The adventures of a foreign salaryman in Tokyo in Ho Chi Minh City

As some people might have figured out from my previous post, yours truly has been on a brief but great little vacation in Vietnam the last couple of days. In accordance with the plan, me and Ms. Sunshine packed our bags and took the plane to Ho Chi Minh City where we managed to get warmth, sunshine and I also managed to squeeze in a couple of beers at lunch as well. As an interesting side-note, Ms. Sunshine managed to be mistaken for Singaporean (3 times), Korean (1 time) as well as Vietnamese (at least 1 time) and of course, also a couple of correct guesses as well.

Not only did we ignorantly manage to squeeze this trip in just at Chinese New Year (the glorious "year of the mouse" now in 2008, thank God-Jesus that I'm a dragon and not a whimpy animal) which in the socialist country of Vietnam seem to conveniently have been combined with the celebration of the 40 year anniversary of ousting the americans from the country and establishing the country in the current form. It actually felt a bit nostalgic to see so many yellow stars and yellow hammer and sickle against a red backdrop. They just don't make countries like that anymore. Chinese new year in Vietnam seem to be mainly celebrated through communist posters and flags (more often than not featuring women with machine guns) as well as corny mouse statues of which an estimated 34.4% are unauthorized Mickey Mouse rip-offs.

But it was a very interesting country to visit with great food and a different atmosphere compared to neighboring countries Thailand and China, at least the little we managed to see this time. Now I'm back in Tokyo in the cold to take it easy and recover a bit more before getting back into the high powered world of consulting.