HI, STEPHANIE!

A commenter (Stephanie) underneath a recent blogpost has written an article about the best gynecological clinic in Hanoi, which she says she desires my feedback on. Probably because I know so much about the subject.
I totally live and breathe uterine matters.
My mind is a speculum.

[She helpfully provided a clickable link, which, alas, I accidentally deleted.]

Were I to get a gynecological exam for myself -- not likely, given limitations of time, gender, and a stubborn know-it-all personality, just call it a flaw in my character -- the beautiful city of Hanoi (河內市) would be tops on my list.
I fondly imagine it has quite a number of excellent clinics.
Several of them specializing in female parts.
Most of which I am without.

I've got a nose. Save for the fact that it rises majestically above a moustache, it could be female. There are pouty lips underneath.
Many women have pouty lips underneath their majestic noses.


Well, except for the natives of Hanoi. Theirs are not so majestic. More like little mushrooms, what the French call "champignons".



昇龍 、龍邊 、羅城

In between their visits to gynecological clinics, the residents of Hanoi enjoy some truly fine cuisine. You've heard of phở, yes? It was invented there. Locals eat it at all times of the day; breakfast, lunch, dinner, late evening snack, as well as before their gynecological exams, and after.

INDOCHINA MEDICAL COLLEGE

For breakfast, they might also have bánh cuốn, a rice-flour wrap filled with various ingredients, similar in origin probably to Cantonese cheung fan, as well as resembling several other South-East Asian snacks consisting of a heat-solidified batter sheet containing tasty inclusions.

Both of these dishes are available in many urban areas outside the country, and phở is a beloved late night indulgence for the bar-hopping crowd here in SF. Back in the eighties you could also buy yellow tins of State Express 555 non-filter cigarettes at almost every Vietnamese eatery, smuggled in from Hong Kong or Singapore, but gradually almost all of the exiles switched to Marlboro Lights, and I haven't seen those tins in years.


A bowl of noodle soup for a late lunch, on a sunny day when one did not have to go back to the office, washed down with an ice-coffee (凍咖啡), and a newly purchased tin of smokes... Ah, life could be grand.
Relax and watch the universe go by.


I wish those tins were still available.




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