Today, I’m the one that wakes up first. I am out the door by 6.30am, everyone else is still in bed. I wear my flip flops, just in case I want to walk on the sand, but when I get out there, I realize I want to walk further than just where the beach is. I walk north.
I’m back home by 7.30am, invigorated by my walk, and I make breakfast. The girls get going with their school work, and by 9.30am, Joe is leaving for his dentist appointment. He books a taxi through his app, and doesn’t realize he left his wallet upstairs. Thank goodness for taxi apps and touch payments! He doesn’t need his wallet, really.
By 11.30am, he is done at the dentist, and the girls and I get ready to head out to meet him. We book a taxi and meet Joe at a new mall, further south along the main beach in Nha Trang. This mall is laid out differently to the previous one, and has defined stores and restaurants. When we are about to get off the escalator on the 2nd floor, right in front of the grocery store, a lady with a headset connected to a speaker suddenly yells “hello ma’m, want some coffee?”. I can’t help but giggle, she startled me and I don’t take her up on the coffee offer – yet.
It’s not a big mall, meaning it has four floors and not a lot of shops at all. On the top floor, we find the gorgeous floor to ceiling windows and great views of the ocean and the nearby island that holds the many Vinpearl businesses. Now that Maylin has opened up (her mouth, literally), there’s no stopping the smiles for photos!
We also see as far as the neighbouring island where the Vinpearl businesses are. They run a resort and spa, an amusement park and a golf course on the island, and further in there are picturesque beaches and other large resorts. One day we’ll make it there.
We’re super hungry, and head for the restaurants on the 3rd floor. There are only two restaurants to choose from, BBQ buffet or Hotpot buffet. Both are “we deliver the raw food to your table, and then you have to cook it yourself”, and what we notice after a while is that both restaurants are connected at the back. Same staff and probably same kitchen.
We pick the hotpot restaurant, because that is our happy place. We have fond hotpot memories from Canada, and from the great restaurant we found in Osaka. We order a meat package (there are three different price points to choose from, depending on the variety of meat that you’d like), and as soon as the broths have been placed on our cooktop, the meats arrive. We have beef, pork, chicken, crabsticks, enoki mushrooms wrapped in beef, beef balls and fish intestines.
I am shocked and in awe, but we all eat a fish intestine each, no complaining, whimpering or backing out at all! It doesn’t taste like much though, more like chewing on an empty balloon…
We fill up on meat and vegetables and noodles, there’s rice and several pickled salads to choose from. I have a whole plate full of salads, a cucumber one, a lotus one and of course a papaya salad. I’d forgotten how stringy lotus is, when you bite into it there are threads, like a thin and practically invisible cheese pull, but more similar to a spider web…
After lunch, Téa and I hop into Miniso to browse, while Joe takes Maylin back upstairs to the entertainment area. Téa buys her sister a sticker toy, and one for herself as well. Then, we join the others for some games.
After the games area, we head downstairs and watch as an entire school of elementary kids descend on the mall. They are all lined up in their uniforms outside the main entrance, and do NOT walk in quietly. Their sounds fill the entire mall, announcing their arrival. We’re glad that we’re heading out as they are coming in. There’s a movie theatre on the top floor, and we guess that’s where they are going.
I almost fall asleep in the taxi, and head straight to bed when we get home. After my “short” 2-hour nap, I wake up to the girls quietly working on their sticker sheets, and Joe tells me they’ve been doing this quietly the entire afternoon! These were a GREAT buy for us.
We have leftovers in the fridge for myself and for Téa, and only need to pick something up for Joe and Maylin. Before we go hunting for their dinners, we decide to take a walk along the beach. It is no less busy just before sunset, people are still swimming and packing up from their day at the beach. Most of the sun loungers are packed away, although one stall still remains open. His customers for the day are still there, taking their sweet time getting off their rented loungers. Every single bench is occupied, people are drawn to the beach, whether they are locals or visitors, young or old. It sure is beautiful out here!
Joe goes for a banh mi, and Maylin wants a steamed bun. We walk home and eat our dinner, then finish the night with TV shows and blogging. Maylin goes to bed and Téa stays up trying to wiggle her tooth out, dreading the thought of going to the dentist. This tooth has been loose since Japan two months ago, and needs to come out. Her deadline is coming closer, and we will go back to the dentist if it doesn’t come out before then.
At 11pm, we give up on the tooth for tonight, and a disappointed Téa finally goes to bed. She was so sure she was going to get it out tonight, but there’s always tomorrow. We’ll try again then.