The next day, I woke up at the insane hour of 4 am... and so did Alex... because the sun rises really early in Vietnam and they have sunrise mass at 5 am. Apparently, Saigon is full of early risers... good work there. "Zao shui zao qi shen ti hao."

People exercising, 2 cops chasing each other!?, and we had an early roadside drink from a shop which had barely opened. I attended mass, which was in Vietnamese but thanks to the uniformity of the Catholic masses, I could make out a bit of the sequence of the mass. We explored early morning Vietnam (Good Morning Vietnam!), people slowly getting to work, setting up shop, arranging newspapers for distribution. We explored the stadium area, which had a mini "Queensway" for cheap sports goods and apparel. We tried to find a coffeeshop but none opened that early. Also had really sweet soya bean milk. Return the bottle of course (I love the bottle culture. Coke in a bottle always tastes better.)

We also had tried the staple, pho. In my opinion, the stall we ate at had the best pho in all Vietnam... and it was near Pham Ngu Lao. I had an interesting stew type one but Alex's traditional version tasted really good (maybe I'm just a sucker for pepper)... or perhaps it was just something new that stunned us.