5 Must-Do Activities in Ho Chi Minh City with Your Little Ones

Ho Chi Minh City, a vibrant blend of tradition and modernity, offers endless opportunities for exploration. From its bustling streets to its rich cultural heritage, this city has something for every traveller — even those with young children.

We’ve been travelling with our young twins and hitting their 7th country at 2.5 years old – one thing we’ve learn? It gets easier every time!!

Here are our 5 Must-Dos!

1. Soak in the View from a Rooftop Hotel

Start your adventure by taking in a stunning panoramic view of Ho Chi Minh City from one of its many rooftop hotels. We stayed in District One, right above Takashimaya mall, where the gleaming skyscrapers and historic French colonial buildings offer a picturesque blend of old-world charm and modern buzz. It’s the perfect spot to relax and introduce your little ones to the city’s grand scale.

2. Explore the Historic Streets

A stroll through Ho Chi Minh City’s streets is a walk through history. From the charming French colonial architecture to the lively atmosphere, this city is brimming with character. As shown in recent reels, you can pass by historic landmarks, browse bustling markets, and even stop for a refreshing drink or bite. For families with young children, there’s no shortage of cafes and quiet spots to take a break. And don’t forget to try the iconic Banh Mi for an authentic taste of Vietnam!

For those wondering why about French architecture: Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) features French architecture because of its history as a French colony for nearly six decades, from 1859 to 1954, during which the French introduced their architectural style to the city.

3. Visit the War Remnants Museum

For a meaningful cultural experience, take your family to the War Remnants Museum. This museum offers a deep dive into the history of Vietnam, with exhibits showcasing the country’s struggles during the war. It’s an educational stop, though some exhibits might be more suitable for older children, so be mindful if you’re visiting with toddlers. While the museum itself is educational, the surrounding gardens are peaceful spots for your little ones to explore.

4. Discover the Vibrant Book Street

Book Street, also known as Nguyen Van Binh Street, is a paradise for book lovers and families. We stroll through rows of bookstores, relaxing in cozy reading corners. With plenty of literary cafes and stalls, it’s the perfect place for a break — or to pick up a souvenir that will remind you of your Ho Chi Minh adventure. Even little ones can enjoy the colorful displays and playful surroundings.

Ps. there is a tiny play area for kids!

5. Indulge in Local Street Food

No trip to Ho Chi Minh City would be complete without sampling its world-famous street food. From fresh spring rolls to savory pho and delicious Banh Mi, the city’s food scene is bursting with flavor. For families with toddlers, street food vendors offer plenty of easy-to-eat snacks like fruit skewers and grilled corn, perfect for little hands. Watch as your kids delight in new tastes and experiences, all while surrounded by the sounds and sights of the lively city streets.

A list of all the food we’ve tried, our girls loved them all!

