New Mode of Transport & New Friends

On the 7th day we were here my husband bought a folding bicycle for both, me and my daughter with an intention to explore Ho Chi Minh with bicycle or for a light shopping from a nearby supermarket called BigC at Parkson. It was fun. We took a taxi to the shop which was located at the opposite of our area. It is located at the expats area which full of American and Europen. The owner of the shop I believed is American from the English accent he has.

Only him attended to all customers who came to the shop. I saw 2 local ladies but hardly speaks to customers but one of them maybe the partner as the 'Mat Salleh' man was keep talking to her. After minutes of surveying the bicycle we then decided to get folding bicycle for ourselves. White for me and Black for Shakira.

Here are Shakira with the "Mat Saleh" who sell the bicycle.

On the 11th day we were here, Shakira has started her school. The first time she took a school bus to school. On her first day to school I made a friend to a Korean family who send their daughters to the same school with Shakira. The 2nd day Shakira went to school I made a friend to a Philippine lady, a fulltime housewife like me. Her husband is working with INTEL and has been in Vietnam for 5 years. I invited her to our house and had a chat with her. She has 2 daughters and a son and her kids also going to the same school with Shakira. The 3rd day Shakira went to school I made another new friend, A Singaporean lady who married to a Norweigian and she has 2 sons a 2 years old daughter. She is currently has a business and only Tuesday she spend her day with her kids. She gave me  lot of useful information.

Well, life is getting interesting here. Hope I will make more friends here.

Today 6 August 2014 : Boycotting Israeli's Product Vs Consuming Local Product

Today 6 August 2014. As usual I woke as early as 5.30 a.m to perform solat subuh.Then I prepared breakfast for my husband. Like yesterday I prepared tuna sandwiches for his breakfast and for him to bring to office and not to forget a mug of coffee.

My husband will usually go down to the lobby 5 minutes before 7a.m as his company's car will pick him up at around 7.00 a.m. Once he went to the lobby, I will started sweeping and moping the floor and prepare breakfast for myself and my daughter. Today I prepared fried noodle for our breakfast. Normally I will get my daughter to have her breakfast before she start anything else such watching tv or doing her homework.

After finished our breakfast, I get ready to go to the residential management office to check the shuttle service schedule to town. We welcome pleasantly by the receptionist at the counter. The lady who attended me was hardly speaks English, so she wrote down what she understood to get my confirmation. However, she was very pleasant and helpful.

After I've done at the residential management office, I decided to drop by at the groceries shop. There, I looked for flour and some others little groceries shopping. It is very hard to find HALAL products. Now I becoming more concerned and detailed in choosing goods. I will take sometimes to read the ingredient before I place it into my shopping basket. Today I managed to get HALAL flour and sauces. Why is it hard to find HALAL Malaysian product or product from other countries here in Ho Chi Minh? I think here people in Vietnam is so Nationalist and they consume only their product.

Sometimes I was thinking that boycotting Israeli's products is not an issue if we are into local products and if we practicing purely Malaysian lifestyle. Here, in Vietnam I noticed that we can hardly found imported products. We as foreigners in this country are having difficulties to find our local products here in Vietnam or imported products from other "Mat Saleh's" countries that we used to consume in our country. Most Vietnamese I noticed, they like to consume their local product rather than imported one. Only 20% of imported product can be found at Parkson (1 in district One and another one in District 2, which I have shopped there), and most of imported products are to cater the need of foreigners who lives in the surrounding area.

We Malaysian, I noticed easily following trend of other countries especially Western countries. Eating fast food was one time become the city lifestyle, then followed by dining at the branded café like starbuck and Gloria Jeans Coffee. At one time most Malaysian favor to eat at the concept restaurants like Plan B and etc which still offering Western cuisines.  The reason behind it is to promote eating healthy food. Hey eating healthy doesn't mean we have to eat western menu, Malays menu also has varieties of healthy food. Its us to choose.

If we don't choose western menu as our lifestyle, we still can eat and not getting hungry right?. Some people choose to only eat Burger and they choose McDonald or Burger King for their main meal. But without burger you still can eat meat and bread. You still can eat meat by eating satay or rendang. If you are talking about healthy food, Jamie Olivers , the young and famous celebrity chefs has worked so hard to work on his campaign to banned fast food and he won case over McDonald years ago, and yet some of Malaysian still consume what he classified as rubbish. Only recently due to the GAZA conflicts, Malaysian realized that they should boycotting the products that has relations with Israeli's move to destroy Palestenians which Malaysian should have realize years ago by not consuming or discouraging the consumption of any imported products from other country. Besides we should promote and do campaign on consuming local products like Ramli burger.

