Exploring Vietnam with Huong

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by BN - May 08, 2022

The normal things you may need to know to have an easy life in Hanoi

by BN - May 24, 2020

Hi, the life in Hanoi is coming back after the time of pandemic. The streets are getting crowded again, people are coming back to work.

Today I've come up with the idea of listing the things you may need to know, to avoid or to enjoy to have an easy life when living in Hanoi.

And here's the things:

The normal things you may need to know to have an easy life in Hanoi

1. If your stuffs are stolen by a thief, you can have chance to get it back by going to Gioi Market.

When my mom was a child, her dolls were stolen. Sometimes her neighborhood also lost some chickens. There was a time that people in Hanoi are easy to let the thief stole their stuffs.

It was about 20 or 30 years ago and their experience to get the stuff back is to come to Gioi Market and buy them back with the cheap price, because the thieves usually bring the stolen stuffs to this market to sell for money. And of course my mom found the dolls there. Her neighborhood found his chickens there.

That is the story of 20 or 30 years ago. I'm not sure about the current time. However, the experience has existed for so long and and you loose the things like a bicycle, the high possibility you can succeed in applying this tip. Don't worry to go there because the sellers of that market are not dangerous so much. They're just the reseller after buying stuffs from the thief.

In case of loosing electronic devices such as a phone or a table, I'm sure that the thief has sold it at a phone repair shop. But there are thousands of shops like that in Hanoi, the possibility to find it back is harder. However, you can still use "Find my iPhone" hhaa.

Address of Gioi Market: 33 Thinh Yen Street, Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi.

2. Ask the price of lemon tea or maize ear/corncob before buying when you are on the Long Bien Bridge.

Long Bien Bridge of Hanoi is popular as the history witness of Hanoi which across though the Red River. The youth usually come to Long Bien Bridge for watching the sunset, sunrise, enjoying the wind together with eating corn, drinking lemon tea.

However, I don't know why the the seller of corn and tea must require the price which is much higher than normal. As normal, you can have a cup of lemon tea with the price from 10,000VND to 20,000VND and a corncob with the price under 10,000VND. If you don't ask the price first, after getting the food, the seller will ask you to pay more than 100,000 VND or even 200,000 VND, maybe.

This is one of the things I really don't like.

3. If you run out of money, there's one way to enjoy the Vietnamese food with the very cheap price as just for students

Don't hesitate to catch a bus of the number 26. The bus 26 go through a lot of universities especially the zone of Hanoi University of Technology, National University of Engineering and National Economic University. This zone is considered to be the street food place for students because of the cheap price with variety of food.

4. Never forget to bring the mask, which is not to prevent the virus but to prevent the heavy sun in the summer and the smoke and dust from the vehicles in almost every seasons.

My foreign friend once asked me few years ago why Vietnamese people must wear mask when riding bicycle. She wondered if there was something wrong with the people or the people got sick or what?

The answer is no. If someone ask how many seasons there are in Ho Chi Minh City, the people in Ho Chi Minh city will make a joke that there are two seasons: "the hot season and the hot as f*** season". What about Hanoi? Although Hanoi has winter, but the summer of Hanoi will be scarier than "the hot as f*** season" of Ho Chi Minh city. That's the reason why all the people wear mask every time going out. Not one wants to get skin cancer.

In case you are outside in the rush hour, as I've said above, the mask is to prevent the smoke and dust.

5. If you want to go to somewhere on time, don't forget to estimate the time you get stuck on the street due to the traffic jam.

This tip may not be true in this time because of the pandemic that makes everyone stay at home. However, in the normal days, especially at about 8 in the morning and 6 in the evening, it may take you a very long time to go to where you want because these times are the rush hours.

6. Dinh Le Street is always the place to buy the books with the cheaper price than the market price.

That's Dinh Le Street - the oldest book street of Hanoi and it takes only 2 minutes to walk from Dinh Le Street to Hoan Kiem Lake.

The book stores may look old, but you can find the newest books here, even the Vietnamese versions or the English versions.

I think Dinh Le Street is one of the things you may not know about Hanoi Walking Street.

7. Ha Trung street is the place to exchange money.

Ha Trung Street is also a street in the Old Quarter, so I think it's easy for expats to get there.

Actually not every store on the street have all kind of currency. However, this is still the place to exchange money according to the experience of locals living in Hanoi.

When I come up with anything to add into this list, I'll make it for you. I think this post can help you have easier days living in Hanoi.