1. Phở (Vietnamese noodle soup, usually with beef or chicken)
2. Bún Riêu (Vermicelli with Sour Crab Broth and Pork blood jelly!
3. Bánh Mì (Vietnamese sandwich in a French baguette)
4. Bún Thịt Nướng*– Vermicelli Salad with Grilled Pork
5. Ốc Nhỏ – Small Snails
6. Ốc Lớn– Big Snails
7. Cua – Crabs
8. Hàu– Oysters
9. Banh Canh Cua (Thick Noodle Soup with Crab)
10. Tôm – Prawns
11. Cà Phê Trứng – Egg Coffee
12. Cà Phê Sữa Đá – Vietnamese Iced Coffee with Condensed Milk
13. Cơm Tấm – Broken Rice (often served with grilled pork)
14. Patê Sô/Pâté Chaud (a puff pastry with pork and pâté)
15. Xôi Cam – Sticky Glutinous Orange Rice
16. Gỏi Cuốn – Vietnamese Spring Rolls (fresh rolls with shrimp, pork, herbs, and noodles, served with peanut or hoisin dipping sauce)
17. Chả Giò – Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls (usually filled with pork, shrimp, mushrooms, and noodles)
18. Bánh Xèo – Vietnamese Sizzling Pancakes (savory pancakes filled with shrimp, pork, bean sprouts, and herbs)
19. Cơm Gà – Chicken Rice (similar to Hainanese chicken rice, often served with a fragrant chicken broth)
20. Bánh Bao** – Steamed Pork Buns (fluffy buns filled with pork and sometimes a boiled egg)
21. Bánh Cuốn** – Steamed Rice Rolls (thin rice flour sheets filled with minced pork, mushrooms, and herbs, often served with fried shallots and dipping sauce)
22. Bánh Khọt – Mini Savory Pancakes (similar to Bánh Xèo but smaller, topped with shrimp or pork and served with fresh herbs)
23. Canh Chua – Vietnamese Sour Soup (often made with fish, pineapple, tomatoes, and tamarind, giving it a tangy flavor)
24. Bánh Chưng – Square Sticky Rice Cake (filled with pork and mung beans)
25. Bò Kho – Vietnamese Beef Stew (a hearty stew with beef, carrots, and lemongrass, often served with bread or rice)

A Family-Friendly City of Adventure

Ho Chi Minh City is a place of endless discovery, offering both fun and educational experiences for families. Whether it’s exploring historical sites, indulging in local cuisine, or simply soaking in the lively atmosphere, there’s something for everyone.

5 Tips on How to Work From ‘Home’

This page is dedicated to travelling and this post is relevant to a certain extent. Some people work and travel so this will be useful too. More and more people are working from home over the years. Working from home could mean anywhere – it could mean at the beach, by the pool and even in a hospital! My dad lived overseas and when he was diagnosed with cancer, I was allowed to work from another country. He passed away a few months later and I am thankful that my company and my team gave me the opportunity to spend the last few months with him.

Not everyone is as fortunate. Flexible working is still not widely supported. Some companies have not actually prepared for situations like this. Storage on their cloud or their VPN just.can’t.cope.

However with the recent news on coronavirus, even more and more companies are encouraging employees to work from home. (Sad to see this is what it takes for companies to support this but it will only get better from here!). It is so efficient and I am so much more productive. I don’t get interrupted when I am halfway typing an email, I don’t have to stop and re-read the same paragraph twice because someone says ‘sorry to interrupt but I have a quick question’. I am not saying I can do this everyday but it’s good to have uninterrupted days.

Whilst some are used to this, others aren’t. Those of you who don’t support working from home possibly due to

  1. No proper set up at home
  2. Just ‘too difficult’
  3. Physical presence is your only way to prove performance at work

So here are my top 5 tips which hopefully helps. These are not the usual – ‘find a dedicated spot, don’t wear PJs, look sharp’ type blog post, you already probably are getting bombarded with these on Linkedin!

  1. Find a dedicated spot – But seriously, find a dedicated spot. Definitely not next to your Nintendo Switch or TV. If you are used to having two screens at work, invest and get two screens for your home office if you’re doing this long term.
  2. Don’t stop engaging – Use Skype for business or Zoom or even Whatsapp (whatever suits) to keep chatting with your colleagues and friends. Just like how you would when you’re making a cuppa or collecting something from the printer or having lunch at your office pantry.
  3. Frequent short breaks – I don’t know about most of you but I tend to start work earlier, eat in front of my screen during lunch time, end work later and less frequent visits to the loo because I drink less water (weird!) when I am working from home. THIS IS NOT HEALTHY. I am forcing myself to take short breaks – go out and get fresh air, drink more water, still make that cuppa as usual!
  4. Stop complaining and get on with technology – I understand this is not easy. Some are not use to chatting via Skype or when something doesn’t work, they give up entirely or just simply reluctant to change. This is easy to fix – most IT departments are very patient. Just ASK for help and LEARN.
  5. EAT and LOG OUT – make sure you stop and eat during lunch time. Log out before dinner. I always make the mistake of constantly checking my emails and wanting to do more after dinner and continue working until late at night. AGAIN, this is not healthy!

