Bai Bien Cua Toi (V): A bovine roadblock, falling asleep at work, and wiggling food

5:30

The rain seems to have stopped....

but a few new rain drops hitting my camera when I'm at the water line seem to indicate that today's weather forecast might be right after all ;-(

I might even have to cancel today's 6:00 market run ....

More Sodom & Gomorrah news:  Dozens of birds falling dead out of the sky close to the Vancouver Tsawwassen ferry terminal. 

Everyone is aghast, but come on ..... do you really think that none of the commercial or industrial complexes in the area are beyond emitting a toxic plume of whatever into the air and hoping that no-one notices?  
THAT wouldn't even the bad thing, the really horrible thing would (will?) be that the follow-up investigation will reveal NOTHING, the culprit will go unpunished, and that lethargic people will just get used to this thing.   

After all: as long as cigarette-smoking is prohibited almost everywhere, fairy-tale life in Bla-Bla-Land can go on as usual !




6:15

Nope, the skies are drying and I complete my morning market mission without mishap.

Time for a walk/swim...... Puppy shows up as soon as I walk onto the beach.

Puppy doesn't know how to swim.  She is still limited to barking at the waves.......

 ... running along the water's edge.....

 ...barking at the waves some more....

 ...and shaking herself if a wave gets her wet.

When I walk into the water to swim, she barks in frustration or disbelief for 30 seconds, but then looses interest and runs back home....

NEED to go to Song Cau.  NEED cigarettes, wine & chocolate chip cookies (or let's call it: Banh Ku Ki so co lat)

DARN!  A road block .....

...of the bovine kind .....

.....they won't just let me pass ......

.....they're closing in ......

I rev up the scooter to ride to safety before these bovines start nuzzling up too closely .... 

Somewhere along this ride I figure out YET ANOTHER reason why I LOVE this country so much.  

I am RELIVING my teenage years, only this time the way they should have been:
My moped goes 140 km/h and NO COP will stop me here and tell me that the maximum speed is 25 km/h.
CIGARETTES & BOOZE are available in large quantities for next to nothing.
The endless summer beach days that always ended after two weeks in my youth now really are ENDLESS.
Everyone is smiling at me.

Coming over this pass gives me goosebumps every single time ....

Time to regurgitate my words again:  Binh invites me for lunch. Rice with some VERY UGLY but YUMMY vegetable husk filled with thit heo..... (ground pork). 

 Truly delicious food! 

And it's nice to be part of a big-family meal again ;-)
Cam on nhieu !

In the news:  Translink, the Vancouver public transit company is planning to buy and use ELECTRIC buses to cut down on fleet emissions.  OH THANK GOD! How often have I pedaled my bicycle behind one of those diesel-smoke-emitting monstrosities wishing that the air I breathed still contained enough oxygen to be able to CURSE these things at the top of my lungs.  NOW they are going electric!   

Then the blood freezes in my veins....... Their intended target date for getting these buses on the road is somewhere between 2030 and 2040.  I actually have to overcharge my brain to check what year it is NOW.  2018.   They want to have electric buses STARTING in 12-22 YEARS?   LOL.  

 Let's not forget:  Vancouver is the city where Ballard Power Systems rolled out the first Hydrogen-powered Fuel Cell Bus something like 20 YEARS AGO, now they are selling them to China, because APPARENTLY China CARES about air pollution and TransLink wants to introduce electric buses in TWELVE YEARS?

OH, YOU MISERABLE !#%@#!

16:30?  WOW! I sleep at least 10 hours per day when I'm here.....

Elon Musk's moon rocket?

17:15  as every day, the Viet kids are out playing soccer

It's not very evident in the below picture, but family dinner is filled with Schadenfreude & loud laughter about M's sun burn, vegetables strangely wiggling on the plate, geckos in coffee, and other such things..... 

I learn another word:  da = skin.  Of course, before I see it in writing, I HEAR ga = chicken.   They sound EXACTLY the same to these Western ears but everyone keeps killing themselves laughing about it for what seems like forever.  
OK, so maybe the fact that whenever I try to pronounce chicken (ga) I also flap my arms to get the sound to come out right. ......
GREAT FUN & good for the soul.