After years of talking about it, dad finally came to Australia! They spent a week with us in Melbourne, in between visiting Sydney and Cairns. Here are some of the things we got up to, in jumbled order.
We wandered around some alleyways. I took them to the Sofitel toilets, obviously, and we walked all around the CBD.
Hot jam doughnuts at the Queen Vic Market. The market looks so different to the last time I was there!! We found my old workplace, Green Leaf Produce, but it has different owners now and I didn’t recognize anyone working. The signs still look the exact same though.
It would be fun to go to the deli with $200 of someone else’s money and make the most delicious picnic lunch.
Diane found our house too cold. It wasn’t even as bad as when MEP and Paul visited. :D
Perhaps our future visitors should visit in Daylight Savings Time only.
We went to the Healesville Sanctuary. We got to listen to a few rangers talks, and the bird show was fun as well. The echidnas were extremely active.
After the zoo we did a tasting session at Four Pillars. Gin is not my favourite but it was still interesting. We also went to a bakery for lunch, the chocolate shop, and Yarra Valley Dairy, so that was a delicious day overall.
This has got to be one of the most satisfying victories of my entire life.
We had lots of nice family dinners at home.
I made a RTE Middle Eastern roasted lamb shoulder with couscous and garlic sauce and it took 4 hours but it was sooooo good.
We checked out the Brighton Beach boxes. Cute.
Dad’s CPAP machine broke so Classic Dad he took the whole thing apart to try and fix it. We found the problem eventually but it would need a replacement part, so I guess he just didn’t breathe while sleeping after that.
Scott brought us to play bowls. Dad found it interesting. We also brought him to pickleball.
It was nice to have a week off work and spend a quality week with Dad and Diane. There were lots of good chats, good food, relax time, shoulder rubs from Diane (was she just warming up her hands?), and plenty of games of Wizard. I think they found Australia too expensive but hopefully they can visit again somehow.
August was a busy month. Scott worked his first graduations days, and we went to Vietnam for a week, and in between we squeezed in lots of activities and some tasty meals.
We went hot air ballooning, and then went out for breakfast at Warung Coffee. We got a beef rendang toastie and a mie goreng toastie and they were ridiculous and salty and delicious. Yes that is a sandwich full of noodles.
I made Scott come with me to a birding photography outing to Muckleford and Newstead Cemetery. It was a cold but pleasant day. We saw a few new birds, but I didn’t get any particularly great pictures. At least now I know where to come back to try to see the rainbow bee-eaters this summer though.
Australian Pipit
We knew the steam train would be passing through around noon so everyone stopped birdwatching and changed their camera settings and got into position to best photograph the train… and then waited… and waited… and then finally fifteen minutes later it slooooooooooooooooooowly came around the corner. I think you could walk faster than this train haha.
Trivia. It was so loud. We didn’t do well.
Malaysian food all day every day. We went to Pappa Laksa again and had Pappa Special Laksa and Beef Rendang Nasi Lemak. Delicious.
RTE Pork Adobo and cucumber salad. Tasty, and affordable!
Trying out different methods of Brain Off time. Paint by numbers was pretty fun. Good ol’ Kmart.
Tiny bit of progress on the cable knit blanket.
Slow progress on Lauren’s hat. I only manage to get a couple rounds done at a time on my lunch breaks at work. And the pink thing was a project for Lara which I have now abandoned. Knitting it was going way too slowly, and crocheting was turning out way too heavy. I think a sleeve scarf would be a better project for someone with a knitting machine. (Can I buy a knitting machine??)
Unpictured stuff:
We took my whole work team to play pickleball at Pickle Play. Almost everyone came! We had to rent three courts! It was chaotic at first trying to teach them all how to play, but once they got the hang of it it was very fun. And no one hurt themselves. Success.
Scott took Beau to open day at UniMelb. They went to a bunch of science lectures and had KFC and had a good day together.
I’ve still been going to Bodypump pretty regularly. It is kind of stupid but at least it’s something.
And of course, still pickleballing. I usually do one drills session, and two social sessions per week. Still loving it.
One last Vietnam post. We did a day tour to Ninh Binh, which is a couple hours away from Hanoi.
The first stop was at Hoa Lu Ancient Capital. It was quite pretty. We learned some history.
I had to wear one of their skirts to go into the temple area and it was extremely non-breathable and I had rivers of sweat running down my back. Why is it always so hot when we visit temples?
The next stop was fun! We got bicycles from Trang An Homestay and biked around for about half an hour in really beautiful landscape. The bikes were a little sketchy on the gravel paths, but it was super flat and the breeze felt amazing.
Apparently they filmed King Kong here.
