I only made it out after 4pm yesterday. It was a beautiful, sunny day (it has been overcast here most of time, and rained yesterday, which is unusual for this time of year), so I took a couple more pictures of the Saigon River from the kitchen window.

When I finally left the apartment, the sunlight was already the warm orange of late afternoon. I took this picture of the open walkway outside of the apartment, looking out into the heart of District 1.

Yonna took me to a vegetarian restaurant in the area where are the backpackers stay. We climbed an extremely narrrow spiral staircase to get to the second floor where we could sit on the small terrace. We were the first people there for the dinner service.

Directly across the narrow street was a Chinese temple. The characters say “Ease and Comfort Temple,” but Yonna pointed out that the characters for “ease and comfort” mean “assisted suicide” in Japanese.

The food arrived, and I was really amazed at the flavors. We had pineapple soup, fried tofu with mushrooms and rice with lotus seeds (wrapped in lotus leaves). Yonna demands credit for the first photo, because she said that the one I took had no style.

The black pepper on the mushrooms was so fresh and flavorful…I wished I could come back every day just for more. The rice had so many subtle and complicated spices going on…

After staring longingly at the empty dishes for a while, we made our way out to stroll for a bit. It was already dark by this time.

We stopped in a used bookstore, where Yonna knew the owner. She asked for the camera and took the following pictures. The first is of the owners girls (one is wearing fake hair extensions, I think you’ll know which one). There is also a photo of one of the many gecko that are ubiquitous here in the city. We have at least one who visits us in the apartment in the middle of the night to explore my luggage.

Now it’s 10:20am and we’re heading out to eat noodles.