Some stuffs from Hanoi

My users from Hanoi were in Penang for training last week. And one of them brought over lots of local products from Hanoi for me. Even after the thousandth time I kept telling her not to bring me anything, she still brought me one big plastic bag of stuffs. Her luggage was so damn heavy when I picked her up at the airport -.-''

Some Vietnam Instant Noodle. 3 different types, only tried the one in purple packaging so far.

Not sure what this is, but it's green in color and sticky. Tried one and it's too sweet for me @_@

A packet of nuts. I brought this to office to share with everyone. Just 2 days and only less than half left xD

Rice Biscuits or something that look like rice biscuits. Haven't tried it yet.

Dried Fruits? Think they are called dried fruits.

Bought a few boxes of our famous Him Heang Tau Sar Pheah in return for her to bring back to Hanoi xD

Sriwan - Lunch with Thailand counterpart

Went for Thai cuisine last Friday. Our counterpart from Thailand was craving for their hometown dishes, so my boss treated them to a Thai restaurant and I was invited along xD

We went to Sriwan at Krystal Point. My first visit there. We let our counterpart decide on the dishes. Well, they are the expert when it comes to Thai cuisine of course :D

They have other branches in some part of the states as well.

Interior of the restaurant.

Forgive me on my lack of knowledge in Thai cuisine. Only Thai dish I know is Tomyam =x I seriously don't remember know the name of all the dishes in my photos =P

Some veggies

My colleague told me this is Pandan Chicken

Hot Plate Sar Po Tau Foo. Not a Thai dish, but my boss ordered this as she couldn't take spicy food.

Green soup which tasted almost like tomyam but less spicier and less sourish.

Steam Fish

Thai dessert. My counterpart told me the name of this dessert a few times, but I kept forgetting what it's called @_@

Overall, it was a nice lunch. Our counterpart commented the dishes tasted almost the same as the ones in Thailand xD

Hanoi - Day 2

Just notice that it's been a month since I last updated my blog. Been working late recently due to overwhelming projects. One of the project just went live on Monday, was relieved when nothing bad happened. One down, more to go and more coming in. Ughh, that's what you called work I guess.

Well, back to main topic of this post. Day 2 in Hanoi, was err... kinda interesting I would say. I woke up early only to realized that Hanoi's time is one hour behind Malaysia's time. Jumped back to sleep till I got a morning call from the hotel manager. A car will be waiting for me in an hour to take me to the office. Showered, rechecked my training materials, skipped my breakfast and off I went, with hope I was ready -.-'' Was very nervous then =x

Traffics during the rush hour in Hanoi were really an 'experience'. I was instantly switched from nervous mode to terrify mode. Honks can be heard everywhere, motorcyclists were like swarms of bees and cars coming out from every junctions or corners of the roads, of course honking like nobody's business. Same goes for my driver, honked almost every minutes -.- My colleague told me that pressing the horn is like saying 'Excuse Me' in car language. I found that somewhat true as everytime my driver made a turning into another road, he didn't even look for oncoming cars. He just pressed on the honk, made the turning and any oncoming cars or motorcycles will automatically avoid him. Scary but somewhat impressive at the same time.

As I was terrifying observing the traffics, my driver somehow missed the 'no-car entry' sign (no entry sign with a car behind the horizontal line) and drove into a road full of motorcycles. Few minutes later, he was stop by the traffic police, swt. The traffic police took his license away. He got back into the car, said something to me in Vietnamese, I just looked at him like an idiot. He then drove out from the road and stop at the side of another road, he turned to me and spoke to me in Vietnamese again, this time I apologized and told him I can't understand Vietnamese but still looking like an idiot, he looked at me for a while, his expression somewhat agreed that I am an idiot then he went out of the car and leave me there, zzzz....

Not knowing what to do, I just waited in the car for him to come back. 10 minutes passed, 15, 20, 30.... =.='' Took the digital camera out and snapped whatever I can snapped. Just want to keep myself occupied =x

Interior of the car. A Chevrolet, can't remember what model though.

A peek of the traffic from the car back window.

And the front.

After taking some photos and I think around 15 minutes later, the driver showed up. Somehow he got his license back and without further delay he started driving, more terrifying than ever. I was already late then for my training. So much for making a first good impression. And if that was not bad enough, my driver got us lost!! He didn't know the way to the company =.='' So I was more late than I already was T_T

I finally reached my company, was more than an hour late. I apologized to my counterpart, but she explained that the driver is from another province, so he was not very familiar with the roads in Hanoi =\

Was very nervous when I stood in front of everyone. I was informed to train the 2 new staffs but instead there were more than 10 people in the room. Not a lot I know, but still it was scary =x I somehow managed to survive and pulled through Day 1 of training.

At night, the GM and my counterpart brought me for dinner at a Indian Restaurant.

Food Shop 45, Indian Cuisine.

My Mango Lassi

Our dishes

Some sauces and gravies.

Indian food in Vietnam, never really crossed my mind I'll be having Indian food here. Nonetheless, it was nice but less spicy than what we normally have in Malaysia xD

West Lake at night, the lake by the Indian Restaurant.

And that concludes Day 2.... =D