July 26th, 2017
Da Nang July 26th first exploration…..
Not much to report today. Was up way too late last night working on the schedule for next week at George’s, so thought I might sleep in. But rest assured I was wide awake at a little after 6am. That’s ok, I was having a weird dream anyway and wanted it to end.
Breakfast at the Sophia Boutique was average. They had bacon, which is always a treat. Sometimes, I get tired of just eggs. And wow was the coffee strong! A coupe of cups later I was ready to rock and roll. Ok, full disclosure I may have had more than a couple. But in all fairness they are small cups.
Around 10 am troy and I decide it was time to head out and discover what Da Nang has to offer. We are a couple blocks from the beach so we headed there first. The beach was gorgeous. It’s a 30 km white sand beach that stretches forever (ok well 30 km seems like forever). There were a lot of people down there, but mostly gathered in the swimming areas marked safe. I guess the rip tides are bad so they mark some areas unsafe. Not sure who decides this and/or how they “know”. But never the less, there were clearly marked areas and people were abiding by the signs. We walked quite a ways-for about an hour or more I suppose before turning around and heading back. Keeping a mindful eye for a place where we can get a frothy drink (or water). We found just such a place and went up to a patio area where most people were having full meals but we just ordered pop and fruit plate. It was 1:30 pm so we just needed something light. So we could save ourselves for something bigger and better.
After that we decided to head away from beach and over the dragon bridge in search of the market. It took quite a while, we we found it. It was a colossal disappointment – small and no street food, bit I did find some ground coffee. Something about mouse coffee? I’ll have to look this up. It appears to be a “thing”. I’ll keep you posted when I find out.
So now it’s 3 and we are definitely hungry, so this becomes a serious search for food. We end up at the mall (air con!!!) and at the food court where we get fresh spring rolls, lemonade and coffee. We used to call these “salad rolls”. They call them something else here so we are adjusting our language to be more authentic 😉Some time in the air con was welcome as it is not directly sunny today but it is high 80s and really muggy, so our outdoor walk has us appreciating some air con.
It rains a little while we are insides, but in the time we hang out, it passes. So we start the trek back to the hotel. It takes us past another mall, and we notice that they have a cineplex. Hey! Maybe we will catch a movie. We’ve never done that here before. After we decided that none of the 8 movies they are running work for us, and that large popcorn and 2 pops here is $4 (instead of $40 like at home) we move on but not before just straight up enjoying the smell of movie theatre popcorn-which appears to be universally awesome. In our wandering around this mall, the noteworthy thing to mention is that there was an indoor skating rink. With legit ice and everything. And the best part is that it was busy…..pics forthcoming. Lots of kids and young adults out there skating around. It was like West Edmonton Mall😂😂
After all that we made our way back to the hotel. It’s 6:42, so I need to start thinking about the next meal I suppose…..
Not sure what we will do tomorrow. Maybe rent motorbikes (but they are $10/day) or maybe a pedal bike (that is free from hotel). It’s really all weather depending ☀️ or ☔️ – we will see.