No nhận xét

Three websites for expat jobs in Vietnam

by BN - May 03, 2020

Hi everyone, the normal life is coming back day by day. We are now waiting for the epidemic to be over. In the last difficult time, I have read some articles about the life of expats in Vietnam. There has been someone being in difficulties due to no job, no money. It was not because they were lack of experience or quality, it was because of the difficult time that the whole world is being through at present. For those who have just come to Vietnam and have not found a suitable job yet, I hope this post about job recruitment sites in Vietnam can support you in your career in Vietnam.

And here are the most popular sites for expat jobs in Vietnam:

VIETNAMWORK

Vietnamwork is the most popular site for local recruiters and candidates. For the first time, I thought that Vietnamwork is only useful for Vietnamese people who want to work for Vietnamese companies. However, at a time of finding jobs, I found some recruitment information even from some Chinese banks. From that moment, my purpose was turned into finding jobs from foreign recruiters and I recognized that there have been many job recruitments for expats living in Vietnam.

In this site, you can search by the types of job you want in relations to the fields such as HR, doctors, sales, insurrance, real estate, stock, law... You can search by location (for example: Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang...), so you can find job in whichever province in Vietnam you want to work in. You can also look for jobs by salary and position you want. You can type the level of salary as well as the position (manager, senior or junior...), the search mode can help you.

Besides, the recruiters can also find you and contact to you if you upload your CV which is suitable to them. In this case, maybe it is also similar to Linkedin.

If you have been familiar with Linkedin, don't worry because in Vietnam, the recruiters also use Linkedin to look for candidates and by contrast, candidates also use it to find jobs. However, the popularity of this site is less than Vietnamwork. Normaly, the HR recruiters who are hired from the companies as a recruitment service will contact to you for the information of recruitments, which is often is urgent cases.

FACEBOOK GROUPS

Finally, one of the useful ways is to join the groups on Facebook. There are many groups which can help expats in Vietnam. For example: Hanoi Massive Community is a group where expats and locals help expats in Hanoi. This group has more than 5000 members. Besides, Internship & Jobs in Vietnam is also a group with professional recruitment information.

Above is the two groups that is the most useful as I think. However, I don't think that I know everything. If you have more information about other groups or sites for expat jobs in Vietnam, don't hesitate to leave your comments below.

No nhận xét

The most two popular food apps for expats in Vietnam

by BN - April 12, 2020

If you are working in office, you are in the quarantine time and need shipping something to eat; or you have just come to Vietnam and do not know where to have interesting Vietnamese food, don't worry because this post may help you by using the food apps with only some click on your phone.

There has been more and more apps being built to serve your needs. I can introduce to you the following apps which are favored by the locals because of the variety of food types, the cheap price and the popularity of the restaurants which are showed clearly from these apps.

1. Now

Now (formerly known as Delivery Now) is a member of the site Foody.com. While Foody.com is the largest social media for sharing and evaluating the restaurant in Vietnam, Now is the most popular e-commerce platform providing the service for shopping food online in Vietnam. Whenever thinking about getting food without going out, almost everyone will access to Now as the first choice.

Here are some useful features of Now which satisfied many people:

- The search mode of Now can search for the nearest restaurant from your position. For example, if you search for KFC with the needs of being shipped one serving, Now can show you a list of KFC restaurants in order from nearest to farthest so that you can choose the nearest and of course the time to wait for the shipper will be the shortest.

- You are wondering if you should choose this kind of food or this restaurant, you can check from the star and the comments that have been evaluated by the former people who had experience in enjoying that food from that restaurant. However, because this app is popular with Vietnamese people, it may be a difficulty for an expat due to the comments by Vietnamese language.

- After ordering, you can check the position of the shipper from the map and and Now will notify to you how long the shipper will come to your position.

- Now includes more Vietnamese options than any other apps.

- The price is very cheap, and it becomes cheaper because sometimes you are given some discount codes of free ship codes.

- Now is integrated with Shopee (another e-commerce platform for shopping everything in Vietnam), which makes the shopping online become more useful.

A disadvantage of this app may be the language. I only find English and Vietnamese, no idea about other languages.

2. Grabfood

Grab is an app providing shipping and transport service. If Grab Bike, Grab Car or Grab Taxi can take you wherever you want, Grab Express can support you to ship your goods, so Grab Food can help you find food and bring it to you exactly like Now that I've mentioned above. And all these features are integrated in only one app - Grab.

The way of using Grab Food is similar to the way of using Now, which satisfied me. But there are still some differences:

- Grab has fewer options.

