After falling asleep at about 10pm last night i woke up at about 5am feeling a whole lot of aching.
I had a headache at the front portion of my head and really cold feet.
I had 2x Nurofen Plus and went back to bed
Thank goodness for mini pharmacy Cat packed from back home, preparation is certainly a strong point of hers.
I wake up again a little later feeling better so we head out to breakfast.
Few short steps down the road sees us at a restaurant that specialises in food from the country’s centre particularly Hue.
Although i have seen this stuff back home, there is no comparison in flavour – just awesome.
You guess it, after breakfast we walked back to rest at the Hotel for a bit.
Heading out to our next destination to get Cat’s Vietnamese wedding dress Ao Dai tailored i spot these road works in front of our hotel.
Next we head over to the recommended Anh Linh wedding photo studio to enquire about taking some wedding snaps.
Wow how fobby ! The backgrounds of these photos were something stuck in the back in the 80’s.
Think of the period where Asian people back home took their wedding photos at the Auburn gardens but 10x worse.
Not impressed by the range of costumes and backdrops Cat decides to pull the pin and visit another studio.
The studio we ended up at was nearby our hotel at level 5 of Zen Plaza – A japanese photo studio run by locals *shrugs*
Although double the price, the range and service is so much better.
We’ve booked ourselves in for 12 noon tomorrow.
Time to practice our poses LoL.
Not feeling well with another headache, tense and droopey shoulders, aching fingers and feet we head back to the hotel where i sleep until dinner time.
The bed here is irresistable – make the mistake of lying down and you will fall asleep for hours.
Saigon is a city full of different cuisines, we decide tonight shall be French.
We chose a restaurant we frequently walk past during our shopping stints called La Fayette which is part of the Continental hotel.
Enter the colonial, art deco restaurant and there is live music to set a old world tone.
The restaurant was relatively empty – which was probably an indication of things to come.
Upon browsing the menu we discovered the menu wasn’t particularly French but rather anything from the western world.
The food was decent but not what was expected, my duck was overcooked but Cat’s Sole was delicious.
Shopping in Vietnam is different to back home.
Each brand/section is staffed by 2 or 3 employees ready to serve you unless that is they are bored out of their brains in dreamland, picking their pimples or sms’ing.
Sometimes when they see you coming they stand up to attention and get in our face as you browse their products.
They look you up and down and judge you - the etiquette of the better brands is different though.
The local branded make up counters are staffed by ordinary girls who really shouldn’t be selling makeup while the better the brand, the better the quality of girls.
After dinner we visited the Parkson department store again.
I raided the Lacoste store and made the staff very happy by spending a local’s 1/2 year salary after finding they had things my size !
Following the purchase we went up the escalator to the next floor.
BEEP BEEP BEEP sounded the security scanner.
We stopped and shrugged our shoulders as we knew we had paid for everything.
Continuing up the escalator we notice security guards were up top to meet us.
They grabbed the bag off me and explained a security tag had not been removed.
Even though i knew we weren’t in the wrong it still felt like a hostile situation.
At this point i told Cat to continue upstairs as she needed a sugar hit to combat her hypoglycaemic attack.
In confusion and with a major language barrier in place, I found myself following the security guard who held my shopping bag captive.
Again he explained in broken English that the security tag was not removed.
Meanwhile by now, all the patrons and staff were staring at me like i had stolen something, even people from the floors above and below.
Soon after, i was handed back my shopping bag and apologised to.
Back upstairs, Cat was finding it difficult to buy a drink to save her life because the stores were closing down because it was 10pm.