5 TV Series to Watch in January 2020

We love watching TV. But no matter how much I love a show, I forget it a few days later. Adrian, on the other hand, remembers every detail of it. We are not going to write a full summary or review of the show (for that, you can go to Jeremy Jahns, Emergency Awesome and New Rockstars ! What we will do is, list them out and include a one-liner of each series. You just gotta trust us!*

Here is a list for January 2020:

  1. Messiah (on Netflix) – A man who has a large following through public acts and a CIA officer embarks on a global, high-stakes mission to uncover whether he is a divine entity or a deceptive con artist. (The series may be controversial to anyone religious.)
  2. Witcher (on Netflix) – Witchers are monster hunters who underwent deliberate mutations to develop supernatural abilities to fight the monsters.
  3. The Mandalorian (on Disney+) – **** **** (no, we are not going to spoil it for you although it’s everywhere on the internet). Dive into the underbelly of Star Wars’ universe from the point of view of a bounty hunter.
  4. See (on AppleTV+) – Post-apocalyptic show where humans lost the ability to See.
  5. The Good Place, Season 4 (Obviously start from Season 1!) – Eleanor Shellstrop wakes up and finds out she had died and ended up in The Good Place, heaven-like afterlife.

*DISCLAIMER: Actual entertainment results may vary.

5 Things to Think about When Choosing A Resort in Maldives

There are 132 resorts in Maldives

  1. Budget
  2. Activities (Yoga, non motorised sports, glass bottom kayaks
  3. Full Inclusive or Half Board
  4. House Reef
  5. Photo taking opportunity
  1. Budget

No matter where you travel, I am sure you will have a specific budget in mind. If not, you can use our benchmark. For us, AUD50 per night is our ‘budget-ish’ accomodation, which probably can get you 2-3 stars type hotels or Airbnb. AUD50-300 is what we usually spend, depending where you go, you can either get 3 stars or 5 stars hotel. For our Maldives trip, it’s much more than that, it was approx. AUD1,500 per night and so WORTH IT. That was because it’s the Maldives, we wanted to splurge and we wanted a place which will tick all our boxes. Our criteria were:

  • Over the water villa
  • House Reef must be good so we don’t have to take a ferry or boat out to snorkel
  • Accomodation must have transparent kayak
  • More than just 2 restaurants in an island

If you are like us, read on! If not, you can still read on to see these factors – you might then think this is a good idea or learn from our mistakes.

2. Activities

When we decided that we were going to stay about 1.5 weeks in Maldives, we needed to check that there are sufficient activities on the island. Sure you can read a book, have a glass of wine but I can probably do that for 2 days and I will be bored shitless. The accomodation we chose had different daily activities ranging from 7am yoga, movie night at the beach, cocktail party and all the non motorised water sports activities such as snorkelling, scuba diving, paddle boarding! For some resort, you will have to pay extra to hire these non-motorised water sports equipment. If you are contented with sipping wine and chill by the beach, I am 100% sure almost every accomodation in Maldives will be able to accomodate that!

3. Full Inclusive or Half Board

If you have started your research, you will notice that some resorts offer full inclusive or half board. This can be tricky because not all resorts mean the same thing. Full inclusive usually means 3 meals a day (but might not include room service which you have to pay extra for) and also usually means it includes snorkelling equipments only. Half board means breakfasts only and includes snorkelling equipments.

4. House Reef

Some newly built or renovated resorts might not have the best house reef. Coral reefs might be damaged during the renovation or construction period and this means less fish.

5. Photo Taking Opportunity

We love taking photos so this is important to us. It is like an activity in itself. If you are looking to do some drone shots, please seek permission first. It is not illegal to bring your drone but you should respect the privacy of others.

