Antidote to Burnout

Any excuse for a party

While other VN expat bloggers raced to post the first articles on the Tết new year season a couple of weeks ago, I will be happy to bring up the rear here with a posting about the presumed end of... Read more →

Ice in tropical Viet Nam

We tend to go through a lot of ice each day while living in HCMC. Almost all liquid drinks get iced, including beer and coffee. Even though we have a refrigerator, we go through two cycles of ice-making a day.... Read more →

HCMC House 10

"Super graphics" had a strong impact in the 60s and 70s. This style of graphics featured out-sized letters and numbers on posters or signs. This is the first "super graphics" house I have seen, and it is in the Gò... Read more →

Design Touches 6

Vietnamese designers are often very inventive and innovative. They use materials in previously unused ways, and create very interesting features in places usually not treated. This small office building on Đường (Street) Phan Xích Long in TP. Hồ Chí Minh... Read more →

It's not easy to be a pedestrian in Vietnam

If the sidewalks (usually quite wide on Saigon's main streets) aren't cluttered with motorbikes and street food stands, they are sometimes taken over for commercial selling. This is the Tet festival shopping season, so there is much more flowers and... Read more →

Slaughtering pigs for Tet

Jon over at the The Final Word...in Saigon blog has posted beautiful pictures of preparations for the Tet festival and holiday here in Ho Chi Minh City. His posting is entitled "Tet Prep : Pig Crazy" since this coming lunar... Read more →

Saigon traffic chaos is good

While home in the USA for Christmas, I saw a CNN segment about the Dutch going towards chaos theory in traffic management. The idea is that eliminating traffic signs and lane striping slows drivers down and requires them to consider... Read more →