February 16, 2012

Valentines Day is big over here. There are flowers for sale in the streets around our neighborhood and I guess it's a universal day to celebrate LOVE. Ron took me to The New York Steakhouse on Monday night because he teaches until 8:00 PM on Tuesdays. We picked that particular restaurant first because it's right down the street and we could walk there, and second because he's been thinking about eating a nice steak for a change. It's a beautiful restaurant but we found out that it's also pretty expensive compared to others in Ho Chi Minh City. I had a nice piece of salmon and he had a steak. We each had a glass of wine and they were $16 apiece! They weren't even full glasses either!

We, of course, topped off our dinner with a beautiful piece of apple pie ala mode.

All in all, it was a beautiful evening.

Tuesday morning after the maid service was here, I entered our bedroom and they had put a treat, a rose, and rose pedals all over our bed to celebrate Valentines Day!

Ron bought me a little basket of flowers when he got home from school. I didn't get to take a picture of it though, because I put it in the center of our kitchen table where I also placed a tip for the maids and the next day they took my basket along with the tip thinking it was for them! Oh well, it was the thought that counted. He said he only paid 50.000 dong for it anyway (which is $2.50!).

Later that evening I was able to do FaceTime with my friends at The Falls again. That's so much fun. This time I got to see more people and say Hi. I really miss them all.

Ron and I played tennis again Thursday morning. I appreciate him playing with me so much because I am used to playing at least 3 times a week and sometime even 5. They put in brand new workout equipment in our fitness room and they are state of the art. The treadmills are like the ones at The Falls with their own TVs. There's no way we could ever run outside with all of the bike, car and foot traffic. We keep saying some day we're going to take a taxi to a park and run there, but we haven't done that yet. These treadmills work just fine for us.

After lunch I decided it was time I ventured out by myself. Now that doesn't sound like a big deal right? But it means getting a taxi, making sure he takes me to the right location, paying for the taxi in dong, crossing a street (scary!) and getting another taxi making sure he takes me to the right location home. I did it though. I went to a huge mall called Vin Con. It's about 5 stories tall and has jewelery shops and high-end stores in the top floors from New York and Paris and a food court on the bottom floor. It's a beautiful place and I enjoyed just wandering around by myself looking. I stayed about 2 hours, then crossed another street (scary!) to a mall called Parkson. It's very similar, but by that time I was getting tired, so I came home. I'm going to have to do that more often.