5 Easy Steps To Make Your Own Char Kuey Teow

I am going to make it super easy for you if you want to learn how to make char kuey teow. If you don’t know what is it, click here!

(Disclaimer: It will not taste EXACTLY like what you get when ordering from a hawker stall in Malaysia because we took out some of the main ingredients like lard and we are assuming you are at least a decent cook!! We also find it to be quite salty but we like it that way. If you are not a salt fan, scale down on the sauce. Sad that you won’t follow the 10-8-8-4 rule).

We are super chill when it comes to cooking, so all the ingredients listed will be quite iffy. Just go with the flow and taste it as you are cooking.

A home-cooked meal is a labor of love

Unknown, please tell me if you know who said it!

Ingredients (cooking for 4 pax x 3 meals) using 1kg of rice noodle. Half the ingredients if you are cooking less than 1kg.

  • SAUCE is what we found to be the most important bit here. This is the 10-8-8-4 RULE.
    • 10 teaspoon of dark soy sauce
    • 8 teaspoon of light soy
    • 8 teaspoon of sweet soy sauce
    • 4 teaspoon of oyster sauce
  • 1kg of rice noodle
  • 10 (or 20 if you LOVE) shelled prawns
  • 2 garlic cloves (or 4)
  • 2 chinese sausage / Lup Cheong (sliced it thinly)
  • 2 pieces of fish cake (sliced it thinly)
  • Handful of bean sprouts (or ignore them altogether if you’re not a fan)
  • 4 eggs (or 6) (too lazy to whisk beforehand, just cook it and use your flat ladle and ‘chop’ it to pieces)

What’s next? Follow the 5 easy steps!

  1. If noodles are cold, microwave so it’s warm. Slowly pull them apart. You can rush through everything EXCEPT THIS BIT. Be as delicate as you possibly can.
  2. If you have a helper/cooking assistant (eg wife or sister or brother or kids), get them to mix the 10-8-8-4 sauce together. If you don’t, then mix it either before or after handling your noodles.
  3. Heat oil, throw prawns, add chinese sausage, fish cake, …(wait for a few seconds), add noodles
    (DO NOT STIR FRY IT LIKE HOW YOU STIR FRY VEGETABLES, BE VERY GENTLE, TOSS SLOWLY, pour SAUCE.
  4. Add garlic (because we didn’t want to burn it).
  5. Push everything to a corner in your wok, add egg, use flat ladle and ‘chop’ it to pieces.

5 Things I Note About Oxalis Triangularis

You may or may not have come across this plant before.

  1. An oxalis triangularis is also known as false shamrock plant or purple shamrock.
  2. It is a bulb type flowering plant. My neighbour gave me a pot and it only has 2 bulbs. After a year of having it, I took it out of the pot. Split the clump and realised that I then have 6 bulbs. (Love how it multiply so fast!) Since then, I re-pot it every year and currently has 4 pots! All you need to do is gently separate each bulb . I placed about 4 bulbs in a new pot. My pot is quite small, about the size of my palm.
  3. It is a photophilic plant which means the leaves open and close in response to light. I placed mine in my kitchen and only requires filtered sun.
  4. All of our oxalis trinagularis go dormant during winter and I will keep it at the back of my plant shelf. I start watering in spring.
  5. I read that this is poisonous to pets. Both Muffin and Army (my two furbabies) are not at all interested in any of my plants so I am not too worried where I placed them. If you have any pets, just be mindful of this.

Plants give us oxygen for the lungs and for the soul.

Linda Solegato, pseudonym Terri Guillemets

5 Easy Tricks To Teach Your Pup

Some say dogs can’t understand humans but they clearly have not tried communicating with dogs properly. It’s really easy to teach your puppy once you know the basic. When we first got Muffin, we were clueless on what to do. We researched about everything prior to getting Muffin but it’s different when you actually have a cute little puppy sitting infront of you. We read about crate training, toilet training, reward systems, hand signals and so much more but the key is CONSISTENCY. The below is what has worked for us, give it a go! We will try to video each step and add on to this publish so you can visualise it.

