SAIGON.
Last night we had dinner at an Italian restaurant in a backpacker's alley with Linh, Lan, Tri, and Michael who works for cousin Hung who was just here a few weeks ago. Michael's in town training Vietnamese people for work for their company in northern California - logigear and he couldn't get over how many white people were in the area. "There must be more caucasians here than in San Francisco!" he exclaimed. We had indian food run to the table by a restaurant several doors down while we ate at the Italian place. It's just a funny Vietnamese thing - ordering from one place and having stuff run to and fro between eateries.

I also walked through the Tet Flower Market which was really very cool. It's rows and rows of flower vendors who sell kumquat trees in the shape of Christmas Pines, and dragon and horse topiaries, and all kinds of other traditional vietnamese new year's plants. It's open all night for a week prior to Tet. I'll try to get some photos later today. New Years feels much more celebratory to me here than Christmas had, which I suppose makes sense as most people are Buddhist anyway, including our very own family. It's very festive in the city and the streets are somehow even more crowded with motorbikes than they are during rush hour in Saigon.

Will see about getting some pictures of the festivities. H.