I just discovered this while watching Discovery Travel & Living channel. It was featuring Germany. Then it mentioned that the founder of Adidas and Puma were brothers! Interesting.. I began to search about the story on the web.

Indeed they were! The following were extracted from an article about the Dassler brothers:
-----
The small Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach, near Nuremburg, is most famous in Germany as the home of the Dassler brothers. Were it not for an extreme case of sibling rivalry, it could have been the home to a sports uber-brand.

Adolf ("Adi") and his brother, Rudolf, started making sports shoes in the 1920s. After a falling out during World War II--the exact nature of which remains as mysterious as it was bitter--the brothers went their separate ways; Adi founding Adidas, and Rudolf establishing Puma in the late 1940s.
---- More were featured here:
http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/jun/13forbes.htm

Now what happened between the two brothers? Some said that it was a domestic dispute between an affair of Adolf's wife with Adolf's brother and many different stories...

http://www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com/lofiversion/index.php/t7955.html

Well, heard that the fued was legendary in the German town.

Due to the recognition of our working efforts, our bosses have been treating us with free meals, rewards and awards. It's amazing that so much money is given to all these rather than an increase in salary. I wonder what's really the rationale to it, to make us feel rewarded?

Well, I don't know. Our boss is genuinely nice to everybody and always makes an effort to give us a better environment to work. Some people in the whole big team just obviously try to make themselves so visible like shining crystals on their chairs. Being the so-called proactive employee. And they happened to be fake crystals. sigh.. Sometimes, office is really like a daily sitcom. People and events are always there to amuse me. Haha. It really makes me laugh out loud deep inside.

And then through the last project we had, we have had the very "qualified" people with us. Even with such high "qualification", we still end up doing the same old thing. I do not see anything different in them. Smart people knows that this is not forever, they make secondary plans. Act Smart people thought that this will be forever, they make themself climb till they are old. It's so funny. Daily situations really make a comic. No wonder Dilbert is a hit.

Finally, it's the last day. We still couldn't find the cobra heart as in the Anthony Bourdain's video for an extreme gourmet. We still have some leftover shopping to do. Finish everything which we have not done!

We had KFC chicken as breakfast today. We needed to visit the tailor shops to get back our dresses and pants. So we went off to the Ben Thanh market again for some early shopping. We finally got our dresses at the Tailor, it was still abit long but the tailor shortened it immediately for me. I think I'll wear it next time for wedding dinners or chinese new year.. The pants were good, so we requested the tailor to make more pants. Meanwhile, we went shopping again.

We settled for a last lunch of Pho back at the little girl's stall at the market. Ice coffee for the last time. This time we met a man sitting beside us who came to Ho Chi Minh for nearly a month for vacation. He gave us directions on where to find the live cobra heart. Unfortunately, it's a far place from here. We do not have the time to see and try. Too bad. Next time! He also told us that Ho Chi Minh is more vibrant than Hanoi. Looks like it was a great trip at HCM than Hanoi then.

Slight drizzle began to start, time for us to return to the hotel and get packing. We had asked the hotel to delay our check-out hours to 3pm, so we manage to have some time to have a good shower. I think there was a little disappointment in not seeing the cobra heart. What's worth the trip was Com Nieu's food, Pho, Coffee and the shopping here. Family bonding too.. That's quite a lot for me already. So now we set off going back after collected our pants at the tailor and the paintings from the art galleries.

In a blink of an eye, we were back on SQ airline. Reached in Singapore in just few hours... seeing the vibrant city lights was like seeing home to me. Bye bye Ho Chi Minh, See ya again!

This stupid blog.co.uk, after I click on Publish, everything went missing. I don't think I have the energy to write about it anymore..

Below was the agenda:

5.30am: Wake up.
6.30am: Went out to look for breakfast food.
7am: Couldn't find food and had breakfast at the lounge.
7.45am: We set off for a 1.5hour trip to Cuchi Tunnel.
about 11: We finished the Cuchi tunnel tour
1.30pm: Reach Mekong River for boat
Lunch at Mekong river, horse carriage ride, then canoe, then take ferry back
3.30pm: Return back by Van.. it's going to be about 2-3hrs trip.
about 5.30pm: We reached the hotel, super tired.
7pm: Met for dinner together at chinese restaurant then visit art galleries and went back early..