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.”

Josh Billings

One: Teach them to ‘Sit’

After having Muffin for a week, we were super excited to teach her some tricks. Teaching Muffin how to sit took us awhile (more than 2 days, thankfully not months!) because Adrian and I were using different hand signals and that confuses her! We know that now after attending puppy school (highly recommend if you are a new dog owner or if you want a refresher!). Puppy school is teach YOU, so you can teach your pup.

We use the reward system as our base and transition to hand signal (you can use whatever works for you). To start, hold a tiny treat in your right hand and close your palms. Put your right hand with the treat infront below their mouth and slowly lift your hand towards their nose. Now, use your left hand and gently touch their bum down. Once they are in the sitting position, say ‘SIT’ firmly once (don’t go ‘Sit’, ‘Sit’, ‘Sit’) and give them the treat. Do this multiple times and you will realise soon they can do it without any treat.

Two: Teach them to ‘Stay’

Once you master the sit position, try getting them to stay. To do this, get them to sit position. Once they are seated, open your right palm and put it front of their nose. Say ‘Stay’ firmly and take one step back and say ‘Good Girl/Boy’ (high pitched happy voice). Do that multiple times and each time, increase the distance between you and the pup. Soon they will Stay no matter how far you are from them.

Three: Teach them to ‘Go’

Good job getting them to sit and stay. You don’t need to rush these exercise all at once. Give them and yourself a break and restart the training again. Similarly, use firm voice and say it once. Get them to sit and stay…take a few steps back, and now say ‘Go’. This will only work if you have mastered Sit and Stay. If not, go back and redo it. Use treats sparingly.

Four: Teach them to ‘Roll’

Again, same concept as above. To get them to roll, take a small piece of treat and hold it in your right palm. Get them to sit and lay flat on the floor (to teach them to lay flat, hold treat on your right hand, put it infront of their nose and slowly bring your hands to the floor). Once they are flat down, use your hand to guide them to roll. Start with your hands towards their nose, slowly move behind their head (ensuring that their face is following your hands) and make a circle.

Five: Teach them to…(whatever you want!)

You can teach them whatever you want them to learn as long as you use the same words, speak firmly and don’t confuse them by doing too many tricks at once.

Baby Muffin

About Me

Life shrinks or expand in proportion with one’s courage

Anais Nin, American-Cuban-French Essayist

I read an article about blogging and a paragraph caught my attention: “As bloggers we often question ourselves and our ideas. Should I blog about this? Is it too personal? Will this interest anyone? Will I offend someone? These are all useful issues to consider before jumping headlong into a post. The problem, however, arises when these questions become doubts. And although there may not be a universally right or wrong way to answer these questions, there is one path of action common to all of us: COURAGE.”

Starting 2020 by blogging about myself! I am a corporate slave worker who loves to travel, to eat (food has to be pretty looking, also loves trying new cuisine and best if it’s value for money), loves dogs (and all animals!) and indoor plants! Working my way towards ‘sustainable living’. I am trying to utilise our big backyard. We started clearing our garden bed and will be planting veggies/fruits soon.

I graduated with a Commerce and Law (Honours) degree and currently working in the superannuation industry. I actually love working and as much as I love travelling, I love my bed at home too much that I can’t be away for 6 months! Very unusual and bit different from other travel bloggers who sold everything to travel the world.

If you haven’t noticed, there is a link called ‘Darth Nerd’ on my homepage. Definitely click on it to see what it’s all about. It won’t have too many pretty pictures but wanting it to be a forum where we can chat about which colour lightsaber are you or the latest board games.

Would love to connect and chat about …life :D! Get in touch:
Email me: violetfimz@gmail.com
DM me via instagram
─» @violetfimztravels
─» @muffinarmythecavoodles