Election Day

It was the Election Day in Hanoi yesterday. We could see our neighbours putting up flags around their houses. Our friends told us that the grassroots leaders in each district would go around each house as early as 7am on Election Day to remind the residents to cast their votes. And there was a sense of pride if the community was the first to cast all their votes in the district! I was initially quite worried that the grassroots leaders would knock on my house and ask me to vote but I was assured by my friends that this would not happen because there are clear records of the foreigners staying in the district. True to what they said, I slept in peacefully yesterday morning.

I woke up at around 9.30am and was quite happy because the weather was good and we were finally going to try the tim sum buffet at Tao Li Restaurant, Nikko Hotel. While I am fond of tim sum, the high calories hidden in the small portions of har kow, siew mai, etc do put me off a little. But M and I went ahead anyway. The variety of the tim sum at Nikko was quite limited and I was disappointed (there was no porridge offered!) plus the atmosphere was not like the usual tim sum restaurants with push carts and lots of shouting "Har Kow Siew Mai Char Siew Bao!" from waitresses (P.S. 2 thumbs down!). But the quality and taste of the tim sum was above my expectations (P.S. 1 thumb up!). There was a "La Mian" promotion going on at the restaurant at the same time, so we go to see two Chinese chefs kneading and tossing the long strands of noodles. I vaguely missed Crystal Jade at that point in time. :)

It's quite funny I had two coincidental meetings with my friend, L, last weekend! The first was on Friday night, when we had dinner with M's colleagues at a Chinese Restaurant in Vincom Towers. Just when we were about to start, we saw L and her hubby walking into the same restaurant. The second time was yesterday during our tim sum lunch when L came with her hubby and friends to enjoy the last day of the "La Mian" special! We went like "ahhhhh" when we saw each other... and started laughing. Two coincidences in a weekend! Can you believe that? :)