Too tired to describe.. Good night

Next in the agenda was of course shopping. How could you travel without shopping? Ben Tenh Market is one of the must-come destinations.

So we went on shopping with our bags of coffee in our hands. There were lots of lacquer-ware in the stalls. Beautiful lacquer-wares, tea sets, cutleries and embroidered stuff. Plenty of shopping to be done here. Without knowing, we bought lots of cutleries, ordered tailored pants and dresses. Even with this, it was just light shopping! We were all exhausted due to the humid weather. It's already 2.30pm. We all head back to hotel and decided to skip lunch. We will find dinner place later and go on walking by the night streets.

REST TIME!!

We met up after a break and a clean shower. We've decided to book our next day tour at Cuchi Tunnel with Exossitimo tours which was at the hotel. For both Mekong River and Cuchi Tunnel tour, they were said not to be missed. Getting it settled, we set our foot to a French restaurant which was said to have good french food. However, we ended up ordering Vietnamese food instead at the French dining area. The vietnamese food was nice at the beginning, but we realised that most of them seemed to taste the same towards the end. Not as good as Com Nieu.

We took a walk down the streets with lots of art galleries. Vietnam seemed to be filled with replica artists.. when I said that, I mean most artist here draw replicas of famous paintings such as Picasso's and many more. I realised that they are trying to make a living here.. and not to make a name for themselves. At some galleries, we saw painters painting from famous paintings on postcards. It was a funny scene to me really. Perhaps it is insignificant to non-painters, it's telling us that even artists here are trying to make a living, they have no time for artistic value and originality. It's very commercial. I realised that luckily Singapore has artists promoting value in originality else art would have lost its value.

Simple day for us but our legs were really tired. Gotta wake up early morning tomorrow.. better go to sleep now.

Good morning Ho Chi Minh! Good morning Vietnam! After a good night sleep, it's time to greet vietnam in the early morning. Today's agenda is eating and shopping and eating and shopping and .. sorry, exaggerated, we need to arrange for tomorrow's itenery. Well, we need to start our day first with a good breakfast of Pho. So let's head down to Ben Tenh Market.

The traffic symphony in the early morning was like morning radio. It will tell you how bustling the street is in the morning. As we saw a market like structure, we went on in. Yes, it is Ben Tenh market. When you walk in, you just feel like shopping forever. Everything in the stalls just grasps your attention. It is like an EXTRA LARGE pasar malam. However, we remembered that we need to find breakfast, so we head on. Finally we saw a section of hawker center styled stalls, except that they do not have spacious seats. People just flock by the side of the stalls and eat. We saw a stall selling beef pho and so we all took our seats. Coconut drink appeared to be quite common in Vietnam, some of us ordered coconut drink and some of us bought iced vietnam coffee with milk. Their coffee was great.

Hearing so much about their beef noodles, Pho, we definitely have to order. Most of us had beef pho. Vietnamese usually have a plate of vegetables by the side of the bowl of pho for you to add on. So adding in the vegetables, adding spice and chilli, with a squeeze of a half lime, we are ready to eat.

The taste was good for a 30-50 cents noodle. Abit sourish, abit spicy, the soup was flavourful. Within minutes, all the bowls were clean. The weather was hot and humid. Imagine us having bowls of hot noodles in this weather... Phew.. Luckily there were cold drinks to help us survive the weather. The 14 year old girl helper at the stall started to advertise the coffee powder to us. She showed us 3 grades of coffee beans. Well, we already wanted to buy.. so she managed to sell us a few kilograms of coffee powder. What a beginning of the day!

After food, we decided to head down to the footwear street to take a look. Our first shopping.. hehe. We had a hard time looking for it and asking for directions. Finally we reached. Lots of footwear here really! Certainly why it's named this way. Lots of shops left and right selling shoes.. women shoes, men shoes, kids shoes.. all kinds! Leather shoes here seemed to be popular here. Many leather shoes selling cheaply in Vietnam. I almost got myself a pair of low-cut boots but it was too small.. my size had ran out.. well what luck. No choice, next one then.

