Saturday coffee for Saigon intellectual set

Patrons enjoy some intellectual conversation at Ca phe thu Bay coffee shop - Photo: Tuong Vi

Where do you go on Saturdays? Some spend time with family, while others share their weekends with friends or see movies. But if you want to talk about what’s going in the world, or just in your head, you are welcome to join the other intellectuals for a deep and meaningful’ at Ca phe thu Bay (Saturday Coffee). The cafe was designed to meet the demands of intellectuals who want a space to talk about music, literature, books, architecture, arts, cinema or theater.

Located at 37 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, HCMC’s District 1, Ca phe thu Bay has become a weekend regular meeting place. The café was given its name because every Saturday morning, it hosts programs on different aspects of the arts. Every Sunday at 8.30 p.m., the coffee shop screens a couple of good Vietnamese or foreign movies. Late evenings on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, are for chamber music featuring pieces by Bach and Mozart etc.  

The manager of Ca phe thu Bay is a famous musician, Duong Thu, who is known for Vietnamese love songs. “I choose the music for Ca phe thu Bay,” he said. The selection  is mostly easy-listening. There is also a library containing over 200 book titles covering subjects such as philosophy, fiction, research, literature, arts, cinema, music, science and architecture. The library has a collection of 4,000 compact discs of Vietnamese classic films.

Thu said, Hanoi has Lam coffee shop for artists, while HCMC has internet cafés, book cafés at Phuong Nam bookstores, and Ca phe thu Bay. It’s a celebration of the Saigonese art of conversation. The shop is decorated in Vietnamese style with wooden furniture and a lotus pond at the entrance.

Dang Le Nguyen Vu, chairman of Trung Nguyen Corporation, which cooperates with the café, said he was considering setting up more such spaces in town.

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Delicious delta crab claws

Fried crab pincers with salt, a traditional Mekong Delta style dish - Photo: Mai Ly

The Mekong Delta is home to a type of rock crab or cua da that lives near the sea or in inland rocky areas. The crab is made into a few Mekong Delta specialties such as crab steamed with beer, crab rice soup and crab noodle soup. One of the delta’s favorite dishes is fried crab pincers.

The crab is about as wide as your wrist and its shell and pincers are dark purple. The pincers are very hard but the meat inside is very sweet.

To make the dish choose some big crabs then wash and wait till dry. Fry them with salt on low heat. After 10 minutes, when the crab pincers turn bright red, serve them with rau ram (a kind of fragrant vegetable) and mixed lemon and pepper.

The crabs are nocturnal so it is easiest to catch them at night when they are feeding. Fishermen sell them for VND8,000 per crab, while restaurants in the delta sell a serve for VND15,000.

When in Can Tho City, try the crab pincers at Minh Bao Restaurant in Hung Thanh Ward, Cai Rang District.

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Mui Ne ready for Miss Earth national costume contest

Stephen Banks (R), general manager of Sea Links Golf & Country Club instructs Miss Philippines Earth 2010 Psyche Resus (1st, L) , Miss Earth 2009 Larissa Ramos (2nd, L) and Miss Vietnam World 2010 Luu Thi Diem Huong how to play golf - Photo: Khai Nguyen

Mui Ne in general and Sea Links City, host of the national costume contest of Miss Earth 2010, is on the progress to prepare for the event in the night of November 13.

An outdoor stage will be set up in the middle of the Sea Links Golf and Country Club that could host 5,000 audiences to the event.

It is expected that 90 beauties from around the world will come to Mui Ne on Friday to take part in the second challenge of the beauty pageant after the talent challenge in HCMC on Tuesday. These beauties will take part in activities to raise people’s awareness on environmental protection including planting flower at Sea Links Golf & Country Club, a golf buggy parade on Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street and a green-clean-beautiful campaign at Doi Duong tourist site.

According to Binh Thuan Province’s Tourism Association, most of the high-class resorts and hotels in Mui Ne were booked in early November. Specifically, room

occupancy  in the downtown of Phan Thiet City is over 80%. The room prices are ranged from VND800,000 to VND2 million.

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Mui Ne ready for Miss Earth national costume contest

Stephen Banks (R), general manager of Sea Links Golf & Country Club instructs Miss Philippines Earth 2010 Psyche Resus (1st, L) , Miss Earth 2009 Larissa Ramos (2nd, L) and Miss Vietnam World 2010 Luu Thi Diem Huong how to play golf - Photo: Khai Nguyen

Mui Ne in general and Sea Links City, host of the national costume contest of Miss Earth 2010, is on the progress to prepare for the event in the night of November 13.