Then we had a buffet lunch, where they encouraged us to eat as much as possible, because the next stop would be ultra relax. We went to Tam Coc and got rowed around on a boat for like 2 hours by Vietnamese ladies.
They paddle the boats with their feet.
It was very beautiful and chill.
Some parts you go right through the karsts.
And then finally we went to Mua Caves to climb the 500 Steps. It was quite crowded, but the views were spectacular!
Scott had a hard time with the heat. We were both verrrrry sweaty.
The views from the top in the other directions were incredible as well. So lush and green.
This is where we went on the boat earlier in the day!
After chugging some Vietnamese electrolyte drinks, we got back on the bus, very tired and sweaty, and headed back to Hanoi. It was a fun day!
Back when I thought we were going to go to Vietnam the first time in 2024, before Scott poked a hole in his spinal canal, I spent a long time going through Instagram posts and guide books and blogs finding all sorts of delicious food places to try and saving them all onto a Google Map. This very much came in handy for this trip because it gave us options when we didn’t know where to eat. We ended up checking off a lot of the ones I had saved in Hanoi.
Scott tried all sorts of different coffees. He had this classic Vietnamese coffee very early in the morning on the street with people on their way to work. It came out of an esky. Rated it 10/10.
(Since our trip was so short, and we had to go straight back to work after getting back, we mostly stayed on Melbourne time, so we were up early a lot.)
Couple of egg coffees. The first time he didn’t know it had two layers so he kind of ate the top part by itself, and thought it was too rich, but then realised there was super strong coffee underneath. The second time he mixed it a bit. He said he liked egg coffee but it was more of a dessert than a drink.
The other drink was one of the most delicious mocktails I have ever had, it was a iced peach tamarind drink, that came with crunchy peanut and toasted coconut bits on top. It was a flavour and texture sensation.
Scott also tried coconut coffee, which he liked, said it wasn’t too sweet, and salt coffee, which wasn’t that salty.
A bowl of beef pho that I added too much chili to, and some stir fried morning glory with garlic.
Bún Cá. Fish noodle soup with two different types of noodles, and a deep fried fish nugget on the side. The soup was loaded with fish chunks. It is funny trying to eat long noodles with chopsticks in front of a strongly blowing fan.
Bún Đậu. This restaurant was hidden away in an alleyway. We weren’t given any menus, just told to sit down, and then about 3 minutes later they brought out this big platter for us with a little ticket saying 80k ($5AUD). Fine with me! It came with all sorts of fried bits, some tofu-y, some fish-y, some meat-y. We bundled the pieces up with herbs and noodles and dunked in the sauce. Delicious. Although as I’m looking this dish up now, I think it is supposed to come with shrimp paste dipping sauce and they didn’t give us that. I guess they decided that whiteys wouldn’t like it. Ah well, still very good without!
Sticky rice with pork and fried shallots. We didn’t really understand how this restaurant worked… in hindsight I think we were supposed to add more toppings.
Our hotel had an expansive breakfast buffet but we didn’t eat there often because there was more delicious stuff to be found outside!
Like Bánh cuốn!! Freshly made rice sheets rolled with pork and mushrooms, generously sprinkled with fried shallots, bundled with herbs, and dunked in nước chấm. Eaten on tiny stools on the side of the street.
We had it twice! The first one was huuuuuge and also came with fatty delicious sausage. The second one was smaller, but cheaper, and we also got a fried egg. Fried shallots are the best.
Bánh mì. Slightly different than Melbourne-style banh mi. It had lettuce and egg, no cucumber, and was more saucey, and they smush the bread in a press at the end. Pretty tasty, especially for a couple of dollars.
We bought a small segment of durian to try. I actually kind of like the smell of durian on the street, but once it gets close to your face it smells wayyyyy worse. It has a real hint of gasoline and bin juice to it. Neither of us liked it at all. I think there are much better creamy things to eat in the world.
Now this is a fruit I can support. I loooooove mangosteen. We bought a kilo of it for about $8 AUD, which seemed very expensive at the time, but we went to the Queen Vic Market the other week and I saw it for $60/kg!!! LOL! The lady selling them picked out all small ones for me, which I thought was rude at first, but then I found out the small ones have less chance of having those big seed segments and she was actually being kind. Delicious.
Big bowl of soup with a crunchy thing to break up and mix in. Don’t remember what that was called.
Bánh Khọt. Lil savoury shrimp pancakes. Wrapped in herbs and dipped in nuoc cham of course. (Everything is dipped in nuoc cham.)
Nộm thịt Bò khô. Dried beef salad. This popular restaurant was very big and busy. But actually I didn’t like this salad that much. Too sweet.