Hat stores seemed popular too. We saw a number shops just selling hats and caps. They have nice products. Drizzle started and it was our first experience with Vietnam's frequent showers. Fortunately the shops were pretty well linked to each other with a small shelter outside their doors.. we could still shop. After walking for a while, we eventually became tired and showers were getting heavy. So we decided to take a cab back to the hotel.

Finally we ended our 1st night!

It wasn't a while after we reached the hotel. It's a puzzle as in how a 5 star hotel will look like in this dilapidated country. Well, it wasn't looking posh on the outside so let us try to look in. Upon walking in, I have a contradicting feeling. The lounge here has a big wall length window to look out at the streets, so that guests could sit inside the lounge and look at the streets. Jazzy music filled the hotel lounge. It's like a thin glass distance between the rich and the poor. You feel posh inside and poor outside. It's like an entrance scene in a play.

The whole feeling of touching down here was heavy. We know that the country people are poor. But how poor? We are considered middle-class in our country, what about these people? Here, we looked like a grade higher. Well, we haven't look at the country closer yet, it's still too early to say. Check in first. I need a comfy bed to jump on.

Into the room we go... everything seems complete.. just that the decor is not new. Decor is still a standard behind. But the five star service is there, good enough. Nothing beats a good service. Upon seeing the room, we saw something in which Saigon greeted us the moment we are here:

Time for a good warm bath to soothe our feet.

Today's agenda is to visit "Com Nieu" for its famous flying claypot rice and the footwear street. Com Nieu was advertised in Anthony Bourdain's show. We were curious regarding the flying claypot mystery. Of course, we wanted to try the authentic Vietnamese cuisine which they offered too. So there we moved into the restaurant. It's a restaurant that's not too posh. It retained a little of the street flavour. Ordering food is a challenge here. Obviously they didn't know english well, language is a slight barrier when we don't know the food here. We were ordering blindly, haha. We did our best. Of cause the claypot rice was one of them.

Firstly we got our drinks and one of the drinks ordered was their authentic vietnamese coffee. We had heard much about it but not exactly sure how good it could be. I heard that we got to wait for 30 minutes before drinking. So we had 1 ordered.

30 minutes later.. we drank.. smells really strong and great. It's like an espresso. A cup of coffee shot.

Not long after a few waiter came out. 1 stood on the other end near the cashier. The rest stood at the other end near the kitchen. They took out several claypots, broke 1 after another and sent the rice flying over to the other side where the water catches the rice with the plate. Phew.. and then 1 more flew.. and then another! It's like a food acrobatic show. A show of display before you eat. One of the rice came to us, sauces are poured over the rice, sprinkled with some sesame seeds and spices before serving. The top part of the rice had became crispy after cooking.

Here it is:

Couldn't resist anymore, we took our bite. The top crispy part is like hardened rice.. not too good to tell the truth.. However, the other part of the rice soaked with the sauces tasted heavenly. After 1 bite, you feel like taking more. Yummy! The other galore of dishes came. I think we had more than a 10 course dinner.. and more than a 20 course dinner! All the small dishes that came tasted lovely. We tried their fried spring roll, which was one of their famous dish. It was good. The other dish was its salty stew pork. It's salty and is supposed to go with rice. The pork was soft and blends into the sauce with lots of flavour.

It was a fantastic dinner.

The first thing you'll do in this country is to take a look at the faces of the Vietnamese. How do they exactly look like? Chinese? Thai or Indonesian look? When I walked out of the airport.. I felt like a movie star. There were so many people waiting outside the airport with a cleared walkway for you to walk out. They look like Thais. More towards the dark side but yet abit of the chinese look.

In our taxi on the way to our hotel, New World Hotel. The traffic was conjested. We were overwhelmed by the road populated with scooters. There were so many people on the streets. The roads were full of car horning sounds.. forever horning. You felt as if nobody in Vietnam stayed home. It's so densely populated on the roads and streets. Inside the taxi, I felt as if the window pane was a thin line of separation between the fortunate and the unfortunate. Or maybe we weren't used to it. People in this country do not really dress well on the streets. Everything looked old. Everybody were looking for money on the streets. Anything to find a way out for them. How to feed such a big population?

