Housepitality

 Dear Mom,

A couple nights ago we went out cruising by motorbike and got phở at a special little restaurant in our new neighborhood.

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For context, 52k is roughly $2. And then yesterday we went back to the same neighborhood and had Banh Cuon for breakfast:

I wish you were here! And with food like this, I think you wish you were here, too!

And this our neighborhood. (click for a video description of the map)

When I was at a local English club Sunday afternoon (Gosh, that was YESTERDAY? Time is warping over here—some days feel like weeks!), I expressed a desire to host people in our house, and it is so very, very heartwarming to see the delight and hopeful disbelief in their eyes when they realize I’m inviting them into my space.

These three went out to dinner with us the night we moved in:

And last night we hosted leadership from a second English Club at our place.

We’re still getting things organized and put away, and working on decorating so the walls aren’t so white. We know we owe you more of a photo-tour of the whole house. We promise to send more pics eventually—hopefully the building suspense will keep you checking your inbox. ;-)

Here’s a couple photos from the realtor, before we moved in:

Our bedroom is the second floor balcony.

We’re grateful to be able to park our motorbikes behind the gate at night. There is lots of space for guests to park both inside and outside the gate, and on our street there is no traffic aside from the residents who live on the street. A quiet street in an urban center!

Love,

~Tim/Janet

Tomorrow, A House

Dear Mom,

We chose a house and we’re happy with our decision.  

The resorts and public beaches are 1km east of our house at the red place marker, and we are closer to the north-flowing Han River than we are to the beach.  The river separates the main city from the Son Tra peninsula, and we do a lot of our navigation based on which bridge we should use to get to a shop in the central city.  If you listen in on our conversations as we motor south in Son Tra, you’ll hear us say things like “Okay, so this is the road that goes to the Dragon Bridge…”  and “Now we’re almost to the big southern bridge road.”  We don’t know the road names very well, yet.  Oh, and it’s worth noting that when you say Son Tra (which is the district that is everything east of the river) you should be saying “SONE JAH” with a long O and a very soft J in place of TR.  

Today we bought an expensive mattress, a bunch of chairs, and other random stuff for setting up house.  Tomorrow at 10am we’ll sign papers on a 7 month rental contract, and move in one hour later.  The mattress will be delivered in the afternoon.  

In the evening some friends will join us for a first dinner at a local place.  Janet and I cruised the neighborhood last night to scout promising places to eat, and one banh xeo place was particularly packed with people (always a good sign).  It’s a typical neighborhood hole-in-the-wall place with small plastic stools and nothing particularly amazing about the ambiance, but if the food is good we want to know about it as an option for when people are over and we want to go out and get dinner together.

Soon we’ll have pics of the house, and a report of whether the banh xeo was any good.  ("bahn SAY-oh")

We keep thinking that we’re 100% over jet lag, and then we get hit in the head with a sleepless night, even though we’re past 10 days now.  Last night I was awake from 1:30am to 4am (I was trying for a night without sleeping aid), and I’m hoping to sleep better tonight as tomorrow is an important moving day!

Love,

Tim/Janet

PS.

From Janet’s phone, first week in PHOTOS.  If you’re on a phone, the videos might play best if you watch them in a Google Photos app.

PPS.  

In the map above, all the teal flags are placemarkers of my Dining Danang maps overlay.  Every time I go somewhere and think “I’d like to bring friends back here” for coffee/food, I drop a pin into my map.  There are already lots of good options—I’m sure there will be a future letter, or many, about the culinary delights of this place.

PPPS.

Tonight we had bún thịt nướng at a local place that we knew from 10 years ago.  As I paid for our meal ($1.50 each), I used Google Translate to post a big note on my phone and held it out to the proprietress in the red apron (same lady from 10 years ago) saying “Delicious, as always.”  This made her grin with pleasure.