I still was waking up crazy early. I went down to the kopitiam and got some ban mian for breakfast.
Ban mian, really yummy
We packed up and check out and headed on the MRT back to the airport. The Singapore airport is awesome. Not only is it huge and very clean, it's full of weird things like gardens, a free movie theater, a swimming pool, spa, an arcade and "sleeping pods" if you don't want to go the airport hotel. We didn't have any time for anything fun, but if you ever have a long layover, Singapore is definitely the place to have it. There was a branch of that Ananda Bhavan restaurant (the vegetarian restaurant in Little India) in the airport, so Risa got another thusai and I got some more roti (okay, I have a problem):
Some other fun things at the airport: losing my immigration ticket because it nearly fell out of my passport, so I put it in "a very safe place" meaning I couldn't find it when I needed it later, relaxing in the lounge surrounded by indoor palm trees, and getting passed by military with semi-automatics. I'd never been that close to a gun before and it made me REALLY nervous (guns are banned in Singapore for the most part).
I have to say that Silk Air up to the point was one of the worst airlines I've ever flown. They definitely were better than Vietnam Airlines (but I hadn't been poisoned by them yet), but the food was awful and the seats were small. I was disappointed because I'd heard that Singapore Airlines was awesome to fly on, but apparently that doesn't apply to their smaller regional companies.
We survived the flight back, caught a taxi back to Risa's house to this:
How awesome to live across the street from the ocean?
Risa need to go grocery shopping, so we headed off to Lotte Mart, something that twisted my mind. Lotte is a Korean company that I will associate with Seoul, so it was too weird to see it in Vietnam.
They even had a Lotteria!
We did some grocery shopping, bought massive amounts of water and I say this:
Kimchi....in Vietnam! I bought some and it was TERRIBLE.
Back to Risa's house where Mike had gotten home from work. We headed out for dinner which meant riding on the back of Mike's scooter and donning an awesome helmet:
Me, looking fat and swollen from the heat, fake grinning.
Dinner was at this small restaurant that literally had four items on the menu. I bought a mirinda, a drink I remember from Singapore but couldn't find there anymore. My friends used to joke, "You want some mirinda, Miranda?" Apparently, it's from Spain and it really actually is the same root as my name, Mirandus. I remember there being a ton of flavours, but the only two I saw in Asia were orange and anise.
Dinner was bánh xèo, an egg pancake wrapped up in rice paper; nem lụi, a pork sausage on a lemongrass stick; bún thịt nướng, a noodle dish; and bò lá lốt, beef wrapped up in a betel (?) leaf. I forgot to get pictures.
After dinner, we drove to the riverside. There was an esplanade that's full of marble sculptures from local artists and student. There were also some art students that would do portraits for people. There was one guy drawing a little girl that was amazing. There was also some piped music and couples dancing along the riverside. There was also a great view of the bridges which lit up and changed colour. There was also a dragon bridge that wasn't finished when I was there so it was looking a little sad, but has since opened and you can see pictures here.
The dragon bridge
Danang from the bridge
I had a misconception that Danang was small. I have no idea why. It's definitely smaller than all of the other cities I've been to in Asia, but with nearly a million people, it's bigger than the population of Seattle (just the city) and is four times the area. It's a beautiful city.
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