A Saigon night - out of focus and over-exposed. Artsy, huh?

Hey, I needed to do something cool Friday night. Huge fashion show and party on the ship. Not really my scene, but if it let's me travel the world, fine with me. Besides, my wish came true and someone fell in the pool. Haha, and then jumped back in again and proceeded to be dragged out by Vietnamese police officers. Funny, funny, funny.

Not too shortly after that another of my wishes came true. Six more days in Saigon! More war museums for me!

Anyway, Saturday day was mostly work, but then at night I headed out with the production guys to grab a bite and some dessert. I, of course, had my lil itinerary (and in a quietly pushy way) suggested that we head to Madame Ngoc's Com Nieu Saigon.

I was with a crowd that generally prefers the high-class, white-table cloth kind of place, so when we arrived, they were a little less than thrilled. I was just hoping I was going to see some rice tossed across the room - oh yeah, com nieu is crispy Vietnamese rice prepared in clay pots which are then broken and tossed across the room from waiter to waiter.

Unfortunately the lighting was crappy, so there really wasn't much I could do about pictures, but on the bright side, we did eat frog. The eye fell out on my plate. Haha, no, I didn't eat it. Thought about it though.

Next, we wandered about in District 3 for a bit trying to find a dessert place. These boys have figured out pretty fast that giving me dessert is always a good thing. We stumbled upon the MGM Cafe, one of the biggest cafe/nightclubs in Saigon (I don't understand the cafe/nightclub concept, but whatever) and ended up ordering ice cream. I had the 3-scoop special of taro, durian and rum. Taro (ube in the Philippines) has become one of my favorite flavors. I've only seen it in chip form in the States, but it's everywhere in the Philippines. Durian, also a fruit I became more familiar with in the Philippines, is definitely not my favorite taste or smell, but it was supposed to be a specialty ice cream flavor in Vietnam (you could smell this ice cream coming, so much that I was almost impressed at the fruit's ability to hold it's smell) so I had to try it. By the way, the actual fruit has the consistency of brie. A fruit that is like cheese? Food for thought or thought for food?

And well, rum is rum, though I did expect the alcohol to be boiled out, but c'est la vie.

After our moderate experience at MGM (no relation to the lion), the boys hit the clubs and I went home. I wanted to get up early to go out and get a Vietnamese coffee and a newspaper.

(Photo: view of Saigon from the ship, if that wasn't obvious, which it may not have been.)