Bún chả. A Hanoi specialty and I understand why. This was my favourite meal of the trip. Delicious fatty pork pieces in a delicious broth. Grab a piece of pork, some pickled vegetables and herbs, some noodles, and shove it in your mouth, delicious sauce dripping down your chin and splattering all over your clothes. Worth doing extra laundry. We also had some epic spring rolls. And all for like $5 or something ridiculous.
We had it again at a different restaurant. This place the pork was even thicker and fattier. Washed down with ice tea. Incredible.
A friend saw that we were in Hanoi on Instagram and sent me a message saying I need to go find this doughnut lady on her behalf, because she still dreams about these (vegan) doughnuts. They did not disappoint. We got two of each: glutinous rice savoury, glutinous rice sweet, sesame, and sugar. They were perfectly crispy on the outside, chewy like mochi on the inside, and had crunchy bits in the middle. Amazing. Also they were ten to fifteen cents each.
Bánh xèo is not popular in Hanoi but I still really wanted to have it so I found one restaurant that specialised in it. We just got the base model, with pork and prawns, and it was huge and delicious. For this one you take a sheet of rice paper, add a piece of crispy rice pancake and some herbs, fold it up, dunk in nuoc cham, and shove in mouth. Crunchy and yum.
One last thing we had to check off our Hanoi Food Bucket List was Bia hơi, a fresh draught beer that they brew up every day without preservatives, and sell for about $0.50 a glass on the street. It is not very strong. Comes with peanuts. I didn’t mind the beer but there was a very annoying American guy there that made the experience kind of annoying.
We didn’t eat at this lady’s shop but I was very impressed by her mise en place.
So much veg prep required every day. Back breaking work.
It looks like we ate so much stuff but most of the time we only ordered one dish at a time and split it, so we could try more things at different places. The fresh vegetables balance out the fried food well and overall it didn’t feel super unhealthy. Luckily we didn’t have any GI problems either.
Writing this post has made me very hungry!! Please forgive me if I made any mistakes with the names. And let me know if you are going to Hanoi and want some specific restaurant details!
OK we only went to Hanoi for six days but I have about 500 pictures I want to show you!! What an interesting and photogenic place.
Scott and I really wanted to go on a trip together (for once!), but could only manage to find six days we could take off at the same time. At first we thought we would go to Cairns or Darwin, but then my friend suggested that we YOLO and go to Vietnam instead. It was the same price to fly direct to Hanoi as it was to Cairns! Plus then we could stay at a really nice hotel and eat delicious things and shop and do whatever we wanted for less than we would have spent in Australia.
After our ten hour flight we arrived in Hanoi in the late afternoon. I organised airport pickup through the hotel ahead of time so it was quite simple to make it to our hotel, right in the middle of the Old Quarter. We dropped our bags and then immediately headed out to explore/find food. I’ll save all the food pics for a separate post.
Hoan Kiem Lake
There used to be a very notable Hanoi building in this spot but they recently tore it down to make a town square area instead.
We had two dinners and then got a massage with the sweet relaxing sounds of a very loud concert being held right outside the window.
The view from the hotel rooftop.
The next day we started to attempt shopping. Scott wanted to buy some mango chips and agreed to buy 500g for like $3. They kept scooping and scooping, it was quite funny.
We went to Dong Xuan Market to look at clothes but found it very overwhelming and none of the clothes were really our style. We found 50 million types of white sneakers, 50 million types of mens leather sandals, 50 million types of frilly skirts, an epic fabric section, lots of kids clothes. We got Scott one pair of shorts but that was it.
We were there right before Vietnam was celebrating 80 years of communism or something like that so there were a lot of patriotic decorations everywhere, and a lot of families dressed up in special Vietnam outfits. (Unless it always looks like this?)
Scooters everywhere. Apparently Hanoi doesn’t even have that many scooters compared to HCM but it still seemed like A LOT. Crossing the street was always interesting.
One thing we knew we wanted to do on our trip was get Scott some glasses. He already knew his prescription so we headed to Glasses Street and checked out a bunch of stores. He ended up getting a pair and some prescription sunglasses too, for significantly cheaper than Australia, and it only took a few hours. He is enjoying the glasses for things like watching football, and driving, but doesn’t like wearing them all the time.
In the evening we went to the Southern Train Street. I didn’t actually take any pictures of the train LOL! Only video. I’m sure you’ve seen it already. But basically you pick a cafe and then they bring you to their seating area where you have some drinks and food and wait for the train to come and then right before it comes through they pack up all the awnings and push everyone back and then the train comes zooming by super close.
We saw two trains go by, one in each direction, faster than I expected, and yes, I smushed a Hanoi beer cap on the track. Tourist trap but also quite fun.
Before the train came through.
The next day we went to the Womens Museum for some culture. It had some interesting parts. I liked the exhibits about the women’s roles in the wars.
