Things We've Eaten So Far (aka the first two days in HCMC)

After arriving in HCMC late Wednesday night (which was highly confusing to me as I was convinced it was still Tuesday), we tried to sleep only to find ourselves wide awake at 4am. Jet lag will do that to you. Luckily, we were meeting at 7am for our first Vietnames breakfast. We are in HCMC for 10 days (until June 11), and we will then be headed to the rural city Quang Tri in the central region. This time in HCMC is a time to learn the language (3 hours per day, Mon-Fri = 18 hours total...what do I remember from the first three hours? Xin Chao meaning hello. That's about it), get over jet lag, and explore! We've taken it to heart...at least as far as food is concerned. Here's what we've sampled:

Vietnames Pho - noodle soup traditionally with beef. I got chicken. It's typically a breakfast food and is yum. I added spicy stuff to make it spicy. Who knew eating hot soup in hot weather could be so satisfying
Vietnamese pancake filled with sprouts and shrimp (kinda looks like a very yellow crepe)
Morning glory with garlic (related to the spinach plant)
These rice paper crackers with shrimp and pork
Snails! (They really reminded me of clams/oysters and I quite enjoyed them. I believe I was in the minority)
Spring rolls with shrimp in pork and a yummy peanut sauce
Egg rolls that you wrap in lettuce with vermicelli noodles and mint or basil (a garnish for lots of the dishes)
Shrimp in a coconut. You have to peel them yourself. Eating the head is optional
Lemongrass Chicken
Chicken with ginger sauce
A whole red snapper...yes the head too
Durian and strawberry and taro and pineapple ice cream
Vegetable curry...I really have no idea what was in it and some of the fake meat was pretty frightening
Drinks - iced tea is served with everything instead of water and it's obviously boiled so foreigners are willing to drink it, passionfruit juice, coconut milk served out of a coconut, and a variety of smoothies

As a person that generally stays away from pork and beef, I've been trying to eat the chicken. It's pretty different here because it's not cultivated like in the states. It is thus more chewy and there's a greater bone to meat ration. It's taking some getting used to...We've generally been going to super "expensive" restaurants at 5 dollars a person so we're trying to find some more street food (5 dollars a day is a general amount that you can get by on. Lots of street food is 50 cents or less!) Today's lunch? We're looking for Banh mi!

So what have we been doing besides eating? We've visited a few museums and watched a movie or too...but that's a post for another day.

Vietnamese Spring Roll recipe (my favorite!) Most of the ones here have pork but I like this one with just shrimp