Don't Eat Pollution

Regarding my last comment in the last post: Nam does bring me a breakfast treat - not yesterday, but today. It's a different version of the #1 Breakfast - and he wants me to know it is from Hanoi. The difference is that the wide rice noodles are rolled up with something, I'm thinking dried mushrooms.

And I find something new to eat today: I am at the post office picking up a package from Amy T (her third strike, heart candies - thanks, Amy!) when a woman comes in carrying a stack of these:


I am curious and starving, so I buy one. The woman at the desk looks amused.

"Do you know what that is?" she asks. She tells me it's dried rice, topped with dried meat (the hairy-looking stuff), with chilies. "It's delicious!" she says.

And it is. I eat half of it while I am waiting for my package. When I go outside, Nam is lounging, smoking a cigarette. I ask him if he wants some. He quickly pulls the plastic bag over the rice cake and gestures out onto the street. He makes the negative hand gesture...I guess he is saying that I shouldn't eat something in the polluted street. He is trying to get this across to me while holding his cigarette, so I get a little judgmental. I point at the cigarette and make the negative hand signal..."well, perhaps you shouldn't be inhaling tar into your lungs, on the street or anywhere!"

The thing is, almost every food stand is right next to a busy street. Anyway -

Tonight, seven of us are getting together to watch the Oscars. They are being shown - commercial free - on a cable channel. We filled out ballots on Monday morning - we had to swear we wouldn't look at the results. The winner will get 350,000 VND, or about $20.

I should have had a dress made for the occasion.