Scooters carried the men, the women, the old and the young kids. It's their main form of transport. Not even walking. The country was too hot to walk maybe. I saw a scene with a man and a woman on the scooter and a young 2 year old kid in the middle. There were more scooters on the street than the cars. To give it a figure, it's like 1 to 10 ratio. In fact, it was faster to travel by scooters. Cars had to give way to the scooters sometimes! Then most of the other cars are taxis. We were surprised by the traffic rules. Besides red light and green light, I think there are no other traffic rules. You can do anything on the road.. Making a U-turn out of nowhere.. making a turn out of nowhere.. cut lanes without thinking or signals.. Phew.. I really hate to cross their roads. Zebra crossings never work. Haha.

A short "expressway" took about 20-30 minutes due to the congested traffic. It's always crowded at any time of the day. Thank god, we finally reached.

A place where I have ZERO knowledge of. The flight there was full of curiousity. What will happen over there? Even the airplane flight makes you feel excited. The last time I took a plane was last year. Perhaps, this added to the excitement. Travelling with different group of people makes you feel different too. SIA flight can't be too bad. The once world's best airline and currently the 2nd best airline should make you at least feel better on the flight than thinking that it's a budget airline. Pretty SIA girls with excellent onboard service. It was just a 1.5hr flight.. too short.. I wanna enjoy the flight more with a good movie. Well, things that are sweet are normally short. We just had to appreciate this theory. Oh yeah, I surrendered my Siss Army Knife.. Had to collect from the airport later.

It's the first time where I took SIA flight with so many empty seats. Perhaps this is really an off-peak season for travelling to Vietnam. Will there be scary communist soldiers? Will they block us from coming back home? Will it be a bad trip? All the questions were silently embedded in our brains. Travelling with a family who enjoys travelling was quite fun. Simple and no brainer travelling. We do not have to try to crack jokes and think hard to accomodate each other. In a family, you naturally think of everybody's well being and find fun.

I was hoping that there will be turbulence (as I have never experienced) or there will be delays in the flight so that I could enjoy more of the SIA journey. Hahaha.. Unfortunately, god was very kind on me. Soon we landed. Temperature was 33 degrees! Humid and HCM will be having showers over the land today. As we walked out of the plane, the connecting walkways was damn hot. Non air-conditioned walkways. You simply feel like you are walking out into an oven. I hope Vietnam is not that hot everyday. As usual, the airport is not posh like Changi Airport. It's just a place built for people to land and walk out of it. Not much shopping or walking around. Just get your bag and get out!

Getting the transport to the airport is another challenge. From the reviews we've read. Getting conned by taxi drivers is very common. Just like Malaysia. Luckily, a taxi counter was built there for you to book a cab to anywhere. Price was okay for 6 pax. Good, taxi settled. Here we go!

I never dreamt that I'll go Vietnam one day. I used to get invitations to ask me to go Vietnam and help the poor. Mainly charity trips. We'll need to pay for our own stay and it's usually long for at least 2 weeks. However in the past, I couldn't afford such trips and at the same time Vietnam did not interest me. There is a curiousity behind such a country full of history but I did not had a feel for travelling to these places at that time.

This time I had the chance to visit Vietnam. Finally, somewhere distant for travel. Not Indonesia, Malaysia or Thailand or some ulu islands... it's the country of war, Vietnam! To us, it is a totally distant place. It is not heard of.. It is not widely recommended.. It is not widely promoted. I thought it's not exactly a country in which most tourists go.. I am wrong.

Of course, to fly this place with just bookings of airplane and hotel is not enough. We do not have a local guide, the language is different too. Research is needed. Most importantly.... FOOOOOOOD!!! Whenever I travel, tasting their food is more important to me than shopping. I'm not a really avid shopper.. until I see something I like or wanted. So I guess I'm a hungry traveller (as opposed to thirsty traveller).

