Mr and Mrs Van: It's raining in Vietnam

We have been silent for a while. I only realized that when Mr Van asked me this morning if people were still reading our blog and I couldn't really say. I was idle in the blogosphere for 10 days. A disgrace I tell you! A disgrace!

We have been busy, but not that much. The main reason for this apathy is actually weather related. For the past weeks, Vietnam is grey, windy, stormy and cloudy. The sea is furious for whatever reason and not even the local cows dare to come by the beach.

We went to Ho Chi Minh City last weekend to enjoy a fresh breath of civilization, good food and a long stroll in the gourmet shop. Enjoyed every moment, especially the dinner of mushroom sauce pasta at Pomodoro Restaurant.

We also learnt that a possible cause for the electricity being down all the time might be this:

Our diet goes very well, we are still following it during the week, but we increased the "binge time" from 1 day on Sunday, to the full weekend. This actually worked out in our advantage, as we didn't feel the need to eat till we dropped on the floor in the first day, as we knew the second day was coming.

As of last week tally, Mr Van lost 13cm from his waist and 7kg, and Mrs Van lost 11cm from her waist and 4kg. Pretty good. We are aiming to keep this as a lifestyle more than a diet. By popular demand of 2 of our readers who responded at our Slow Carb Diet post, we decided we shall now write down the slow carb recipes, take pictures and eventually start another blog just on this topic. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their suggestions and motivation!

The highlight of the week for me has been the opening of the Metro store in Vinh City. For those of you not familiar with the concept, Metro is a german company specialized in wholesale food stores all over the world. Their targeted audience is business owners of hotels, restaurants or catering companies. I have a kitchen and a hungry husband, so I figured I qualify to shop there. They have everything you can imagine, from fresh mushrooms (which I lost somewhere on the way home) to a bakery and gourmet aisle.

I know that my latest passion for food stores might seem strange for people that know me. The explanation is simple: removed from traces of luxury and round the clock availability of stuff that I got accustomed to in my life B.V. (before Vietnam), one is left with the most basic needs. For me that is good food. I got used to live without the malls, the libraries, the cinema, the coffee shops, the yoga studio and the strange hobbies such as pottery afternoon and indoor skying. But one thing that keeps people sane when they are removed from their comfort zone is in my opinion FOOD. This being said, I am leaving you with some pictures of my quest to create a normal life.

Olive bread