Coriander and Yoga Mats

I've taken baby steps here Ha Noi, handling one culture shock at a time. Today's project was grocery shopping! Since I will stay here for a while, I figured I can't eat out every day and every meal. Now that I (sort of) can navigate the alleys, I decided to take the 900 meter trip to the nearest supermarket. I don't have a Vietnamese sim-card yet, so when I'm out of the house, I have no access to Google translate, which has been a dear friend since I arrived.

The supermarket was fun! There were so many things I had no idea what they were. And everything was in Vietnamese. I had a shopping list since today's project was cooking Vietnamese food, but my English shopping list was semi-useful in the store. I didn't buy the chicken feet. After one hour I had found almost everything on my list. In the evening I relized that the coriander definitely wasn't coriander when I tasted my food. But all in all, I would say I nailed grocery shopping and cooking today. Next time I will find you, coriander.

I also bought a yoga mat today which was another fun experience. I used google maps and translate to find out where I could get a yoga mat and google maps gave me an address close by. Now, if you read my previous post, you know how the alleys in Ha Noi are a bit tricky. Well, without internet it took me 4 friendly Vietnamese people to find the right address: one old man who spoke only Vietnamese pointed me in the right direction, one blind woman how spoke English but couldn't read the address I was showing on my phone, one young girl who was eager to help but had no idea where the address was and finally a local veterinarian who spoke good English and knew that the neighbours sold yoga mats.

The yoga mat house seemed closed, but the veterinarian shouted from the street and soon the metal doors were pulled aside and I was invited into my first Vietnamese home buy an older couple. I think I interrupted their lunch. They gave me a chair and pointed at me to sit down. Now they brought out heaps of yoga mats for me to look at. Their daugther (I think) joined shortly and spoke good English and finally I decided to go for the slightly cheaper purple yoga mat.

Here in Ha Noi, just walking 600 meters to buy a yoga mat on the parallel alley is an adventure.

Cooking like the locals! But no, the green stuff wasn't coriander.