I was planning to use today to go to a few gyms I'm thinking about joining and check them out, but decided instead to spend the morning lying in bed and being lazy. Around noon, Freya (one of the other new teachers) texted and asked if I wanted to go shopping with her at the Ben Thanh Market.
Ben Thanh is a really big market, half of which is fabric, clothes, tshirts, bags, etc., and the other half is food. She and I met up with Marleen and walked to the market (about a 20 minute walk, including a few harrowing street crossings). The market was large, crowded, and overwhelming. Freya brought her own bag because she'd heard that the owners of the stalls give customers different color bags to indicate different things (if they bargain, if they can be scammed, etc.) to other stall owners. It ended up being a non-issue, since we didn't buy anything. On our way out, we passed through the food half of the market, 
which began with delicious-smelling and looking pho, spring rolls, rice, and other unidentifiable meats, and then ended up in the other part of the market where the stands were selling fresh produce and other things. After passing by a stand with brains, intestines, and other things that I don't know or want to know what they were, we decided to head to District 1 to go shopping. A long, winding walk later (we didn't really know where we were going), we ended up at Diamond Plaza (a big shopping center). By that time, we realized that we were quite hungry, so we went to a nearby local eatery by the name of KFC. I must say...there's something about KFCs outside of the USA. In the two days I was in
Morocco, we ate at KFC twice, and then when I was in Barcelona with Adam, we ate at the KFC directly across from the Sagrada Familia. I never eat KFC at home, but for some reason, I just can't get enough of it when I'm abroad. We looked around the four-story shopping center, then started heading back to meet up with Pulkit. Diamond Plaza is right by the Palace, the Notre Dame Cathedral, and the 
post office (which is really famous for being an old, French colonial building). Even though I was tired, I tried to make the most of the outing by snapping low-quality pictures of the back of the cathedral and post office to add to my low-quality picture of Ben Thanh.Afterwards we went to a cafe and I got a mango smoothie (absolutely delicious). On the way home we stopped at the store and I bought shampoo (up until now, I'd been using a bar of soap and conditioner) and the biggest thing of toothpaste I've bought in the past few years, so I guess I really will be staying here the entire length of my contract, if for nothing else than finishing the toothpaste...
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