- I received fewer discount code.

- But Grab may be cheaper and faster, sometimes.

Anyway, both of these apps satisfy me and almost every locals. You can download both of them and make a comparison to find which is more convenient to you.

I hope you will find them useful!

No nhận xét

3 simple ways to practice at home for girls to increase resistance and prevent disease

by BN - March 09, 2020

I know that there have been many people who are too busy to go to the gym club or to exercise running out at the park, especially in this Coronavirus time. However, do you know that engaging in physical activity and practicing everyday is totally one of the ways to increase resistance and prevent disease?

If you are too busy, only one hour in a 24-hour day is enough and necessary for good health. This article will introduce to you some exercises to practice in one hour at home.

1. HIIT cardio

Cardio is a rhythmic activity to help you burn more fat and calories. Cardio is very important, especially if you want to lose weight. Besides, cardio makes your heart stronger and increase your lung capacity.

I am not a professional gymmer, but I usually practice cardio by myself at home at least twice a week via the instruction of my online trainer. If you don't have your private trainer, the instruction from Youtube video is also a good solution. From Youtube search, you can find your own video to practice which is the most suitable with your body.

Below is a video that I think it is good and suitable with almost every girls.

2. Yoga

If you want to have a supple body, let's come to yoga.

Yoga focuses on your body’s natural tendency toward health and self-healing. Yoga can help you maintain a balanced metabolism, protect you from injury and improve respiration, energy and vitality.

For me, yoga is much more complicated than cardio. In my opinion, it's essential to join a yoga class instead of practicing at home by ourselves because it will be easy to be injured if we practice yoga in the wrong way.

However, there are some simple yoga movements for practice at home which is easy for us and the risks of getting injured may be low.

You can try this video below.

3. Zumba/Bodyjam/Aerobic

Zumba, Bodyjam or Aerobic are other ways of cardio, but I think it is not as heavy as HIIT. These kinds of practice will be suitable for the girls who love dancing in music.

Like cardio, zumba, bodyjam and aerobic also help burn calories, promote endurance, improve posture and reduce anxiety.

Let's try a video of bodyjam which is my favorite.

I hope that all of us will practice so hard to be healthier together. Don't forget that being healthy is an important tips to be confident, successful and happy.

No nhận xét

5 differences between a regular reader and a non-reader

by BN - March 02, 2020

1. People who regularly read books will have many topics to talk about

This is obvious, because the more we read, the more we know.

For example, before studying law at university, I had never had any concept of legal system. When I was in high school, I used to think that legal system was simple as a set of legal documents. But it's not like that. After reading hundreds of books and articles about law, I can remember that the legal system of different countries around the world typically follow either the common law or the civil law, or in some cases, a combination of the two. A common law system is based on the concept of judicial precedent (mainly in countries like USA, UK, AUS...), on the other hand, civil law system rely on written statutes and other legal codes that are constantly updated. Because of researching about that, I can talk more with my friends about law, about legal systems in different countries of my foreign friends and make a comparison the countries with them, about finding the advantages and disadvantages from the differences and the way to apply to develop the law of my country.

2. People who regularly read books will be better at understanding the principles behind some certain phenomenas.

There are some stories that look very common but contain many economic principles, psychology, ... behind them. People who read through many books can see through the nature of things because of knowing these principles.

For example, when a seller company at the country A wants to export their goods to a buyer company at the country B, the seller and the buyer has negotiated that the payment term should apply to open a letter of credit instead of bank transfer. Why? Both of them are in different countries. What the seller wants is to receive the money before delivery to prevent the buyer from not making payment after receiving the goods from the seller. What the buyer wants is to receive the goods before making payment to prevent the seller from delay in making delivery after receiving the payment from the buyer. They are new to each other. They don't trust each other. In this case, the best solution for payment term may be via opening a letter of credit that I will try to explain in the most simple way. The buyer must open a letter of credit at a bank. The bank will inform the seller about such letter of credit. The seller, after that, will deliver the goods to the port of the importing country and at the same time send the shipping documents to the bank. The bank will inform the seller to make payment to the bank. The buyer after making payment will take the shipping documents from the bank. Such shipping documents will be used to receive the goods at the customs office of the importing country.

If you don't read books about international commerce, how do you know that or what will you do if you are in the situation of the buyer or the seller?

3. People who often read books may have greater empathy

The regular readers, especially those who read literature, may have richer inner to what happens around. They may easily think for others, because they have insight into what they have read.

