Binh Duong

Binh Duong is a province in the suburbs of HCMC and my director invited me to her weekend house there today as a form of celebration for Teachers' Day. She is a kind lady, but the food that she made me eat..... Urgh!!! Ok, she didn't force me to eat it, but it was only polite for me to accept her kind offer of pig's blood. That's the bright red dish you see in the photograph. I felt like I was on Fear Factor..... All eyes were on me as I put the vile thing into my mouth..... It actually isn't that bad..... Perhaps it's all in the mind..... I know if mama is reading, she would call me right away and order me to stay 100 metres away from it.

Below the pig's blood was a dish that looked like the lotus. It is actally a pudding-like product from Hanoi with peanuts on it. Near the bottom of the table are the round yellow balls which had the texture of mua chee and had green bean paste inside. When I ate it, it reminded me of ang gu kui, but minus the oiliness. Let's see what other dishes are on the table..... We had rice paper, 2 types of rice noodles (one looks like guo tiao, the other is phor), 4 types of pork dishes (the pork here is very fatty..... think of the 3 layer kind of pork), plates of fresh vegetables, many different sauces, a cup of Pepsi and a glass of whisky......

My director loves animals a lot..... In her house, she has 1 monkey, 2 dogs, 2 piglets, 3 geese, many chickens and birds. For obvious reasons, I steered clear of all the birds. The dogs were running among the guests most of the time but when I tried to play with them, they would shrug away in fear. Am I that scary? I forgot to add, her house has lots of mosquitoes too.....