I don't believe in tourism guides.. they are mainly good for places of interests. I believe in real feedbacks. This virtualtourist.com site has lots of backpackers/travellers' reviews. Obviously, views are subjective but you could roughly guess by the number of similar feedbacks and the person's originality and culture. So it seems that their spring rolls and pho are very famous. Healthier food with very little oil. It's a must-try. Fortunately, the god of food, Anthony Bourdain, had been there too! So no worries about knowing where the good food are. Check out his videos in "A Cook's Tour". According to him, flying claypot rice seems to be a famous thing too. Must-try So much for food.. next is shopping.. what's there? There are markets there it seems. The market is like our Bugis Street in Singapore. Lots of cheap and good stuff. And tailors are good.. they can get your clothes out in 1 day. That's what we heard, how good it is... I'll let you know.

So before we started travelling, we need to exchange money. Heard that they mostly use US Dollar (USD) or Vietnam Dongs (VND). So I tried to find a currency exchanger near my house and asked if I could exchange to VND.

"Now nobody exchanges to VND! Their money has no value! They use USD only!" The uncle exclaimed. Hmmm.. I was still quite doubtful. I withdrew $600 and of course I should exchange at least some. So I exchanged SGD$400 first into USD. Let me check around before I exchanged for more USD. Well, the uncle appeared to be right... hahaha.

Packing comes next. I prepared my packing early. I thought it's a 3am flight. Before that I have some work to complete on the previous days plus I have night conference calls. Clothes are not an issue.. Toiletries are okay.. I suspected that I carried 1 kg of toiletries. :S Everything into my Vertikal Climb backpack. I've only used it twice. Once for Thailand and once for KL. No more.. It still looks brand new in it's orangy yellow color. I liked it quite a lot. Unexpectedly on the day when I walked out of the door.. one of the small buckle broke! I was still examining why it broke. It caused one of the back main handle to come out on one side and so I could carry on my back. Carrying on one hand would be bad on my shoulders. I was very disappointed.. I am already on my way to airport. Luckily I came out of the house very early, so I went to look for a cheap bag to replace it temporarily. I was sweating like mad carrying the broken bag. I was worried that I couldn't get. Too early, the shops were not open. None of these shops that opens early sell any backpacks or travelling bags. What are my choices?
1. Continue to carry this backpack on one side..
2. Go to Jurong West Ave 1 to buy another bag..
3. Go home and try to get another bag (if I have, but I was not sure).

I think 2nd choice was the best option.. if there's still nothing. I guess I'll have to get it at the airport. Fuming with broken bag, I took a short bus to Ave 1. Light shone from the shop into my eyes. I found it! All are ugly bags... but at least it has rollers for me to trolley along. So I got one that my house doesn't have for about $28. With a big "POLO" word on it. I hate imitation goods that don't look real. I have no choice. The auntie was very nice and she understood my plight. She assisted in the transfering of my stuff into the new bag too. I thought I could still save my backpack so I took a cab and put it back into my house before heading to the airport.

My backpack and new sling/back-carry bag before I bring it out:

WHAT A FIRST DAY..

Well, I'm flying! flying to somewhere.... I can't tell you

Anyway.. it's been a long time since I took the SIA plane. I'm going to take it again. Wonderful.. I miss that plane TV, the handsome pilot (whoever he is), the pretty SIA lady (always with a smile and thick makeup, at least prettier than all other airlines I've seen) and the FOOD!

I've always felt that SIA's food is much better than any other airlines. The freshness compared to other airlines. Of course, I cannot expect claypot rice and char kuay teow.. but I've always enjoyed the galore of appetizers and dessert set with it. *Salute to SIA*

Well, to prepare for the trip.. I got myself a new camera!! I didn't expect myself to do that. However, the crowd at Comex 2006 just makes me get onto the camera fever. I believe I've been wanting it for sometime. Initially wanted a $229 Nikon deal, ended up getting a $499 Casio Exilim! Haha..

Here are the fruits of my "labour":

It's not the latest Sony T10.. it's not a digital SLR.. for a camera idiot like me, I think this is already very good. hehe. After all, who expects a stupid cupid to have a good arrow set?

I'm going to leave this stressful town for a retreat. No more work, no more conference, no more nags.. just fun!

Good bye for now.. come back soon.