03-20-2026 Walk

Travel and tourism day. Slept well, I feel nearly fully recovered from my mild cold (<!>). We took our time getting up, it was going to be a long day. Ate some of the remaining food for breakfast, went downstairs for a coffee (iced coffee with condensed milk was tasty), read, and watched a little TV before finishing off the drinks and leaving the flat. We walked to a place not too far away to drop off our luggage, then went for lunch to the restaurant we had originally planned on eating at the first day we were here. I was not hungry, had some spring rolls. Then we walked over to the Independence Palace (took a while to find the entrance) and toured through it. The grounds were pretty, and I really liked the 60s vibe of the palace design. Ann was less thrilled with it, since it was mostly open-air and she was sweaty. Her mood improved when we found the air-conditioned room where they were showing a film about the palace history. We walked around the grounds after that and eventually exited, walking from there to the Ben Thanh Market. I found a likely fake Zippo lighter for Ross, bargained down to what I thought was a decent price (<$6) and got it. We walked from there back to Bui Vien Street and stopped for drinks at a corner bar, low key and the IPA was very good. Then we caught a Grab to the airport, short distance but heavy city traffic (8 km in 40 minutes). Got there okay and through immigration quicker than usual, since Ann paid Klook for a fast pass. No problem getting the lighter through the security check. The prices in the airport were crazy for Vietnam, so we had enough for a terrible sandwich, bottle of water, and a cider. That pretty much tapped us out, I kept a couple of bills to give to Ross as well. Flight to Hong Kong was shorter than expected, but takeoff and taxiing were delayed, so we had a really short transition time. Lines were long, and right away I started stressing. Justified, in this case. We were at real risk of missing our flight. I had to get in another line for manual passport control and got behind Ann in security. Was able to talk a security agent to allow me to jump the line and get through security quickly, but I was really stressing and didn't see that Ann got stopped for a bag check and ended up behind me. Ran to the gate, I was one of the last people on the plane, and Ann wasn't there. They called her name on the plane, and I got worried she was going to miss the flight. I think she ended up being the absolute last person to get on, she didn't seem to be worried about it. Yikes! We really live a charmed life.