Spas and Bakeries

Last night after teaching, I went out to eat with a couple teachers I know from the journalism school. One of them is an American from Oregon, looks not much older than me, but he's married and has a kid. It sounds like he wants to eventually move back to the states, though.
After eating, we went to a massage place that was actually really nice, like a spa. There were two steam bath rooms, which were incredibly hot and steamy, but as long as you didn't move it felt kinda nice. After that, there's the jacuzzi stage, and then you get a nice silk robe and wait in a room where the tv is playing a motocross dvd, and then you get called for a massage. Once again I was surprised at how rough they can be, especially when they're doing crazy things like walking on your back, but ultimately you feel much better and relaxed.

Now today I stopped at a bakery to buy a snack. They have more than just bread and desserts. Basically they can bake anything into the bread. They seem to like hot dogs, either whole or in pieces, so they had a lot of bready pastries with hot dogs. I bought a banh jambon pho mai, basically a hot ham and cheese pocket. Everything has "banh" in front of it, which is like a cake. Even imported English words have banh, like banh pizza and banh cookies. They had little french bread pizzas and round pizzas, one of which was called "banh pizza new york" and had pieces of hot dogs on it. I didn't have the heart to tell them that people in new york don't eat pizza like that. They also had an array of sweet cakes and pastries that looked appetizing, like banh donuts. They was something called "banh mehico", or mexican cake, but it didn't really look mexican, more like just a sweet roll. I'll have to try it some day.

The new year will be the year of the buffalo. In China, it's the ox, but in Vietnam it's the buffalo. There are lots of cute cartoon buffalos everywhere, and it's sort of a mascot similar to Santa Claus. But I guess it has to change every year. I was also born in the year of the buffalo, 24 years ago. Three months until my birthday! Although, in Vietnam I could already say that I'm 24, since everyone counts an extra year in their age.

That's all for now!