this week saw the celebration of a dear friends birthday. what better way to do that than a mushroom filled dinner. we took her to a delightful restaurant, when in vietnam, vegetarians may enjoy without the slightest suspicion of meat, even stock, being part of the meal. once the serious decisions were underhand with selecting mushrooms from some thirty varieties for our hot pot. a delightful evening was had.
things have been busy in hanoi as we bunker down to work our way through winter. it has gotten seriously cold here in the past month, with one delightful week of blue skies and sunny days it did not seem so bad. now, it is cold gloomy, and my neighbourhood nemesis - the dog - has been barking consistently for three hours. clearly he is cold too.
we ventured into the old quarter yesterday and found ourselves at what can only be described as impromptu christmas street (it was not there a few weeks ago and i do not know what it normally is) but kitchy vietnamese christmas glamour it was. in abundance. it was an explosion of sparkle, lighting and fake snow - a level of tackiness that only could be achieved in asia. disappointingly i did not have my camera, but excited i did get, and purchases i did make, so we got a little bit festive in our apartment after all.
i have to be honest, i did not imagine that hanoi would really be touched by christmas, i thought it would be limited to some meagre decoration in hotels and the very western type stores that are, i admit, abundant in our neighbourhood. however, i was wrong. was i ever wrong. a sign of changing times and traditions, hanoi has gone quite crazy...to varying degrees at least. from the white plastic tree on the pharmacy counter, to the full blown twinkle light store fronts and fake snow deer scenes played out on the stairs of hotels. it is a sight to be seen. hopefully next weekend i will remember to pull out the camera and capture some of the oh so unique style, where no colour is neglected, no amount of lights is ever enough, and plastic is oh so very fantastic.
