The Vietnamese Siesta (and other secrets of life in Hanoi)

The Vietnamese Siesta
...or what I would like to coin: the Viesta.

Even when it ain't Thanksgiving, I still find all the blood rushing to my stomach after almost every meal since I usually eat like a Mongolian emperor with 50 kingdoms - or 2 Google shares.

For adults, the Viesta times in Hà Nội run between 12:00 to 13:30 as I find most people getting back to work around 14:00. During one of my classes, I found out some of my students may get as little as 5 hours of sleep in a night, with the justification that they take a duper long afternoon nap.

Caffeinin'
If it's the one thing you must respect hippies for nowadays, other than nude beaches and Anti-War activism, it's the consumer demands of Whole Foods / Trader Joes shoppers. If it wasn't for them snazzy, hand-drawn Trader Joes art, I would have never tried shit like making my own hummus. But now, thanks to nudity, I was able to indulge in the delight that is Yerba Mate.

However, unfortunately, obviously, I'm not back home in the bay, so I've been forced to find alternative sources of caffeine, which isn't that hard, thankfully.

My three main sources as of late:

Nâu đá / nóng (cà phê sữa đá / nóng) aka Việtnamese Drip Iced / Hot Coffee
Sữa chua cà phê aka Yogurt topped off with coffee
Trà xanh aka Green Tea

(Not like you can't find these in the states, since the states has, you know, everything.)

Sipping slow is key, unless you want to get your James Dean on. The world is your oyster.

Since it works for some people, I've been trying to hybrid it up, a lil' nâu đá with a 15-minute Viesta, to no avail as of yet. What a pity!

Therapeutic Sauna

Thanks to Vinh for being an avid reader of Wikipedia and the Fins for creating one of the best things evar, next to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I've found that following the Rule of Three when it comes to hopping back and forth between a duper hot dry sauna and a cold water immersion pool works best.

To paraphrase Geoff: Truth is who you think of when you cum therapeutic sauna.

A Walk Around A Hồ

I would try to do this around Lake Merritt, but I don't want to get slapped or shot. When people ask me why I digg Hà Nội over HCMC, my first reason is, urrrm, the vomen, my second are the Hồs. What's grand is hồs in Hà Nội are usually surrounded by cafes so you can hop in for a quick caffeine shot right after putting in those 30-minutes a day. You can even get free show as hồs are the place for cupcakin' couples.


Kinh!