Dinner and a lake side stroll

We went out looking for dinner last night.  We were determined to find something different than lunch.  Five blocks and 4300 motorbikes later, we lost the will to look for food and ended up at the same type of food stall as lunch.

Rice + pick 5
It is a mix of veggies and meat that make up the pick 5.  Once again we ran into the veggies that taste like day old dish soap.  Most of the veggies were great and the beef and chicken were delicious.  The owner spoke some English and with the aid of pantomime I explained the word taste.  I asked what the taste was on the bok choy and bamboo shoots (that made them taste like dish soap - which I didn't explain).  He showed us a plastic rice cooker and said "3 days" while motioning that they had shoved it in.  So it turns out that I don't like mildly rotted/fermented vegetables.  When they are fully fermented, like Kim Chee, I do like them.

As a fat Tay (Buleh/Foreigner)  They are nice enough to stack 2-3 of the 4 inch stools.  So it is almost as comfortable as eating lunch in a kindergarten classroom.

Bia = Beer.  

Ha Noi= Hanoi.

Therefore... Beer from Hanoi is pictured below.

We ate dinner next to a lake.  Hanoi has many, and looking across, Janet thought it looked like Lake Calhoun (Near where I used to live in Minneapolis).  Both are beautiful lakes.

Alas, we looked down (and I pointed out to a glassesless Janet) the following:

Yup, those fish are dead.

We did learn today from our real estate agent that people are paid to scoop out the dead fish every day. They die "because of the rain."  I am no biologist so I can't argue, I also don't want to question a source of jobs.  US Congress needs to look into 'dead-fish-after-rain-scooping' as a source of fixing the unemployment.

And that was the end of our first evening in Hanoi.

-Jeff