Day 11 - Vivo City and the meat coma

Today, my brother in law offered to take me to Vivo city, which is across the bridge from Sentosa Island. It's a new shopping centre that is trying to compete with the highly popular and touristy Orchard Rd and Suntec City.

Well, by the looks of it, they weren't doing too well.....



We split up and went abouts our own shopping. We met up 2 hours later, ravenous for some food. There was a new Brazilian Restaurant opened there called Carnivore. We get a table and hit the buffet salad bar. You gotta get some vegetables into you before all the meat comes out:

My veggie plate - with Feijoada (Black bean, pork rib and sausage stew)

The meat hits the plate - Round 1 of many

We sat and gorged for an hour until my stomach was going to burst. We decided to spend another 2 hours shopping since we've covered less than 1/2 of the shopping centre. When we go meet up, I'm still stuffed like a Turkey.

We go and pick up my nephew again, and this time, he's ecstatic to see me. He literally throws himself into my arms and then runs off to grab his bag! Hehe.

We get home and my sister is cooking dinner. I honestly can't put anything in my mouth right now. Instead, I take a nice long long walk to Junction8 where I spend a few hours just walking around and around and around.

On my way back, I grabbed a heap of snacks and drinks for the family as I promised I'll bring something back. I also stopped by the local hawker centre and got a small bowl of yong tau fu noodle soup for dinner. Something nice and light and also low on meat.

Yong Tau Fu rice noodle soup

Day 10 - Orchard and Chinatown

My niece took the day off school today to rest up. My brother in law also took TWO days off work to rest up after his weekend of "looking after the kids". According to him, he was exhausted. HA! Men. Anyway, he offered to take me to Orchard Rd since I haven't been for a few years. I guess the last few years I've only stopped for a day or two.

We get to Centre Point and decided to split up to do our own shopping. I immediately go nuts, but didn't buy much except for a few books for my niece.

We then head over to Takashimaya where I end up buying half the store. God I feel better now. I also walked around the food court, but since I was meeting up with my brother in law, I didn't buy anything:

Very common to buy fruit as a snack

Choose your own Yong Tau Fu stall

We walk across the road to Paragon, which is a more upper market shopping centre for lunch. Unfortunately, the Shanghainese Restaurant we wanted to go, had a line snaking around the corner. We went to the soup bowl instead:

REALLY chunky cream of mushroom soup

Chicken Caesar sandwich with salad

We kept shopping for a bit after that before calling it quits. We pick up my youngest nephew from day care on our way home. When he saw me walking through the gate, he stood there with the "Why is Aunty here?" look. Nevertheless, he's happy to have an early mark.

When I get home, I'm really not that hungry and just grab a quick bite with the rest of the family. Since the weather is holding up tonight, I hopped into a cab and went straight to the Chinatown night markets. Apparently most locals don't even know it exists?

I'm not really surprised as the stuff they sell is SO stereotypical asian. The jade charms and bracelets, silk cushion covers, Chong Sam, Sarongs etc. I didn't end up buying much and certainly didn't stay long.

The night market

Local old man chess club

Day 9 - The accident

We're up at 7am, and out the door by 8:30am. The plan was to find the first restaurant we see and grab breakfast there before heading to the Notre Dame church. Unfortunately, theres nothing open, and the few places I did find open, the 2 girls didn't think their bowels could take the risk. So there goes my idea of squatting on the street and eating.

We get to the Notre Dame church and take a few photos:



We head back to the hotel, in order to find food. Thankfully we walk past a Pho24 before we pass out from hunger.

Pho Duc Biet - Combination Beef Noodle soup

Ice soya bean and avocado shake

We get back to the hotel and relax a bit before we realise that we never ate the watermelon my sister bought. So she whips out her trusty chopping board and knife and starts hacking away. So imagine 3 chicks crowded around a bathroom sink, shoving a whole watermelon down their throat, 15mins before checkout.

Completely stuffed, we grab our bags and head off to the hotel.

The flight back wasn't too bad. We get home around 6pm and we're starving. After a quick shower, we all head off to a local hawker centre for dinner. The hawker centre is next to a playground. So whilst we let the kids run wild, the adults start ordering the food:

Sugar cane and lime juice

Hainese Chicken Rice

Boneless chicken feet

Chicken congee

Rojak

Satay chicken sticks

Laksa

After dinner, we go to the local bakery and load up on freshly made bread and buns for breakfast tomorrow. The traffic is atrocious and at a complete standstill. We wait at a park around the corner whilst my brother in law gets the car.

The kids are having great fun on the monkey bars whilst I stand there chatting with my sister, when next thing you know, my niece is on the floor. She had leaped up to try and grab the monkey bars and missed. She basically landed hands first onto the ground. She's screaming and crying like I've never seen before. My sister tries to calm her down as my brother in law pulls up. We jump into the car, and my niece is still screaming and crying the whole way back. I know she can sometimes be a drama queen, but we've never seen her behave this way before.

We get my brother in law to drop us off at the local medical centre and get her checked out by the doctor. The doctor suspects she's got a fracture in her wrist and probably sprained her other wrist and both elbows. He recommends that we go to a hospital and get it x-rayed. Meanwhile, my niece is in incredible pain. The doctor tried to find a sling to put her arm in, but would you believe that a medical centre doesn't have a sling? I ended up using my cardigan and turning it into a makeshift sling for my niece.

We drive straight to the hospital where it was a massive wait. It took us close to 2 hours before they would even see my niece (Even though 15people who arrived AFTER us got attended to first). And only because one of the other mothers saw my niece in so much pain that she went and begged one of the nurses for us. We finally get to see the doctor, and it took him less than 5 mins to send us to the x-ray department. And it was only then that they gave her any pain killers.