In my opinion, I would prefer to launch local product campaign rather than loudly campaigning on boycotting Israeli's products. It is a reverse and silent technique of boycotting Israeli's product. A silent economic action to kill Israeli's economic. If we can consume 90% of local products, what  another10% can give to the Israeli's economy?. I believed by spearing the boycotting campaign out loud will only give  negative impression and threatens to us and to the country. Yes we have to support Palestinians, but we have to take a smart move to oppose Israel.

Maybe a drop of my opinion is wrong and it just my 2 cents opinion that I wish to share with all.

Just imagine "Orang Kampung" who lives in the village that doesn't has fast food chain? what they can boycott? pepsi?, coca cola? Do you think "Orang Kampung" really drinks those type of drinks? I believed they prefer kopi O or Teh Tarik.

Daily Life here in Imperia An Phu

Today is our 4th day here at Imperia An Phu. Imperia An Phu is the apartment that we are residing currently in HCMC. It is located at An Phu area in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City. We start our day very early here in Saigon, as Fajr started at 4.32 a.m. However, offices starts at the same normal hour in Malaysia which is around 8.00a.m or 8.30 a.m, while business like shopping mall, groceries shop and salon will starts business at about. 9.30 a.m or 10.00 a.m.

As you see in the above photo, a lot of motorcycles on the road , if we are in KL it will surely jammed with cars. It was informed that there are 32 million of motorcycles on the road daily in Vietnam. You can always get this information when you take a taxi when the driver is friendly enough to talk with you.

At our apartment, the company's car, taxi and buses are busy picking up their passenger as early as 6.45 a.m. Majority of working people at our apartment will be picked up by their company's car to their work. The kids will take a school bus to their school. The nearest International school to our apartment is Australian International School. This is where my daughter's schooling.

We are lucky as Parkson is just a walking distance from our apartment. Besides groceries shop, we could find some fresh fish and vegetables from Parkson. Last time I did buy some fresh cut cat fish and cut snapper. Price for seafood is quite cheap  as compare to KL. However, we have difficulties to find HALAL chicken, beef and lamb. It was on our second day, we did some shopping at Parkson in District One where we found rib eye cut beef that cost us 224,000.00 vnd (around RM33) for a 400gm meat. Another shopping spot for fresh food is METRO but I yet to go there. My husband told me that it is more like TESCO when they just opened in Shah Alam where shoppers are buying in a large volume.

Ho Chi Minh is a busy city however the life is so simple and leisure. Not much competition in life and relaxed. I started to love HCMC.

Tourist Spots in Ho Chi Minh

Yesterday I did some necessity shopping in town (District One). While walking to Highland Coffee near the Opera House from Parkson and from area near Opera House back to Parkson I managed to snap some photos of some attractions in Ho Chi Minh.

A statue near opera house, a boy playing flute

Main Entrance of Opera House

One of building housing  luxury retail outlets

I had this very mild coffee called hazelnut jelly freeze at the Highland Coffee near to Opera House

The view of district Two from our home window. If you notice, at the back of high rise buildings is a river.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Life in Saigon

2nd August 2014 is the date I will start a new life in Saigon in fact it has started.

On the 5th Hari Raya, we took a taxi to KL Sentral to check in at the MALAYSIA Airlines counter while others happily celebrating Hari Raya. After check-in we took a train to KLIA and followed by big brunch (breakfast & lunch) at EDEN. We had a very nice dimsum before saying good bye to my lovely country.

 

1 hour before departing, we boarded to the plane and we were seated at the 7th row. As usual, my daughter will happily getting her headphone but this time she wouldn't be able to enjoy the kid's meal set as ticket was booked by my husband's office. She was a bit upset however the movie has overcome her upset. It was surprised when we saw a lot of empty seats while sending my daughter to the wash room. I believed it is due to the tragedy of MH17 and MH 370, that resulted many people prefers to fly with other airlines. Pity to Malaysia Airlines.

 

2 hours journey, the plane then landed earlier than scheduled and we have to waited in a craft for about 10 minutes before we could get to airport building. I was impressed this time as the plane was landed smoothly, not the normal way where it can pull your heart out of the beat as it touched the land in a hard way. This time plane I experienced a weird ear sick as I feel so painful in my ear when the craft was about to landing. I believed it was due to my flue and I now I realized how hurt it was when my daughter always complained her ears hurts when the plane is about to landing.

 

3rd hour of journey has brought us here in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Here we are at Imperia An Phu, the residential that  we will reside for another one and half year. A housework has welcomed me here. Yes, I am now a full housewife who will busy doing the housework.