d&h : in Japan for 2 years

Really Turning Japanese

Just kidding! We may not really be turning Japanese but we will be staying in Japan a little while longer than we first anticipated. Yay! My company asked me to extend my assignment and Henry was able to extend his time in Japan, too. So for all you procrastinators out there – you have until at least the end of the summer 2011 to come visit us in Tokyo and we may stay until the end of 2011. Hope to see you turning Japanese soon!

Crossing the street in Vietnam

Cities in Vietnam have insane numbers of motorbikes.  There’s no street lights in most areas too.  I do have to say that Saigon (HCM city) is much worse than Hanoi, but it’s still just fun taking a video of people crossing the street.

Henry’s Birthday Dinner

Henry and I went with two friends to one of Henry’s favorite Michelin rated restaurants for his birthday dinner, Esaki in Aoyama.  Last year it was two starred but this year it is three starred – and a great deal for a three starred Michelin restaurant.  8 courses including dessert and coffee/tea.

Veggies and octopus appetizer

Fish and tomato dish (check out the tiny tomatoes!)

Henry’s favorite dish – the fish!

We also had yummy rice and kabocha (squash) miso soup and custard dessert with white wine gelee.  A great meal with great company.  Incidentally, that was the night Henry got his copy of StarCraft 2, too!  Just what he wanted for his birthday! ha ha!

Halong Bay, Vietnam

The main reason we travelled to Hanoi was to go to Halong Bay.  It’s one of the most beautiful sites in the world with limestone mountains jutting out of the bay.  The trip out to the bay was a little far, 3-4 hour drive out of Hanoi.  We stayed overnight on a junk ship, which was quite nice.

We’ll probably post more pics later, since there’s so many beautiful ones, but here’s some funny ones.

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There’s tiny fishing boats and villages inside the bay.

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Even some boats with people crapping off the side of it.

Sadly, we did swim in the bay, but luckily in a much further place from this guy’s droppings.

Bun Cha in Hanoi, Vietnam

We just came back from Vietnam.  It was an awesome trip.  There’ll be more Vietnam posts following, as there’s plenty of stuff to blog about.

We stayed in the  district in Hoàn Kiếm district in Hanoi.  Bun Cha is a Hanoi style vermicelli noodle (which is bun) with grilled pork.  This place was highly recommended by the people in the area.

Bún Chả Hàng Mành

This place is tiny with great food.  You can kinda worry about how they wash their veggies, like, if it’s clean, or if they’ll reuse what you didn’t eat.  But, we didn’t care.  This meal was about $7 USD and I had beer.

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these were spicy

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They had pork meatballs and grilled pork in very light fish sauce.  In North Vietnam, the fish sauce is pretty light.  Most of the food that you have in the US is southern style Viet food.  I think I prefer southern style.

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It came with fried egg rolls.  Awesome.

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