Just because I like pina coladas, and got caught in the rain...

In fairness to the drink, it wasn't a pina colada. It was something, I think, called a fruity fritter or something like that (mango, pineapple, strawberry, banana). Quite delicious but extremely unsatisfying in its fleeting nature (the cup though tall, is very thin with a an even thinner waist, making for few possible sips).

I think I'm starting to understand this city. It's still very large and overwhelming, but I can point in general directions now and say that our guesthouse, for example, is in that direction. This is a good development since for the past few days I've been walking the city in an effort to find signs of life in the local art community (my main aim being the discovery of neat, original art galleries of which I have found two thus far).

We live in District 1, which you can say is the primary part of Saigon. If I was pressed to single out one district as being "downtown," District 1 would be it. It's also the area where most of the art galleries are.

Two days ago, I set out in search of an organization called Saigon Open City - a non-profit organization aimed at promoting contemporary art in Saigon. It is currently in the midst of a three part series that is looking at the ways art tells about three different periods of Vietnamese history (you can check out more at www.saigonopencity.org ... it's pretty cool).

Anyway, having found the address of a number of galleries around Saigon, I decided to just walk there - a task that sounds much more simple than it truly is.

For me, finding Saigon Open City's office - and really any place in Saigon for that matter - is a bit like trying to find Station 9 and 3/4 in Harry Potter. While it seems simple enough, odd numbers on one side of the street and even on the other, street numbers just disappear, get skipped, or even demolished. I walked up and down one street, trying to find address 2B, and seeing if there was some hidden doorway or passage between 2A and 2D. However, nothing of the sort was to be found.

Finally, rounding the street corner and following along, I was able to find a back alley and through a mixture of sign language and exaggerated motions, I was able to show my intense desire to find 2B, to which the solemn man would simply point towards the office, which was tucked down an alley that was already down the previously mentioned alley. Naturally, the next four galleries proved to be just as difficult to find - with no help from the constant requests by the motorbike drivers to "show me many things".

Exhausted, I finally ducked into a coffee shop to get a fruit smoothie (the fruity fritter or whatever it was called) and emerged, rejuventated. Of course, minutes later, dark clouds began to gather and little helicoptery leaves that resemble quidditch snitches (lots of Harry Potter references, I know) began to fall all around me. Minutes later, I would be soaked.


The reason that I name this post after the pina colada song is because the issue of eating here has come up constantly. Over the past few years, I've started to say that life, for me, is the stuff that happens between meals. Food (especially the good kind...I get depressed thinking about Two Sisters and Keifer's...you Jacksonians are lucky lucky people) has become one of my foundational pillars. It's something I like to talk about. It's something I'm constantly thinking about. And obviously something that - when it's good - brings me unspeakable joy.

I'm not saying the food here is not good. Far from it. It's just different. Here, it is completely normal to have beef soup (pho bo) for breakfast. The other day we even had a crab/shrimp soup at 7:30 in the morning with orange juice and coffee. I'm constantly having to ask about peanuts and peanut oil (the oil is surprisingly hard to ask about, and naturally leads to extra stress when I can't completely figure out what's in each dish). Obviously, my stomach is adjusting, and that once firmly grounded food pillar of mine has shaken just a bit.

The subject of food comes up constantly between my roommate, Phat (who is great), and myself. We are both hungry at all hours, and before he had arrived I had stocked up our bedroom with a few cereals, including Honey Bunches of Oats as well as All Bran.

I've offered Phat both of these cereals which he has enjoyed (I think), but, in the most literal sense of the word, we have different tastes. I love Honey Bunches of Oats, and I eat it by pouring it into my hand and shovelling it into my mouth many hands at a time, so the first day we had met, I offered Phat a bit of my beloved cereal and he ate it politely carefully picking up each little crisp one at a time and enjoying it on its own.

All Bran, for me, is a much more practical cereal. It does not exactly bring joy to my taste buds but rather to other parts of me that receive joy in very unique sorts of ways. Rob even made the comment, after seeing my horrifyingly large box of All Bran with the motto, "TAKE THE TWO WEEK CHALLENGE," that eating cereal should not be a "challenge". His point was well taken.

Despite this however, Phat exclaimed, when I hesitantly offered him the All Bran, that he enjoyed All Bran much more than "that other stuff." I wasn't hurt (I'm sort of glad to have more HBOO to myself), but interested in our differing tastes.

Another example of this came when a group of Robertsons and our roommates went out to grab a quick dinner at one of our roommates' favorite restaurants.

Ducking down another back alley, we came to an "open-air" restaurant (when I say open air, I mean that the front facade of the building is just not there). A few women stood outside, huddled under a canopy and around a gigantic boiling pot of water and noodles. On a table next to the pot, there sat these eerily neon orange pieces of something that I assumed would be added to the stew.

We proceeded into the restaurant, walking past groups of people sitting on tiny plastic chairs around tiny plastic tables. There were children, old men and women, pregnant women, business people, everything, yet, our group were obviously included the only non-locals. That was fine, and we were met with wonderful hospitality by everyone. We continued on up a set of narrow, rickety steps with only enough room for about half a person, and moved up onto the second level of the restaurant - which shook slightly with every step (and movement) that we took.

We sat down at our tiny plastic tables, and my and David's knees came up above our shoulders on account of the tiny-ness of the chairs. Some pale geckos scattered along the wall as we sat down - shaking the floor and the foundations of the building.

Moments later, our food was delivered with the same eery neon orange meat floating in a noodle soup.
*Just to give you a picture of this, imagine going to the supermarket and buying uncooked chicken from the frozen section. You know how pale and plastic it looks under its saran wrap? That's how this looked in our soup.
I tried to politely eat my noodles while attempting to drown the still-living meat in the bottom of my soup bowl so as not to seem completely ungrateful.

I looked for sympathy around the table, but found most everyone slurping up their bowls of the soup. It was aggravating that my stomach, whom I'm going to start calling Jeffery (I think I'm just projected this tempestuous, spoiled school boy image on him based on my own insecurities, but for now we'll just say Jeffery was why I didn't eat)couldn't be just a bit more daring.

So, I'm adjusting. It's a different place, and I hope that in the coming weeks, I (erm, I mean, Jeffery)will be a bit more open to trying some of the things that our roommates see as their own foundational pillars (we went the next day to the fast food place here and ordered double cheese burgers and strawberry shakes...they were magical.)

Anyway, we're working on it.