In this real life, you may meet a guy who you think to be monstrous or you may meet a bread thief on the street. However, if you have ever read Phantom of the Opera, maybe you can sympathize with that monstrous guy like you did to Erik in Phantom of the Opera. Or if you have ever read Les Miserable by Victor Hugo, maybe you will stop for a second to wonder if that bread thief is like Jean Valjean in Les Miserable before deciding to judge him.

The more we read, the more generous we are. The less we read, the more stubborn and self-righteous we are.

For example, when we read a paragraph, the author and we will have different views. The frequent reader will think about why the author has such view, if the author's point of view is worth learning. And people who do not read books are very difficult to absorb the views which is different from the views of themselves.

4. People who often read books have great curiosity

If someone has read books, except for reading due to his professional job, it is because he likes to read. Why do you like reading? Because the world in the book is so wonderful, so colorful.

If you are the one I'm talking about, no matter how old you are, you still have the same great curiosity as when you were young. You still have a lot to discover in the world, so you want to find out.

In the past I only read literature and books in relation to law. But because of the time studying law in the university, I had to read a little bit about law history. The more I read, the more I want to discover about history of the world civilization or history of religions and culture. Afterwards, I read books on social, religions, culture and discovered that I was too shallow.

5. Regular readers are very objective

To be honest, a person is too difficult to act objectively because we are all subjective and selfish by nature. But the regular readers may often force themselves to stand in an objective position to consider the problem.

Why did they do that? Because when they have strong emotions or there are many things involving too much to their own benefit, normal people may be dominated by those things. However, the more they read, the more courage and self-discipline they have to throw away such things, because they know such things are covering their eyes.

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10 silly reasons of mine to make up, what about yours?

by BN - March 02, 2020

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The most simple skincare routine for busy office girls

by BN - February 25, 2020

There is a quote that inspires me much: If you want to be loved by someone, you must love yourself first. That is the reason why we, the girls need to take good care of ourselves to be healthy and beautiful from the inside out no matter how busy we are.

One of the variety of tips to be confident as a modern girl is to make a skincare routine of our own.

I am currently working as a legal executive, the time I spend for myself to do other things is not too much. I know that there are a lot of girls in this world being much busier than me. While a perfect skincare routine must be to apply too many things and it takes at least one hour which means too much time for a busy office girl, in this post I will just introduce to you my own skincare routine with the most simple but necessary steps.

I will divide it into 2 routines: for morning and for night.

1. Skincare routine in the morning

- STEP 1: CLEANSER

Cleanser is for removing dead skin and sebum after a night, especially to the girls who have oily skin.

- STEP 2: TONER

Toner is for PH balance on skin. In case that you use cleanser with too high PH, toner is essential.

- STEP 3: SUN SCREEN/SUN BLOCK

Sun screen or sun block is for protecting our skin from the sun. In my opinion, this is the must-have item for every girl especially in the tropical countries with the hot weather.

These above steps may take lower than 15 minutes in the morning. I'm sure that there are few more step to take in case you make up before going out, but at least these are the three-required steps to start a day.

2. Skincare routine at night

- STEP 1: MAKE-UP REMOVER.

You can use oil remover or water remover, which depends on your skin type.

- STEP 2: CLEANSER

Make-up remover is not enough for cleansing after a long day of being out. Cleanser will not only help you thoroughly cleansing but also make you feel relax if you use it with face wash machine.

- STEP 3: TONER

If you live in a dry environment or your skin is too dry, you can use the lotion instead of toner. I can see that toner is the popular products in western countries while lotion is widely manufactured in some Asian Eastern countries like Korea or Japan.

- STEP 4: SERUM

Serum is for replenishing skin deeply. I myself use vitamin C serum for replenishing essence to lighten my skin. The kind of serum can be upon your choice.

- STEP 5: MOISTURIZER

Moisturizer is for the last step to moisturize and smooth your skin and to prevent serums from evaporating (actually I'm not sure), which I was read from some other beauty bloggers.

You may add some steps such as facial mask or using AHA/BHA for you skincare routine beside the above steps, which could be before Step 3 and after Step 4. I am myself using BHA for chemical exfoliants to prevent acne and it is also between Step 3 and Step 4.

Above is my skincare routine for a busy day. Let's take good care of our skin together and I hope that all of you will have a skincare routine of yourself to be more and more beautiful!

Thank you for reading and leave your comments below!

Love you, girls!

