the feeling afterwards where your head feels all clear so you can concentrate and you have a burst of energy which is obviously not supposed to be used up doing homework!  Running in Hanoi though is an extremely difficult feat with many dangers and not exactly ideal conditions…

Here's her article about that:

http://trafficlightsareoptional.blogspot.com/2011/12/running-round-west-lake.html

There are the Red river runners in Hanoi who have events like the Song Hong half marathon.

Christmas time!

Here are some pictures of Christmas time in Hanoi. In recent years more and more people have begun to celebrate by decorating and listening to ABBA's 'Happy New Year'. I personally love the extremely tasteful Santas standing outside of shops! Go to visit some of the hotels where they put up amazing Christmas trees, in the Intercontinental the tree is made from conical hats and there is a gingerbread house, constructed from real gingerbread! - I know I tried a little bit...

Twilight - Breaking Dawn!

I just went to see this yesterday at the cinema, as although you can buy really cheap copies of films you don't get the experience: the buttery popcorn, the atmosphere and of course the life size card board cut outs! The acting was fairly bad near the start since the music didn't really match the film but later on the drama of the story was very melodramatic and tense, I love the way Bella and Edward never seem to have any form of normal conversation it's always:

Edward: I know we just met but…. I love you and I want to be with you for all eternity,

Bella: Oh my goodness I feel the same way!

Edward: But, dun dun dun I have a big secret… so basically I am a shiny vampire, 3000 years older than you, hated by werewolves and umm yep that's about all.

Bella: Well this was an interesting morning.

I may have exaggerated a little there but with her monotone voice and his wooden expression it's difficult imagine the real life situation. Overall an excellent movie though.

For all those who didn't read the books:

The Twilight films are based on the books written by Stephanie Meyer focusing around Bella Swan (played by  Kristen Steward) who moves to Forks a rainy town in Washington where she meets Edward (Robert Patterson) and they fall in love. The catch to the story is that he is a vampire (albeit a vegetarian one), her best friend Jacob is a werewolf who conveniently hates Vampires and rips off his shirt on a regular basis.

Main cinema's -

Vincom - http://www.megastar.vn/en/vct

L'Espace - http://www.ifhanoi-lespace.com/ - français

Public transport?

As I try out new things I also want other people to experience them with me, so in some ways the style of writing is also diary like, with my own thoughts and opinions. I just read this months edition of the word magazine which had an article in about blogs but mine was not included so I'm thinking of writing to them to ask them to feature it or print my letter like before when I wrote to them in May (I think it was May?). On my trip to town I took pictures of art shops and random street vendors since I previously said that I needed more pictures for my blog, so hopefully I can post these during Christmas. 

 (taken by me)

People squashed like sardines in a can faces pressed against the glass. Getting stuck between someone with extreme BO, pointy elbows, and dandruff and someone eating something disgusting in close proximity of your face. My worst nightmare. These were my initial thoughts on the bus, but bravely today, with a lack of cash, I decided to venture out and try it for myself.

 

(proof that I got on and took a picture!)
Today I took the cheapest form of public transport of my life (and the only form of public transport within the city until the tram system supposedly gets finished in 2015)! At only 3 thousand dong ( 10 pence) you wait in the freezing cold at one of the many stops throughout the city, in the hope that the bus will take you where you want to go, although with Vietnamese friends who can read the timetables I'm fine, and then every ten minutes one arrives. The bus doesn't actually stop so the last person clambering on has to do a run and jumping action through the doors like a ninja. Then there's disco music so you can bop along whilst you drive. It's also really quick because everyone is scared of getting run over by the bus since it's the king of the road!

Simplest Phô on earth!

Phô is the dish/ soup which everyone MUST try when coming to Vietnam but how simple is it to make your own? On the streets they boil the chicken carcasses for hours on end dispersing the flavours into the liquid. I tried to do the same thing for a few less hours and it makes the most tasteless stock on earth, you feel yourself reaching for the Swiss Bouillon stock cubes…

But then I finally came up with this recipe which works extremely well with leftover roast chicken, and you can throw in whatever ingredients you happen to have lying around!

STOCK:

1 chicken carcass

2 star Anise
1 carrot - diced
1 celery stick - diced into larger chunks
1/2 an onion
Black pepper
Water - enough to cover the chicken (roughly around 1-1.5 litres)

If it's not tasty enough add a stock cube (chicken).

INGREDIENTS FOR PHÔ:

1 inch fresh ginger finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1/2 or more birds eye chilli - to taste
1 bunch of spring onions - just the green part
Roast chicken left overs OR 2 roasted legs skin removed; chop into small pieces
Fresh coriander to season
A little butter and olive oil for frying
Rice, glass, or egg noodles

METHOD:
Heat the butter and olive oil in a pan and fry the  ginger, garlic, chilli and spring onions till soft.
Add chicken stock and bring to the boil
Add chicken
When it is boiling add enough noodles for each person, these usually take 2-4 minutes to cook but check the packaging just in case.
Lastly add the chopped coriander.

SERVING:
I really recommend it with the traditional condiments of chilli sauce, lime, peanuts and soy sauce. You can eat it with crunchy bread as well.

An overdose of meat

Finally this week I handed in my copy of Lord of the Flies after analysing every symbol and line for what seems like a century, in my English class and now we're moving on to all fresh topics! I love having a new start and here it really seems like it as check out the weather forecast:

It's amazingly cold so we can pull out all our woolly winter jumpers and socks (a revelation after wearing  flip flops every day of the week) and get round to decorating for CHRISTMAS - more on this soon!

(Credit for photo goes to t_yos21 - works cited)

Yesterday I went to a Brazilian restaurant for my boyfriend Cian's birthday which was called "Au Lac do Brazil" as soon as you are seated they bring round the first salads and you think "oh good, salad starter" and you get a large portion and chomp through that, whilst all the experienced people watch you and smirk. Then there's the meat round so you add in some lamb, or beef or chicken or sausage to your plate as an accompaniment and even add some pepper sauce. Delicious meal, great company and Spanish music. But no they're not done they come round again and again with what looks like thighs of all sorts of seafood and then some vegetables thrown in. After about 10 rounds I was so stuffed with the equivalent of a whole cow that I didn't think I could ever eat meat again (until today around lunchtime). It was fun since we had a private room, the only thing I didn't love were the giant skewers holding the meat and the knives the waiters used for carving since I felt that if I experienced a violent sneeze and whipped my head round I could become skewered - just like the Lord of the Flies really. Oh dear… it seems that this book is really affecting my whole life!

Restaurant details:

Au Lac do Brazil

Address:

6A Cao Ba Quat,

Ba Đình.