It's funny...you move to Viet Nam and suddenly you find out that people you know have all sorts of connections with people in Viet Nam, people traveling to Viet Nam, or people who want to do business in Viet Nam. I say to My Public, bring 'em on!
Some friends of my former Yahoo! colleague, Jason M, emailed me a few weeks ago about their imminent visit to Saigon. Audra and Jonathan are on a 100 day Southeast Asia odyssey all the way from New Orleans, Louisiana. I figured if JM knew them they were good peeps. I was right -- many moments of enjoyable hilarity ensued.
We connected earlier this week for dinner at Augustin, a tasty restaurant francais, and took in a performance at the Saigon Opera House. During the first performance set the Ho Chi Minh City Orchestra performed some Mozart and cello pieces, accompanied by a guest conductor and cellist from France. They were quite good. I especially enjoyed the emotional expressions playing out over the French cellist's face during the highs and lows of the piece. Il a joue avec la passion du monde.
The second set had the cellist playing solo while a half-naked guy performed "interpretive dance" with some ropes under continually changing spotlights and lighting. Although at first this didn't, ahem, speak to me, once I started to imagine my own interpretations for the dance it became much more interesting. For example, at one point the dancer moved between two ropes stretched across the stage and suspended in parallel about a meter in the air. A bright spotlight shining from the left side of the stage was the only light. He struggled to move toward the light as if swimming upstream against a swift current. I imagined that this was his struggle to understand and embrace the desires deep within his heart and remain true to them in the face of adversity and temptation. The light symbolized truth, and it became brighter and harsher the closer he came to it. In fact, he sometimes turned away from the brightness and lost ground, as if he found it challenging to acknowledge his deepest desires. The parallel ropes symbolized two dimensions of movement -- either towards or away from our hearts. Not bad eh?
Audra, Jonathan and I went out again on Wednesday night. We swapped jokes and travel stories while eating at Cafe Latin on Duong Du. Cafe Latin serves apple pie a la mode that is quite good -- flaky crust, warm, good chunks of apples and texture and delicious vanilla ice cream. It did need more cinnamon though. I mentioned this to the waiter and the next thing I knew Neil, the chef, was at the table asking my opinion of how to improve his apple pie. "Ah yes. Americans like extra cinnamon. Let me know the next time you're here and I'll make it special for you." Hey alright, that's service. Thanks Neil!
Audra and Jonathan have a blog of their trip adventures. Check out their very entertaining stories in "100 Days in Asia." They take turns submitting blogging entries. It's funny to hear their different perspectives, opinions and sometimes disagreements get aired in this public forum. Imagine dueling banjos, but in blog form and you'll see what I mean.
Thanks for sending Jonathan and Audra my way, Jason. And to the rest of My Public -- you can send your cool peeps my way too. I'm always ready for visitors.
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