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8 CHEAP DISHES OF SEAFOOD TO HAVE IN QUY NHON - VIETNAM

by BN - February 23, 2020

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Start of something new by blogging

by BN - February 15, 2020

Hi everyone!

Let me introduce first. Huong is my name. B and N stand for the first letter of my last and middle name. So Huongbn comes for the name of this blog's owner.

Why is "Stay lovely with Huongbn"? This is actually what I have wondered before deciding to start a new blog. In the end, I found out the answer for myself.

About me

I was born in 1993 in Hanoi - an old city with the combination of ancient and modern in Vietnam. Despite being the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi is absolutely not as popular as Ho Chi Minh City in the eyes of foreigners. So Hanoi and I are alike. My mind, my favorite, my senses have a mix of ancient and modern, which sometimes makes me feel confused of everything and sometimes people get confused of me. I'm not an influencer or a popular girl, but I have always tried to create an image of a smart, confident and understanding girl to please everyone even though not totally me it is. And so is my hometown. I want to write about me and the life in Hanoi with desire that people can see more about the beauty and the ugliness inside us.

Me and Hanoi

Why do I use English instead of Vietnamese?

Vietnamese will be absolutely easier for me while my English is not quite good. However, writing by the language which is not the native one can somehow create the confidence and comfortability for myself, I mean I will not feel ashamed. Besides, I want to share my feeling, my stories, my hometown, my country to the whole world. So I will extremely appreciate if you can help me correct my English errors or give me suggestions on how to use vocabulary and terminology to make my English writing better by leaving your comments. For those who are also in the process of studying English writing like me, please learn together with me.

The reasons for serious writing

Have you ever really felt confused as to whether the work you were doing was the right choice? I have thought a lot of this.

I am currently working as a legal officer for a communication technologies company. After graduated from Hanoi Law University 5 years ago, I decided to study master of law in the following 2 years and at this time I have just finished the 1-year program of training international trade lawyer in Judicial Academy of Vietnam. The total years for studying has turned to be 9. If someone asked me if I feel truely happy for the last whole years pursuing the legal field, I would say yes. The more I study and work, the more knowledge and experience about this world I gain. Studying and working about law gives me more passion and confidence day by day. That's the reason why I can not give up on this job.

However, there is something I feel missing whenever thinking about what I am doing. The things which are being missed are not in relation to law at all. I do not want to start a day, a week, a month by doing one job only and end up a day, a week, a month still with that job. I want to have something to do besides to feel freedom.

I want to help someone gain positive feeling whenever being down by telling positive things. Last month, a friend of mine said to me that he was so sad, get stressed and could not tell me the reasons. All I could do was quoting a quote of Barney Stinson: "Whenever I'm sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead". But he told me that we could not go to the hospital and tell the victim to be awesome, and mental health was health. That's the reason why I want to write to share the positive feeling and other beautiful things to everyone, which may be more meaningful, I guess.

If you have read all of such gossip lines of mine, please follow me to the next posts and feel free to leave your comments.

Thank you!

2 nhận xét

1. If your stuffs are stolen by a thief, you can have chance to get it back by going to Gioi Market.

2. Ask the price of lemon tea or maize ear/corncob before buying when you are on the Long Bien Bridge.

3. If you run out of money, there's one way to enjoy the Vietnamese food with the very cheap price as just for students

4. Never forget to bring the mask, which is not to prevent the virus but to prevent the heavy sun in the summer and the smoke and dust from the vehicles in almost every seasons.

5. If you want to go to somewhere on time, don't forget to estimate the time you get stuck on the street due to the traffic jam.

6. Dinh Le Street is always the place to buy the books with the cheaper price than the market price.

7. Ha Trung street is the place to exchange money.

FACEBOOK GROUPS

1. Now

2. Grabfood

1. HIIT cardio

2. Yoga

3. Zumba/Bodyjam/Aerobic

1. People who regularly read books will have many topics to talk about

2. People who regularly read books will be better at understanding the principles behind some certain phenomenas.

3. People who often read books may have greater empathy

4. People who often read books have great curiosity

5. Regular readers are very objective

1. Skincare routine in the morning

- STEP 1: CLEANSER

- STEP 2: TONER

- STEP 3: SUN SCREEN/SUN BLOCK

2. Skincare routine at night

- STEP 1: MAKE-UP REMOVER.

- STEP 2: CLEANSER

- STEP 3: TONER

- STEP 4: SERUM

- STEP 5: MOISTURIZER

About me

Why do I use English instead of Vietnamese?

The reasons for serious writing

Thank you!

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