Inside Lotte Mart, Saigon

It opened! 33,400 square meters of shopping in District 7 less than ten minutes from where I stay. Of course I had to visit but I couldn't shake off the feeling that it was wrong to be excited, still a little guilt seasons pleasure.

It's a supermarket and shopping complex over three floors with a cinema, bowling and food outlets. It sells just about anything you could want from motorbike tyres to flat screen TVs and I know I've been here for a while now because I got bloody excited about it and had an absolute ball.

Alas the pictures are limited because the staff kept catching me with my camera and telling me "No pictures". They were firm and even a plaintive "But I'm going to blog it" cut no ice.



I'll be back but next time I'll be a little more furtive with my photography.



Also on site is a branch of the Lotte franchised coffee outlet Angel-in-us. True to the company that brought us Lotteria "We Love Hamburger" we get a little splash of bad English with our drinks.

Bikes I like

Brand new Attila Elizabeths coloured like cheap sweeties.


Why stick to the one theme when there are so many to choose from?


Purists may scoff but I love these old scooters all faffed up for today's modern motorbike driver.


Here scooters are personal.

Phu My Hung

The Vietnamese "city of tomorrow", clean and well designed it doesn't feel like Vietnam at all. Streets are broad and shaded and parks are planted between buildings and between roads.



Roads are smoothly surfaced and often deserted.



Shops and cafe's have sprung up all over the place with new ones opening regularly.





It's a safe and clean environment particularly suited to families. The place would drive me up the wall.

One, two, tree.

Tonight the frogs were lively and I happened to have a camera with me. There have been a lot more tree frogs around recently and I'm getting very fond of them.





I await three in one shot.

Domestic days

We have three floors and a roof terrace but often hauling it all the way to the top floor is too much to expect of a human so we spend a lot of time in our front courtyard.
It's 5m x 2m but packs a lot in.



Because we were heading out almost immediately we left the scooter parked outside the gate. At night it lives on the ground floor next to an armchair.



Our courtyard is home to twenty plants, 17 fish and assorted visitors.



We have tiny chairs that make it look bigger, if you look carefully you can see my first home grown orchid just starting to bloom.



And here it is, My First Little Orchid.




A view from three floors up with one still to go before we reach the roof.



You wouldn't want to forget anything you needed or to have suicidal tendencies. However, the climb to the roof space is worth the risk of being enticed to throw yourself down the stairwell.



As well as the view we have a fridge up here dedicated to beer and wine.

Shoes in the house?

I'm going to take some pictures of the house but haven't got around to it yet, To motivate myself I'm putting up a mini-posting which ought to shame me into being more productive. Time will tell though, I have a high shame threshold.

We are good tenants and don't wear shoes in the house, neither does anyone else so there tends to be a big collection at the front door at times.

On permanent display are the "gate shoes", rubber flip flops for shuffling back and forward the three steps from the front door to the gate when visitors or bill collectors arrive.

Lady with baps out lying on top of a lion.

We moved to a new house recently and our landlord brought us this as an attractive addition to
our living space:

It's going to take quite some time to find the perfect position for it.