More wandering around Hanoi.
Stopping for a cool drink on a tiny stool near a big church.
Scott loves this picture of me trying on shorts in the back of a shop, haha. We bought lots of activewear this trip. And some t-shirts, shoes, and backpacks. Everything was so cheap! I liked when you needed a different size (XL/XXL!!), they would ninja their way up into the ceilings and throw down new packets of the clothes from storage.
I managed to find us a social pickleball session that we could join. It was so fun!! The venue was huge, it must have had 24 courts, and it’s open 24/7. The guys were all super nice and very good at pickleball. We played for about 2.5 hours before we were about to die from dehydration. It was so sweaty! To make it worse, we forgot to bring towels!!! AHH!!
The pickleball place was in a different area of Hanoi that we hadn’t been to yet. It shouldn’t have been a big issue, we easily got a Grab there, and even though we knew there were going to be road closures due to a Practice Parade, the internet said buses would still be running and there was a bus that would bring us straight back to our hotel. However, this was not true, and after much confusion, Scott and I had to separate and take separate scooters back.
This was stressful because:
The scooters are crazy fast, especially the Grab drivers.
Scott didn’t have a Grab account set up so he had to quickly make an account, and then pay in cash.
I realised after we split up that I didn’t have ANY cash on me.
I did have internet though, but Scott didn’t!
We only had one room key and Scott had it.
SO MANY roads were closed.
We can’t speak Vietnamese.
I was still SOOOOOO sweaty from pickleball.
Anyway I hopped on the back of my scooter and clung on for dear life as we zoomed back towards the Old Quarter. We got about 2/3rds of the way back and then had to stop because the Practice Parade was going through. It was incredible, we were all stopped in this massive intersection watching these military vehicles drive by with people waving, and the crowd was cheering a lot, but every minute more and more and more scooters were arriving and pushing forward and squeezing in. Like, tens of thousands of scooters in every direction.
Eventually there would be little breaks in the parade and the police were letting one direction of traffic through at a time, but it was taking a very long time. I was extremely concerned that when our direction was finally going to be allowed to go that it was going to be like a super crowded drag race. But I didn’t have time to find out because eventually my driver got fed up and just squeezed through the barricades and around the police officers and crossed the parade line!!! AHAHAHA it was crazy.
At least then the road wasn’t crowded after that, LOL. He drove me as close as he could to the hotel but then said ROAD CLOSED and I would have to walk the rest of the way. So I walked the last km back to the hotel on my own, feeling mostly safe, but wondering. And also wondering where Scott was and if he was ok and how far behind me he was. The streets were full of families celebrating Vietnam!
I ended up getting back to the hotel about twenty minutes before Scott, but his Grab driver managed to sneak in and drive him all the way back to the hotel! We both tipped our drivers well for this hassle. Finally we could have showers and try to relax after that ordeal!
The next day we went on a Ninh Binh tour, which will have its own post. The traffic near the hotel was terrible on the way back so we hopped out early and ended up walking through Beer Street at night for the first time. Every street looks totally different in day/night/weekday/weekend/dry/raining etc.
I loved this. Sitting on tiny stools on the street at night. Relaxed. Delicious food. This was such a better idea to come here instead of Cairns. :D
We spent our final day wandering around new areas, checking off a few more of the food places I had saved on my food map. This was Ho Tay, or West Lake.
More cool buildings.
It is impressive what these people can carry around on a bicycle! Who needs Ikea when you have a mobile crockery shop! There were lots of ladies selling amazing looking fruit by bike too. One time we were sitting somewhere and a mobile knife guys bike tipped over and Scott had to help him get it back up, he said it was extremely heavy.
We got some custom wooden stamps made. They look great and stamped perfectly when the lady did it but I have not managed to stamp mine successfully yet, lol. Maybe I should watch a Youtube video.
We ventured to another new area to try and get cheap pickleball paddles but the guy wasn’t home (probs playing pickleball tbh) and got caught in a huuuge rain storm. The weather was mostly cooperative for us on the trip but it did seem to like to pour just as we needed to catch a Grab back and the price would surge and the drivers wouldn’t pick up the fare. Instead we bought a cheap poncho and slow walked back on foot.
I paid to get my hair washed on the last day and it was the bestttt. Should have done that earlier!! She basically spent 15 minutes scratching my head and then 15 minutes massaging my head and then afterwards I felt sooo relaxed and my hair was soooo soft. Scott got a foot massage at the same place and this kid came in and played classical guitar while his mum got a massage and it was all so lovely.
Then the final day we had to head back to the airport and fly home! It was a whirlwind 6 days but soooo fun. I feel like we barely even made a dent in Hanoi, there is even more tucked away behind what you can see from the street!
