"Baby bees"

Before he left, Khánh was very keen for me to try 'baby bees' (which turned out to be silkworm larvae), which he assured me taste very good .... hmmmm.... and today when Hùng and I went to visit his Khánh's mum (Giang) baby bees - nhộng  tằm - were on the menu!

Hùng had arranged for us to go to visit at 3:30pm so I could give Giang the photos from his farewell party. She wasn't there when we arrived... she was at the market buying food for our dinner!  Thang was there, though, busy in the kitchen. 

Giang doesn't speak any English, and Hùng doesn't translate unless I ask him to, so I have no idea what's being said most of the time... but there was no misunderstanding our agreement that our favourite photo was the funny, candid shot of us fixing our hair 'before' having our photo taken. 

Since it wasn't going to be just an afternoon visit, while Giang and Thang were busy preparing dinner Hùng and I filled in an hour going to Big C. I haven't been there for three weeks, so there were a few groceries I needed and it gave us something to do and by the time we returned, dinner was ready.

Absolutely delicious, of course ... well, except the baby bees... they were awful!!  LOL !!  If Khánh had been here he could have eaten the whole plateful, because no-one else ate them either!!  The pork mince patties on sugar cane sticks were scrumptious and the soup was amazing.  Giang's brother came and joined us. He laughed over the photos too and indicated that Giang should put the funniest ones on the wall...

Beautiful Thang

It was a bit of a jolt to see Khánh's motorbike and know that he won't be picking me up on it any more... those days are over... so many fun times!

When Hùng and I got back to the hotel, the U21 Hanoi soccer team were just leaving... having won the Championship!  They were keen to get away, but here is the friendly one from the room next door proudly showing off their trophy!

...never pass up an opportunity....

At about 8:30 I was blessed with more visitors... 

Diep, Thoa, Đào Khánh and Hùng

Đào Khánh brought me these beautiful flowers

We had lots to talk about, catching up. They are all working now, all ex Nam Phap Church students. Đào Khánh invited me to visit his home, so I hope we can arrange that soon - I really enjoyed it when I went there last year.  Before they left, we took more photos... of course!

Such great company!  I really look forward to spending more time with them...