A couple of days and observations on the city
VIETNAM | Thursday, 14 August 2008 | Views [213]
I'm rediscovering that being in all these countries, while easier than China, is still very difficult without speaking the language. But it's fun. Especially when it comes to eating.
Vietnamese food is amazing. It's fresh and flavorful and just wonderful. If and when I go into restaurants that don't have English menus (which is most of the restaurants around my couch surfing host's apartment), I just have to point to something and hope it works out. It has every single time. Regardless of whether I know what I'm eating, I enjoy every single morsel.
And sometimes the wonderful-ness just happens to be hysterical.
Ryan and I were walking around the other day and got hungry. We wandered into a random restaurant and, surprise, they didn't speak English or have an English menu. After pointing to something random in the menu, we had to order drinks.
All the Western drinks are usually written in English (Sprite, Coke, Fanta, etc.). I ordered a "Miranda" thinking it was orange soda. Root beer pleasantly surprised me.
Ryan just pointed to something written in Vietnamese. The first word was one I've learned. It means beef.
"You mean I just ordered a beef drink?!"
"I don't know what the hell you just ordered."
Two minutes later, the girl came out with Red Bull. We both died laughing.
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