We get the x-ray done and then its another 30min wait for the doctor to check the x-ray. Unfortunately, she does have a fracture in her wrist. Luckily, its only a hairline fracture and won't require putting her arm in a cast. We go out and wait another 15mins to get her arm bandaged up and put into a sling before we're sent home. The whole process took over 3hrs and we didn't get home until about midnight. The bad thing is, its her first day back at school tomorrow. :(

Day 8 - The shopping spree and night river cruise

Oh the painnnnnnnnnnn! I wake up and find bruises on my arms and thighs from that damn massage last night. UGH. We open our safe and take all our money out. Today its all about retail therapy, I'm sure I'll feel better soon. We walk outside the hotel and found a shop close by for breakfast:

Steamed prawn rice paper

Steamed pork rice paper (My all time favourite!)

Mass amounts of herbs and veggies to go with the rice paper

My mud river crab noodle soup (I think its soft shell crab?)

Asking a local tour company where the lacquer factories were, they told us to go to the war remnants museum, and its just down the road from there. We cab it to the museum where we duck in for a quick tour.

To be honest, 5mins into there, it was just too shocking and depressing for us.

Landmines

Hand grenades

We left in search for the lacquer factory, where we were hoping to pick up a bargain or two. We ask for directions and end up going in circles for 20mins when we spot a tourist information centre. We go in to ask for directions, and they basically told us the closest lacquer factory was in Hanoi?? Excuse me??? They managed to find 3 lacquer shops and gave us the address, so we thought we'd hunt them down incase its a language barrier thing.

We get into a cab and find ourselves about 5mins walk from our hotel. And the address she gave us was to a major shopping centre, almost like Myers. My sister was about to hit someone. I thought the best thing to do in this situation is to drag her to Ben Thanh Markets for some retail therapy.

Along the way, we pick up a huge range of tshirts for the kids. I also stopped my sister paying 4 times the amount for a hammock. Why did she need a hammock.....thats another story. We get to Ben Thanh Market, and 5secs into the markets, I'm bargaining again. I taught my sister the code I use with Moishii. "I think BLAH would like that", which is my sign to start bargaining.

I picked up a really nice embroidered bag for 100,000 dong, which is around $6.50AUD. I spotted a similar bag at a different store, with a much more detailed and elaborate embroidery. I offered them 10,000 dong and was dead set on the price. 5 mins of bargaining and I walk away from the shop, only to have the woman come chasing me down. And still, I would only offer 100,000 dong. That is until she said "Miss, please, could you give me just another 10,000 dong so I can make a profit?". That's when it occurred to me, that she was asking me to give her another 65c. Of course I gave it to her, but when you're dealing in hundreds of thousands, you forget how much it actually costs you when you convert it.

We continue through the market, going nuts buying triples if not quadruples of everything. After awhile, we had to run across the street to an air conditioned cafe to have a break before we could continue:

Iced ginger tea

After we had a few drinks, it was back into the market for the rest of our shopping. We ended up buying about 4kgs of Vietnamese coffee between the 3 of us. We started going a bit nuts and just bought random crap. Chopsticks, coasters, paintings, magnets and anything else we could bargain down, we bought. I even got the Thai fisherman's pants??? Why?????

We're eventually so loaded up with goods, we could not physically walk through the narrow walkways of the market. It was a sign to go grab lunch.

My workmate highly highly HIGHLY recommended Pho 2000 to me. And that she had 3 meals a day there one day because she loved the food that much. We walk into Pho 2000, and its just as she described, Bill Clinton's photos all over the wall. And the pho? It was REALLY REALLY good:

We're exhausted by this stage, so we hop into a cab back to the hotel where we collapse into a heap. I quickly grab a shower and get ready for tonight. We had booked a night river cruise tour which takes you to a cultural centre with a traditional Vietnamese wedding demo.

Only me and my sister would be going on the tour, and they pick us up and take us to the local pier. We get out and next thing you know, my sister is shoving me infront of the boat taking photos:

Looks good aye?

Then the tour guide pointed out to us that we're at the wrong boat..... THIS was our boat:


It was a 1.5hr boat ride to the cultural centre, and along the way, all you can see are the various shacks that people live in. Its quite shocking for me, to see the most developed city in Vietnam to look like this.




We get to the cultural centre, and not without drama. My sister has a phobia of water at night, particularly dark water (Long story). So as it got later, she starts freaking out and I end up sitting on the floor of the boat with her.

We pull up the pier, and she practically shoves me off the boat. Meanwhile, she's got her eyes closed and both her hands on my shoulder so I could guide her. Except she kept stepping on me, and we're walking on this rickety pier that is about 1m wide. I almost fell in and took her with me!

We walk into the cultural centre and we see a massive outdoor grilling area. There was also many wok tossing stations etc. We thought we were in for a treat with all you can eat:


Unfortunately, we get ushered passed the stalls and into a hut where we sit for 30mins drinking tea. Only then did we get to go into the theatre to watch a reenactment of a Vietnamese wedding.

Opening dance

Picking up the bride

"Consummating" the marriage

After the show, we get shown our table where we get a "traditional" Vietnamese meal...we'll see about that.

Green salad?

Mushroom and white fungus seafood soup

Crumbed fried tofu

Fresh and fried spring rolls

Fish.....and chips....

Fried cheese stuff beef and glutinous rice balls

Steamed lotus leaf fried rice

It was fried rice, wrapped in lotus leaf and steamed. Errrrr....yeah....

Cauliflower and prawn stir fry

Fresh fruit

Luckily, it was only a 20min bus ride back to the hotel, rather than the 1.5hr boat ride. I'm sure my sister would've laid face down and petrified on the floor. We get back to the hotel around 10pm, and we went to Caravelle hotel where we had cocktails and enjoy the night view.

We finished the night up around 1am since we were leaving tomorrow.