On the first day of 2020, I woke up disappointed to find the sun already up so early in the morning. Nonetheless I took a few photos of the late sunrise and then forced myself to get changed and go for a run.
Had googled a running route and as encouraging as I saw that there was one safe enough to run ( didn’t want to get knocked down by the motorcycles or breath in the exhaust from them), I was unable to do so smoothly. Once I exited the hotel and crossed the road to the riverside promenade, I headed in the north side direction in the hope of reaching a park. But after running some 600m, the route ended and to continue I had to cross the road and run in the street which I thought was a bad idea. Made a complete U turn and ran south which was not too bad as there was a nice pathway all the way for 2km. The pathway was littered though due to yesterday’s night countdown and there were a few people lying on benches but nothing unusual.
Completed my run with some stops along the way for photos and returned to the hotel. Went to the club house to get some bottled water before a visit to the swimming pool which was at the roof top together with the sky bar and spa.
The swimming pool was rather small but the surrounding sitting area provided a paranomic view of the surrounding. Took in the view and the fresh air and panoramic photos before returning to the room.
Had my bath and went back to bed since both mommy and K was still sleeping. Mommy was awoke soon and we were concerned that the breakfast time was going to be over so I went down first (we had the option of going to the clubhouse for breakfast but knowing that the area was much smaller, we would rather go to the main restaurant which would have more variety). The staff was excellent and they had no issues for me taking out food so that I can bring it back to the room. However I was given quite a small packaging so I couldn’t back take a lot of food, which made me decide to just pack those that K liked and later have my breakfast in the restaurant itself.
Went back to the room to tell mommy the plan and I returned quickly to the restaurant. They gave me a seat and acknowledged that mommy would be coming later. Then I ordered an egg Benedict which would be delivered to my table, went around to get samples of the buffet and gobbled down quickly. Though I missed the enjoyment of tasting the food, at least it filled my stomach and honestly, I thought the quality was pretty good. Returned to the room with my bottle of tomato juice and mommy went down for her breakfast.
It wasn’t long that K also woke up and then he would have his breakfast in bed while I fed him, talked about enjoying breakfast in bed! After that, I called to request for late check out and was given 1pm and we spent the rest of the morning packing and enjoying the last bit of TV and comforts of the room before bringing down all our luggage to the left luggage.
We returned to the Vincom center again as we saw some brands of clothes that were having a sale the night before and wanted to see if we could get anything. We visited the Old Navy store and got something as well as from OVS store. Left at 215pm and ended up at a Trung Nguyen Legend Cafe, one famous coffee brand of Vietnam and bought some 3-in-1 coffee for home and drank their Legend coffee in the cafe, which was going at 170k per glass. The coffee was indeed very good, and so was the air conditioning that we enjoyed as we escaped the midday heat outside!
We returned back to the hotel to retrieve our luggage and booked a Grabcar to the airport for 137k+10k (not sure what the 10k was for) which arrived very quickly. The journey to the airport was so much faster than the time we took from the airport to the hotel as they weren’t any jams during that time. We arrived with plenty of time to check in for our flight at 555pm.
Went through immigrations which took a short while to clear and proceeded to go to Big Bowl for our last Vietnamese meal (about USD14 for fresh spring roll and big bowl of pho) before returning back to Singapore and a ice cream sundae from BK just next to it (as K was asking for ice cream).
Window shopped around for a bit, used the toilet and then waited at the gate before the call to board.
We were on the Scoot flight back to Singapore and the plane was late coming into Vietnam. Once onboard there weren’t much biggies. Our pre-ordered food arrived and we swapped to suit to K’s taste. The food package was simple and tasted ok, not fantastic. Then later K spent the rest of the journey on the iPad. We landed 10mins delayed into Changi, a big part was due to the initial delay.
This year end trip planned for NYE celebration overseas in Vietnam was pretty enjoyable, largely because we had most of the land tour and private transfer being arranged by a tour agency (Went with Sparrow Travels, the same team that arranged for our Hanoi trip) for a hassle free journey. The weather was pretty decent most days and the costs were not very expensive. Because of the guides, for the visits especially to the old towns and ruins, we had learnt quite a bit on their history and culture which we would never have if we had gone by ourselves. But because the tours were private, we had more flexibility on timing and not under time pressure to push on, which would be a problem given K would have a hard time keeping up or I would need to carry him around more often then as it is.