Gilfords on the Go: Scenes from Shopping in Vietnam

EscaRamp at LotteMart -
think Target on steroids

When we came to Vietnam, we brought only luggage with us. Our personal allowances of 2 checked bags and 2 carry-on bags each. In addition, we paid the excess baggage fee for 2 bags and sent 2 bags with teachers who were in Seattle for the summer. Once it all arrived, we had 20 bags worth of "stuff". Some of it, laughably, has been re-packed and sits in our store room, which we thankfully have in our apartment. Some stuff we bravely left at home, we really wish we would have brought.

Here are some of the "funnier" ones. We brought (2) full sets of sheets from all our home beds. At home in Oregon we have two twin beds and a queen. So we arrived in Vietnam with (4) sets of twin sheets and (2) sets of Queen, PLUS (due to a certain adult females peccadillo about sharing mattresses with strangers) a queen size, pillow top mattress cover.

Our apartment in Vietnam has (2) queen beds and (1) king bed. The equivalent of (1) suitcase wasted.

Choosing baked goods

We all brought long-sleeve shirts and our lightest weight rain coats. Truly, I cannot even imagine wearing them except for perhaps when, at some point in the future, we might throw an Oregon party and turn the air conditioner up REALLY high for atmospheric effect.

I brought a small selection of yarn, but left all my knitting needles at home. I left all my needle felting supplies at home and wish I had brought them - it would be fun to offer an after school class and, frankly, there are days when it would just be nice to be stabbing something.

Discovering new foods - Rambutan

Asher left all his legos. We are all regretting that decision. There are true legos here, if you have a spare $600.00. Asher has found a couple lego-like sets in a stationery store around the corner from the school that say something else on the box, although Asher swears they are TRUE legos. It is all about the shape, he says and not the box label. At the price of $600.00, hey, I say run with that! He has, unfortunately, bought them all out already.

Ben Thanh Market

All of us are missing books. My Kindle kept me going for awhile, but now that it is broken, I'm a little cranky at bed time. I have to wait for Asher to fall asleep before I can crawl into his bedroom and ease his book of his night table. He always catches me in the morning. Either I leave my bookmark in or he wakes up and (gasp!!) finds his book has gone missing. "Book Trolls", I tell him.

All this means that we have spent a lot of our initial time in Ho Chi Minh City shopping. Here's some scenes from some big and not-so-big markets of things we've found to buy in Vietnam.