An outdoor stage will be set up in the middle of the Sea Links Golf and Country Club that could host 5,000 audiences to the event.

It is expected that 90 beauties from around the world will come to Mui Ne on Friday to take part in the second challenge of the beauty pageant after the talent challenge in HCMC on Tuesday. These beauties will take part in activities to raise people’s awareness on environmental protection including planting flower at Sea Links Golf & Country Club, a golf buggy parade on Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street and a green-clean-beautiful campaign at Doi Duong tourist site.

According to Binh Thuan Province’s Tourism Association, most of the high-class resorts and hotels in Mui Ne were booked in early November. Specifically, room

occupancy  in the downtown of Phan Thiet City is over 80%. The room prices are ranged from VND800,000 to VND2 million.

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Tourism targets Japanese market

Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has set a plan to
attract 1 million tourists from Japan , its key market, by 2015.

The target was announced by Deputy General Director Hoang Thi Diep of
VNAT at a working session of the Vietnam-Japan Tourism Cooperation
Committee in Hanoi on November 11.

Diep,
co-chair of the session, the third of its kind so far, also made public a
target to turn Vietnam into a top-five favourite destination of
Japanese tourists.

To reach that end, the
hospitality watchdog plans to open a representative office in Japan ,
conduct market surveys and promote the national tourist potential
through international and Japanese mass media.

VNAT will also organise cultural tourist events in a number of Japanese
cities and arrange field trips into Vietnam for travel agents and
press people from Japan .

Maeda Ryuhei, General
Director of the Department of Planning and Policy Making under the
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, who co-chaired
the meeting, pledged willingness to cooperate with Vietnam in
strengthening the exchange of tourists between the two countries.

Maeda said the number of Japanese arrivals in Vietnam was limited
at 360,000 in 2009, making up just 2.4 percent of Japanese out-bound
tourists. Meanwhile, with merely 230,000 arrivals in Japan in the
first seven months of the year, Vietnamese tourists accounted for just
0.4 percent of international arrivals in the Cherry Blossom nation.

As a result, the two parties should promote the tourism campaign in
each others market, said the Japanese senior tourist expert.

High on the meeting’s agenda was bilateral cooperation in exchange of
tourists, investment in tourism and human resource development in the
hospitality industry.

The first and second
meetings took place in the French-styled mountain resort city of Da Lat
in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong in 2005 and Tokyo ,
Japan in 2008.

Japan is among the top ten
markets of the Vietnamese tourism sector, with 355,000 arrivals in
Vietnam in the first 10 months of the year, representing a
year-on-year increase of over 22 percent. The figure is expected to
surpass 431,000 for the whole of 2010, reported VNAT./.

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Vincom Center offers privilege card

Shoppers at Vincom Center Photo: Courtesy of Vincom Center

Vincom Center in HCMC’s District 1 has launched its privilege card “Vincom Center Loyalty” with benefits for customers.

Apart from offering discounts and special promotions, the card also

allows customers to make transactions at banks and ATMs.

Customers, who spend VND5 million at Vincom Center, can collect the card when they present the dockets.

Card holders can load money on the cards at Techcombank. They will also receive a gift worth VND500.000 when they pay bills over VND3 million using the card.

For each VND500,000 checked by the Vincom Center Loyalty card, customers will receive a lucky draw ticket for prizes worth from VND500,000 to VND5 million, drawn at the end of each month.

To mark the launch of “Vincom Center Loyalty”, the first 1,000 memberships in November and December will receive a Lock&Lock water jug and enjoy other promotions by Techcombank.

Vincom Center at 72 Le Thanh Ton Street, District 1 opened on April 30 and sells internationally famous brand names.

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Vincom Center offers privilege card

Shoppers at Vincom Center Photo: Courtesy of Vincom Center

Vincom Center in HCMC’s District 1 has launched its privilege card “Vincom Center Loyalty” with benefits for customers.

Apart from offering discounts and special promotions, the card also

allows customers to make transactions at banks and ATMs.

Customers, who spend VND5 million at Vincom Center, can collect the card when they present the dockets.

Card holders can load money on the cards at Techcombank. They will also receive a gift worth VND500.000 when they pay bills over VND3 million using the card.

For each VND500,000 checked by the Vincom Center Loyalty card, customers will receive a lucky draw ticket for prizes worth from VND500,000 to VND5 million, drawn at the end of each month.

To mark the launch of “Vincom Center Loyalty”, the first 1,000 memberships in November and December will receive a Lock&Lock water jug and enjoy other promotions by Techcombank.

Vincom Center at 72 Le Thanh Ton Street, District 1 opened on April 30 and sells internationally famous brand names.

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