the final 24 hours
after a long day in hoi an, we arrived back in da nang for a seafood dinner.
the last dinner: quán nhậu a xữ
we ordered oysters, river mantis, morning glory, blue crab, and a fried rice (not pictured)
the river mantis shrimp was amazing. i loved it because it was sweet and the seasoning/sauce reminded me of movie theatre popcorn. so salty and buttery.
the oysters with cheese were good, the morning glory was a good break from all the seafood, and the blue crabs reminded a of home. the fried was a must, to soak up all those sauces and you always need a starch!
the vibe was very lively. lots of families celebrating birthdays, kids running around, men with whole cases of beer by their feet. this was by far the most often we were approached by people passing through the restaurant selling their wares. some gum and candy, something i can only assume were lottery tickets?, a woman singing (complete with her own speaker system), and folks selling fruit.
it's partially outside so everyone was smoking cigarettes between beers.
we made our way back to the hotel and we conked out for our final night!
for our last day we wanted to explore da nang proper a little more. we moseyed our way out of the hotel taking our time and enjoying the last of that view. kinda was hoping to see another monkey (from afar) but no such luck.
it's rare i post a completely un-edited photo, but the above photo, i swear, i didn't even crop or anything. that's just what it was like.
after dealing with hotel logistics, we made our way to lunch. unfortunately, the place we wanted to go was closed until the first of the month. so we pivoted to a more touristy spot.
lunch: bánh xèo bà dưỡng
banh xeo has been described to me as a kind of viet crepe. I had high expectations for this because i love bean sprouts and it just looks so good. anyways i did like this but found it to be comparable for the most part to the banh xeo i've had in the states. the big exception is the rice paper used to wrap the bites of the crepe, but at this point in the trip, i was used to that kind of wrapper situation (again, spoiled by being surrounded by good food).
honestly, the fish sauce was way too fishy for my personal tastes. definitely intense. i can imagine my friends who are super into fishy things enjoying it though! i chalk it up also mostly to my own feelings that day also because it was so hot.
'splorin'
we walked around a lot to walk off the banh xeo and decided to walk to a board game cafe.
unfortunately the stink of teenage boy is universal. we got some drinks and played seven wonders: duel. a game we have at home and one that famously alex has never won.
until today! he beat me via conquest (aka having waged war).
we also found a vietnamese version of the famous taco cat pizza goat cheese card game.
it was so hot so we escaped to a spa, picked up some snacks, and headed to the airport! (unfortunately not a lot of things to take pictures of at any of these places)
짜장면
after a lot of queueing, we made it to our gate, saw that it existed and went to the crystal jade that was in the terminal for dinner.
we ordered 짜장면 which was honestly, more like the instant noodle version than anything else. not bad but not really what i was hoping for. definitely better than any airport food i've had in the states though. it was expensive so probably not worth it in the end unfortunately.
don't worry though! we got our 짜장면 fix at our layover in incheon :)
and that's a wrap on our trip!
honestly the travel back was quite brutal. we arrived in incheon at around 5 in the morning, and our flight left 5 hours later. we arrive almost at the same time we left korea on a sunday and were both very relieved to make it home after a lot of travel.
